Special Education Timelines

How Long Does the School Have to Evaluate my Child?

According to Public Law 94-142, Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA), there are very specific timelines that need to be followed from the referral stage to getting a child appropriate services and support. 

[Graphic Source: Federation For Children with Special Needs]

Referral:

Anyone can make a referral for a child to be evaluated for special education or related services. Anyone, means that this referral can come from a teacher or a parent. Best practice would be that the teacher and the parent have been talking and sharing their concerns for a while. This isn’t a shock or a surprise to either party.

The request needs to be in writing. This will be a letter stating your child’s age, grade, school and your concerns about their development and academic progress. (Please feel free to contact Who’s Learning Now.com if you need help in writing this letter.)

Helpful Hints:

• ·         Talk and discuss your concerns with you classroom teacher.
• ·         Talk and discuss your concerns with the special education director or school coordinator. Share your concerns and/or reasons why you are referring your child.
• ·         Talk and discuss your concerns with specialists: pediatricians, speech/language pathologists, therapists; then add additional evaluations, if needed

Consent:

Once the referral has been made in writing, the school has 5 school days to send a Consent to Evaluate request home for the parents to sign. This form should include all the evaluations or tests that need to be completed. It should be a comprehensive list of tests and surveys that will look specifically at the area of concern AND the whole child. 

Helpful Hints:

·       School days, means days that the school is open and in session. This does not include weekends, holidays and summer vacation.

·         Please sign and return this form as soon as possible. The testing and evaluations will not start until you sign and return this form.

·         In addition to signing the consent form, talk and discuss your child’s current program with the contact person on the consent form. Full disclosure IS A GOOD THING. You are not trying to hide anything or “surprise” with an outside report. All the information collected, as many professionals LOOKING at your child, helps everyone SEE your child as a whole child, with all of his strengths and weaknesses.

o   For example: Share with them, that your child only attends preschool 3 days a week, so they do not plan on doing a classroom observation on Tuesday, a day your child is not at school.

o   Tell them that you already have an appointment for your child to see the developmental pediatrician on a certain date. AND that you will get them the report when it’s available to you.

Evaluation:

The school has 30 school days from the date you signed the consent to complete all the evaluations. These evaluations, assessments, need to be completed by a credentialed trained specialist.

Evaluations should include:

·         Assessments should include looking at the child’s levels in academics, development and functioning.

·         Checklists or interviewing the parents. – You know the child best. How is he behaving at home?

·         Current local, state and classroom-based elevations. What were his scores on the MCAS/PARC, his current DRA reading level, what was his score on his math test from last week?

·         Observations and checklists completed by his current teachers and related service provider.

·         Classroom observations. How is he performing, functioning and behaving in his classroom with his peers and using the grade level curriculum?

Next Steps:

Within a total of 45 school days from the date of consent the following events must happen:

• ·         The Team determines Eligibility. See my last post on “Who is on the IEP Team”. The data determines if the child qualifies for special education and related services.
• ·         IF found eligible, the initial IEP is developed.
• ·         IEP placement, services and programs are determined.
• ·         The IEP draft has been created and given to the parents.

The parent has 30 calendar days to accept, reject parts or reject all of the proposed IEP.

Helpful Hints:

• ·         The parent is part of the team that is developing the IEP. You have final say on the program that is created. This is one of many reasons why it is so helpful to have a collaborative, positive relationship between all members of the team.
• ·         Special education services DO NOT start until the parents sign and agree to the initial IEP. So my advice, agree to parts of the IEP, to get services started. Then put in writing changes that you want to make on the IEP. 

As an educational consultant, I can support you throughout the timeline process:

·         Writing the referral letter with you.

·         Determining which assessments need to be added to the evaluation lists.

·         Completing Classroom Observations to give an objective insight to the child’s school day.

·         Looking at the data to help create meaningful IEP programs.

·         Attending Eligibility and IEP Meetings with you to help the collaborative process.

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog and Facebook post. I would love to hear from you. Please feel to leave a comment or ask questions. Also, please feel free to “like” and share my Facebook page, Who’s Learning Now, LLC.

Always learning,

Debbie