With IEP season comes IEPs and with IEPs comes Goals and Objectives, the heart and soul of your child’s IEP. So it is critical that your child’s goals and objectives are Smart, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Today, Special Education Advocate Stacey Tié and I talk about what you need to know to make sure your child has SMART goals and objectives! We discuss what SMART means, pull apart examples from actual IEPs, and offer questions for parents to ask in their IEP meetings to help drive those SMART Goals and Objectives. Join us!
You can find both Stacey and me at
and you can reach Stacey directly at [email protected]
TRANSCRIPT (not proofread)
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
objectives, goals, child, student, mastered, skill, questions, relevant, parents, iep meeting, iep, marking period, important, measurable, johnny, identify, talked, working, prompts, complete
SPEAKERS
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate, Dana Jonson
Dana Jonson 00:02
Hello, and welcome to need to know with Dana Jonson. I’m your host, Dana Jonson and I’m here to give you the information you need to know to best advocate for your child. And a special education attorney in private practice. A former special education teacher and administrator, a current mom to four children with IPS and I myself have ADHD and dyslexia. So I’ve approached the world of disability and special education from many angles. And I’ll provide straightforward information about your rights and your schools obligations, information from other professionals on many topics, as well as tips and tricks for working with your school district. My goal is to empower you through your journey. So please subscribe to this podcast so you don’t miss any new episodes. And I want to know what you want to know. So like follow and drop me a note on my need to know with Dana Jonson Facebook page. Okay, let’s get started. Hello, today I am here with my favorite advocate Stacey ty. Hi, Stacey. Thanks for joining me again.
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 01:03
Hi, thanks for having me. Again.
Dana Jonson 01:05
This one, we thought it’d be great as we were talking about last week preparing for IEP meetings, we realized that almost everything we talked about could really be its own episode or, or maybe even its own podcast. But we thought for the next few episodes, we would go through some specific areas that are helpful for parents this time of year, while they are all attending their IEP meetings. And today we’re going to talk about goals and objectives. Because I find that is often a place where we fall down in the IEP. And I’m sure if you have an IEP or your child has an IEP, you’ve heard the term SMART goals and objectives. And what that means is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and time bound objectives.
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 01:52
So Daisy, let’s talk a little bit about why those pieces are important. And when we talk about, say specific, what is it that we want to do, but you know, you want to be specific about what skill you want the child to be able to achieve. And and as we say, Master, and so that you want to be very specific about what skill you’re working on. And you know, your goals, what we talked about last week, your goals start actually the beginning of your your IEP meeting where you talk about, you know, the baseline where your child is at you, everybody in the team talks about where your child is currently at, what their strengths are, what their what they need to work on. And you as a parent, as we talked about, you also have a role in that. And then when you get to the present levels of performance, it’s actually broken out there in your IEP where it says you know, what the child’s strengths are and what their needs are. And anytime you see a need in that section, when we get to the goals, there should be a goal that is correlated to those needs. So when we say specific, that’s where that comes from, I want to be specific on that skill and the needs section of the present levels of performance that we’re working on. That’s a long, long answer.
Dana Jonson 03:07
Very point, because goals and objectives don’t come out of thin air, I think it’s important to note that we start with an evaluation for a reason. We want to know where the child is, where are their strengths, where are their needs or challenges? And not just what does the school See, but also what does the parent See? And then once we determine those areas of deficits, how are we going to address them? And how are we going to use those strengths to help address the deficits? I guess that’s part of the conversation that I always forget about. But a lot of times those strengths that we identify can be used to help mitigate some of the deficits. So that is it is important that we have goals and objectives that are specific to the child’s needs. Once we’ve addressed those needs. However, we also need to be specific as to who is doing doing this objective, right is is the student doing something? Are they doing it by themselves? Are they going to have prompts? Are they going to have another visual aids, visual aids, graphic organizers? What are the pieces? You know what, and what’s that level of accountability? Who’s going to be involved with that? We also want them to be measurable, which is how are we going to measure progress or lack there of and in that area? We’re looking at numbers, right? Yep.
04:39
That’s simple.
