Transcript for:
Special Education Process Summary

hi students this is the big PowerPoint I've been telling you about this is the majority of the content for this class and most of what you need to know in regards to the special education process for working in the public schools um some words of caution I guess or some caveats I need to tell you about uh first and foremost most you do what is the protocol for your school system of course unless it's unethical or illegal or something like that but you do uh what your school's protocol your system's protocol is and I'm going to give you some examples of that as we go along the other thing that I need to tell you is that these forms change a lot um they can change yearly they especially change after Ida idea gets updated by Congress and then sometimes they just change based on need or the whim of someone at the state department another thing I need to tell you as is that the process can the forms certainly vary from state to state and the process can vary a little bit uh there's a little wiggle room in there from state to state but you have to remember whether you're in Oregon or Alabama or California a lot of this uh it has to be uh at least I would say somewhat stable because all of the states were being uh everything we do is based on a federal law and so what we do in Alabama is going to be the majority similar to what they do in Texas or Kansas so make sure you remember those little caveats as we go along because you know you may not work in Alabama's Public Schools you may go work in Alaska they're always needing slps um so I know a student who just moved up there it's beautiful so just remember those things things can be a little bit fluid and things can change and when in doubt you find uh a mentor in the public schools an SLP who's been there for a while and can help you maneuver uh something that I found that was frustrating when I worked in the public schools Ida had been Rev IED by Congress at the federal level and we were expected in Alabama schools as I'm sure they were in other states to enact those changes but we did not have an interpretation of what the changes were so I know you're thinking Dr Reed that does not make sense and you would be correct it did not and does not make sense how you're supposed to enact something that you don't know what you are supposed to be enacting or putting into action so but is the world of Congress and working in the public schools and what happens when uh you have people who are legislating who have never taught but then that's a whole other soapbox for Dr Reed to be on so let's get started so the first thing we need to talk about is uh what are the categories of disabilities and the L revision of Ida uh when I was in the public schools we had 11 categories and then when I started working in the public schools they had just added two more so the two newest ones are um autism and TBI and of course those have been around now for quite some time for your purposes so you have this document or you should have this document in Blackboard if you don't I am sure you will let me know um but let's see I think autism's pretty self-explanatory deaf blind those children have deafness and blindness developmental delay we can use that uh it's kind of a broad term it's non-specific uh we could use it up until six years when I was in the public schools and now currently it can be used up until 9 years emotional disability we used to call that emotionally conflicted and we really try not to label a child as emotionally disabled unless we just absolutely have to for example I had a child who oh bless his heart it could make me cry uh he and his four sisters were all being molested by their father and I cannot even begin to tell you the horrible things he was doing to them uh things that as a 20-some I had never even heard of um this child I had tested him and I had actually already uh I tested him and I did some therapy and I retested and his retest scores looked worse or were worse than when I tested him initially and I remember going to Dr Katie and saying Dr Katie what what am I doing wrong I I thought gosh I must be the world's worst speech language pathologist I I am treating this child and he's getting worse as a result of my treatment I mean I was just flabbergasted so I went to Dr Katie and you know within seconds she said you know hope I mean she knew she knew I was a good student you know a good student clinician of course this had me doubting myself she said hope that child is emotionally what we call then emotionally disturbed and you know what within about two weeks he was diagnosed uh by our school psychologist and psychometrist as emotionally disturbed now we call or emotionally conflicted emotionally disturbed now we say emotional disability we decided not to label him that he already had a speech language Disorder so we kept the label of the um speecher language impairment SLI down there and you know he could get services that way it didn't matter what services he received we did not feel that at uh five six seven years old we needed to put an emotional disturbance label on him so that is the route we went sad story um hearing impairment uh which really should be heart of hearing that would be the more updated term but they just haven't updated it yet we used to say mentally now we say intellectual disability so there's a cognitive issue there an Adaptive learning issues multiple disabilities over half of my children were multi-disabled so I'll give you an example I had one child who was legally blind he was diagnosed with autism and he had cereal PCY so that would be an example of a child with multiple disabilities they are typically your most severe profound cases and they may be in self-contained classrooms so over half of my children like I said were MD unit kids Orthopedic impairment I think you know anything in the orthopedic system um you know that could if they don't have an intellectual disability or they're not multi-disabled then that could be some of your cereal policy kids or your kids maybe with spin uh spinabifida other health impairment um asthma your attention deficit disorders but all of these must that's this is the key must adversely affect the child's educational performance so there's a little bit you're going to see here in a moment a little bit of an overlap some of a gray area with this and what we're going to talk about being the 504 plan so these are children here who um their academic performance is adversely impacted and they require an IEP okay so that's going to differ here in a moment with what you hear about 504 plans specific learning disability that is just learning disability how those children uh perform is not up to par with their IQ or how they should be performing there's a discrepancy there and then of course our domain speecher language impairment we call it SLI not to be confused with specific language impairment which is can be a part of speech or language impairment so don't want to get those two abbreviations confused with one another traumatic brain injury or TBI I think that's self-explanatory again that's one of the newer labels and then uh children who are just visually impaired without the deafness component okay so here uh is the information about a 504 plan that I promised it's called a 504 plan because it originates out of Section 504 of The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and that is a civil rights law a 504 plan is implemented when a student has a condition that is mental or physical that limits one or more of his life activities also a record of the impairment must exist so it has to be documented it can't just be you know the parent says it can't be a parent report and the child is regarded as having that impairment so it's documented the child has it basically I've never understood why they include those last two parts but because one uh is inherent in the other to me uh you can have a 504 plan at the University uh Miss sonoa Williams uh but you would have to have documentation of that and then accommodations could be made for you here are some examples and I know you're thinking oh these overlap with what we saw in the last slide Dr Reed I'm going to explain um the examples are listed there I had a child with epilepsy once of course all the ADD ADHD kids I also had a child with diabetes U so those are the examples that I've encountered well here's the difference with an with uh the disability categories and needing an IEP and just a 504 plan a 504 plan is designed to provide supports it's not a part of idea or special education law because these children do not necessitate unlike the 13 categories on the previous slide these children here in the 504 plan area they do not uh need or require individualized instruction so that's one aspect of it the school systems I'm going to skip down to that that bottom uh bullet the school systems determine what a 504 plan looks like uh I'm sure the state on their the state department on their website probably has a template but it's not a it's not in across the board all uh school systems in the state of Alabama must use this form kind of thing kind of like our uh oral priff forms the state has one but your school system can have its own or you could even you use your own I suppose uh I was allowed to in my school system so the central idea is to offer access to these students who have these documented you know and we consider them disabilities and they access the same education as their peers who don't have ad ADHD for example via accommodations so the child may receive extended testing time or maybe tested is tested in a quiet environment those are the things that the University would allow for you if you had a 504 plan so I hope that helps illuminate the difference does the child need individualized specially designed instruction or does the child just need accommodations not necessarily individualized in in you know in a room with the resource room teacher now here is where a little bit of another gray area exists in some cases a 504 plan could technically uh include speech therapy in my uh experience all of my kids who received speech therapy in the public schools were on an IEP