EGUSD Special Education Programs/Services

EGUSD Special Education provides the continuum of special education support as outlined in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA ‘04). Students receive support from Special Education as delineated on their Individual Education Plan (IEP). Programs include services and support for Autism (Aut), Deaf/Blind (DB), Deaf, Hard of Hearing (DHOH), Emotional Disturbance (ED), Intellectual Delay (ID), Orthopedic Impairment (OI), Other Health Impairment (OHI), Multiple Disabilities (MD), Speech and Language Impairment (SLI), Specific Learning Disability (SLD), Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Visually Impairment (VI). The District annually notifies parents of the rights related to special education identification, referral, assessment, instructional planning, implementation and review and procedures for initiating a referral for assessment. Parents receive this special education information at their child’s annual IEP meeting. For more information about special education services, please call (916) 686-7780.

Academic, Behavior, and Social Supports (ABSS)

Specialized Academic Instruction will be provided in the Academic, Behavior, and Social Supports self-contained classroom, with included counseling, guidance, and mental health supports.  SAI is delivered individually or in small groups, as appropriate, with an emphasis on targeted academic and emotional skills, positive behavior intervention, self-regulation, and coping strategies.  

Adult Transition Program (ATP)

The focus of the Elk Grove Unified School District Adult Transition Program (ATP) is to provide for maximum independence for young adults with differing intellectual abilities (ages of 18-22) in the areas of independent living, vocational experiences, community integration, and recreation/leisure. Additionally, it is within these areas that the young adults and their families work collaboratively with district staff and community stakeholders in determining individual needs, personal interests, and required skills. The team also develops strategic plans for leading independent, productive lives.

Curricular and instructional methodologies are congruent with activities of age appropriate adults and are in line with individual student goals. A variety of instructional strategies are used that promote skills used in adult life. Classroom instruction culminates in real world experiences. Students participate in community based instruction and are provided opportunities for contact, interaction, and integration with a variety of community resources and local businesses.

Instruction covers: 

• Social Behavior, Self-Help: domestic skills, self care, self advocacy, personal safety, sexuality

• Mobility: public transportation, directional skills, ambulation (as needed)

• Functional Academics: ELA – emergency signs, directional signs, personal information, math (money, budgets, time, counting, matching)

• Job Readiness and Training: link with community agencies and WorkAbility staff, campus and community based job skill practice

Through classroom project-based learning, students design, create, promote, market and sell items to better prepare themselves for a productive future once they leave the educational system. 

Adapted Physical Education (AdPE)

Coming Soon

Deaf and Hard of Hearing Program and Services

The EGUSD provides services to students identified as deaf or hard of hearing through a total communication services delivery.  Students who use sign language use interpreters to help them access the core curriculum in general education classes and in the Learning Center DHOH program with a teacher of the deaf.  Students who voice and sign are supported by interpreters and teachers and in the Learning Center.

 Appropriate support equipment may be necessary to additionally help with amplification for some students.

The EGUSD also utilizes placements for students such as Fremont School for the Deaf and more intensive placements, if appropriate.

Elk Grove Unified School District continues to collaborate with Regional Service Delivery model for Deaf children in the greater Sacramento area where children’s needs are monitored and supported amongst the Sacramento area districts.

Language, Speech, and Hearing Services

The EGUSD provides speech and language services to students who present with mild to severe speech/language disabilities.  Disabilities in oral language range from articulation, apraxia, fluency, syntax, morphology and language processing to pragmatics and hard of hearing.

Each comprehensive Elementary, Middle and High School sites provides speech and language services to eligible students. PreK students who present with severe speech disabilities are served through the district’s intense autism program, language development programs and integrated preschool classes. Young students who present with mild speech and language concerns are generally served by the therapist at their neighborhood school.

Students who may be in need of strategies that will assist them in the classroom may receive Response to Intervention support from the LSH specialist to address general speech and language concerns for the parent and classroom teacher.

 Students’ needs are also served through a collaboration service delivery model with other site service providers to meet the special language needs in the least restrictive environment.

