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Tool 25: What a Blank Box Means at a Hearing (Nothing Good for the District)

THE RULE

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) does not permit an IEP to trail off. The regulation lists what every IEP must contain (34 C.F.R. § 300.320(a)): a statement of your child’s present levels of academic achievement and functional performance (34 C.F.R. § 300.320(a)(1)); measurable annual goals (34 C.F.R. § 300.320(a)(2)); how progress toward those goals will be measured and when you will hear about it (34 C.F.R. § 300.320(a)(3)); the special education, related services, and supplementary aids and services your child will receive (34 C.F.R. § 300.320(a)(4)); an explanation of the extent, if any, to which your child will not join nondisabled children in the regular class (34 C.F.R. § 300.320(a)(5)); any accommodations your child needs on state and district tests (34 C.F.R. § 300.320(a)(6)); and, for each service, a projected start date and the anticipated frequency, location, and duration (34 C.F.R. § 300.320(a)(7)).

Every line on that list is required. There is no line in the regulation for “TBD.” There is no box for “to be determined at a later date.” And at the beginning of each school year, the district must have an IEP in effect for your child - an IEP that meets the definition just described (34 C.F.R. § 300.323(a)).

So read a blank field for what it is. The IEP is the district’s own document, on the district’s own form. An empty box, an unchecked checkbox, or a “TBD” is the district’s own written record that a required decision was never made.

At a due process hearing, both sides read from the same document. A field the team filled in can be defended as a decision. A field the team left empty cannot, because it records that no decision happened. Some courts also limit how far after-the-fact testimony can go to fill gaps in the written IEP (R.E. v. New York City Department of Education, 694 F.3d 167 (2d Cir. 2012) - a Second Circuit rule; other courts vary).

WHY IT MATTERS

The document is what your child actually gets. In September, a teacher who has never met your family will open the IEP and deliver what is on the page. A service with no frequency is a service with no schedule anyone can be held to (Tool 24). A goal with no baseline in the present levels is a goal no one can be shown to have missed (34 C.F.R. § 300.320(a)(1)-(2)). A blank is not neutral. Day to day, a blank works against your child, because there is nothing on the page to enforce.

The same blank works against the district later, on paper. But “later” can be a year away, at a hearing you never wanted to file. The better use of a blank is now, at the table, while the people who can fill it are still in the room. This tool is about spending that leverage at the meeting instead of saving it for a fight.