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My professional perspective will be from the school counselor's role. As a future school counselor, I feel that it is important to address identification of special education students. My target audience will be teachers. This is an important topic for teachers because special education can be very confusing and overwhelming for new and veteran teachers. The goal is to provide teachers information on the identification of special education students that is easy to understand and hopefully become a go-to reference as needed.

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In an effort to learn more about identification of special education students, I interviewed my school's full-time diagnostician. Her name is Kimberly Elliott and works at O.L. Slaton Middle School in the Lubbock Independent School District (LISD).

Importance of Identification of Special Education Students in the field of education: Identification of Special education students is important to the field of education from the teacher perspective because it is imperative that teachers have some background knowledge about the referral process and  the evaluations that may be conducted in order to better serve their special education students in the classroom. From the school counselor perspective, it is important  to understand the identification process in order to discern the learning disabilities the student is dealing with .  This allows the counselor to fully understand the scope of what they are working with in each special education student. Counselors are then able to use their counseling skills to work with the student with academic and behavior strategies to ensure that the student is successful. Identification of special education students is important to the general field of education because the identification process helps to ensure that we are not over or under identifying students to special education programs.

Best Practices Related to Identification of Special Education Students:

Do not be quick to assume that students need to be in Special Education because they are struggling, try other supports such as a academic interventions or a Student Support Team Referral (SST) first. If that proves to be unsuccessful, move on towards a 504 referral. If 504 does not work, then as a teacher, recommend the possibility of a special education evaluation.

Teachers must keep documentation on what supports have been provided to the student and whether or not they have been successful. In order for a special education evaluation to take place, there must be an abundance of data and documentation to support the need. Student work samples and daily logs are good sources of data and documentation.

Parent communication is key. Parents will ultimately need to give consent to have their child evaluated for special education services. Keeping the parent up to date with their child's progress will help the parent to determine whether or not a special education evaluation is what is best for their child's academic success.

Emerging issue in Identification of Special Education Students

There is currently an issue in identifying Dyslexia as a learning disability that qualifies a student for special education services in the areas of reading and reading comprehension. There seems to be a misconception among schools that they are not required to provide special education services to students that have been identified as having Dyslexia. Dyslexia, however, is listed as a disability that could potentially be serviced under special education if it has impacted the child's ability to learn, specifically in the area of reading. As per my interview with Kimberly Elliott, a Diagnostician in LISD, this is a big conversation in the Special Education Department in our district (personal communication, December 4, 2019) . It seems as though there will be more to come on this topic!

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This resource on disproportionality provides an overview on the occurrence of inappropriate identification of culturally and linguistically diverse students. According to this article, "research suggests that a child's race and ethnicity significantly influence the probability that he or she will be misidentified as needing special education services and that disproportionality can have immediate and long term effects" (Mf PB02 Disproportionality, 2008). Misidentification can have adverse affects on the child. For example, misidentified students are likely not propelled to higher levels of thinking and more rigorous instruction due to being falsely identified as needing special education supports.

link: http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/HE/mf_PB02_Disproportionality.pdf

Reference:
Mf PB02 Disproportionality. (2008). Retrieved from   http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/HE/mf_PB02_Disproportionality.pdf

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Slide #4: Current News Article #1 on Identification of Special Education Students

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Slide #4: Current News Article #1 on Identification of Special Education Students

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The state of Texas illegally pressured school districts into suppressing the number of students referred and placed in special education programs (Samuels, 2018).

The U.S. Department of Education determined that the state of Texas violated the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) by scrutinizing districts that were above 8.5% of special education student population (Samuels, 2018).

The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) provided a list of actions that the state of Texas must take to work towards correcting the damage that the recently rescinded policy, has caused (Samuels 2018).

link: https://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/speced/2018/01/texas_illegally_suppressed_special_education_enrollment.html

Reference:
Samuels, C. (2018, January 11). Texas Illegally Suppressed Special Education   Enrollment, Ed. Dept. Finds. Retrieved December 7, 2019, from Education Week - On Special Education website: https://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/speced/2018/01/texas_illegally_suppressed_special_education_enrollment.html

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The U.S. Department of Education found that Texas violated the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act through a policy-recently rescinded-that subjected school districts to additional state scrutiny if their special education enrollment percentage went above 8.5 percent.

