A weak IEP rarely looks broken. It looks complete — boxes filled, signatures collected, the right sections present. The trouble is in the wording, where soft, unmeasurable language quietly lets the school off the hook.
Once you can spot these patterns, you cannot unsee them.
1. "As appropriate" and its cousins
The first red flag is the word "as appropriate" — and its cousins, "as needed" and "when possible." These phrases sound reasonable but commit to nothing. A service that happens "as appropriate" can happen never, and the plan will still technically be followed.
Anywhere you see them attached to a service, ask for a number instead.
2. The unmeasurable goal
"Will improve reading comprehension" cannot be checked — improve from what, to what, measured how? A goal you cannot put a yes-or-no answer to at the end of the year is not really a goal. It is a hope dressed up as one.
3. Blanks in the services grid
Each blank in the services grid is a promise the school has not actually made. The grid can look official and still leave the most important numbers out. Watch for:
- minutes left empty
- frequency missing
- no start date
- no location
4. The copy-paste plan
If this year's goals are word-for-word last year's, or the present levels describe a child who has clearly grown, the IEP was not really written for the child in front of you. A plan that ignores a year of progress is a plan running on autopilot.
5. The missing 'how we'll know'
Every goal should say how progress is measured and how often you'll be told. When that is absent, you are flying blind until the next annual meeting — too late to course-correct.
None of these red flags require a confrontation. Each one is just a specific, calm question: can we put a number here? And each question makes the plan a little harder to ignore.
General information and document preparation — not legal advice.