so uh I was they were being uh pulled out of their classroom in some way or uh there was individualized instruction or small group instruction and it was more indepth than just needing access to the curriculum so to speak I hope that's clear um it's a little fuzzy because there is a little bit of an overlap there especially with the categories okay the timeline is very important and you need to know that this is one of the things that can vary there's a little like I call it wiggle room from state to state but generally not a whole lot you're it's probably going to be very similar if not the same the interpretation of the timeline is what can vary so okay so here we go this is very important you need to know this very very very important concept because if you don't understand the timeline you're out of compliance and you can get in trouble and your school system can get in trouble when I was in the public schools it was a 90-day timeline now it's 120 okay step one you have from so you we're going to talk about the steps but step one is from the time uh let's say receive a referral for a child for for speech therapy in the public schools so you you meet you have the referral meeting you and the parents teachers uh principal agree that uh we're going to go ahead and test this child so from the time that you receive the parents signed consent to evaluate the child okay the time that's where the timeline starts you have 60 days to and there's the name of the form there you have 60 days to evaluate the child not bad for Speech Pathology because you know I can evaluate an artictic kid doing oral Peri hearing vision screening Arizona you know 23 minutes I think is you know generally my my average I can zip through it pretty well um that's not that's not hard but what if you have a child who's being referred for intellectual disabilities vision and hearing and now we've got to try U uh inter different interventions in the classroom and uh we have to have IQ testing it can be much more complicated we're lucky in regards to what we do when I was in the public schools the 90day timeline started with the date I received the referral so we're we're way beyond that now so 60 days from the time the parents in r in consent for you to test the child then you have 30 more days from the time you complete the evaluation now I'm going to explain that in a moment from the time you complete the evaluation to determine eligibility and you see the form there now what happens if okay you've taken you've evaluated the child you had 60 days from the time let's say it doesn't take you um I'm going to give you a little caveat here what if it doesn't take you 60 days to evaluate the child well you don't just get the the full 60 days you get you get now you've got 30 days let's say it only took you 50 days okay now the timeline starts um you know when you determine l ibility so you've got 30 days to from the time that you complete your testing to determine eligibility and that's going to require another meeting with the parents and teachers and and principle and yourself okay now you have another 30 days from the date you determine eligibility to develop the IEP and if you add 60 + 30 plus 30 you get 120 days typically steps two and three are combined so that way you only usually just need to have two meetings with the parents you meet and you discuss the referral we're going to test the child that's one meeting and and the parents have signed for you to test the child then you have a second meeting to determine eligibility If the child is eligible you can say look I have a draft of the I and you can go ahead and do that so you don't have to have three meetings you can have meeting one for for step one there and then you can combine Parts two and three you can do eligibility and write up the IEP in the same meeting and I like to do it that way because it helped parents not to have to take off work and um I worked with a lot of parents who were paid by the hour and so if they missed work they were missing you know they weren't salar they were missing pay so um so 120 days total make sure you know um you know step one you've got 60 days to um complete your evaluation from the time that the parents sign and consent for that you've got 30 more days to determine eligibility 30 more if you need them to write the IEP but if you don't take the full amount for each one you don't just say oh I'm going to Coast you know if it doesn't take you 60 days to do the evaluation you don't just say say oh it only took me 30 I'm going to Coast 30 more no no no now you go on to the next step and now we have to um determine eligibility I hope that makes sense it's a little hard to do in a recording but hopefully I've topped it out nicely enough for you there this is a big statement you need to know this it's going to be on your exam in some form or fashion this is how children qualify for services in the public schools this is the educational model not the medical model it's not uh how we qualify children in our clinic or how children would qualify for services in private practice or how I uh determine services for kids you know for tongue thrust therapy that's all very different in the public schools it comes down to two things and it could just be one thing because it's there's an Andor there the disability must adversely so it has to impact the students performance in the general education environment academically and or socially okay it can be academically and socially it can just be academically it can just be socially for example a child who has a fluency disorder or stutters it could just be social academically may be at the top of his class okay so make sure you know that with every fiber of your being all right and I have posted a copy of this on blackboard for you if I have not again I'm sure you will let me know who may make a referral well anyone who has a vested interest in that student or that child it can it's usually a teacher or a parent uh it could be you if you are seeing something in a child You observe something but it could be the child's neighbor it could be you know the minister uh someone in the clergy but um we call that child find and all states have to make efforts to find or locate children who are suspected of having a disability sometimes you'll see when we had head starts you they're not as common now uh you would see a sign outside of Head Start a a white riding on a green sign um a road sign that would say you know someone child with a disability between the ages of 3 to 21 um please call this number that is child find that's our efforts to locate children with disabilities okay we talked about the disability categories you're not going to have to list all of those you don't need to know all 13 but it would be good if you could list a few you know maybe three five I don't know how many I usually do it's no more than five we talked about the timeline and how you can complete eligibility and the IEP at the same meeting here are the members of the team this is as a minimum you can have as many people on the team as you want but as a minimum you must have a parent or parents or the legal guardian or Guardians they must be invited they don't have to attend but they have to be invited um you can hold the meeting if they decline you'll see on the form where we talk about that um if they decline in writing you they'll tell tell you you can go ahead with a meeting if you haven't heard from them two after two failed attempts to invite them in writing then you may go ahead and hold the meeting but generally what happens is the parent will I send the notice home and the parent will say I can't meet at that time please contact me with another time and so you know that doesn't count as a failed attempt that's just a communication um but generally the parents are there that's my experience also a general education teacher must be there now preferably what if it's a child who's in the MD unit multi- disability unit and is 13 years old but is functioning on the level of a 5-year-old well you want a general education teacher who you know I would like a a teacher not one who's you know for a 13-year-old who's functioning on a four or fiveyear old level I don't want one I don't want kindergarten teacher preferably I want a junior high teacher because she knows um what the curriculum is even though the child might not be able to do that but socially she also knows um what's expected for that child's age now what if you say okay Dr read I can't find someone who teaches 13 year olds well you could get like fifth grade teacher who teaches 11 year olds or a sixth grade teacher you know just similar um and that's usually not a challenge so you have to have the the parents if they want to be there you have to have a general education teacher I'm going to ask you who you have to have as a minimum you're going to have to know this part also you must have a special ed teacher now what if it's a child who is speech only speech voice fluency language only then you are not just the speech pathologist but you are also the special ed teacher and you would sign twice on the IEP form which you'll see in momentarily um so you in those cases serve as special ed teacher as well but if you have a child who has a learning disability then you're going to have a special ed teacher there and you're going to sign as the SLP the fourth individual you must have is what we call the Lea representative local Education Agency representative that's someone who represents the school district and usually it is someone who has an administrative degree a principal assistant principal sometimes it can be the lead SLP in a very large school system um so it but it is someone again who usually has some administrative degree or capacity and has the authority to commit resources on behalf of that school district and resources are human resources people and or money and people cost money to hire people so uh you have to have those indiv idual as a minimum there two meetings like I talked about on the timeline slide must be held a referral meeting do we need to test this child uh does the referral warrant testing most of the time yes I've had a few where no it did not because