Step 2: How To Write a Present Level of Performance

Writing an IEP starts before you actually sit down in front of your computer and start to type. At least, it will if you want your IEP writing to be quick, efficient, and most meaningful. If you’re following along with our How to Write an IEP series, you will know that the present level of performance is the most important part of the IEP writing process. It’s also lovingly referred to as: The Present Level of Academic Achievement and Functional Performance. Whatever you call it, when it’s done well, everything else in the IEP just falls into place.

So, whether you call it the present level of performance, PLP, PLOP, or PLAAFP, you’ll need two things to get it done well:

1. Input from the IEP team (teachers, families, service providers, and the student)
2. Specific data related to the student’s performance at school

If you have these two things, you’re golden. You can pop out a present level in no time!

But how can you make gathering the information and data you need just as simple?  For that, you need some tools.

The tools:

To get the relevant information, you need something called  ✨inventories✨ (which is a fancy way of saying IEP input forms). Inventories are way better than standard, open-ended input forms though! That’s because they’re more targeted. Instead of asking “Describe how the student is doing,” inventories give you a specific list of skills in different areas that we want to know more about.  Inventories do a lot of the thinking for you and make sure you get details on everything! 

Have you ever emailed a teacher and asked “what input do you have for Johnny’s IEP?” or “How’s Sarah doing in class?” 
I bet you got something like this: “He’s struggling with math.” or “She’s doing much better with reading.”  Not much help for the IEP…
But when you give an inventory, the person filling it out suddenly knows a lot more about the student!

 

You’ll need an inventory input form for each area that you want to discuss on the IEP. That usually includes: 

• Academic Achievement
• Social and Emotional Functioning
• Communication and Speech
• Independent Functioning
• Strengths, Interests, and Preferences

For students with complex disabilities, you probably need all of these areas for a complete picture. But for students with more straightforward disabilities, you probably don’t. For example, for a student with a math disability and no other challenges at school, the Academic Achievement and Strengths, Interests, and Preferences inventories might be enough. 

Let’s take a look at an example of IEP input using an inventory for Social and Emotional Skills: 

Here is a teacher IEP input form I used:

BOOM! Look at all this rich context you suddenly have on the student to include in their present level! 

Let’s break it down: How do you use this input to write the present level? 

Discussing Strengths

The first box is the perfect starting point for opening the section on social and emotional functioning with just a bit of tweaking. In addition, all of the skills marked “yes” are strengths for the student! 

So, we can bring together some of these strengths and overall functioning for a detailed intro. Like this:

“Lindsay’s teacher, Mrs. McDonald, reports that she loves having Lindsay in her class. She is eager to learn and please her teachers, and she excels at making friends. Lindsay is always willing to help her friends and share materials with them. She knows when to provide personal space to friends and is able to resolve conflict without adult support. Lindsay also consistently shows her teachers and peers respect, and she is empathetic to those around her.”

That is some quality info right there! Right off the bat, the present level is highlighting the student’s strengths and what she can do. It is so important to start with strengths before the next step, which will be highlighting the student’s challenges in school. 

Discussing Challenges and Barriers

On the inventory, we can quickly see that Mrs. McDonald checked “No” for 5 of the skills. She also reported what she feels are the most important challenges for Lindsay’s social and emotional development. 

From these sections, we can easily identify the specific skills that we need to focus on to create goals, services, and accommodations. Here’s what it might sound like with the given info: 

“While Lindsay often encourages her friends to do their best, she struggles to encourage herself to complete difficult or new tasks. Lindsay is often capable of doing the work. But when she believes the task is too hard, she will often put her head down. This is often when she is given a test or quiz. She will sometimes ask to go to the nurse with a stomach ache, and she has been heard to make comments about being stupid under her breath. Mrs. McDonald reports that Lindsay’s confidence and anxiety are her primary concern for Lindsay’s continued growth this school year. She would love to hear Lindsay use the same kind of positive statements she makes towards her friends towards herself.”

Altogether, this is a rich present level related to the student’s social and emotional development! But it isn’t quite done! 

What do we do about the challenges?!

It’s clear that Lindsay has a significant deficit in her emotional development that is impacting her ability to perform and learn in school. This is an area where she needs an annual goal! 

Now, writing an annual goal based on “confidence” would be challenging. We can’t measure her confidence very objectively. But, what can we measure here? Her behavior when she’s given a new task or a test- after all, that seems to be a problem area for her. 

This is why writing an IEP takes some pre-planning. Now that we know Lindsay is having trouble getting started with tests and assessments, we need to take some data to see how much this is happening. 

The next step is to find out how often and when Lindsay is doing these behaviors. This will require some data collection. Over the next 1-3 weeks (depending on how much time you have before the IEP is due), you could have the general education teacher collect some data on how often Lindsay:

• Puts her head down
• Makes a negative comment about herself 
• Asks to see the nurse or complains of feeling unwell

At the end of the data collection period, you can add this information to your statement to make it much more clear what Lindsay is actually doing in class. It might sound like this:

“During two weeks of observation, Lindsay put her head down, made a negative comment about herself, or asked to go to the nurse for 60% of assessments she was given. Most commonly, Lindsay did this in math class- where she asked to see the nurse for both Friday Fluency quizzes and put her head down or made a negative comment about herself 6 times over the two weeks. Lindsay did not put her head down or ask to go to the nurse during reading, social studies, or any of her specials classes (PE, music, etc).” 

Okay, now we’re talkin’ for top-notch present level here! What a difference the data makes when it comes to actually showing the IEP team how the student is currently performing in class! This extra step is going to make her IEP goals so much more meaningful and connected to her present level of performance! 

Next up, we’re diving into how to turn this present level of performance into a clear and measurable IEP goal! 

Are you ready to write this kind of high quality at a Present Level? Get the right tools! (MAKE HEADING)

These IEP Input Forms (AKA Inventories) are going to take you there!

They’ve got input forms for the parents and students, as well as more specific inventories for teachers to complete related to:

• Student General Information (Strengths, Interests, Grades)
• Social and Emotional Skills 
• Independent Functioning Skills 
• Communication Skills 
• Academic Skills 

Pick the ones that are relevant for your student to get meaningful input from their general education teachers, or fill them out yourself to make writing their present levels a no-brainer! 

Plus, they are all in fillable PDF format, so you can easily share them digitally or print physical copies to pop in their mailbox!