How to Weave Through the Special Education Maze in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina. Presenter: Elizabeth A. Greczek. >> TAJAUNA: Good afternoon everyone, and welcome to the webcast on How to Weave Through the Special Education Maze in the Wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. My name is Tajauna Dunning. I'm with the Disability Law Resource Project at ILRU, your sponsor for today's event. I will be moderating today's webcast and voicing your questions to the presenter. Before we get started, I want to remind you about sending questions which we encourage you to send. In order to submit a question, you can click the submit question button at the bottom of your RealOne Player screen or simply address it to webcast@ilru.org. Please send those now or at any point during the presentation. I will pose your questions to the presenter as she pauses for questions. If for some reason time does not allow the presenter to answer all the questions asked, they will be posted on the message board after the webcast. Additionally, if anyone has technical difficulties today, please call us at (713)520-0232 and dial 0 for the operator. This number is both voice and TTY capable. As previously mentioned, today's topic is on the special education maze in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, presented by Elizabeth Greczek. Ms. Greczek oversees special education law training and technical assistance efforts to the P&A system. Previously, she practiced at the D. C. Protection & Advocacy Program and worked in private practice. During this time, she focused on special education and disability rights law, including issues arising under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA, Section 504 of The Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. In addition to her work at the National Disability Rights Network, she is an adjunct professor at the American University, Washington College of Law and Johns Hopkins University. The National Disability Rights Network, NDRN, is the voluntary national membership association of the Protection & Advocacy System and Client Assistance Programs. NDRN provides leadership in promoting and strengthening the roles and performance of its members in providing quality legally based advocacy services to people with disabilities. There are 57 P&A's in the United States, one in every state and territory. And with that, Elizabeth, I turn the webcast over to you. >> ELIZABETH: Thank you very much. Yes, as Tajauna stated, today we're going to be talking about special education law and how to get services for students who may have been displaced by the hurricanes. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita, there are concerns about how students with disabilities who have had to relocate will receive the services they once received or services they now need. There are several issues that present concerns. One is many students are living in temporary or transitional housing and may move several times, and when they move, they may move -- they may change school districts or neighborhood school boundaries within this very short period of time. Two, many families left their homes with only the clothes on their backs and without documentation or records of their child's needs. And third, schools that have received an influx of students may not have the adequate resources to meet the needs of the students who have enrolled in their schools. There are several statutes that will assist students with disabilities in receiving services who have been displaced. The two federal statutes that we'll focus on during this webcast are the McKinney Vento Homeless Assistance Act and Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act and we'll also touch on issues regarding the No Child Left Behind Act. So what happens? If a child is displaced, how are they going to get into school? The McKinney Vento Homeless Act as part of the No Child Left Behind Act provides a mechanism for students who are homeless to attempt to enroll in school without being brought down by the typical type of documentation needed to enroll in school. Typically, when a student enrolls in school, they need to have proof of residency, that they live in that district and this is their home or neighborhood school, provide documentation of immunization records and other such documentation. What the McKinney Vento Act does is permits students to enroll without all of this documentation so he don't miss the opportunity to attend school. How the McKinney Vento Act defines homelessness is a student who lacks a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence, including children who are sharing housing with others due to loss of housing, economic hardship or similar reasons. Also it includes children who are living in emergency or transitional shelters. The definition of homeless children and youth can often include children who are living in accommodations that we don't typically think of as appropriate living accommodations such as abandoned buildings, public parks or bus or train stations. A child who is living with a relative in a new city, who was displaced by Katrina or Rita and are now moved similar throughout the United States and are living with a brother or sister or a grandparent or other family member would be considered homeless under this definition because they would be living in a temporary housing or sharing housing with others because of their loss of housing or economic hardship. And, therefore, they would be able to enroll in school immediately under the McKinney Vento Act. One important -- also with the McKinney Vento Act, is the child would be able to get transportation to and from school if transportation was typically provided to other children within that school district. Now, what's -- some of the issues with children who are displaced by Hurricane Katrina is that even though they might have been in one shelter when they first were evacuated, they may have moved or they may move in the future to different shelters or to other temporary housing as the situation changes, whether it's because a different shelter can provide better services for them or whether the shelter has become full or because the transitional housing has become available. The McKinney Vento Act permits a child to remain in the school of origin. So if a child were going to school in one school district -- in school District A because that's where the shelter was and then they moved to a different school district, they would still be able to stay in the school in District A even though they've moved out of that district because the idea behind this provision is that students who are homeless typically are very mobile and will move from district to district. However, being able to remain in the same school will provide some stability and also help to ensure that academically they continue on the right track. This can become an issue for students with disabilities because as we know part -- the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which is the statute which governs children with special education needs in public schools, requires students to be educated in the least restrictive environment and requires its students to the maximum extent possible be included with their peers and that can mean that they are educated in their neighborhood school or their home school -- the school where the other children in their neighborhood are educated. But if a child is moving from place to place and wants to remain at the school of origin that they came from, then that's not necessarily the home school, but you have to when you're looking at what kind of services a