Evaluation Delay Reason

Evaluation Delay Reason: Special Education

Evaluation Delay Reason: Parental consent is required before any LEA member can assess or otherwise work with a student towards the goal of determining eligibility for special education. Once that consent is obtained, LEAs have a 60-day timeline to complete the initial special education evaluation. There are three exceptions to the 60-calendar day timeline.

Delay values include Transfer, Child Unavailable, and Initial SLD Eval.

TRANSFER ( T ) - The first involves a student who transfers from one LEA to another after the 60-day timeline has begun and prior to a determination of (or continuation of) eligibility by the previous LEA. For the exception to apply, the LEA must have completed the evaluation within a specific time agreed to by the parent and LEA.

CHILD UNAVAILABLE ( C ) - The second exception is if the parent repeatedly fails or refuses to make the student available for the evaluation. This is determined on a case-by-case basis, and what constitutes "repeatedly failed" or "refuses to make the student available" will vary depending on the specific circumstances in each case.

INITIAL SLD EVAL ( I ) - The third exception applies to students being evaluated for a specific learning disability for the first time, and the timeline is extended by mutual written agreement with the parent.

If the three options above do not explain why the completion of the evaluation is uncertain, then an Evaluation Late Reason should be provided instead.

Data Submission Details

DPI is requiring Timely Initial Evaluations (Indicator 11) data to be reported through WISE to better support our local educational agencies (LEAs) and will be captured annually in the December snapshot’s Year End data collection. This will save you time and effort by minimizing the number of applications accessed to report required data, allowing the Indicator 11 application to focus on LEAs responding to notifications of noncompliance.

Beginning immediately, with data from the 2023-24 school year and onward, all districts must ensure:

• All LEAs will report Indicator 11 data annually through WISE. In the past, only LEAs “in cycle” were required to submit data in any given year.
• All special education data related to Indicator 11 is submitted by LEAs to DPI via WISEdata Portal through their local SIS/special education vendors, AND
• All Indicator 11 data element fields contain valid data or the data will be flagged as in error.
• Districts that evaluated students without a WISEid, especially if these were children referred by the Birth to 3 programs, must go back and create WISEids for all children who were evaluated in 2023-2024, even if those children were determined not to be eligible for SPED.

The first instance of Indicator 11 data being collected as part of the 23-24 Year-End collection in a snapshot will be December 10, 2024, during the 2024-25 school year.

NOTE: In order to ensure that the data is valid and reliable, please note the following:

• The SEORA record cannot be submitted to WISEdata without a WISEid.
• If the student is referred, whether they get evaluated or not, whether they qualify for services or not, a WISEid is assigned. For greater details on WISEids as related to Indicator 11 evaluations, please visit the SEORA data element page.
• NOTE: Data cannot flow to DPI unless it is entered in your SIS. To resolve issues around data that is entered into the SIS that isn’t flowing to DPI, LEAs need to work with their vendor support staff to resolve data flow issues.
• For districts using a special education vendor:
  • A student enrollment record (student School Association, or sSA) or a responsibility record (student Education Organization Responsibility Association, or SEORA) must be submitted via the primary SIS product.
  • Without one of these records, the special education vendor will be unable to send the data required for Indicator 11 (student Special Education Program Eligibility Associations, or sSEPA).
  • Once the SEORA record is in WISEdata Portal, Indicator 11 data elements are pushed to WISEdata Portal via your primary SIS or SpEd vendor SIS, as applicable.