There is a very specific part of IEP and 504 meetings that I think we need to reconsider: the moment we get to accommodations and start adding supports to a list.
Preferential seating. Frequent breaks. Check for understanding. Extended time. Frequent reminders. Reduced distractions. Chunk assignments.
Most of these accommodations are completely reasonable, and many students genuinely need them. The problem is that the words themselves often give us very little information about what the student needs or what the teacher is expected to do.
When we write “breaks as needed,” for example, we have technically documented an accommodation. We still haven’t established when the student needs a break, how they communicate that need, whether an adult can initiate the break, where the student goes, how long they stay there, what they do during the break, or how they return to instruction.
That leaves a whole lot of decision-making up to the individual teacher.
It’s one of the reasons I created my free Accommodations Teachers Can Actually Use guide, which includes 25 practical examples of accommodations for IEPs and 504 Plans. The entire resource is built around a simple idea: an accommodation should give the adults supporting a student enough information to understand what support to provide, when to provide it, and what it should actually look like.
A longer accommodation list isn’t necessarily a stronger one
I have seen plenty of plans with accommodations sections that go on and on. Sometimes that happens because a team is trying very hard to make sure a student is supported. We keep adding things that sound like they could be helpful until we have a pretty impressive list.
The length of that list tells us very little about how individualized the plan actually is.
A useful accommodation starts with an identified barrier. What is happening during the school day that is making it harder for this student to access instruction, demonstrate what they know, regulate, communicate, transition, organize their materials, or participate successfully? Once we understand that, we can get much more precise about the support.
Take a student who regularly sits for several minutes after independent work begins without starting. We could write “frequent reminders” into the plan, but that still requires the teacher to figure out what kind of reminder the student needs and when to provide it. If the actual barrier is task initiation, we can write an accommodation specifically for task initiation. After whole-group directions, an adult might privately check that the student can identify the first step of the task. When needed, the adult can help the student begin the first item rather than repeating the entire set of directions.
Now the teacher has something concrete to implement, and the team has a support that directly connects to the skill or barrier they identified.
Specificity helps teachers implement the plan
Teachers are often implementing IEPs and 504 Plans for several students at the same time while also planning instruction, managing transitions, collecting data, responding to behavior, communicating with families, and doing approximately four thousand other things.
We should make the accommodations section as usable as possible.
“Preferential seating” is a great example. I have seen this accommodation interpreted as “seat the student in the front” more times than I could possibly count.
That may be exactly the right spot for one student. Another student may need reduced visual distractions, distance from a high-traffic area, proximity to a particular adult, access to movement, or a seat that changes depending on the instructional activity. The guide includes an example that defines preferential seating around the student’s identified barriers to attention and participation rather than assigning one permanent location in the classroom.
The same issue comes up with “check for understanding.” What does checking actually involve?
If we define it, the teacher has a usable strategy. Staff might ask the student to identify the first step, provide a visual example, or privately clarify directions before independent work begins.
That level of specificity also creates greater consistency across settings. The student is less dependent on whether their third-period teacher happens to interpret “check for understanding” the same way their fifth-period teacher does.
Specific accommodations also give us better information about progress
There is another benefit to getting this specific that I don’t think we talk about enough. When an accommodation clearly identifies what adults will do, we can actually pay attention to whether it is helping.
Maybe a student receives a five-minute and two-minute warning before significant transitions. Over time, the team notices that the student is transitioning more independently and needs less adult prompting. Great. That tells us something!!
Maybe an adult checks in before dismissal to help a student use an assignment-management system, but missing assignments remain a major issue. That tells us something, too.
Specific supports give us something observable to evaluate. We can refine them as the student’s needs change and, ideally, think about how to build the student’s independence and self-advocacy over time.
A giant list of broad accommodations makes that much harder.
The reminder I included in the guide is one I wish we brought into every IEP and 504 meeting: More accommodations do not automatically make a stronger plan. Every accommodation should connect to an identified barrier the individual student experiences at school.
This is exactly why I made this free guide
My free Accommodations Teachers Can Actually Use guide includes 25 examples across breaks and regulation, executive functioning, attention and instruction, assignments and assessment, and communication and self-advocacy.
I don’t want you to download it and copy all 25 accommodations into someone’s IEP. In fact, please, for the love, do not do that. I want you to use the examples to change the way you think about writing accommodations.
Instead of “frequent reminders,” identify what the reminder is for, how it should be delivered, and approximately when the student needs it. Instead of “breaks as needed,” determine how the student requests a break, where they can go, how long the break typically lasts, what regulation options are available, and how adults will support their return.
When we take the time to identify the barrier and describe the support clearly, we give the student’s teachers a much better chance of actually implementing it consistently. We also give ourselves a better opportunity to see whether the support is helping the student participate, access instruction, build skills, and make meaningful progress.
Download the free Accommodations Teachers Can Actually Use guide and keep it nearby for your next IEP or 504 meeting. Use the 25 examples as a starting point for writing accommodations that are specific enough to make sense on paper and practical enough to use in an actual classroom.
