ACHIEVE Family Portal Frequently Asked Questions for AEA & Schools

As an extension of ACHIEVE, the new ACHIEVE Family Portal is an optional online account for IDEA Parents and eligible learners. It is designed to provide round-the-clock access to learner information.

Portal users may opt for the ability to view and sign consent forms electronically, access records, and view real-time progress reports on outcomes and goals. The portal is designed to empower families with information to support their engagement as active members of Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) or Individualized Education Program (IEP) teams.

The following IDEA Parent relationship types can be invited to the family portal:

• Parent (Biological or Adoptive)
• Relative Acting as Parent (IDEA)
• Legal Guardian of Minor
• Legal Guardian of Protected Person
• Court Designee
• Power of Attorney
• Surrogate
• Special Education Learner
  • Prior to reaching age of majority/date of rights transfer: Special Education learners (aged 3-17) may be invited to create an account in the ACHIEVE Family Portal with view-only access by their IDEA Parent. 
  • Upon reaching the age of majority/date of rights transfer (whichever comes first): Learners will automatically be invited to create an account in the ACHIEVE Family Portal if a valid email address is on file.

Note for Foster Parents: Under Iowa law, foster parents are not parents under the IDEA and cannot be invited to the ACHIEVE Family Portal at this time. However, if a foster parent meets another IDEA definition of parent, such as kinship foster care placement (e.g., Relative Active as Parent (IDEA)) or qualifies as a Surrogate, the contact’s relationship type should reflect the IDEA Parent status and would be eligible to create an ACHIEVE Family Portal account.

The ACHIEVE Family Portal has been created to provide an online tool for securely sharing a learner’s educational records with IDEA Parents and eligible learners. Account holders will be able to:

• Access, download and print learner records at your convenience
• See accomplishments and real-time progress towards learner outcomes and goals
• Receive meeting notices and view a calendar of upcoming meetings and due dates
• View and print/sign consent forms
• Complete family engagement surveys 

The ACHIEVE Family Portal is designed to provide a copy of all finalized learner records that are stored in ACHIEVE. This includes Service Logs, Progress Monitoring, Prior Written Notices, Meeting Notices, finalized IFSPs, IEPs, BIPs, etc., as well as draft documents that teams choose to push to the portal. All documents uploaded on the IFSP/IEP side of ACHIEVE will also appear in the Documentation stepper, including legacy records.

Families cannot see draft IFSP/IEP or modification/amendment content on the ACHIEVE Family Portal in real-time. Families will only be able to see draft content if/when the case owner chooses to select the "Push to Portal" button in ACHIEVE. This will share a PDF document of current draft content, which will contain a draft watermark. Each time a draft document is pushed to the portal, the previous version will be replaced with the newer version. Once the document is finalized, the draft will no longer be available.

No, families will not see the contact log. (This information is included on the Family Contact stepper, which is not displayed on the ACHIEVE Family Portal.)

IDEA parents of Early ACCESS Learners who meet the following criteria will be eligible to receive an invitation to create an ACHIEVE Family Portal account once the tool is launched:

• A Consent for Early ACCESS Services (for learners under age 3) has been signed/approved by an IDEA Parent (NOTE: Only one IDEA Parent signature is required on this consent to enable all validated IDEA Parents to receive invitation.) and
• IDEA Parent has provided a valid, unique email address to IFSP Service Coordinator and
• IDEA Parent email address and relationship type have been validated in ACHIEVE

IDEA parents and Special Education Learners who have reached the age of majority who meet the following criteria will be eligible to receive an invitation to create an ACHIEVE Family Portal account once the tool is launched:

• A Consent for Special Education & Related Services (for learners age 3-21) has been signed by an IDEA Parent (NOTE: Only one IDEA Parent signature is required on this consent to enable all validated IDEA Parents to receive invitation.) and
• IDEA Parent has provided a valid, unique email address to IEP Facilitator and
  IDEA Parent email address and relationship type have been validated in ACHIEVE 
  Once these criteria are met, ACHIEVE will automatically send emails on a nightly basis to IDEA Parents and Special Education Learners who have reached the age of majority with information on how to establish an ACHIEVE Family Portal account.
   

An email will automatically be sent to eligible IDEA Parents and Special Education Learners who have reached the age of majority who meet the criteria above. The name of the Learner’s IFSP or IEP case owner will appear in the email inviting them to create an account in the ACHIEVE Family Portal.

The email invitation (subject: You’re invited to join the ACHIEVE Family Portal) will contain a one-time use link for eligible contacts to begin the ACHIEVE Family Portal registration process.

