Page 5:
Under General Meeting Strategies bullets--Add a bullet:
Under General Meeting Strategies bullet--Provide training:
Under "Use Visuals" - the scores from the testing should be provided as Standard Score and percentages, so everyone on the team understands how the child ranks based on their peers. A handout to explain the scores would be very helpful. All testing and scores should be provided at least 24 hours prior to the meeting with an explanation of how to interpret the scores for each assessment.
Under Differential medical and educational diagnosis bullet--this is unclear in most LEAs, specifically as it relates to Dyslexia, as they state they don't diagnose it. It is a myth that dyslexia is a medical diagnosis. Dyslexia becomes an educational problem when a child does not learn to read. Dyslexia is a specific learning disability (SLD), which is diagnosed in the schools. I would recommend VDOE consider that when including that statement.
Page 6 under Strategies that may be used to increase consistency between and among teams include: Please include a statement that Directors should not tolerate falsified data included in any IDEA documents (specifically Eligibility forms, IEPs or progress reports).
Under Heading: Information to Consider When Receiving a Referral from Mass Screening,
an Individual, or Early Intervention--how are students referred when they are not in the LEA? Specifically, those children in homeschool or private school setting? Under IDEA Child Find, LEAs are responsible for identifying ALL children eligible for Special Education.
Page 7 first sentence: "access to high quality instruction". During Due Process, LEAs are stating that children in homeschool or private schools are not receiving "access to high quality instruction" as a means to justify not providing FAPE. Who on the Eligibility team makes this decision?? Especially if they are not going to observe the Homeschooling or Private School instruction.
Figure 1 needs to be enlarged. It is hard to read.
Page 8: This statement needs to be expanded with examples: This includes consideration of existing data (such as external evaluations and information provided by parents, current classroom-based, local, or state assessments, classroom-based observations, and the student’s response to research-based interventions) as well as any new data or assessments collected as a result of the evaluation.
I provided the LEA with a Riverside School administered Phonological Awareness Test 2 (PAT2) used to identify deficits in phonological processing and phoneme-grapheme correspondence, which indicated my child had all the markers for Dyslexia. The LEA would not consider this data and indicated nowhere in the document did it reference "Dyslexia". It appears that LEAs will only consider documents that diagnose disabilities. Your guidance needs to be clear that existing data should be used to inform diagnosis of a child's disability. If the LEA members of the team do not understand the results, they should reach out to an expert that can interpret the results. This goes back to the appropriate members on the eligibility team.
Please expand on "current classroom-based, local, or state assessments" and provide examples. My LEA does not record any grades below a "50" in the grade book. A child may receive a 12 or a 32 as a grade and those are elevated to a 50. My LEA also does not weigh grades, so a coloring sheet has the same weight as a test, which skews classroom-based grades. This should be a concern to the VDOE as many LEAs do not provide an accurate account of the child's classroom-based assessments.
Page 8: "Data collected focuses on the student’s performance in the school environment and on individually administered tools and other measures (Refer to Table 1)." Many LEAs are using only portions of evaluations, such as the Woodcock Johnson or not providing the subtest scores on the Weschler. It should be clear that all portions and subtests should be provided and interpreted to the Eligibility team. Many LEAs are denying students designation as a Specific Learning Disability because they score within the "normal" ranges, however, the subtest scores can be up to one standard deviation from the mean, which indicates a reading disability. Many LEAs have decided not to share this data so they are not responsible for diagnosing reading disabilities.
Page 9: Table 1. Comprehensive Assessment Data Sources and Examples: Please provide an exhaustive list with many more examples and include Wechler, Feifer Assessment for Reading, Assisted Technologies, etc. Please include EVERY assessment that is available to the LEA. This is important for the parents of the IEP Team so they can do research and determine the best evaluations to ask for based on their child's struggles. We told the LEA that our daughter was struggling to read and they did not perform the correct assessments to determine she had dyslexia. It should also be very clear that ALL of this data should be provided to ALL the team members including the parents. My daughter's Benchmark Tests were withheld during her eligibility meeting. We had no idea she had such low scores in reading and math. It took 9 months to get her eligibility correct because the LEA was not sharing all of the information in their possession with the entire team.
Page 11: Data showing a student’s level of responsiveness to
strategies or interventions provided gives the team insight into the student’s unique
learning potential--When are LEAs to provide these interventions or strategies? This needs to be clear. My daughter transferred from a private school and the LEA was informed that she struggled to read and had a D in reading in her private school. The LEA did not provide her with ANY interventions for six months.
Page 14: Components of the grading system (e.g., participation, homework, assessment)-Please be advised that LEAs inflate grades and this should be discussed so parents are aware that actual grades may not be accurage. In HCPS a child can receive no grade lower than a 50. This can elevate a child's grades that has learning disabilities and mask their actual abilities.