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 04:41
Yeah, that’s where you see you. How are you? How are we going to measure that skill? So how are you going to measure that the child has mastered it because you can’t just say, Johnny did it one time he’s mastered it. I clap my hands. You can’t see me but I clap my hands. Even though he’s measured. He’s done it. He’s mastered it. We need to you We have to agree upon how many times does Johnny need to do that skill we’re working on however we written wrote it, as you said, with support of a teacher a visual aids, you know what prompts whatever that may be? How many times does he need to show that he can do it with that or independently before we say, yes,
Dana Jonson 05:21
he has mastered that skill. And so that’s why it becomes important to measure measure our goals. And I usually tell people, the measurable part is usually where you see 80%. I don’t know when 80% became the number. But that seems to be the number. And it is interesting, because I used to work with the residential population. And I remember having a student who had a goal for that had something to do with eating and scraping her plate. And I was eating as at the same time, we’re all eating, it was lunchtime. And then one of the teachers came up to me and said, Could you stop that? I was like, not what they said, You’re scraping your plate. And I thought, well, it’s not that annoying. Like, I sorry, I didn’t realize that like, No, she’s not allowed to do that. And I thought, well, that’s really interesting that in her program, she wasn’t allowed to scrape her plate ever. And I get why because it was genuinely a problem. But the rest of us, we don’t always do everything. 100%. Yes. So
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 06:20
while I was actually, there’s actually a really funny IEP meme that’s going around that says, I’m not going to adult today, because my IEP says I only have to do that four times out of five with 80% accuracy. So I’m today is not going to be the day it’s it’s and it’s funny, because it’s that’s kind of how it’s written.
Dana Jonson 06:40
And like I say, another 20%. Yeah. That’s what today is, although I did have a student once and this was actually in the IEP, I couldn’t believe it, it was what is one of my favorite ones ever, that the student would stop and look both ways independently before crossing the street 80% of the time.
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 07:00
So what happens to him the other 20% of the time? That was my question?
Dana Jonson 07:06
Well, we all like the 80%. And we understand why. And for some students, it’s more appropriate to have a higher number, and for others, maybe a lower number. But I think the reason we often come to 80% is because none of us do anything 100% of the time correctly. And I get that. But we have to also be really cautious about what we’re letting that 20% do.
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 07:28
Yeah. I often. I mean, I often ask that the team. Well, why did you pick four out of five trials? Why is that? Why is that the number? or Why did you pick 80%? and genuinely, it’s because I usually I want to know, like, Where did that? Where did that come as? Where did that come from? And it usually does come from somewhere. But yeah, crossing the street, we want to make sure we look both ways all the time.
Dana Jonson 07:54
That’s interesting, because I find that usually, if I asked that I don’t ask that all the time. So I love that recommendation. I think I might start doing that is why did you come to this number, but the few times that I have, because maybe the parent is saying no, I want it to be higher, or I think that’s too high a bar, whatever, whichever position there. And it’s usually I’m met with a blank stare. I’m usually met with will because that’s what we do we do 80% that’s sort of the general agreed upon number. And that is an okay answer. But it doesn’t instill confidence. When asked a question by the parent, you’re giving a blank stare. And saying, because it’s what we do, maybe we need to revisit it. Yeah, I do think that component is important. So the next area is attainable. And we’re going through these pieces of the SMART goals and objectives kind of quickly. And we’re then going to talk about some examples that we find amusing, and help help you identify when you’re hearing the goals and objectives what they may or may not mean so, so we are flying through these technical definitions fairly quickly on purpose. So in our smart goals and objectives, our next part is attainable. So is it reasonable with some areas whereby you would say, you know, something is or isn’t reasonable? So unattainable. We want to make sure that it’s something that can be done, and not just can a student do it? But is it reasonable is the thing that the staff can do? And I don’t mean, when the school do it, because you know, schools, just because they don’t have a program doesn’t mean they can’t provide it, or that they don’t have to provide it. I mean, is it actually feasible? Yeah, if you want a child to be able to go up and down through class or through stairs and navigate a building, but you’re in a one room schoolhouse, that’s not going to make sense. Or if you want a child to be able to self advocate, you first have to teach the child how to identify that they
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 09:54
need help because some kids they get stuck, but they don’t know that they’re stuck, they don’t know why they’re stuck. They’re just stuck. And I hear that a lot. And so I think first you have to teach them to identify when they’re stuck. And what it’ll how to highlight, this is where I got stuck. And this is where I need to ask for help. And then you can teach them to raise their hand and ask for help and identify or what was it baby, something gave them anxiety, but you have to first teach them how to identify, then they can work on advocating for themselves. Well, and that goes back to do they have language skills.
Dana Jonson 10:30
Yes. Right. So if we are saying that a child’s gonna learn how to self advocate, but we haven’t addressed any language skills, or they don’t have the proper language skills, we are not ever going to meet that bar. Yes. It doesn’t matter what the percentage is, because it’s not attainable. So I think that’s a really good point. And are there factors that are within our out of our control? Yeah, a goal and objective is that the student will successfully complete certain tasks on site at a job site, but there’s no program to take them to that job site, there’s, there’s nothing set up for that, is that attainable? Yeah.