The office of special education programs on Thursday released a letter to state education chief Mike Morath as well as the results of a monitoring report. OSEP outlined several corrective actions the state must take, including:

Finding and testing students who should have been referred for evaluation but were not;

a plan to provide guidance to districts about their responsibilities under special education law; and,

a plan for monitoring. OSEP said that it would work with the state, which is still recovering from Hurricane Harvey, on a mutually-agreeable timeline.

This is the first special education monitoring report of the education department under the leadership of Betsy DeVos.

Texas' special education enrollment drew widespread attention after an investigative report in the Houston Chronicle showed that districts responded to the state's 8.5 percent benchmark by erecting roadblocks for students to receive special education. Those roadblocks included placing children in a response-to-intervention program instead of evaluating them for a disability; providing supports for students under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which does not come with the same legal requirements and protections as the IDEA; and in some cases withholding evaluations for children believed to have dyslexia if the child did not have another disabling condition. (The IDEA does not require that children with dyslexia have another disability before being eligible for services.)

After the articles came out in 2016, the Education Department and the Texas Education Agency hosted a listening tour around the state and sought comments on a public blog.

The state also responded to the reports by passing a law in 2017 preventing the state education department from ever placing a cap on special education enrollment.
Don't miss another On Special Education post. Sign up here to get news alerts in your email inbox.

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Texas Illegally Suppressed Special Education Enrollment, Ed. Dept. Finds

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The U.S. Department of Education found that Texas violated the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act through a policy-recently rescinded-that subjected school districts to additional state scrutiny if their special education enrollment percentage went above 8.5 percent. The office of special education programs on Thursday released a letter to state education chief Mike Morath as well as the results of a monitoring report.

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Slide #5: Current News Article #2 on Identification of Special Education Students

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Slide #5: Current News Article #2 on Identification of Special Education Students

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Previously, research suggested that Black and Hispanic students were over identified as needing special education services. Current research shows that minority students are less likely to become identified as a special education student (Samuels, 2019).

Where students went to school determined whether or not they were enrolled in special education programs. This study shows that minority students who attended a school with a student body that consisted mostly of White students were more likely to be identified as needing special education services compared to minority students attending schools with a minority student body (Samuels, 2019).

link: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/speced/2019/05/minorities_special_education_florida_study.html

Reference:
Samuels, C. (2019, May 28). Are Black and Hispanic Students Identified for Special Education Too Often or Not Enough? Maybe It’s Both. Retrieved December 7, 2019, from Education Week - On Special Education website: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/speced/2019/05/minorities_special_education_florida_study.html

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Are too many black and Hispanic students incorrectly diagnosed with disabilities and sent to special education classes, where they run the risk of receiving a substandard education? Federal policy is built around the idea that this problem of "disproportionality" exists and that school districts need to actively guard against it.

Newer research has countered the idea that some minority groups are overidentified for special education. Instead, this research states that black and Hispanic students are actually less likely to be enrolled in special education than white peers with similar academic achievement and behavior, meaning that those minority students may be missing out on the help they need to succeed.

Now, a new study, looking at a decade's worth of student records in Florida, offers additional nuance to the debate.

The data links educational records to the birth records of every child born in the state between 1992 and 2002 for which kindergarten and 4th grade records were available-some 869,000 children. The researchers were able to control for a wealth of health and economic factors, such as birth weight, complications during delivery, the educational level of the mother, and language spoken at home. That means they could compare children who were similar in all factors except for their race or ethnicity.

The study showed that overall, black and Hispanic students are identified for special education at lower rates than white students who are otherwise similar to them. That fits in with the latest findings.

