Across the Burlington-Edison School District, we provide a wide spectrum of service options for the students we serve. Special education provides supplemental services to students with special needs who meet three criteria:
- The student has a substantiated disability*. This determination involves an evaluation process by a school-based team that also includes the parents.
- The disability adversely affects educational performance; and,
- The adverse effects of the disability cannot be addressed exclusively through general education classes, with or without individual accommodations. (There are some students with disabilities whose needs can be addressed through accommodations within general education. These children do not qualify for special education. Instead, an individual accommodation plan is developed for each such student. These plans are known as 504 plans and are required of all school districts under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.)
Currently, over 500 children and young adults receive special education services in the Burlington-Edison School District. Once a child or young adult is identified as eligible for special education services, the school district provides a free and appropriate public education that emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet his or her unique needs and prepares the student for the transition from high school.
* Students may be found eligble for special education under one of the 13 categories idetnified here:
- Autism
- Deaf/blind
- Developmental delay
- Emotional behavior disability
- Health impairment (including deafness)
- Hearing impairment
- Intellectual disability
- Multiple disabilities
- Orthopedic impairment
- Specific learning disability
- Speech or language impairment
- Traumatic brain injury
- Visual impairment (including blindness)