Procedures

• Age of Majority
• Bus Suspension
• Change of Placement Consideration
• Child Study Process- School Based Intervention Teams
• Disabilities
• Discipline
• Dismisal from Primary Special Education Services
• Due Process - Resolution Session
• Educational Assessment - Guidelines
• Educational Services During Suspensions
• Eligibility Committee
• Extended School Year Services
• Functional Behavior Assessment and Behavior Assessment Plans
• Homebound Instruction
• In-School Suspensions
• Long Term Suspensions and Expulsions - Not Clasified
• Long Term Suspension or Expulsion - Notification to Parents
• Manifestation Determination Review
• Maintenance of Testing Protocols
• Medicaid Procedures
• Occupational Therapy Services
• Placement of Student Outside the Regular School Setting
• Prior Written Notice - Notification of Initiation or Refusal of Change
• Procedural Safeguards
• Prohibition - Mandatory Medication
• Private School Students
• Psychological Assessment - Guidelines
• Re-Evaluation of Eligibility
• Referral for Consideration of Special Education Eligibility
• Reporting a Crime Committed by a Special Education Student
• Screening Procedures
• Social / Cultural Assessment - Guidelines
• Special Education Records: Storage and Disposal
• Service Plans
• Speech Services
• Surrogate Parents - Procedure for Appointment
• Tape Recording at Special Education Meetings
• Video Recording at Special Education Meetings

On this page:

• Target Ages and Eligibility
• Disabilities
  • Autism
  • Deafness
  • Deafness-blindness
  • Developmental Delay
  • Emotional Disturbance
  • Hearing Impairment
  • Mental Retardation
  • Multiple Disabilties
  • Orthopedic Impairment
  • Other Health Impaired
  • Severe Disability
  • Specific Learning Disability
  • Speech and Language Impairment
  • Traumatic Brain Injury
  • Visual Impairment Including Blindness

All residents of Albemarle County from the ages of two (2) through twenty-one (21) who have a disability and are in need of special education services shall receive a free appropriate education in the least restrictive environment. Students otherwise eligible must have attained age 2 and not have exceeded age 21 by September 30.

The term "children with a disability" means a child -''with mental retardation, hearing impairments (including deafness), speech or language impairments, visual impairments (including blindness), serious emotional disturbance, orthopedic impairments, autism, traumatic brain injury, other health impairments, or specific learning disabilities; and who, by reason thereof, needs special education and related services.

 

"Special Education" means:

• Specially designed instruction which is defined as adapting, as appropriate to the needs of the eligible child, the content, methodology, or delivery of instruction:
  • to address the unique needs of the child that result from the child's disability
  • to ensure access of the child to the general curriculum, so that the child can meet the State approved standards that apply to all children within the jurisdiction of the local educational agency.
• Specially designed instruction at no cost to parents that is designed to meet the unique needs of the child with a disability, including instruction in a classroom, in the home, in hospitals, in institutions, and in other settings and instruction in physical education. To require special education services, a clear record of attempted interventions in the general curriculum must be documented. If a student continues to have issues that interfere with their educational performance, despite attempts at intervention using appropriate and sound methods, they may require specially designed instruction.
• The term includes speech-language pathology services, vocational education and travel training if it meets the requirements of the definition of special education.
  

Autism means a developmental disability significantly affecting verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, generally evident before age 3, which adversely affects a student's educational performance. Other characteristics often associated with autism are engagement in repetitive activities and stereotyped movements, resistance to environmental change or change in daily routines, and unusual responses to sensory experiences. The term does not apply if a student's educational performance is adversely affected primarily because the student has an emotional disturbance. A student who manifests the characteristics of autism after the age of three could be diagnosed as having autism if the criteria in this definition are satisfied.

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Deafness means a hearing impairment which is so severe that the student is impaired in processing linguistic information through hearing, with or without amplification, which adversely affects educational performance.

