Welcome to our official Opening Day of
Connect the Dots: Build an Inclusive IEP™
You may have been taught to wait until the end of the IEP meeting to talk about inclusion.
So you sit through the discussion about what your child can’t do yet, what’s hard, and what supports they
need.
Then, when everyone is tired, the team finally gets to placement or LRE.
That’s when you’re expected to say, “I want my child included in the general education
classroom.”
But by then, the IEP may already be pointing somewhere else.
That’s the problem.
Inclusion is not something you fight for at the end.
It needs to be built into the IEP from the beginning.
When the IEP starts with your child’s strengths, interests, learning needs, and supports, the team can see what your child needs to participate, learn, and belong with classmates.
But when the IEP mostly lists what your child can’t do, it becomes easier for the team to say,
“They aren’t ready.”
That’s why the order matters.
🔵 Strengths connect to present levels.
🟣 Present levels connect to goals.
🟢 Goals connect to accommodations and modifications.
🔵 Supports connect to services and specially designed instruction.
🟣 And all of those pieces should lead toward access, participation, and belonging.
Inclusion isn’t something you add at the end.
It’s something you build from page one.
To dismantle the segregation of the current system, we must stop treating the IEP as a pile of separate boxes and start "connecting the dots."
When you connect the dots from page one, you stop fighting for inclusion and start building a future where your child truly belongs.
Ask yourself
today: "What more is possible for my child?"
We answer that question this week.
AND we also have some fun planned:
