Ep. 40: IEPs vs. 504 Plans: Key Differences & Practical Tips for Teachers and Parents

Key Takeaways
📝 Differences Between IEPs & 504 Plans: IEPs offer specialized instruction and services, while 504s provide accommodations to help students access general education.
📊 Eligibility Requirements: IEPs require both a disability diagnosis and educational impact, while 504s only require a documented disability.
👩‍🏫 Parental Advocacy Tips: Advocating for accommodations without overwhelming the 504 can enhance support.
🎓 Transitioning from IEP to 504: Discusses when students might shift to a 504 and how this impacts support.
💬 Communication: Tips on making sure the entire school team is aware of and implementing a student's 504 accommodations.

Resources
🌐 IDEA Website – Learn more about the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
📄 Key info on 504 plans from the U.S. Department of Education
⚖️WrightsLaw: Known for its resources on special education law and advocacy, especially around IEPs and 504s.
🧑‍🍼Understood.org: A parent-friendly site offering articles, templates, and tools for navigating IEPs and 504s.

For you!
📘 Accommodations Tracker Template – Keep track of student accommodations
📝 504 vs. IEP Visual – A comparison guide for parents and teachers

Join Us
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Transcript

Audra: [00:00:00] Having a 504 in lieu of an IEP doesn't mean that stuff goes away. 

Intro: Welcome to the Misfit Behaviorist podcast part two, join your hosts, Audra Jensen and Sami Brown here to bring you fun and functional advice for behavior support professionals and special education teachers. Let's get started. 

Audra: Hey, welcome back to the Misfit Behaviorist podcast. Sami and I are here to talk about IEPs and 504s today. My son and her son, and now my, my nephew is going through the same process of having lived with an IEP for so many years, and now progressing to the point, is it time for a 504? What's the difference between an IEP and a 504? What does a 504 look like? I thought we would talk about today, what the two things are and how they're different and similar, and we can kind of chat about that. 

Sami: It's kind of hard for me to do that, what we call the lanyard on and the lanyard off when you have worked in schools [00:01:00] and you also have a child that's obviously in school. And so my son has a 504. It's a an accommodations list of things that help him access his education based on his eligibility criteria. But what's really interesting is that almost every single school year, I feel like the 504 is just a piece of paper that no one pays attention to because it's not an IEP. It creates a lot of emotion for parents that are advocating for their children and no one understands the legalities of the 504. But the 504 piece is really important. So when I start to see challenges arising in school, my first thing as a parent who knows, is I go to the 504 and I look through to make sure, is that challenge that he's facing listed, oh, it is, and it's right here. And so then the question then becomes who is disseminating the 504 [00:02:00] to the school team that is working with my child. And then have they all read it? Do they understand it? Do they have questions? And then how are they individually as a member of that 504 team working on their portion of implementation.

Audra: When we transitioned from IEP to 504 as well, he may have been high school or close to high school when he did it and and I found the same thing. Like it was almost like the IEP had lots of support and team members and everybody kind of knew what it was. And then as he needed less direct services, they were like, okay, well, let's switch to a 504 where, and we'll talk about kind of the difference, but it's basically, you know, just accommodations, making sure that he's getting those accommodations, not direct services from service providers, but those accommodations. And it was kind of the same thing as once we got onto a 504, I think they sent me annually a thing to sign and approve the next year, but it was almost nothing. And I think that's something that we're kind of missing in our society is that the 504 [00:03:00] still is a legal document and still needs to be abided by and the team members still need to be aware of it. It's just a little bit different than the IEP. That's what we can talk about is how are they different? How are they the same? 

I made this, and you know how I like to visualize things, so I made a visual. So the IEP and the 504. So an IEP is based on the IDEA law that is specifically for persons with disabilities who need specialized designed instructions related services. They need a special education teacher. They need speech therapy. They need OT, whatever it is. They need direct services that are different than the general education supports. And that comes with evaluations. It comes with annual meetings. It comes with an IEP, which has like specific goals, measuring progress. You're supposed to be getting what progress they're making at each report time, which is usually report card time, so three or four, depending on where you are, how many times a year, getting [00:04:00] progress, it could be a different setting if they're in a self contained classroom or a different special education classroom, it could be that they're going out to a resource classroom or getting support in the general education classroom. It's basically a person is delivering extra services to help them meet these goals that they've made.

Sami: What not everybody understands and especially parents have a hard time kind of understanding is just because your child has a special need doesn't mean they're guaranteed an IEP or a 504. 

