FAQ: Special Education

Dates

Do you recommend start and end dates for records such as Title1, Foster Care and Homeless for each school year or can they span multiple school years?

Programs are considered year to year and should have exit dates when students leave the school, are no longer in the program or end of the year (exception is Multilingual Learners and Special Education) program records will be required each year to identify the student is still participating in the program and if no exit date is provided IDOE considers the program closed with the reporting year's ODS.

What is the "Begin Date" for a student in Special Education? Is it the IEP Review Date (the Initial Case Conference Date), the Last Evaluation Date (the date of the most recent case conference), or the Service Begin Date?

The begin date can either be from previous years or if vendor prefers to report a date in the new year each year then that is fine as well. The begin date doesn't have to match the conference date. Case conference date could be in the current year if that is when it happened or in prior years.

An IEP Review date and Service begin date should match, correct?

For a First Steps transition conference, student service dates must be the day services begin whether it is the day of the case conference or at a delayed date. Services must be started by the date student turns 3 yrs old to be compliant unless a valid reason is given. The Initial Case Conference Date is what is used to monitor the timeliness of the initial evaluation process. The date the parent signs the IEP is irrelevant to these dates.

When a TOR indicates that a student's primary exceptionality has changed due to a case conference re-evaluation, do I delete the current code and enter in the new code, or do I put an end date for the current special ed placement and start a new placement record?

Best practice is to add an end date to the current record and create a new program record for the updated exceptionality.

If a placement or exceptionality code changes and we create a new program record and update the begin date for a student who has already been receiving services for several years will they be flagged for the EV report?

No, as long as the old dates are kept in the record on the on the Evaluation portion of the Special Education program record it will not be flagged for Evaluation.

Evaluation

A parent just requested a special education evaluation at the end of the school year. The current year is over. How do we create the entry recorded needed to get the student to show up?

Entry record data can begin coming through DEX for following school year if marked after 7/1. The data will land in the ODS but will not be validated immediately.

For evaluation data, what should be entered for students who have transferred to us from another district? Do we leave that blank?

If evaluation was completed elsewhere it could be left blank. Your vendor may require the EV record and use 6/30 as the parental consent date.

How should we properly document a special ed record for a student that is tested and qualifies, but the parents reject services?

As long as compliance timeline was met, the record is compliant no matter if services are ever provided (except for First Steps student). If parent refuses services just provide exit date and reason code 16.

Enrollment / Transfers

Do I tie a Special Education Program Association to a school or a corporation?

Special Education Program Association is tied to a SchoolID.

Who reports PreK students for SpED: the Servicing school or the Responsible School?

The public school that has transferred the PK students to your school will report the SE program record. The servicing should not be reporting an SE program record for these students.

If we are not counting attendance for Students we Service for Special Ed only - can we exclude them from Attendance or do we have to show that no attendance is submitted on them?

Students who are only being reported for services will have an enrollment record and a Special Education program record and possibly a Title I record - no other data needs to be provided.

I have a student who qualifies for Special Education and left the district for a time. Now they are coming back. How do I show that in Data Exchange?

When a student that has withdrawn from a corporation and returns, a second Special Education program record would need to be created.

I'm confused about the set up of Transfer Out and Transfer In students. How should we be coding a student that lives in our district but has been placed at another school district?

If a student is enrolled at a school, but if a school determines that better accommodations can be met at another school district, the sending schools keeps the SSA (Student School Association) as the Primary "False", and will give the student Ed Org Association with the ADM Code #2. The receiving school will have the SSA as Primary "True" and there is no transfer-in, so they will reporting the student as attendance, without funding. So, no ADM code. More guidance can be found on the ADM - Transfer Out Membership Student Ed Org Guidance Documentation.

We have a special education student who is not in IIEP, but has an active school association with our school. The previous school has not withdrawn the student yet. Why will this students' record not update?

If there is an SSA conflict then the record will not update. Generally speaking, as Brandon noted today, the system looks first for a Special Education Program record. If no program record is found then the system looks at SSA records. In the instance of two active SSA records, both with primary school true, the system will provide access to the most recently submitted SSA record.

We are servicing students who are in a detention facility in our corporation. However, we are receiving an enrollment error when submitting their data. What is causing this?

If the student is attending a detention center that is part of your school corporation, then the student needs to have an enrollment record (SSA) with primary school true and you need to be reporting a Special Education program record.

I have a special education attending an outside learning center that is not connected to my public school. How should I mark this student in terms of enrollment and membership?

As a public school, you will report enrollment with the primary source as false, and the ed org record with primary responsibility being "funding", and use the ADM code "2". The outside learning center will report enrollment with the primary school as true and submit an ed org record with the primary responsibility being "attendance" with no ADM code. The outside learning center will report all other required student data. You, as the public school, will report membership and special education program association, so that you receive funding and accountability for that student.

We're the primary school "false" as part of a Special Education Co-Cop, and we send students to other school corporations for services. Why can't we make changes to student data that's incorrect to ensure accurate membership reports?

If you're a primary school False, you are not allowed to make changes to student data. This is a constraint put in place to prevent possible data thrashing. It will be necessary to reach out to other corporations you work with to ensure that student data is accurate.

Non-Public Schools

For schools submitting data manually via templates, who are non-public and not accredited by the State Of Indiana, what items are NOT required to be submitted in DEX?

