The IEP already lists them. Noise-reducing headphones. Extra time. A quiet corner for lunch. Maybe AAC. At 3:00 they are still in the backpack. Yesterday we wrote that “appears fine” is not a present level. Today is the next sentence. A support that never leaves the bag is not a support. It is a line on a PDF. Written on the IEP is not the same as used 34 CFR §300.323(d) is blunt. Each teacher and provider responsible for the IEP has to know the specific accommodations, modif

Monday morning, the IEP is already live. Not a draft for October. Not a file that lives in a cabinet. IDEA says each public agency must have an IEP in effect at the start of the school year, and that IEP has to be accessible to the teachers and providers who implement it. The starting GPS is not a grade, a score, or a hallway impression. It is present levels of academic achievement and functional performance. If that statement only records how the student “appears fine,” the

The teacher says it was a great day. The same student walks in the door and falls apart. You sit in the conference and hear “we never see that here,” and it sounds like two different kids. It is not two kids. It is not bad parenting. It is the bill for a day of holding it together. After-school collapse is school data. The two-kid problem Andrea Loewen Nair, a counselor and parenting educator, named what parents kept telling her: kids who hold it in all day and come undone on

Understanding the Challenges: A Conversation with Amethyst May