But where those students attend school seemed to play a large role. Black and Hispanic students were more likely to be identified with disabilities when they attended schools that had a mostly white population. But black and Hispanic students were substantially underidentified with disabilities when they attended schools where the student body was mostly black or Hispanic.

That trend was particularly evident for black children. For example, the researchers in this study found that a black 4th grader who attended a school that was more than 90 percent minority was 9 percentage points less likely to be identified for special education than a similar black student in a school that is mostly white. For black students, the difference was linked primarily to diagnoses of specific learning disabilities; for Hispanic students, the difference was connected to diagnoses of speech and language impairments.

A Deeper Look at Special Education Identification

The study, " School Segregation and Racial Gaps in Special Education Identification" was published in May by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Studies published on NBER are circulated for discussion and comment, but have not been peer reviewed.

So what could this mean for school policy? The researchers were not able to tell, based on their data, whether minority students are being wrongly identified in mainly white schools, or being incorrectly passed over for identification in predominantly minority schools. There's no number that indicates what the "correct" identification rate should be, said Scott Imberman, a professor of economics and education at Michigan State University and one of the study's authors.

But the study offers some evidence that rules out economics alone as a cause of these disparities. In other words, it doesn't appear that black students are underidentified at minority schools due to those schools being underresourced. The study found, for example, that black students were more likely to be identified as gifted in mostly minority schools than they were in mostly white schools. If resources alone were a problem, one might expect gifted rates at those schools to also be low.

With such a tangled web of possible causes and correlations, the findings suggest that lawmakers should rethink current policy about special education bias, Imberman said.

"If we are going to use [the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act] to deal with disproportionality, do we want to be accounting for certain aspects of students' background when we do that?" Imberman said. He believes the answer is yes, though right now, states are not required to make those kinds of calculations. And though this study looked only at Florida, it's likely that there are similar complexities and complications in other states, he said.

"It may not work the exact same way [in other states], but it's hard to believe that the complexity is not there," he said.

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Are Black and Hispanic Students Identified for Special Education Too Often or Not Enough? Maybe It's Both

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Are too many black and Hispanic students incorrectly diagnosed with disabilities and sent to special education classes, where they run the risk of receiving a substandard education? Federal policy is built around the idea that this problem of "disproportionality" exists and that school districts need to actively guard against it.

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Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) 2004 (Statutory Law)
20 U.S. Code § 1400 (2004)

IDEA provides a free, public education to students with disabilities and ensures that they receive the proper services and supports throughout their academic career.

link: https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:20%20section:1400%20edition:prelim)%20OR%20(granuleid:USC-prelim-title20-section1400)&f=treesort&edition=prelim&num=0&jumpTo=true

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Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (42 USC §12101) (Statutory Law)

This law states that people with disabilities should not be discriminated against and should be able to participate in all aspects of society, including public education.

link: https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title42-section12101&num=0&edition=prelim

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Texas Education Code, Chapter 29 §29.003 (Statutory Law)

This law describes eligibility criteria in order to participate in Special Education programs in Texas.

Physical disabilities, intellectual or developmental, emotional disturbance, learning disability, autism, speech disability, or traumatic brain injuries are considered eligible disabilities under this code.

link: https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/DocViewer.aspx?DocKey=ED%2fED.29&Phrases=special%7ceducation&HighlightType=1&ExactPhrase=False&QueryText=special+education

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Public Education, 29. Tex. Educ. Code § 29.004 (Statutory Law)

This law explains the regulations on full individual and initial evaluations.

It outlines the timeframes that evaluations must take place within, and explains parents’ rights under this law.

link: https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/ED/htm/ED.29.htm#29.004

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Slide #10: Local Administrative Law/Policy/Rule

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Slide #10: Local Administrative Law/Policy/Rule

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LISD Special Education Referral Policy - How to begin the referral process

If a student exhibits academic, language, or behavioral challenges the teacher is to:

implement Tier 1 strategies for 6 - 8 weeks.

monitor student progress

document strategies used and how effective they were

This policy/rule was selected because it outlines how our school district requires schools within the district to begin and complete the referral process. Our school district provides a student-centered approach throughout the referral process.

