Determination of Services
Special education and related services are supports and services provided to children with disabilities. Certain procedures must be followed to determine if a child is eligible to receive special education services. Those procedures are written in federal and state laws.
Child Find
Johnsburg School District 12 actively locates, identifies and evaluates all children, who live within the district boundaries, including those attending St. John the Baptist Catholic School, who may qualify to receive early intervention, special education and/or related services. Child Find is one of the foundations of special education.
Screening procedures for early intervention or special education services include:
• ongoing coordination with early intervention programs like Child and Family Connections, Head Start, local preschools and daycare facilities;
• annual Pre-K screening of children under the age of five at Ringwood Primary Center during June;
• ongoing review of all district children in general education classes via the Response to Intervention (RtI) process;
• coordination and consultation with St. John the Baptist Catholic School and parents of home-schooled children; and
• referrals from parents.
Services may address student needs in the areas of vision, hearing, health, behavior, fine or gross motor, sensory, speech/language, cognitive/learning, social/emotional, or adaptive/self-help. Pre-K phonological groups, Pre-referral/Student Assistance Team meetings, Early Intervention transition meetings and the Response to Intervention process, including AIMSweb benchmarking K-8, coordinate interventions district-wide to help all students become successful learners. For those students attending non-public schools within our district boundaries, services are contracted with the school personnel based on individual needs.
It is important to locate children with disabilities so that interventions and support can be provided early on. Early Intervention services, special education instruction and related services are available for children with special needs from birth through age 21.
A “referral” in the context of special education services is a process of requesting an evaluation of a student to decide if they qualify for special education services. The parent or the school district can make a referral. This is the first step prior to an evaluation taking place.
An "evaluation" is defined as procedures used to determine whether a child has a disability and the nature and extent of special education and related services that the student needs. The school district must use a variety of assessment tools and strategies to conduct the evaluation in areas including: academic performance, health, vision, hearing, social/emotional status, communication, motor abilities, general intelligence, and functional performance. Timelines for completing the evaluation do not begin until consent has been given by the parent.
Eligibility Categories
Special Education Categories: Autism; Cognitive Disability; Deaf-Blindness; Deafness; Emotional Disability; Hearing Impairments; Multiple Disabilities; Orthopedic Impairment; Other Health Impairment; Specific Learning Disabilities; Speech or Language Impairment; Traumatic Brain Injury; and Visual Impairment.
An IEP is a written statement of the educational program designed to meet the student’s needs and is developed by a team including parents and school personnel. The IEP includes a detailed description of the services given to the student to give them the extra help needed.
As part of the U.S. Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the least restrictive environment is identified as one of the six principles that govern the education of students with disabilities. By law, schools are required to provide a free appropriate public education (FAPE) in the least restrictive environment that is appropriate to the individual student's needs.
Parents and school personnel should establish a positive relationship with shared goals and a common understanding of the child's needs at home, at school and in the community. It is essential that parents and schools work cooperatively together to improve student performance.