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 11:08
Or if you’re, you know, overall goal for your child is that they get their work done. I mean, that’s not really a goal. That’s, that’s to the results. If they have executive functioning issues, you need to teach them the skills so that they can complete their work to get them done, get it done. So what would be attainable is teaching them organizational skills, teaching them planning skills, teaching them prioritization skills, time management skills, that’s sort of where it starts. And if obtainable also means when we write our IPS, typically, we’re writing these goals for a full school year. So you want to make sure it’s something that you can the child can achieve within the school year. And if they can’t, then that needs to be a discussion at the next IEP meeting, why couldn’t we? Do they need more prompts? Is this not an appropriate goal? You know, those are their conversations, you also want to make sure they’re they’re also challenging enough for a child either, they shouldn’t just be a simple goal, because it’s easy for them to attain, and you just want to be able to say they mastered something. So they also do have to be challenging for the students as well.
Dana Jonson 12:14
Also see, something I always find interesting is when it’s, it’s the objectives are there enough the words stacked or layered? In that say, you know, Johnny will learn 10 words with whatever the specifics are. And then the next objective is, they’ll learn 20 words. And then the next one is 30. And I’m thinking why why are we doing these and all objectives? Why isn’t the end objective, the 30 words? And then you start with, and you don’t have to start with the end goal? Right? The idea is that they can achieve it within that year within that 12 month period, given the school year, will they be able to attain that goal? Yeah. So I think that’s important to consider, too. And I, I bought and bothered by that, because it makes the IP look bigger and more thorough, because there might be four objectives under a goal. But you’re really only working on the same thing throughout the year. So that to me feels watered down. And the next area is relevant. And I love relevant, I love trying to figure out what’s relevant and what’s not. And my favorite example, is a student that I had in a residential setting where the parent really it was critical to her that he learned his colors, the difference between red, green, and yellow, specifically, because she felt he needed to learn those to learn how to drive, but it was not a student who would ever drive. It just it was actually this is the same student with the crossing the street object. Well,
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 13:51
I was actually going to say, it would be important to learn that skill to just navigate walking in busy streets. If you live in Manhattan, if you live, you know, you need to understand the colors and what they mean when you can cross the street or not. So yeah,
Dana Jonson 14:05
yeah. And that. And that is true. This student was never independently going to live in New York City. Yeah. And as the team, we ended up keeping it in for a long time. But it wasn’t something that was he was going to benefit from there was we could not identify where he would utilize the skill. And, you know, we were still at the place where he didn’t understand not to bolt into traffic, though. And he also and I honestly, I can’t remember the details, but I feel like there was a reason why the color discrimination was a challenge for him. So there was a chance he might not have been able to attain that skill. So, you know, we were hitting all of those checkboxes, but it doesn’t have to be relevant. And I’ve had parents call and say, you know, does my daughter need to be in ninth grade algebra when they’re never going to further schooling. We’re really trying to get them to be independently living And, and be able to hold a job and these pieces but you know, algebra is never going to be part of it, do they need to be in algebra? And then I have other parents who say, I understand my child is going to be more vocationally oriented, but I want them to get as much of the academics as possible. So how do you determine what’s relevant for students?
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 15:22
Well, I think, you know, as we were talking, I was listening to your examples, I think that goes back to the individualized part of the IEP, what’s relevant is individualized to the child. And interestingly, I also think technology has started to play a role in what’s relevant. I’ve listened to one of your earlier podcasts. And when you had a discussion with I forgetting who your interviewee was, but you talked, she talked about how, you know, goals, I think it was Catherine Whittaker with a I guess she talked about, you know, going, you don’t really use money and coins anymore, we use our iPhones, we to pay for things, credit cards, you don’t really so like, it may not be a goal that’s really relevant in today’s society anymore, especially as technology is improving of analog clocks, I have a student who doesn’t know how to read an analog clock. And so you know, again, technology, you can kind of choose a clock you have we have, we have smartwatches. Now, so it may not be relevant for that child to learn that, and it may not be a priority, so move on to other other things.
Dana Jonson 16:32
And that’s an interesting point, too, because I was thinking of that yesterday, actually, as I was driving in my husband’s car, because my car has those little lights on the mirrors, that tell you if you can merge or not have other great debt, or your head all the way around, which I did for I had that feature on my car for two years. And I think I just stopped arching my back around because it was just too scary for me. But my daughters who drive and have only driven in my car, don’t know to do that. So if they were to get into my husband’s car and drive, there’s a good chance they might swerve into another car, because over and not see that button. So I do hear that sometimes that argument too. Well, they need to be able to do that in case you do or what if the only clocks around or analog on earth? Will they ever tell time? Well, that to me might be a different skill that might be identifying. I don’t know how to read that clock. So if that’s the only one around what would I do?
