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My professional perspective is working as a secondary school principal. I have chosen the topic of Special Education and Admission, Referral, and Dismissal (ARD) Requirements, and the audience that could view this legal guide are parents, teachers, and administrators. I chose this topic because I am not extremely familiar with all that is required of an administrator to fulfill all ARD requirements. Also, I hope this will be a helpful resource for parents and teachers in the future.

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Importance
The topic of Special Education and ARD requirements is an important element of administration because there are so many legal aspects to cover. Mrs. Stegall shared that there has been a dramatic rise in the number of students who are being considered for special education, making the ARD process more important than ever. With the internet being so easily accessible, some parents are considering themselves experts on the subject, so it is important that administrators are experts as well.

Best Practice

Keep a copy of the legal elements of ARD requirements or a tab on your computer handy for easy access.

Make decisions as a committee. This includes the teachers, administrators, special education teacher, and parents.

Ask questions if you are unsure. Never be afraid to ask if something doesn't seem right; it is better to be safe than wrong.

Emerging Issue
An emerging issue is the requirements for admission into the special education program. Since information is so easily accessible on the internet, some parents are trying to manipulate the system in order to aid their child. This is important for educators to be aware of and a main reason why teachers are included in the ARD committee. Be certain to gather information from all committee members regarding students.

Interviewee
Shelli Stegall, Secondary Principal, Hico ISD

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Hall, L. (2012). Facilitated IEP meeting quick reference guide. Region 4 Education Center. Retrieved from https://sites.google.com/site/region4escfiep/

This resource is informative for my topic because it goes into detail on the Individualized Education Plan (IEP) requirements of the ARD process. The document breaks down the process of facilitating an IEP meeting, which is an important ARD requirement.

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Region 4 ESC Facilitating the IEP Process

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Samuels, C. (October 2018). The important role principals play in special education. Education Week. Retrieved from https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/10/17/the-important-role-principals-play-in-special.html

This article shines a light on the role that principals play in promoting positive outcomes for special education. This includes ARDs and, more specifically, IEP documentation. The article provides insight from different principals who can agree that family involvement and communication are key in providing the best possible special education accommodations. The article mentions the fact that special education training must improve to enhance the experience for students (Samuels, 2018).

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Principals who effectively manage special education in their schools have to be one part lawyer, one part counselor-and a little bit fearless.

That's the assessment from interviews with principals, educators in administrator-prep programs, and researchers who have taken a deep look at successful school leaders.

The need for legal expertise is obvious: The federal government, through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, states, and school districts have created a complex set of rules and policies that govern the education of students with disabilities and often carry the force of law.

The job also requires school leaders to support parents, students, and teachers, many of whom see the principal as the primary arbiter in cases of disagreement. District-level administrators may be a faceless character to most parents.

Principals, on the other hand, are the administrators that they know.

Learning on the Job

The importance and the complexity of the handling of special education shouldn't paralyze school leaders, their peers say. Principals are going to make mistakes. It's how they own up to those mistakes, and try to come up with ways to fix them and improve for the next situation, that matters.

"You can't be scared of it, and some people are," said Chris Chism, the principal of Pearl High School in Mississippi, a 1,050-student school that takes its name from the city where it is located. "The only way to do that is to get your hands dirty with it."

Tammi Martin, the principal of Highland Primary Center and Hillview Intermediate School, offered similar thoughts. Martin leads two schools that encompass grades K-5 in the Grove City Area district in Pennsylvania; about 900 students are enrolled between them.

"The most effective thing I do for my students is know their families," Martin said. " If they trust you, it allows you to be a little more flexible and take risks to make a difference. And once your parents are on the teams with you, it's a heck of a lot easier."

Those kinds of skills are often ones that principals have to develop on their own. In terms of training, principals are still not getting enough information in the fundamentals of special education law, let alone the skills that would allow them to nurture a supportive school culture for students with disabilities, said David Bateman, a professor of special education at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. Bateman is the co-author of "A Principal's Guide to Special Education."

He saw evidence of this personally during a decade spent as a due-process hearing officer, ruling on special education disputes between schools and families. In some smaller districts, the staffing was so sparse that there was no central-office special education administrator to handle disagreements, so the principal would be the one on the hot seat.

"I would have principals be the ones who were testifying as a representative of the school district, and it became very, very clear they did not know the basics of special ed," said Bateman. "I remember a principal saying: 'This IEP thing, is this a building-level term or a district term? Because we don't typically use this.' "

An IEP, short for individualized education program, is a foundational term in special education. It's a legal document that outlines what special education services students with disabilities will receive, as well as the measurable progress they're expected to make towards academic as well as functional goals.

The area that principals misunderstand the most, hands down, is discipline procedures, he said.

"Their misconception is that kids with disabilities cannot be disciplined," Bateman said. While that's not true, special education law does require schools to take some additional steps to determine if students' misbehavior may be a manifestation of their disability.

