Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) are notorious for taking over the lives of special education teachers.
How can you actually plan during your elusive “planning periods” when you have three IEPs to write?! These documents carry a lot of weight and have a LOT of sections, and they just simply take TIME.
While faster IEP writing just comes with time and experience, there are some really effective hacks to cut down on all the brain space and time each document can take.
Use an IEP goal bank
Writing annual goals can take a lot of time and creativity for each student. We want them to be measurable, challenging yet attainable, easy to track, and be exactly what the student needs. That is NOT always easy to write!
Look into a goal bank, like The Intentional IEP (Join here!), or a set of pre-written goals to choose from. Some school districts purchase access to goal banks that they endorse for special education teachers and related service providers to use, or it can be something you look into independently. The other special education teachers in your school or district can also create your own bank of IEP goals. Using an IEP Goal Bank to then create a Google Doc of useful goals that fit the unique requirements of your district or school can be a real time saver.
Check out this snippet from a live training in TII membership about writing IEP Goals.
If you’re looking for more specifics on IEP like general education collaboration and functional behavior assessments – you’re in the right place!
By joining the membership, individuals also gain access to an extensive library of over 13,000 pre-written IEP goals, empowering them with a wealth of options to support their students’ unique needs.
Learn more and become a member of The Intentional IEP today!
Stay organized
The data collection, the assessments, the work samples…ahhh! It is SO easy for special education teachers to end up drowning in a pile of papers. The main reason why we need all this stuff is for the IEP.
If you’re spending an hour finding the right paperwork every time you’re trying to sit down to write an IEP, that is a definite time suck. Finding the organizational structure that works for you is essential in streamlining the IEP process. Using a file cabinet with color coded files, a hanging file organizer, paper trays, or scanning and adding to a digital file on your computer – any of those options (or something else that works for you!) can be a real life saver.
Organizing by student so you know that all of their important information is in one spot is a great way to keep IEP writing time less stressful and more effective.
Create a template
IEPs are individualized – it even says it in the name! They need to be specifically tailored to the unique needs of each student.
This being said, that does not mean you need to completely reinvent the wheel for each IEP that you write. A great time saving tip is to create a template for word-heavy sections of the IEP, like the present levels of performance.
Take the IEP you’re writing right now and make it a perfect example. Once you have perfected it, save it into a document on your computer or Google Drive. When your next IEP comes around, copy and paste that template into your IEP, and go through each sentence to customize it for the student you’re writing about. While some sentences will need to be added or removed, it feels great to have a template to know that you’re not forgetting any important information or spending way too much time searching for the perfect way to begin a sentence.
The important thing here is to re-read several times to ensure that you have changed out all of your information from the previous IEP.
The Intentional IEP Membership is FULL of resources for teachers to help them streamline and save time in their IEP writing process, just like this accommodations and modifications brochure.
Click the image above to join!
Send the goals and present levels home as a draft
Getting families on board with the IEP process is not only important for relationship and trust building, but it is also a time saver (learn more about our recommended IEP writing timeline here). If the first time families view the IEP is during the meeting when you’re all around the 
table, it will inevitably take longer. They will have more questions, they will want to include their input, and they may need more time to process the information presented.
While families will of course have questions and input in the meeting, they will definitely have gotten a lot of their questions and concerns out before the meeting. This is helpful for busy school days and parents that need to return to work quickly on IEP meeting days!
IEP writing is going to take time, we know this. We knew it when we signed up for the job. While IEPs are important and literally drive our entire school year, they do NOT have to take endless hours to create.
Working to create a system using some, or all, of these time saving hacks can help you get your time back.
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