On June 5 and June 8, 2017, the Department of Public Instruction (department) received a complaint under state and federal special education law from XXXXX against the River Valley School District. This is the department’s decision regarding that complaint. The issue is whether the district, during the 2016-17 school year, properly responded to the request of a parent of a student with a disability for extended school year (ESY) services.
A school district is required to provide ESY services to a student when the student requires these services to receive a free appropriate public education (FAPE). If ESY services are raised by the parent or any other individualized education program (IEP) team participant, the IEP team, including the parent, must determine on an individual basis whether the child requires ESY services in order to receive FAPE.
The parent attended an IEP meeting for the student on March 2, 2017. At the meeting, the parent requested both a reevaluation and an IEP team meeting to discuss ESY services. The district intended to discuss ESY at a meeting after the student’s reevaluation was completed. The parent ultimately refused to provide consent to the reevaluation, and consequently the district did not proceed with the evaluation. The district states that the parent did not request ESY services after the March IEP meeting until the complaint was filed.
On June 5, 2017, the parent filed this complaint with the department and the district received a copy. The district noted they “had forgotten” about the parent’s prior request on March 2nd for an IEP team meeting to discuss ESY services. The case manager subsequently sent emails to the complainant on June 6, 8, and 10 attempting to schedule an IEP team meeting to discuss ESY services. The complaint did not respond to these emails, and an IEP team meeting has not been held as of the date of this decision.
The district did not properly respond to the parent’s request for ESY services. It is acknowledged that district staff forgot about the request, and consequently, there was a significant delay in attempting to schedule a meeting. Within 30 days from the date of this decision, the district must conduct an IEP team meeting to determine whether ESY services were required for the summer of 2017, and if so, determine the amount of compensatory services. Within 10 days from the date of the IEP team meeting, the district must submit a copy of the IEP to the department. If the parent does not respond to three attempts to schedule the meeting, then no further action is required, and the district should submit documentation of the three attempts to the department.
All noncompliance identified above must be corrected as soon as possible, but in no case more than one year from the date of this decision. This concludes our review of this complaint.