17:35
Yes, for problem solving,
Dana Jonson 17:36
right? problem solving, maybe it is, before I get into a new car, I have to identify if they have specific features. Yeah, for I can drive, you know, those sorts of pieces? And yeah, I mean, whether they are relevant.
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 17:50
I think it’s and I think it’s, you know, determining whether it’s relevant based on the kit, as you said earlier, is this kid going to college? Is this kid, you know, what were what is the trajectory for the child? And and so I think that’s where the relevance, it’s individualized, in my opinion. Absolutely. You mean, like as in the IEP is that it’s right at the outset. So when you’re talking.
Dana Jonson 18:13
And our last part of the SMART objectives or goals and objectives is time bound? When will this be completed? And how will it be, you know, when are we expecting this to be over? And the answer is, as you said, several times within a 12 month period, yes, that’s the length of the IP. So do you ever have situations where the student does not meet the objectives? So they just carry over? Have you had those cases?
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 18:40
Yes. Most of the time, it’s with speech like articulation. That’s probably not a very good example. Because that’s sort of fair. That there’s a lot involved with articulation. So sometimes, so you have a discussion. Okay. We were working on the th sound what why didn’t we master this? Why is it still carrying over? And sometimes it’s, we, you know, we can’t we became really, really close, we need to adjust our strategy where, you know, we were working on where the tongue placement. Next time I’m going to, I’m going to use actually more manipulation with tongue placement. So I need to try something different. So that’s the bad example. Because it’s fair to have articulation kind of carryover. But But yes, I do. See, I do see it carry over. math facts carry over. And so yeah, usually we asked a lot of questions around that, you know, why didn’t we? Why was this not mastered? Sometimes it’s because it was introduced late because you were, you know, working on, you got stuck on others. And it pushed that objective later. Sometimes it’s, well, that’s what I don’t
Dana Jonson 19:46
like about those objectives that sort of increased on top of each other because then it it looks like maybe they just didn’t master one out of five objectives, which sounds better than they didn’t know Master that objective? Yeah. So that’s why I prefer those objectives to be all encompassing, if, if appropriate. Yep. You know, you don’t want to be too too much in one objective. But if appropriate, then that’s what you’re expecting for the year. So it’s not about like, let’s see how far we can get. What do we really think is appropriate given this child’s skill level?
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 20:22
Yeah. Or maybe they thought the child could work independently. So they wrote that the child will independently be able to Xyz, and they just they found out actually the child needs prompts and visual aids and whatever. So you’re going to adjust the goal and try and try again.
Dana Jonson 20:39
Yeah, and I’ve had that happen with social emotional goals to where somewhere along the line, there’s a discovery that the root cause, or what we thought was the issue actually wasn’t the issue. So we kind of had to re assess and regroup and say, okay, we were off base on that, I find that if an objective isn’t met, it’s really critical to discuss why Yep. You know, and really, why? Because if it’s, well, we’ve been working on it, and they’ve really been making good progress. They’ve been making satisfactory progress. We’re just not there yet. Nope, that’s not satisfactory progress. What satisfactory progress is, is that you are working towards achieving that objective by the deadline. And if you’re not, if at any point, it’s unsatisfactory, there are a lot of reasons for that too. But if you’re on your second or third progress report was unsatisfactory, there should be an IEP meeting to discuss the objective and see whether it remains appropriate. And I think that’s another piece you don’t have to keep objectives that aren’t working until the year is
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 21:45
that you bring up their progress report, that’s a good thing we should touch on that, you know, when you write these goals, you should you know, when you get your, your marking period, when you get your regular grades, you also get your progress report, which tells you how your child is doing working towards these goals and anything that says you know, anything that says not introduced or unsatisfactory project progress, or satisfactory, or even mastered, they should come with an explanation and it should come with, you know, whatever you agreed to were work samples, or whatever was going to show that the child mastered or why it’s only status, satisfactory, why it’s unsatisfactory, it should there shouldn’t be some detail in there. And if you don’t see anything there, then you should talk to your your case manager about that. Or my favorite is other that other Yes,
Dana Jonson 22:31
here you get other i O, ask a question. Why is it other what what what happened
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 22:37
when we had other fur coat COVID last spring, the last marking period and that definitely threw me off.
Dana Jonson 22:45
Yeah, but I think global pandemic is a good reason to put up the progress report, I’ll give them a little credit for that. But I’ve seen other for a lot of other reasons that didn’t make sense or other that isn’t explained. Yes. And other that isn’t explained should not be left unaddressed,
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 23:03
all love should have an explanation. All of them should?
