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EVALUATION/REEVALUATION

EVALUATION

Forms: Parent Consent for Initial Evaluation/Reevaluation – SE4 Evaluation Plan – SE2 Summary of Evaluation – SE6A

Timeline: Initial Evaluation: Evaluation must be conducted within 60 days of receiving parental consent for the evaluation.

Reevaluation: Reevaluation may occur not more than once a year, unless the parent and the MOE agree otherwise, and must occur at least once every 3 years, unless the parent and the MOE agree that a reevaluation is unnecessary.

Responsible Person: Principal

Procedures:

Step 1: The CRT verifies that parent consent has been received and a copy has been transmitted with the Evaluation Plan.

Step 2:

The CRT ensures the Evaluation Plan is implemented as per procedures below:

• Use a variety of assessment tools and strategies to gather relevant functional, developmental, and academic information about the child, including information provided by the parent, that may assist in determining:
• Whether the child is a child with a disability; and
• The content of the child's IEP, including information related to enabling the child to be involved in and progress in the general education curriculum (or for a preschool child, to participate in appropriate activities);
• Not use any single measure or assessment as the sole criterion for determining whether a child is a child with a disability and for determining an appropriate educational program for the child; and
• Use technically sound instruments that may assess the relative contribution of cognitive and behavioral factors, in addition to physical or developmental factors.
• Assessments:
• Are selected and administered so as not to be discriminatory on a racial or cultural basis;
• Are provided and administered in the child's native language or other mode of communication and in the form most likely to yield accurate information on what

the child knows and can do academically, developmentally, and functionally, unless it is clearly not feasible to so provide or administer; if the child is in need of an interpreter, the CRT shall facilitate obtaining an interpreter prior to the evaluation;

• Are used for the purposes for which the assessments or measures are valid and reliable;
• Are administered by trained and knowledgeable personnel; and
• Are administered in accordance with any instructions provided by the producer of the assessments.
• Assessments and other evaluation materials include those tailored to assess specific areas of educational need and not merely those that are designed to provide a single general intelligence quotient.
• Assessments are selected and administered so as best to ensure that if an assessment is administered to a child with impaired sensory, manual, or speaking skills, the assessment results accurately reflect the child's aptitude or achievement level or whatever other factors the test purports to measure, rather than reflecting the child's impaired sensory, manual, or speaking skills (unless those skills are the factors that the test purports to measure).
• The child is assessed in all areas related to the suspected disability, including, if appropriate, health, vision, hearing, social and emotional status, general intelligence, academic performance, communicative status, and motor abilities;
• If the child requires any medical evaluation such as vision and/or hearing, the CRT facilitates the child obtaining the evaluations at no cost to the parent;
• Assessments of children with disabilities who transfer from one public agency to another public agency in the same school year are coordinated with those children's prior and subsequent schools, as necessary and as expeditiously as possible, and to ensure prompt completion of full evaluations.
• In evaluating each child with a disability, the evaluation is sufficiently comprehensive to identify all of the child's special education and related services needs, whether or not commonly linked to the disability category in which the child has been classified.
• Assessment tools and strategies that provide relevant information that directly assists persons in determining the educational needs of the child are provided.
• Assessments include:
• Evaluations and information provided by the parents of the child;
• Current classroom-based, local, or Palau assessments, and classroom-based observations; and
• Observations by teachers and related services providers;
• Additional procedures if child is suspected of having a specific learning disability:
• Child is observed in the child's learning environment (including the regular classroom setting) to document the child's academic performance and behavior in the areas of difficulty. If child is of less than school age or out of school, a group member must observe the child in an environment appropriate for a child of that age.

Step 3: Upon completion of the evaluation, the assessment members submit evaluation reports to the CRT. The CRT completes the Summary of Evaluation. For evaluations that only deal with related services, the related service personnel will complete the Summary of Evaluation and submit to CRT.

The CRT will notify principal that the evaluation has been completed and principal schedules the eligibility meeting. *In the case of Head start, the administrator is the Disability Service Manager. Evaluations before Change in Eligibility The MOE must evaluate a child with a disability as per IDEA requirements before determining that the child is no longer a child with a disability. The evaluation is not required before the termination of a child's eligibility under Part B of IDEA due to graduation from secondary school with a regular diploma, or due to exceeding the age eligibility for FAPE under Palau law.

For a child whose eligibility terminates due to graduation with a regular diploma, the MOE must provide the child with a summary of the child's academic achievement and functional performance, which shall include recommendations on how to assist the child in meeting the child's postsecondary goals.

Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE) Independent educational evaluation means an evaluation conducted by a qualified examiner who is not employed by the public agency responsible for the education of the child in question. Public expense means that the MOE either pays for the full cost of the evaluation or ensures that the evaluation is otherwise provided at no cost to the parent, consistent with Sec. 300.103.

• The parents of a child with a disability have the right to obtain an independent educational evaluation of the child, as per requirements below.

• The MOE must provide to parents, upon request for an independent educational evaluation, information about where an independent educational evaluation may be obtained, and the MOE’s criteria applicable for independent educational evaluations.

• Parent Right to Evaluation at Public Expense: The conditions for the independent educational evaluation are as follows:

• If a parent requests an independent educational evaluation at public expense, the MOE must, without unnecessary delay, either:

• File a due process complaint to request a hearing to show that its evaluation is appropriate; or

• Ensure that an independent educational evaluation is provided at public expense, unless the MOE demonstrates in a hearing that the evaluation obtained by the parent did not meet MOE’s criteria.

• If the MOE files a due process complaint notice to request a hearing and the final decision is that the agency's evaluation is appropriate, the parent still has the right to an independent educational evaluation, but not at public expense.

• If a parent requests an independent educational evaluation, the MOE may ask for the parent's reason why he or she objects to the MOE’s evaluation. However, the MOE may not require the parent to provide an explanation and may not unreasonably delay either providing the independent educational evaluation at MOE’s expense or filing a due process complaint to request a due process hearing to defend the MOE’s evaluation.

• A parent is entitled to only one independent educational evaluation at MOE’s expense each time the MOE conducts an evaluation with which the parent disagrees.

• Parent-initiated evaluations If the parent obtains an independent educational evaluation at MOE’s expense or shares with the MOE an evaluation obtained at private expense, the results of the evaluation:

• Must be considered by the MOE, if it meets agency criteria, in any decision made with respect to the provision of FAPE to the child; and

• May be presented by any party as evidence at a hearing on a due process complaint regarding that child.

• Requests for evaluations by hearing officer If a hearing officer requests an independent educational evaluation as part of a hearing on a due process complaint, the cost of the evaluation must be at MOE’s expense.

• Agency criteria If an independent educational evaluation is at MOE’s expense, the criteria under which the evaluation is obtained, including the location of the evaluation and the qualifications of the examiner, must be the same as the criteria that the MOE uses when it initiates an evaluation, to the extent those criteria are consistent with the parent's right to an independent educational evaluation.

Except for the criteria described above, the MOE may not impose conditions or timelines related to obtaining an independent educational evaluation at public expense

Step 4: Go to Section on ELIGIBILITY.