the parents referred I had to address it and the child's errors were developmentally appropriate then um the other meeting you can combine remember the eligibility and the IEP meeting uh you can do those at the same time if you don't do an IEP meeting at the same time you're looking at three meetings okay but whatever you do whatever you plan to do if you even think you're going to do it you have to put that on the meeting notice and you'll see that when we talk about the forms momentarily you can't do the IEP if you haven't checked we're going to do the IE on the meeting invitation okay again that will make more sense in a moment you have to make at least two written attempts to invite parents to the meetings if they uh for whatever reason don't receive those two attempts or they don't respond you may go ahead and meet but most of the time they do do REM do remember though that especially if you don't get the first attempt back I make copies of everything too by the way to prove that I sent it um if I don't get the first one back it's usually um it was usually because it got lost in the back backpack or you know at the bottom of the backpack or it got lost on the bus so um most of the time parents want to be there sometimes rarely they'll say hey go ahead and meet without me but most of the time they do uh wish to be there okay so now let's talk about the special education rights and I call these parents rights so these must be provided to the parents or legal Guardians at least as a minimum uh once per year and usually that is done uh at the IEP meeting because that has to be Rewritten and signed off on annually in my school system we were to at least offer a copy at each meeting that's the way that my special AED supervisor liked us to do things and we had to provide a copy of when we first met with the parents now the parents don't have to take the copy I mean you can offer it and they don't have to take it it's a free country you can't you know you can't shove it in their hands kind of thing um and some parents whose children have been in this special education program for many years uh I even had one joke with me she she would decline a copy each time of course I legally had to offer it and uh she told me once she said I have enough of these to wallpaper a bedroom with them so parents don't have to take them but you do need to offer them let's go through the uh sections of parents rights now these sections are a little bit fluid uh they've changed the headers is what I have listed here for you the heading for each section in uh the document the document seems to get longer it never gets shorter um kills a lot of trees this document does every year um so you don't I mean you can it's it's you're certainly within your rights to write these down but if you will notice I've basically just taken the headers from the document so and I'm just going to go through and explain very briefly what each one means just and when I would meet with parents I would just I wouldn't go through every single header but I kind of had my little Spiel developed um where I would basically say look I'm not going to do anything without your written consent uh if you disagree with my findings with my evaluation my testing you have a right to uh seek another opinion you know I would make sure I told them that and I would also um let's see let them know that uh they were entitled to-do process or you know if they had any disagreement or if there were any uh disagreements into in something in regards to something that was in their child's records then they had a right to request that be corrected in writing so I kind of hit those high points and you know parents uh I never really had them question that I always felt that those four sentences give or take were a pretty good summary of everything parents and now that I'm a parent I was not when I worked in the public schools I want to know you're not going to do anything with my child without my written permission and that if I disagree with something you've done or you're doing that I have a way to uh to grieve that in and I'm not talk about sorrow grief I'm talking about grief appropriately meaning I have a right to take that through the proper channels because that's what a grievance is okay so let's talk about these sections okay when I'm doing this recording this day and time these are the headers or the sections within the special education or parents rights know that it can change a little bit for example the discipline section seems to get longer and longer each time uh the destruction of information that's in there as of the time I'm doing this recording is new although we've always been doing that properly so the headers can be a little bit different don't don't get a Twist over that uh for test purposes I generally do some what I think of and I know you're thinking Dr re is not common sense but I think of them as common sense kinds of things uh everything is you know in writing um I might ask you to list a couple of these sections that are in there but uh I can't remember any student ever having trouble with with the rights so okay let's go through and talk about what each of these sections means very briefly so again the first two sections there the first two um bullets uh out are for I'm not going to do anything with anyone's child without their permission in writing transfer of Rights once in the AL in the state of Alabama once the child is the age of Mador majority and that's age 19 in Alabama it's different from state to state state so if you go to Oregon you go to Tennesse it may be different um then that child if if the child is U mentally capable then he or she has a right to be involved in his the decisionmaking process that affects him or her if the parents disagree with your findings your testing results they can request an outside or a independent educational evaluation and that is done at the school systems expense okay I used to be uh I used to do this for school systems I used to um sometimes uh they would hire me that they usually have a list of names usually about three uh independent you have to be outside the school system you can't be employed so this was after I left the school system uh sometimes they would call a parent would have chosen my name from the list and I would go to most often times go to the child's School the school system would pay uh my travel my mileage my gasoline expense um and my time in testing the child I would also spend time doing an evaluation the I'm sorry a diagnostic report after I did the evaluation and then I was always offered lunch or a meal especially if I was uh traveling to and from but I never took them up on that part so um and you want to and they you generally uh let them know what your rate is and you want to make it fair you're not out to um you know to do to be unethical and to charge an exorbitant amount so okay uh but they do have that right and the school system has to pay for it there um are differences between State complaint and do process procedures again uh and you see it's very specific to time there um things are in writing uh basically there can be uh mediation there can be uh with a hearing officer but things can also go to civil action I am doing the bullets here from State complaint State mediation due process and civil action I'm hitting all of those with this discussion here due process is you have a complaint you have a right to uh move that complaint through the channels the proper channels and that does not mean if you are a parent oh I'm I'm angry and I'm going to call the superintendent I'm going to call the State Department of Education no you talk to that teacher first uh maybe the principal or spe and then the special ed supervisor you have to go through the proper channels you can't just jump rank because you're angry and go go for the kill so to speak and that's what people do they get angry and they think hey I'm I'm going to the Top Dog well it doesn't work that way you've got to move you've got to give the people you are uh in disag with whom you're in disagreement a chance to work things out with you that's the fair adult thing to do but usually things that you have hearing officers who rotate around the state and they do these hearings and they try to do mediation and if that does not work then it can go into the the district and federal court system it can there are cases that have gone all the way to the Supreme Court interesting little tidbit here most of the cases that make it to the Supreme Court in special education or on the topic of special ed come out of California a lot of your legislative change when it comes to special ed law is propelled by the state of California so just interesting to know let's see child status during proceedings generally the child's placement stays the same the arrangements stay the same until uh something is decided through the hearing or uh civil action process awarding of of of attorney's fees uh if the parent prevails then the school system also pays the parents' legal fees and I got to tell you this is this can be really dangerous right here for a school system cuz I don't know if you've looked at attorney's fees recently but I mean we're talking let's see I just did worked with one for um in Oro facial mology and his fee his fee was what $350 an hour but it's not unusual for an attorney to charge 500 or more an hour it really depends on the city uh and the state you're in so uh so that can add up very quickly and let me tell you what I've learned about I've never been uh directly involved in a specialed uh legal matter I did have one child uh she was in our preschool for special needs the uh parent was bringing uh legal action over occupational therapy well just because I happened to work in the prechool setting for special needs uh and I was the speech therapist they subpoena my records as well so but nothing came of the speech issue nothing I was you know never asked anything else they reviewed my report you know um no issue there but what attorneys do is they they want everything they're not if if the parent has a problem with occupational therapy the attorney is not just going to say okay well let's just sue for based on