Changing LRE When the Class Isn’t Available

April 6th, 2015  

When making a decision about what classroom setting a student will have, convene the IEP team!  A Nevada school district decided to stop providing a high school student’s language arts instruction in a co-taught class and provided it in a special education class because the co-taught class was not available to juniors at the school.  This violated the student’s IEP because the team did not meet and the parent was not provided an opportunity for input and was not provided written notice.  To avoid the same issues, do this instead:

bullet-point-image-7Convene the IEP team because a decision to change placement must be made with team member input.

bullet-point-image-7Don’t base these decisions on administrative convenience.  Schools need to have a continuum of placements that are available for students’ unique needs.

bullet-point-image-7Comply with the least restrictive provisions for the needs of each student.

bullet-point-image-7Provide written notice of the change that includes an explanation of the changes that are to be made before actually implementing the changes

~From LRE’s Special Ed – connections newsletter

April 2015 FAQs

April 6th, 2015  

FAQs

Q: Should my IEP goals and objectives end in May or extend through the summer to the end of the first quarter of the next school year?

A: There are several reasons why IEP goals and objectives should be written to extend through the summer: (1) Federal guidelines require continuous services for the length of an IEP year with a gap listed; (2) student may move to a new district that is on a different calendar than ours; (3) student my become eligible for ESY services and not having a gap in service dates means not having to amend the IEP for the purpose of adding ESY goals / objectives.

Q: When considering Extended School Year (ESY) eligibility, isn’t it about whether the students would “benefit” from the service?

A: No!! Almost all students would “benefit” from services over a long break like summer.  Students who are eligible for ESY services “need” the service in order to fully access their free and appropriate public education (FAPE) and make progress toward their IEP goals and objectives.

P.S. – Please stop referring to ESY as Summer School (it drives Denise Kelly CRAZY!! And that’s important because I still do the newsletter :)  The concepts and purposes of ESY are very different from those of a summer school program.

Sped Database – New Accommodations Layout

February 25th, 2015  

The long-awaited changes to the Assessment Participation section of the sped database are complete!

If you’ve been in the assessment section of the database at all this morning, you’ve probably noticed that the testing accommodations look a bit different.  Rather than checkboxes, the available accommodations are now listed in drop down lists.  All of the existing accommodations in students’ IEPs have been transferred over to the new layout.  If you find errors or missing accommodations, please let me know!  A few of the print and error checking routines are still under construction, so please be patient if you find problems with those this morning.  The kinks should be worked out by tomorrow.

You will find a few new categories of accommodations that have been updated to align with the state’s new Participation Guidelines for Alaska Students in State Assessments (available here).

A few key changes to note:

bullet-point-image-6The new Embedded category refers to accommodations that are embedded in the new computerized AMP assessment (e.g., text-to-speech, masking, invert colors, etc.).

bullet-point-image-6The Universal category lists accommodations that are available to all students (IEP or not) for AMP testing.  If these are accommodations that your students use regularly in the classroom or during district-wide and/or state testing, you should list them in the students’ IEPs. (You will not need to amend IEPs prior to the AMP to add these Universal accommodations if they are not currently listed.)

bullet-point-image-6The Alternate Assessment category includes accommodations that are only available for students who will take the Alternate Assessment.  Please do not use these accommodations for students who are not on the Alternate Assessment. They are generally not allowable accommodations for other assessments.

To add accommodations to an IEP, you will need to first select the Category (e.g, Assistive Devices, Directions, Response, Setting, etc.), and then you will be able to select from a list of available accommodations in that category.  When you’ve selected the appropriate accommodations, click on the blue plus sign button to add that accommodation to the student’s IEP.

NewAccoms1

 

 

 

 

 

 

As accommodations are added, they will show up in the list below.  If you need to remove an accommodation, just click on the small trash can symbol to the right of that particular accommodation.

NewAccoms2

 

 

The options for how the student will participate in testing have also changed to align with the new state forms.  The options now read–

The student will:
– Participate in state and district-wide assessments
– Participate in the state Alternate Assessment
– Not be subject to state and district-wide assessment due to the student’s age

NewAccoms3

 

 

For Alternate Assessment case managers:
The three questions related to eligibility criteria for the Alternate Assessment are now listed in the database.  I have already completed these for all students who are currently on the Alternate Assessment.  The hand-filled Alternate Assess criteria checklist still applies as well.

