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Goals vs. Benchmarks on IEP

Submitted by an LD OnLine user on

Hello,

I am new here and feeling like I’ve got so much to learn about IEP’s and the law. My son is finishing 3rd grade and has been on an IEP since preschool. This past year he was diagnosed with an Expressive Language disorder and Auditory processing disorder. He’s always done ok with the accommodations that were recommended until this past year when he struggled quite a bit. I’ve been trying to learn as much as possible to make sure that his IEP provides what he needs. We had the IEP meeting 2 weeks ago, and I went armed with quite a lot of information on our concerns, his strengths, and general topics I’d like discussed for his goals. In the past, his goals have been worded as such:

“Peter will improve his language skills over his current levels of performance”

We asked for more specific goals, such as

“Peter will attain grade level performance in language arts”

but when the IEP was written, it said

“Peter will work toward grade level performance in language arts”

Now some of the benchmarks are measurable, some are more general in nature like the goals.

So my question is, is is okay for the goals to be so general if the benchmarks give more specifics?

Of course they gave this to me on Friday and asked to have it back on Monday which is the last day of school. I’m considering rejecting everything but the Extended Year Services so I can get a better handle on this.

Thank you for any advice, comments, etc!!!

Betsy

Submitted by scifinut on Sun, 06/21/2009 - 2:37 PM

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Goals and benchmarks should all be measerable. Better IEP’s by Barbara Bateman is a great book with lots of examples of what goals and benchmarks should look like.

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