Occupational Therapy Services not being provided no he or she that attorney is going to look at everything and anything any thread he or she can pull that's going to work in favor of the client the parent they're going to pull that thread well guess what came out of Occupational Therapy that issue oh Transportation H Transportation wasn't provided to and from the preschool so H we're going to we're going to seek money or restitution for that as well they go for the jugular you all attorneys they're going for everything they are going for the kill I'm I'm I'm not even kidding anything so you better make sure your reports everything you turn over is is that you have uh performed your your abilities at their very top level okay so that's my Soap Box on that access to records um only the individuals who who have a right and have a need to review that child's special ed records you know the parents the special ed teacher for that child the speech pathologist for that child you know it can't just be anyone in school I want to go looking through records you can't do that it has to be pertinent relevant parties uh involved in the education of that child um and you do have to keep a record there's a form to record who accesses or looks in those records each time rights for children um again you're dealing with age of majority and furpa that's the uh family education rights and privacy act so basically it's privacy laws governing their information uh Hippa is more for medical settings but the two furpa and Hippa have a lot of things in common basically you're protecting privacy and confidentiality um consent for disclosure you know if I have a child who I think uh you know let's say let me come up with an example here let's say that I have a uh pediatrician who would like for me to fill out a u maybe a behavioral checklist or a speech and language checklist for a child suspected of having uh autism or some other diagnosis well I can't just do that and send that to that pediatrician because he or she wants me to do that I have to obtain permission from the parents or the child or the legal Guardians the child in the case you know who's 19 or older in the state of Alabama Amendment so that's what pii is personally identifiable information amendment of Records if parents or Guardians suspect that there's an error or something that needs to be modified in their in their child's records then they may request in writing to do that they have a right to do that theu ction of information school systems have limited space and we we have the same issue at A&M so you will notice in the newspaper that a certain number of years after the child is graduated uh they will post not for that child but let's they will post in the newspaper publicly saying I know y'all don't read the newspaper anymore but I do and I see this uh the special ed office of that school district will post that if your child attended uh name of school district between the dates of and you'll know they'll have the dates and the the year included in the date and you would like to pick up your child's special education file you may do so between these hours at this address and time I'm sorry and time would be the hours so otherwise they're going to be destroyed yep um in a manner you know it's usually like Crosscut shredding or um they used to burn them but now we have shredders so y'all know I come from the old days um okay children with disabilities enrolled in private schools by their parents well they attend private school but their parents still pay taxes and so they are entitled to a free and appropriate public education that means they are they are entitled to receive special education and speech therapy services even though they attend a private school and so it is possible that you may be asked to travel if if that's in your district and your Zone as I call it your portion of the district you may need to um see a child at a private school especially if that private school does not have specialed Personnel on its own staff those parents pay taxes too so um uh let's see next one oh discipline that's a big one okay basically let's see what I want to tell you tell you about this children who are in special education cannot be corporately punished because we are behavioral experts we should not need to corporately punish these children um and it's just a bad idea in my opinion to corporately punish any child these days I think it just open school systems up to a lot of of litigation I'm not saying children don't I'm not a I'm not a an advoc I'm just not an across theboard advocate of not spanking children um I think that's A A A Private Matter within you know within a home um but we I just don't think we should do it in public schools I think it's just too too much trouble can come out of that um not saying that some children may not need a little corporal punishment but I don't think the school system is the place for that also you have to consider is the behavior the maladaptive behavior is that a manifestation of and get I'm getting down to that very last hash mark there is it a manifestation of that child's disability and I'm going to give you an example let's say you have a child with autism who bites himself for other children you know it's often sensory they do that or they um pick their own skin or scabs that would be an example of a manifestation of a behavior that is well it's a manifestation of the of the disability that's what kids with autism do doesn't mean that we don't need to create a plan to curtail that or to eliminate that behavior a behavioral intervention plan or to do an assessment but children with autism have sensory issues they're going to pick their skin some of them do their scabs they're going to um hit or bite themselves or other children and of course we can't let them continue to do that especially to the other kids but um it's a manifestation of their disability and the parents you need to have a signature the parents received a copy and then they can be offered their own copy as well okay so with this slide I'm going to take you through basically the special aid process the paperwork that is as a minimum required what I did when I worked in the public schools is I had a I traveled between four schools I had a plastic accordion file mine was purple and clear and I would have these in short I would have this abbreviated on the tag tab each tab for each form I had a tab in my accordion file and so I had about I kept about 10 blank copies of each one in my accordion file okay what I have done here is I have listed the forms in what I consider to be a logical order okay with a little bit of deviation possible okay but we're going to go through each each of these forms and I'm going to tell you what they're about okay let's start with and you need to find these on the state department website keep in mind the names can change slightly but the forms are basically the same I don't care what you call it the referral form is the referral form I don't say if you I don't care if you say referral for evaluation it's still the referral form Okay so let's go through these and talk about these okay okay so if you have trouble finding these on the state department website usually you can just go to all forms and you can look you know for the for the title if you have trouble let me know but I think you'll be okay all right the first form is the referral for evaluation this is where we're going to meet with the parents and discuss should we pursue testing and evaluating this child okay I have the teacher or whoever refers the child usually the teacher fill out the top section I always do the reason for referral and this is where I'm going to put that statement that I told you you need to know at the beginning of this PowerPoint for example I'm going to say the suspected speech disorder is adversely impacting the child's ability to participate in the general academic environment I'm going to put something academic Andor social there okay that's how otherwise we're not going to have eligibility for services I did not for my speech kids have to do instructional or behavioral concerns sometimes I would have medical um issues um for example the child take would take medication at school for add or ADHD the child might wear glasses or a hearing aid or have an assist of Technology device have I considered the following on page two I did not have to do that in my school system for speech kids but your school system if they tell you to do it you better do it I did not have to do page three for space I'm sorry SP speech kids uh I would just check none of the above but again do what your school system says and then page four I would not have to do items 4 through seven typically for my speech kids some if it's a language kid you're probably going have to do those things but I would have to answer one through three and they would all typically be yes and you can read those at your Leisure but I didn't have to do 4 through seven I could just you know say na for those um let's see anything else I want to tell you about that trying to read and talk at the same time okay then we make a decision as a team do we accept the child do we want to go ahead and do testing or not is testing not warranted but generally 90% of the time you're accepting for evaluation you sign and date and remember you are probably going to sign as the special ed teacher and as the person who can interpret the instructional implications of the results now the child is accepted for evaluation you need to get the parent at that meeting that this same meeting to sign the notice and consent for initial evaluation can't test the child until you have that so go to that form notice and consent for initial evaluation okay go ahead and get them sign to sign it at the referral meeting at meeting number one okay so notice and consent for initial evaluation you should have that pulled up on your computer students name um we are uh probably going to check speech language inconsistent with age sometimes um I would also um likely check to determine developmental level because speech language that's all developmental um but you better check it if you're going to do it it's better to check it