Audra: I was contacted this week by a friend whose son is not on an IEP, but she's concerned about especially social development and I asked her, you know, she said they keep coming back and saying he doesn't qualify for an IEP, and I don't understand because I'm seeing all these these issues. And so I had to ask her, okay, so how are his grades? And she's like, he's a straight A student. You know, he's, he's accessing his education. I had to explain to her that just because you have, even if you have a diagnosis, which he does, even if you have a diagnosis, and you have deficits, [00:05:00] especially, you know, social behavioral deficits, if you're able to in your education setting, make it through the day, so to speak, even if you go home and you're a little shit, you know, that doesn't impact your education. And sadly, that is kind of, you have to have a diagnosis and or show evidence of it affecting your education environment. A medical diagnosis, it does not equate exactly an IEP. There's all these other steps you kind of have to go through. So that is an important piece. 

Sami: Yes, and people say, are you going to have one or the other? You could just start and only have a 504. You could start and have an IEP and then eventually transition to a 504. People say law wise, you can have both. The only time I've heard of that is , for example, someone has an IEP, but let's say they have an immediate medical incident. Something's occurred and they need an accommodation, to balance that, maybe they've fallen and broken their arm, and so they need to have an accommodation to that. 

Audra: The other piece is she was saying, well, you know, what do I do? And I [00:06:00] said, well, in that case, You need to seek outside medical support. Does he need a counselor? Does he need social groups that are outside? Does he need speech therapy that supports, social communication? All these pieces outside of education because his education itself is not actually impacting. And there's a whole discussion you can make about well, aren't we supposed to be creating a person who can go and live in society as part of the education setting? And that's true. And I think you could probably make a case for even a lot of just your basic social needs affecting your education. That is the clue is how is it affecting their education? So even if they have straight A's, are they able to get from class to class independently? And if they're not, that may be affecting their education. There's all these little nuances to the IEP process and being evaluated for that. 

Sami: And I think that just speaking with other people just recently, other professionals you know, the, the COVID pandemic really created so much harm when it comes to that socialization piece, the [00:07:00] social skills, anxiety, you know, mental health obviously is going to rise in the youth as a result . It's that fine line between, okay, like you said, are they able to access their education? But if they do need these additional supports, that's where your private side of going to your medical doctor. If you're noticing all of these social specific things and it has nothing to do with their education and you've got concerns that the first question that we would ask as BCBAs is ruling out anything medically. Have they been evaluated by their primary care to receive that diagnosis? Because in order for insurance to cover some of the supports for whatever that might be, you might need to have a formal diagnosis for. 

Audra: And I think the last thing I'd say about this process too is if you do have a medical diagnosis before even you get to the education piece of it, don't ever hesitate as a parent or somebody to bring that to your school team, even if you haven't had an evaluation that's with the school yet. Bring this, hey, I've got this medical evaluation. He's been recently diagnosed with [00:08:00] level 1 autism. I know he's doing well at school, but can we open the discussion and are you seeing things that this information might be helpful to you. You may not realize that some of the stuff you may be dealing with might be affected by the autism diagnosis he's recently got. So you just open up the conversation at that point. 

Sami: I think that it's really important as the educators if you have a student that's in your class that is starting the year and they have an IEP or they have a 504, is really early on, make sure you get your questions asked and what is going to be your way of getting data driven progress monitoring, your portion or your accountability for those specific goals, because they might have certain target areas that are identified in the IEP, but some of those things might be done in the resource by the special education teacher, and some might be done by the general education in the normal classroom setting. And so, it's really important that you know your piece of that pie, so to speak, to say, okay, this specific target goal is being monitored by me, and so I need to have a binder that [00:09:00] has at least my data, even if it's permanent product of them working on that goal, and you start making copies of it, so that when someone comes to you and says, Hey, how is he doing working on this? You're going give me a couple days to figure that out. No, it shouldn't be that way. 

Audra: That lends directly into what the 504 is, too. Having a 504 in lieu of an IEP doesn't mean that stuff goes away. You still as teachers and admin and whoever's in charge, whether it's your counselor, somebody still needs to be tracking those accommodations on a 504 no less than an IEP.

And so let's talk about the 504. It comes from a different piece of the law. It's different. It's mainly for if you have a diagnosed disability, then these accommodations need to be given to you so you can access your environment. Like you said, if you've broken a leg or you use a wheelchair or you are blind and vision impaired but you can access everything within the education environment as far as grades and communication, all that stuff's fine. The 504 is perfect for you because you need to make sure you have access to where you're [00:10:00] going and make sure you have certain seating, make sure that you have extra time in order to be able to to complete tests or projects or anything like that. So a 504 is specifically for a diagnosis with a disability and accommodations that is not necessarily specialized instruction. Nobody has to change the content that you're getting in your education system. But these accommodations are needed so that you can access that piece of education. 