IDEA Parents and Special Education Learners will be required to validate learner information, create an ACHIEVE Family Portal password, and review and accept the Terms and Conditions to create their account. Users requesting interactive access to the ACHIEVE Family Portal will be required to acknowledge their consent to receive email communication from ACHIEVE.

Note: If AEAs/LEAs wish to communicate with family contacts electronically outside of the ACHIEVE Family Portal, an approved Consent for Electronic Communication is still required.
 

If IDEA Parents and/or Learners who have reached the age of majority believe they have met these criteria, but have not received an email invitation to the ACHIEVE Family Portal, they may contact achievesupport@iowa.gov for assistance.

IFSP/IEP case owners can also add, confirm, or update email addresses on behalf of IDEA Parent and age-of-majority Learners on the Family Contact stepper in ACHIEVE. 

Once all criteria are met, invitations to the ACHIEVE Family Portal will be sent to eligible contacts on a nightly basis. An “Invite to Portal” button will also appear for eligible contacts to allow case owners to manually (re)send email invitations right away. Edits made to a contact’s email address in the Family Contact Information table will automatically update that user’s ACHIEVE Family Portal username/email address.

To create an account in the ACHIEVE Family Portal, families are required to enter the last 4 digits of their child’s State ID to connect to Early ACCESS/Special Education records from ACHIEVE. Families will need to be provided this information by their IFSP/IEP team. The following column will be added to the Family Contact Validation report in ACHIEVE to assist in distributing this information: Truncated State ID (Last 4 digits)

A sample email to communicate the state id to parents can be found in the sample communications document in the ACHIEVE Family Portal Toolkit for AEA & Schools.

Yes, the ACHIEVE Family Portal has been created to provide an online tool for securely sharing educational records with parents/legal guardians and eligible learners, similar to health portals.

In order to create an account, each IDEA Parent contact will require a unique email address, which serves as the contact’s username. ACHIEVE Family Portal access and log-in information are not intended to be shared amongst family members to ensure IDEA privacy requirements are upheld.

Creating an account is optional. Account access is not intended to replace peer-to-peer communication with your IFSP/IEP team.

If IDEA Parents and/or Learners who have reached the age of majority believe they have met these criteria, but have not received an email invitation to the ACHIEVE Family Portal, they may contact achievesupport@iowa.gov for assistance.

IFSP/IEP case owners can also add, confirm, or update email addresses on behalf of IDEA Parent and age-of-majority Learners on the Family Contact stepper in ACHIEVE. 

Once all criteria are met, invitations to the ACHIEVE Family Portal will be sent to eligible contacts on a nightly basis. An “Invite to Portal” button will also appear for eligible contacts to allow case owners to manually (re)send email invitations right away. Edits made to a contact’s email address in the Family Contact Information table will automatically update that user’s ACHIEVE Family Portal username/email address.

Each family contact requiring validation should:

• Be included on a unique row within the ACHIEVE Family Contact Information table
• Have a unique email address

If IDEA Parents currently share the same email address, only one person may utilize that account for ACHIEVE Validation purposes and access to the ACHIEVE Family Portal. Use your best judgment or contact the IDEA Parents directly to determine who should be validated with the shared email address. The other IDEA Parent may either be validated without an email address or may provide you with another unique account.

Family contact validation information can be updated at any time. Changes to family contact validation are immediately reflected in ACHIEVE. If IDEA Parents are validated during the day, an ACHIEVE process will determine whether they are now eligible to create an account in the ACHIEVE Family Portal. If so, an "invite to portal" email will automatically be sent to eligible IDEA Parents.

No, each IDEA Parent must have a unique email address to create an account in the ACHIEVE Family Portal. The email address stored in ACHIEVE for each family contact serves as their ACHIEVE Family Portal account username.

Yes, the ACHIEVE Family Portal has been created to provide an online tool for securely sharing educational records with parents/legal guardians and eligible learners, similar to health portals.

Creating an account is optional. Account access is not intended to replace peer-to-peer communication with your IFSP/IEP team.

Parents/legal guardians and learners who have reached the age of majority/date of rights transfer maintain the right to access, inspect and review educational records upon request. IFSP/IEP teams must provide paper copies of learner records and information upon request.

No, ACHIEVE Family Portal account holders will not have access to contact information of other IDEA Parents.

