The GothamSchools blog recently posted about a move in New York City to standardize the forms used to create individualized education programs, the blueprint for educating students with disabilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
One example of a problem for some advocates:
A drop-down menu gives only two choices for a child’s Behavior Intervention Plan: Time Out Room and Other. “What does ‘other’ mean?” speakers wanted to know, questioning why more positive behavioral interventions hadn’t been specified as options. Since “Other” is vague, the drop-down menu will lead to people defaulting to Time Out Room rather than “the many creative and interesting ways of changing a student’s behavior,” Moroff told me.
The blog author is referring to Maggie Moroff with the organization Advocates for Children of New York. And it seems like I was just blogging about concerns with overuse of “timeout rooms.”
Can any readers let me know how common it is for a state to have a standardized IEP form for all districts to use?