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Deafness-blindness means hearing and visual impairments occurring at the same time, the combination of which causes severe communication and other developmental and educational needs that they cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for students with deafness or students with blindness.

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Developmental Delay means a disability affecting a child who is age 2 to 5, who is experiencing developmental delays, as measured by appropriate diagnostic instruments and procedures, in one or more of the following areas:

1. Physical development
2. Cognitive development
3. Communication Development
4. Social or Emotional Development
5. Adaptive Development

A significant delay should be expressed in stadnard scores or months, by using developmental assessments of these areas. The following criteria are recommended for determination of a developmental delay: A minimum of a 25% deficit / delay in one or more areas referencing chronological age or 1 ½ standard deviations below the mean on selected evaluation measures.

Any child found to have a clear categorical diagnosis should not be found eligible for special education services using the label of developmental delay. Students whose test data indicate the presence of mental retardation, a specific learning disability or any other specific handicapping condition should be identified accordingly. Cases involving students with significant delays in speech and language (communication skills) should be carefully reviewed to determine whether the more appropriate disability is speech-language impairment vs. developmental delay.

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Emotional Disturbance (ED) is defined as follows:
This term refers to a condition exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time and to a marked degree, that adversely affects a student's educational performance:

1. An inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory or health factors;
2. An inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers;
3. Inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances;
4. A general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression; or
5. A tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems.

The term includes schizophrenia. The term does not include students who are socially maladjusted, unless it is determined that they have an emotional disturbance.

Clarification: To clarify the definition further, several terms are defined below.

A LONG PERIOD OF TIME: The symptoms must be persistent beyond normal recuperative periods (generally longer than 6 months) and must not be a manifestation of normal situational disturbance (e.g., being upset and temporary poor functioning in response to a family member's death).

TO A MARKED DEGREE: The characteristics must be severely deviant. They must be so intense as to be obvious to multiple observers, pervasive enough to be observed across a broad spectrum of school settings, and resistant to at least two planned, documented interventions applied in the school setting prior to referral.

ADVERSE EFFECT ON EDUCATIONAL PERFORMANCE: This term refers to aged-based academic achievement a standard deviation below ability expectancy; having the requisite academic skills but failing (or being in danger of failing) at least two classes; demonstrating significantly poor attendance; and/or being consistently and dramatically disruptive in school.

SCHIZOPHRENIA: Schizophrenia is a mental illness characterized by deterioration from a previous level of functioning, bizarre and/or incoherent thoughts, hallucinations and/or delusions, inappropriate or extremely flat affect, extreme problems with self identity, inability to complete tasks, extreme withdrawal and/or extreme preoccupation, and behavioral extremes (e.g., agitation and flat affect).

SOCIAL MALADJUSTMENT: Socially maladjusted behavior is defined as actions that are unacceptable to the mainstream culture, but are accepted and supported by a specific subculture. These behaviors generally are acquired in whole or in part from that subculture and are probably attributable to inappropriate socialization. Conscience is evident, but guilt results only when deviation occurs from the standards of the peer group and not from the values of the mainstream culture. Remorse is evident when punishing consequences are perceived, but not for the simple fact of having transgressed mainstream values. Socially maladjusted behavior is in contrast to an internalized emotional disorder.

Students who are primarily socially maladjusted, and not identified as meeting qualifying criteria for an emotional disturbance are often those children or adolescents that engage in simple, chronic delinquent behavior. Breaking rules or social conventions for obvious secondary gain, frequent involvement in the criminal justice system, truancy, running away from home, early sexual promiscuity, and drug/alcohol use are often associated with social maladjustment that is not related to an emotional disturbance. Similarly, students who demonstrate controlled misbehavior depending on situation and potential gain, or those whose misbehavior is associated with testing limits are also often considered to be socially maladjusted without an emotional disturbance. (http://www.wsasp.org/position/ebd.pdf)

Examples of ED Characteristics: Examples are given of behaviors noted frequently under each of the five characteristics listed in the ED definition. These examples are not all inclusive.

