Disability

Disability: WISEdata

Reporting Disability is indicated in the pupil’s individualized education program (IEP) or individualized service plan (ISP). Only one reporting (primary) disability can be submitted to WISEdata. The reporting disability is the disability category that most adversely affects educational performance.

USES: This data element is required for Choice and public schools. Reporting (Primary) Disability codes are used for disaggregated reporting and accountability purposes, including WISEdash, ESSA Report Card, Adequate Yearly Progress, Wisconsin School Performance Report, the IDEA Part B Annual Performance Report (APR), IDEA Part B LEA Determinations, and the Wisconsin Continuous Improvement and Focused Monitoring System. Reporting (primary) disability codes are also used in annual data reports required under IDEA, which are, in turn, used in reports to Congress and in state-by-state comparisons.

FAQs, Details, and Points to Note

1. Reporting Disability: The reporting or primary disability is the disability category that most adversely affects educational performance.  Students who are not IDEA-eligible or have no disability should be assigned a reporting disability code of N.
2. Disability Code Descriptions/Notes: 
   • A: Autism means a developmental disability significantly affecting a child's social interaction and verbal and nonverbal communication, generally evident before age three, that adversely affects learning and educational performance. Other characteristics often associated with autism are engagement in repetitive activities and stereotyped movements, resistance to environmental change or change in daily routines, and unusual responses to sensory experiences. The term does not apply if a child's educational performance is adversely affected primarily because the child has an emotional disturbance, as defined in sub. (7). [Wis. Admin. Code , s. PI 11.36(8)]
   • DB: Deafblind means concomitantly deaf or hard of hearing and blind or visually impaired, the combination of which causes severe communication and other developmental and educational needs such that the individual disability-related needs of the student exceed beyond the instruction and supports required for a student who is solely deaf or hard of hearing or blind or visually impaired. [Wis. Admin. Code , s. PI 11.03(4m)]
   • EBD: Emotional behavioral disability, pursuant to s. 115.76(5)(a)5., Stats., means social, emotional or behavioral functioning that so departs from generally accepted, age-appropriate ethnic or cultural norms that it adversely affects a child's academic progress, social relationships, personal adjustment, classroom adjustment, self-care, or vocational skills. [Wis. Admin. Code PI 11.36(7)]
   • H: Deaf and Hard of Hearing Impairment means a decreased ability to detect sound in one or both ears with or without amplification, whether permanent or chronically fluctuating, which adversely affects a child’s educational performance. This includes academic performance, speech perception, speech production, or communication including language acquisition or expression. [Wis. Admin. Code PI 11.03(4)]
   • ID: Intellectual Disability means significant limitations both in intellectual functioning and in adaptive behavior as expressed in conceptual, social, and practical adaptive skills and manifested during the developmental period that adversely affects the child’s educational performance. [Wis. Admin. Code, s. PI 11.36(1)]
   • LD: Specific learning disability, pursuant to s. 115.76(5)(a)10., Stats., means a severe learning problem due to a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in acquiring, organizing or expressing information that manifests itself in school as an impaired ability to listen, reason, speak, read, write, spell or do mathematical calculations, despite appropriate instruction in the general education curriculum. Specific learning disability may include conditions such as perceptual disability, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia. [Wis. Admin. Code PI 11.36(6)]
   • OHI: Other Health Impairment means having limited strength, vitality, or alertness due to chronic or acute health problems. The term includes, but is not limited to, a heart condition, tuberculosis, rheumatic fever, nephritis, asthma, sickle cell anemia, hemophilia, epilepsy, lead poisoning, leukemia, diabetes, or acquired injuries to the brain caused by internal occurrences or degenerative conditions which adversely affect a child's educational performance. [Wis. Admin. Code PI 11.36(10)]
   • OI: Orthopedic Impairment means a severe orthopedic impairment that adversely affects a child's educational performance. The term includes, but is not limited to, impairments caused by congenital anomaly, such as clubfoot, or absence of some member; impairments caused by disease, such as poliomyelitis or bone tuberculosis; and impairments from other causes, such as cerebral palsy, amputations, and fractures or burns that cause contractures. [Wis. Admin. Code PI 11.36(2)]
   • SL: Speech or Language Impairment means an impairment of speech or sound production, voice, fluency, or language that adversely affects educational performance or social, emotional, or vocational development. [Wis. Admin. Code PI 11.36(5)]
   • TBI: Traumatic Brain Injury means an acquired injury to the brain caused by an external physical force resulting in total or partial functional disability or psychosocial impairment, or both, that adversely affects a child's educational performance. The term applies to open or closed head injuries resulting in impairments in one or more areas, such as cognition; speech and language; memory; attention; reasoning; abstract thinking; communication; judgment; problem-solving; sensory, perceptual, and motor abilities; psychosocial behavior; physical functions; information processing; and executive functions, such as organizing, evaluating, and carrying out goal-directed activities. The term does not apply to brain injuries that are congenital or degenerative or brain injuries induced by birth trauma. [Wis. Admin. Code PI 11.36(9)]
   • V: Blind and Visually Impaired means even after correction a child's visual functioning adversely affects educational performance.  [Wis. Admin. Code PI 11.03 (3)]
   • SDD: Significant Developmental Delay means children ages three through nine years of age who are experiencing significant delays in two or more of the areas of physical, cognition, communication, social-emotional, or adaptive development. All other suspected impairments under this section shall be considered before identifying a child's primary impairment as significant developmental delay. [Wis. Admin. Code PI 11.36(11)]
     • A student may be identified with a disability of Significant Developmental Delay through age nine. A student with a disability of Significant Developmental Delay must be reevaluated prior to the student’s tenth birthday to determine whether the student has an educational disability under one of the other disability categories and continues to have a need for special education services.
   • N: No disability; not IDEA eligible.
3. IDEA Eligible: An "IDEA-Eligible" student must meet ALL of the following requirements:
   • Be a child age 3-21 years of age who has not graduated with a diploma from high school,
   • Be a child who meets the criteria for a disability category and needs specially designed instruction as determined by a current evaluation and a current individualized education program (IEP) or a services plan for a student parentally-placed in a private school,
   • The student is attending and receiving the services specified in the IEP/service plan, and
   • The student is receiving a free appropriate public education (FAPE) or is a parentally-placed private school student receiving special education or related services that meet state standards under a service plan (34 CFR 300.452--300.462).
4. Not IDEA-Eligible: A non-IDEA-eligible student would include:
   • A student who does not meet the criteria for a disability or does not have a need for specially designed instruction.
   • A student between the ages of birth and three or age 22 and older who is receiving special education and related services from the school district.
   • A student with a disability who is not receiving special education and related services, as specified in the IEP.
   • A student with a disability who has received a high school diploma but is still receiving services.
   • A student enrolled in home-based private education (home schooling) who is receiving special education/related services from a public school.
5. IDEA Eligibility for Choice Schools:

