ISD Special Education

This Q&A is based on a series of short webinars organized by Betsy Grant, chair of the Issaquah PTSA Council Special Education Committee. In the webinars, Dr. Dana Bailey, the Issaquah School District Special Services executive director, and Dr. Stephany King, director of Special Services for the ECE (Early Childhood Education) and elementary LRC1 (Learning Resource Center 1) programs, answered community questions related to the District’s special services.

For IEP meetings, can you describe the experience the Issaquah School District would like parents to have? Could you suggest some steps that could be taken by families or IEP teams to improve the process?

The District’s goal is not signing off on the IEP but to work to improve the experience of parents as full partners in IEP development. Here are some suggestions: I would encourage them to ask the team to amend the draft IEP that they have to include all of the parents’ feedback. Sometimes the parents’ feedback doesn’t make it into the IEP. It’s fair and possible to ask to see their feedback represented in this IEP. Another one would be if the parents feel rushed and unfinished when an hour or ninety minutes was given. Parents in the meeting can request to schedule a continuation of this IEP. The team would schedule one so the parents would feel like they have a full and robust opportunity to participate. These two ideas are about how the personnel can meet you at the table in a full collaboration and to make sure that people don’t feel rushed.

In addition to the annual IEP review meeting, what other circumstances would require a formal meeting of a student’s IEP team? How would a parent request an IEP meeting?

In addition to each annual IEP review meeting, you may contact the Issaquah School District about scheduling additional IEP meetings about questions regarding reviewing or revising your student’s IEP, determining the setting where your student will receive their services or questions about the special education evaluation or evaluation process. If parents have any questions pertaining to your student’s IEP or service delivery, please reach out to your case manager. If you don’t know who your case manager is, you can reach out to your building leader or general education teacher. You can even reach out to the Special Services department and we will get you connected to the right person. I would also encourage families to review the notice of special education procedural safeguards for students and their families. It’s the document that you’re provided probably at every evaluation and IEP meeting. Thoroughly read through that document which also provides families with information about their rights and responsibilities around having a student who’s receiving special education services.

What are recovery services and compensatory services?

Compensatory services, sometimes called Comp Ed, are services that are awarded after a school or a district has failed to deliver something that was expected as part of the student service matrix or part of their school day. For example, if a student was supposed to get physical therapy, and Special Services didn’t provide it because we were never able to hire one. Special Service would then be required to deliver the missed physical therapy in a Comp Ed package or Compensatory Ed package. Those services would be delivered outside of their regularly scheduled school day until the services were delivered in full. This is sometimes a function of a sanction or mediation. Sometimes Special Services offer a Comp Ed package because it’s the right thing to do. We usually offer Comp Ed as a package after a known failure to deliver has been identified. Recovery services for special education are how we’re all going to talk about the community recovering from the impact of COVID. In Special Services, we have a plan or the beginnings of a plan. We have been cautioned from our leaders in the state of Washington not to use a formula to try to figure out a child’s individual impact of COVID was. We are encouraged to make individual decisions for individual students through the IEP process. Parents should come to the next IEP meeting or the recovery services invitation for IEP meeting with information about how much home support was provided during the long school closure and how much assistance the student really needed to accomplish the school. We need an honest collection of data about how school really went or how much the student really needed to be successful or even to just participate in school. The team will work together to make an initial plan for recovery services and will be monitored throughout the year and into next school year and into next summer.

If you have more questions: send an email to specialeducation@issaquahptsa. org, join their Facebook group by searching “Issaquah Special Education PTSA Committee” or visit: https://www.issaquahptsa. org/programs/specialeducation.