These schools do not provide the following data points: Student Additional Info, Special Education Termination, Title I, Alt-Ed, and Special Education Evaluation.

As a non-public school, how do we find out and then indicate approved accommodations for testing for students going to a public school to receive services, if we don't have access to IIEP?

You will need to work with the public school to find out the accommodations. The Non-public school will report SSA record with primary school True. Student's accommodations will be found on TIDE.

Are we required to report a student in a private school who is on a CSEP, other than the initial evaluation?

No you will not report the private school student with CSEP for Special Education count.

Do non-public schools report special ed students if the public school provides services?

The public school will report the SE program record.

Do Non-Public Schools need to Certify Special Education, or is that done by the Public School in our District that provides services?

Public schools are reporting SE data for the non-public students they are providing SE services for. If the non-public school is providing SE services to a choice voucher student, the non-public school reports SE program data for those students and will need to certify the data.

Other

How do I determine if a student is eligible for a "Good Cause Exemption"?

Please use this documentation found here.

Does the disability service programs being submitted to DEX need to match the same order that they are listed in the student's IIEP? We have found a few students the the order doesn't match with our SIS and IIEP.

Legal framework indicates placing exceptionality most adversly affecting the childs education to progress in the primary location in the IEP as well as any secondary exceptionalities in the proper order. Exceptionality placement in IEP must be documented via evaluation and services described in IEP.

For students for whom we have a signed rejection of services for both the IEP and Service Plan, should we remove them from SIS or make them "undefined" for special education program name?

Leave program Undefined, change IDEA Eligibility to True; this will identify the student as eligible for initial evaluation but will not count for December 1 count. You may add end date or leave blank.

I have numerous PK speech students whose Primary Funding Level is PK not 3. Please advise.

PK students will be funded at the PK level no matter the primary exceptionality reported.

What date is expected to report with "First Steps"?

For a First Steps transition conference, student service dates must be the day services begin whether it is the day of the case conference or at a delayed date. Services must be started by the date student turns 3 yrs old to be compliant unless a valid reason is given. The Initial Case Conference Date is what is used to monitor the timeliness of the initial evaluation process. The date the parent signs the IEP is irrelevant to these dates.

This is the date that services begin. It may be after the case conference. It must be by the time the student reaches their 3rd birthday.

Since accommodations will be sent to DOE from both IIEP and ILP, we only need to report (by SIS or template) our accommodations for our 504 students. Is this correct?

Any accommodations needed and are not provided from IEP or ILP should be submitted from the SIS or template - IEP and ILP accommodations will override anything provided.

Reporting in Combination with Other Programs

I have students that are Homebound per IEP and meet with teachers in person. Do I report them as in attendance for all days that they are not reported as being absent due to illness, etc. even though they are not physically attending in the building?

You would report this students' attendance as 'in attendance'.

Templates

I have special education data to report, but our SIS vendor is not ready to do so. How do I get this data to Data Exchange?

If your SIS does not currently support sending SE data then you must submit via template. Please see the Template Hub for more details.

Our SIS vendor is not properly sending across Special Education records. Should we send this to Data Exchange via template?

No, do not submit this data via template. Doing so would like cause duplication of SE data when the vendor issue is resolved. Continue reaching out to your vendor support for assistance. If no resolution is found, please create an IDOE Support Team Ticket here.

Termination

For Special Education students who are being awarded a certificate at the end of this year, however, they plan to return again next school year. Are we to report their graduate data this year for the certificate? Will we be able to report them as students next year with the graduate record?

Schools should report the graduate (academic record) in their cohort year and then the student is still enrolled and may continue their education until they either age out or decide to quit. The Special Education Termination data is provided when the student ends their special education services NOT when the certificate is reported during the cohort year.

I'm trying to provide a termination record for a Special Education student who has been a "no show" all year. However, I'm not seeing this student inside my enrollment records. How do I make this work?

In order to report students needing special education termination reported they will need a one day record to associate the student to the SE program and show the termination information.

If a student is in the process of meeting grad requirements and the Special Education termination reason provided by our Special Education Co-Op as "Graduated with HS diploma", what is the expectation to get these students across the line? Should we reflect a different termination code or not terminate the Special Education record until student fulfills the diploma requirements?

If the student is terminated from services prior to meeting their grad requirements (prior to July 1) then schools should select the appropriate termination reason; if the services continue after July 1 while the student is working to meeting the graduation requirements then graduate termination reason will be reported and certified in the following school year.

Do we need to report our Special Education students on the termination record that were no shows for the school year? We exited them with the entry/exit date of 7/1. If we do need to report them on the termination record, how would we go about doing that?

Schools should be reporting all termination reasons for any student they were servicing and are no longer servicing including 'no shows'. To submit the data a one day school association prior to the calendar should have been provided to show the mobility; if not then this will need to be done, then a SE program record needs to be provided with the end date and termination reason.

Do we need to report our Special Education students on the termination record that were no shows for the school year? We exited them with the entry/exit date of 7/1. If we do need to report them on the termination record, how would we go about doing that?

Schools should be reporting all termination reasons for any student they were servicing and are no longer servicing including 'no shows'. To submit the data a one day school association prior to the calendar should have been provided to show the mobility; if not then this will need to be done, then a SE program record needs to be provided with the end date and termination reason.

Staff

Should SpEd teachers be associated as co-teachers on every section they assisted with or just need to be associated at the school they work at?

Staff should be identified accurately for each section (class) they are associated with.