To write the IEP, the team will begin by looking at the child's evaluation results. This will help the team develop annual goals to address those areas where the student has an identified educational need. The IEP team must also discuss specific information about the child. This includes:

• the child's strengths;
• the parents' ideas for enhancing their child's education;
• the results of recent evaluations or reevaluations;
• how the child has done on state and district-wide tests?

It is also important that the discussion of what the child needs be framed around how to help the child, how to:

• advance toward the annual goals;
• be involved in and progress in the general curriculum;
• participate in extracurricular and nonacademic activities; and
• be educated with and participate with other children with disabilities and nondisabled children.

Special Factors To Consider

Depending on the needs of the child, the IEP team needs to consider what the law calls special factors.

These include:

• If the child’s behavior interferes with his or her learning or the learning of others, the IEP team will consider strategies and supports to address the child’s behavior.
• If the child has limited proficiency in English, the IEP team will consider the child’s language needs as these needs relate to his or her IEP.
• If the child is blind or visually impaired, the IEP team must provide for instruction in Braille or the use of Braille, unless it determines after an appropriate evaluation that the child does not need this instruction.
• If the child has communication needs, the IEP team must consider those needs.
• If the child is deaf or hard of hearing, the IEP team will consider his or her language and communication needs. This includes the child’s opportunities to communicate directly with classmates and school staff in his or her usual method of communication (for example, sign language).
• The IEP team must always consider the child’s need for assistive technology devices or services

Based on the above discussion, the IEP team will then write the child's IEP. This includes the services and supports the school will provide for the child. If the IEP team decides that a child needs a particular device or service (including an intervention, accommodation, or other program modification), the IEP team must write this information in the IEP.

For meetings regarding the development or review of the IEP, the school must take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that parents understand the meetings, including arranging for an interpreter if necessary. This provision should help to ensure that parents are not limited in their ability to participate in their child’s education because of language or communication barriers. Therefore, if parents need an interpreter for a meeting to discuss their child’s evaluation, eligibility for special education or IEP, they should let the school know ahead of time.

Deciding Placement

In addition, the child's placement (where the IEP will be carried out) must be decided. The placement decision is made by a group of people, including the parents and others who know about the child, what the evaluation results mean, and what types of placements are appropriate. In some states, the IEP team serves as the group making the placement decision. In other states, this decision may be made by another group of people. In all cases, the parents have the right to be members of the group that decides the educational placement of the child.

Placement decisions must be made according to IDEA's least restrictive environment requirements-commonly known as LRE. These requirements state that, to the maximum extent appropriate, children with disabilities must be educated with children who do not have disabilities.

The law also clearly states that special classes, separate schools, or other situations of removal of children with disabilities from the regular educational environment may occur only if the nature or severity of the child's disability is such that education in regular classes with the use of supplementary aids and services cannot be achieved satisfactorily.

What types of placements are there? Depending on the needs of the child, his or her IEP may be carried out in the regular class (with supplementary aids and services, as needed), in a special class (where every student in the class is receiving special education services for some or all of the day), in a special school, at home, in a hospital and institution, or in another setting. A school system may meet its obligation to ensure that the child has an appropriate placement available by:

• providing an appropriate program for the child on its own;
• contracting with another agency to provide an appropriate program; or
• utilizing some other mechanism or arrangement that is consistent with IDEA for providing or paying for an appropriate program for the child.