{"id":7146,"date":"2012-08-16T10:10:43","date_gmt":"2012-08-16T14:10:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/?p=7146"},"modified":"2012-08-07T16:45:01","modified_gmt":"2012-08-07T20:45:01","slug":"school-plans-to-re-evaluate-my-child-without-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/school-plans-to-re-evaluate-my-child-without-testing\/","title":{"rendered":"School Plans to Re-Evaluate My Child Without &#8220;Testing&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_pop\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/gallery\/share-button-gray.png\" style=\"border:0px\" alt=\"Share\" \/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_icon_type = \"labels\";var hupso_background=\"#FFFFFF\";var hupso_border=\"#FFFFFF\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"wrightslaw\";var hupso_url=\"\";var hupso_title=\"School%20Plans%20to%20Re-Evaluate%20My%20Child%20Without%20%22Testing%22\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><blockquote><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" style=\"border: 1px solid black; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 5px; float: right;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/nltr\/img\/school.bus.boy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"149\" \/>The school district plans to re-evaluate my son entering kindergarten. The re-eval will not involve &#8220;testing.&#8221; The school says they will only observe him and interview the parents.<\/p>\n<p>Does the district need to do some kind of standardized testing?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I wish school staff were required to know what the law says &#8211; it would save everyone so much time and help to prevent breaches in trust that are hard to repair.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The school is required to evaluate the child unless the parent and school agree that a reevaluation is unnecessary.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The school must reevaluate\u00a0if the parent or teacher requests a reevaluation.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The school <em>is not required to evaluate more often than once a year<\/em> unless the parents and school agree otherwise.<\/li>\n<li>The school <em>must evaluate at least every three years<\/em> unless the parent and school agree that a reevaluation is not necessary.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Nothing in the law supports the school&#8217;s refusal to reevaluate or their belief that an observation and interviewing the parents IS a reevaluation.<!--more--><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It should be clear to anyone that the needs of a young child who is entering kindergarten are changing often. This is especially true for children who have disabilities.<\/p>\n<p>For young children, there is a &#8220;window of opportunity&#8221; that affects their ability to learn speech, language and reading. \u00a0This window will begin to close sooner than we like.<\/p>\n<p><strong>IDEA Requirements<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The IDEA requires the child&#8217;s IEP to include \u201ca statement of the child&#8217;s present levels of academic achievement and functional performance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If a child has not been evaluated for a year or more, the IEP team will not have information about the child&#8217;s present levels of academic achievement and functional performance on which to base the IEP.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Law about Evaluations and Re-evaluations<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/store\/selaw2.html\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Wrightslaw: Special Education Law, 2nd Edition<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The law about evaluations and re-evaluations is in section 1414 (a) (b), and (c)\u00a0 in on pages 95-98.<\/p>\n<p>The regulations are in pages 238-243.<\/p>\n<p>At top of page 95, see <strong>(2) Reevaluations<\/strong>. The school district &#8220;shall ensure that a reevaluation &#8230; is conducted &#8230; if the child&#8217;s parents or teacher requests a reevaluation.&#8221; The word \u201cshall\u201d means that the school must do this. Period.<\/p>\n<p>Just below this is <strong>(b)\u00a0Evaluation Procedures<\/strong> &#8211; describes the procedures and requirements for evaluations and re-evaluations. The school &#8220;shall use a variety of assessment tools and strategies to gather relevant functional developmental, and academic information, including information provided by the parent\u2026\u201d and \u201cmay not use any single measure or assessment as the sole criterion for determining whether the child is a child with a disability or determining an appropriate educational program for the child\u2026\u201d (measures and assessments are tests)<\/p>\n<p>On page 96, <strong>Subsection (A) describes &#8220;Assessments and other evaluation materials<\/strong> used to assess a child&#8221; (tests), that these tests should &#8220;yield accurate information on what the child knows and can do academically, developmentally, and functionally&#8221; that the &#8220;assessments or measures are \u00a0valid and reliable&#8221; and &#8220;are administered by trained and knowledgeable personnel&#8221; and are administered in accordance with instructions from the test publisher.<\/p>\n<p>On page 96, <strong>Subsection (B) requires the school to assess the child &#8220;in all areas of suspected disability.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Subsection (4)\u2013Determination of eligibility and educational need<\/strong>\u2013 describes assessments and other evaluation measures used to determine the educational needs of the child. Assessments and evaluation measures refer to objective tests.<\/p>\n<p>On page 97, <strong>Subsection (C)\u2013Additional Requirements for Evaluation and Reevaluations<\/strong>\u2013includes several requirements. The IEP team &#8220;shall review existing evaluation data, identify what additional data are needed, to determine the educational needs of the child &#8230; The present levels of academic achievement and developmental needs of the child, whether the child needs any additions or modifications to the special education and related services said the child can meet the measurable annual goals in the IEP.&#8221; In subsection (2) Source of data\u2013the school district \u201cshall administer such assessments and the other evaluation measures as may be needed to produce the data identified by the IEP\u201d. (more references to tests)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Subsection (4) Requirements if additional data are not needed<\/strong>. If the school team determines that no additional data are needed, they \u201cshall notify the child&#8217;s parents\u2026 Of the right of such parents to request an assessment\u2026 to determine child&#8217;s educational needs\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s more than ignorance of the law &#8211; perhaps a pervasive mistrust of standardized testing?<\/p>\n<p>I read an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edweek.org\/tm\/articles\/2012\/03\/20\/gates.html?qs=standardized+tests\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">article on Education Week<\/span><\/a> recently about a survey of 10,000 public school teachers -they don&#8217;t believe standardized tests are of value in measuring progress.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Most teachers do not believe standardized tests have significant value as measures of student performance, according to\u00a0a new report\u00a0published jointly by Scholastic and the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scholastic.com\/primarysources\/download.asp\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">report<\/span><\/a>, based on a survey of more than 10,000 public school teachers, finds that only 28 percent of educators see state-required standardized tests as an essential or very important gauge of student achievement. In addition, only 26 percent of teachers say standardized tests are an accurate reflection of what students know.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The school district plans to re-evaluate my son entering kindergarten. The re-eval will not involve &#8220;testing.&#8221; The school says they will only observe him and interview the parents. Does the <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/school-plans-to-re-evaluate-my-child-without-testing\/\">Continue Reading \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1367],"tags":[939,940],"class_list":["post-7146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-assessments-tests","tag-reevaluations","tag-standardized-testing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7146"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8053,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7146\/revisions\/8053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}