child with a disability will receive, you need to look at the McKinney Vento Act as well as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to see how they comport with each other and how they work together. A parent is not required to keep the child in the school of origin, but may change the school -- change the child's school into the new school district if they so wish, but it is an option in most cases to stay in the school of origin. We touched on the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and as many of you know IDEA is the statutory scheme that ensures students are identified for special education services and provided with those services and related services that meet their needs. Under IDEA, the states are required to identify children who have disabilities, evaluate them, and then once they are deemed eligible for services, provide those services. After a determination of eligibility is made for a student, a team of professionals, including parents, meet to discuss the child's needs and develop an Individual Education Plan to carry out the specific need. Now, many Hurricane Katrina and Rita victims may have gone through this process already, but may not have the documentation to provide to the new school. In other words, they may not have their IEP's and they may not have their IEP's which are also known as individual education plans, so they may not have them and they may not have their backup documentation, in other words, they may not have the evaluations that led to the development of that specific IEP. So what happens? What do you do if the parents do not have the child's IEP or other related documents when they enroll the child in a new school? Well, one of the first things that you have to look at is does the state educational agency that the child was previously came from have that -- have those records? Now, we know that a lot of records and information were destroyed in the local education agencies, particularly in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama and now Texas, so what can you do? Well, based on information that we've received, there is a web-based system called special education automation system which a lot of -- or many Louisiana as well as Mississippi school districts worked with and so a lot of IEP's may be on this web-based system and they are able to transmit the IEP and information to local education agencies throughout the United States. Also some information may be at the state level, at the Louisiana Department of Education or the Mississippi Department of Education. So the first step in determining what to do if a parent comes in and doesn't have the documentation or if you yourself are a parent, is to contact the state Department of Education to see if there is a way to get those documents in a different -- from the state education agency. Now, the problem of course may be some delay because there are going to be inundated with requests from these three states -- four states, excuse me -- so what has been happening or what some states have said they're going to do -- depending on state by state -- if a parent comes in and says my child was receiving special education services, but I don't have their documentation, some states such as Alabama have decided that they're going to take the parents at their word and start providing those services to the best that they can. So if you're a parent -- if a parent comes to you as an advocate or if you yourself are a parent and need services, even if you're not sure of all the services the child was receiving or you're not sure of exactly the right name of the type of service or program that the child was receiving, it would be advisable to meet with the school personnel at the new school the child is attending and try and develop an interim IEP. You know, typically to provide an IEP to a child without any documentation, evaluations would need to be done first and then from those evaluations develop a formal IEP. The U.S. Department of Ed to my knowledge has not published any specific guidance to deal with this issue. So you really do need to look at each state and determine how they're going to deal with that. In Louisiana, the Louisiana Department of Ed website which is www.Louisianaschools.net, if they are transferring to another LEA in the state, they should follow the policy already in place in Louisiana. That policy states that when a student transfers, they should be enrolled in the appropriate special education program in the new local education agency with the current IEP or the development of a new IEP within five school days of the transfer. Excuse me, so what that means is if a child was in New Orleans and now is enrolled in a school in Baton Rouge, based on this policy within five school days if they have their documentation, they should be provided with services that they were provided with before or develop a new IEP. If, however -- I'm sorry, we'll get to that. It's important to look at the different states. In Mississippi, their state Department of Ed website indicates that if a child is transferring from one school district in Mississippi to another, they should be treated as any other instate transfer as well. But they have also stated that for both in-state and out of state transfers, children -- and if a child does not have their documentation, temporary IEPs should be developed and services provided until the child can be evaluated. Now, whenever you develop temporary IEPs, of course the school allows the child to receive services hopefully as soon as possible, but if a child has their IEP documentation, if they have their current one, then you would just follow federal and state law. And IDEA states that if a child moves from school district to school district within -- I'm sorry, I misspoke there. This is what the state-specific issues are on how they're going to treat parents that come in without their documentation; but if you do have your documentation and you transfer within the same state, then the receiving school must provide the child with saver free appropriate education comparable to the services described in the former IEP. And they must do that until they officially adopt the new IEP or they develop a new IEP with the parents' input. Now, why the meaning behind comparable services -- there is no actual definition in IDEA about comparable services, but the reasoning behind that, I believe, is because you want the new school system to provide services that are very similar to the services the child was receiving before, but they may not be exact because of the differences in the school systems themselves. Now, if a child moves from one state to a new state -- so if I was living in Louisiana and I moved to Texas, then the same requirement applies. The Texas school system would have to follow the former IEP and provide comparable services until such time as a new IEP is developed or they formally accept that IEP. Except that the new school system, the new state, may also conduct an evaluation of the child if they determine an evaluation is necessary. Now, one issue that may be an issue for students who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina -- I'm sorry -- Hurricane Rita, but most likely not an issue for students who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina because of the early -- because Hurricane Katrina hit either right when school was starting or before school started for many children, is what do you do if the evaluation process was in progress already? The federal time line to evaluate a child is 60 days. Now, a state may have a specific time line that is different than that. What the federal -- what IDEA says is