Dana Jonson 23:07
Yes, yes. And we can learn from them, you know that it is not unusual that a child will not master every single goal and objective in their IEP in the year. That’s not unusual. But it’s not something to be let go. It’s not something where you should say, Oh, that’s okay. I mean, that is one thing for me, that I demonstrate, I can demonstrate a lack of progress and a lack of free appropriate public education, a lack of hype, if a child has had the same objectives over and over again, for if the objectives are removed, having never been mastered, mastered. And I’ve seen that where they get satisfactory for satisfactory, and then the objective is removed, but there was never a mastery. Yeah. So why is that? Well, hopefully, hopefully the meeting minutes at the IEP meeting, explain that.
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 23:57
Hopefully, there was a
Dana Jonson 23:58
reason be an explanation if there’s no explanation as to why this is happening. And I’ve seen parents say, but they made satisfactory progress. And then we didn’t really think it was that important. So we moved on. And I say, Whoa, you put it in in the first place. So whether or not important then, and now it’s not important. There are times when it does make sense to swap out some goals and objectives, right, whether you discover that there’s a different issue that you didn’t know, and maybe we need to work on something different first, but that should really be outlined and plain. Yep. Right. So those are our goals. It’s Specific, Measurable, Attainable, relevant time bound objectives and goals. The specific is you’re defining what to expect, you’re determining who’s going to do it, you’re going to detail the accountability, then you’re going to provide enough detail that somebody who’s not on the team is going to be able to read that and understand what you’re working towards. That is what specific needs to be your measurable you need to Identify clearly how you are going to measure that objective, how are you going to determine that child has made progress? And percentages are good? Four out of 580 percent? These are all numbers that we see a lot. But what’s also really critical to that measurable piece is 80%. But how are you determining the 80%? Are you just observing it? Because observations can be subjective? Yeah. Will there be actual data? Is it work samples? Or is it a baseline post? What is it baseline? And is it post line? I don’t think it’s post line, well, maybe
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 25:33
we’ll make that up for this. Okay, this
Dana Jonson 25:35
baseline and in post life, we’ll start a new term, special education, because that’s what we need. And special education is a new, more more words. So an attainable is going to be you’re gonna make sure that you have the time, the staff, the resources, and the authority to do all these things. You want to be relevant, it needs to meet the purpose of the child’s needs. Yep. And their situation and the circumstances of the child, not the circumstances of the school is right the circumstances of the child, and not the circumstances of the world at large either. circumstances of the child and time bound. When does this end? Exactly? When do we start? And exactly when do we end? And when are we taking breaks? So now that we know what our smart goals and objectives need to look at? look like? Let’s talk about let’s use some examples. Let’s leave them funding.
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 26:34
You want to go for my favorite? My favorite line is that Johnny will organize his backpack at least once a week. That’s it. That’s the goal. So
Dana Jonson 26:46
let’s pull that apart. What What is this? What do we expect Johnny to do? Let’s be specific.
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 26:52
We were expecting him to organize his backpack
Dana Jonson 26:56
once a week. Okay. And he’s gonna do this, I’m guessing by himself. Right? Is that? I
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 27:01
don’t know. It doesn’t. You know, it doesn’t say it doesn’t say independently. It doesn’t say with support? I don’t know. I think independently? I don’t know. Right?
Dana Jonson 27:10
Well, that’s a journey. So maybe we mean, Johnny, let’s pretend pretend we mean, Johnny.
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 27:15
But that’s a question. But that’s a question I would ask the team. I mean,
Dana Jonson 27:20
I know like, you know, what, why are we? So he’s so Johnny’s going to do it once a week. I guess that’s measurable. I mean, it’s a number,
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 27:29
but it’s once a week. But how do you know when it’s mastered? point? So
Dana Jonson 27:33
if he if he organizes his backpack once a week? Well, I guess could he do that with his teacher, his teacher sits next to him. I think that’s a great example, if the teacher is sitting next to him saying, Johnny, now pick up your folder and put that in your backpack.
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 27:47
That’s not independently it’s with prompt and with the boy didn’t say independently,
Dana Jonson 27:51
right? So and it actually had that happen. That was in one of my children’s IEP meetings, and I love talking about my kids. And I was having a fight with a special ed teacher about whether my child was independent in this skill. And I was asking how many prompts and well, I don’t know, why are you asking that? And I was getting pushed back and push back. And finally I said, I said, I’m trying to gauge your level of independence. And the response was, that objective doesn’t stay independent. Like, not from five or so yes. How do we know? So it’s really important to identify. And for something like your backpack? Is it that he’s organizing it when he comes in in the morning? is neat organizing it at lunch while the kids are at recess? Is he organizing it at the end of the day?
