There is still time to register for Teaching for Impact: Training for All Educators Supporting Learners with Disabilities! The training provides Iowa educators with opportunities to expand their knowledge and skills related to the education of learners with disabilities from ages birth to 21. School administrators, building leadership teams, Early ACCESS providers and service coordinators, K-12 and early childhood educators and providers, Area Education Agency professionals and higher education faculty who support preservice educators are encouraged to attend the professional development.

Teaching for Impact will be held at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines on June 5-6. Registration is open through May 23. There is no cost to attend.

Contact Nancy Hunt  with questions.

With the release of the ACHIEVE Family Portal, changes have been made to ACHIEVE to ensure educational decision-making rights transfer appropriately as learners approach the age of majority.

What has not changed:

• There is no change in how rights transfer to learners at the age of 18. Continue to document the date you notified the family and learner of rights transfer in the IEP.
• There is no change in how Legal Guardian(s) of Minors are established in ACHIEVE. Continue to add Legal Guardian(s) of Minors via the Family Contact stepper.

What changed as of April 10, 2025:

• The documentation process when rights transfer to the learner prior to reaching the age of majority (e.g., learner enters into marriage or learner is tried, convicted, sentenced as an adult, and confined in a correctional facility prior to age of 18).
• The way in which Power(s) of Attorney and Legal Guardian of Protected Person (i.e., learner who has reached the age of majority) are established in ACHIEVE.

More information about these changes can be found in the overview video and user guide.

Since the launch of the ACHIEVE Family Portal on February 26, 2025, more than 113,000 parent contacts have received an invitation to create an account. To date, 6483 unique accounts have been created. 

As families create their family portal accounts, we are receiving feedback that a continued barrier is family access to the last 4 digits of their learner’s state id number. Districts are required to share this information with families and should visit the ACHIEVE Family Portal toolkit for sample communications. To assist in your communication efforts, the Family Contact Validation report has been updated to reflect only learners with an active case.

Quick Tips: Family Contact Validation

• Contacts can be validated without including an email address. If the family’s email address is not available, please leave this field blank.
• When entering email address information in ACHIEVE, it is best practice to use personal emails for learners and IDEA parents. The same email address cannot be used to access ACHIEVE and the ACHIEVE Family Portal.
• As learners approach the age of majority, you are encouraged to validate their family contact record and add a personal email address that the learner can access after exiting from Special Education and Related Services.
• The family contact validation process is required annually when a new IEP is initiated, but this information can be updated at any time.

Family Portal Access Report

A Family Portal Access Report can be found in the Reporting section of ACHIEVE. This report provides details about family contacts who have been invited, whether an account has been created and if the family contact has requested “interactive” or “view-only” access to the portal. You can use this report to determine how many accounts have been created in your district/region.

ACHIEVE Family Portal support is available through the help desk at achievesupport@iowa.gov.

The deadline to complete the IDEA-DA yearly progress report is quickly approaching. As a reminder, this report is a requirement for all districts and designation levels under IDEA-DA. Important information is bulleted below.

• The Regional Special Education Directors (RSEDs) will meet with Level 2 and Level 3 districts to assist with the completion of the progress report.
• Level 1 districts can access guidance on the Supporting Resources tab of the IDEA-DA Google Site.
• All progress reports will be uploaded in ACHIEVE starting June 1, 2025. Guidance for the upload process will be coming soon.
• The timeframe for completion of the progress reports is April - June 15, 2025.
• The upload window for district completed Progress Report is from June 1, 2025 to June 15, 2025.
• Progress Reports are due in ACHIEVE by June 15, 2025.

Please direct your questions to the Regional Special Education Director for your AEA or contact Mary Beilke at the Iowa Department of Education.

Each fall, secondary school teams across the state partner with vocational rehabilitation, AEAs and other transition service agencies to review and update their Local School Plan (LSP). The LSP is a required service delivery agreement, collaboratively developed, facilitated, and implemented by these local partners. The LSP helps teams build an effective and meaningful transition service system tailored to their local needs to support the postsecondary goals and outcomes of students with disabilities.

Effective interagency collaboration is both a proven practice and a key predictor of improved postsecondary outcomes for students. The importance of coordinated service planning is also reinforced by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA).

2025-26 Updates

Several important updates have been made to better support teams in achieving the LSP’s goals for 2025-2026. Updated resources and materials will be released in early June 2025. Please watch for their release and begin reviewing them with your team as you plan for the upcoming school year. You may request to have the materials emailed directly to you.

Direct questions to Kelsey Teeter, Secondary Special Education Program Consultant.

The final webinar in the Policy and Practice series for the 2024-25 school year was held on May 14. 

The webinar covered the meaning of a Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) and focused specifically on the concept of appropriate. The presentation identified things to look for and consider when determining what is a FAPE for a learner. Connections were also made between prior webinar content and the concept of FAPE.

Materials for the May webinar and previous webinars in the series can be found on the website.