that if a child moves, the new school still has to complete the evaluation within that 60 daytime frame from when the evaluation was started except that if the new school is making sufficient progress in evaluating the child and the student and the parent agree, that time line may be expanded. And of course the issue here is going to be if a child was being evaluated for special education services in Texas, and then the hurricane destroyed the documentation or a teacher that was -- teacher and other providers that were working on the evaluations have been displaced as well, that documentation may be hard to track down because it most likely would not be in some kind of web-based form because it wasn't complete yet. They were still in the process of doing evaluations, probably still doing observations and still conducting the preliminary -- preliminary evaluation of the child. So in that case, you may have to start the evaluation process over again if none of the information can be accessed. One point that I want to raise that runs across the McKinney Vento and the IDEA issue is that when you are developing these programs for children as they come into the new school, least restrictive environment and ensuring that a student is included to the maximum extent they can be is an important concept and in the McKinney Vento act specifically says that just because a student is homeless they cannot be segregated. There was some information in the news earlier that talked about possibly using separate schools to educate children who were victims of Hurricane Katrina. This would violate the McKinney Vento act. That children who have been displaced or who are homeless should be included in the regular school environment and should not be segregated from that community. One way to get IDEA services for a child who does not have their documentation is to look at early intervening services. Early intervening services and IDEA are services that can be provided to students who have not yet been identified as needing special education that exhibit academic or behavioral difficult it's that require additional supports. There is a Senate bill called Senate bill 1715 and in this bill there is a proposal that Congress provide funds to school districts that are affected by Hurricane Katrina and affected by Hurricane Katrina would be states that have -- that are receiving students as well as states that actually had damage. And what the proposal is, is that they provide funds so that a child who either has not -- meets the definition in IDEA right now, has not been identified by the agency as needing special education and services but does 23450ED additional academic and behavioral support could receive services or if the students record of receiving special education and related services are not available, that the parent or the guardian of the student certify that the student received special education and related services at the child's previous school. And so what they can do is the school system can provide early enter veining services for this child, but under this bill, they would only be allowed to provide that for 90 days unless the school or parent or guard an agreed that progress is being made towards obtaining eligibility for the child. So this, of course, is just in the bill form. We don't know how it's going to change or what it would look like if it finally was passed. And we're going to talk about it in a little bit more detail a little bit later, the administration -- the bush administration's outline of how they would like to see help to schools. And it's somewhat different than this bill. So the early intervening services issue is something that we will watch as well and anybody who would like some more information or would like to know if there are updates is welcome to contact me after the webcast. One other issue, though, when you're talking about whether the child has their IEP documentation or does not have their IEP documentation is who is responsible to retrieve the child's records? Both IDEA and the McKinney Vento Act require the receiving and previous school to act responsibly and promptly when transferring records for a student. So what this means is that IDEA requires the receiving school, the school that the displaced child is now going to, to take reasonable steps to promptly obtain the IEP and other related records of the child. And the previous school must take reasonable steps to promptly respond to such request from the new school. Now, of course, the definition of reasonable steps and promptly may be somewhat different under this disaster situation that we are in, but like we talked about earlier, you should check with the Department of Education -- the state Department of Education to find out if any of those documents are in their web-based system. If they are in their web-based system, it can certainly speed up the process quite quickly for parents. Why don't we take a little -- take some questions here and then we can move back and we'll talk some more about what do you do if a child does not have a parent available to advocate for them and we'll talk a little bit about early intervention services and AT as well as some more about what the administration -- how they plan to help students with education. So Tajauna, if there are questions, we can take a couple now. >> TAJAUNA: Great, thank you, Elizabeth. I do have some questions. The first question is, I am not happy with the IEP. They call it an ARD here and I requested another IEP meeting. They delayed me because my daughter's records cannot be located and they have not completed any evaluation. I want the school do provide service e now so she doesn't lose ground. If she is retested and needs something else, fine, but I want what her old school thought was right for her until then. What can I do? And I don't know, maybe you're going to cover this in a few minutes, so if so, I apologize. >> ELIZABETH: No, this is fine. You know, that is a problem if you've signed a waiver form -- whenever a child -- in order for a child to be evaluated, parents will need to sign a waiver to permit the school system to do evaluations. Once that waiver is signed, the time line to receive services -- or I'm sorry -- the time line -- the evaluation time line would begin. So the first step is to make sure that that form is -- has been provided to you and that if you agree with it, that you provide the school system with written permission to begin the evaluation process of the evaluations that you agree with that should be done. You, again, should check with -- if they can't find your documents, your IEP documents, again, I don't know if you've checked with the state Department of Education that your child came from, but definitely you need to do that; thirdly, if you can talk to them about e early intervening services and see if they might provide some services to your child under this concept and also you might try sitting down and talking with them. Again, you may have already done this, I understand, and explaining to them in a little more detail as best you can as to the services that your child did receive before. But I think one of the main things that you need to do is look on the state website of both the state the child is now in and the state the child was displaced from and find out what their policies are on this. And remember, as well, once you get the evaluation time line in place, then you can push for these evaluations to happen quickly and to have another IEP meeting to discuss those evaluations. Unfortunately, there is no magic way to say they have to start providing everything right away without the documentation. So you have