Service times documentation for IEPs is important.
And with being a special education teacher… or any teacher at this point in time… we know how important it is to document every. single. thing. that happens for each of our students. While it is super time consuming, it saves us in the long run (dare I say the dreaded words due process).
So let’s talk about documenting inclusion services today 🙂
My students are fortunate enough to be in a school that is an inclusion school. My students receive anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes of inclusion time each school day, not including inclusion specials (like art, gym, music).
And that means us teachers and paraprofessionals need to document their inclusion service time. Every time. Every day.
{ Grab the Service Documentation Form here. }
It wasn’t until recently, though, that we were required to have an official documentation folder for each student. So of course I took the time to dress mine up and make “official clipboards” for each of my friends.
Student clipboards are color coded, that way if I need to ask a student to grab their clipboard, they have the visual color aspect as well as their name on the front.
You can see more of my color coded classroom in this blog post.
Each student’s clipboard also has a cover on it – for confidentiality.
Behind each student’s cover sheet (for confidentiality), is a weekly documentation form for inclusion services. Each student has a specific paper that directly mimics their IEP accommodations. The paper is double sided, leaving room for us to write the date, specific service times, the teacher’s name, what the lesson was about, an adult’s signature, and more… depending on your district.
One big thing about NOT collecting this data is, how do you know the accommodations are working, or being used? Is the student getting their full service time and receiving their accommodations? Is this setting appropriate for the child? Is the child being pulled from this class 2x a week for something else and missing instruction?
The documentation form helps myself, my paras, and the general ed teachers daily to remember what accommodations each student has, if we are utilizing them, and a lot of other important data we can share with the team.
That way, if we notice a trend that a student has not been utilizing or no longer needs a certain accommodation, or the setting is inappropriate, we can make appropriate recommendations at their next IEP meeting with data to back it up.
At the end of each week, we take the documentation forms and place them in their student IEP binders for safe keeping.
It’s a super simple system that is a quick, effective way to document inclusion service times.
{ Grab the Service Documentation Form here. }
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