{"id":21998,"date":"2017-07-20T09:00:39","date_gmt":"2017-07-20T13:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/?p=21998"},"modified":"2017-07-19T12:18:44","modified_gmt":"2017-07-19T16:18:44","slug":"summer-school-self-study-present-levels-the-foundation-of-the-iep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/summer-school-self-study-present-levels-the-foundation-of-the-iep\/","title":{"rendered":"Summer School Self-Study: Present Levels, the Foundation of the IEP"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_pop\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/gallery\/share-button-gray.png\" style=\"border:0px\" alt=\"Share\" \/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_icon_type = \"labels\";var hupso_background=\"#FFFFFF\";var hupso_border=\"#FFFFFF\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"wrightslaw\";var hupso_url=\"\";var hupso_title=\"Summer%20School%20Self-Study%3A%20Present%20Levels%2C%20the%20Foundation%20of%20the%20IEP\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p><strong>Present Levels are the Most Critical Part of the IEP<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Present Levels are the foundation of the IEP. The student&#8217;s Present Levels must always be accurate and up-to-date.<\/p>\n<p>The Present Levels in all IEPs <strong><em>must include<\/em><\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>academic achievement<\/li>\n<li>functional performance<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-22004\" style=\"border: 1px solid #000000;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/iep.model_.form2_.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"527\" height=\"315\" \/>20 U.S.C. Sect. 1414 (d) (1) (A) (i). <span style=\"color: #0066cc;\">Wrightslaw: Special Education Law, 2nd Edition<\/span> p. 99.<\/p>\n<p>(The form your school uses may have each of these two levels in two separate sections).<\/p>\n<p>When the IEP fails to include accurate and up-to-date information about the child&#8217;s present levels, the IEP is defective. It has no foundation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Although Present Levels are the most critical part of the IEP,\u00a0 it is also the section that most parents and advocates prepare for the least. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The parents&#8217; input is most important during the IEP Team&#8217;s assessment of the child&#8217;s present level of performance. Only the parents know how the child functions at home, in the community, when doing homework, at work, and in the real world.<\/p>\n<p>School attorney Joe Hatley says,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The present levels of performance are the foundation for everything else in the IEP. If your starting point is fundamentally flawed, then everything that comes after that is flawed, too.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Updating Present Levels<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Each time the IEP Team meets, it must update the child&#8217;s Present Levels.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Katonah-Lewisboro (NY) School District failed to do this for one of its students. It simply copied the last year&#8217;s &#8220;Present Levels&#8221; into the new IEP, despite information that the student had made progress in all academic areas from the private placement the parents had secured the previous school year.<\/p>\n<p>The Second Circuit decision found that the child&#8217;s IEP &#8220;was likely to cause [the student] to regress or make only trivial advancement.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The school district&#8217;s fatal flaw cost it dearly. The Court ordered it to pay the student&#8217;s private placement tuition. It also had to pay the parents attorneys fees and expenses of over $156,976.00. You can read the decision here:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.leagle.com\/xmlResult.aspx?page=2&amp;xmldoc=In%20FCO%2020120706055.xml&amp;docbase=CSLWAR3-2007-CURR&amp;SizeDisp=7\"><span style=\"color: #0066cc;\">http:\/\/www.leagle.com\/xmlResult.aspx?page=2&amp;xmldoc=In%20FCO%2020120706055.xml&amp;docbase=CSLWAR3-2007-CURR&amp;SizeDisp=7<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Read more about <span style=\"color: #0066cc;\">Present Levels: The Foundation of the IEP<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www2.ed.gov\/policy\/speced\/guid\/idea\/modelform-iep.pdf\"><span style=\"color: #0066cc;\">U.S. Department of Education IEP Model Form<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>To make sure you receive all four sessions of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/nltr\/17\/ss.present.levels.htm\"><span style=\"color: #0066cc;\">Summer School 2017<\/span><\/a>, you&#8217;ll get all sessions delivered to your inbox when you <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/subscribe.htm\"><span style=\"color: #0066cc;\">sign-up for the Special Ed Advocate Newsletter<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Present Levels are the Most Critical Part of the IEP The Present Levels are the foundation of the IEP. The student&#8217;s Present Levels must always be accurate and up-to-date. The <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/summer-school-self-study-present-levels-the-foundation-of-the-iep\/\">Continue Reading \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22004,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,18],"tags":[1463,252,1202],"class_list":["post-21998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-idea-2004","category-ieps","tag-present-levels","tag-summer-school-for-parents","tag-wrightslaw-summer-school-series"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21998"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22026,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21998\/revisions\/22026"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}