Buried near the front of every IEP is a section with an awkward name: present levels of academic achievement and functional performance, often shortened to PLAAFP or just "present levels." It may be the single most important part of the plan.
The snapshot everything is built on
Present levels is the snapshot of where your child is right now — what they can do, where they struggle, and how their disability affects their learning. Think of it as the foundation a house is built on. The goals measure progress from this baseline, and the services are chosen to close the gaps it describes. When it's vague, everything built on top inherits that vagueness — which is why savvy parents read this section first, not last.
What a strong section covers
A strong present levels section covers more than test scores. It should name your child's strengths, not just their struggles, and say plainly how the disability affects progress in the general curriculum. Most of all, it should be concrete and current, drawn from recent data and real observations rather than last year's leftovers.
- Academic achievement — reading, writing, math.
- Functional performance — everyday skills like attention, organization, social interaction, or communication that affect a child's day.
The domino effect
When present levels are vague, the goals built on them can't help but be vague too. "Reads below grade level" gives a goal nothing precise to grow from — below by how much, measured how? But "reads 45 words per minute on a second-grade passage, with difficulty decoding multisyllable words" hands the team a real starting line. A fuzzy baseline and a fuzzy goal go together; the quality of one sets the ceiling for the other.
Weak vs. strong, side by side
Compare two versions. The weak one: "Marcus struggles with writing and needs to improve." The strong one: "Marcus writes 2–3 sentences independently on a familiar topic, using capital letters inconsistently and few end marks; he needs support to organize ideas into a paragraph." The second tells you exactly where he is, so anyone can see whether next year's goal was met.
Hold it to a simple standard
When you read your child's present levels, ask whether it sounds like your child specifically, or like it could describe any struggling student. Ask whether the numbers and examples are recent, or recycled from a past plan. And ask whether each area of need named here connects to a goal later in the document. If a section is thin, a calm request fixes it.
Can we make the present levels more specific, with current data? I want the goals to have a clear starting point.
General information and document preparation — not legal advice.
