If my child doesn’t meet an IEP goal, should it carry over next year?

When your child doesn’t meet an IEP goal, simply rolling the goal over to the following year’s IEP is not sufficient. Rather, it’s important to think about why your child didn’t meet the goal. Are there other skills your child needs to learn in order to meet the goal that should be addressed first? What supports would benefit your child’s mastery of the goal? Is the way the goal is being assessed appropriate or in alignment with the way your child expresses themselves? Is the goal essential for the student to learn, or are there bypass strategies or other ways to accomplish the same thing?

For more about writing IEP goals, including plenty of examples, check out our IEP Goal-Writing Guide.