Quantify Educational Impact

[Smiley74]

School is asking that the educational impact of a disability be quantified in terms of minutes (ex can’t focus for 15 minutes after episode). Two questions

-is this a reasonable ask to quantify with specifics ?

-what is the “rule “ or “standard” that needs to be applied when proving educational impact?

[Carolyn Rowlett]

Federal law defines educational impact broadly and that it can include social, behavioral, and emotional domains.  There is no quantifying measure.  But you might check your state's eligibility indicators.

I do not think 15 minutes is reasonable.  That's a lot of instruction time that is being missed in a one hour class.  What you need to get the team to focus on is whether the student can access the educational environment the same as his/her peers.  If not and it's due to a disability, then it is an educational impact.  Other factors than time should be considered - are grades dropping, is s/he understanding the material, can s/he repeat back instructions, etc.   Besides, how would you know how much time the student isn't focused?  How are they going to measure that?  Other than pointing to the things listed above.

[Smiley74]

I think the District is trying to be difficult and claim requirements that aren’t required to be proven for other students. It almost make me want to draw up a state complaint just so they are forced to go into other files and see the requirement to quantify minutes has never been required of any other student. The teacher barely sees the misbehaving on in the classroom so I have no idea how on earth the teacher can say they notice or don’t notice educational impact. The impact would all be student reported for things like focus and emotion. 

[Actaylor11]

Thoughts with you and yours! Agree with Carolyn above. There's some multi-pronged approaches you can go with this.
 

Start a paper trail to document your qualitative assessment, “At home or during homework/reading time we see that after an episode, he's able regulate by accessing x, y, z and we use A strategy and he is able to return to the activity after 30 minutes. This makes it difficult for Sam to complete the homework and access the  curriculum we’re seeing for G and F courses. We know the school environment varies from home, so we are looking forward to the school’s observations and providing us raw data for different times and coursework at school”. You don't have to add so much information as above, but every little bit helps! Start small and then start taking your own data, video, and observations. How long to complete HW? What courses? What times?  Does your student come home and “fall apart” each day? 
 

Also you can make requests and force the school to say no.

You can always nicely ask for a copy of the written guidance and a filled out example template (policy) to help you “better understand how to provide this data so that your scholar can access a free and appropriate education”. I'd also push this back to the school with a nice, “Wonderful! So you'll gather this data for the next x weeks. Can we collaborate on the data collection matrix and the collection methods so I can also do the same at home?”I really like using the, “Is there a BCBA on staff or other behavioral therapist that can help me with this request? Can you provide parent training as a supplementary service on this?”
 

You can also ask for an evaluation or a functional behavior assessment. 
 

Good luck, you got this!