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So, let's review what we've just spoken about.
We talked about timelines a-and the importance of those timelines.
So, let's keep in mind from the point of the referral process;
When you're writing that letter, when you're requesting that
your child be evaluated.
The school with 10 days to sit down with you and a group of professionals
and have that conversation. Number two.
The evaluation should be taking place 10 days after you have signed
your written consent.
The eligibility determination, from that point, can take up to 60 days.
So, it's an important part of keeping part of those timelines.
After that, eligibility is determined.
The school has 15 school days to get that IEP completed.
And, from that IEP completion, they have 10 days to implement that IEP.
So, that's again, just kind of summing up what we just talked about.
Next, we're going to move into having more of a conversation
about the evaluation process.
The members of that evaluation team
are actually the same, play the same roles as the IEP team.
So, when you look at this slide, although there's a lot of different
people that can be part of this conversation, there needs to be
four people actually sitting at that table.
A parent; a regular ed teacher of the child, no less than one;
not less than one special educator of the child or at least someone
with special education credentials at that table;
and, lastly,someone from the LEA, the local education agency,
meaning the school district, who is the decision-maker.
They have the ability to understand the resources that are available.
It becomes a very important part of making these meetings legal meetings.
Without those players, we cannot make those decisions.
And, what we don't want to see happen, and we see it less and less,
but occasionally it still happens, where an IEP team gets together,
or what we think is a legal IEP meeting, and we spend our hour or two hours
or whatever it is developing that IEP, and we get to the end
and someone says okay well we can't move this forward
until we have the special ed director check it out.
If the special ed director cannot be the LEA at that meeting,
and many of them are not, they have or they should be assigning
someone else to act on their behalf.
And that becomes a really important part. So, what a parent can do
is kind of check in at the beginning of the meeting, make sure that
they've gotten a letter ahead a time. We'll talk about that again a little bit
further in the workshop. That's the meeting notice
and it will say who's coming to those meetings and what their role is.
If you've got names on a piece of paper but you don't know what role
they're playing, please make sure you ask that because you want to know
that when you're going into a meeting, if this is the decision-making group
that we will be able to make those decisions by the end of that meeting.
In addition, there are additional people that can come to that meeting.
Certainly an individual who can interpret evaluation results.
So especially in an evaluation meeting, if we've had a a speech and language
evaluation done, we want to make sure there's a speech and language
professional at that table who can interpret those results.
We don't just want the teacher down the hall coming in
and reading that information. They need to be able to give it in
a way to parents so that parents can understand a lot of this
information that can be very difficult.
Certainly, there can be others with expertise, knowledge or expertise
on the student.
I like to use the example of my son who has
a lot of challenges. But when he was in high school,
the regular teacher that came to his IEP meetings, because he became,
he was a in a self-contained classroom, ended up being this wonderful,
wonderful man who was the wood shop teacher.
And that was the one class at Matthew got to go to and he shined in that class.
And that teacher actually asked to be part of Matt's IEP.
And what happened in that moment, you know, as well were look-
as we have this focus on so many other different areas that Matthew
need be worked on- to work on, we found that Matthew had all
these other great skills that we didn't even know existed.
That information became so important for the rest of the IEP.
What did the environment look like? How was it he is supported in that classroom?
And, it really is important to think outside the box when we are bringing
people to those IEP meanings.
And lastly, in Rhode Island, a child starts to reach that transition age at age 14.
Now federal law, it's age 16. This is one of those areas, you know,
we're very proud to say that Rhode Island went over and above
on the federal regulations, meaning that we want to see
students participating in these meetings, as best they can,
beginning no later than age 14.
I've been saying recently in a lot of these workshops that ideally when
we start to look at our young teens, that eventually they will leave school.
There will be no more IEP's.
If there was one goal for every student that has an IEP in school,
one of those goals would be that they are facilitating
or presenting their own IEP meeting before they leave high school.
It would be a great goal and by starting at age 14 and Rhode Island
it gives them a lot more time to start practicing.
So, the role of the evaluation team looks a little bit different than the
role of the IP team.
Their goal is to take those evaluations, sit down, review them, have the-
first of all, have a conversation about what evaluation.
They determine what type... the eligibility piece.
They're the one's doing the writing up the reports afterwards
and sharing that information with the IEP team.
What's more important to understand, one of the big differences between
the evaluation team and the IEP team is that the evaluation team
does not determine services, supports, and placement.
And, here's why that is so important.
I know a lot of times people don't always see or think that that's
a big deal, but here's what the example would be in that situation.
Going back many years, when a lot of times evaluation teams
were sitting down with families, having conversations about
a child's learning disability, autism, their medical needs,
and, in that process with that data immediately saying, okay,
well, you know what, Johnny's got the learning disability so
we're going to put him in Mrs. Jones' classroom in such-and-such school.
Or, Matthew has autism and we're going to put him in that autism classroom
classroom down the hall. And, what happens is, we start to
lose site of the individual part of an individual education plan.
So those IEP's start looking more like they're being written for
that placement, that program, the supports that are available.
You know one of the things you say about kids with autism specific is
if you know one kid with autism you only know about one kid with autism.
The needs that my child or your child need requiring a school
are going to be vastly different.
There's no one that can say that, you know, this child may need speech
five days a week, this child may need speech twice a week.
But we won't know that until we sit down and really plan that out,
write those goals, objectives, and really map out that process.
So again, that becomes a really big difference when you're sitting there
as an eval team before you're moving into that IEP team process.
So, in the process of determining eligibility, what happens is that
we-the school needs to fit that student into one of these categories
that you see here on the slide.
