Post-School Outcome Goals

I have found over the years that post-school (aka postsecondary) outcome goals are frequently misunderstood by IEP teams when (to me) they seem to be pretty straight forward. Often they are confused with annual goals/objectives. Here’s how they differ: post-school outcome goal statements answer the question “what will the student be doing one year after exiting public education (post 21)?” Annual goals and subsequent objectives answer the question “what will the student be doing one year from today that will lead him/her to attaining the post-school outcome?

The litmus test for a true and correct post-school outcome statement is this, it MUST contain language specifying that the outcome will be measured after exiting the domain of public education (e.g. graduation, aging-out.) Like all goals contained in an IEP, post-school outcome goals must be measurable, observable and must describe an action, not a process.

The following statements are examples of acceptable post-school outcome goals in the area of postsecondary education/training:

• After graduating with a diploma, student will attend college to earn a degree in his/her chosen field of interest.
• After exiting public education student will participate in community-based learning activities.

The following is a non-example of a post-school outcome goal:

• After finishing high school student will explore options for further education or training in a field of interest.
• After exiting public education student is interested in learning about options for continuing education located in the community.

The first examples of acceptable post-school outcome goals describe an action that is observable and measurable and can be answered “yes or no” after graduation or aging out. The second non-examples describe a process that is not measurable or observable (expressing interest, exploring, pursuing, etc.)

In most cases, IEP annual goals and objectives are intended to span one-year. Progress must be monitored and reported at the same rate as non-disabled peers; usually this is 3-4 times each year. Annual goals may change annually; when the annual goal does not change, the objectives leading to the attainment of that goal must change annually. For example, if the annual goal is for the student to acquire the skills necessary for attending college, it may remain unchanged throughout high school. In that case, the objectives must change to specify the skills that the student will develop each year. Post-school outcome goals may or may not change on an annual basis. What is critical is that the annual goals in the IEP align with and support the attainment of the post-school outcome goals.