1. Inability to learn which cannot be explained by behavioral, intellectual, sensory or health factors. Examples include:

• Persistent failure to comply with routine classroom demands which is appropriate to the student's ability and skill level.
• An extended, significant, and pervasive drop in performance compared to earlier levels of functioning.
• Standardized test performance that drops significantly compared to earlier patterns.
• Difficulties with handling basic school day routines without substantial assistance.
• A sudden drop in attendance.

2. Inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers. Examples include:

• Has no friends.
• Expresses concern about being lonely or comments that no one likes him/her.
• Appears extremely uncomfortable in interactions with peers and/or teachers.
• Does not participate in group activities.
• Avoids calling attention to himself/herself.
• Is shunned by others.

NOTE: The focus is on relationships with peers and teachers not with parents, siblings or other family members.

3. Inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances.
Examples include:

• Displaying feelings that are excessive or markedly inappropriate to situations.
• Exhibiting behaviors (such as aggression, withdrawal, odd or bizarre actions) which are markedly excessive or inappropriate reactions to situations.
• Acting in an unusually fearful manner or displaying sudden, excessive anxiety (i.e. panic attacks or catastrophic symptoms).
• Displaying markedly immature or regressive behaviors that are inappropriate for age and intellectual status.
• Exhibiting severe over-reaction to failure or poor performance.
• Reacting excessively to change.
• Exhibiting severe mood swings.

NOTE: These behaviors and feelings should NOT be the primary result of substance abuse.

4. A general pervasive mood of unhappiness, depression or inhibition.
Characteristics include:

• Loss of appetite or overeating.
• Sleep disturbance.
• Lack of energy.
• Inability to concentrate on tasks.
• Suicidal tendencies.
• Self mutilation.
• Self-hatred.
  

5. A tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with persons or school problems. Symptoms are not a direct result of illness or dysfunction as determined by a physician. Examples include:

• Headaches, stomach pains, etc. that have no physical basis as determined by a physician.
• Overwhelming or incapacitating fear of person or school that significantly interferes with the student's ability to function educationally.

NOTE: Symptoms must be determined to be resultant from or contributing to educational or emotional difficulties. These symptoms must have occurred regularly and over an extended period of time.

Fears may have a reality or fantasized basis but must be perceived by the student as factual. [Usual, transitional fears of childhood - fear of dark; fear of "boogie-man"; and intermittent fears as a result of an external stimulus (i.e. viewing a horror film) are not included.]

In summary, all of the following must apply to a student found eligible for the designation Emotionally Disturbed:

1. At least two pre-referral interventions must have been attempted which did not satisfactorily remediate the behaviors/feelings of concern.
2. The behaviors/feelings of concern must have existed over a long period of time and to a marked degree.
3. The behaviors/feelings of concern must have an adverse effect on educational performance.
4. The student must NOT be socially maladjusted, unless he/she is also emotionally disturbed.
5. The feelings/behaviors of concern must fall into one of the five categories listed in the ED definition.
   

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Hearing Impairment means impairment in hearing whether permanent or fluctuating, that adversely affects a student's educational performance but which is not included under the definition of "deafness" in this section.

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Mental Retardation (refers to the existence of significantly sub-average general intellectual functioning concurrent with equivalent deficits in adaptive behavior, which were manifest during the developmental period and which adversely affect the student's educational performance.

Students in this category must score between 2 or more standard deviations below the mean on an intelligence test, with consideration given to the standard error of measurement for the test. Significant limitations in adaptive behavior are operationally defined as performance that is at least 2 standard deviations below the mean in: (a) one of the following three types of adaptive behavior: conceptual, social, or practical, or (b) an overall score on a standardized measure of conceptual, social, and practical skills; or (c) a majority of domains assessed (e.g. Vineland, SIB-R).

