In thinking about the importance of student participation in the IEP, we have been inspired by an article from Teaching Exceptional Children called Why Is This Cake On Fire?. The authors (Jamie Van Dycke, James Martin, and David Lovett) compare the IEP meeting to a birthday party.

Imagine how a child would feel if they heard the adults around them preparing for a birthday party, and then going to the party without inviting the child. When the child eventually gets invited to attend their birthday party as a teenager, they may be confused and even frustrated. (The article title suggests that a child who has never been to a birthday party may wonder why there are burning candles on top of the cake…)

The authors imagine the child responding, “Why would I want to become involved now? If these birthday parties were supposed to by my birthday parties, why wasn’t I invited all along? Why didn’t I have a chance to select themes that interest me? Why didn’t I get to help decide whom to invite?”

The grown-ups reply, “We thought that you were not old enough to help.”

And the child replies, “Now I am so old that I do not know how to help with any of it; you have been doing it for me for all these years. Just keep doing it without me.”

Of course, this is an absurd situation - no one would plan and host a birthday party and then decide not to invite the birthday boy or girl. However, the comparison to the IEP meeting can be helpful.

The law requires students to be involved in their IEP process starting at age 16. But we believe it is critical for students to engage in the IEP at a much younger age. According to the authors, “by the time students become teenagers, they may have decided that IEP meetings are not important at all since no one has invited them or included them in the planning phase."

If the IEP is to be truly individualized around each student, we need to maximize opportunities for students to communicate their unique preferences, interests, needs and strengths. The IEP meeting is a great opportunity to do that.

The starting assumption is that all students should be present for at least some of their IEP meeting. Ideally, students would take a leadership role in the meeting as well, facilitating introductions, sharing examples of work they are proud of, highlighting growth they have made, providing input about goals, and giving feedback about what accommodations help them access the classroom instruction.

Students can begin providing input about their goals and accommodations as early as Kindergarten. Of course the method and format of student input may vary based on the individualized needs of the student.

As one primary school student in WLWV told his IEP team, “If I’m not at this meeting, how will I know what my goals are? If I don’t know what my goals are, how will I meet them?”

Please feel free to contact your case manager if you have questions about how to support your child’s involvement in their IEP process.

The authors of Why Is This Cake On Fire? provide the following list of questions that teachers and parents should ask:

• Do we encourage students to become involved in their IEP meetings?
• Does this involvement begin at an early age?
• Do we allow students to help decide whom to invite to their IEP meetings?
• Do we give students opportunities to be responsible for the goals in their IEPs?
• Do students know that the IEP meetings are for them and that the intent of the IEP process is to design a plan that will help them be successful in school and in life?

The West Linn-Wilsonville School District has identified Increasing Student Voice as one of the 3 main Focus Areas for our Special Education department. Two of our goals in this area are:

• IEP’s are developed collaboratively with students, creating true ownership of learning for each student and increasing the success of each student in reaching challenging goals and aspirations.
• Every IEP meeting includes meaningful participation by the student.