Article 7 now has a provision for students who are struggling in the general education classroom. It is called 'Comprehensive & Coordinated Early Intervening Serivces' and can be found in Rule 40, Section 2. It means that Indiana schools may provide more support for students who struggle to learn, especially students in kindergarten through 3rd grade, but also older students. These are students who do not currently receive special education services but who need more academic and behavioral support to succeed in the classroom. Schools need to provide training for staff to learn "scientifically based academic and behavioral interventions" or strategies to help struggling students. This means that the strategies must be backed up by evidence of their effectiveness. These strategies are to be provided in the student's regular classroom so they receive support aimed at helping the student work at grade level.
The goal of these services is three-fold: 1) to help as many students as possible reach their potential in school without needing special education services, 2) to make sure that students who struggle get the right kind of instruction to increase the student's rate of learning to grade level, and 3) to gather accurate informationabout the needs of students who may truly have a specific learning disability and need to be referred for comprehensive educational evaluation.
Parents need to be notified by the school, in writing, if their student needs specific academic and behavioral interventions. However, schools do not need written consent from parents to provide interventions. The written notice should tell the parent how the school will keep track of the student's progress, what kind of information will be recorded about the student's progress and what general education services the student will receive. Parents and schools need to agree about the amount of time to allow for progress to occur. It is possible that more intensive instruction will help the student make enough progress to get back on track with the rest of the class. If the student is unable to do so, then the school is to recommend educational evaluation for the student.
Parents need to understand that they have a right to request educational evaluation at any time and the schools have a responsibility to honor that request. However, allowing the student to complete the intensive instruction allows the school to record evaluative data that will be used to help decide if the student needs special education services because the student truly has a specific learning disability. If the student needs comprehensive educational evaluation the schools need written consent from the parent to move forward with that process. Also, if the student has completed intensive interventions and is going to have further evaluation, the schools then have to complete the evalulation process and convene the case conference committee meeting within 20 instructional days for the date they received written parent consent to evaluate.