Gaps in Principal Training

In more recent years, there have been strides in improving training on special education for school leaders, said Belinda Dunnick Karge, a professor of doctoral programs at Concordia University Irvine in California.

She co-wrote a paper called "Meeting the Needs of Students with Disabilities: Experience and Confidence of Principals" in 2006. In 2015, she and her co-author, Beth Lasky of California State University-Northridge, decided to replicate the surveys that were the foundation of their first study.

In 2006, more than a third of respondents, all of them principals in California, said they had no direct experience with children with disabilities as part of their credentialing coursework to become principals.

By 2015, that percentage had dropped to 18 percent. But nearly 4 out of 5 respondents in 2015 said they only had one course, Karge said.

California's principal training standards offer a section on promoting equity for all student groups, but Karge called the standard "minimal."

Learning on the job is still the main way that principals gain knowledge about special education. Occasionally, that can lead them astray, Karge said.

"If you Google 'behavior autism,' you'd probably come up with a ridiculous amount of hits," Karge said. "Administrators are in a situation of 'here and now.' They need it to happen immediately, and they can't mess around trying to dig through the massive amount of data. So many people rely on their friends and the web, instead of the research."

At the same time, Karge said, it is important for principals to stay in touch with their peers. And in interviews, school leaders offered several concrete steps they take to keep themselves up-to-date with special education law and poised to create a learning environment that works for all students.

Ideas From the Field

Christine Handy, the president of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, said she would seek out chances for parents of students with disabilities to talk to her one-on-one. Handy, who took a leave of absence from her position as principal of 2,400-student Gaithersburg High School in suburban Washington, said getting face time with families in an informal setting was valuable for building trust.

"As a special educator, it's something that's near and dear to my heart," she said."The principals have to be the head cheerleader, the head advocate."

McKenna Lewis, a former special educator now in her first year as the principal of James H. Harrison Elementary in Laurel, Md., oversees a 330-student school with a diverse special education and linguistic population. She doesn't attend every IEP meeting, leaving some to other administrators. But she makes time for the more challenging cases. And before she shows up, she gathers data and observes the child in the classroom.

"I don't like to just go," Lewis said. "When I go, I like to be able to provide insight about the curriculum and the resources." Her goal, she said, is to be "a contributing member to the conversation."

Chrystal Griffin, the principal of KIPP Star Middle School in New York, devised a special plan for a group of 5th graders with disabilities struggling with basic academic skills, but for whom retention wasn't appropriate.

Griffin and the staff organized a smaller class, where the 12 students are served by one teacher and get intensive support in reading and math. For other subject areas, they take classes with students who do not have disabilities. Rather than holding them back, that setup allowed those students to continue with their grade level while providing the small group attention they needed to succeed.

But Griffin said creating that class meant shuffling some schedules and staff assignments at the 300-student school, which serves students in grades 5 to 8.

"My role is really to think about operationalizing all these really great ideas," Griffin said. "There needs to be a willingness to be creative."

Chism, the principal from Mississippi, said every year he reads the section of special education regulations that relates to procedural safeguards "IDEA is too big to read," he said, but the procedural safeguards section gets at the heart of a school's legal obligations, including parental consent and notice and dispute resolution options.

And his advice to jump right in and not be afraid comes with real benefits, he said.

"There's no greater feeling than when you have a kid who really struggles, and I get to get on stage, call their name and they get a diploma. This is a kid who can still succeed," he said.

Published in Print: October 17, 2018, as The Important Role Principals Play in Special Education

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special report: principals under pressure

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The Important Role Principals Play in Special Education

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Principals who effectively manage special education in their schools have to be one part lawyer, one part counselor-and a little bit fearless. That's the assessment from interviews with principals, educators in administrator-prep programs, and researchers who have taken a deep look at successful school leaders.

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De La Rosa, S. (March 2019). Brooklyn charter's special education students outperform district peers under personalized approach. Education Drive. Retrieved from https://www.educationdive.com/news/brooklyn-charters-special-education-students-outperform-district-peers-und/550985/

This article gives many practical examples that one school district uses in order to enhance the learning experience for students receiving special education services. The article suggests personalized learning and small group instruction for the students, which can be documented in the students IEP. It is important that even though technology is on the rise, teachers should not sit back and be obsolete. Developing a student's IEP should be personal and specific to the student's individual needs (De La Rosa, 2019).

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Dive Brief:

Nearly 30% of Brooklyn Laboratory Charter School's student body qualifies for special education services, yet they are outperforming their peers in the district thanks to an emphasis on personalized learning, according to The Hechinger Report, which notes that the five-year-old school serves students in grades 6 through 10 and is expanding into a full high school.

The school's philosophy is that all students progress at their own rate. Therefore, all students can benefit from personalized learning and small group instruction, and teachers are trained to identify each student's needs and create a training program specifically geared for them.