(no link available)

Lubbock Independent School District. (2013). Special Education Referral Process Policy.

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American School Counselors Association Standard A.6c:

"School counselors connect  students with services provided through the local school district and community agencies and remain aware of
state laws and local district policies related to students with
special needs, including limits to confidentiality and notification
to authorities as appropriate" (ASCA Ethical Standards for School Counselors, 2016).

This standard is related to identification of special education students because counselors are expected to connect students, including students with special needs, to district resources which could include special education programs. This standard also states that school counselors must be aware of "state laws and local district policies related to students with special needs" (ASCA Ethical Standards for School Counselors, 2016).

Reference:
American School Counselor Association. (2016). ASCA Ethical Standards for School Counselors. Retrieved from https://www.schoolcounselor.org/asca/media/asca/Ethics/EthicalStandards2016.pdf

link: https://www.schoolcounselor.org/asca/media/asca/Ethics/EthicalStandards2016.pdf

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Understanding the Special Education Process. (2013). Retrieved from Special Education Guide website: https://www.specialeducationguide.com/pre-k-12/what-is-special-education/the-special-education-process-explained/

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link: https://www.specialeducationguide.com/pre-k-12/what-is-special-education/the-special-education-process-explained/

This source provides information on the special education identification and referral process. It is helpful to educators and parents that are looking to learn more about how special education works and what to expect throughout the process (“Understanding the Special Education Process,” 2013).

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The purpose of special education is to provide equal access to education for children ages birth through 21 by providing specialized services that will lead to school success in the general curriculum. If your child's health care provider, teacher, other interested party or you suspect that your child may be eligible for special education services, it is helpful to know what to expect and where to begin. The following information is an outline of the special education process and brief descriptions of its elements.

The First Step: Identifying a Need

When, Where and How are Disabilities Diagnosed?

Children may be diagnosed with a disability by a medical provider or by the school district. However, one must understand that being simply diagnosed with a disability is not a guarantee of services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Having a disability is the first question when determining if a student qualifies. The evaluation team must also answer two additional questions:

Does the disability impact the child's educational progress?

Does the child need specially designed instruction (which is the IDEA definition of special education)?

Students who have physical disabilities or developmental delays are often identified early by a pediatrician or other medical provider. These students may have a wide range of academic difficulties depending on the severity of the delay, and some may have no difficulties at all. Fortunately, because they are often diagnosed before entering the school system, most children with physical disabilities or developmental delays enter school with special education structures in place. If your child has been diagnosed with a developmental delay or disability by his or her pediatrician, ask your medical provider for a list of local resources. Regional centers, state programs and public schools all provide early identification, called Child Find, and early intervention services. The earlier your child receives these services, the better.

Students with learning disabilities often face a different scenario. They may struggle through the first years of their education before their disabilities are identified. Part of the reason for this is the local school district's dependence upon the discrepancy method for identification. (This is explained in The Importance of the Assessment Process.) In addition, students with learning disabilities often lack the physical or social differences that identify students with physical impairments or developmental delays; that is, they look and act just like their peers without disabilities. Also, much of the instruction delivered in the lowest grade levels is skills-based. This means that your child is learning skills such as reading, writing and basic arithmetic. If he or she can read a word or solve a basic math problem, he or she will have relatively few problems in these grades. Starting around the third grade, however, students are expected to apply those skills to learn more information, and those with previously undetected disabilities may begin to struggle.

Regardless of his or her ability or diagnosed disability, your student will find that school becomes much more difficult once he or she needs to build upon previously mastered skills to gather new information. This is especially true if your child was not able to master some of the foundational skills. For instance, your child may have been a B student in reading throughout first and second grade, earning an average of 80 percent on reading and spelling tests. However, if he or she is only able to read 80 percent of the words taught in first and second grade, how is he or she supposed to read and comprehend a textbook written at a fourth grade level? It is next to impossible and your child will continue to fall behind in all subjects. This is referred to as a "widening gap": the gap between what a child with a disability knows and what his or her peers know only widens as he or she advances to higher grades.

