IEP progress report checklist
A free, printable IEP progress report checklist for the evidence pass before a report is written. The hour before a progress report is due is a bad time to discover that half the data belongs to a goal version you retired in November. This is the pass that catches it.
Work one goal at a time. Doing all six goals at each step feels faster and produces the mistake where evidence from goal three ends up in the paragraph about goal five.
Step 1 — Fix the period and the scope
Everything after this depends on getting this right, and it takes two minutes.
| Did the goal wording change during this period? | yes / no — if yes, see the revision log |
| Did the measurement method or criterion change? | yes / no |
| Are you reporting pooled, or the mean of sessions? | |
| Which settings or activities are included? | |
| Which are deliberately excluded, and why? |
Step 2 — Inventory the evidence
Count what you have before you look at what it says. Knowing you have eleven sessions across six weeks changes how you write the paragraph, regardless of the number they produce.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Sessions with data | |
| Total opportunities administered | |
| Weeks in the period with at least one session | of |
| Longest stretch with no data | |
| Sessions marked not observed | |
| Sessions at zero (present, opportunities given, none met) | |
| Who collected (names or roles) | |
| Sessions rescored or corrected |
The gap between “sessions with data” and “weeks with a session” is where most awkward questions live. Four sessions all in one week is not a term of monitoring, and the graph tool will show you that shape immediately.
Step 3 — Answer the missing-data questions first
Answer them now, on paper, while you can still remember the week in question. Being asked in the room and saying “I would have to check” is the outcome this step exists to prevent.
| Why is there no data between and ? | |
| Was the gap about the student, the schedule, or the collector? | |
| Is any session excluded from the total? Which, and why? | |
| Is the exclusion rule the same one used last period? | |
| Would the headline number change much if the excluded sessions were counted? |
Run that last one as an actual calculation, not an instinct. If including the excluded sessions moves the result by twenty points, the exclusion rule is carrying the conclusion and needs to be stated in the report rather than left in your head.
Step 4 — The source ledger
One line per claim you intend to make. If a sentence in the report cannot be traced to a row here, it is an impression, and impressions belong in a different paragraph clearly labelled as such.
| Sentence in the report | Comes from | Checked |
|---|---|---|
Step 5 — The review pass
Ten minutes, out loud if you can stand it. Most of what this catches is a sentence that reads as a conclusion when the data underneath it is a suggestion.
| Does every number appear with its denominator? | |
| Does the report say which summary method was used? | |
| Are gaps in collection named rather than glossed? | |
| Is anything stated as a trend that rests on fewer than five sessions? | |
| Would a colleague reach the same summary from the same records? | |
| Is there a sentence a parent could not follow? Rewrite it. | |
| Is any student named in a place they do not need to be? |