to try and work with them the best that you can. >> TAJAUNA: Okay, the next question is we have been displaced by Katrina into another city. In New Orleans, my child was in a private placement because his needs couldn't be met in a public school. I'm getting some resistance from the school district I am working with here. How long does the school have to make their decision? >> ELIZABETH: Well, that's an interesting question. If you have your documentation, what they have to do is provide comparable services to the IEP that you had previously. There is no specific, you know, time line in which they have to say -- federal time line, excuse me -- to say we're going to do -- we're going to provide services by a certain date or they have ten days or anything like that. So since there is no federal time line, you need to look to see if there is a state time line that requires them to do that. For example, in Louisiana, the state time line would be five days to implement an IEP from a different school district within Louisiana. So you need to look at your state time line to see if they have one that would require implementation. >> TAJAUNA: Okay. If someone has lost all of their records, including the results of the diagnostic test my daughter took to determine her eligibility for IDEA, does the new district have to retest and in what time frame? >> ELIZABETH: Yes, if you lost all the records, if they can't be found, then you would need to do retesting. However, to the extent that you know what test was done, you need to try and explain that to the school system the best that you can because sometimes tests can be invalidated if they're given too soon after another test was done. So if you know what testing was done, that would be helpful. And you need to explain it or talk to the new school as best that you can to tell what test was done. If you want a new evaluation done, you have to request it or IDEA permits a parent to request it or a school system to go to a parent and suggest that they need some evaluations; but if you request it, then you need to make sure that you sign -- that you receive paperwork that would allow the process to begin. And usually it's a waiver to allow the school to evaluate the child. And you'll need to look at that waiver to see if you agree with it and those are the evaluations you want the school to conduct on your child, and then from that point, to the point that you say I want services for my -- I want my child to be evaluated, it should be 60 days. A 60 daytime line or if the state has another time line, the federal law says that a state has 60 days to evaluate a child who may have a disability, unless the state has a different time line. Okay? Now if you request that your child be evaluated, you know, it's a good idea to do those kind of things in writing so you can see one start date for the 60 days and ask them if there is any other paperwork you need to sign off on to ensure that the time line begins. >> TAJAUNA: Okay. I'm a parent of a child with a disability and am not satisfied with what is being addressed regarding transition services for my child. Can you give me suggestions about what I can ask to be placed in a transition plan? >> ELIZABETH: Okay. I wanted to talk about transition and issues about children who are displaced a little later, but I will touch on this briefly and, you know, this has always been -- this is a consistent problem that individuals do raise about transition planning. Transition planning with the new IDEA should be in place by the time the child is 16 years old. And previously in '98 and '97, those really should have started at age 14. Now that does not mean that planning and thinking about what needs to be done and doing -- and providing IEP goals to lead up to a transition plan that will work for a child has to wait until the child is 16. You can actually begin to provide those services much earlier. One very -- one useful thing to do is to involve your -- depending on what your child's goals are, if your child's goals are for vocational or to go on to secondary -- I'm sorry -- to higher education, then you want to look at involving the rehabilitation services, the vocational rehabilitation services, sometimes it's called the V. R. or RSA, and they can actually -- they should be invited to the IEP meeting to help develop goals and objectives for the transition plan. Transition plans can involve many different areas and many different types of goals. You can have transition goals that are life skills to help a child develop -- let's say you have a child who is very bright, but has some social issues or some issues with managing money and managing living on their own. You know, their transition goals could involve how to live -- how to take care of a checkbook and go grocery shopping and live in a dorm room or live in an apartment and can address those type of issues. Transition services can also deal with work study or going out and job skills, anywhere from a job coach to someone that teaches a child how to ride a METRO bus or a subway to how to drive themselves if they can to their job. So there are many, many different options and many creative ways to develop transition plans that will work specifically for each child. >> TAJAUNA: Okay, a few more questions. The next question is can you help clarify what the regulations mean regarding the appointment of a temporary surrogate for children who are homeless or without official guardians? Who can fulfill that role and how long a period of time is meant by temporary? >> ELIZABETH: Okay, let me -- I'm going to talk about that issue next. So let's hold that question and if I don't answer it completely or if you have other questions that come from that, then please resubmit that. >> TAJAUNA: Okay. Okay, the last two: If we're trying to assist people who had to evacuate because of Katrina, obtaining their child's documentation, how can we get that documentation from those state agencies' website? Can you give us more detail on how to access those records? >> ELIZABETH: Okay, there are different ways. In the Louisiana Department of Ed, they actually have forms to fill out. They have two forms online that you can fill out to get the documentation. On the Mississippi website, they actually have a contact person, a telephone number and a contact E-mail. For people who are trying to get the documentation from Mississippi, they can either call this phone number or use this E-mail address to get services. Now, this is -- they have a specific phone number for if the information is part of that special education automated system, that number according to their website is 877-221-7327. Now, that's Mississippi. And then for Louisiana, like I said they have different forms on there you can fill out and submit to the Department of Ed to receive the documentation. Okay? >> TAJAUNA: Okay, I saved this last question because we may need some clarification from the individual who sent it, but it says how do you foresee this may impact students about to transition to post-secondary Ed given that post-secondary institutions have stringent guidelines? I'm not quite sure what this is. So I didn't know if you may need some additional clarification. >> ELIZABETH: Yes, I think I do. Unless they are talking about how it will affect their transition services and how they're going to deal with the VR system. There are -- the vocational rehabilitation system, if your child was already in the roles of one VR system and getting services and on their way to receiving services somewhere at a college or university after high school, and how does this interrupt that? That may be problematic and, you know, you don't