Response to Intervention (RTI)

RTI stands for " Response to Intervention " and is used to identify students with learning disabilities or other academic delays. In the past, students with learning or other disabilities were not given any specialized assistance until their academic performance was significantly lower than their ability (IQ) indicated it should be. In other words, smart kids had to consistently fail before they received help. Even worse, those students had to wait so long for assistance that, as they waited, they fell further and further behind their peers (remember that widening gap?), making it much more difficult for them to catch up. Does this seem unfair? Teachers thought so, too.

When the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was reauthorized in 2004, the legislators, with the assistance of the Office of Special Programs recommended the use of a better way of identifying students with disabilities that also provided immediate assistance to struggling students. It is based on the idea that a student needs to master each skill that he or she learns. This means that he or she must be able to demonstrate the use of a skill with mastery, and be able to do so consistently. If a student does not master a skill the first time around, the teacher will then give the student more intensive support (known as an intervention) until the student can demonstrate mastery. The support becomes increasingly intensive (which usually means that more time is dedicated to working on a single skill) until the student can show that he or she has mastered the skill.

If a child continues to fail to respond to interventions, he or she may have a learning disability or an undiagnosed developmental impairment. If this is the case, the teacher will likely refer the student for assessment. It is important to note that the purpose of RTI is to prevent school districts from relying wholly on what's called the discrepancy method (comparing a student's testing data against that of his or her peers) for identification of specific learning disabilities. Most school districts use RTI to provide interventions for struggling students but the districts do not use the results of the interventions as the data that the law requires to identify a student as having a disability. Instead, schools refer a student who has not responded to interventions student for more assessments to get the data. For very young students (kindergarteners through third graders) who are struggling this can be a problem because they have not learned enough to show a real discrepancy in test results. Many experts consider overlooking the data that can be derived from interventions to be a missed opportunity to identify students earlier in the process. For parents, if your school district evaluation team is asking to refer your child for testing after he or she has failed a number of increasing intense interventions, it may be worthwhile to ask them why they don't have adequate data already to qualify your child for a disability.

Step Two: Formal Assessment

If your child has not responded to intensive interventions, it may be time to evaluate for a learning disability or other delay. More detailed information regarding assessments and referral for services can be found in The Importance of the Assessment Process and The IEP Process: Explained, but to begin, there are a few basic things you should know before your child undergoes academic, behavioral and/or cognitive assessments. (See the previous paragraph about the discrepancy method for identifying specific learning disability).

Assessments are diagnostic tools; they do not contain answers or solutions. These tests are designed to provide an overview of your child's academic performance, basic cognitive functioning and/or his or her current strengths or weaknesses; they can also test hearing and vision. Assessment are not able to predict your child's future performance, nor his or her ability. That said, they are excellent tools because they break your child's academic performance down into subsets, such as reading comprehension, spelling and basic arithmetic. They can also rule out simple problems, such as hearing or vision impairments, which may be affecting learning. This information is invaluable because it guides the educational process. Teachers can write goals for your child and you can request services based on information found within these assessments.

It is important to remember that not every child who struggles academically will qualify for special education services. Assessments might show that your child does not have a learning disability or other impairment that qualifies him or her for these services; however, that does not mean that your child is lazy, stupid or not trying. If your child is struggling but does not qualify for special education, it is imperative that you keep looking for solutions. Work with you child's teacher and other school service providers to draft an action plan that will address your child's individual needs.

Step Three: The Individualized Education Program and Meeting

If your child is diagnosed with a learning disability or other qualifying impairment, the next step is to draft an individualized education program (IEP) for him or her. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) gives the school district 30 days from the documentation of the disability to complete an IEP. Parents must give permission for placement as a part of the initial IEP. A guide to IEPs can be found in The IEP Process: Explained but here is some general information regarding IEPs to get you started.