Every student gets small group instruction for two hours each day, giving instructors opportunities to help students in areas where they need it most, and the school also hosts a teacher residency and fellowship program that allows for extra adults to be in the classroom.

Dive Insight:

Plenty of research and case studies have been released in recent years in support of personalized learning's benefits. One study recently found this practice can improve reading scores by 21% and math by 23%. Many approaches often use technology that adjusts to students' skills as they progress.

Tech-based approaches don't mean, however, that teachers are becoming obsolete. They are still critical to the process, as is also indicated by Brooklyn Laboratory Charter School's focus on small group instruction indicates. Ultimately, personalized models shift the educator to the role of a "guide at the side" rather than that of a "sage on the stage," even if they are using tech-based models. Students must also still be held accountable - the fact that information is made available to them doesn't mean they will seek it out and consume it.

Benjamin Riley, founder and executive director of Deans for Impact, advocates for a hybrid approach he calls "Alt-Vision" for education. This promotes the idea that teachers should still lead a student's education, despite technology's ability to individualize lesson plans, and that these plans should still include the social side of learning.

Those exploring the possibilities of tech-led ed should also keep in mind, however, that the jury is still out on the effects screen time will have on young eyes. As with most education trends, there are some perks and some drawbacks. Using a hybrid of both tech and teacher-led curriculums produces the best practices in the modern classroom, with technology ideally saving teachers time that can be directed elsewhere in the classroom.

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Brooklyn charter's special education students outperform district peers under personalized approach

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Nearly 30% of Brooklyn Laboratory Charter School's student body qualifies for special education services, yet they are outperforming their peers in the district thanks to an emphasis on personalized learning, according to The Hechinger Report, which notes that the five-year-old school serves students in grades 6 through 10 and is expanding into a full high school.

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US Const., art. I, amend. XIV, § 1

Constitutional Law

https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv

The 14th amendment ensures that all children have a right to an education, including special education, which guarantees “equal protection” for all students.

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34 C.F.R. § 300.323(a)

Statutory Law

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/34/300.323

This law requires that at the beginning of the school year, the school district must have an individualized education program (IEP) in place for each student who is receiving special education for that year.

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20 USC § 1400

Statutory Law

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/20/1400

IDEA aims to ensure that all students receive the same opportunity for education. There are six elements that comprise IDEA: Individualized Education Program (IEP), FAPE, Least Restrictive Environment (LRE), appropriate evaluation, parent and teacher participation, and procedural safeguards (20 USC § 1400).

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19 TAC § 89.1055(m)(1)

Administrative Law

http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/rules/tac/chapter089/ch089aa.html

This law requires that, in terms of mutual agreement between all parties involved, the student’s IEP include the date of the ARD meeting, the name, position, and signature of all ARD committee members in the meeting, and an indication of whether or not all items discussed in the meeting were agreed upon among all parties.

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10 - Local Administrative Law/Policy/Rule

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10 - Local Administrative Law/Policy/Rule

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Hico School Board Manual § EIE

This local policy states that all standards that a student receiving special education should follow should be documented by the ARD committee and noted in the student's IEP. Documentation is critical for students receiving special education so districts can be held accountable and ensure that students are being served properly.

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19 TAC § 247.2(1)(G)

Standard 1.7 of the Educator's Code of Ethics ensures that educators will "comply with state regulations, written school board policies, and other state and federal laws" (19 TAC § 247.2(1)(G)). ARD requirements are very straightforward and it is critical that educators follow the code of ethics when admitting, referring, and dismissing students from the special education program.

