504 Buzz
April 2015
504 Campus Specialists
- A new title that helps explains what you do for our district!
Secondary Schools
REMINDERS
· EOY Procedures will be sent to you soon along with a “Save the Date” for Greer Folder Exchange.
· Next Meeting: 5/12/2015 from 2-4 at Greer
Discussion Point from Quarterly Meeting
- Notice and Consent for initial testing documentation (See Handout). Across the district we have gaps with gaining consent for evaluation through 504. This is not the same as an Rti Screening. Prior to getting parent info, etc. you must get notice and get consent to evaluate. If there is truly a reason not to evaluate, please talk w/ campus administrator and Special Education quadrant coordinator. This should be done within five days. You will also give Procedural Safeguards (see below) and obtain a receipt of rights when gathering notice and consent for the 504 evaluation. For students that are being dismissed from Special Education and being recommended for a 504 evaluation, you still must obtain 504 evaluation consent, give procedural safeguards, and give a meeting notice. You will want to work w/ campus evaluation specialist on the timing of this action. If a student does not seem to have an initial notice/consent on file, stay tuned for additional guidance district-wide for these situations.
- Procedural Safeguards Documentation. Always make sure that you have given that information out to parents/guardians.
- Ensuring no fields in e504 are left blank.
- Differences in different bundled report available for e504. It appears that we are leaving off paperwork when printed, so please check to ensure you are running the right reports. Also, all documents should be archived. Only use Bundled Reports.
- Make sure you are using the checklists provided in ester docs to help verify compliance
FAPE obligation for 504:
We must meet the needs of 504 students as adequately as the needs of nondisabled peers (34 CF §104.33 9b))
Bullying 504 Students
Please make sure you conduct a 504 meeting if a 504 student has been bullied. Bullying can interfere with or limit the student’s ability to participate in or benefit from services. This can occur even if it is a single incident of bullying. OCR expects to see that you are ending the bullying, that there is no longer a hostile environment for the 504 student, the school is preventing it from reoccurring, and that the 504 committee met to discuss any actions that need to be made to remedy the effects from bullying.
This is currently the number one issue that is leading to money damages for 504 cases.
Responding to bullying is part of your 504 obligation.
Classroom Accommodations
Classroom accommodations are in place to enable the student to have an equal opportunity to participate in the general education curriculum. They are not there to give an “advantage”. They are put into place to “level the playing field”.
Classroom accommodations should be developed through careful consideration of the evaluation data you gather from a variety of sources. You should be able to trace every accommodation back to your evaluation data.
Classroom accommodations should only be the ones that the student needs in order to have an equal participation in the classroom. If they are “as needed” they should be left off the list. Those accommodations could be applied to anyone. The general education teacher always has the discretion to use accommodations for any student when they are needed.
Extended time needs more specificity. Specificity is important with this accommodation in particular. You should not leave it open ended. We still need the student to learn time management as a skill as well as good study habits. (e.g. Extended time for projects – 10% extra time, Daily assignments and homework – 2 extra days to turn in). Make sure the parent is aware that after that time, the late policy for the teacher will begin. Also, limit this accommodation to the classes that it is required in.
Just remember that when you put into place too many accommodations, it makes it more difficult for the teacher to follow the IAP. Should be just the accommodations that are required for the student to access the general education TEKS. They are not meant to list out good teaching practices.