Part B State Performance Plan (SPP) for 2005-2010

Overview of the State Performance Plan Development

See Overview of the State Performance Plan Development preceding Indicator #1.  This indicator was discussed in depth with parent groups and with NYCDOE parent coordinators.  The Department reviewed the parent survey provided by the National Center for Special Education Accountability Measures (NCSEAM) and consulted with NCSEAM staff in developing the SPP for this indicator.

 
Indicator #8:  Percent of parents with a child receiving special education services who report that schools facilitated parent involvement as a means of improving services and results for children with disabilities.

Overview of Issue/Description of System or Process

State law and regulations require each school district, upon initial referral of a student to special education, to provide the parents with a copy of the State’s publication A Parents Guide to Special Education or a locally developed guide.  The State’s publication, A Parents Guide to Special Education, is available on the Department’s web site.  NYS has a mandated Procedural Safeguards Notice to ensure all parents receive the same information regarding their rights under IDEA.  In addition to the parent of the student being discussed, NYS requires an additional parent of a student with a disability to participate in meetings of the CSE and CPSE to assist the parent in understanding the process.

As a component of focused monitoring reviews, SEQA seeks input from parents of students with disabilities on various aspects of their experiences with their school district and special education programs.  Statements from parents on both the positive aspects of special education within a school district and/or the areas in need of some improvement are considered in the school improvement panning process. 

Plan to collect baseline information

Administration

School districts will be responsible to provide the parent survey to a sample of parents of students for whom their school district has IEP responsibility (i.e., parents of students who are provided special education services in district-operated programs or under contract with other service providers).

School districts will be directed to employ a variety of methods to encourage parents to complete the survey, including but not limited to using paper surveys, telephone surveys, interview surveys and web-based surveys.  Parents will also be able to complete the survey through an Internet website made available by the Department.  School districts will be responsible to ensure a statistically sound return rate.

Survey Instrument

NYS will use a modified version of the survey developed by the National Center for Special Education Accountability Measures (NCSEAM). Twenty-five (25) items from NCSEAM’s Parent Survey – Part B have been selected based on the rules established for item selection to ensure reliability and validity of the use of the survey.  The directions, format and wording of some questions were revised slightly.  A copy of the survey to be used by NYS is attached at the end of this Indicator section.

Timelines for Data Collection and Reporting

For the 2005-06 school year, surveys will be disseminated to school districts no later than February 2006. Surveys returned by August 31, 2006 will be included to establish the baseline data.  Annually thereafter, school districts to be sampled in any year will receive the parent survey at the beginning of the school year and will have the entire year to survey parents.

Report Criteria

The criteria to be used to determine if a parent has rated his or her school district positively for parental involvement will be as follows:  The survey must be completed with a minimum of 15 responses and at least 51% of the responses must receive a positive rating of either agree, strongly agree, or very strongly agree.  For district reporting, districts that do not have the minimum number of parent surveys returned as indicated in the sampling methodology will be reported as not having positive parent involvement with the reason noted.

Sampling Methodology

Sampling will be used to establish the 2005-06 baseline for this indicator.  One-sixth of the school districts in NYS will be randomly selected.  This represents approximately 120 school districts each year.  The NYC School District will be included in the sample each year.  It is the only school district in the State with a total enrollment of 50,000 or more students.  

NYS has distributed all school districts among six statewide representative samples.  These six groups of school districts were tested with Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and there was no statistical difference among the six groups of school districts on the population variables described in Attachment 2.  These population variables were from the 2000 decennial census.

School districts will be expected to select a representative sample of its parents to be surveyed, using the directions provided by SED.  Schools would be encouraged to over sample to ensure statistically sound response rates.  All school districts will have a choice of reporting data on all eligible students for this indicator or they may submit data on a randomly selected sample of minimum number of students using the sampling guidelines provided by the Department.  The vast majority of school districts will need to submit data on this indicator on behalf of all eligible students.  For some large school districts, if it will be less burdensome to report on a sample of students, the methodology described below (totally random sampling) is likely to produce a sample that is representative of the school district in terms of all variables, since every eligible student has the same chance as another student to be selected for the sample. 

SED will require that school districts maintain documentation as described below if they choose to report data on a sample of students. The totally random sampling methodology and required documentation should eliminate selection bias. School districts will be encouraged to provide surveys in a variety of ways to improve the response rate. The Department will attempt to prevent missing data by first describing precisely what the State needs to collect, providing technical assistance and then following up with school districts to request missing data.  The completeness of data collection will improve after the first year and will continue to improve as long as requirements remain unchanged.  All issues of confidentiality will be handled by in accordance with the rules and procedures in FERPA.  The Department will also guard against divulging personally identifiable information by not reporting results when there are less than five students for whom data are available or when those results can be easily calculated based on other data provided. 

Steps to Ensure Valid and Reliable Estimates

VESID will annually provide information to parent centers, advocacy agencies and the New York State Parent Teacher Association (PTA) as well as other networks and agencies (e.g., ECDCs ) to request their assistance in encouraging parents of students with disabilities to complete and return the parent survey when requested by their school districts.

In addition to English, the surveys will be made available in the six predominant languages in this State (Spanish, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Haitian Creole, Bengali, and Urdu).  Translators would need to be provided to ensure parents who do not read or understand one of these languages have an opportunity to participate in the survey. 

Surveys will be returned directly to an independent research firm working with SED to print, disseminate, collect analyze and report on the parent survey information. A parent’s individual responses will be confidential.

2005-06 Baseline Data

In 2005-06, 86.9% of parents surveyed indicated that schools facilitated parent involvement as a means of improving services and results for children with disabilities.