NOTE: If an instrument is being used that provides results for both Verbal and Non-Verbal Ability scores, it is essential that both the Verbal and Non-Verbal standard scores be considered. A significant deficit should be identified only if the student scores between 2 or more standard deviations below the mean AND both the Verbal and Non-Verbal standard scores are at least one and one half standard deviations below the mean.

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Multiple Disabilities means two or more impairments at the same time (such as mental retardation-blindness, learning disability-orthopedic impairment, etc.), the combination of which causes such severe educational needs that they cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for one of the impairments. The term does not include deaf-blind students.

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Orthopedic Impairment means a severe orthopedic impairment that adversely affects a student's educational performance. The term includes impairments caused by congenital anomaly (e.g., clubfoot, absence of some member, etc.), impairments caused by disease (e.g. poliomyelitis, bond tuberculosis, etc.), and impairments from other causes (e.g., cerebral palsy, amputations, and fractures or burns which cause contractures).

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Other Health Impairment means having limited strength, vitality or alertness, including a heightened alertness to environmental stimuli, that results in limited alertness to the educational environment, that is due to chronic or acute health problems such as a heart condition, tuberculosis, rheumatic fever, nephritis, arthritis, asthma, sickle cell anemia, hemophilia, epilepsy, lead poisoning, leukemia, Tourette’s syndrome, attention deficit disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and diabetes; and adversely affect a student's educational performance.

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Severe Disability means a primary disability that:

• Severely impairs cognitive abilities, adaptive skills and life functioning;
• May have associated severe behavior problems;
• May have the high probability of additional physical and/or sensory disabilities; and
• Requires significantly more educational resources than are provided for students with mild and moderate disabilities in special education programs.
  

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Specific Learning Disability means a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, that may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell or do mathematical calculations. The term includes such conditions as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia. The term does not include learning problems that are primarily the result of visual, hearing or motor disabilities; of mental retardation; of emotional disturbance; or of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.

A multidisciplinary team may determine that a student has a specific learning disability if:

1. There is a significant discrepancy between the student's educational achievement and his/her age and ability levels despite provision of learning experiences appropriate for the student's age and ability levels; and
2. The student exhibits a clear information processing deficit; and
3. Consideration must be given to the student's response to scientific, research based interventions as a part of the evaluation process.

NOTE:
The student is not eligible if the achievement deficit is primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor disability; below average cognitive abilities; emotional disturbance; environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage; or motivational factors.

The student is not eligible if it is found that the determinant factor in the learning problems is the lack of appropriate instruction in reading, including the essential components of reading (phonemic awareness; phonics; vocabulary development; reading fluency, including oral reading skills; and reading comprehension strategies).

Clarification:
Significant Discrepancy: At the elementary and middle school level it means the data shows .05 significance and 10% or less frequency on predicted achievement scores. At the high school level it means a 1 1/2 standard deviation or 22 point discrepancy between ability and achievement in determining initial eligibility for Special Education; in determining continued (re-evaluation) eligibility, there must be a 1 standard deviation or 15 point discrepancy between ability and achievement. Full scale IQ will be used unless the VIQ/PIQ difference is greater than 20 points. Verbal and performance scores may be prorated at psychologist's discretion if significant scatter makes the use of a full-scale score misleading. The standard deviation discrepancy requirement does not apply for children under 8 years of age.

The committee may override the standard deviation requirement if, for example: circumstances prevent the administration of the usual cognitive and/or achievement measures and no valid standard scores are available (e.g., when evaluating a physically disabled or bilingual student); the academic area of deficit is not adequately tapped by the achievement battery but is supported by several other measures (such as recent standard classroom assessments).

 

Educational Achievement: Refers to a student's level of skill development on an individually administered norm referenced test on one or more of the following areas: reading (basic or comprehension), mathematics (calculation or reasoning), written expression, or oral expression. Supporting evidence of classroom performance should be considered.

