Referrals

Referrals to special education can be made a number of ways. Parents, teachers, agency representatives, and other concerned community members can make a referral to the special education department.  

If a parent, teacher, agency representative, or community member has a concern about a child's development in any of the following areas, they can make a referral to the special education department.

• speech and language development 
• fine and gross motor development
• self-help skills
• behavior  
• social/emotional development
• pre-academic school readiness
• academic progress
• peer or other interpersonal relationships.
• hearing and vision

To make a referral, come by the school and make an appointment to meet with LaDonna Rees. The first thing we will do is start the intervention process with your child's teacher. As a team we will determine if further assessment is needed in one of the above areas. All information will be treated in a confidential manner.

Assessment Process

Before assessment might occur, a systematic regular education intervention may be conducted to identify problems and prevent them from becoming major problems.  A successful regular education intervention can sometimes negate the need for enrolling the child in special services. One type of regular education intervention would be small group instruction or direct instruction of specific skills by regular education teacher or assistant. Another type of regular education intervention is more formalized and can involve documentation of the type, duration, and result of specific interventions.

The purpose of conducting an evaluation is to

• gather information to determine whether a child has a disability and is eligible for special education services
• determine the nature and extent of the special education services that the child requires

Before a child may be evaluated, the district must notify the parents in writing describing any evaluation procedure that the district proposes to use.  In addition, parents must  give their written informed consent before their child may be evaluated. A signed parental consent for intial evaluation is not a consent for placement in special services.

Evaluations must meet the requirements below:

• child must be evaluated in all areas of concern
• no single assessment procedure may be used as the sole criterion for determining eligibility
• evaluation materials must be technically sound, appropriate in nature, determined to be non-biased in terms of race, gender, culture, and socioeconomic status, and validated for the specific purpose for which they are to be used
• evaluation must be administered by appropriate trained personnel
• evaluation must be conducted in child's native language or main mode of communication (i.e. sign language, braille, oral communication) or the district must its reasons and descirbe the alternatives used

If a child is determined eligible for special education services, an Individualized Education Program (IEP) must be implemented within 45 school days of recceiving parental consent of the intial evaluation. Parent must sign consent for placement in special education.

Readiness Evaluation
Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test
Brigance
Reading Evaluatons
Dibels, Analytical Reading Inventory, Running Records
Academic Evaluation
Wecshler Individual Achievement Test-II (WIAT-II)
Test of Early Math Ability (TEMA-II)
Test of Early Reading Ability -III (TERA-III)
Test of Early Written Language-II (TEWL-II)
Cognitive Evaluation
Cognitive evaluation means determining a child's thinking ability
Wecshler Intelligence Scale for Children-III (WISC-III)
Wecshler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-III  (WPPSI-III)

 
You are always welcome to drop by my classroom .