Sami: And I would just say to the parents, so to speak, that could be listening and trying to understand the difference between an IEP or 504, don't go into having a 504 accommodation list as a Dead Sea Scroll. If you get where you're trying to, I have 25, 30 different accommodations, I really think that you need to be realistic that this is a teacher who has many other students in the class besides just your learner. And so when you're coming to the table more, in this situation, is not better because you're going to, it's kind of like that old Jerry Springer [00:11:00] saying, you're going to love everything a little and not each thing enough. You're going to get so spread out across this entire long list that you're not going to be able to hone in. So really be purposeful and specific on what those needs are. And if there's a few that you're like, you know, those really could just be on the wayside. Let those ones go and keep the ones that are most meaningful up front.

Audra: Prioritize. I have seen 504s that are Dead Sea Scrolls is a great way to say it. But then nothing will get done. And so just really think as a parent, even as a teacher creating these, what is most important that will give opportunity for this learner to access their environment and their learning. And that's really the most important part. So, with that 504, you have less formal evaluations and meetings, but you still need to have contact with whoever it is. 

When we switched from an IEP to a 504, our case manager changed. With an IEP, it was a special education teacher, that was our contact. We had people on it. When we switched to a 504, his school counselor was just in charge of making sure that these accommodations were put into the plan [00:12:00] for him were disseminated to each of the teachers. He didn't have a special education teacher at that point. He then was responsible. He was old enough to know what the 504 was, what those accommodations were. It was more of his responsibility now to make sure that he was getting access to those accommodations. And so we had to teach him, and that's a really good time to teach that, is teaching them that self advocacy so he knew what his accommodations were. And if I remember, there was like extra time for projects, breaking down projects a quiet space if they needed it, once he requested it, extra time. There are things like that, just little things that he needed to be able to make his day successful for him. 

Sami: I think that's a really good point, too, because the 504 is almost a natural progression that you are at a place where you can advocate for yourself, so to speak, because it really is just a list of these things that you're going to need, and if, if the learner themselves, isn't aware of those. And let's say it's elementary level and the parents are the one, then it's the [00:13:00] parents that are going to ask, Oh, on your math test, did you get to use a calculator? Oh, you didn't use a calculator. You were supposed to use one and that's something where you're having a discussion about. I thought it was interesting just with my own son's 504 is that you get into this place where it's almost feels really redundant, where it's an accommodation list that you're looking at and you're trying to keep it simplified. And again, we've been very mindful of making sure that it's a short list of very purposeful accommodations. And we kind of went into high school feeling like he didn't really need this any longer. Like he was out of place and then it's a whole new ball of wax when you're in high school. And so I kind of had just said to my child, well, we're going to just keep it in the ball in motion. And if at any point that we feel that we don't need it, then we'll yank it and be finished. But in the meantime, it is a legal document and it gives us some ground when things aren't kind of working the way that they should. And that yes, it is your disability and you're entitled to share who has that information. But the schools, they have that information and they need to be aware of it [00:14:00] in order to be able to best support you. And so we did a transition meeting between the middle school and the high school counseling teams just to make sure that everyone was on the same page. And we kind of stripped it down. And so we had really minimal 504 accommodations. And we felt that let's just see how this rolls and new school year, new start. And I just started going, wait a second, I'm seeing this problem. And so you reach out to a teacher and the teacher says, well, you know, he doesn't have access to having more time during assessments. That might be something that we as a team want to address, putting on his accommodation list on his 504. And that naturally progressed into us rescheduling a team meeting, an annual 504 meeting and coming back together and us to say, hey, we stripped this down. We stripped it probably a little bit too much. And so what are we noticing current that needs to be added to it? And so you have that flexibility to do so. 

And the only thing that I would just add to that is people should look at as a 504 as an annual meeting anyway. And so if you start a school year and a counselor comes to you and says, [00:15:00] here's your 504 students, or you look up and you've got three IEP students, don't wait until the week that you're going to get a notification in your calendar of you've got this annual review. Automatically look at the top, see when the date is, go to your calendar, put four weeks in advance, put the initials of your students and put IEP annual and that way you're going to get triggered ahead of time to make sure and you should already have a data collection system in place for your portion. But what I've seen a lot in schools is that meeting comes up and everyone starts kind of going, were you doing, who was doing, I was, and then and then you're looking at that data and it's going, wait a second, we all need to time out because. It's the team that comes together in the best interest of the student.