Page 14: It is critical that this identification occurs in a timely manner and once an LEA receives a referral, the evaluation process is initiated. How is the VDOE ensuring that each LEA has a process in place to identify children that are homeschooled or in the private school setting that may be eligible for special education?
Page 15: One model for selecting research and or evidence-based interventions is the SISEP Hexagon Tool.-Please make it very clear where you can find "evidence-based interventions". It does not appear that the LEAs are aware of evidence-based reading instruction for Dyslexia.
Page 15: When an intervention is being implemented with fidelity but the student is not making progress, this suggests that the intervention needs to be modified -Please provide additional information on the timeframe for "not making progress". Should this time period be 6-weeks, 12-weeks, etc. How does the Team know when the child is not making progress? It should not be subjective. It should be included in a program so all members of the team can see the results. Please provide examples of how progress can be tracked. Also, please define fidelity. The team should not wait a year to determine if a child is making adequate progress.
Page 18:Challenging behaviors may result from a number of other factors, such as exposure to adverse events or situations, a major change or disruption in the family, or stressors
experienced by the child, parents, or caregivers. Please add instruction may not be appropriate and causing the child undue stressors. This happened to our child. She was not receiving the appropriate instruction for her Dyslexia and she was extremely stressed.
Page 19: Discussion of why results differ may reveal additional explanations including lack of high-quality instruction due to ongoing teacher vacancies, implementation of interventions not matched to student area(s) of need, or cultural mismatch for classroom activities or evaluation tasks. The way this is written, it appears to provide the LEA with a lot of options to dismiss the child's learning differences. Please rewrite so the LEA does not use this discussion to dismiss eligibility.
Page 21: “Specially designed instruction” is defined in Virginia regulations as “adapting, as appropriate to the needs of an eligible child under this chapter, the content, methodology, or delivery of instruction: (34 CFR 300.39(b)(3)). Please provide MORE examples of specially designed instruction.
Page 22: specialized reading program by a trained instructor--Can you please expand on "trained". Trained and Certified to deliver an evidence-based reading program are VERY different. A teacher may have a two day training on Orton Gillingham approach, but this does not qualify them to teach this type of reading instruction to a child. This is a HUGE problem in the LEAs.
Page 22: Again, it would be helpful to provide examples when you state, "It should be noted that specially designed instruction is fundamentally different from accommodations or differentiated instructional approaches." For example, an Orton Gillingham approach to provide specialized instruction for reading is not the same as providing assistive technologies so a child can have the document read aloud by the computer.
Page 22 and 23: The following examples are accommodations or differentiated
instruction approaches that might include allowing additional movement breaks,
reading of text to a student either by an adult or via computer software, allowing a
student to choose their partner on a project rather than being teacher assigned,
providing enlarged print, offering repeated instructions, checking for understanding,
providing help with organization (e.g., conducting more frequent checks of progress
on lengthy assignments, allowing time to organize materials and backpack at the end
of the day), allowing minimizing time near distractions (e.g., near a noisy hallway,
excessive talking, close proximity to a heating/air source), and allowing additional
wait time for a student to process information and/or formulate a response. --These accommodations are VERY good and often the eligibility team gets specialized instruction and accommodations confused. It would be helpful to give more information on specialized instruction.
Page 24: "Therefore, it is acceptable for qualified personnel to provide adaptations, as appropriate, to the needs of an eligible student with a disability with the content, methodology, or delivery of instruction. Additionally, under the guidance, supervision, and collaboration of qualified personnel, other staff (such as a general education teacher and/or
paraprofessional), may provide and assist in providing specially designed instruction
for students with disabilities." This statement is NOT correct. An individual may be qualified to teach special education, but they may not be qualified to teach specialized reading instruction and this is critical to convey. Many Dyslexic children are being taught by personnel that are not qualified to instruct these specialized reading programs such as Wilson, etc. because they are not qualified (by Wilson) to do so. Please rephrase this section, it is very subjective as written.
Page 24: Please provide examples under: modified content, methodology, and delivery. For example, Delivery of Wilson reading instruction to a child with Dyslexia.
Page 25: Please provide examples of the 'variety of measures' you have listed.
After page 25, the page numbers start with 1, 2, 3, etc. This needs to be corrected.
Page 26: "Teams should consider all possible causes for the discrepancy including the
regulatory requirement to rule out Lack of appropriate instruction in reading,
including the essential components of reading instruction;" -Please be advised that this is being used by LEAs to disqualify students from special education. LEAs are stating that children from private schools are not being provided appropriate instruction because they are not being taught in their LEA and this is non-sense. This appears to provide the LEAs with an option for finding children not eligible. Be very careful in how you state this.
