February is an Important Month if You Want Your Child Evaluated for Special Education Services

Why February is Important for Students Who Struggle

For parents who are concerned for their child’s continuous academic struggles and are giving consideration to requesting their child be evaluated for special education services, it is imperative to start the process before mid-February. According to educational codes and regulation in many states there is a timeline that must be followed; a number of days allotted for the different steps of the evaluation process. If the school year concludes before those allotted days are met, the process will then continue into the next school year possibly leaving your child without an educational plan in place for the new school year. Time is of the essence.

February leaves five months in the school year. Over the course of those five months, or twenty weeks, there are federal holidays, breaks, and the occasional snow day that interfere with the school calendar. If a parent wants to have their child evaluated for special education services, by the time they take the first step of submitting a letter in writing to the Committee of Special Education stating they are requesting to have their child evaluated, it is approximately 60 – 80 days before the committee convenes to review the evaluation scores and (possibly) create an IEP for the student.

The timer starts counting down 60 days to having a meeting and an IEP in place (should your child qualify) the day the district receives the signed Consent to Evaluate (NYS Regulation of the Commissioner of Education 200.4 (b)(1)) That is approximately 8 – 11 weeks.

When a parent submits a written letter asking to have their child evaluated there is a chance a school administrator may ask for a meeting with the parent to discuss such request and the parent should comply. That request to meet should be within 10 days of receipt of the written request submitted by the parent (Regulation 200.4(a)(2)(iv)(2)). At that meeting it can be jointly decided by the administrator and the parent to create an intervention plan instead of moving to evaluating the student. Such plans are often referred to as Response to Intervention (RTI) or Scientific Researched Based Intervention (SRBI). It requires data collection of the interventions used by teachers, which were uniquely created for your child. If such a plan is created, it must be submitted to the parents in writing. However, a parent can refuse a school created intervention plan and the district must go forward with the evaluation.

To follow is a hypothetical timeline that will demonstrate 60 days. It reflects break and holidays found on the school calendar:

Day 1 - February 13 – parent submits a hard copy of a written letter to the school principal or Committee of Special Education requesting their child be evaluated for special education services.

Day 10 – March 7 – Committee of Special Education sends parent Consent to Evaluate form; parents sign and return to district immediately. (*Midwinter Recess interrupted the count by extending it 5 school days.)

Day 60 – June 6 – Initial CSE Meeting is held. The committee compromised of a psychologist, general education teacher, special education teacher, parent, nurse, and a school district representative meet to review the scores from the psychological evaluation, academic achievement scores, review teacher reports, and if appropriate, create an IEP for the student with the input of everyone on the committee.  (*Spring Break interrupted the count, extending the date of Day 60.)

If you child qualifies for special education services, the district has 30 days to implement the IEP. Based on our hypothetical timeline your child would not start to receive the services on his IEP until the next school year.

Initiating the Process to Evaluate after the month of February can be long and complicated

As indicated in our hypothetical timeline, starting the process in mid-February yields results in early June. Starting the process any time after the month of February can result in two possible outcomes:

1)   The district carries over the evaluation process and the 60 days to evaluate and hold an Initial Meeting until the next school year. This is most detrimental to your child. When the meeting is held the district may rely on Teacher Reports from the new teacher, not the reports from the teacher who had your child for an entire previous school year. Your child may also score poorly on their academic achievement evaluation due to the ‘summer slide’ most student experience over the summer break.

2)   The district may higher a part-time psychologist to evaluate your child over the summer. You have to be available at any time during the summer months to have your child available to be evaluated in an office. If you are planning on going away for the summer those plans may be altered due to the scheduling of the evaluations. Additionally, your child’s teacher is not contractually obligated to attend a meeting during the summer months, unless paid by the district. The team put together to attend your child’s Initial Meeting could be people who have never worked with your child but are contributing to the meeting based on a report your child’s teacher wrote.

Time is of the essence. If you have concerns for your child’s academic achievement and have been giving consideration to requesting an evaluation to be administered to determine if he qualifies for special education services, mid-February is the very latest to start the process in order to have an academic plan in place for your child at the start of the next school year.

Please call or email me with questions!

Wishing you Peace, Courage, and Love,

Anne Cunningham,

Educational Advocate

annec@advocate4students.com