Jon Wright
During my time working in Special Education, there has seemed to be a mysterious battle or confusion between two programs. Both of them are set up to help assist students in order to level the playing field. They are in some instances similar yet vastly different at the same time. The two programs I am referring to are the 504 plan and an IEP plan. For hopeful ease of this blog, I will write about each in different sections.
Let us begin with the 504 plan. Many people, even in the public school setting do not seem to understand how important a 504 plan is. There seems to be challenges with creating the plan as well as following it at times. A 504 plan is simply developed for a child who has a disability identified under the law who receives educational accommodations to help them succeed and have access in the learning environment.
The interesting thing about these plans, which should be reviewed and updated at least annually is that students can be placed on a 504 plan due to a temporary setback. For instance, I once worked with a student who broke both of their legs on a playground. The student was typically developing yet, needed specialized transportation until their legs healed. They were therefore placed on a special education bus due to the fact a wheelchair lift was available for the student. Once the casts were taken off, this 504 plan was no longer needed.
On the other hand, many students will have various 504 plans throughout their school career. Their accommodations may include preferential seating, more time on quizzes and tests, perhaps a test reader. Some students need a separate location for tests or more time on work. There are some of the more common accommodations I have seen in a 504 plan.
An IEP is an Individualized Educational Plan that maps out specially designed instruction for the student as well as accommodations. As with the 504 plan, an IEP is updated annually. The IEP has many more components to it than a 504 plan where the students on IEPs will have annual goals. if appropriate, some IEPs will have the goals broken down into short term objectives. An IEP is quite a bit more rigorous than a 504 plan and it should be the guide for the person who is in charge of delivering the specially designed instruction. Specially designed instruction is something that would either enhance what students in the general education are doing for work or it could be something completely different. For instance, if a student is a 6th grader and reading at a 2nd grade level, this student may be working from a completely different reading program than the rest of their class. This however is not always the case. Looking at this from an individual basis, some students will receive grade leveled work that has been modified for them so they are able to work on similar materials as their classmates.
One important item to remember is the following. If a student is on a 504 plan but then in turn it has been determined they need an IEP, the student would not have both a 504 and IEP at the same time. The appropriate accommodations from the 504 plan would be added to the IEP. Once that has happened, the 504 no longer exists.
I hope this has give a little sliver of insight to these two types of plans and it helps you when something may come up in your school situation.
Until next time, this is Jon from Navigating Solutions. Keep moving forward!
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