The Special Education Process: The Process Of Special Education

The process of special education is a procedure that all school districts need to follow. It encompasses a lot of steps that can be difficult to understand.

Usually before a referral, the student is brought to the attention of a team of individuals. This team can include regular education teacher, principal, and special education teacher or educational diagnostician. The team comes up with strategies that are to be tried with the student for several weeks. The teacher must document what they try and how it works with the student. After several weeks, if the strategies haven’t helped, the student can be referred to the special services director. Another pre-referral step is Responds to Interventions, or RTI. This process is a multiple level system using research-based practices. Each level has interventions to help with academic or behavior needs, increasing with each level. When a student goes through the multiple levels without success, they are referred for special services.

The first step of this is called a referral. This is when either a parent or district personal

The parent needs to sign permission to have the initial services start. The parent also signs it to initially place the student into the special services. They do have ten days to think about it, but in most cases a parent will waive the ten days to start the services. The placement is decided by the team, which also includes the parents in the decision. The team will start with the Least Restrictive Environment, moving up to more restrictive if needed. The placement is determined by what the student needs. If the student only has a Learning Disability in reading, it is possible for them to be in regular education classroom at least 80% of the time. However, if the student is more low functioning, requires a separate curriculum, and needs individualized instruction, a more restricted placement is