okay descriptions of other options typically didn't have to do anything there the following of uh procedures assessments were used um you know you can say uh you can say uh teacher reports parents um parent concerns regarding child's ability to participate in the general education classroom and again you need to put you know you probably need to put something academic or social in there kind of Shores things up you must check Vision you must check hearing you must check well if you're going to do speech do speech I would go ahead and do language if you do not check it you cannot do it so it's better to check it and I would also put developmental skills I would also check observation you could also do Behavior possibly but if you do not check it then you do not have permission from the parent to do it okay and see the key word is may also include if you check it let's say you have a child you're testing for speech and you don't see anything that may be a language issue you don't see any red flags it's okay if you checked language and you don't test language but you can't test language if it's not checked so let's say that I have a child on the other hand who is I'm doing the Arizona articulation test with with the child he doesn't know the names of the pictures well you better believe I'm going to want to test that child's language skills but if I didn't check language I can't do it this is this is what the parents are giving you permission to test then the parents give permission or do not the process ends if they do not give permission sign in date and then this last part here um date provided or sent it's going to be the me date of the meeting the referral meeting chances are in my school system you see this part my signature below very ver ifies my in my school system my special ed supervisor wanted her name and phone number there and her address so it your school system they may want you to put your name and information there and we could sign and then we could sign um put her name and then put our initials afterwards but that depends on I wouldn't go signing my special ed supervisor's name unless she told me to do it and but then we would put our initials after it so be cautious with that one don't go around and say oh Dr Reed told me to sign my specialist supervisor's name there no I did not no I did not that's not what I'm saying so you better check yourself on that okay now let's see let's go to um okay I'm going to skip around just a little bit okay it's going to make sense how did you get the parents to the meeting I want you to skip down to notice an invitation to a meeting consent for agency participation this is the invitation to the meeting to get the parent to the referral meeting and you use the same one for the eligibility IEP meeting so you see name of the parent the date that you're sending the invitation because you're doing this before the referral meeting students name date of birth where and when it's going to be held the meeting okay if you do not check the purpose of the meeting then you can't do those things at the meeting so we for the referral meeting we always checked the first box the second box and that was it for the referral meeting for the IEP and eligibility meeting we would check the third box the initial I P box and if we thought Behavior was a concern then we would check the behavior boxes the following people will meet with us the Lea always the general ed teacher always you the special ed teacher always the parent and then again there's that section where you may put it depends on your school system you either put your name and information there or your special ed supervisor's name then here's where you start recording those attempts and what happened as a result did the you know did the parents in the bottom the parents um bottom section the parents will let you know I will meet um with you at the day and time I and always highlight these I highlight where I need the parents to sign and what options I want them to do here in this bottom box because parents see a lot of forms I will not be ble to meet please contact me to arrange another time I will not be able to meet proceed without me so they have three options they give consent um if agencies were invited but I didn't have to do that part so you want to highlight those first three boxes at the bottom and then they're going to sign in the bottom of that that box there too and date and then you're documenting in that box above for school personnel you know when did you send it always make copies make copies okay and remember after two attempts if you hear nothing you can go ahead with the meeting okay now go to record of access for these these next two are easy record of access to Student Records okay remember I told you anytime someone goes into a child special ed file and this includ includes at meetings you're going to to have to pass this around at every meeting then people need to sign you're going to sign as an Lea rep there number five because you represent that school system the parents obviously they're category one if the state department comes in and they are monitoring your files they sign as number six if the um if oep the office of special education programs at the in DC if they come in they're number four um I'm sorry and your state department people are number three other state agencies uh such as vocational rehab they would be number six sorry I misspoke there reason for review you can say IEP meeting referral meeting um and then the date this we would put inside the left cover of the child's folder and the child has a a folder with you in a locked file cabinet in your speech classroom and then there is a copy of the child of a mirror image an exact copy of the child's folder at the central office and you may need one or more pages depending on how long the child's in special ed okay go to persons responsible for IE implementation similar um this used to be a part of the IEP form and now they've made it a separate form these are the people who are responsible for helping to implement the IEP um it's not just you but it's the parents they have responsibilities in helping the child with his homework it may be also the classroom teacher or the paraprofessional or teachers Aid it could be the daycare teacher it just depends so that's just a form that you keep um in there and you might do that with the IEP once you drop the IEP okay now we've already covered special ed rights we have uh done the uh notice and invitation to a meeting consent now let's do notice an eligibility decision regarding special ed services so you've had the you've had the referral meeting you've had meeting number one the parents have consist have consented for you to test the child and you've received written permission to do that now you've tested the child and now you need to meet a second time to determine eligibility so I'm on the form now notice an eligibility decision student name date of birth and the parent gets a copy of this okay after everything is signed of course is this initial eligibility or are we re-evaluating after a period of 3 years area of assessment you might put articulation the date what's the name of the assessment articulation I'm sorry Arizona articulation proficiency scale what were the standard scores you can also add percentile ranks uh stay nine levels if that's applicable you're also going to include vision and hearing results and you're also going to do um your oral Peri results on there too okay and you see you have a lot of room for that final date at the bottom of page two you completed all evaluations because guess what that plays into your timeline doesn't it now now we've reached another milestone in our timeline go to page three name date of birth this is relative to specific learning disabilities and so generally I mean I didn't have anything to do with this part then on page three I'm sorry page four you've got the eligibility decision um complete for all students was a lack of appropriate instruction a factor no uh does the student meet AAC criteria yes or no it depends on the child does the disability have an adverse effect on educational performance yes does the student need specially designed instruction yes eligible yes area of disability speech or speech and language impaired multiple disabilities list the two primary so for the child who was uh I told you about who was legally blind had autism and cereal paly you know I could list all three there or the the M MD unit teacher could um other options considered I never had anything in there check one eligibility committee and the parents can agree ree or disagree with the eligibility findings if they disagree they can sign at the bottom and you let them know that by signing that does not mean um that they're agreeing with the test results now here's what happens though sometimes parents just refuse to S sign anything if that's the case you document refusal refusal to sign at all on the form again parents signs we hope under the agree General Ed teacher you as the special ed teacher the principal or Lea R rep or the assistant principal or the special ed supervisor and then you also sign as the person who can interpret the results at the bottom again that's either your contact information or um your special ed supervisor Okay so we've had the referral meeting uh We've tested the child and we've determined the child is eligible we we can go ahead in this second meeting and we can draw up the IEP the individualized education program okay you can have a draft of it there and you always present it as a draft it's not the final one because the parents reasonably have input into it but we've done the IEP form some other forms I want to tell you about um notice so after the the parent agrees um to the eligibility decision and the IEP go to notice and consent for the provision of special education services this is what we used to call the placement form this officially places the child in special ed so you can do eligibility the IEP and this notice and consent for the provision of services form all in the same day students name basis for decision you've got to put your academic and or social adverse impacts there uh the child's