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 28:40
Now, that moment, and where, and where, you know, if my guess is this goal is where we are teaching Johnny, how to be more organized. So if that’s the skill, where he is executive functioning, shows up need to be to work on organization so that he can complete tasks. So in order for Johnny to eventually complete tasks, one of the skills he needs to master is organization. That’s where I’m guessing this this goal comes from. And I’m guessing his backpack is clearly a mess. And papers are all over the place. And there’s no way he could even know what’s what because it’s not organized. So that’s where I think this goal comes from, which is the right intention. But how are you going to teach Johnny how to organize his backpack? You know, how are you going to help him come up with strategies for organizing his backpack, this executive function goal should be across all settings as well. So that’s the other thing where where is joining us to do this? Johnny should if he’s going to master this goal, he should be able to do it at school and at home. And then as you said, is it with adult support? Is it not with adults? Is it a visual aid? We don’t I mean, maybe there’s a checklist of Did you checklist? That’s the visual aid, we don’t know. And then it says once a week, but we don’t How do you know? But where’s the measurable part? When is it mastered. I mean, if Johnny does it once a week for a month, is that mastered? I don’t know that it does. I don’t know. Or you could say he did it once one week, and it’s mastered, because there’s no measurement attached to it.
Dana Jonson 30:16
And I find that executive functioning objectives are often very susceptible for vagueness are very susceptible to vagueness, that actually I have a good one here for you, I’m going to I’m going to read this as a whole, I’m going to give you the goal and the four objectives. Okay, the big one, the student will exercise the executive functioning skills task completion in all content areas. Objective one student will complete 80% of her assignments at the end of the marking period in English, objective two students will complete 80% of her assignments at the end of the marking period in wrath objective three, keep your eye on going with us to complete 80% of her assignments at the end of the marking period in science. And there’s a fourth one because she took another academic student will complete 80% of her assignments at the end of the marking period in history.
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 31:15
I have a lot of questions. I have a lot of questions. Okay. I imagine that this child struggles with completing her coursework. But the question is why? Why is she not completing her her classwork? And once you find out the why that’s what you should be working on to help her complete her tasks. This to me sounds more like a check checklist. And Alright, as long as she gets eight out of 10 assignments done, then she’s good. But how are you going to get her to complete her 80% of her assignments? I have a lot of questions.
Dana Jonson 31:55
I have a lot of I had a lot of questions for IP meeting as well. The other piece is why are we waiting till the end of the marking period? Yeah, this is something that we are not really able to assess until the end of the marking period. So while a marking period is a good period of time, we’re saying let’s wait for the child to fail before we assess how they’re doing. And that would concern me because it doesn’t appear to be an ongoing thing. It’s we’re measuring it at the end of the semester, I guess. Also, I love these kinds of objectives where they are basically a to do list for the kid.
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 32:33
Yeah, that’s what it sounds like.
Dana Jonson 32:35
Right? Which, which then we’re talking to do lists for our children, I have another good one for you. Another great place that I find a lack of specificity and objectives and goals would be in the transition goals and objectives. They find that oftentimes we get objectives like this, the student will begin to explore possible college programs in the area of her interest in the College and Career Center at least six times.
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 33:03
So what is she working on? What skill is she working on? What’s the need? Well, she’s
Dana Jonson 33:07
going to meet to explore. So again,
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 33:11
that’s true.
Dana Jonson 33:13
But let’s just start with the first the third word, and
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 33:16
she would have to do that anyway. Do you have to do that anyway, that because all kids do, that it’s relevant for all kids that is relevant on that trajectory? If yes, they do that. And then, but what’s the skill you’re working on? on that? Sorry, I’m stuck.
Dana Jonson 33:36
You know, I should have started with the goal, which is that the student will complete three activities in order to prepare her to transition to competitive employment. So
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 33:46
So even though it’s a to do list, that you’re not working on a skill, What’s the need that directed that skill? If you’re saying the need is we want to get her to be able to apply to college? Well, that’s actually your idea. Yeah.
Dana Jonson 34:00
Well, I guess what, what this is addressing is if the student was reluctant to do these things, right, I could see that I guess I could see if it was a now I can’t see it that way, either. Sorry. But yeah, I
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 34:15
would ask why is she reluctant?
Dana Jonson 34:18
And that that was the case. It wasn’t the case. That wasn’t a skill issue. But what are they learning from that? Oh, here’s objective two was good student will complete a formal vocational assessment.
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 34:30
Know what this actually sounds like to me is more of a planner. This is what should be in her planner. This is her to do list. This is these are her organizational skills. This is Yeah.
