Office of Dispute Resolution and Administrative Services

Virginia Department of Education

P.O. Box 2120

Richmond, Virginia 23218-2120

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing to submit my comments regarding your office’s proposed revisions to the Regulations Governing Special Education Programs for Children with Disabilities in Virginia.

In particular, I object to the Virginia Department of Education’s proposed revision of the regulations at 8 VAC 20-80-70 (B)(2)(a) (Procedural Safeguards), which currently say: “The parent or parents has the right to an independent educational evaluation at public expense if the parent or parents disagrees with an evaluation obtained by the local educational agency.”

VDOE proposes to change this provision to: “The parent(s) has the right to an independent educational evaluation at public expense if the parent(s) disagrees with an evaluation component obtained by the local educational agency [emphasis added].”

The proposed addition of the word “component” would allow school districts to violate federal law in the way they conduct evaluations and make eligibility determinations. The proposed regulations would encourage school districts to restrict a parent’s procedural safeguards in securing a comprehensive independent educational evaluation (IEE) by limiting parents to a single component of a school’s evaluation at public expense when the parent disagrees with a public agency evaluation. This is especially problematic if the parents believe that the local educational agency (LEA) did not evaluate their child in all areas of suspected disability.  If the LEA did not assess the child in a specific area (e.g., language processing, auditory processing, autism, etc.) or used the wrong type of test (e.g., a psychological evaluation instead of a neuropsychological evaluation), then the parent would be denied an IEE because the parent could not disagree with a component that the LEA did not conduct. Conversely, if the parent disagreed with several components of the LEA’s evaluation, they would be intentionally restricted to only obtaining one of the component evaluations at public expense, when in fact, they should be allowed to receive a full IEE at public expense.

Additionally, there is no requirement in the federal regulations or the current Virginia regulations that require parents to explain their reason(s) for disagreeing with an LEA's evaluation.  Requiring parents to identify to school personnel which “component” they disagree with violates their procedural safeguard protections.

The word “component” does not appear in either the current Virginia regulations or the federal mandates.  Unless there is some incredibly persuasive explanation that is shared with the public as to why VDOE chose to recommend this change and include this new language when a change was not necessary, the word “component” should be deleted.

Sincerely,

Jackie Simchick