Audra: The other thing about the 504 too and the many accommodations, both the IEP and the 504, is that there can be a lot of accommodations and hard to keep track of. I think it's easier when you're on an IEP to keep track of those because you have so many more people because it is specialized services and a 504 is a little bit harder. And I think that teachers and teams tend to kind of forget about [00:16:00] those. I do have an accommodations tracker that I will put in the Facebook group. And I think that's that came from having that issue come up quite a bit. And so it may be something as simple as just keeping track of those accommodations in a specific space and place at all times and making sure that teachers know how to access it, what those accommodations are, when they use them, when it's benefiting, when it's not. And I think you make a good point and making sure that you're having those meetings on a regular basis, regardless IEP or 504, that those meetings are happening and checking in.

 I don't know if everybody knows that you can take those same documents to the college, which we did. He did on his own at the university level and took those documents into their disability center there, and he had a 504 in college where, very similar accommodations, but he, at the beginning of each semester, he was required to get the paperwork from the counseling department that had the 504, send it to each of his professors, explain kind of, [00:17:00] okay, hey, I have autism. These are the things that I struggle with, and these are the accommodations, and then they would communicate beforehand, and then when a project came up or whatever, and he wanted to access something, it was his then email the professor and say, Hey, there's this project. Could I get an extra day to complete it for that reason? So this is something that can be a lifelong support. 

 Finding that balance of when to do the switch can be tricky and it's scary, especially for parents who, I mean, these are our babies and that's those are big decisions to make. So the last thing is misconceptions about the the 504 and so I want to go through these really quick and then we can close out and move off to the next thing.

The first one is a 504 plan is easier to get than an IEP. It's not necessarily easier, it's just a little bit different. An IEP , you have a disability that's been diagnosed, it's impacting your access to education, and you need services and people to help get access to it. And then the 504 is just a little bit different. Disability could be [00:18:00] anything. It could be any sort of need and just accommodation in order to access things. 

Sami: People are going to ask, so I'm at the IEP meeting and it's obvious that they don't need this. That doesn't mean they don't need an IEP. They may just need a new goal in that area rewritten and also you can't just add another, you can't just go well now he's having behavioral problems. Let's add behavior to the IEP. 

Audra: You may go to an IEP meeting and see a bunch of data that says they've mastered these goals. That doesn't mean they've gotten out of needing services in that area, in that subject area. So say they qualified originally in writing or math or behavior or something. That's kind of a subject, an area, a domain that they receive services for. And then you create goals within that domain for that annual year, right? Well, if they've mastered all those goals, that doesn't mean that domain goes away. It just means now we need to look at where they are in relation to their typically developing peers. Maybe we need new goals even before the year is up. Maybe we need to write new goals for that. The [00:19:00] only time that we're going to change, either add or take away those areas of need is within a re-evaluation.

It could be you have one of your learner makes really good progress, and one year after the original evaluation or the last re-evaluation, you're noticing, I don't think they need this support anymore. You can initiate a new re-evaluation. Or say they start having new behavior problems and you're like, I think they need extra support in behavior. You can initiate a new re-evaluation to add that into the IEP. So that's unique from a 504 plan.

Sami: I think that's really important because people will sometimes go, well, I want them to be having a social skills group and it's like, but that's not even an area that was identified in their evaluation to be put on the IEP. So if we're looking at adding a whole new specific domain, then that is opening up a new evaluation. 

Audra: The last couple of things, just remember to collaborate with your parents, your teachers, your team, whether you're doing an IEP or a 504, that it's unique to that particular learner in that [00:20:00] situation. It could be that they need the IEP for those services. It could be accommodations are going to be enough for them to access their environment. And it also means that Your student that you have in mind may not be an A student ever, and that's okay. Just because they happen to be a C student, they may not need an IEP. A 504 may be enough. It may be that they don't need a 504 either. They're just a C student, and that's okay. We don't have to have expectations that everybody is at a certain level. Everybody's situation is unique. Everybody's cognitive ability is unique. We just want to make sure that we move all of those barriers out of the way so that they can get to where they're going to go.

We are going to be back next week and then Caitlin and I are going to record something for next week, the following week. Then we're going to come out and we're going to wrap up the FBA portion of our mini series and then we'll start talking about behavior plans and strategies and all that piece of making everything easy for you in the classroom. 

Intro: Thanks for listening to the Misfit Behaviorists, and be sure to tune in next week for more tips and tricks. Don't forget to subscribe so you [00:21:00] don't miss an episode.