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Enforceable Standards.
(1) Professional Ethical Conduct, Practices and Performance. (A) Standard 1.1. The educator shall not intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly engage in deceptive practices regarding official policies of the school district, educational institution, educator preparation program, the Texas Education Agency, or the State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC) and its certification process. (B) Standard 1.2. The educator shall not intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly misappropriate, divert, or use monies, personnel, property, or equipment committed to his or her charge for personal gain or advantage. (C) Standard 1.3. The educator shall not submit fraudulent requests for reimbursement, expenses, or pay. (D) Standard 1.4. The educator shall not use institutional or professional privileges for personal or partisan advantage. (E) Standard 1.5. The educator shall neither accept nor offer gratuities, gifts, or favors that impair professional judgment or that are used to obtain special advantage. This standard shall not restrict the acceptance of gifts or tokens offered and accepted openly from students, parents of students, or other persons or organizations in recognition or appreciation of service. (F) Standard 1.6. The educator shall not falsify records, or direct or coerce others to do so. (G) Standard 1.7. The educator shall comply with state regulations, written local school board policies, and other state and federal laws. (H) Standard 1.8. The educator shall apply for, accept, offer, or assign a position or a responsibility on the basis of professional qualifications. (I) Standard 1.9. The educator shall not make threats of violence against school district employees, school board members, students, or parents of students. (J) Standard 1.10. The educator shall be of good moral character and be worthy to instruct or supervise the youth of this state. (K) Standard 1.11. The educator shall not intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly misrepresent his or her employment history, criminal history, and/or disciplinary record when applying for subsequent employment. (L) Standard 1.12. The educator shall refrain from the illegal use, abuse, or distribution of controlled substances, prescription drugs, and toxic inhalants. (M) Standard 1.13. The educator shall not be under the influence of alcohol or consume alcoholic beverages on school property or during school activities when students are present. (2) Ethical Conduct Toward Professional Colleagues. (A) Standard 2.1. The educator shall not reveal confidential health or personnel information concerning colleagues unless disclosure serves lawful professional purposes or is required by law. (B) Standard 2.2. The educator shall not harm others by knowingly making false statements about a colleague or the school system. (C) Standard 2.3. The educator shall adhere to written local school board policies and state and federal laws regarding the hiring, evaluation, and dismissal of personnel. (D) Standard 2.4. The educator shall not interfere with a colleague's exercise of political, professional, or citizenship rights and responsibilities. (E) Standard 2.5. The educator shall not discriminate against or coerce a colleague on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, age, gender, disability, family status, or sexual orientation. (F) Standard 2.6. The educator shall not use coercive means or promise of special treatment in order to influence professional decisions or colleagues. (G) Standard 2.7. The educator shall not retaliate against any individual who has filed a complaint with the SBEC or who provides information for a disciplinary investigation or proceeding under this chapter. (H) Standard 2.8. The educator shall not intentionally or knowingly subject a colleague to sexual harassment. (3) Ethical Conduct Toward Students. (A) Standard 3.1. The educator shall not reveal confidential information concerning students unless disclosure serves lawful professional purposes or is required by law. (B) Standard 3.2. The educator shall not intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly treat a student or minor in a manner that adversely affects or endangers the learning, physical health, mental health, or safety of the student or minor. (C) Standard 3.3. The educator shall not intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly misrepresent facts regarding a student. (D) Standard 3.4. The educator shall not exclude a student from participation in a program, deny benefits to a student, or grant an advantage to a student on the basis of race, color, gender, disability, national origin, religion, family status, or sexual orientation. (E) Standard 3.5. The educator shall not intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly engage in physical mistreatment, neglect, or abuse of a student or minor. (F) Standard 3.6. The educator shall not solicit or engage in sexual conduct or a romantic relationship with a student or minor. (G) Standard 3.7. The educator shall not furnish alcohol or illegal/unauthorized drugs to any person under 21 years of age unless the educator is a parent or guardian of that child or knowingly allow any person under 21 years of age unless the educator is a parent or guardian of that child to consume alcohol or illegal/unauthorized drugs in the presence of the educator. (H) Standard 3.8. The educator shall maintain appropriate professional educator-student relationships and boundaries based on a reasonably prudent educator standard. (I) Standard 3.9. The educator shall refrain from inappropriate communication with a student or minor, including, but not limited to, electronic communication such as cell phone, text messaging, email, instant messaging, blogging, or other social network communication. Factors that may be considered in assessing whether the communication is inappropriate include, but are not limited to: (i) the nature, purpose, timing, and amount of the communication; (ii) the subject matter of the communication; (iii) whether the communication was made openly, or the educator attempted to conceal the communication; (iv) whether the communication could be reasonably interpreted as soliciting sexual contact or a romantic relationship; (v) whether the communication was sexually explicit; and (vi) whether the communication involved discussion(s) of the physical or sexual attractiveness or the sexual history, activities, preferences, or fantasies of either the educator or the student.

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Legal Framework. (2018). Parent’s guide to the admission, review, and dismissal process. Texas Education Agency. Retrieved from https://framework.esc18.net/Documents/ARD_Guide_ENG.pdf

This is a great resource that explains the ARD process in general. It is labeled a parent's guide, but it can be used for anyone in the education field that has questions about the ARD process. The resource was developed by the Texas Education Agency which increases its credibility.

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The purpose of the project is to provide and maintain an updated web-based platform to assist stakeholders such as local educational agencies (LEAs), advocates, and parents in learning about state and federal laws and regulations by providing rich resources regarding obligations and rights for the provision of a free and appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment to students with disabilities.

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Always check with the Texas Education Agency ARD requirements before making a decision.

Ensure that each decision is aligned with the Educators’ Code of Ethics.

Select responsible and trustworthy individuals for the ARD committee to ensure things are done correctly.

Develop each student’s IEPs personalized to their individual skills and learning processes.

Document everything to ensure that each student is being served in the best way possible.

Ensure that the ARD process is a fair and ethical process, giving each student an equal opportunity to receive appropriate education.