articulation disorder is adversely impacting her progress in the general education classroom I never had any other options considered never had to do that the following evaluations procedures um Vision hearing checked uh observations speech language might look at grades work samples often times so what did you all use in your in your decision-making process for eligibility parent gives permission if they do if the parents do not then the process ends there we don't put kids in special ed without permission they sign they date again you've got that section there either your information or your special ed supervisor's information um date provided would be the date of the IEP meeting because I'm doing it all at the same time okay let's see then you've got just an extra form the annual goal progress report so pull that up this is where you're documenting progress towards remember your measurable and annual goal and let's see you you can just write your measurable annual goal there um the progress how much progress has been made using the little Keys the one through six and one through seven up there in any comments and a hard copy is placed in the special ed record but you won't know this until the end of the IEP the end of the year then go to notice and cons sent regarding payment from Medicaid benefits some of our kids in the public schools we can recoup the school system can recoup money um and build Medicaid for the child's services and but you have to have permission from the parents to do that and you need to let them know that this is not going to decrease their lifetime coverage um this is not going to cause them to lose eligibility and um you have to annually notify the parent that you uh plan on do doing this okay um but you're notifying them annually but you only have to get um their consent once okay but each year that you would be billing for Medicaid then um you need to at least know them that you're going to be billing for that year or intend to um if the child I'm sorry if the parent refuses to sign this form then that doesn't mean um that the child won't receive Services it just means that you know Medicaid is going to help uh Finance it and the school system can recoup some of that money but it doesn't mean if if the parent refuses to sign the child is still eligible and can receive Services the parents have a right to refuse to sign it okay but you might want to explain it to them onetime consent but you do let them know annually that we plan to bill for Bill Medicaid for these services and that's of no cost to the parents because remember it's free and appropriate public education okay I think we made it through all of those forms that's good okay let's talk now about the IEP the individualized education program you need to know what an IEP stands for what those letters stand for at the top and you you need to have the IEP uh pulled up it changes format a little bit but the basic components have not changed since the time I was in the public schools they just they just reformat it is what they do the forms are different from um state to state also I've seen IEPs from new mexic me and they look very different but you know what the parts are the same it's just how they're formatted information is the same so at the top there you notice that you have basically some demographic information the IEP is good for one um usually it's one school year um uh they a lot of school systems will make the IEP effective from May until May of the next year which that's also you could argue that's a calendar year too but um and and unless noted it's going to be uh implemented August through May except for children who receive extended school year Services which I will talk about in a moment so you have the profile which this used to just be a big open box and I guess people couldn't write it very well so they started putting in some little prompts but I am proud to say my student profiles rocked so just to toot my own horn there okay but y'all know how methodical I am so I'm not going to have it any other way okay you want to list the strengths of the students in regards to their academic functional and maybe even social skills what are you have to address what are the parents concerns for how I'm going to um promote my child's education what are the students preferences or interest um are their what are their favorite subjects in school uh you know maybe the child really enjoys PE Time or um you know you have a child who really enjoys reading you know things like that I had a little guy one time he loved roller coasters and I worked that into the IEP he loved roller coasters so sweet sweet kid what are the results of your testing your most recent evaluations and you have to um write them in a way that parents and nons slps can understand so you're not going to say GF TA or aaps or PLS you need to write it in in terms that the normal human being who's not an SLP could understand because this is written for the parents you all you need to remember that what are the needs of the student academically functionally developmentally you know how is the disability this is really important how is the disability affecting participation in age appropriate activities um other um anything else that you would like to include there and then transitioning okay some children are transitioning from early intervention to preschool um justify you have to write a a justification if the IEP will not be implemented on the child's third birthday because once the child turns three from 3 to 21 he or she's the responsibility of the school system so an example might be um the child's birthday is during the summer and the you're you don't this child is not receiving summer or extended school year services or maybe the child's birthday is Christmas day well I'm not going to be at school on Christmas day doing therapy as much as I love it not doing it on Christmas Day and neither would you so let's go to the next Slide the next page page two uh you have special instructional factors I never had to check in any of these for a um well for a speech kid um except for communication needs obviously um occasionally I would have to check assist of Technology yes but most of the time they are no so communication needs though you could interpret that though as uh sign language or something so it depends on what you're school systems kind of Mojo is towards that um but we generally did not check those boxes um but it it just depends on how your what your if your school system says Hey for every speech kid you need to check this box then you do it it just depends um but if the child used Braille or had a behavioral intervention plan I wasn't the one writing the IEP I only wrote the IEPs for the speech kids which is the easiest one of all Transportation I ever had to do that um but at some of my preschoolers and my multi-disabled kids they would have to have special buses but I didn't again I wasn't in charge of those IEPs which is nice KN non-academic and extracurricular activities all of my speech kids for for whom they were just straight out speech kids I would tell the parents if your child wants to be in peee cheerleader cheerleading or peeeee football yes he or she can do that so I never had um any issues with that speech is a really it's the easiest I to write we're so fortunate because it can get so much uglier with other um other disability areas method or frequency for reporting progress remember you have to send progress reports every time at least as often as the typically developing children receive their progress reports you can do it more frequently who'd want to do that a is more work but in um our school system it was every N9 weeks but in your school system it may be every 10 it may be every 4 and A2 if they do a mid progress report they have to get a progress report at least as often as the typical children you can do it more but you can't do it less um transition Services is on the next page that's page three I never had to do these because my speech kids if they needed transition Services someone else was responsible for that IEP but basically at the age of 16 um or no later than 16 we've got to start planning for this child to not just go home and watch TV you know what are we going to do um to help this child develop some skills or an occupation uh what kind of diploma is the the child going to um aim for so that should make sense as well but none of my if there's if they're just speech chances are you're not doing that and then the next page page four is also transition goals again I've never had to write those but you might be looking at Association for citizens a day workshop maybe they're going to go part-time and learn how to be a greeter at Walmart or maybe they're going to work in uh the kitchen at Taco Bell or you know whatever the the situation may be okay then go to page five before we get to the next slide here in my PowerPoint so here you have what's probably after the profile page the most important page okay if you have let's say that I have a child who's multi-disabled the child who has cereal poliy autism and is legally blind I don't write the whole IEP for that child if that child is on my case load I only write the goal page and it's included in the overall IEP that the special ed teacher is writing okay I hope that makes sense so sometimes you just write this page if speech is just one aspect of the services the child receives but if you if it's a speech child you're doing the whole IEP and certainly you have to you have to do this part okay so you have the child's name and date of birth what is the measurable this is really really important what's the measurable annual goal you know what's the area and it's going to be um articulation language you could say speech language voice it could be fluency um what will the measurable it has to be measurable what will the annual goal at the end of this IEP what are we hoping the child will achieve and then you see down there um you have the benchmarks at the bottom of that page those are the steps to get you to the annual goal okay so you have the area and then you have what's the child's present level of performance you can include test scores there you can