Branchburg Township School District

• l&RS Meeting: The I&RS Team process is a collaborative school effort between district personnel and parents to intervene when a student has been identified as making minimal academic and/or emotional progress in the general education setting. The team or committee collects and evaluates relevant data in order to determine or identify specific barriers to student performance.
• Identification Meeting: This meeting provides the opportunity for the school and/or parents to convey concerns related to the student's educational progress. The full CST is in attendance and will determine if an evaluation is warranted. If an evaluation is warranted, the CST will develop an evaluation plan and present it to the parents for their consent. If the parents consent to the plan, the CST has 90 days to complete the assessments, determine the child's eligibility, and have the child placed in a program.
• Eligibility Meeting: At this meeting, the case manager presents the findings from the completed assessments, reviews the student’s eligibility stains, and if eligible, develops appropriate programming for the student in collaboration with the IEP team.
• IEP Meeting: In this meeting, the IEP team reviews the student’s progress in the current program and then plans for future programming based on the information presented.

After the eligibility meeting is held that deems the student eligible for special education and related services.

Yes, either as eligible for special education and related services or as eligible for speech/language services.

Parents are entitled to an independent evaluation of their child at no cost if they are in disagreement with the evaluation provided by the district's CST. The independent evaluation would occur, however, after the district's CST has conducted its own evaluation. Districts often maintain a list of agencies that provide independent evaluations. It is important that the district's CST evaluate your child since it is in the best position to observe classes, speak to teachers and be knowledgeable of curriculum delivery in the child's school. The evaluation process also helps the CST become more knowledgeable of your child's needs and puts the CST in a better position to assist teachers and therapists who may be working with your child in the future.

The district's CST must consider the findings of any evaluation provided by the parents of a student receiving special education or undergoing consideration for services. In some cases, the entire report may be accepted, in other cases a portion of the report, and in some instances the CST may not accept the findings of a report. The CST should provide you with its determination in this regard and the reasons for its determination.

The fact that your child is responding to a particular strategy or method is important information of which the IEP team should be aware. To the degree possible, the district staff may wish to implement strategies that the parent identifies as productive for the child. The ability to adopt a particular method may be limited in many instances by factors such as environmental conditions (some methods that are successful in a non-school setting do not transfer to a classroom setting), specific training requirements, or a lack of supportive scientific research. For these reasons, districts are given the responsibility of choosing the method which they view to be most appropriate. However, particular methodologies are not a required component of an IEP.

No. Although parental input is utilized in making eligibility determinations, the CST is responsible for determining eligibility for special education and related services and consent is not required.

Occupational therapy is a related service and is only required to be provided if a student is determined as eligible for special education and then found to be in need of occupational therapy, as determined by the IEP team based upon an occupational therapy evaluation.

The IEP team determines eligibility for ESY services by reviewing several factors. One factor to be considered includes the regression/recoupment analysis which considers the amount of/egression a student experiences as a result of an interruption in educational services over the course of the summer with the amount of time required to regain the prior level of skill upon the student's return to school in the fall. The IEP team may also consider other factors such as the nature and severity of the student's disability.

The CST consists of a school psychologist, a learning disabilities teacher/consultant, school social worker, and when needed, a speech-language specialist, responsible for conducting evaluations to determine eligibility for special education and related services for students with disabilities. Parents are members of the IEP team. (See glossary for definition of IEP team.)

Related services are services that are provided to help classified students benefit from special education. The services are specified in the student's IEP and are provided in conjunction with the special education program. Many times the related services to a special education program are provided in the classroom setting. Some examples of related services include:

1. Counseling services
2. Occupational therapy
3. Physical therapy
4. Speech/language services
5. Transportation
6. Parent training

While transportation is a possible related service, most classified students are not eligible for transportation as part of their IEP. Transportation is only provided as a related service due to a condition of the student's disability and in accordance with specific needs of the student as detailed in their IEP.