On January 16, 2018, the department of Public Instruction (department) received a complaint under state and federal special education law from XXXXX (adult student) against the Madison Metropolitan School District (district). This is the department’s decision regarding the complaint. The issue is whether the district, during the 2017-2018 school year, properly conducted a special education evaluation of a student.
The district received a written referral to evaluate the adult student for eligibility for special education on October 23, 2017. On October 25, 2017, the district issued a notice of receipt of referral and start of initial evaluation. The individualized education program (IEP) team, including the adult student, met on November 16, 2017, to review existing data to determine whether there was a need for additional assessments or other evaluation materials. The team determined no additional assessments were needed and proceeded to determine whether the student had an impairment and was in need of special education. The IEP team determined the student met the relevant criteria for the impairment of emotional behavioral disability but did not exhibit a need for special education. While the team documented its rationale behind the determination the student met impairment area criteria, it did not document the reasons for the determination that the student did not need special education.
On receipt of this complaint, the district reviewed the evaluation, and determined the district had not conducted a full evaluation, and commenced a new initial evaluation for the adult student. Before the evaluation could be completed the student informed the district that he had moved to another state.
No student level corrective action is required as the district is no longer responsible for the provision of a free appropriate public education for the student. Within 30 days the district shall submit to the department a corrective action plan outlining the steps it will take to ensure all district staff responsible for initial evaluations understand the requirements to conduct comprehensive evaluations and to fully document IEP team determinations.
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 which we are closing.
//signed CST:bvh 3/16/2018
Carolyn Stanford Taylor
Assistant State Superintendent
Division for Learning Support
dec:pas