Polaris Parent Resources Quick Start

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Polaris for parents, caregivers, and students

Polaris is an IEP planning and progress monitoring tool that helps educators create personalized, data-driven IEPs and monitor student progress over time. It works alongside your district's official IEP management system to support high-quality planning, collaboration, and ongoing progress monitoring.

How Polaris supports parents and caregivers

Polaris helps parents and caregivers become active members of the IEP team by making it easier to contribute, stay informed, and understand student progress.

How Polaris supports students

Polaris helps ensure every student's IEP is personalized to their individual strengths, needs, and goals.

Students benefit from:

A whole-child approach: IEPs consider academic, functional, social, emotional, and behavioral needs to provide well-rounded support
Personalized SMART goals: Assessment data and daily performance help educators develop realistic, measurable goals tailored to each student
Early intervention: Progress is monitored continuously, allowing educators to quickly identify when additional support or new instructional strategies may be needed
Appropriate classroom supports: Polaris recommends accommodations and modifications to help remove barriers to learning and support student success

Parents and caregivers can benefit from:

Greater collaboration: Educators can send secure parent surveys, allowing families to share their child's strengths, needs, interests and future goals. Polaris automatically summarizes feedback into a draft IEP.
Easy progress reports: Visual reports and graphs help families clearly see how their child is progressing toward their goals using meaningful, data-driven information.
Strong privacy protection: Polaris uses an enterprise-grade, three-stage privacy protection process. Student, family, and educator information is automatically removed before AI processing, ensuring personal information remains secure.

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Providing input during IEP development

Parent and caregiver input plays an important role in developing a high-quality, student-centered IEP. Polaris includes a digital or downloadable parent survey that makes it easy for families to share valuable information before the IEP is drafted.

The survey gathers information about:

The student's strengths and interests
Parent or caregiver concerns and priorities
Long-term hopes, goals, and aspirations for the student

Why it matters

The parent survey helps:

Ensure every family's voice is heard by capturing valuable information that educators may not see in the classroom
Inform the IEP draft by automatically generating an AI summary of responses, which is added to the Present Levels of Performance section for the IEP team to review
Support a whole-child approach by ensuring the student's needs, strengths, and future goals are considered throughout the planning process

How families complete the survey

Educators can send the parent survey directly to the parent or caregiver through a direct, secure link or through an email attachment.

The survey is designed to be easy to complete:

No Everway account or login is required
Families simply open the secure link and complete the survey online
The survey supports both English and Spanish

Watch this step-by-step video tutorial on completing a parent survey

Review the IEP draft and collaborate with the IEP team

Reviewing the IEP draft before the meeting gives families time to understand the proposed plan, identify questions, and prepare meaningful feedback. This helps create a more collaborative discussion during the meeting.

Review the draft

Before the meeting, encourage families to:

Read the full IEP draft
Compare the Present Levels of Performance with what they see at home
Review proposed goals to ensure they are meaningful, measurable, and reflect the student's needs and future priorities
Check that accommodations, modifications, and related services accurately support the student's learning
Make a note of any questions or concerns to discuss with the team

Parents and caregivers can strengthen the discussion by sharing:

Observations about learning, communication, behavior, and independence at home or in the community
Specific examples that provide additional context
Information that is missing, outdated, or inaccurate
Priorities that are important for the student's future success
Relevant therapy updates, evaluations, or medical information where appropriate

Work collaboratively

The IEP meeting is a collaborative discussion, not simply a review of a completed document.

Families are encouraged to:

Ask questions whenever recommendations or terminology are unclear
Discuss proposed goals, supports, and services openly with the team
Keep discussions focused on the student's strengths, needs, and educational progress
Work together to resolve different perspectives using data and shared observations
Take notes and confirm any agreed revisions before the IEP is finalized
Continue communicating with educators and service providers after the meeting to support ongoing progress

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Reviewing IEP goal progress

Progress Reports help parents and caregivers understand how their child is progressing towards their IEP goals. While the timing of these reports is determined by state and district requirements, they are commonly shared alongside quarterly progress reports or report cards.

Because Polaris continuously tracks student data, educators can generate, download, and share progress reports with families at any time.

What families can expect

Progress reports help parents and caregivers:

Understand how their child is progressing towards their IEP goals
See how daily performance and assessment data are being used to monitor growth
Understand whether current interventions and supports are helping the student succeed
Work collaboratively with the IEP team if changes or additional supports are needed