On February 6, 2014, the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) received a complaint under state and federal special education law from XXXXX against the Racine Unified School District. This is the department’s decision regarding that complaint. The issues are whether during the 2013-14 school year, the school district properly implemented the student’s individualized education program (IEP) and properly changed the student’s placement.
Each child identified as a child with a disability must be provided a free appropriate public education, including special education and related services that are provided at public expense under public supervision and direction, meet the standards of the department, and are provided in conformity with an IEP. In Wisconsin, it is a duty of the IEP team to develop the student’s IEP and determine the student’s special education placement.
On February 8, 2013, an IEP team meeting was held to review and revise the student’s IEP. The IEP developed was to continue into the 2013-14 school year. The student’s parent attended the IEP team meeting with an advocacy specialist. The student’s IEP team determined the student would be enrolled in the [program] social studies and [program] elective, which are both special education classes. In addition, the IEP team determined the student would receive supplemental aids and services, which included notifying the parent when the student was “two assignments behind.” The parent acknowledges that the student’s IEP was followed for the reminder of the 2012-13 school year. However, the district acknowledges that at the beginning of the 2013-14 school year, portions of the IEP were not implemented, because the student was not placed in the [program] special education classes, as determined by the IEP team, and the parent was not consistently contacted when the student was two assignments behind. The student was not placed into the [program] special education classes until December 11, 2013.
The IEP Team agreed to reconvene in April 2014, to determine compensatory services, review the student’s progress, and discuss the student’s special education placement for the 2014-15 school year. By May 5, 2014, the district must provide the department a copy of the IEP developed with the IEP team’s decision regarding compensatory services clearly documented. In addition, the district must submit a proposed corrective action plan to ensure all staff at the student’s high school are consistently providing all services in each student’s IEP in the placement determined by the IEP team.
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.
//signed CST 4/3/2014
Carolyn Stanford Taylor
Assistant State Superintendent
Division for Learning Support
Dec/jfd