Paragraph 66. The District shall provide both SPED services and ELL services to each SPED ELL in a manner appropriate to the student’s individual needs. No ELL shall be denied ELL services solely due to the nature or severity of the student’s disability, and no ELL shall be denied SPED services due to his or her ELL status. The District shall ensure that principals/headmasters factor the needs of SPED ELLs, including those in substantially separate placements, in each school’s organizational and staffing plans and provide these students with ELL services. For all such students, ELL services shall be delivered by appropriately qualified personnel, as required by Paragraph 48 (ESL licensed), Paragraph 52 (SEI trained), and Paragraph 65 (HILT trained).

Paragraph 67. For ELLs who are also SPED students, no accommodations for or modifications to standard language proficiency assessment procedures shall be implemented unless such accommodations or modifications are determined necessary by the student’s IEP or Section 504 team, through a documented team process. Similarly, no modifications to the instructional model through which such a student shall be provided ELL services (including modifications to the amount of ESL instruction or the method of providing ESL that deviate from the requirements set forth in Paragraphs 38-42) shall be implemented unless such modifications are determined necessary by the student’s IEP or Section 504 team, through a documented team process. Under no circumstances shall the District deny ELL services entirely, unless, in rare cases, the IEP team, including an individual as set forth in Paragraph 68, determines and documents in a student’s IEP that the student’s disability is so severe that it would be unreasonable to expect that the student will ever be capable of using or understanding language.

Paragraph 68. Each school shall develop, maintain, and share with the OELL and SPED offices, and with the United States, by January 15, 2013, a list of school staff members who (a) are ESL certified or have completed Categories 1, 2, and 4; (b) are knowledgeable about ELL needs and services and relevant considerations related to ELLs’ language and cultural background; (c) have received training on the intersection between ELL and SPED service provision; and (d) are available to participate in special education team meetings. The District shall inform all principals, SPED staff, and LAT facilitators that IEP or Section 504 team meetings for each SPED ELL must include one of the listed individuals and ensure through monitoring that this requirement is met. If, prior to any IEP or Section 504 team meeting, the included individual is not already knowledgeable about the student, the District shall inform the individual where the student’s files are located and when/how they can be accessed for his/her review.

Paragraph 69. The District shall employ reasonable measures to increase staff knowledge of best practices governing the provision of services to ELLs who have disabilities, particularly disabilities affecting language acquisition and written and oral language processing and expression. With the assistance of the New England Equity Assistance Center, the District shall provide training to all Special Education and Student Services Coordinators regarding appropriate strategies for educating ELLs with disabilities. The District shall sponsor training events for Coordinators of Special Education Support and Services and LAT facilitators throughout the year, and shall ensure that all Coordinators of Special Education Support and Services and LAT facilitators are trained on the intersection between ELL and SPED service provision. Beginning with the 2012-2013 school year, the OELL shall ensure that special education and ELL staff at the school level hold at least one joint planning meeting annually to discuss ELL services and processes. OELL shall obtain documentation of such joint planning meetings from each school by June 30 of each school year and report any schools that did not meet this requirement to the United States by August 1.

Paragraph 70. The District shall hire an OELL and SPED shared consultant, who shall manage interdepartmental coordination efforts. Such shared consultant, or his/her designee, shall oversee the development of school-level joint planning resources and district-wide PD on relevant topics, including pre-referral, referral, and Response to Intervention processes; evaluation and screening methods; SPED ELL programs and services, including instructional models; documentation requirements; and interpretation and translation requirements and resources.

Paragraph 71. The District shall ensure that its Comprehensive Special Education Resource Manual includes procedures to ensure that all ELLs who are suspected of having a disability are promptly and appropriately assessed to determine whether they in fact have a disability. The Manual shall also specifically note that ELLs cannot be denied access to SPED on the basis of their ELL status, and shall provide guidance on evaluation and placement considerations specific to SPED ELLs. The District shall provide a copy of its manual to the United States by August 1, 2012, and a copy of any changes to the manual in subsequent August 1 reports each year.

Paragraph 72. The District shall develop and maintain a list of names and contact information for qualified professional bilingual special education evaluators in each of the District’s major languages and other languages to the extent available, along with additional resources for those languages in which a bilingual evaluator is not readily available. The District shall revise this list in September and March of each year to ensure that it is current and that the individuals listed are in fact available to conduct evaluations, and, beginning with the 2012-2013 school year, shall provide a copy of this list to the United States by October 15 and March 31 of each year.

Paragraph 73. The District shall ensure that the IEP team or Section 504 team of each SPED ELL shall document and consider, and maintain in each SPED ELL’s special education files:

• a. A record of that student’s language proficiency testing results;
• b. A record of that student’s first language educational history, if any;
• c. Documentation of the special education assessments used to determine the student’s disability or special needs, the language in which special education assessments were conducted, and the reasons for testing in that language;
• d. Documentation of the team’s consideration of any effect language development issues might have on special education assessment results; and
• e. Documentation that specifically tracks the length of time from (i) the initiation of any pre-referral interventions to (ii) the date of referral, (iii) the date of evaluation, and (iv) the date on which an IEP or Section 504 Plan was proposed.

Paragraph 74. The District shall further ensure that the IEP Team or Section 504 team of each SPED ELL (in the course of annual or regular consideration or reconsideration of the student’s educational needs in accordance with state and federal law governing the provision of special education and related aids and services) shall document, with specificity, in any new or revised IEP or Section 504 plan:

• a. Any accommodations for or modifications to standard language proficiency assessment procedures required by the student’s disability or special needs, as well an explanation for why accommodations and/or modifications are necessary;
• b. The IEP team’s or Section 504 team’s consideration of the student’s language needs and the extent to which they are affected, in any or all domains, by the student’s disability or special needs;
• c. The instructional model through which the student shall be provided ELL services, as well as any modifications to the student’s educational program required by the student’s disability or special needs, and an explanation for why any such modifications are necessary; and
• d. Any other IEP team decision regarding the impact of disability upon the delivery of ELL services, or the impact of limited English proficiency on the delivery of SPED services, and the basis for any modifications determined necessary.

Paragraph 75. The District has elected to provide ESL/ELD services to SPED ELL students at the McKinley School through ELA teachers who are also certified in SPED and ELL. The District shall continue to use its instructional monitoring tool to effectively measure the quality of ESL services provided through this instructional model at this school. Within 30 days of revising the ESL observation tool, as required by Paragraphs 43 and 60, the District shall revise the McKinley instructional monitoring tool to ask whether the school used the ESL observation tool to ascertain the quality of instruction in each classroom, and to ask how ELLs’ learning progressions in language, literacy, and content are measured. In addition, the District shall, on a semi-annual basis beginning 6 months after the date of this Agreement, review the instructional model, assess its effectiveness for delivering ESL services, and adjust the model as necessary to ensure students at McKinley School are effectively served. The District shall submit a copy of each assessment including any adjustments made to the model based on those assessments to the United States by April 30, 2012, and by March 31 of each school year thereafter.

Paragraph 76. The District shall also employ strategies to ensure that McKinley students’ ELL needs are addressed to the greatest extent practicable by: (a) assigning an individual knowledgeable about ELL needs and services to each SPED ELL’s teaching team; (b) providing information and training on ESL/ELD instructional practices as part of the school’s ELA professional development sessions; and (c) providing ELA teachers with ESL/ELD instructional materials and training by publishers on the content of those materials.