IEP Assignment

Your guidance as a preceptor for a School Nurse intern is invaluable to learning about the PEL-CSN's role in special education processes for students with special healthcare needs! Interns studied the Federal and State regulations, concepts and processes of IDEA and Individualized Education Programs in their first course, NUSP 512 Educational Perspectives in School Health. The students did a case study Individualized Education Program (IEP) assignment. They completed all the components for which the school nurse is responsible: domain sheet, health history (i.e. medical review), documentation of evaluation results, goals & objectives/benchmarks form, and the educational services placement & minutes form.

Now that SN students are in the internship, the expectation is that they will apply what was learned in class and carry it into the school setting and participate in all the parts of the IEP process with an actual student undergoing evaluation for special education services. As a school nurse intern who has passed the ISBE school nurse content exam, your intern is considered qualified by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) to fulfill these responsibilities under your supervision or the supervision of a PEL-CSN in the district in which they are completing the internship. In all cases, the mentorship you provide is key. The goal of the assignment is to help the SN intern understand how the IEP process is actualized in the school setting.

Ideally the student will be involved in an initial evaluation, but if there are no initial evaluations occurring, the intern may use a 3-year re-evaluation case. However, the intern is still expected to conduct the thorough medical review including the health history interview, student assessment and observation in the learning environment. The intern is expected to attend the scheduled IEP team meeting and complete all related IEP documents.

If it turns out that the student being evaluated does not qualify for special education services or does qualify but nursing goals and objectives are not indicated, then the intern will need your help to "fictionalize" the case for the assignments sake. This embellishment may be necessary so that the student can complete all the required components of the IEP assignment. The intern needs to demonstrate competency in the certified school nurse's responsibilities for students who do qualify for special ed services and need an IEP with nursing minutes with student-centered health goals and objectives. While each district's paper work may look different, all these pieces should exist in some form or another. If not, the interns have access to the ISBE forms which may be used.

Interns are expected to maintain the confidentiality of the student, family, and educational staff by changing (e.g. Student A) or blacking out the names and any other personal identifiable information on all documents submitted as part of the assignment.

Ask your intern to share the assignment docs with you. It may be helpful to review the resources for this assignment:

• Illinois State Board of Education. (2020). " Educational rights and responsibilities: Understanding special education in Illinois. The Parent Guide": https://www.isbe.net/Documents/Parent-Guide-Special-Ed-Aug20.pdf

• Chapter 10, Health and Education Plans for Students with Special Healthcare Needs in School Nursing: A Comprehensive Text (3rd ed.), edited by Dr. Janice Selekman, and yours truly from UIC, Cathy Yonkaitis and Robin Shannon! We hope you have this latest addition of the Textbook (2019) for your own practice (and no - we don't make royalties of our fellow school nurses or students!). You may also find it helpful to review the two articles below published in NASN school nurse (you might recognize those authors too ;).

Read the following articles in NASN School Nurse or ask your intern to share them with you.

• Yonkaitis, C.F., & Shannon, R.A. (2017). The role of the school nurse in the special education process, Part I: Student identification & evaluation. NASN School Nurse, 32(3), 179-184. doi:10.1177/1942602X17700677

• Shannon, R. A. & Yonkaitis, C.F. (2017). The role of the school nurse in the special education process, Part 2: Eligibility determination and the individual education program. NASN School Nurse, 3(4), 249- 254. doi:10.1177/1942602X17709505

To learn what your intern should know about the IEP process (or maybe to refresh your own memory), please watch the IEP Overview video below. It's a bit over an hour and should open in a new window for you.

An Overview of the IEP Process for School Nurses.

Our intent is to teach the students the gold standard of school nursing practice in "a perfect world". We understand that ideal situations may or may not be present in your educational setting. That said, we appreciate and applaud your efforts to instill best practices into the practicum experience.