All ACHIEVE Family Portal account holders can complete family surveys and view, download and print unsigned consent forms and IFSP/IEP records. This includes Meeting Notices, Prior Written Notices, progress monitoring data and more. 
Account holders may decide whether they prefer to have interactive or view-only access:

• The Interactive option allows you to view records, sign consent forms electronically, and receive emails when new items are available to review and sign.
• The View-Only option allows you to view records, but you will not be able to sign consent forms electronically. This option also prevents you from receiving emails when new documents are available to review.

Yes, to change access type after an account has been created, users must log into their ACHIEVE Family Portal account. Access settings may be changed by clicking on the user’s name in the upper right hand corner, then going to “Settings” to choose the type of desired access. Users must click “Save” to update access settings.

Yes, families with learners who transition from Early ACCESS to Special Education will maintain access to IFSP records. If the learner exits from both Early ACCESS and Special Education, the family will continue to have access for an additional 90 days from the date of exit.

When a student turns 18 and rights are transferred to the learner, parents who have previously created an account will continue to have access to the portal. Their access will be limited to view-only at that time. If the learner wants the parents to maintain interactive access, they may name the parents as Powers of Attorney. In this way, the learner and parents will continue in decision-making rights and either party will have the ability to sign or revoke consent.

No, each IDEA Parent will have the ability to create one ACHIEVE Family Portal account. If an IDEA Parent has multiple learners with signed consent to receive either Early ACCESS or Special Education services, both learners can be connected to the same ACHIEVE Family Portal user account. IDEA Parents must complete a registration process for each child receiving Early ACCESS or Special Education services. The IDEA Parent will not have access to each child's information until validation occurs and the registration process has been completed for that child.

Access to the ACHIEVE Family Portal will not be granted until after a Consent for Early ACCESS Services or Consent for Special Education & Related Services has been signed/approved. This means that the following consent forms cannot be signed electronically in the ACHIEVE Family Portal. They must either be printed for physical signatures OR signed electronically in ACHIEVE by the family member in collaboration with IFSP Service Coordinators or IEP Facilitators:

• Consent for Early ACCESS Evaluation and Assessment
• Consent for Post-Referral Screening
• Consent for Early ACCESS Services
• Consent for Full and Individual Initial Evaluation
• Consent for Special Education & Related Services

However, once ACHIEVE Family Portal access has been granted, the following consent forms can be signed electronically by families via their account:

Early ACCESS Learners:

• Consent for Medicaid Reimbursement for IFSP Services
• Consent to Release and Exchange Information

Special Education Learners:

• Authorization to Release and Exchange Information
• Consent for Homeschooling
• Consent for Medicaid AEA
• Consent for Medicaid LEA
• Consent for and Prior Written Notice of Reevaluation for Special Education
• Consent to Receive Electronic Communication
• Consent to Release Information to and from Iowa Vocational Rehabilitation Services

Yes, families who have opted for interactive access will receive an email notification when new consents are available for review and signature. All account holders will also be able to view, download, and print consent forms to provide a wet signature.

Progress monitoring data entered into ACHIEVE becomes available in real-time to families using the ACHIEVE Family Portal.

Yes. Early ACCESS families will have access to view a summary of IFSP outcomes and services, Family Guided Routines Based Intervention Plans, progress monitoring status notes, and graphs (if applicable).

Special Education families will be able to view goals data including goal description, target and baseline values, and the date, value, monitoring notes, graph, phase lines and comments for each entry.

ACHIEVE users will be able to tell whether an account has been created. On the Family Contact information table in ACHIEVE, there is now a new column for Portal Status. If an account has been created, this status will display as "Active" for users who requested interactive access and "Active-View Only" for those who requested view-only access when creating their account. 

A canned report will also be available soon to provide more data on ACHIEVE Family Portal account access. ACHIEVE users will not be able to tell what information is being accessed through an ACHIEVE Family Portal account.

No, IDEA Parents cannot revoke consent via the ACHIEVE Family Portal. Families and learners must continue to request revocation of consent in writing by contacting their IFSP/IEP team. Consent revocation must then be manually updated by the IFSP/IEP team.

Yes, IDEA still requires that IDEA Parents are offered a copy of Procedural Safeguards.

Yes, all internet browsers provide a method for translating web page content into preferred languages. Instructions for how to complete this process will be available on the ACHIEVE Family Portal web page and included within the Quick Start Guide.

The Iowa Department of Education will provide Help Desk support to address questions from Early ACCESS and Special Education providers as well as families. Questions from family members may be submitted via email to achievesupport@iowa.gov. IFSP and IEP teams are encouraged to submit a ticket in ACHIEVE.