have to be a resident of the state that you're in to receive vocational rehabilitation services. You just have to be a person that is present in that state, but some states -- each state does the vocational rehabilitation services a little bit different and you may have to be placed on a list of their order of selection in the VR system they have an order of selection to provide services, and there are questions about people who are displaced by the hurricanes, how that's going to work and I haven't seen anything from the Rehabilitation Services Administration yet that specifically tells people what to do. But for Louisiana residents, there is a phone number, an 800-number that they can call or former Louisiana residents which is 1-800-737-2958. I'm not sure if that completely addresses that question, but if it doesn't, please whoever sent it, feel free to send some clarifying information and we'll see what we do to furtherance that question. >> TAJAUNA: That's the end of your questions. Please continue. >> ELIZABETH:Excuse me. You know, IDEA provides for involvement of parents from identifying the student to graduation, but there is going to be issues as was just raised in the question of what happens if the parents are not available? You can understand how there may be issues where parents and the child have not been reunited yet, have not been found, or unfortunately children may have lost their parents in the hurricane or they may be living with a family member while parents have gone on to try to reestablish their home so they can bring their children back to suitable living conditions. And one way to help advocate for children who do not have parents that can do it for them is to appoint a surrogate parent. Now, at first we have to look at the definition of the word parent. In IDEA 2004, a parent means a natural, adopt tiff or foster parent of a child unless your state law does not allow foster parent to act as a parent. A parent can also be a guardian or an individual acting in the place of a natural parent. And when we talk about that, we usually mean a grandparent, a step parent or a relative who is raising the child. If the child lives with them instead of their parents; or a parent can often mean someone who is legally responsible for the child's welfare or the surrogate parent. Now, the surrogate may be appointed by the LEA or in the case of a ward of the state, they may be appointed by a judge. So if the child is -- if the parents have lost custody of the child and lost their educational rights, then a judge may appoint a surrogate. Now, just because a child is not living with the parents does not mean that the parents do not still maintain the educational rights and decision-making authority for the child. But if a child does not appear to have parents or you don't know who they are, the school system, the local education agency, must take reasonable efforts to locate the parents. And what reasonable efforts must be taken is not specifically defined and may be considered different in this kind of catastrophe situation versus the sort of every day issue. But there is no specific guidance on what those reasonable measures need to be. And the state must have procedures to appoint a surrogate parent for educational purposes. So if the parent is not available, then the school system should try and locate them and find out who is responsible to make the educational decisions for this child. And this also includes children who are considered unaccompanied youth. This is a definition that is in IDEA now and it is so that it comports with the McKinney Vento Act. And an unaccompanied youth is a youth that may not be a ward of the state so a parent still has custody of the child or still has all the educational -- still has authority over the child, and they're not in the state's custody, but a parent who is pretty much absent and the child is not -- is going to be (Inaudible) without their parents, they can often have a surrogate appointed. Once the school system determines that a surrogate parent is necessary, then the state must have in place a plan so that the surrogate is appointed within 30 days. So if you have a child who does not have someone to advocate for them, for their educational rights, then the state -- then the local education agency can appoint someone to be their surrogate; but they have to do that within 30 days. Now, the statute specifically says that a person who is a surrogate cannot be an employee of the local education agency, the state education agency or any other agency involved in the education or care of the child. So if I'm a social worker for a child, and I am very involved with the child, I can come to the IEP meeting and provide input and that might be very helpful to the team, but I cannot be the so-called surrogate parent advocate for the child because I'm an employee of the state or an employee of an agency that is involved with the care of the child. Now, the draft regulations put out by the U.S. Department of Ed, these are draft regulations based on the new IDEA 2004, and we do not know if they will be modified before they come out in final form, but the draft regulations also require that a surrogate not have a conflict of interest and also have the ability to advocate for a child, have the skills necessary to advocate for a child. There is nothing specifically that says how long the surrogate parent will be in place or how -- if the surrogate does not appear to be doing their job, how you would replace that surrogate with a new -- excuse me -- what you would do if the surrogate was doing their job and the school system decided to remove them because they were making -- they didn't like that surrogate because it was making their job more difficult or if how long a surrogate would stay in place, but if a parent who has educational rights comes back and becomes very involved in the IEP meetings and becomes involved in the child's educational life, or wants to make those decisions, certainly the parent has -- unless they have something that says they do not have the right to make educational decisions, the parent retains that right. Let's move on to what happens if I have a child that did not receive special education services before the hurricanes hit but now due to injury because of that or because of the traumatic events a parent now feels that the student might need some special education services, what do I do? Well, as a start, particularly if it's emotional issues that appear to be related to the events of the hurricane, you need to look to the local education agency to see what kind of plans they have in place and for crisis intervention and for counseling support, but also you can ask for some early intervening services as a start or you can ask for the evaluation process to start. And actually I was going to go into it a little more here, but I believe we've covered that enough with the question that was asked earlier. Just basically, if you think your child needs special education services, you can follow the federal law now and simply ask for the evaluation process to begin and to evaluate your child and determine if your child does need special education services. So mostly we've been talking about services -- you know, kids and under IDEA, basically focusing on kids from kind der gaiter en to 12th grade, but what about early intervention services? Early intervention services are services provided to infants and toddlers and if under Part C of IDEA, and remember that the McKinney Vento Act also provides services to infants and toddlers who are homeless. So even if a child is homeless, they should be -- they should receive early intervention