“Wait… Our IEP is when? And you need documents from me by this Friday?! How’d this sneak up on me again???”
Does this sound like you? I do pride myself on being an organized person, but when it comes to some of my son’s medical and IEP paperwork, I must admit that my sorry excuse for “organized” is, “Oh, that goes in this big box here. Just throw it in. Done!”
And do you know why? Because there is just so much of it!
I did buy a binder once with the best of intentions. But then just stared at it for a while trying to figure out how the three metal rings in the center of the binder were supposed to magically organize all my papers for me… then I just threw it in the box with the rest of the papers. Last time I checked, the papers and binder had not organized themselves. Darn.
Now imagine if that binder had come with printed pages designed specifically to help you plan and arrange all your documents and paperwork so that you could actually be in charge of your child’s IEP?
My friend Lisa over at A Day in Our Shoes has created exactly what you are looking for! She offers a Downloadable PDF IEP Organizer that you can print and arrange in your binder (which, if you’re like me, you already have lying around empty anyway). It comes with tips and guidelines to walk you through the process of using the IEP Organizer and has some really cool features, like “IEP year at a glance” and “student at a glance” pages plus quarterly calendars and quarterly update pages.
The cool thing about offering this as a PDF download is that you only have to buy it once (and it’s really inexpensive at just $3.99). Once you’ve downloaded the organizer, you can just reprint new pages every year to add to your binder.
Check out this video to see the organizer in action:
And keep in mind that this organizer is more than just a set of tabs… it’s a well-thought-out system designed to help you keep up with the entire IEP process and remain engaged and informed.
And isn’t that what it’s really all about?
Want to see all the resources Lisa has created for parents on the IEP journey? You can see all her printables here!