Discussion of Baseline Data

The baseline data was calculated based on the following:

•  Number of surveys with at least 15 completed responses: 9, 261

• Number of surveys with at least 51% positive responses: 8,040

• Positive parental response rate: 86.8% 

• Weighted (on the basis of sample size) positive parental response rate was 86.9%

During the 2005-06 school year, 113 school districts in the State surveyed parents by using the modified version of the National Center for Special Education Accountability Measures (NCSEAM) survey that NYS adopted to collect data for this indicator. The survey may be found at the end of this indicator. The 113 school districts are representative of the State. Over the six-year period of this SPP, all school districts will have administered this survey. The following are the statewide results:

Response Rate:

• The Statewide response rate was 128 percent based on data from 113 school districts. The sum of all the minimum sample sizes was 7,469 and 9,575 surveys were returned. The response rate was over 100 percent of the minimum required because the State recommended over-sampling parents to get sufficient response rate. The State asked school districts to either send the survey to all parents of students with disabilities in the school district or to 10 times the number of parents from whom responses were needed in order to have the minimum sample of responses.

• Data indicate that 58 school districts out of 113 had a sufficient response rate. The response rate in 55 of the 58 school districts was more than a 100 percent of the sample size (16 of the 55 school districts had a response rate of 200% or higher).

• 17 school districts had a response rate that was 75 percent to 99 percent of the minimum sample size.
• 13 school districts had a response rate that was 50 percent to 74 percent of the minimum sample size.
• 25 school districts had a response rate that was less than 50 percent of the minimum sample size.

The response rates by Need Resource Capacity category of school districts were as follows:

Survey Responses:

• Number of surveys with at least 15 completed responses: 9,261 out of 9,575 or 96.7%

• Number of surveys with at least  51 percent positive responses: 8,040

• Positive parental response rate:  86.8 percent [(8,040/9,261) *100)]

• Weighted (on the basis of sample size) positive parental response rate: 86.9 percent.

• In 2005-06, 58 school districts had sufficient sample size of surveys returned. Of these school districts 29 had positive parental response rates of 89.6% or higher and 29 had rates that were lower. The range of positive parental response among these school districts was 76.9% to 100.0%.

Analysis of Survey Items: The top three questions with which parents most often agreed were:

• 95.7 percent of respondents agreed with the statement, “At the IEP meeting, we discussed accommodations and modifications that my child would need.”

• 95.7 percent of respondents agreed with the statement, “Teachers and administrators respect my cultural heritage.”

• 94.1 percent of respondents agreed with the statement, “Over the past year, special education services have helped me and/or my family know where to go for support to meet my child’s need.”

• 15.3 percent of respondents disagreed with the statements, “The school explains what options I have if I disagree with a decision of the school.”

• 14.1 percent of respondents disagreed with the statement, “Over the past year, special education services have helped me and/or my family feel more confident in my skills as a parent.”

All reports from parent surveys were disaggregated by need/resource capacity category of school districts as well as by quality assurance regional offices to facilitate provision of technical assistance to school districts.

Measurable and Rigorous Targets

Improvement Activities/Timelines/Resources

New York State Education Department Parent Questionnaire – Special Education*   Your answers to the following questions will assist your school, your school district and the State to improve how school districts help parents of students with disabilities to be involved in their children’s special education programs.  Parents in school districts throughout the State are completing this survey.  The results for your school district will be reported by the State. Your responses are important and will remain confidential. Some questions will apply to the school district; others to the school your child attends. Mail the form using the return envelope.
Use a pencil only:              Fill in circle completely: ● Select one response for each statement. Skip statements that do not apply to you or your child.		Very Strongly Agree	Strongly Agree	Agree	Disagree	Strongly Disagree	Very Strongly Disagree
Schools’ Efforts to Partner with Parents
1.	At the IEP meeting, we discussed accommodations and modifications that my child would need.	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡
2.	I have been asked for (or given a chance to share) my opinion about how well special education services are meeting my child’s needs.	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡
3.	Written information I receive is written in an understandable way.	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡
4.	Teachers and school staff treat me as a team member.	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡
Teachers and Administrators:
5.	- seek out my input.	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡
6.	- show sensitivity to the needs of my child.	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡
7.	- encourage me to participate in the decision-making process.	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡
8.	- respect my cultural heritage.	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡
9.	- help me to understand the Procedural Safeguards [the rules in federal law that protect the rights of parents].	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡
10.	- show a willingness to learn more about my child’s needs.	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡
The School:
11.	- provides me with reports on my child’s progress on IEP goals.	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡
12.	- gives me choices with regard to services that address my child’s needs.	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡
13.	- offers me a variety of ways to communicate with teachers	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡
14.	- gives me the help I may need to play an active role in my child’s education.	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡
15.	- explains what options I have if I disagree with a decision of the school.	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡
16.	- encourages me to attend and participate in the IEP meetings.	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡
Impact of Special Education Services on Your Family Over the past year, special education services have helped me and/or my family:
17.	- know where to go for support to meet my child’s need.	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡
18.	- feel more confident in my skills as a parent.	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡
19.	- understand how the special education system works.	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡
20.	- be able to evaluate how much progress my child is making.	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡
21.	- understand the roles of the people who work with my child and family.	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡
22.	- do things with and for my child that are good for my child’s development.	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡
Select one response for each statement. Skip statements that do not apply to you or your child.		Always	Almost Always	Frequently	Sometimes	Rarely	Never
Parent Participation
23.	I value the school’s efforts to meet my child’s needs.	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡
24.	I meet with my child’s teacher(s) and/or other school staff to plan my child’s program and services.	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡
25.	I suggest changes in school programs or services that I think would benefit my child and other students with disabilities.	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡	¡