Another important member of the IEP team is the individual who can interpret what the child’s evaluation results mean in terms of designing appropriate instruction. As stated in IDEA, this is “an individual who can interpret the instructional implications of evaluation results.”

There may be quite a stack of scores and totals on various tests of performance or other measures the child has completed as part of the evaluation process in special education, especially if this IEP meeting is taking place after the initial evaluation conducted to determine if the child, indeed, has a disability and is eligible for special education.

Results may also be available from statewide or districtwide assessments, class work, observations, outside evaluations that the parents have arranged, and so forth.

Somehow the team has to move from those scores to that instruction...and this is the person who brings that knowledge to the IEP team meeting table.

The evaluation results are very useful in determining how the child is currently doing in school and what areas of need the child has. This is one of the evaluation’s explicit purposes as reflected in IDEA's definition of evaluation at §300.15, which reads:

§ 300.15 Evaluation.

Evaluation means procedures used in accordance with §§300.304 through 300.311 to determine whether a child has a disability and the nature and extent of the special education and related services that the child needs.

This IEP team member must be able to talk about the instructional implications of the child’s evaluation results, which will help the team plan appropriate instruction to address the child’s needs. He or she may be a member of the team already, such as the child’s special education teacher or the public agency representative, or may be someone else entirely, such as the school psychologist.