Chapter 12 – Regulatory Requirements for Child Find, Evaluation, and Parent Involvement
The Education for All Handicapped Children Act (PL 94-142), passed in 1975, outlined guidance for providing students with disabilities a public education. Today, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 2004) is the guiding foundation of special education law. This law requires states and localities to adhere to the following principles: Child find/ zero reject, nondiscriminatory evaluation, individualized education programs (IEP), free appropriate public education (FAPE), least restrictive environment (LRE), related services, parent participation, and confidentiality (Bateman & Cline, 2016). This chapter will specifically address law related to child find/ zero reject, nondiscriminatory evaluation, and parent participation. In Chapter 13, the remaining requirements will be covered in detail.
By law, school districts are required to locate, identify, and evaluate individuals in the community who might require special education and related services through a child find/ zero reject process. This process includes individuals from birth to 21 years of age and prohibits exclusion based on homelessness, migrant status, school setting (homeschool, private school, homebound, etc.), grade level, incarceration, or guardianship status (e.g. wards of the state), or the severity of a child’s disability. Once individuals are identified, a screening process must be conducted to determine if an individual should be referred for a full evaluation for special education or related services. This process must also include an ongoing active effort to provide FAPE to all eligible children, to include a way to determine which children in any given state or district are receiving services.
The Local Educational Agency (LEA), also known as the school district or division, is responsible for organizing and completing the child find/ zero reject process. While each state may have their own codes or regulations related to child find/ zero reject, all LEAs are responsible for conducting activities to demonstrate their efforts to engage the community in finding all eligible students. No children may be excluded, regardless of the severity of their disability, behaviors, or medical conditions. Further, this includes children who are suspected of having a disability. Locating, identifying, and serving these students, ages birth to 21, is the crux of the child find/ zero reject requirement. In Virginia, LEAs are also expected to maintain and implement a child find program, coordinate activities for children from birth to age two, conduct a program focused on public awareness about child find, develop and use screening procedures for all students to include procedural safeguards, utilize a referral process for children suspected of a disability, and locate, identify, and evaluate all children regardless of school enrollment location (Virginia Code 8VAC20-81-50, 2009). In addition, Virginia also prohibits requiring parents or guardians to seek out medication for their child.
All of the aforementioned requirements are subject to timelines outlined in IDEA. Specific to child find/ zero reject, an administrator must respond to a written or oral request for evaluation within three business days. This request may be initiated by parents or guardians, school staff, or other individuals. It can be in writing or made verbally, as long as it is communicated with the administrator or school designee. Once the request is made, the administrator has three business days to initiate the referral for evaluation, initiate a school team review to make an evaluation decision, or deny the evaluation referral request. Regardless of the decision, administrators must provide the parent/ guardian with prior written notice to document their decision. All information, to include screening data, should be made available to the parent/ guardian. If evaluation is initiated, the team is required to meet within 10 days after receiving a referral request.
During the evaluation request review process, all data sources should be considered. While a school may use progress data to make determinations, additional guidelines exist to ensure the student receives a nondiscriminatory evaluation. If interventions are already in place to support the student, these must be evaluated to ensure they are research or evidence-based, and therefore, effective in supporting learning needs. All interventions should be included in the evaluation process and should not be used to refuse or delay a formal evaluation for special education. Further, if a child is receiving research-based interventions and is not demonstrating success, they should also be referred for evaluation.
An important second component of IDEA is the nondiscriminatory evaluation process. This ensures that every child has a non-biased and fair chance to be evaluated once identified through child find/ zero reject. According to the law, the LEA must provide a timely, thorough, and multidisciplinary evaluation. This includes testing which is not culturally biased. It should be noted that this does not just apply to students who are diverse, but all students should receive systematic assessments that promote equity, to include language, culture, race, and gender. Regardless of the test, it should be acknowledged and noted that error is part of every assessment and these must be evaluated critically. It is important to ensure that a qualified individual is both administering and interpreting results with a critical eye. This may mean diving in to critically assess whether scores are reflective of a student’s strengths and weaknesses and whether language, culture, or other factors impacted assessment scores. To reduce bias from the onset, test norms should be established and followed, data about the test’s validity should be evaluated, to include the impact of linguistic and cultural factors, and information about how diverse students perform on the tests should be considered. Equally important is a multidisciplinary approach that utilizes many different ways of assessing a student. At no time should one assessment measure determine a student’s eligibility for special education.
Finally, as part of the procedural safeguard requirements of IDEA, it is the LEA’s responsibility to ensure that parents/ guardians have the opportunity to participate in each meeting related to evaluation, identification, and educational placement decisions. This includes early notification of the meeting and agreement on a time and location. Meeting notice must include the purpose, time, and location of the meeting, a list of those attending the meeting, a parent/ guardian’s option and right to include participation of other individuals who may have knowledge of the student, a copy of the child’s Individualized Education Program (IEP) and an interpreter, if necessary. This includes sign language interpreters or interpreters for parents/ guardians whose native or preferred language is not English.
Prior Written Notice is another procedural safeguard mandated by IDEA. The document that fulfills Prior Written Notice is provided to guardians prior to the implementation of any changes or proposed changes that impact FAPE. Prior Written Notice should be provided anytime the LEA proposes, changes, or refuses anything related to eligibility evaluations, placement (or LRE), or educational services. The Prior Written Notice should be in writing and translated into the parent/ guardian’s native language and the school must ensure that the parents/ guardians understand the notice. By law, in addition to the Prior Written Notice, parents must also be offered or receive their procedural safeguards. These safeguards are usually provided in the form of a booklet and describe the parents/ guardians’ rights as it relates to IDEA. There are 13 safeguards afforded to parents/ guardians, including: Independent educational evaluations, parental consent, prior written notice, the option for mediation, access to educational records, due process and state complaint procedures, ways to engage in meetings, state appeals, civil action, attorneys’ fees, placement during due process, alternative educational setting, private schools, and hearings on due process. Documentation of these safeguards should also be provided to the parents/ guardians in their native language. Not only should parents/ guardians be offered these safeguards any time the team convenes to discuss special education services, but they are also required when an initial request for evaluation occurs, when LEAs receive notices of a due process complaint, when a change in placement due to disciplinary action occurs, and when parents/ guardians make the request for a copy of the safeguards.
Parents/ guardians have the right to be part of a team who decides on eligibility for special education or related services, creates or reviews an IEP, and determines placement or the LRE. This participation can take the form of in person attendance, video participation, or participation by phone. Parents/ guardians are not required to attend meetings, but every effort should be made to accommodate those who do wish to participate. Should an LEA fail to accommodate parents/ guardians, they are denying FAPE. Should a team find themselves faced with expiring deadlines, it should be noted that parent/ guardian participation takes precedence. If a parent/ guardian cannot attend or refuses to attend a meeting, despite continued efforts to find an agreed upon time, date, and location, it is the LEA’s responsibility to document these efforts to include emails, phone calls, and home visits.
During IEP meetings, if the child will turn 16 during the life of an IEP, parents/ guardians must also be told that their child will be invited to the meeting and information about postsecondary goals and transition services must be provided. If another agency is invited to support these postsecondary goals and transition services, that information must also be provided to parents prior to the meeting.