services. Early intervention services is different from early intervening services, not on confuse the two. Early intervening services is those kids who have not been identified and who we want inform provide support to. Early tin veer venges, kids from 0 to 3, and actually under the new IDEA that can include kids up to the kindergarten age if the parent so desires. Because IDEA made an effort to a line itself with the McKinney Vento act, IDEA specifically says that early intervention services for infants and toddlers with disabilities includes children who are homeless. If you have a child who needs early intervention services, then you have a document called an individual family service plan or an IFSP, which instead of an IEP, is a document that you have to outline what services your child needs. And IFSP must be developed within a reasonable time after an assessment is completed. Now, one difference with early intervening services than IDEA is that the statute specifically says that early intervening services can start with the consent of the parent before the evaluations are complete. So in this case, if you do not have your documentation, but your child was receiving some early intervention services, and you need to restart the assessment process, but you don't want your child to lose services, if you can provide the school with some baseline of what services the child needs, you may be able to begin services before the evaluations are complete. And, again, if an infant or toddler is a ward of the state or if the parents are unknown, a surrogate parent should be appointed to the infant and toddler as well to advocate for their rights. Okay, on the other spectrum, and which we're talking about transition services, when we talk about transition services in this context, I'm talking about when children are transitioning from high school into adult life. And adult life could mean a job or it can mean higher education. Again, I think we discussed this in the questions, but if a child was receiving transition services and had a job or other like -- excuse me -- other like plans in place, it might take a little bit of time to get those kind of things reset up, particularly to find someplace for a child to work and develop the program again, but you should connect up with the vocational rehabilitation center in the state that you're in now and try to reestablish those connections so that you can get that transition plan up and running. If a child is transitioning out of school this year, then it's very vital to ensure that the transportation -- I'm sorry -- the transition issues are if place as soon as possible because, of course, you're going to need to make sure that the child can smoothly transition out of high school and into the adult world. Now, some of the issues that -- for the No Child Left Behind Act, we're going to move over to the No Child Left Behind Act now and then we will also talk a little bit more about what the government's plan is. The No Child Left Behind Act, as many of you I'm sure know require accountability for schools. They have requirements that schools make annual yearly progress each year and that if they don't, that they have -- that certain provisions kick in such as supplemental educational services, which basically tutoring for kids and also choice to allow a student to go from the school that is nonperforming to a new school. It also requires that teachers meet a standard of highly qualified teacher, that's now in the new IDEA as well as in the No Child Left Behind Act. Now, I talked a little bit earlier about the proposed bill, the proposed Senate bill, and one thing that it does is it talks about possible waivers under the No Child Left Behind Act. And it also talks about where they want to try and provide more money for students. One area in which they are proposing to provide more funds is providing -- or permitting schools to provide supplemental educational services to any eligible LEA for any student who was displaced by Hurricane Katrina regardless of the status of the school the student attends. And what that means is if even if the school met their IEP, but you are a displaced student, you could still get supplemental education services. Now, this is not in place yet. This is just the bill. The other part of the No Child Left Behind Act that requires schools to meet certain provisions by a certain time line such as having highly qualified teachers in place, one of the waivers that would be considered under this bill would be allowing a teacher who was highly qualified in one of the disaster areas, such as Louisiana, parts of Louisiana, parts of Mississippi or parts of Alabama or Texas, if they will consider highly qualified in that state and now they move to a different state and want to teach for one year, they can be considered highly qualified in this new state, even if they wouldn't meet the highly qualified standards in that state. However, what is happening is this bill also asks that there be more funds for students with disabilities and that they have a funding stream that will provide more money to schools that accept evacuees and then provide additional funds to students -- or to schools that accept evacuees who have students with special education needs. What the Department of Education has outlined that they would like to do is they have two plans. They have one plan where they're asking the federal government for $1.9 billion and then another $488 million. What their request for that $1.9 billion is, is to reimburse school districts for the cost of educating students who were displaced bid a hurricane, in this case it was Hurricane Katrina. I don't know if they're going to add an amount to that because of the devastation of Hurricane Rita or not. We haven't heard anything yet. And the plan would be to provide direct grants to school districts that enroll at least ten students who were displaced during the 2005-2006 school year. And what they would like to do is they would like to provide each district with 90 percent of the state's average per pupil expenditure, up to $7,500. So what that means is however much in that school district it costs to educate a student, you know, how they aggregate it out and determine how much it costs to educate each student, whatever 90 percent of that is, up to $7,500, they want to provide that times every kid -- every child that attends that school that is a displaced student and provide those funds to that school system. Then with the $488 million, what they want to do with those funds is they want to use that money to provide a similar type of grant of money to each student who attends a private school, who chooses to attend a private school, and that money would go to the state and then the state would then distribute it to the parents or the families. Now, this issue may change. I mean, this proposal may change. The Department of Ed proposes that this amount of money be provided to the local school districts quarterly so that you can envision situations where there may be children who start at a school district, a different school district in a different state, but maybe by January or some other midyear point in the school year, they may be able to return to their homes, then the disaster area and they may decide to do that and attend those schools. So that is why the department has said they would plan to provide the services -- provide the money on a quarterly basis. This plan has to go through -- has to be accepted and it's of course Congress is looking at this and working on ways to assist school districts that are now strapped for funds because they have an influx of students. There is also -- excuse me -- the Department of Ed has also on their website provided a way in which agencies, other school districts, other nonprofits can list their name on this website and also put what kind of materials or other kinds of assistance that they can provide to school systems that are affected by the hurricanes. The problem, of course, is that it's unclear to me with this 1.9 billion, and 488 million -- what money -- how that money will affect kids with disabilities and how that money would flow to ensure that there was funds and resources in place for kids with disabilities and to ensure that all the resources that they need are in place. But I'm sure that we're going to be hearing more and more about this as -- excuse me -- as time goes on because the school systems are going to need nor funds and they will need Congress to provide them with funds. Also school systems -- particularly school systems like in Louisiana and Mississippi, are seeking waivers from the department Ed of education. They are speaking waivers of specific documentation requirements and also waivers of how they have to spend their funds within certain time lines. The Secretary of Education has granted some waivers to Mississippi and to Louisiana permitting them to hold off on some of their -- some ways in which they have to distribute their money and also in ways that they have to provide monitoring visits and things from the Department of Ed. They have provided an extension for some of those. Where the Department of Education has not yet provided a waiver is for the determination of annual yearly progress. They seem to be a little bit hesitant to provide a waiver on A. Y. P. issues and so we just have to watch and see what happens with that. There is no specific information from the department on what things will and won't be waived, but you do need to look at the -- you can look on the Department of Ed website to see if a specific state has asked for a waiver and what waivers have been permitted. There is one there from Louisiana as well as Mississippi. Excuse me. The one other issue I want to touch on is assistive technology. If you are -- if you have a child who has an assistive technology device and they now have lost that device or need a different kind of device or the device is ruined, how do you get that device? If you have the documentation that shows what device your child used in the former school system, you should certainly provide that to this school. And this school would have to provide a comparable service. Also you should look -- you can look on the web at the Louisiana assistive technology access network, at www.latn.org/Katrina and it provides some information and some help on getting assistive technology devices. There is also an association called assistive technology industry association. Www.a Tia.org that also has information about getting AT devices for students. And there is also some information -- the Senate bill that I talked about also talks about providing under the assistive technology act, which is somewhat different than what you would get under IDEA, but another form of getting an assistive technology device, particularly if your device is not one that the school system purchased for you, if you have a wheelchair, you may need to go look at your Medicaid, what Medicaid is doing, but also under the assistive technology act, what the bill proposes to do is to provide funds so that states can make grants for device loan programs and to provide people with the ability to purchase devices or to receive donated devices and also to provide demonstrations so individuals who need assistive technology can, again, look at the device and determine which one would be best for them at this point. At this time, I think I'll go ahead and stop and take a few more questions if there are questions. >> TAJAUNA: Yes, Elizabeth, okay, the questions that we have -- the first two actually deal more with post-secondary education and the first question says can the parent require that a student transitioning into the post-secondary educational system have their student evaluated in his final year of high school or in Texas, is that no longer required if the student was tested in their ninth grade year? Is the school responsible for this level of testing or is it the parents' responsibility so when they transition to college, they are giving that university the most current accommodation need for that student? >> ELIZABETH: Right. Well, once a child goes to college, of course the plethora of rights under IDEA are no longer available to the child and the child would be looking at Section 504 under The Rehabilitation Act for -- and the Americans with Disabilities Act for accommodations and modifications to their program. What IDEA says though is that a child should be evaluated every three years unless it's agreed to otherwise by the parent and the school system. So if they were tested in ninth grade and they're about to enter their 12th grade year, they should be -- you can ask to be retested for that 12th grade year to see how they did during those three years and where they are now. You may also need to have testing redone to see what kind of transition services are going to be necessary for this final year; and to determine how you're going to go forward -- how you're going to plan for this year and into post-secondary education. The post-secondary education institute is going to want an evaluation that is no more than about a year old. And if you're valuation is older than that, then the parent or the student themselves is going to be responsible forgetting an evaluation and providing it to the post-secondary education institute for services or for modifications and accommodations. If you have the ability -- if you're valuation is older than three years old, or you have other reasons why you may need an evaluation, then certainly, yes, you should be able to request that evaluation from the school system. okay? >> TAJAUNA: Okay. The next question is in regards to a 19-year-old, but it's more related to voc rehab. Vocational rehab. My 19-year-old son with a mild MR, mental retardation diagnosis has already had his next to last transition ARD this summer. He was due to graduate at the end of this year. We had met with Louisiana rehabilitation services and he was wanting to work with a job coaching center or workshop and may be a real job later. I tried to reenroll him in the ISD and they told me they couldn't because he was too old and should have graduated. I told them that we had made a decision to let him have an extra year of school. They said they can't get record of this decision. I don't want him to miss out on some training and is the chance to get benefits from rehabilitation -- voc rehabilitation, what do I do? >> ELIZABETH: I wasn't sure -- did you say ISD? >> TAJAUNA: Yeah, it says they tried to reenroll him in school. >> ELIZABETH: Oh, reenroll school. >> TAJAUNA: He had graduated at the end of the year but they were trying to reenroll him but was told he was too old and he should have already graduated. >> ELIZABETH: if the graduation -- what you have to look at is what kind of diploma did if child receive? Did he receive a diploma that is the equivalent of a diploma for a child who -- every other child that graduates from the high school or was it a certificate? And if it wasn't -- if it was a certificate and not a diploma in the sense of a diploma that shows that they, you know, progressed year to year and actually graduated, then a child would still be entitled to services under IDEA until they aged out at 21 or 22 depending on how your state defines it. So first you have to look at that. I can't