November 2014 FAQs

November 7th, 2014  

FAQs

Q: As case manager, what paperwork am I responsible for submitting to Central Office?

A: Case managers are ultimately responsible for ensuring that ALL necessary IEP and ESER paperwork is submit-ted to Central Office after a meeting is held. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

– Use the IEP checklist in the database, and include it with your paperwork when you send it in to Darla or Rebecca.  This makes everyone’s life easier as our secretaries can quickly glance at the checklist to see which paperwork they should expect to find in the envelope.  If there are any special circumstances or oddities with your paperwork, the IEP checklist is a great place to jot the secretaries a quick note.

– If you are waiting on another member of the IEP team to complete their portion of the paperwork (for example an individual report that is part of the ESER), don’t let that delay the rest of the paperwork process. Submit what paperwork you have to Central Office, and make a note on the checklist that the particular report is not yet complete so that Darla and Rebecca can follow up with the appropriate personnel to ensure that the paperwork gets submitted. (Related Services Providers—please note that individual reports should be complete prior to the ESER meeting).

– In situations where there are multiple personnel working on a set of paperwork (e.g. you’re working with your school psychologist to complete an FBA and BIP), make sure you are coordinating with the rest of the team to submit all of the necessary paperwork. The simplest way is to gather all of the paperwork at the school level, and then submit it as one complete packet to Central Office. If you do have multiple people sending paperwork into Central Office, make sure you communicate as a team to be certain that a complete set of paperwork is submitted. You can use the checklist amongst your school-based team to ensure that all necessary components are covered.

Q: Who fills out the information on an ESER?

A: Case managers are responsible for entering all IEP and ESER information in the database, unless the database specifically notes that it is the responsibility of someone else.  Notable examples include the LD portion of the ESER which is the responsibility of the school psychologist, or any goals / objectives / progress reports that are associated with a related services (e.g. speech goals), which should be completed by the related services provider.  The content of the Needs and Recommendations portion of the ESER should be determined by the IEP team as a whole, but entering that information into the database is the responsibility of the case manager.

Goals of the Month – October 2014

October 15th, 2014  

Some teachers has a great idea and we are using it! Since Pupil Services sees so many goals and objectives throughout the year, and you all don’t get to see each others’, we are going to pick out the best of the best each month and share them with all of you!  You may see one of yours.  You may save these for when you are stuck.  Either way, sharing is caring!

Goal: Given an opportunity and time to complete a task, Student will maintain an organized work space on 95% of the school days.

Objective 1: Given an opportunity and time to complete a task, Student will maintain an organized work space on 60% of the school days.

Objective 2: Given an opportunity and time to complete a task, Student will maintain an organized work space on 75% of the school days.

Objective 3: Given an opportunity and time to complete a task, Student will maintain an organized work space on 85% of the school days.

Goal: Student will independently complete a planner on a daily basis with 95% accuracy in filling in his daily homework, planning for long term assignments and prioritizing what he needs to complete.

Objective 1: With minimal assistance, Student will complete a planner on a daily basis with 90% accuracy in filling in his daily homework, planning for long term assignments and prioritizing what he needs to complete.

Objective 2: With minimal assistance, Student will complete a planner on a daily basis with 95% accuracy in filling in his daily homework, planning for long term assignments and prioritizing what he needs to complete.

Objective 3: Student will independently complete a planner on a daily basis with 95% accuracy in filling in his daily homework, planning for long term assignments and prioritizing what he needs to complete.

Goal: On a weekly basis, Student will independently review his grade reports to determine his current grade in each of his classes and if he is missing any work 100% of the time.  He will write missing work into his planner and check it off as it is completed.

Objective 1: On a weekly basis and with minimal assistance, Student will review his grade reports to determine his current grade in each of his classes and if he is missing any work 90% of the time. He will write missing work into his planner and check it off as it is completed.

Objective 2: On a weekly basis and with minimal assistance, Student will review his grade reports to determine his current grade in each of his classes and if he is missing any work 95% of the time. He will write missing work into his planner and check it off as it is completed.

Objective 3: On a weekly basis, Student will independently review his grade reports to determine his current grade in each of his classes and if he is missing any work 100% of the time. He will write missing work into his planner and check it off as it is completed.