36

Halifax Area SD

Special Education Plan Report

07/01/2013 - 06/30/2016

36

District Profile

Demographics

3940 Peters Mountain Rd

Halifax, PA 17032-9098

(717) 896-3416

Superintendent: Robert Hassinger

Planning Committee

Name / Role
Rebecca Adrian / Secondary School Teacher - Regular Education
Kim Amoriello / Parent
Rick Ansel / Administrator
Traci Aunkst / Secondary School Teacher - Regular Education
Daniel Borrelli / Administrator
Liz Bower / Elementary School Teacher - Regular Education
Tricia Bowman / Elementary School Teacher - Regular Education
Luann Curry / Ed Specialist - School Counselor
Kelly Enders / Secondary School Teacher - Regular Education
Kori Enders / Elementary School Teacher - Special Education
Heidi Eyster / Elementary School Teacher - Regular Education
Keith Focht / Administrator
Hara Frank / Board Member
Heather Frantz / Parent
Robert Hassinger / Administrator
David Hatfield / Administrator
Beth Hogan / Community Representative
Stephanie Hoover / Parent
Hannah Irion-Frake / Elementary School Teacher - Regular Education
Dayna King / Secondary School Teacher - Regular Education
Nicole Kline / Elementary School Teacher - Regular Education
Mindy Lorah / Ed Specialist - Instructional Technology
Amy Lowery / Middle School Teacher - Special Education
Terry Lynch / Business Representative
Jennifer Martin / Middle School Teacher - Special Education
Holly McGuire / Elementary School Teacher - Regular Education
William McIntosh / Secondary School Teacher - Regular Education
Greg Milbrand / Administrator
Maria Miller / Middle School Teacher - Regular Education
Amelia Miller / Elementary School Teacher - Regular Education
Beverly MIller / Elementary School Teacher - Regular Education
Gail Murray / Secondary School Teacher - Special Education
Julee Nace / Parent
Doddy Ochs / Elementary School Teacher - Regular Education
Craig Raisner / Administrator
Chris Ruff / Secondary School Teacher - Regular Education
Amy Schade / Middle School Teacher - Regular Education
Greg Stewart / Elementary School Teacher - Special Education
Lisa Weaver / Elementary School Teacher - Regular Education
Lori Weber / Business Representative
Carole Yiengst / Ed Specialist - School Counselor

36

Core Foundations

Special Education

Special Education Students

Total students identified: 174

Identification Method

Identify the District's method for identifying students with specific learning disabilities.

The Halifax Area School District identifies children with learning disabilities through use of the Response to Intervention model in tandem with recommendations to further evaluate students whose achievement scores are below the 10th percentile range. The RtiI model is being utilized in grades K-5 with a three-tiered model forallstudents: tier one is for all students making benchmarks and tier two and three interventions are for student who are not meeting benchmarks. There areacademic supports within each grade-level to help children obtain the intervention strategies they need. These include a structured time each day that allows the regular classroom teachers to provide 30-40 minutes of intervention times.Instructional aides are made available as well during this time. Next year, the Halifax Middle School will be incorporating a RtiI program in grades 6 through 8. Initial use of this model to provide interventions for students will eventually lead toward its use to help identify students with specific learning disabilities.

Each of our elementary schools has one Response to Intervention coordinator who sees students at the tier-two and tier-three levels. Their responsibilities involve providing progress monitoring to these students, coordinating the different building-wide assessments/benchmarks, and data entry. These individuals share information gathered to assist students during team meetings.

Grades nine through twelve will continue to utilize the cognitive / achievement model in identifying the specific learning disabledstudent until the RtII process extends to these grade levels in the future. In the next five years, it is the hope of the Halifax Area School District, to evolve to a full RtII model K-12 and to incorporate the RtII model process as the primary source of keeping data and identifying the learning disabled child.

Enrollment

Review the Enrollment Difference Status. If necessary, describe how your district plans to address any significant disproportionalities.

The data is publicly available via the PennData website. You can view your most recent report. The link is: http://penndata.hbg.psu.edu/BSEReports

In reviewing the 2010 Penn Data information, the following information shows no significant discrepancies / disproportionate concerns.