Processing Deficit: Refers to a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or using language, spoken or written. Processing deficits may exist in one or more of the following areas: attention/concentration (auditory or visual), memory (visual/auditory short term or long term), auditory processing, visual processing, sensory-motor integration. Processing deficits may be manifested as delineated below:

 

Attention/Concentration: WISC-III: significant weakness on the Freedom From Distractibility factor; careless errors on Picture Arrangement or Object Assembly; WJTA: Applied Problems > Calculation or Writing Samples > Dictation. WIAT: Mathematics Reasoning > Numerical Operations or written expression > mechanics.

Behavioral evidence including hyperactivity; tendency to be distracted from/by auditory or visual stimuli; impulsivity; difficulty staying on task; difficulty concentrating; overlooks details or makes careless errors; difficulty differentiating relevant/irrelevant information; requests for repetition or clarification of information; extensive reliance on "self-structuring" (e.g., narration or verbal mediation).

Memory: WISC-III: Significant weakness on Information (long term) or Arithmetic or Digit Span (short term). WJTA: Relative weakness on Knowledge (long term). Deficits seen on the memory portions of the speech/language evaluation, including the TAPS (Test of Auditory Problem Solving), the TOLD (Test of Language Development), and the CELF-R (Clinical Evaluation of Language Functioning), and/or on the VADS (all short term).

Behavioral evidence including difficulty recalling sequences of numbers, letters in the alphabet; difficulty remembering the sequence of letters in words; difficulty recalling what was seen during a movie, play, or walk or ride to school (all visual); frequent requests for repetition or clarification of orally-presented information; difficulty spelling from dictation; difficulty following oral instructions; difficulty recalling the pertinent information from orally-presented materials (all auditory); cannot master math facts despite frequent drill and practice; difficulty remembering new information (visual or auditory).

Auditory Processing: May see similar significant deficits as under Attention/ Concentration and Auditory Short term Memory; it can be difficult to differentiate between these.

Deficits on portions of the speech/language evaluation: SCAN (Screening Test for Auditory Processing Disorders), TAPS (Test of Auditory Perceptual Skills), TOPS (Test of Problem Solving), LPT (Language Processing Test). Use of the auditory processing subtests of the WJ Cognitive Battery may be helpful.

Behavioral evidence including complaints of excessive noise; auditory distractibility; frequent requests for repetition or clarification of orally-presented information; misinterpretation of oral instructions; difficulty following oral directions (particularly multi-step); difficulty remembering new (oral) information; difficulty recalling pertinent information from orally-presented material; difficulty remembering sequence of sounds in words.

Visual Processing: Significant weakness on the nonverbal portions of the WISC-III, particularly the Block Design and Object Assembly subtests, or on the Bender Gestalt or VMI.

Behavioral evidence including difficulty developing a sight vocabulary; difficulty with sorting and matching activities; difficulty with reversals and substitutions; transposing letters within words; difficulty locating specific details in visually-presented information; confusing words similar in appearance; losing place on a page with many printed lines; substituting words from a different line on a page; difficulty completing puzzles; difficulty reading maps; difficulty with math problems not appropriately spaced on page.

Grapho-Motor Integration: Weakness on coding, Bender Gestalt, VMI Behavior evidence including difficulty with spelling from dictation; difficulty forming letters correctly; difficulty organizing written information on a page; difficulty following a line of print across a page when reading; difficulty deciding where to start a given task; difficulty with fine motor control.

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Speech or Language Impairment means a communication disorder, such as stuttering, impaired articulation, a language impairment, or a voice impairment, that adversely affects a student's educational performance.

The impairment is observed in delays and / or disorders of hearing, language and / or speech. A communication impairment may range in severity from mild to profound. It may be developmental or acquired, and individuals may demonstrate one or any combination of the four aspects of communication impairments. It may result in a primary disability or it may be secondary to other disabilities.

