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Tool 22: Present Levels: the Paragraph the Whole Document Hangs on

THE RULE

The first required component of every IEP is a statement of your child’s present levels of academic achievement and functional performance (34 C.F.R. § 300.320(a)(1)). Practitioners call it the PLAAFP; your state’s form may say “present levels of performance” or something close. Whatever the label, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires it to include one specific thing: how your child’s disability affects involvement and progress in the general education curriculum - the same curriculum served to every other child (34 C.F.R. § 300.320(a)(1)(i)). For a preschool child, it must state how the disability affects participation in appropriate activities (34 C.F.R. § 300.320(a)(1)(ii)).

Two neighboring rules give the section its weight. First, the annual goals must be designed to meet the needs that result from the disability, so the child can be involved in and progress in the general curriculum (34 C.F.R. § 300.320(a)(2)(i)(A)). The IEP only knows those needs through the present levels. Second, in developing the IEP, the team must consider your child’s strengths, the results of the initial or most recent evaluation, the child’s academic, developmental, and functional needs - and the concerns of the parents for enhancing their child’s education (34 C.F.R. § 300.324(a)(1)). Your knowledge of your child is one of the required inputs to this paragraph.

The Supreme Court tied the whole document to this section without naming it. An IEP must be reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress appropriate in light of the child’s circumstances (Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District RE-1, 580 U.S. 386 (2017)). The present levels are where the child’s circumstances get written down. Tool 33 puts Endrew F. to work at the table.

WHY IT MATTERS

Everything downstream hangs on this paragraph. A goal needs a baseline, and the baseline comes from the present levels. A service answers a need, and the need must be stated in the present levels. An accommodation removes a barrier, and the barrier must be described in the present levels. If a need is not written here, no section that follows is likely to address it - not this year, and, since IEPs get copied forward, often not next year either.

The reverse is just as true. When you ask the team for a reading goal, more speech minutes, or an aide, the first place anyone looks is this paragraph. If it says your child is “making progress” in vague terms, your request has nothing to stand on inside the district’s own document.

A hearing officer reads the IEP against the child the IEP describes. If the present levels describe a child with mild needs, the rest of the document can look adequate - whether or not it fits the child you actually have. This is the section where the document decides which child it is written for.