It's pretty much a ticket to service.
There are many many diagnosis; many, many disabilities out there.
But these are the categories that they would need to fit into.
What we're gonna be looking at or what the team is going to be looking at:
Does this disability adversely affect their educational performance?
Not every person, not every child, not every student
with ADHD requires special education.
There are even some students out there, you know, with different...
even on the autism spectrum, that may not need special education.
They may need other levels of support but they don't need specialized instruction.
So, that's what we're looking at. Simply because a child has a label
doesn't necessarily mean that it adversely affects their
educational performance.
So, that's what we're really measuring. And, in that process of measuring,
we are not only just looking at academic performance;
we're looking at functional performance. So, in your head, I want you to think
when you hear the word educational performance you're thinking
academic and functional.
At all times, we need to be measuring and looking at that.
So, here's the evaluation procedures.
They cannot discriminate on the basis of race or culture.
We need to be measuring what that child knows and can do
academically and functionally.
And, they need to be provided in the child's native language.
We're finding some great best practices that are going on in
Rhode Island where some districts that aren't quite sure are actually
doing those evaluations in multiple languages just to make sure.
We want to make sure that this if this child is a child with a disability
we want to make sure we're providing the right support.
But, if this is a child that needs English language services,
those kind of supports, then that's the direction.
What we want to make sure is we're not doing the opposite.
But, in the past, that has happened
So, it becomes a really important piece of this process.
Also, that schools are using multiple ways of getting that information.
You know, that we're using information, assessment tools, strategies,
that are really going to measure. what works for that child.
And what works for one child, may not work for another child.
So, it really becomes important part of this process.
When we talk about reevaluation, the process is the same,
the timelines are the same.
So, the child is re-evaluated after three years or even after a year.
The process, those timelines are exactly the same.
Schools are not to be conducting that same evaluation more than
one time a year.
But, they do need to be looking at this, minimally, at least every three years.
We really encourage parents to be part, when that three-year time line comes
around, to have an open, honest conversation.
Not every student needs to be evaluated again. Some do.
The question on the table is always
Is the data that we're currently using to create this IEP;
Does this reflect what's happening with my child right now?
And if it's not, then we need to go back to that table and look at what type of
evaluative data that we still do need.
Ideally, every year, we write an IEP.
We should be asking that question right up front. Have we got everything we need?
Is this the stuff that we've been gathering over the year?
Does this help us to write this IEP? Or, do we need more?
So again, that reevaluation process isn't limited.
So, as I was just saying, one of the most important questions that we want
parents to ask all the time, we want professionals to be sitting back
and kind of looking at, "Do we have what we need before we move this forward?"
Not to just take information and kind of copy it and paste it and put it in
for the next year, but making sure that that data is accurate.
When we have students that... and we get... a lot of the calls we get from parents
may be from families where kids are just failing over and over again.
What does that failure look like?
Well, some a bit maybe academic which kind of glares in your face.
You know, that student is progressively not achieving academically.
But we also get the calls from the families, though, you know,
maybe academics are fine, but functionally that student
is having difficulty. They're having difficulties with
interpersonal, working with other students, social/emotional issues.
That becomes part of the... looking at... Is that child being successful?
We know, because we get these calls and we hear the data out there,
that we have a high number of highly functioning students,
specifically on the spectrum, the autism spectrum,
who are able to pass tests, who are able to knock out
those NECAP scores and get that information and when they
exit high school they don't have the functional skills they need
to be able to go out and apply for a job, to enter a college.
So, we have to be very mindful, as parents, and what kind of things
are we making sure that are taking place, especially in that transition process,
out of high school.
So, now we've gathered all this information.
So the evaluation team and the family together.
Here's what we're looking for in that data.
We're looking for the specific strengths of that student.
The specific areas of need. Where is that student right now?
Where, what's their present level of performance?
We are looking at what effect the disability is having on the functioning
in the general ed curriculum. That's what we're looking at
trying to measure.
And then, what kind of modifications do we need to put in place in that
general ed setting so that that student can have a level of success.
Again, being mindful of those functional skills.
We need to make sure that they, at least, when I say address,
there at least looked at. They may not have needs in
those areas but making sure that we're gathering what are
the strengths for that student in those areas.
One of little tips that we say to families, if you're able to,
and you should be able to get a copy of that evaluation prior
to the meeting where we're sitting down and talking about eligibility.
Take two highlighters and go through the document.
And sometimes this is very difficult, but take one of those highlighters
and go through and look for the words that might look like challenges,
things that might say below average, below grade level, struggles with.
Highlight those words.
And then take the another,a different color, and go in and look for those
things that look like strength, those positive, above-average, asset,
strong skills in this particular area and highlight those.
and, if you want, write yourself a list and put those words on a list.
So that when you go into a meeting, now you're really looking at,
you want to be listening for... What are we talking about?
What are we focusing on in this IEP? And, what goals are we making sure
that we're actually addressing those challenges in that IEP.
So, here's just a review,at this point, of that evaluation process.
Minimally, as I said earlier, four members of that evaluation team.
There can certainly be more, but remember what those roles were.
That an evaluation requires written parental consent.
Schools cannot be evaluating students, formally evaluating,
without consent from parents.
The evaluation is to determine whether a child is eligible.
Remember, we said, just because a child has a disability or diagnosis
doesn't automatically mean that they require specialized instruction.
And that the information really is a true reflection of
that child's present level of performance.
Because that's the data that we need to use to write that IEP.
The next piece that we're going to be working on is the IEP Process