    In order to be identified as a student with a disability for WISEdata purposes, a private school student must either be actively receiving services from a LEA through a current services plan or have previously met the IDEA eligible requirements listed below as reported by a LEA in Wisconsin. A 504 plan is not sufficient to meet this requirement.

    

   • IDEA Eligible: An "IDEA-Eligible" student must meet ALL of the following requirements:

     1. Be a child age 3-21 years of age who has not graduated with a diploma from high school,

     2. Be a child who meets the criteria for a disability category and needs specially designed instruction as determined by a current evaluation and a current individualized education program (IEP) or a services plan for a student parentally-placed in a private school,

     3. The student is attending and receiving the services specified in the IEP/service plan, and
     4. The student is receiving a free appropriate public education (FAPE) or is a parentally-placed private school student receiving special education or related services that meet state standards under a service plan (34 CFR 300.452--300.462).
6. Criteria Dates: The above criteria are applied as of a specific date based on the most current data available. For WISEdata count date records, the count dates are the Third Friday of September and October 1, as well as a Current (present day) value. WISEdata records should reflect the appropriate disability status as of these specific dates. The disability identified for the student during the period covering the count dates or current date will be documented as the disability value for the appropriate, coordinating dates.
7. FAPE: According to Sec. 602 of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004, the term 'free appropriate public education' means special education and related services that (A) have been provided at public expense, under public supervision and direction, and without charge; (B) meet the standards of the State educational agency; (C) include an appropriate preschool, elementary school, or secondary school education in the State involved; and (D) are provided in conformity with the individualized education program required under section 614(d).
8. Disability Codes: The Reporting (Primary) and Other Disability cannot be the same for a student.
9. Code Combinations: Neither ID/LD nor LD/ID can be used as a Primary/Other Disability combination.
10. Section 504: Students identified as eligible for protection under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (34 CFR 104) who are not IDEA-eligible should be assigned a reporting/primary disability code of N.
11. High School Completion: When a student with a disability completes high school, the student's special education record must show that special education services continued until the enrollment exit date. For example, when a student with a disability graduates prior to the last school year day, as seniors often do, the end date for the special education record should be the enrollment exit date for the student and not the graduation date.  In other words, the special education record end date and the enrollment exit date should be the same.  When the end date for the special education record is prior to the enrollment exit date, it is assumed that the student was no longer a student with a disability when the student completed high school which may impact data for the district that is disaggregated by disability status.
12. Home-based Students: There is no legal obligation for a district to provide special education services to a child enrolled in home-based education if the parent has withdrawn the child from the public school. Home-based (or homeschooled) students are not eligible for special education services through a Services Plan or an IEP and should not be reported to WISEdata.

See also:

Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004

Title 34, Part 300 (IDEA regulations)
 

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