Overview of the State Performance Plan Development
See Overview of the State Performance Plan Development preceding Indicator #1.
Monitoring Priority: Effective General Supervision Part B / Child Find |
Indicator 11: Percent of children with parental consent to evaluate, who were evaluated and eligibility determined within 60 days (or State established timeline).
(20 U.S.C. 1416(a)(3)(B))
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Measurement: a. # of children for whom parental consent to evaluate was received. b. # determined not eligible whose evaluations and eligibility determinations were completed within 60 days (or State established timeline*). c. # determined eligible whose evaluations and eligibility determinations were completed within 60 days (or State established timeline*). Account for children included in a but not included in b or c. Indicate the range of days beyond the timeline when eligibility was determined and any reasons for the delays. Percent = b + c divided by a times 100. * NYS’ established timeline to complete the initial evaluation and eligibility determinations is 30 school days for preschool students and 60 calendar days for school age students. |
Overview of Issue/Description of System or Process
NYS law and regulations require the evaluation and eligibility determination of a preschool student be made within 30 school days of receipt of the parent's consent to evaluation. The CPSE provides the parent with a list of approved programs that have a multidisciplinary evaluation component. The parent selects the approved evaluation program to conduct the individual evaluation of his or her child and the board of education arranges for the evaluation by the service provider selected by the parent. In addition, with the consent of the parents, approved evaluators and CPSEs must be provided with the most recent evaluation report for a child in transition from programs and services provided pursuant to title two-a of article 25 of the Public Health Law.
For school age students, the initial evaluation to determine if a student is a student with a disability must be completed within 60 calendar days of receiving parental consent for the evaluation, with exceptions for students who transfer to another school district after the evaluation period has begun and when the parent of a student repeatedly fails or refuses to produce the student for the evaluation.
SED does not currently collect this information. A new PD form has been developed to begin collecting the consent and determination information during the 2005-06 school year. Baseline data will be collected in 2005-06 and reported in the February 2007 APR.
NYS will collect data on an annual basis from a statewide representative sample of school districts in the State using a new PD 9 form. The PD form must be submitted by September 15, 2006.
Baseline data will be collected based on the following population totals:
· All preschool students (or the minimum number required in a sample) for whom parents provided consent to evaluate for special education programs and/or services anytime during the 2005-06 school year (July 1, 2005 to June 30, 2006), regardless of the source of referral; and
· All school-age students (or the minimum number required in a sample) for whom parents provided consent to evaluate for special education programs and/or services anytime during the 2005-06 school year (July 1, 2005 to June 30, 2006), regardless of the source of referral, age, and the school students attended or currently attend.
To collect baseline data on the timeliness of eligibility determinations for children referred for preschool special education programs and/or services, the PD form will direct school districts to report the following information:
The number of preschool children whose parents provided consent to evaluate for special education programs and/or services during the 2005-06 school year (July 1, 2005 – June 30, 2006) and the number of school days within which eligibility determinations were made for preschool children (within 30 days or less; within 31-40 days; within 41-50 days; and more than 50 days) both for students determined eligible and not eligible for preschool special education services.
The reasons when the number of children with consent for evaluation exceeds the number of children for whom an eligibility determination was made (e.g., evaluations pending; parents withdrew consent; child moved to another school district; other reason).
The reasons for delays in the initial eligibility determination of preschool children (e.g., evaluator not available; parent did not make the child available for the evaluation; parent canceled the scheduled evaluation and selected another approved evaluator; child transferred into the district after the initial evaluation was initiated in another school district; other reason).
To collect baseline data on the timeliness of eligibility determinations for school-age students for special education programs and services, the PD form will direct the school districts to report the following information:
The number of school-age students whose parents provided consent for an initial evaluation for special education programs and/or services during the 2005-06 school year (July 1, 2005-June 30, 2006).
The reasons for a greater number of students with consent for evaluation than the number of students with initial eligibility determinations (e.g., numbers awaiting evaluations; numbers whose parents withdrew consent to evaluate; numbers who moved to another school district before the evaluation was completed; other reason).
The reasons for the delays in the initial eligibility determinations (e.g., shortage of personnel to conduct the evaluation; parent repeatedly did not make the student available for the evaluation; student transferred into the district after the evaluation period began in the prior school district and the parent and new district agreed to an extended time period; other reason).
SED will conduct random data verification reviews to ensure accurate reporting. SED will also establish procedures to require corrective action in school district that report noncompliance.
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.
All school districts will have a choice of reporting data on all eligible students or they may submit data on a randomly selected sample of minimum number of students using the sampling guidelines provided below.
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Federal Indicator Number |
Eligible Population of Students From Which A Random Sample Must be Selected |
Minimum Number of Students in the Sample |
Method for Selecting Students |
Required Documentation |
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11 |
For all preschool and school-age students: All students for whom parental consent to evaluate was received during the school year (July 1 – June 30). |
Use a sampling calculator. Require 95% confidence interval and plus or minus 2% margin of error. |
Random selection using a random number table. |
Documentation period is seven years. Maintain list of all eligible students, copy of Random Number Table used, beginning random number for selecting students and list of all students who were selected and their number. |
SED will require that school districts maintain documentation as described above if they choose to report data on a sample of students. The totally random sampling methodology and required documentation should eliminate selection bias. The State will attempt to prevent missing data by first describing precisely what the Department 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 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.
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FFY |
Measurable and Rigorous Target |
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2005 |
100 Percent of children with parental consent to evaluate will be evaluated and eligibility determined within 30 school days for preschool students and 60 calendar days for school age students. |
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2006 |
100 Percent of children with parental consent to evaluate will be evaluated and eligibility determined within 30 school days for preschool students and 60 calendar days for school age students. |
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2007 |
100 Percent of children with parental consent to evaluate will be evaluated and eligibility determined within 30 school days for preschool students and 60 calendar days for school age students. |
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2008 |
100 Percent of children with parental consent to evaluate will be evaluated and eligibility determined within 30 school days for preschool students and 60 calendar days for school age students. |
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2009 |
100 Percent of children with parental consent to evaluate will be evaluated and eligibility determined within 30 school days for preschool students and 60 calendar days for school age students. |
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2010 |
100 Percent of children with parental consent to evaluate will be evaluated and eligibility determined within 30 school days for preschool students and 60 calendar days for school age students. |
Improvement activities will be reported in the APR due to USDOE in February 2007.