The school handed you a thick evaluation report and expected you to sign off.
Here's what those pages are actually telling you.
This Month's Focus
How to Read Your Child's Evaluation Report Without Feeling Lost
At some point in the IEP process, the school hands parents a document that's anywhere from 10 to 40 pages long, full of scores, percentiles, and jargon. Then they schedule a meeting, read through it out loud in 45 minutes, and ask if you have any questions.
Most parents say no. Not because they don't have questions, but because they don't know what they just heard.
This month we're breaking that down. You don't need a degree to understand your child's evaluation. You just need to know what to look for.
Breaking It Down
6 Things to Look For in Any Evaluation Report
Who Did the Testing and What Did They Test
The report should tell you who evaluated your child, what their credentials are, and which areas were assessed. If your child has reading struggles but the evaluation only covered speech and behavior, that's a gap worth naming. The evaluation should match the concern that triggered it.
Standard Scores vs. Percentile Ranks
These two numbers describe the same result in different ways. A standard score of 100 is average. A percentile rank of 50 means your child scored higher than 50% of kids their age. Low scores in isolation don't tell the full story. Look at which areas are low and whether they connect to what you're seeing at home.
Whether the Results Match Your Child
This is the gut-check section. Read the evaluator's summary and ask yourself: does this actually sound like my kid? If the report describes a child who is mostly fine with minor support needs, and that doesn't match what you see at home or what teachers say in emails, write that down and say it in the meeting.
The Eligibility Determination
Near the end, the team makes a decision about whether your child qualifies for special education. If they say no, you have the right to disagree in writing and ask for more information. Eligibility isn't just about scores. It also has to consider whether the disability impacts the child's ability to access education.
Recommendations and Whether They Made It Into the IEP
Many evaluation reports include recommendations from the evaluator. Check whether those actually made it into the IEP. It's surprisingly common for an evaluator to suggest specialized reading instruction or occupational therapy and for none of it to appear in the plan that gets built.
What Was Not Tested
An evaluation can only tell you about the areas that were assessed. If attention, processing speed, or social-emotional factors weren't included, those gaps matter. You can request that additional areas be evaluated. Put that request in writing.
Quick Reference: Terms You'll See in the Report
Questions to Ask at the Evaluation Meeting
You are allowed to slow this down. You don't have to sign anything the day of the meeting.
One of the most common things I hear from parents is that they felt lost in the evaluation meeting. Like everyone in the room understood what was being said except them.
You weren't lost. You were handed a complex document with no preparation and asked to respond in real time. That's not a fair process.
If you want someone to sit with you and actually walk through what the report says and what it means for your child's IEP, that's something I do. You shouldn't have to figure this out on your own.
Stay Connected
Let's Connect
If you've got an evaluation sitting on your counter that you haven't fully read, you're not alone. That's one of the most common things parents tell me. If you want help making sense of it, reach out.
Reply to this email. Send me your biggest question about your child's evaluation. I read everything and I'll write back.
Pass this along. If you know a parent who just got handed a report and has no idea what it says, this one's for them.
Let's look at it together. Visit theiepcoach.com
You have more power in this process than you've been led to believe.