Articulation Impairment:
Phonetics is the study of how speech sounds are produced and what their acoustic properties are. Phonology deals with the sound systems of language, that is, the structure and function of sounds in languages. An articulation impairment is defined as follows: (1) a speech abnormality which is characterized by omission or incorrect production of individual speech sounds due to faulty placement, timing, direction, pressure, speed, or integration of the articulators and (2) a deviation from the systematic nature of speech given the basis that each student's rules for syllable structure and for the occurrence of sounds in various positions in various phonetic environments are basically uniform whether these processes are observed in "normal" speech or "disordered" speech.

Voice Impairment:
Voice impairment is characterized by speech that is: inappropriate for age and / or sex, strained, breathy, harsh or hoarse vocal quality, too loud or soft for the situation and inappropriate oral / nasal resonance.

Fluency Impairment:
A fluency impairment is the abnormal flow of verbal expression including rate and rhythm, which may be accompanied by a struggle behavior.

Fluency impairment is characterized by a disruption in speech flow and may include:

• repetition: producing sound, syllable, word, or phrase several times.
• prolongation: lengthening of the sound
• hesitation: disrupting the flow of a sound or word
• interjection: adding fillers as "uh" or "er"
• abnormal rate: using an extremely slow or fast rate (number of syllables or words per minute)
• circumlocution: reformulating a thought or idea and using different words other than those originally planned in an attempt to avoid feared words.
• tension: tightening of musculature in preparation for speaking or during the act of speaking.
• associated non-verbal behaviors: using secondary mannerisms such as eye blinks, mouth postures, head jerks, etc., to aid fluency of speech.
  

Language Impairment:
Language is defined as the knowledge of a code for representing ideas about the world through a conventional system of arbitrary signals for communication. A language impairment is a disruption expressively or receptively in the developmental, sequential learning of one's native language. It may be characterized by a deficit or delay in one of the following areas:

Pragmatics deals with the purposes and uses of language. These include such things as informing, describing, obtaining information, requesting objects or actions, protesting, commenting, denying, acknowledging, and summoning attention. Pragmatics also involves an individual's ability to employ conversational devices for initiating, establishing and maintaining topics. Some of these procedures include turn-taking, requesting and providing clarification.

Semantics concerns the meaning of the symbols that are used. Individual words have meaning. A series of words, when combined into a sentence, expresses a complete thought or proposition and can create a new meaning that is not represented by any one of the words. Sentences, in turn, can be combined into larger units of representation that convey an overall meaning.

Syntax refers to the order in which words occur in language. It includes morphology, which is the linguistic rule system that governs the structure of words and the construction of word forms from the basic elements of meaning (e.g. tense, plurality, possession).

Auditory Processing is the ability to attend, discriminate, recognize or comprehend auditory information. A deficit is not necessarily attributable to a loss of hearing acuity.

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Traumatic Brain Injury means an acquired injury to the brain caused by an external physical force, resulting in total or partial functional disability or psychosocial impairment, or both, that adversely affects a student's educational performance. The term applies to open or closed head injuries resulting in impairments in one or more areas, such as, cognition; language; memory; attention; reasoning; abstract thinking; judgment; problem-solving; sensory; perceptual and motor abilities; psychosocial behavior; physical functions; information processing; and speech. The term does not apply to brain injuries that are congenital or degenerative, or brain injuries induced by birth trauma.

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Visual Impairment Including Blindness means impairment in vision that, even with correction, adversely affects a student's educational performances. The term includes both partial sight and blindness.

 

Assignment of any special education label should be carefully considered and should not be applied to students for whom test data do not clearly indicate the presence of a disability. In making a determination of eligibility, a student shall not be determined to be a student with a disability if the determinant factor for such determination is lack of instruction in reading or math or limited English proficiency. Eligibility committees should carefully consider the needs of students exhibiting only one relatively mild deficit. Such students may benefit more from placement in the regular education environment as a non-special education student. Since a request for assistance is originally made to the School Based Intervention Team, this committee has the obligation to work with the classroom teacher to assist in the development of appropriate educational goals and objectives.

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