Teaching Conditions: Online Debates on the Responsibilities of Processing, Navigating, and Accommodating IEPs

As teacher burnout continues to impact school communities, educators online debated the responsibilities of processing, navigating, and accommodating IEPs. While many educators highlighted the importance of prioritizing support for students with disabilities and required accommodations, others shared that large class sizes, insufficient training and the ongoing teacher shortage make it difficult to fully support students with IEPs without additional resources. These conversations suggest that educators need additional support in implementing IEPs – which has implications both for in classroom curricula providers and teacher prep programs.

  • “Teachers don’t read their kids’ IEPs?” —Elementary Teacher in New York
    • “The full IEP? Many teachers read ‘at a glance IEPs’ which contain the necessary accommodations and basics in a couple of pages.” —Educator in California
    • “Admin gave zero time for this but I still got it done in 2 days (35 total IEPs across 4 classes). Priorities.” —Educator in New York
      • “And really, if people are not reading IEPs because they’re busy planning instruction, it is so helpful to look at IEPs first. Like a whole cheat sheet to what skills you should focus on and what methods are best. The pacing guide gives you the content, and there you go.” —Educator in New York
    • “At my last district, we didn’t see the whole thing. Just the accommodations. No diagnoses or qualifications. And nothing at all about the kids who had speech only.” —Educator in New Jersey
  • “My hot take is that a lot of educators actually aren’t doing their best by the kids they’re supposed to teach. A lot of y’all aren’t looking at IEPs or accommodating the emergent bilinguals in your classes, and spend your time policing kids instead of teaching them.” —High School English Teacher in Texas
    • “Not saying I disagree completely, but in a class of 30+ with 10-15 bilingual students, 5-10 504s and 3-8 IEPs and no aide, what do you expect a teacher to do? That’s an impossible job.” —Educator, N/A
    • “I think students would be well served by teachers learning more about UDL (Universal Design for Learning). I read IEPs, but there are way too many to keep track of. By trying to keep UDL at the core of everything I do, I end up covering most IEP accommodations.” —ELL Teacher in Oregon 
    • “This is hard to hear, and also true. I have been around a long time and seen it far too many times to count. At the elementary level it takes literally forever to get kids services when they need them. It grieves me to know access to learning  is denied for these kids.” —Elementary Teacher in Florida
    • “And frankly, looking at the IEPs and adding a few accommodations actually makes your life so much easier.  You should be reinforcing the important shit from multiple angles anyway.” —Teacher, N/A
    • “Now more than ever every single school elementary through HS needs to be staffed with OT, Speech, bilingual specialists etc and they’re not and one off PDs aren’t going to fix the problem.” —Special Education Teacher in Pennsylvania
  • “Not sure about the original tweet on teachers reading IEPs but before everyone starts loud voice yelling about policies they [probably] have no idea about, it’s worth saying some of the flexes y’all are sharing are REALLY poor practice. Don’t put an IEP in a sub folder. Ever.” —Elementary Teacher in Iowa
    • “Yeah, I mentioned earlier in another response that I include IEP information with sub plans- but that should be instead that I include information at a glance, hopefully with input from the SPED teacher.” —Elementary Teacher, N/A
    • “An accommodation summary would suffice and knowledge of any safety plans, cool down plans, behavior plans, etc. Putting the whole document in a folder is a violation of FERPA for sure!” —Former Educator in Georgia
  • “Tonight we’re discussing inclusion classes. Many ‘general education’ teachers have minimal training in meeting the needs of students with disabilities. How can we ensure all students receive the education they deserve?” —High School ELA Teacher in Georgia
    • “For a start, co-planning. In the true sense of the word.” —Elementary Teacher in New York
      • “And TIME. An inclusion class is supposed to have the same rigor as any other class at that level, but teachers have to also be familiar with instructional and assessment accommodations for students with IEPs and 504s. No additional compensated time provided.” —High School ELA Teacher in Georgia
    • “Better teacher prep programs. They need a course in the law as well. I was in a dual certification program and honestly I think they all should be.” —Educator in Maryland
  • “Maybe now some of y’all will read them. (Video of screenshot of trending topics on Twitter with IEPs at the top with a heart drawn on for drama and emphasis)” —High School English Teacher in Texas
  • “I’ve seen a lot of tweets about IEPs. I will just say I dislike the verbiage ‘accommodations’ and would prefer we use the word ‘supports.’ In my opinion, the former implies a change in expectation while the latter implies we are supporting you in reaching the grade level expectation.” —Educator, N/A
    • “Both are in IEP docs, at least in GA. They mean different things.” —Math Teacher in Indiana
  • “Do y’all realize that IEPs are a legal document? One that you can be sued as an individual and held individually liable for? Getting on the internet and making excuses for not reading/implementing IEPs is unwise. It sucks too but on a practical level y’all please do better.” —Science Teacher in Georgia
    • “I’m not a lawyer. Though there has been a case where a teacher was held liable (1992), current understanding of IDEA is that individuals cannot be. HOWEVER, that doesn’t change that reading and implementing IEPs is a legal obligation. It’s also an ethical one.” —Science Teacher in Georgia
  • “Is this discourse about IEPs surprising to ANYONE? Are you currently teaching? My district doesn’t follow IEPs, case managers don’t follow them, SPED teachers don’t follow them, GenEd doesn’t follow them, and we all blame the shortage of teachers and paraprofessionals” —High School SPED Teacher, N/A
  • “I see IEPs are trending, so I’ll use this time to remind y’all that most are not individualized at all but rather a copy and paste job from a handful of accommodations which teachers already offer to all students. Functionally, what an IEP does is allow a special education student carte blanche to do whatever they want and still pass.” —English Teacher in Wisconsin 
  • “Beloveds. We can’t have it both ways. We can’t claim families are the reason students aren’t growing academically and then fail to read IEPs or implement other critical accommodations while screaming pay teachers at the same time.” —Educator in Nevada
  • “I totally understand not reading every word of every IEP. It’s a lot of redundancy & there’s a ton to do elsewhere. But…don’t brag about it. Or try to defend it. There’s nothing to be proud of there. It’s real kids & their real lives.” —Middle School Math Teacher in Georgia