Eligibility Process Question

[EBeth]

First time posting.  If I am doing this wrong please lmk and I will fix.  

In PA:

1) What is the definition of an eligibility meeting or what constitutes an eligibility meeting?

2) What does my signature on the sig page for the evaluation report represent?

3) At what specific point in the process is the District required to send a NOREP to parents indicating eligibility for special Ed and related services?

Where can I find all of this language in law or policy?

[JSD24]

The eligibility meeting is when you go over the eval & see if your child meets the criteria to get an IEP.  My school district merges this into the IEP meeting where you write the IEP.

Signature doesn't mean much unless there is a LD.  See page 11:  https://www.pattan.net/assets/PaTTAN/aa/aab2daae-1366-425a-85e3-5dc087cae4bd.pdf  (I think it means you provided input.)

You get the NOREP when you get the IEP.  You can also get one when your child doesn't qualify for an IEP.

PaTTAN.net has a lot of info including videos.  It's not organized great but there's lots of info there.  It's where the annotated eval report came from.  You can look for an annotated IEP too.  What you really want is an explanation of procedural safeguards.  This should help:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N11X6b7k-jA

 

[EBeth]

What if there was never an eligibility meeting where the evaluation or eligibility was reviewed with me? Is this the law? Federal, does this vary by state?

[JSD24]

I'm not sure a meeting is required if the school does an eval and the eval shows the student is not eligible/does not meet criteria to get an IEP.  If you are looking for a definitive answer, you can call the consult line.  https://odr-pa.org/consultline-contact/

Did the eval cover 'all areas of suspected disability'?  I've seen school skip areas where the student would have qualified.  If the school did an eval & the student wasn't eligible, I'm not sure if the family can get an IEE at school expense.  (Another question for the consult line.)