Halifax Area School District Data / State –wide Data
Percent of Special Ed Enrollment by Disability / 15.4 % / 15.2 %
Autism / 10.4 % / 8.8 %
Deaf – Blind / 0.0 % / 0.0 %
Emotional Disturbance / 14.3 % / 8.8 %
Hearing Impairment Including Deafness / 0.0 % / 1.0 %
Mental Retardation / Intellectual Disability / 13.7 % / 7.6 %
Multiple Disabilities / 0.0 % / 1.1 %
Orthopedic Impairment / 0.0 % / 0.3 %
Other Health Impairment / 0.0 / 9.0 %
Specific Learning Disability / 39.0 % / 48.3 %
Speech or Language Impairment / 15.9 % / 16.2 %
Traumatic Brain Injury / 0.0 % / 0.3 %
Visual Impairment Including Blindness / 0.0 / 0.4 %

In reviewing the 2012 data there appears to be the greatest difference between the percentages of students identified by the LEA and state-wide PDE data in the following areas: the Mentally Retarded / Intellectual Disability category 13.7 % - 7.6 %; the Emotional Disturbance category -14.3 % - 8.8 %; and the Other Health Impaired – 0.0 % - 9.0 %. Each school's students are different, but our district is not satisfied to merely accept that as an explanation. Consequently, we will work to continue to evaluate our identification process.

Concerning the Mentally Retarded / Intellectual Disability(13.7 % vs. 7.6 %), the district had originally utilized the “below 70” IQ as one of the identification elements creating a higher disproportionate number students falling within this area. Since the district provided a more comprehensive RtiI program, the special education program has been retesting this population utilizing the “below 60” IQ as a range identify the mentally retarded / intellectual disability category and providing more supports through RtiI prior to testing. These numbers have decreased and appear to continue to drop each year coming more in line with the State level within this disability category.

Concerning the Emotional Disturbance Disability,( 14.3 % 8.8 %) - The district is looking more closely at this disability category to determine why our percentage of identified students may be higher than the state average. Because of this before moving to identify a student as having an emotional support disability, special education personnel are first working with principals and teachers todeal with behaviors at the classroom and school level, as well as coordinating more outside supports such asutilizing related-service personnel to helpaddress student behavioral needs. More importantly, the special education program has introduced more assessment tools that provide a more “normed” approach to identifying the emotionally disturbed child. These two interventions should help the district to more effectively identify students who may need the supports that come with their identification as having an emotional disturbance disability.

Concerning the Other Health Impaired Disability (0.0 % - 9.0 %), it is evident that the district has not been identifying students in this category. The Other Health Impaired disability category is an ambiguous category that independent evaluation professionals, advocates, and lawyers have used as a “Catch all” identification category to provide specialized services to students who may have any range of symptoms from Attention Deficit to an anxiety disorder, to executive functioning deficit. The district currently has a few students in these categories, but provides for these students through a service agreement under Chapter 15 of the Pa School Code.

Non-Resident Students Oversight

  1. How does the District meet its obligation under Section 1306 of the Public School Code as the host District at each location?
  2. How does the District ensure that students are receiving a free appropriate public education (FAPE) in the least restrictive environment (LRE)?
  3. What problems or barriers exist which limit the District's ability to meet its obligations under Section 1306 of the Public School Code?

Currently the Halifax Area School District does not have any Section 1306 institutions. If the Halifax Area School District were a host to a 1306 facility, we as the host school district would be responsible for providing the students with an appropriate program of special education and training consistent with Chapters 14 and 342 of the Pennsylvania regulations and standards. This means the host school district would be responsible for making decisions regarding the goals, programming, and educational placement for each student. The host school district would also be responsible for seeking advice from the resident school district with respect to the student, and keeping the resident school district informed of its plans to educate the student. Other arrangements may be made in writing between the two districts regarding educational and procedural responsibilities, with the approval of the Department of Education and notice and opportunity to respond by the parents.

