Special education manual change expands student access

 “So, the federal law asks us to take a look at whether or not students are responding positively to intervention in an area that we suspect that they have a disability or whether they demonstrate a pattern of strengths and weaknesses when we look at their cognitive evaluation and an academic evaluation,” Halvorson described. “So, very simply, their IQ or cognitive capacity versus how they’re performing on a standardized academic assessment.” 

 Halvorson went on to say that although the change seems simple, “it’s not really all that simple when it comes down to all of the verbiage within the SpED manual.”

 “What this change requires in the manual is that we pay closer attention to all of the steps in considering our students for having a learning disability or suspecting they might have a learning disability,” she said. “These pieces have always been there, but we now have to really look at them with more attention than we had in the past.”

 Sharing an example, Halvorson listed exclusionary factors.

 “We have to make sure that their lack of performance is not already due to a visual, hearing, or motor impairment; that it’s not a part of an intellectual disability, emotional behavioral disorder, or environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage; limited English proficiency; or a lack of appropriate instruction in reading; and/or a lack of appropriate instruction in math,” she said.

 It’s a process of elimination.

 “There are a lot of things we have to take out of the mix before we can consider whether or not a student has a specific learning disability,” Halvorson told the trustees. “And that’s where we start looking a little bit more closely at what Mr. Dewlen and you are having us focus on this year with our data. Is our core instruction rigorous? Are our kids in general performing well? Because it’s difficult to say a student has a learning disability if we’re still struggling with a lot of our kids in meeting our performance target. We want to look at that very carefully when we’re considering students for referral for special education.”

 A practice called “leveling” that grouped students according to their academic abilities in core instruction has been discontinued in Weiser’s schools in recent years.

 “That would have been something that would have removed a consideration for a learning disability because our kids have to have equal access to the same rigor of core instruction or grade level curriculum,” Halvorson said. “So, there are a lot of our practices changing in our district, which is perfect timing in terms of instruction. It allows us to look more closely at our students who may have a learning disability and determine whether or not they meet that criteria.

 “As a result of this change, we’ll start doing a review of students who didn’t meet criteria last year,” she added. “We found them not eligible for special education, so we’ll go back through and review everything and make sure we didn’t miss somebody because of the ‘and’ instead of the ‘or.’”

 Now in its third year, Weiser’s kindergarten through fifth grade students are finishing up this fall’s dyslexia testing. The testing was begun in Idaho in the fall of 2022 after the Idaho legislature added the requirement to the state’s education statutes.

 Halvorson told the Signal American that based on the most current research, one in five students, or 20 percent, is most likely dyslexic.

 “This is a general education focus, rather than falling on special education,” she said. “That said, if students do not respond positively to appropriate interventions, then the referral process can be initiated.”