When you ask a special ed teacher what feelings come up during IEP season, the answers are rarely positive. Fear, frustration, exhaustion, and overwhelm are the most common feelings.
No one went to college to become a special ed teacher to experience those feelings. In fact, while most colleges do a good job of addressing writing IEPs, they often forget to include strategies for coping with the vast amount of work that comes during IEP season.
For some teachers, IEP Season is in the second half of the year and for others, it is a continuous “season” that lasts all year long. Regardless of when the bulk of your students’ IEPs are due, it is important to take steps to survive the IEP season.
How to Survive the IEP Season
1 – Get Plenty of Sleep
Exhaustion is one of the most common side effects of IEP season. Countless IEP reports, meetings to organize, and data to collect – on top of the everyday caseload – can quickly turn in to coming in early and staying late to complete everything. While there may be the temptation to skimp on sleep in order to get everything done, rest is what your body needs most during this time. Aim for 7-8 hours of sleep each night and more on the weekends if you are able. You cannot create the most effective and on-target IEPs if you are tired and distracted.
2 – Exercise
Just like sleep, exercise is important during IEP season. It might be a walk around the school grounds on your lunch break, a run with your dog after dinner, or a relaxing yoga practice before you begin or end your day, but movement will loosen the tension that comes with long hours of writing IEPs.
3 – Set Realistic Goals
While it might be amazing to think that you can have all of your IEPs written three weeks in advance, sometimes that’s just not possible. Setting overly aggressive goals can leave you feeling even more frustrated and overwhelmed than you already are. Just like you wouldn’t expect your students to accomplish huge tasks in a short amount of time, give yourself the same respect and create goals that are achievable.
- This is where an IEP Writing Timeline comes in handy. Outline when XYZ needs to be sent home, written, or scheduled and then follow through from there. Learn more about how to streamline this process here.
4 – Use Systems
One of the most overwhelming parts of the IEP season is making sure that everything is organized and included in the documents and meeting for each child. Create or use pre-established systems that ensure that you have everything you need.
- The IEP Toolkit is one such system that can make preparing IEPs much less stressful and time-consuming. The included IEP Meeting Toolkit simplifies the process of planning a meeting and has everything you need in an organized, easy-to-use system. Learn more about it here.
5 – Laugh
They say that laughter is the best medicine and when it comes to alleviating stress, it is highly accurate. Laughter has been proven to soothe tension and lessen the stress response. During IEP season that is much-needed relief! So pop on a sitcom, play a funny video, read a book that makes you laugh, or spend time with friends and family who make you smile.
Remember that there is light at the end of the IEP season tunnel. There will come a day when all data has been collected, all reports have been created, and all meetings have been held. Take a deep breath and know that you can do this. You are not alone.
IEP writing shouldnโt feel like guesswork! Inside The Intentional IEP, youโll get access to the expert-led trainings you should have learned in collegeโcovering everything from data collection to goal writing and implementation. Pair that with 10,000+ pre-written, standards-aligned goals and time-saving resources, and youโll finally have the clarity and confidence you need to write strong, effective IEPs. Join today and start learning what they didnโt teach you in school!