You open your child's IEP and find a paragraph near the top with a long name. It might say your child "reads below grade level and has difficulty with comprehension." It is accurate and it is not much help. You cannot tell from it where your child is, how far that is from where the class is, or what the goals are supposed to change.
The present levels section is the starting line of the IEP. Everything after it, the goals, the services, the supports, is built on it. If it is vague, the rest tends to be vague. This guide shows what it should say and how to read it.
What the rule asks for
Section 300.320 requires every IEP to include a statement of the child's present levels of academic achievement and functional performance. It must include how the child's disability affects the child's involvement and progress in the general education curriculum. For a preschool-age child, it must explain how the disability affects participation in appropriate activities.
The measurable annual goals then follow from it. And the IEP must say how progress toward those goals will be measured and when you will get progress reports.
Section 300.324 adds what the team has to think about when it writes the IEP: your child's strengths, your concerns for enhancing your child's education, the results of the initial or most recent evaluation, and your child's academic, developmental, and functional needs. Present levels is the natural place for all of those to show up.
Three parts of a good statement
Utah's State Board of Education publishes a technical assistance guide on writing this section. It says the statement should contain the student's current performance, baseline data, and the impact of the disability on progress in the general curriculum.
| Part | What to look for |
|---|---|
| Current performance | What your child can do now, including strengths. In plain language, with numbers where possible |
| Baseline data | A starting measurement for each goal area, such as words read correctly per minute or the number of steps completed independently |
| Impact of the disability | How the disability affects your child's involvement and progress in the general curriculum, in specific terms |
The first and second parts tell you where your child is. The third explains why it matters at school.
What the data should be like
The Utah guide says baseline and current performance data are the starting point for measurable goals. It says data should be current, specific, measurable, and correspond directly to the annual goals, and that teams should use data that is already gathered regularly. Types of data it lists include parent and teacher input, report cards, state and local assessments, standardized assessments, progress monitoring, curriculum-based measures, checklists, and observations. It also says data covers areas beyond academics, including social and behavior skills, speech and language, motor skills, and daily living skills, and that old data that no longer applies should be left out.
So when you read the section, look for dates, scores, and the name of the measure. A number with no date or no source cannot be checked.
The impact statement
Utah's guide makes a point that is easy to miss: it is not enough to say a student has a disability. Its example is a one-line statement that a student has a disability in reading, which says nothing about how it affects the student's progress. Two students with the same label can look very different in the same classroom, and the impact statement is what describes the difference.
It suggests questions teams can ask to find the impact, such as what the disability looks like in the general education classroom, how the student is different from same-age peers, and how the disability is interfering with access to the general curriculum.
A vague version and a stronger one
The second version has a strength, two measures with a comparison, a teacher's observation, a parent's observation, and a statement of how it affects schoolwork. Goals and supports can follow from it.
Reading your child's section
Go through it with a pencil.
- Strengths. Are they there? If not, ask for them to be added.
- Numbers. Does each area have a score, a date, and a source?
- Fit. Does each goal area in the IEP have matching present levels?
- Impact. Does the statement say how your child is affected in class, not only that your child has a label?
- Your input. Is your concern in there, in your words?
- Old information. Is anything out of date?
If you cannot match a goal to a present level, say so in a note to the case manager. A goal without a starting point is hard to measure, and what to ask when IEP goals are too vague shows how to follow that up.
Adding your own information
The team has to consider your concerns. Send them in writing ahead of time, in a few lines. Include what you see at home and what has changed since the last IEP. If you have a private evaluation, send it too, and if you want to understand a school report, see how to read an evaluation report.
Present-levels mix-ups
- Reading only the goals. Goals come from present levels, so check the source.
- Accepting a label as a description. "Reading difficulty" is a category. "Reads 52 words per minute" is a measurement.
- Skipping strengths. They shape which supports will work.
- Not asking for dates. Old data can paint a wrong picture.
For where present levels fit in the yearly cycle, see what to expect at the annual review. Terms are in the glossary.