Level 1

This level of support emphasizes flexible, individualized instruction primarily within the general education setting, supplemented by targeted pull-out services as needed. Core and district-adopted intervention curricula are used, with adaptations such as modified pacing, alternate grade-level materials, and added supports to address diverse learning needs. Instructional spaces are organized for small group and independent work, with accessible materials and visual aids to foster student independence. Social, communication, and executive functioning skills are integrated into instruction through direct teaching, modeling, and reinforcement strategies aligned with PBIS. Visual supports are naturally embedded to guide routines and behavior. Staffing ratios support a flexible model, with paraeducators assisting both in classrooms and during pull-out instruction as needed. 

Levels, 2, 3, and 4 Self-Contained Programs

Level 2: Specialized Academic Instruction will be provided in a Level 2 self-contained classroom, which focuses on targeted academic intervention based on the student’s IEP goals utilizing a combination of whole group, small group, and individual instructional models with embedded supports for functional behavior, language and communication development, sensory, motor functioning, and social emotional learning. 

Level 3: Specialized Academic Instruction will be provided in a Level 3 self-contained classroom, which utilizes visually-based small group individualized instruction in support of the student’s IEP goals and post-secondary outcomes, focusing on functional behavior, communication, developmentally appropriate adaptive and social skills, with a high rate of prompting, visual and embedded supports for language and communication development, sensory, and motor functioning.

Level 4: Specialized Academic Instruction will be provided in Level 4 self-contained classroom, which focuses on real world, functional content in support of the student’s IEP goals, with an emphasis on functional behavior, communication, foundational social, leisure, and adaptive skills.  The Level 4 classroom utilizes visually-based instruction, embedded language and communication, sensory, and motor functioning support delivered individually and in small groups with a high rate of prompting and visual supports. 

Multiple Strategies for Academics and Transition (MSAT)

MSAT is an initiative option designed to provide the support necessary to meet the academic, social/emotional and behavioral needs of students with disabilities in the least restrictive learning environment. Debra Herburger, K-12 CPL/Special Education Instructional Coach (see below) is providing MSAT training  and implementation throughout the district.

What is MSAT?

A curriculum and instructional sequence that directly teaches and consistently reinforces the hidden curriculum of student academic and behavior success skills specifically for students with disabilities in the secondary setting.

MSAT is a class designed to reinforce the academic skills required for students to be able to access the curriculum in the least restrictive environment.  In the MSAT classes, students are taught organization skills, time management and priority-setting skills, planning for post-secondary transition, as well as social/emotional and behavioral skills.

The goal of the MSAT class is to provide the support students need to be in the least restrictive learning environment that will meet each student’s individual learning goals.

The curriculum addresses Executive Functioning Skill including Impaired Executive Functioning:  an inability to engage in goal-directed, future-oriented behaviors including: planning, flexibility, organized search, self-monitoring, and use of working memory.

• “Behavior Problems” Associated With Executive Dysfunction

• Meltdowns

• Aggression

• Protesting

• Noncompliance

• Off Task Behaviors/Distract-ability

• Inflexibility or Rigidity

• Procrastination

• Prompt Dependence

• Disorganization

• Socially Inappropriate Behaviors

MSAT

• Teaches and Reinforces Compensatory Skills

• Provides remediation of Underlying “Executive” Skills using Cognitive Reorganization Strategies

Essential Learning Goals (Strands)

• Recall, Restate and Reinforce Academic Skills: What are the academic skills students need to successfully access the general education curriculum?

• Organization: Both personal and academic-this includes things such as time management as well as binder and backpack organization.

• Prioritizing and Goal Setting: Setting personal and academic goals; short-term and long-term goals.

• Post-High School Transition: Career research projects; exploring post-high school options for continued education; explore support services.

• Self-Advocacy/Self-Management: Identify and understand their disability and participate in their IEP meeting/development as appropriate.

• Self-Efficacy (Efficacy Curriculum/Brainology-Growth Mindset): Understand the connection between learning in the classroom, being a life-long learner and meeting future goals.

• Collaboration and Class Participation: Practice social skills that are required in educational setting and beyond.

Occupational Therapy (OT)

Occupational Therapy in a Public School Setting

In a school-based practice, OTs view disability in terms of the ways in which a child is faced with activity limitations and participation restrictions instead of a focus on projected limitations of a singular diagnosis, disease or disorder.

