Present levels (PLAAFP): how to read this part of the IEP

The PLAAFP is the first real section of your child's IEP. It's also the one I'd tell parents and caregivers to read first. Present levels of performance are where the team writes down what your child can do today, what's hard for them, and the evidence for both. Goals, services and accommodations are all supposed to grow out of this section.

I wrote a lot of these on the school side of the table as a speech-language pathologist. So I can tell you: a problem here usually explains the problems everywhere else. Is it too long? Too technical? Does it sound like it could be about any child? Those are fair worries, and this guide walks through each one.

What PLAAFP stands for

PLAAFP stands for present levels of academic achievement and functional performance. Federal regulations require every IEP to include this statement (34 CFR 300.320(a)(1)), and it has to explain how your child's disability affects their involvement and progress in the general education curriculum. For preschoolers, it explains how the disability affects participation in age-appropriate activities.

You may also see it called PLOP (present levels of performance), PLEP (present levels of educational performance) or simply present levels. They all mean the same section. The longer name came with the 2004 update to IDEA, which added functional performance to the wording.

Academic achievement covers things like reading, writing and math. Functional performance covers the skills of everyday life at school: communication, behavior, attention, social interaction, motor skills, self-care and organization. If your child has a need in any of these areas, it belongs in the present levels.

What belongs in present levels

When the IEP team develops the IEP, it has to consider your child's strengths, your concerns as a parent or legal guardian, the results of the most recent evaluation, and your child's academic, developmental and functional needs (34 CFR 300.324(a)(1)). Present levels are where you should be able to see that the team did. A complete section usually has:

• Current data for each area of need, with the date, the source (a test, a classroom assessment, observation) and the actual result
• Your child's strengths, interests and what helps them learn
• Your concerns and observations from home
• A summary of the most recent evaluation results
• A statement of how the disability affects your child's access to and progress in general education, often called the impact statement
• Progress on last year's goals, if your child already has an IEP

Strong vs. vague present levels

The easiest way to judge present levels is to ask whether a new teacher could read them and know where to start. A vague statement describes a problem. A strong one describes a starting point you can measure from. For example:

Vague: Jaylen has difficulty with reading comprehension.

Strong: Jaylen reads at a 2nd grade instructional level (Lexile 420L, January assessment). He decodes CVC words but struggles with multisyllabic words and inferential comprehension.

The second version tells you the level, the measure, when it was taken, what he can already do and exactly where he gets stuck. A goal written from it can be specific and measurable. A goal written from the first one usually can't. A few more illustrative comparisons:

Each strong example also names a strength or a support that already works, which tells the team what to build on.

How present levels connect to goals and services

Think of the IEP as a chain: present levels, then goals, then services. Each measurable annual goal (34 CFR 300.320(a)(2)) should address a need named in the present levels, and the services and supports in the IEP should be what your child needs to reach those goals. Present levels also give the baseline that progress gets measured against, so without a clear baseline it's hard to tell later whether your child moved at all.

A simple test helps here. Pick any goal in the IEP and look for the matching need in the present levels. Then go the other direction: pick each area of need in the present levels and look for a goal, a service or an accommodation that addresses it. If a need shows up in the present levels and then disappears, ask the team about it. If a goal has no matching need, ask where it came from.

In Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District (2017), the Supreme Court held that an IEP must be reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress appropriate in light of the child's circumstances. Present levels are where those circumstances are written down. You can read more about that standard in the guide to what FAPE is.

Red flags in the PLAAFP

These are the signs that something may be missing from your child's present levels:

• No data cited, only descriptions such as "struggles" or "is below grade level," with no scores, dates or sources.
• Old information, such as an evaluation from two or three years ago standing in for current performance.
• Copy-paste language that reads the same as last year's IEP.
• A known need, such as speech, behavior or reading, that isn't mentioned at all. If it isn't in the present levels, it rarely becomes a goal.
• Only deficits and no strengths, even though the team is required to consider your child's strengths.
• No statement of how the disability affects your child's involvement and progress in general education.
• Goals that don't trace back to anything in the present levels.

Any one of these is worth a question at the meeting. You don't need to flag all seven. Pick the one that worries you most. Several together usually mean the section needs real revision before the rest of the IEP can be judged fairly. If you want a second set of eyes, I offer IEP document review.

Questions to ask about present levels

You don't need all six. Bring one or two to the meeting, or send them ahead with your request for a draft:

• What assessment data supports this, and when was it collected?
• Where are my child's strengths in this section?
• Where is the statement of how the disability affects my child's access to general education?
• Can you walk me through how each goal connects to the present levels?
• How is my input reflected here?
• Can I take this home to review before I sign?

On that last question: nothing in IDEA requires you to sign an IEP at the meeting. In Virginia, the school needs your consent before revising your child's IEP services (8VAC20-81-170), which makes taking a day or two to read carefully even more reasonable. For a fuller list, see the questions to ask at your child's IEP meeting.

Adding what you know about your child

You see things the school doesn't. You're the expert on your child. Maybe you'd write something like, "Maya reads chapter books with me at bedtime, but she freezes when she has to read out loud in class." Or, "He follows directions much better when I show him a picture first."

Write those observations down before the meeting, two or three sentences each. Ask the team to add them to the present levels. If you have a private evaluation or therapy report, share it ahead of time so the team can consider it.

It also helps to ask for a draft of the IEP before the meeting, so you have time to read the present levels with this guide next to you. Then you can spend the meeting on your questions instead of reading the document for the first time at the table. If the draft arrives and you're not sure what you're looking at, that's okay. Start with one area of need and run the chain test above.