I just attended meeting for the LD teachers at our Junior High. We were told that all students that were up for re-evaluations do NOT necessarily have to have a re-evaluation. That should be determined by going over each area (medical, social/emotional, acedemic, intelligence, vision, hearing, etc)and filling in what we know about the the child, what additional information might be needed, and who would find this additional information. If we decided that NO additional information is needed then the child does NOT need a re-evaluation. We were told that WE (the LD teacher) should fill out these forms and determine if the student needs a re-evaluation. These forms are the exact duplicate of what the psychologist in our district have been using for intial and re-evaluations. Is this really the LD teachers responsibility? I am concerned about filling out all of this information when I do NOT have access to some of it. Shouldn’t this be determined by the team, including the psychoogist. We were told to have this filled out for our annual review and have the parent sign. If the parent doesn’t agree, then of course, we would complete the re-evaluation. I can’t help but think that this is our districts answer to a shortage of pshycholgist! (and one more thing we are told to do, that is not really the intent of the law) Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks. Glori Duesterhaus [email protected]
My understanding is that the team- which includes the parents- can decide at the 3 year that no additional TESTING is needed as part of the re-eval… that is different from no re-val. If you have great data on progress and no need to recheck cognitive stuff then it makes sense. As for who decides- in Vermont most schools have never had school psychs on staff- the resource teacher is always the facilitator of the team that decides…
Robin