SPED Update

Can you believe it’s not even really Winter yet?  

Collaboration

As the RVA grows, we are continually looking to improve our collaborative practices.  When students are identified as needing additional support, we typically convene a Child Study Team (CST) Meeting which often consists of specialists, regular and special education teachers, psychologists, and/or counselors.  In the past, these meetings may have taken place without the knowledge of the resident district (unless the student was likely to be referred for special education evaluation). In an effort to achieve greater collaboration, we will begin inviting a representative from your district take part in these meetings.  Hopefully, through our mutual collaboration, we can enhance the problem-solving process and be able to produce better outcomes while also streamlining the referral process. CST meetings typically only take 30 minutes. We meet online and will provide you with a link to the meeting room. During our CST meetings we occasionally find there is enough information to move right to a special education referral.  If a representative from the school is already present at the meeting we have found that the referral process typically goes much more smoothly. There are also times when we meet and we feel we don’t have enough information or are in need of more intensive interventions. In instances such as these, the student and teacher work together to fulfill the intervention requirements. As we move forward with this process, please share this information with anyone in your district who may be asked to attend a CST meeting.  Most of the invitations will come from the RVA school psychologist, Dawn Meissner. In the event that someone from your district could not attend at the time scheduled, Dawn will provide your district with an email summary of the meeting and what was discussed.

Accommodations

I know many of you are busy entering accommodations for state testing so I thought now would be a good time to give a friendly reminder for those that may be new to the RVA or may have forgotten the district’s role in this process.   As a partnering district, you are responsible for entering the accommodations and contacting families to arrange on-site testing within your district (this applies to any students who have testing accommodations specified in an IEP or  504 Plan). The assigned case manager from your district will have all of the information needed to input accommodations including the ACT release form signed by the parent/guardian. Please also remember to include your ELL students when ACCESS testing takes place as this too is a requirement of the district.  Students who wish to opt out of testing would do so through the RVA principal, Sara Holewinsk. When this happens, you will be notified by someone from the RVA. If you need additional information for any RVA students, please let us know as we are happy to assist in any way.  

Final Grades

Finally, our semester ends January 16, 2020 and grades will be entered no later than January 24th. Case managers will receive emails that include students' final grades, second quarter IEP progress reports, and second semester schedules.   An official report card will be shared with your district by the RVA office shortly after January 24th.