talk about how the disabilities impacting the child's participation in the classroom and age appropriate activities then you have your measurable goal what will the child accomplish the school year the benchmarks or the Stepping Stones if you do those things you should get to the annual goal date of Mastery leave it blank because you haven't the the IEP hasn't been enacted yet you have to have you don't Master it until the end of the year what will be the types of evaluation used how are we going to determine that the child met the annual goal well are we going to use some work samples are we going to use the Arizona articulation proficiency scale are we going to look at grades are we going to collect data yes absolutely Ely so you have you can check more than one of those and you can also write your own in if you use the Goldman fristo then write in the Goldman fristo uh if I have a child who stutters I'm going to use data collection I'm going to say teacher observation um I might say clinician observation and I might add the stuttering severity instrument so benchmarks again Stepping Stones you do those things you don't have to have four you can have one you can have all four you can have more than four but the things that are going to get you to the measurable annual goal and anything else I want to tell you about that I like to make my benchmarks measurable but your um annual goal must certainly be measurable measurable means it can be a percentage it could be a number of Trials you could say on eight out of 10 trials DH DH duh the child will do this you can also do a time goal time is measurable isn't it time's going to pass or it's not you could also say at the end of uh the duration of this IEP the child will so you can use time you can use percentage you can use number of Trials but it has to be measurable then if you go to page uh six students name date of birth these are the related services that will be provided to the child and speech therapy is one of those Services it is um we considered it special education in my school system some might call it a related service so you put it wherever they want you to put it but either way the service is going to be speech therapy or you could call it language therapy voice therapy fluency therapy almost said almost said therapy um fluency therapy it's 3:30 in the morning Dr Reed's tired uh whatever kind of therapy it is under special ed or related Services again you know wherever they but we put it under special ed my school system you need to have you must have the frequency so how often once a week twice a week the amount of time uh TW we always gave ourselves a range we would do 20 to 30 minutes but your school system may say hey if you put 30 minutes put 30 minutes no range um beginning to ending dates that's going to be probably the same as the the IEP May to May location we would say speech therapy room and or general education environment so that would allow me to go into the classroom or go to snack time with a child or lunchroom or PE um but we were pretty flexible in ours your school system may not be here's a bit of a scary story the SLP before me uh she was pink slipped and they hired me so it was not a pleasant situation um she left um well there's all kinds of stories but anyway she wasn't doing her job part of her mistake was um when I got to the school system and I started looking at the kids IEPs that had already been developed the previous year for the year that I was going to be seeing them she did not on any of her IEPs which this might be one of the reasons she was let go CU she wasn't writing her IEPs correctly she did not include the frequency duration and location of services on any of them for over 35 kids so I thought oh no I've got to have 35 IEP meetings within the next two weeks I was scared and fortunately excuse me Dr Reed had to sneeze and fortunately my um cfy supervisor and my mentor said you know what let's just send out and she called her specialist supervisor first and our special ed supervisor said looks let's do excuse me another sneeze hopefully that's the last one um she said can we do an addendum to these IEPs where you know I let the parents know in a topped up letter that um the there's a part of the IEP had been left off the previous year and we're just doing an addition and they sign it and return it you know what all the parents signed it and returned it no problem no need to have a meeting and it was really nice and it really mattered that year that we did everything correctly because guess what my first year in the public schools we were being audited by the state department they do random Audits and we got caught in a sweep of random audits that year so you you always want to do things correctly but you certainly want to do them correctly when the state Department's coming in and doing monitoring or auditing so if services are not needed you check not needed those boxes you've got to be thorough make sure your pages are numbered you're doing this in the STI sets though which we're going to talk about in a moment so then if you are on page seven the final page I would say this is of the all the pages this is you know in the top three profile goals page and this page are you know super super important with information child's name or Student's name date of birth transfer of Rights again that deals with age of majority you know extended school year Services Now read this very carefully because parents tend to get confused by this and I understand why esy is what it's called the IEP team has considered those are the key words has considered okay if you've printed this out underline that highlight it the IEP team has considered the need for extended school year Services it doesn't say the child is going to be given extended school year services we considered it as a team yes we always check yes that does not but parents see that yes and they think oh my child get Summer therapy no no no we've only considered it so what my specialist supervisor would have us do when we were actually wrote them with a pen and paper and we weren't using a state computerized database she would make us right in there not needed at this time or not warranted at this time so because parents see that and they think oh my child's going to get Summer Services that's what that's when esy takes place pretty much all school systems are doing some esy but not all children get it esy is provide is is provided to a child when that child is if that child is not receiving summer or esy Services then that next fall that child cannot reasonably recoup the skills that are lost during the summer cuz you all know this you know that kids you know they might lose some of the information or knowledge during the summertime and but most children especially those not in special ed most and some in special ed most children can with a little bit of review at the beginning of the next year they can regain those skills and that knowledge for the kids who cannot where the summer off would actually you know set them into kind of a backwards motion and they can't regain those skills reasonably at the beginning of the next year then they qualify for esy that is a decision uh made at the uh specialed supervisor level you know or she may be attending that this IEP meeting but we don't just in and of ourselves typically make that decision lre you know what that term is least restrict least restrictive environment now this is where uh we don't have I don't have access to the state database I don't work in the public schools anymore so you would have drop- down menus here um in the in these age ranges okay that will detail how much time how many hours per week the child if you're pulling the child out for therapy to your therapy room how many hours per week will that child be spending outside or away from his regular peers so the first question you need to answer does this child attend the school he or she would attend if non-disabled probably so the answer is probably yes for a preschooler is he participating in the environment uh same one he would be in a non-disabled so that's for a daycare or home environment that's where preschoolers are sometimes chances are is probably yes if no um for example our preschoolers who attended our special needs Center we had one for the entire County well that's probably going to be a no because that child would be attending his home school the school near his home and not be busted to the preschool special needs but the answer is probably going to be yes but it not always does this student receive all special ed services with non-disabled peers if you are pulling this child out for therapy for one minute then the answer is no and here's where the explanation needs to come in specially designed instruction is required to remediate the fill in the blank articulation disorder language disorder fluency disorder voice disorder specially designed instruction we had to have those three words in there if we were going to pull a child out of the the classroom one minute the answer is no and then you have the drop- down menus for L and it's going to give you a range of hours so if you're seeing the child twice a week for 30 minutes then you know you're going to be well within that lowest range of time and the they're different for 3 to five year olds for preschoolers versus your school age children copy of the IEP did you um give a copy to the parent or the student the meeting if no when was the date sent almost always I checked yes but there were a couple of times the copy machine was broken and I would have to copy and send it at a later date and that's okay you don't want to make a habit of that though generally try to give it to them there you just have them wait in the classroom and you say I'm going to run down the hall and make a copy copy of special ed rights you have to at least offer the copy at the meeting but again what if the copy machine's broken you could say no and send it at a later date but I never had that happen date of amended copy have you made a change to the IE then you put the date there but I never except for and that wasn't a line when I had to do those amendments remember the frequency durational location