The Halifax Area School District would finance the provision of the educational program for the students in children's institutions through Section 1306 of the school code, "Non-resident inmates of children's institutions." This section allows the host school district to charge the school district where the student's parents live, or "resident" school district, the host district's tuition rate, as determined by Section 2561, for the education of these students. Arrangements for this payment would be made directly between the two school districts.

At each IEP meeting the educational team, inclusive of the parents and student (if of transition age), will discuss if the IEP can be provided within the regular educational setting with or without supplemental aides. If this cannot be done then the team discusses what level of intervention can provide for a program in which the student can make appropriate gains in the educational design provided by the district. Additionally, the resident school district, if it were Halifax Area School District, would utilize their Local Agency Representative at each IEP meeting (via phone conference) to provide the ability to allocate local school district funds to support the designed program made by the IEP team. The HASD is responsible for direct payment to the host district for providing the educational services being provided to a student eligible for special education.

There have been times in the past that a host district has not contacted us when there is a RER / or IEP revision to allow us to be a participant and to understand the allocations of resources and funds. In addition, there have been times that a student goes to placement as a regular education student and comes back to us with an ER / IEP with additional cost aligned to this process without our input. If Halifax were ever to become a host district, we would work to assure that there are no cases in which the residence district is not connected.

Incarcerated Students Oversight

Describe the system of oversight the District would implement to ensure that all incarcerated students who may be eligible for special education are located, identified, evaluated and when deemed eligible, are offered a free appropriate public education (FAPE).

When an eligible student is incarcerated, the school district guidance counselor(s), who have a list of the identified students within their building, contacts the facility and the school in regards to information of the child's disability and program. This provides the avenue to continue FAPE for this student. If materials and transcripts and records such as the IEP, Evaluation reports, or specially designed instructions are needed or requested, the district guidance counselors provide this information to the institution that is housing our student.

The Halifax Area School District recognizes our operational responsibility to offer FAPE to each student who is eligible for special education until the student or students who turn 21 during the school term are entitled to finish that school term, whichever occurs first.
Although no correctional institution is located in the district, if one did exist, the district would comply fully with the requirements of the IDEIA and Chapter 14 regarding the identification, evaluation, placement and provision of special education services to all eligible school-age individuals housed therein. Eligible students are entitled to receive special education both when they are charged with a criminal offense and are awaiting trial and after they have been convicted of a criminal offense. Specifically, school districts providing special education services to incarcerated school-age individuals are required to:
1. comply with the "child-find" obligations of IDEA
2. utilize appropriate evaluation procedures and diagnostic/screening instruments to determine the eligibility and educational needs of inmates;
3. implement timely review and/or develop Individualized Education Programs ("IEPs") for eligible students in accordance with state and federal laws and regulations, including compliance with procedural safeguards; and
4. provide FAPE in conformity with the IEP.
Further, if a correctional institution were located in the HASD, the district would have a responsibility to adopt and use a system to locate and identify all students within the district's jurisdiction who are thought to be eligible and to determine those students' needs through a screening and evaluation process which meets the requirements of Chapter 14. Part of this responsibility is to provide annual public notices under Section 14.121. Districts should send their annual public notice to the warden of each county jail or prison within their jurisdiction. Furthermore, districts in which local correction institutions are located must develop a systematic, on-going means of communicating with these institutions to ensure that all incarcerated students who may be eligible for special education are located, identified, evaluated, and, when deemed eligible, offered FAPE.
In addition, districts may obtain information from the Department's PennData database to determine whether school-age inmates have been previously identified as eligible for special education by contacting the Records Center at 717-541-8575 or 1-800-945-7854.
Finally, Section 614(d)(6)(B) provides that if a child with a disability is convicted as an adult under state law and incarcerated in an adult prison, the child's IEP team may modify the child's IEP or placement notwithstanding the requirements of section 612(a)(5)(A) and 614(d)(1)(A)(least restrictive environment) if a bona fide security or compelling penological interest that cannot otherwise be accommodated is demonstrated. Where the continued delivery of services in a student's IEP is superseded by he duty of the local correction institution to maintain and control security, the school district must conduct an IEP meeting and revise the IEP accordingly, following the usual procedural safeguards provided for under Chapter 14.