All of the options we would provide in brick and mortar school are available to these students virtually; for example, paraprofessional support, teacher collaboration, additional specially designed instruction, and separate check-ins with the regular education teacher, to name a few.

Special education support staff will be available to work with students with these identified needs in their IEPs when there is not live streaming occurring. The support may look like a visual model, a checklist of tasks, teacher directed check-ins and feedback, and/or scheduled time with an educational assistant.

Your child’s IEP team can discuss the need for a weekly schedule broken down by time, instructional area, and teacher who is providing the instruction, and add this to the IEP revision.

All teachers will be starting the year with review and reinforcement of essential skills. Special education teachers will be assessing students in the first few weeks of school and will then provide targeted group instruction to remediate any regression.

IEP-goal based instruction that is delivered in a special education classroom will continue to be delivered live by special education teachers.

Yes, special education teachers will conduct assessments on an ongoing basis to ensure that students are making progress on IEP goals. Parents will receive IEP goal progress reports as outlined in students’ IEPs.

If a child is not making progress on IEP goals, the IEP team will convene and the team will consider changes to the IEP. The changes may include size of group, change in instructional intervention, and/or more frequent progress monitoring. 

All IEP meetings will be held virtually using a meeting platform (i.e. Zoom) or by conference calls.

Yes, your child will continue to access the general education curriculum and peers for any academic areas that are not in need of replacement instruction delivered by a special education teacher.

Yes. Testing accommodations are documented in the Specially Designed Section of the IEP. All IEP testing accommodations will be provided.

Paraprofessionals assigned to specific students will be available in virtual classes to address students’ needs in real time. They will also work with students during independent work time.

The paraprofessional will join your child’s class live and provide coaching to your child via the chat feature/or in a break-out room (separate from whole group instruction).

All of the district’s special education teachers are trained in how to respond to students exhibiting problematic behavior. You and your child’s case manager would work together to problem-solve home behaviors related to engagement in virtual school. If those interventions are unsuccessful, the district employs two board certified behavior analysts who can consult with the IEP team and provide additional behavior support.

Related services will be delivered onsite for students who are attending school for onsite instruction.  Services will be delivered virtually for students while they are in a virtual environment or for those who have chosen virtual instruction.  As students return to onsite learning, the related services will also transition to an onsite delivery model.

Just as in brick and mortar school, our related service providers will review your child’s IEP and daily schedule and determine a time that will work within both your child’s and the therapist’s workday to provide their services. The amount of time of the services will stay the same as what is in the IEP.

Generally, the related service providers can still “push in” to the regular education virtual environment and provide these services by observation in that environment and the opportunity to go into a virtual breakout room with your child. However, if that is not feasible for certain students, the IEP team will convene and consider the need to change to pull-out services.

In the current environment the district is not sending students into the community for instruction due to health and safety concerns. Instead, teachers will organize activities to simulate activities in the community.

This service should be discussed as an IEP team to determine if there will be in-person experiences available or if the experiences will need to be virtual. 

New baselines for IEP goal progress will be determined during the month of September, and teachers will work to remediate any identified gaps and regression from September through early November. Additionally, students may show needs in new areas. In this case, just as if we were in brick and mortar school, your child’s case manager will start with informally collecting data to assist with next steps. 

The special education department and supervisors have comprehensive lists of all students with IEPs in each building and are actively developing procedures for IEP revisions. Your child’s case manager will contact you within the next few weeks to discuss any necessary revisions to your child’s IEP. We are aware of the need for revisions and will reach out to you shortly.