Special Education

Identification

Child Find

• Each school district is responsible for actively locating, identifying and evaluating all children with disabilities who live within the district boundaries, are between the ages of birth and 21, and may be eligible for special education and related services. The local school district is not required to actually conduct the evaluations for children birth through 2 years of age, but must ensure that they are carried out at no cost to the parent. All school districts are required to have written procedures for child find activities for all school children, including those attending private, charter, and/or religiously affiliated schools. These procedures must describe activities for:

• annual screening of children under the age of five to identify those who may need early

• intervention or special education services to maintain satisfactory educational performance;

• ongoing review of all children in regular education classes;

• ongoing coordination with early intervention programs; and

• coordination and consultation with nonpublic schools located within the district.

Screening

Screening is the process of reviewing all children in a given group with a set of criteria for the purpose of identifying certain individuals for evaluations who may be in need of special education. One purpose of screening is to locate children, birth through age 21, who may need special education services to maintain satisfactory educational performance. No child can be determined eligible to receive special education and related services based only on the results of a screening procedure.

Screening is different from evaluation. Screening means reviewing all children in a given group (all kindergartners, all students who are new to the school district, all 3-year-old children in the community, etc.). It is not specific to an individual child. All children in the group must be screened with the same assessment process. Screening does not involve administration of assessment instruments which would be used in an evaluation.

The district must inform the public of the process for conducting group screening through school handbooks, newsletters, child find activities, letters, or similar methods. Written parent/guardian permission is not required for this type of screening. Screening results should be shared with the parents/guardians. Screening is done only to determine those students in need of or not in need of an evaluation. When a student is identified through screening as needing to be referred for evaluation, the date of the decision to initiate an evaluation is the date that begins the 60-school-day process as described in the Evaluation section that follows.

*School districts are required by public health to conduct annual vision and hearing screening of all students, including those with disabilities.

Source: ISBE. 2001. A Parents’ Guide: The Educational Rights of Students with Disabilities

Private/Parochial School and Home-Schooled Participation: Responses to Requirements Concerning Students Enrolled In Private/Parochial and Home-Schooled Participation

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA 2004) requires that each local educational agency (LEA) conduct child find activities, determine the proportionate share of Federal Part B funds, and provide equitable services to parentally-placed private school children with disabilities who attend private schools located in the LEA without regard to where the children reside.

Under IDEA 2004, parentally placed private school students with disabilities are entitled to receive special education and related services from the school district in which the private school is located, without regard to where the child resides. The regular IEP form and process will continue to be used to determine eligibility. The difference comes in the development of the student’s educational program. Each school district is required to devote a “proportionate share” of its Federal special education funds to the actual provision of services to students with disabilities enrolled in private schools (see chart).

As part of that overall obligation, the district will include parents of known home school students in the Timely and Meaningful Consultation (TMC) process. As stated in the supplemental guidance from April 2006, the district will provide the same written notice that is provided to private school parents to the known parents of home schoolers within the district. Also, in order to ensure the widest possible participation of such parents in the TMC process, the district will place an advertisement in the local publication of general circulation that provides notice to the public of the TMC meeting.

Oak Lawn Hometown School District 123 will allocate the proportionate share among all of the private/parochial schools within the district’s attendance zone. In the event the apportioned funds are depleted during the current fiscal year, School District 123 will subsidize the monies needed to service those students who are residents of Oak Lawn Hometown School District 123.

Child Find Activities

Worth School District 127 has specific procedures for actively identifying, locating and evaluating children who might need special education and related services. These procedures describe activities for:

• Identifying, locating and evaluating children with known or suspected disabilities

• Ongoing coordination with early intervention programs to identify children from birth through two years of age who have or are suspected of having disabilities, in order to ensure provision of services in accordance with applicable timelines;

• Annual screening of children under age 5 in order to identify those who may need early intervention or special education and related services;

• Hearing and vision screening at regular intervals during the child’s school career and annual hearing and vision screening of all special education students;

• Ongoing review of each child’s performance and progress by teachers and other professional personnel, in order to refer those children who exhibit problems which interfere with their education progress and/or their adjustment to the educational setting, suggesting that they may be eligible for special education and related services; and

• Coordination and consultation with non-public schools located within the district that results in child find activities comparable to those affecting students in the public schools

The new provisions in IDEA 2004, unlike prior revisions of the act, create an obligation for local school districts to conduct Child Find for each student attending private elementary and secondary schools within the district, regardless of the students’ residency within the district. This, of course, runs contrary to existing state provisions that premise such duties solely on the residency of the students. Therefore, in an effort to comply with the requirements of IDEA 2004 and our existing state provisions, we are recommending that Child Find be undertaken in the following manner:

• In FY07, all aspects of Child Find became the responsibility of the serving district. Each local school district shall be expected to conduct those activities (Child Find) necessary to identify those students who may require an initial case study evaluation for all students who attend private school within the boundaries of the local school district.

• When the serving district identifies a student who requires a referral for an initial case study evaluation, the student will be evaluated by the serving district. In the event the student is a resident of a district other than the serving district, the district of residence shall promptly contact the serving district. The district of residence shall be expected to forward any additional information, if known, on the student to the serving district.

• The serving district shall be expected to conduct all required procedures associated with the initial case study evaluation. The serving district shall be expected to complete the evaluation with timelines prescribed by our current Illinois Administrative Code provisions pertaining to case study evaluations. Obtaining written parental consent for the evaluation shall be the primary responsibility of the district of residence.

• Upon completion of the evaluation, the serving district shall be responsible for convening an eligibility conference to determine the student’s eligibility for special education and related services, including the provision of appropriate notification of the conference to the parents. When scheduling the conference, the evaluating district/serving district shall be expected to extend an invitation to officials of the district of residence and the private/parochial school.

• In the event the consensus of the eligibility conference attendees is to declare the student eligible for special education and related services, the district in which the student currently attends school will be expected to develop a services plan, as appropriate, in accordance with the district’s overall plan or policy for ensuring equitable participation of private elementary and secondary school students.