The Principal's IEP Review: What to Look For in 10 Minutes

If you run a building, you sign off on IEPs you did not write, for students you may only know in passing, in areas that are not your specialty. This is a short, plain-language guide to help principals, supervisors, and special-education coordinators spot quality and risk in an IEP quickly, even without a special-education background. I built a version of this list for building leaders who reported to me and did not have a special-education background, because ten honest minutes with the right questions beats an hour of uncertain reading.

You do not need to become an evaluator. You need a few reliable habits that let you catch the most common problems before a document goes out the door.

Start with the goals, because that is where quality lives or dies

If you only have ten minutes, spend them on the annual goals. A strong goal tells you exactly what the student will do, how well, under what conditions, and how anyone would measure it. A weak goal sounds nice but cannot be tracked.

Ask one question of every goal: if I came back in twelve weeks, could two different people look at the data and agree on whether the student met it? If the answer is no, the goal needs work.

Here is a weaker version:

Maria will improve her reading skills and become a more confident reader.

That is a hope, not a goal. There is nothing to measure, no condition, and no target. Here is an improved version:

Given a passage at the third-grade level, Maria will read aloud at 90 words correct per minute with no more than 5 errors on 4 of 5 weekly probes.

The second version is teachable, trackable, and defensible. IDEA requires measurable annual goals, so this is not just good practice, it is part of what the law expects. (That is general information, not legal advice. For questions about compliance in a specific case, check with your district's counsel.)

Check that the present levels connect to the goals

The present levels of academic achievement and functional performance, often called the PLAAFP, are supposed to describe where the student is right now. The goals are supposed to grow out of that picture. When they do not connect, the IEP starts to come apart.

Read the present levels, then read the goals, and ask whether they tell the same story. If the present levels describe a student who struggles to organize written work but every goal is about math fluency, something is missing.

A vague present level reads like this:

Devon is a hard worker who tries his best but struggles in class.

That tells you nothing you can build on. A useful one reads like this:

On a recent writing sample, Devon wrote 2 complete sentences in 10 minutes and did not use capitalization or end punctuation without prompting.

Now a goal about sentence construction makes sense, because you can see where it came from.

Make sure the services and accommodations are specific enough to deliver

A good IEP can be handed to a substitute and still be followed. Look at the specially designed instruction and the accommodations and ask a simple question: could a new staff member read this and know exactly what to do?

Watch for accommodations that sound supportive but mean nothing in practice. "Extra time" raises questions. Extra time for what, how much, and on which tasks? "Preferential seating" raises the same question. Seated near what, and why?

Compare these two:

Accommodation: extended time and breaks as needed.

Versus:

Accommodation: up to 50 percent extended time on tests longer than 20 minutes, and a 3-minute movement break after every 20 minutes of seated work.

The second one a teacher can actually deliver, and a parent can actually verify. If the accommodations are too vague to follow, they are also too vague to defend.

Confirm the progress reporting is real, not a placeholder

Every measurable goal needs a plan for how progress will be measured and how often families will hear about it. This is where good intentions quietly fall apart. A goal can be excellent and still be paired with a progress method that no one could realistically run.

If a goal is measured by weekly reading probes, the progress note should reference those probes, not a generic line like "making progress" or "doing well." Ask whether the method named in the goal matches the method named for reporting. When a goal promises data on 4 of 5 weekly probes but the reporting plan says progress will be shared once a quarter with a teacher comment, you have a mismatch worth flagging.

Watch for the quiet risk signals that have nothing to do with content

Some red flags are not about instruction at all. They are about process, and they tend to show up the same way across many files. As a building leader, you are well positioned to catch these because you see patterns across teachers.

Look for copy-and-paste language that names the wrong student or the wrong grade. Look for goals that are word-for-word identical to last year's, which can signal a document that was rolled over rather than rewritten. Look for blank or boilerplate sections where a real decision should be recorded. And notice when the same vague phrasing appears across every IEP from one teacher, which usually means that person needs support, not a citation.

None of these prove anything by itself. Together they tell you where to ask a gentle question before the meeting, not after.

A quick pre-flight checklist for principals

When an IEP lands on your desk, run through this:

• Goals are measurable: a condition, a clear behavior, a target, and a way to measure it.
• Present levels connect to the goals and use real data, not adjectives.
• Specially designed instruction and accommodations are specific enough for a new staff member to follow.
• The progress reporting method matches what each goal promises.
• No copy-paste errors, wrong names, wrong grades, or recycled goals from last year.
• Nothing important is left blank or filled with boilerplate.

You will not catch everything, and you are not meant to. The IEP team owns the document, and questions about legal compliance belong with your district's counsel. This is general guidance to help you ask better questions, not legal advice.

If you want your teachers checking their own drafts against these same red flags before the meeting, IEP Pre-Flight is a pre-submission checker that flags vague, missing, or unmeasurable language and suggests revisions, with a District edition that adds supervisor checklists, observation frameworks, and coaching-email drafts.

The goal is not a perfect document. It is a habit of catching the obvious problems early, while there is still time to fix them.