Once your child's learning disability is identified, you will attend an IEP meeting every year until he or she graduates or stops receiving special education. It is imperative that you attend these meetings. It is here that the team will review your child's academic progress, write new academic goals, and discuss placement and transition plans, as well as accommodations and modifications. It is a forum for exchanging ideas and the IEP team members can offer you invaluable support. If you cannot attend these meetings in person, find a way to participate. IEP teams are eager to consider options, such as your attendance via speaker phone or Skype. You are the one who knows your child the best; the IEP team members need your input.

Do not be surprised by how many people attend IEP meetings. The law requires that five positions are represented at each IEP team meeting. Those five positions that need representation are the parent, the special education teacher, the general education teacher, a person who can interpret test information, and a district representative. That does not always mean five different people will attend the meeting; in some cases one person can play two roles. For example the special education teacher often is qualified to interpret test data. You may also consider encouraging your child to attend and be an active member of the team. After all, it is his or her education that the team is discussing. At age 16 and older, each student is required to participate in the process. Students are invited to attend the meetings; if they do not or cannot, then the team will find another way to allow participation, usually by going over the document prior to the meeting.

Step Four: Placement, Accommodations and Specialized Services

During the very first IEP meeting, and during all that follow, your child's placement will be discussed. This means that the team will determine the most appropriate environment for your child. Remember that your child is entitled to receive services in an environment that is as close to the general education setting as possible.

It is important that you know why the team recommends one placement over another. Remember that the IEP team should be able to use data such as test scores, work samples and behavioral charts to support any placement recommendations. If the team is recommending a change of placement, arrange a tour of the new classroom. If you are ever uncomfortable with a placement recommendation, try to work with the IEP team to come up with a better alternative. The team makes decisions about every part of the IEP, including placement by what the law calls consensus, which means that a strong majority of the team members must agree. While parents have considerable influence, they do not have the right of veto. If the majority of a team agrees to something and the parents disagree, their options are to change their minds or work through conflict resolution solutions. Some educators believe that the parent signature is required on all IEPs before the document can be implemented, but this is not true in most states (California does require a parent signature for new goals and services). The only time a parent signature is required is for the initial placement; starting with the second IEP, consensus is the method used.

The IEP team will also discuss classroom accommodations and specialized services, such as speech therapy, occupational therapy and adaptive physical education. It is important to understand your child's needs so that you can help the team make informed decisions that continue to help your child. For example, if an academic test indicates that your child struggles with reading comprehension, you can use that data to request speech and language support or classroom accommodations, such as extra time to complete reading and writing tasks.

Step Five: Annual and Triennial Reviews and Progress Monitoring

After the initial IEP meeting, you will meet with your child's IEP team on an annual basis to review your child's progress and modify the plan as needed. You can also request an IEP meeting at any time throughout the school year if you feel there is an issue that must be resolved by the IEP team.

Every three years, your child will undergo a new round of assessments to determine his or her continuing eligibility for special education services. You will be presented with this information at the triennial meeting. Often there is enough existing data, thus allowing the team to simply review that data and determine that eligibility should continue.

In addition to formal meetings, you should also be in constant communication with your child's special education teacher. He or she should be monitoring your child's progress on academic and other goals, and be prepared to present you with updates regularly.

If you're a teacher looking to advance your career with a special education degree, check out our comprehensive list of master's degree programs by state focused on special education

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Understanding the Special Education Process

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Navigating the special education process can be difficult. We've created a guide for parents/instructors on diagnosis, RTI, IEPs, accommodations, and more!

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Slide #13: Best Practices for Compliance

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Slide #13: Best Practices for Compliance

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Keep track of strategies used and whether or not they were successful

Monitor and document student progress

Be aware of laws relating to special education - this is where compliance comes from. It is important to know and understand the laws so that you can determine whether or not you are in compliance.

Fill out special education teacher reports accurately and honestly

Read student's IEP thoroughly and provide the supports outlined in that legal document

If you are unsure about referring a student to special education, speak to the Diagnostician, Counselors, or school administrators.

If there are further questions about compliance, reach out to our district's special education department for further guidance

Establish and maintain an open line of communication with parents.