Coronavirus and Schools: EI Transition Questions
CORONAVIRUS UPDATE
Do you have advice on what we do about EI kiddos under COVID-19 conditions who are currently identified as DD and whom we have been unable to evaluate for school-age eligibility? Here are some questions and concerns the school psychologists and I have:
EI/ Transition to K for children with DD classification:
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What school-age disability classification(s) if any do we use for transitioning EI students who are currently identified as DD?
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Do we attempt to administer rating scales to teachers and parents or complete all of their RRs as review of records only? Same for parent and teacher input…
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Observations are critical for young students. We won’t have any other than those from EI teachers or related service providers.
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Are we using the same language in their RRs as we would for other RRs regarding lack of access to info/unable to change disability classification?
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Would we do a NOREP indicating we are ending the current PTRs that are out there, NOREP them to regular ed for the time being, and indicating we will reissue the PTRs when school resumes?
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Or could we issue a PTRE with a diagnostic program and placement for 90 days, so that they are not hanging out in regular ed for the first 90 days of kindergarten, and do a diagnostic IEP? I am afraid that some of them will be a mess if we don’t diagnostically place them.
Sometimes. We like to “say it with a flowchart.” The answers to many of your process questions are addressed in the attached chart. Several points responsive to your questions appear below:
- First, the DD label is not as exotic as it sounds. To qualify under this label a child must have an age-score delay of 25 percent or greater measured against his or her chronological age or a standard score delay of 1.5 standard deviations or greater measured against the mean of the test (not against the child’s general intelligence) in one or more of these areas: cognitive, communicative, physical, social or emotional, and self-help. A provisional school age label can be based, in many cases, on the particular area of delay: (a) a cognitive delay could translate to OHI (limited alertness to school stimuli) or possibly ID (depending on the magnitude of the standard deviation and the presence of similar delays in self-help); (b) a communicative delay could translate to SLI or possibly autism (depending on the presence of delays in social and the developmental history); (c) a physical delay could translate to orthopedic impairment or OHI; and (d) a social or emotional delay could translate to ED. I can see the eyes of your psychologists rolling in their sockets, but these labels would be provisional and would have to be clearly identified as such in the RR. They will only be required, moreover, when the child is about to reach the age of beginners (usually, age 6), and the DD label is no longer available (as the attached chart hopefully makes clear).
- Second, do not exit any student to regular education based on an incomplete reevaluation. In those cases (as indicated in the attached chart) where a reevaluation is absolutely necessary—when the child is aging out of the DD label as he or she attains age 6 or when the parents have already returned a signed PTRE—either go with a provisional label if you must, stick with DD if you can, and, yes, make such programming recommendations as you are able to make while also acknowledging in the report that the inability to complete testing limits the ability of the team to make conclusive eligibility and program recommendations at this time.
- Third, do not go with diagnostic placements at this time. Every child transitioning from preschool is fully IDEA eligible. From the legal perspective, the transition from preschool to elementary school is no different than the transition from elementary school to middle school or from middle school to high school. You would not recommend “diagnostic” placements in those cases—even during a pandemic—and you should not in this case. Any IEP you develop—whether it is based on the preschool IEP or based on a less-than-complete RR—is necessarily provisional, a work in progress. When you are eventually able to work with the child for a few months or are able to complete actual testing in a new reevaluation process, that IEP can be revised.
- Fourth, rating scales are fine. If they make the reevaluation you are forced to do that much more complete, or if they make up for the absence of opportunities to observe the child in situ, by all means have at them.