In a school-based practice, the OT staff support a child’s ability to gain access to and make progress in the school curriculum vs. rehabilitating to maximum potential a singular diagnosis, disease or disorder.

OTs are health professionals whose purpose in a public school setting is to support a child’s engagement and participation in daily goal-directed activities (“occupations”) which engage the student in meaningful, organized and self-directed actions that create independence, prevent or minimize disability and maintain health.

Areas of need which can be addressed by OT can include: refining motor skills, spatial relationships, visual perceptual skills, sensory motor function and environmental adaptations.

If you have questions about occupational therapy services, please contact your child’s site-based case manager.

PBIS - Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports

Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) is part of a Multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) and an integral part of EGUSD’s commitment to student learning and behavioral health.  This Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) focuses on creating and sustaining universal/ school-wide (all students), targeted (small group), and intensive (individual) systems of support that improve the academic and social/emotional outcomes for all children and youth by making targeted behaviors less effective, and desired behaviors more functional. School sites utilize a proactive approach to establishing the behavioral supports and social culture needed for all students on a school site to achieve social, emotional and academic success.

PBIS supports students from both a behavioral and an academic perspective and encourages the social and emotional well-being of our students and staff. We appreciate and acknowledge the efforts of our staff and our families as we continue to create a more inclusive and supportive environment throughout our district.

Schools that effectively implement PBIS demonstrate:

• Increased student connection to school community

• Increased instructional time

• Up to 50% reduction in office referral rates per year

• Reduction in overall exclusionary discipline

• More consistent attendance

• Higher academic achievement

• Improved overall school climate and school safety

• Positive shift in school culture

• Reduction in overall suspension and expulsion

• Opportunity to reduce proactively reduce problem behaviors

Link to PBIS Website

Physical Therapy (PT)

Physical Therapy in a Public School Setting

In a school-based practice, Physical Therapists (PTs) view disability in terms of the ways in which a child is faced with activity limitations and participation restrictions instead of a focus on projected limitations of a singular diagnosis, disease or disorder.

In a school-based practice, the PT staff support a child’s ability to gain access to and make progress in the school curriculum vs. rehabilitating to maximum potential a singular diagnosis, disease or disorder.

PTs are health professionals whose purpose is to correct, facilitate or adapt the student’s functional mobility, accessibility and use of assistive devices for the listed issues.

Areas of need which can be addressed by a PT can include: management of orthopedic problems in the trunk and lower extremities, gait training, mobility skills, positioning, range of motion, use of equipment and specific muscle strength and endurance.

If you have questions about physical therapy services, please contact your child’s site-based case manager.

Transitional Academic Class (TAC) and Pathways

TAC: Specialized Academic Instruction will be provided in a self-contained Transitional Academic Class (TAC) in support of the student’s IEP goals. The TAC classroom provides slower paced instruction in the core curriculum with a focus on essential academic standards in a small group setting for students in grades 3-8. 

Pathways: Specialized Academic Instruction will be provided in a self-contained Pathways class in support of the student’s IEP goals. The Pathways classroom provides slower paced instruction in the core curriculum with a focus on essential academic standards in a small group setting for students in grades 9-12. 

Transition Services

The Elk Grove Unified School District’s Transition Services program is funded through State and Federal funds (WorkAbility I Grant through California Department of Education; Department of Rehabilitation Transition Partnership Program) to provide services to secondary students with IEPs.

Ten Transition Specialists provide regional services to nine comprehensive high schools and middle schools, three alternative schools, Adult Transition Programs, and Jessie Baker School. Middle school student services include but may not be limited to career assessment and exploration lessons/activities, transition orientations, and tours to high school. High school students participate in career assessments and exploration; work-based learning, paid and un-paid training placements, and field explorations. Students who are preparing to transition out of high school are provided with post-secondary education and training options as well as linkages to programs, services, and supports. Students may participate in the Transition Partnership Program while in high school which is a collaborative partnership between EGUSD and the Department of Rehabilitation.

Transition Resources for Elementary Students, Families, and Staff

EGUSD Transition Services is one of two WorkAbility I Programs in California tasked with identifying and/or developing targeted transition resources for elementary-aged students and their families and staff. Use the link above to access.

To reach Transition Services please call (916) 686-7758.