this wasn't in there but had it been I would have had to have put that date there that's just kind of a newer part from when I was in the public schools signatures remember you need to have at least invited the the parent you need to at least have a general ed teacher you can be the special ed teacher you need to have an Lea rep and you also you will sign as the person who can interpret the instructional implications of the evaluation results so you potentially will sign twice specially a teacher and as the one interpreting the results um also people can send in information who are not in attendance that would typically happen when we had someone say from Vocational Rehabilitation or maybe the teacher for the um Blind and Visually Impaired maybe she was at another school uh or the occupational therapist people who have many many schools or are serving the entire County then they might not be able to be in attendance and they send that information okay that's it for that slide okay so I consider this slide to be what I call the sunry items other items kind of page these are things that maybe I addressed in part or didn't address it all um in the previous slides but things that I felt were kind of hanging out there still so let's talk about the types of referrals we get and how the procedures might be a little different I know that you've already uh We've covered the state RS so for the areas of articulation fluency and voice we are the only individuals in the school systems who treat those areas uh anyone although I believe slps do it best anyone can work on language a classroom teacher can work on language but for say a specialed child resource room teacher could work on language uh we the slps we can work on language language is much more broad so let's say that you have a child referred for language or uh learning disabilities uh you know specific to Reading Writing you know linguistic skills it gets a little fuzzier there those children are probably going to have to go through your language kids your learning certainly you're learning disability kids are probably going to need to go through uh some type of support team uh at the school where they determine uh is this child's uh you know are the problems this child is having are they related to English as a second language are they related to the quality of instruction in the classroom they have to rule out all of these other areas before we say it's the child's problem you know we have to make sure it's not something outside or external to the child uh anything there's something else I want to say about language too uh we're the best to do it oh a lot of your learning disabilities language problems underly a lot of those so just just to mention that when and how does the special education process end well at any time the parents want it to end and you know we're not going to sue the parents to pick the process back up chances are um you know if they want their child to not be in special at anymore then then it ends right there if they don't want if they don't allow the child to be tested I've had that happen the process ends right there it would be very rare it would be uh a remarkable situation where the school system would fight that more times than not it's not the parents wanting to end the process it's the school system denying services and denying eligibility so usually the parents are wanting the services it's it's usually The Other Extreme uh and when I was in the public schools we had to have these words right here these three words in all of our IEPs and believe it or not there were still people who couldn't make that happen but when your boss stands in front of you in a meeting you and all of the other special personnel and she says look I want these words in every IEP what do you do you put them in every IEP because that's what you're supposed to do she's telling you to do it um specially designed instruction and that had to be in the part of the IEP where we talk about you know the reason that we're pulling the child out of the classroom for some amount of time each week is because this child requires specially designed instruction um so you're getting into the LR issues and eligibility issues there so you know again my special ed supervisor wanted it that way I was happy to comply cognitive referencing state of Alabama says we cannot use cognitive referencing so here's an example of that let's say you have a child who is 15 years old and is intellectually challenged or impaired and is fun functioning on the the the level the mental ability level cognitive level of a 5-year-old and let's say that you have been working with that child uh with in in reference to his language skills and you've got them to a 5-year-old level he's testing out in all of his his linguistic areas at a 5-year-old level well that's where he's cognitively performing right makes sense language and cognition uh without getting into a major discussion of that I believe tend to go pretty hand in hand in with each other state of Alabama says well no you can't stop there you can't stop because this child is functioning mentally at a 5-year-old level you can't say I've got his language skills to that level I'm done you are theoretically and I don't agree with it you're theoretically to keep going and try to push the linguistic skills past uh that c nitive threshold um that's a whole other discussion but you're just not allowed to do what's called cognitive referencing that's a discussion for another time and place as well progress reports this is usually a question on exams with me children who are disabled or receiving special education services must receive progress reports at least as frequently as they're normally developing peers so let's say that your school system sends out progress reports every nine weeks then your children on your case load must receive a progress report at least every nine weeks now you can do it more frequently but you can't do it less frequently um I know that um my kids receive a um midterm progress report so they receive a progress report around the 4 and 1/2 week Mark so about once a month so if my kids are receiving that then the kids who are in special ed have to receive a report at that time too and you can use those templates that I provided for you or you could use mine as long as you just give me a little credit line at the bottom because they were developed over time and they took time and energy re-evaluation I think I've already addressed this children who are in special education for 3 years because you're going to understand if it's not three years they don't need to be re-evaluated EV they need to be for long term they need to be re-evaluated at at um or the decision to re-evaluate or not needs to be made every 3 years so let's say that you had got a child you see for speech therapy uh you fix the problem after 2 years well he's not going to need reevaluation because he's not been there for three years so let's look at our children who are multi-disabled who are in the system from 3 until 21 well you're looking at at least six times you know 3 to 21 is 18 years every three divide three into 18 you get six so there have been at least six opportunities to re-evaluate that child over all those years the IEP team remember does not have to re-evaluate the child the IEP team can say you know we think the data we have is good the test results are um useful and we don't need to do a full re-evaluation um so the the team can decide not to re-evaluate or that re-evaluation is necessary but you're probably looking at psychometric testing IQ testing uh speech language testing it you know it can get um pretty labor intensive so you don't do that unless you need to and the team decides that transition Services we've talked about uh children um you know on the the the IEP uh pages that deal with transition those ages and you know those children uh and they've change they changed it changed it from time to time you know sometimes it's 14 sometimes it's 16 so don't get hung up on the ages be aware of what the current age for transition services and planning is but just know the main Crux of that is that uh you know children at a certain age are expected to have a say so in their education okay then you have this thing called STI sets now I'm showing you the paper versions of these forms but these forms are prepared and input into a database okay and that is called St sets so um you would have a login uh two sets uh and you would you know you would have your information it's all um in a database and the reason we have that instead of it just all being paper based like when I was in the public schools well the problem became what happened when a child moved from Baldwin County Schools to Madison City schools well you've got to send for the you've got to do a you got to get permission to request the paperwork from the parents then you have to request the paperwork from Baldwin County Schools then Baldwin County schools has to copy everything and snail mail it to Madison City schools okay and now we finally have the information now let's see where we go with this child now you know in more recent years with um the uh STI sets database you know it's all computerized into a database and so uh what happens is you know it's there it's accessible to people who have access to to the database so um you know just everything's computerized now basically uh let's see last thing I did talk about outside evaluations already when parents disagree uh they have a right to request someone independent not employed by the school system uh that the school system pay for an evaluation so um I think that's everything I wanted to tell you about that usually sometimes your school system back to sets we'll have a login page for that uh but you'll have a way there may be even um of the software on your computer at your school system so that's the extent of what I know about sets I mean obviously it's a database and it's very much needed but when I was in the schools everything was paper snail melt so um everything's just electronic now is what that means okay and I think that concludes everything for this PowerPoint yep that's the last one all right we made it