Dana Jonson 34:42
When I do get that a lot the student will visit the advisor, the student will research schools, the student will, here’s when the student will define interests and abilities related to potential career and job opportunities. Will I remember this IP Meeting because everyone in the room knew exactly what she wanted to do, as did the student. So there was no need to figure it out and define the interests and abilities because we already knew that. So what was the goal and objective there? And there’s no time limit, like there’s no, how many times are they going to do it?
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 35:22
This was just a, this was a well organized to do list for her. Yes,
Dana Jonson 35:28
it is a well organized to do list. And I do see that a lot where, particularly in social emotional goals and objectives, and mission goals and objectives, I find in those two, it happens in other objectives as well. But those two categories, I see a lot of students will do this. And it’s an activity or a task, or something that just needs to be completed once the same student had an objective that was pertaining to Internet safety, because they were very unsafe and accessing the internet from school during classes. And they were there a lot of a lot of safety issues. And the objective was I don’t have it in front of me. But it was basically that she would only use her computer for schoolwork. That was it. That would be objective,
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 36:18
but how do you how do you measure who’s observing? Who’s taking the data? And how do you measure that that is the only thing she used it for? And, you know, let’s be honest, teenagers are really smart, and they can figure it out. But yeah, that’s like those are those would be my questions, the team who’s observing and watching her? And who’s taking the data on that? How do we know.
Dana Jonson 36:45
And I think the observation piece is really important, too. If observation is ever the assessment process, then you even you want that objective to be even more specific.
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 36:55
Mm hmm.
Dana Jonson 36:56
When I was, when I was getting my master’s, we did this great exercise in data collection. And they showed us a video, and it was a student with Tourette’s. And they said, whenever she has a, you know, whenever she shouts out, I think it was whenever she shouts out, markdown, no two people have the same number of marks in the class, we all put different things. And it was because we all defined that shouting out in our
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 37:23
head frequently.
Dana Jonson 37:25
So when there’s anything that pertains to teacher observation, no matter how great your teacher is, if you don’t have a clear definition, then you’re not looking necessarily at the same things. And that’s a behavioral example. So it’s a little more clear cut. But that’s the same when you’re talking about writing skills. You know, even when I say they will write one paragraph, how do you define a paragraph? Is it a five sentence, sentence paragraph or a three sentence paragraph? How many supporting details are there going to be? Do we want a topic sentence? What, what are we doing within that paragraph? So I think that goes to the specificity. Yep. Great.
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 38:08
Here’s one a math that I think is pretty good. You tell me an objective, given a teacher generated equations, Susie will subtract fractions for eight out of 10 equations across four out of five trials. Okay, so that means, so that means she will subtract the way I understand it, the teacher will pick the questions the patients, Susie will subtract, or she will so the teacher will pick the sub fractions that will be subtracted, Suzy will get eight out of 10 of them correct. Four out of five times that she she does it? That’s the way I understand. I understand. Okay, what do you think about that one?
Dana Jonson 38:50
I think there is there’s a lot of specificity because we know exactly what she’s doing. Right? I would question when, like, how far apart are those times when we’re gauging her? And because it’s four out of five? So does that mean we’re giving her five problems? Or does that mean five times that we give her a problem? My question
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 39:14
anything with math, I always ask them, well, show me Show me what you mean. Because I think that that helps everybody at the table. When they can see see it in real time. That’s actually become pretty harder in a virtual setting. But I have had teachers tried to share their screen and show how that how they’re going to teach the skill, how they’re going to measure it and give an example of how it works. So with math, I always asked for them to show me and then show me how you how it’s going to look when Susie’s mastered that objective.
Dana Jonson 39:48
That’s a good that’s a good piece of advice is asking, how are you going to implement this show? Tell me what this looks like. Because if someone can’t explain to you what it looks Looks like then it’s probably not specific enough.
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 40:04
Yes, agreed.
Dana Jonson 40:05
So what kind of questions? So I think we’ve given some good examples, unless you have another one you want to share?
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 40:12
No, I’m good.
Dana Jonson 40:14
But what what kind of questions can parents ask at their IEP meetings? To make sure their goals and objectives are measurable? Let’s say, you know, because it is difficult, and you and I are talking about this, I’ve been looking at goals and objectives for way longer than I’m going to say, in a national podcast. You know, so I, we, you and I have some familiarity with that. But it really isn’t as simple when you’re looking at all these numbers and words, and what have you. So as a parent, before, you’ve learned really well, what SMART goals and objectives look like, what kind of questions can parents ask the team that will help them identify if these goals and objectives are appropriate or smart? Yeah,
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 40:57
I think the one I just the one example I gave about math is probably the easiest for parents that, you know, are on have the, the knowledge that we have is just to say, Show me how you’re going to do this, show me how what it’s going to look like when it’s mastered, I think that that is probably the most informative for parents and for them to understand. But you know, you ask who, you know, who, as we talked about, when we were kind of picking apart these goals? Who meaning? Who’s going to observe? Who’s going to take the data? Who’s going to teach the skill? Who’s going, who’s responsible for the goal, you know, for helping the child that master that goal? Is it independent? Is the child supposed to do it independently? Or does they need? Do they need prompts? Or with teacher support or visual aids? We know we talked about those questions. Where, where where should they be able to do this is only in the resource room?
