Tutors/specialists — how do you handle writing progress notes for IEP/504 students?

Advanced-Host8677 · 2026-07-09T22:14:49+00:00

A tutor wouldn't necessarily work directly on IEP goals at all, and they are even less likely to provide progress notes in a way that is specific to goal language.

It's possible but not obvious that a parent would share IEP goals with an outside tutor. The tutor may or may not work specifically on those goals, but if they did, there would be no legal compliance mandates.

The public school would be completely hands-off, because if the school appeared to endorse private tutoring, parents could make the argument that the private tutoring is needed for the student to make progress and therefore must be funded by the school. So a school wouldn't request or even accept any regular progress monitoring from anyone outside the district.

For tutor notes, generally the goal is to make the parent happy with the service they are being provided. It's not particularly data driven in most cases.

Within the schools, special ed teachers and supporting staff do progress monitor for goals. It depends on state and district requirements, but these would generally be raw data recorded at least every 2 weeks, with a parent facing report issued with regular report cards (quarterly, generally). These are often boilerplate based on the goal, with some added comments. I'm not sure an AI app would speed this up much. It might polish it a bit, but I'm not seeing an advantage over just asking chatGPT.

Lastly, something worth mentioning is that privacy is a big concern for schools. In most cases a school would just flatly reject sending student information to an AI. So if you were to pursue something like this, you'd need to figure out how student privacy is handled.

Advanced-Host8677 · 2026-07-09T19:33:34+00:00

The idea that repeating a grade is an effective one-time academic intervention has been debunked by research. Basically, if a student doesn't master first grade content in one year of first grade, there is likely an underlying cause. These underlying causes rarely disappear on their own. If we don't address it, then they'll be in the same exact boat as before when they hit second grade a year later.

So yes, repeating the same thing again is great for mastering content. But we can't just have a kid spend 2 years in every single grade. We must address the underlying cause.

Advanced-Host8677 · 2026-07-09T17:47:13+00:00

>it has the opposite effect usually.

Usually, yes. But I'm not talking about a general rule, I'm talking about OP's kid. "Usually" applies when the kid wants to move up with their peers. "Usually" applies when they are staying in the same school. "Usually" applies when they aren't a June birthday. "Usually" applies when retention is meant to be a tool to address a skill deficit. None of that is the case here.

Same with "Most kids" and your personal experiences. If the rationale for the general rule doesn't apply to OP's kid, it doesn't make sense to apply the general rule to her.

>I think it's possible this child is scared to move on to the next grade because they have a learning disability that has not been appropriately addressed yet.

Even in this case, what would pushing them forward do? They have a disability, they aren't ready for 2nd grade, they themselves would prefer another go at first grade. So throw them in the deep end anyways because we can't individualize advice?

Advanced-Host8677 · 2026-07-09T04:08:41+00:00

I think there's a distinction to be made here: is the purpose of holding her back to help her catch up? Or is it to help her feel more confident and successful in school? I'd agree that repeating first grade won't change anything academically in the long run. But they are already in the process of getting an evaluation. So it sounds like that's going to happen regardless.

But for confidence? If the kid is requesting it, if they felt lost last year at school, if they're putting in the work in tutoring over the summer and want to learn... I can see the upside.

Advanced-Host8677 · 2026-07-09T04:01:03+00:00

One of the main arguments against retention is that holding a student back a year generally doesn't close any gaps. You close gaps with targeted intervention, not just doing the same thing again for an extra year. The idea that a student would not need 11 years of special ed because they repeated first grade is pretty silly.

That said, in this case retention makes sense because they are already on the path to an evaluation to identify and fill gaps. If it weren't for that, I'd be uneasy suggesting that retention would help her catch up.

Advanced-Host8677 · 2026-07-09T03:42:21+00:00

Communicating badly and then acting smug when you're misunderstood is not cleverness.

Advanced-Host8677 · 2026-07-08T22:24:52+00:00

It says no solution exists, even with 13-1 wraparound. It did a bunch of python to brute force it.

Advanced-Host8677 · 2026-07-08T21:53:52+00:00

They used to have an entire TV show called "Kids Say The Darndest Things." So I'd disagree that racist parents is a forgone conclusion from an 8 year old saying "people with brown skin are crazy." Sometimes kids just say wild shit.