Page 26: "Unless otherwise defined by the LEA in local policy, the eligibility team’s
determination of a significant discrepancy should be based upon three or more
measures of the student’s performance in the same area of concern as noted on the
referral for suspected disability or student’s last eligibility decision."-Who determines the "three or more measures"? Where is this written into law or Virginia regulation?
Page 26: "Use of tests with appropriate diagnostic accuracy are preferred." --What are these tests? Please provide names or examples of tests with appropriate diagnostic accuracy.
Page 27: " When considering scores from standardized and norm referenced measures, individual subtest scores should not be used in isolation. Scores within + 1 standard deviation from the mean are generally considered within normal limits. In conjunction with
guidance from the test administration manual, scores more than -1.5 standard
deviations below the mean may be considered significant." Is this statement correct? Please reference the source of this statement. Who indicates that -1 SD from the mean is considered within normal limits? Please be very careful when providing these broad stroke statements.
Page 27: "Test administration manuals provide guidance for determining if the score differences are significant."--This is a huge problem for parents at these meetings, because they do not have access to their test administration manuals and the LEA Psychologists have a hard time explaining what is considered significant. It would be helpful is VDOE would provide these manuals somewhere on their website so parents could understand the data more clearly.
Page 27: "When student scores differ between subtests, this is referred to as a relative strength or relative weakness. A single relative weakness may be uncommon (e.g., statistically significant) but does not meet the requirement to document significant discrepancy on its own." --Please provide an example. This is confusing.
Page 27: "The IDEA and Virginia regulations permit students to be found eligible for more than one disability area."--This is a huge problem in my LEA. They tend to want to find students with Dyslexia eligible for ADHD and totally disregard Dyslexia. They indicate to parents that the student can't focus and that's why they can't read. Please provide more guidance on the importance of finding the student eligible for the appropriate disability area.
Page 28: "Evaluating Young Children"--How are children being identified by the LEA if a child is homeschooled or in a private school setting?
Page 30: "After consent to evaluate is provided, evaluators may work with classroom teachers during the evaluation period to discuss implementation of strategies in the classroom." --This should be required that evaluators work with classroom teachers to implement interventions.
Page 40: "Complete and attach the specific disability worksheets for all categories
that were considered." This is a huge problem with LEAs. They may only consider one disability, such as ADHD and complete ONE worksheet OHI, instead of completing the worksheet for SLD, which would clearly show the student that struggles with reading and math may have another disability such as Dyslexia or Dysgraphia. It is very rare that an LEA identifies these disabilities because they indicate they do not diagnose "medical" disabilities It's a huge problem. I would like to see the schools required to complete all of the worksheets to ensure the parents on the team understand if their child has multiple disabilities.
Page 43: "Virginia regulations governing eligibility permit the use of multiple approaches for
identification of a specific learning disability (SLD). Each LEA must use at least one of
the three federally and state permissible methods in the evaluation of a student who
is suspected of having an SLD."--You state earlier that LEAs should gather assessment data from a variety of sources and now you state that there are multiple approaches for ID of SLD--this needs to be reviewed.
Page 51: "These permissible methods define SLD differently and, when used in the evaluation process, do not consistently identify the same group of children as being eligible
under the SLD category (CASE et al. 2019). As such, it is incumbent upon the LEA to
clearly identify the method(s) and associated procedures to be used in their division
as to avoid identification discrepancies across schools.--THIS IS A HUGE PROBLEM ACROSS THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA. The VDOE needs to provide LEAs with more Schools need more training on how to identify students under the SLD category. Dyslexia students are NOT being identified because they are often twice-exceptional and very smart. They have memorized words or learned work-arounds to be successful, so their grades do not show issues. Please consider the best assessments and indicators to identify or Dyslexia students. 1 in 5 have Dyslexia.
Page 53: "Response to Scientifically-Based Intervention or RTI Method" --What if a child is not provided with response to interventions? My daughter was in a private school and they provided no interventions even though she had a D in reading and we told them she struggled to read. Why aren't schools immediately providing these interventions when there is a suspicion of disability?
Page 55: "Subtest scatter and visual inspection of scores does not constitute a pattern of strengths and weaknesses."--Many LEAs are not providing subtest scores to parents or the eligibility team to review.
Page 56: "Additionally, there should be evidence that the student participated in rigorous and differentiated instruction in the area of concern with the goal of accelerating achievement towards grade level standards. --IF a child is homeschooled or at a private school, how does the team receive the evidence? What types of evidence? That the school is accredited? By Whom? LEAs are stating that children did not receive this appropriate instruction and denying special education.