Dana Jonson 41:50
Is it in the classroom? Is it you know, across all settings? You know, where because sometimes you might start with let’s let’s master the skill in the resource room, and then we’ll bring it to the classroom, and then we’ll bring it to home and every other, you know, every other place? Well, that’s a good example of when I was talking about stacking the objectives. But for that, it would be it might be that the team believes it will take all year to master that objective in a one to one setting. And then Okay, that can be your objective for that year, that that they’re doing that or if you believe that you’re going to start in the one to one setting, and then you’re going to bring it to the classroom, and then you’re going to bring it to the to recess, then can you do all three things by the end of the year? If so, then the goal should be objective should be bringing that skill to recess. And if they made it if they mastered it, and one to one that might be satisfactory progress for quarter one. And if they mastered in the classroom, that would be satisfactory progress for quarter two. And you know what I’m saying? So that’s how it should be written rather than rather than Oh, we only didn’t get to one out of five objectives, but they made progress on everything else. That’s not that’s not really how that works. That takes away from whether they can make it within a year or not. Yep, agreed. Right. So I also, you know, I like what you said about show me how this looks, and show me how I will know
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 43:21
what, what pitfalls, what
Dana Jonson 43:22
what do we tell parents to look out for?
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 43:25
I think one of the things we talked about was monitoring your progress report and looking for, you know, where they are in the first word, and making sure there’s explanations. And we talked about if if goals get carried over year after year, there needs to be a discussion around that. And it needs to be documented. So that it’s, you know, it’s understandable, you know, so that it’s there. And we everyone understands what other
Dana Jonson 43:48
progress reports that if a student has mastered four objectives in the first quarter, I get frustrated when I see that they just sit there for the rest of the year. Right, yeah, if tells me they dumb down the IP, that’s right, well, then then, you know,
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 44:06
when we talked about attainable and relevant, that’s where those come in, then, you know, it was attainable. But you know, Ida also says that they need to be, you know, they need to be challenging for that student that student specific needs to be individualized. So that’s where the relevance relevance comes back in needs to be relevant for that child. So if they mastered it in one quarter, then you know, it wasn’t relevant. It was it was attainable, but it wasn’t relevant for that child.
Dana Jonson 44:34
And so I think there are situations where I’ve seen say, maybe the child wasn’t emotionally ready to be there and something changed and suddenly they were present and they flew through an objective rate. We should be thrilled by that. But then we should be replacing it.
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 44:50
Yes. Then we should be calling an IEP meeting and and saying, you know, Johnny did so well on this. We you know, we you know, he had theater, he has These skills and whatever and the supports work. So now we need to, you know, talk about the other strengths and weaknesses, and what do we need to focus on and prioritize?
Dana Jonson 45:10
So Exactly. And that’s where those stacked goals if your objectives if you come in and say, Oh, they mastered, they’re like, Oh, no, no, that was on purpose, they mastered that now that just sits there for the rest of the year while we work on this one. That’s not how objectives work. Corral objectives should be worked on across the year. And the goal is that they are met within the year. Correct. So that’s our time bound. So I think that’s a lot of information on smart goals and objectives. Yes, I
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 45:35
agree.
Dana Jonson 45:38
Come on forever, because I have a stack of really funny goals and objectives. And, you know, I think maybe we should start making our own memes. I don’t know.
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 45:47
So
Dana Jonson 45:48
Well, thank you, Stacy. And as many of you already know, if you’re listening, Stacy works in my office. So if you have any questions about your goals and objectives, and you want to run them by an advocate who knows what she’s talking about, you can give Stacey a call, because absolutely talking about. But yeah, this is it’s really important that these goals and objectives are what they need to be because if they are not, that is driving your whole child’s education. That’s right. It’s a really important place to look. So thank you.
Stacey Tié, Special Education Advocate 46:19
Thank you. Thank you for having me learning this. Awesome.
Dana Jonson 46:22
I’ll see you again soon. Thank you so much for joining me today. Please don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast so you don’t miss any new episodes. And if there’s anything you want to hear a comment on, go to our Facebook page and drop me a note there. I’ll see you next time here on need to know with Dana Jonson have a fabulous day.