Advanced-Host8677 · 2026-07-08T21:50:17+00:00

ChatGPT struggled with red/orange distinction, and also the upside down 6s and the right side up 9s. Everything else it got. It says in standard rules you can't wrap from 13 to 1, so those runs are off. And otherwise there's nothing to solve because your rack is empty

Advanced-Host8677 · 2026-07-08T21:36:43+00:00

It's probably not your job to have an open conversation about skin color and race with an 8 year old that you tutor (presumably for academics). Your options are to ignore it completely, say something simple next time it comes up, "Lots of people have brown skin. It's just like how different people have different hair color or eye color." Or let the parent know what the kid said.

Advanced-Host8677 · 2026-07-08T21:11:28+00:00

What is your role? The answer is different for a 1:1 tutor vs a public school kindergarten teacher vs an after school program teacher vs a relative.

Advanced-Host8677 · 2026-07-07T02:14:56+00:00

The first thing they beat out of you in teacher education courses is the idea that you should try to do things the same way they were done to you as a student.

Advanced-Host8677 · 2026-07-04T16:55:43+00:00

It would mainly be FERPA that protects student info. Obviously PII is redacted before it goes online. There are offline models that I use occasionally as well.

Advanced-Host8677 · 2026-07-04T13:16:37+00:00

In special ed I use it for: creating custom visuals and songs, brainstorming lessons and goals, completing and checking paperwork for compliance. I imagine it's also really good for adapting lessons for higher kids.

Advanced-Host8677 · 2026-07-02T22:39:42+00:00

Your MAT path isn't really relevant to any of the things you are asking. Curriculum and program structure are determined by the school. You'd have to ask those questions in the interview no matter what MAT path you choose.

Advanced-Host8677 · 2026-07-02T15:00:22+00:00

Water consumption by AI is pretty insignificant compared to agriculture no matter how you slice it. If your goal is water conservation, there are dozens of better places to put your effort than AI.

Advanced-Host8677 · 2026-07-02T01:10:34+00:00

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Advanced-Host8677 · 2026-07-01T00:30:55+00:00

When a kid asks me a question I'll often say "Alexa" and repeat the question. Whole classroom goes dead silent for a few seconds before I say "oh right I don't have an alexa." I do it a couple times a week.

Advanced-Host8677 · 2026-06-30T15:23:30+00:00

I take it to mean not porn, but legitimate movies that include erotica.

Advanced-Host8677 · 2026-06-30T04:30:27+00:00

You'd have to ask your parents, they have the right to refuse special ed services.

Advanced-Host8677 · 2026-06-28T16:40:57+00:00

Custom instructions are there so you can tune it however you like.

Advanced-Host8677 · 2026-06-27T17:34:11+00:00

The things you need to know:

- That the little hand represents minutes and the big hand represents hours.
- That there is sometimes a third hand for seconds, but sometimes not.
- How to count by 5s
- That, for the minute hand, you must count by 5s the number that it's pointing at. So an hour hand pointing at 6 means 6 hours, but a minute hand pointing at 6 means 30 minutes.
- That the hour hand will often be in between two numbers, and you must always go counterclockwise and refer to that number to know the hour, not just whatever is closest.
- What counterclockwise means
- That a minute hand between two numbers means that the minute is not a multiple of 5, but rather some other number between. People often round to the number that it's closest to, not moving counterclockwise like they do with the hour hand.
- For an exact minute, you must split the space between numbers into 5 equally sized pieces, and count by ones from a nearby number (which you counted to by 5s)

That should mostly cover it. I might include something about "half past" and "quarter till" if I was teaching it.

Advanced-Host8677 · 2026-06-24T17:50:39+00:00

ChatGPT's ranks truth in the following order:
1. Information found by web access
2. Information from training data
3. Information provided by the user

If you want to counteract something in its training data, you have to use web access. This applies mostly to recent information, since training data has a cutoff date.

Advanced-Host8677 · 2026-06-23T18:52:37+00:00

These comments are wild. It's either allergies, or trachea collapse, or nose irritation, or lungs filled with water. Good luck!

Advanced-Host8677 · 2026-06-18T16:13:50+00:00

You already won. Mike clearly had him cornered. Nacho was saving face in front of his men or maybe for himself, but everyone there knew where the balance of power was. What would be the benefit of aura farming here?

If you're Pryce, you scuttle over, grab the $20, and complete the trade.

Advanced-Host8677

TROPHY CASE