remember, did they say they couldn't find the documents? >> TAJAUNA: Right. Let's see, I tried to -- they said they can't get record of this decision. I told them that we had made -- >> ELIZABETH: And they're from Louisiana? >> TAJAUNA: Yes. >> ELIZABETH: Okay, I would definitely contact the state Department of Education of Louisiana and go to the -- I believe the website -- www.Louisianaschools.org -- let me find it. Yes, http://www.Louisianaschools.net and look on there and contact the Department of Education to see if you can get a copy of whatever documentation you had at the end of that school year, whether it was a diploma or whether it was a certificate and see, therefore, if you can still receive services for your child. You should also call for V. R. services -- if he already had V. R. services in place and you need to get those documents as well. I would contact the Louisiana V. R. system as well and try to get the documentation. They may have the IEP as well or the documentation that shows when the child graduated or left the school, if they were going to provide the follow-up services for the child. And so contact them as well and see what kind of information you can get from them. Because like I said before, if it was not a true quote-unquote true diploma, then the child may still be eligible for services until they turn 22. >> TAJAUNA: We had another voc rehab question. How long does Medicaid have to replace a wheelchair and other devices that they cover? If it's covered by Medicaid, can you still try and go to vocational rehab? >> ELIZABETH: You know what, I simply do not know the answer to that question, but what I will do is I will get that question from Ms. Dunning when the teleconference is over and if there is a way on there to E-mail that person an answer? >> TAJAUNA: Yes, actually there is. >> ELIZABETH: We do have someone who is a Medicaid specialist in our office and I can see what I can do to find out the answer to that question. >> TAJAUNA: Okay, great. All right, another question that we've gotten is my son was -- it's about an inaccessible -- where he's going to school now they do not have accessible school buses in this small town. What can he do? >> ELIZABETH: Okay, no accessible school buses -- of course, you know, the long term goal here would be to advocate and get the school to actually purchase or develop a school bus that is accessible for students. You know, there are other ways -- did they say it was a rural community? >> TAJAUNA: Yes. >> ELIZABETH: My first response is you can look at taking a taxi and providing services that way. The first thing is, is the child's 504 plan or IEP calling for transportation? And if it does, if it does require that the child be transported, then -- and you have to transport the child yourself, then you can look at possibly getting reimbursed for the mileage -- your car mileage and transporting the child. If there is public transportation which doesn't sound like there is, that is accessible, you might be able to work out some kind of plan with them. Your long term goal here is to -- you know, is to look at 504 and the ADA as well as IDEA. All three of those together to insist that the school system provide accessible transportation for the child. >> TAJAUNA: You mentioned a taxi. If the child had to tax a taxi or something like that, would the school be responsible for paying for it? >> ELIZABETH: I would certainly advocate that they would need to do so if the IEP or 504 plan required that the school system provide accessible transportation. Of course a taxi or having a parent drive a child to school is not the method in which we would -- which we would go around advocating for in most cases. We would certainly want a child to be mainstreamed to go to school with his or her classmates and that would be on the bus. Of course advocating to get an accessible bus is not going to be advocacy that happens overnight. And so you have to have either a practical aspect that you have to look at before you can get there. >> TAJAUNA: Okay. All right, I have a couple more questions. The last two are: What early intervention services are required under Part C of IDEA and what types of therapy and related services are required? >> ELIZABETH: Okay, well, that's actually a very huge question. >> TAJAUNA: Oh. >> ELIZABETH: That's okay though. I'll touch on how we can deal with that though. Early intervention services are different than IDEA -- I'm sorry -- early intervention services are different than Part B IEP services in the sense that they include providing family services as well as services to the child. So there is a lot more emphasis on ensuring that there is training for parents as well as the child, and that the plan involves what needs to be done for the child in the family setting as well; and that services are provided in the natural setting to the extent possible that a child -- that a child without a disability might be provided -- might be receiving educational services. So for example, you know, it's typical for 3-year-olds to go to a day care or a nursery school, then those are the kind of environments that the early intervention services should be provided in. There is a host of related services that can be provided to a child that requires early intervention services just like under the IDEA. I'm sorry, as under the N. IEP. You can get speech therapy, auditory processing -- I'm sorry -- speech therapy and physical therapy or occupational therapy if you need some kind of behavioral plan and behavioral supports, that can be provided as part of an early intervention service. There is a lot that can be provided under Part C or under the early intervening services. There is just a little bit of a different way of looking at services, and one change with IDEA 2004 is that previously services for under early intervention was from 0 to 3. Now, when a child is 4 or 5, a parent has the option to continue with the early intervention services and continue with the individual family service plan or transition to an IEP. Once a child turns 3, they have the right to receive an IEP if they're eligible for services under Part B. And the level of -- the level of services increases under an IEP. In other words, you have a different processes to ensure due process processing to dispute issues that may come up at the school system. So what needs to happen is the school system needs to inform the parent when they have the right to either remain on an (Inaudible) or move to an IEP and provide the differences of early intervention and the differences between that and IEP services. One reason why parents may choose to keep a child in an early intervening service instead of moving to a service under Part B is because the services are working for the child and the child might not need to be -- receive special education or be diagnosed and labeled in the school system. So it is a choice now, but when the child is 4 and 5, otherwise they would receive their early intervening services and anywhere between three days and nine months before a child turns three, they should transition for a child to move into the Part B services. And when a child turns three, they should immediately be able to begin those Part B services you unless like I stated earlier, they decide to stay in the early intervention services. Okay? >> TAJAUNA: Okay. I said a few minutes ago we only had two more questions, but I actually have two more questions. The next question is how long does Medicaid -- I'm sorry -- suppose my child was operating under an IEP under 504, would the IDEA rules and other legislature apply to getting same services in the new district? >> ELIZABETH: I'm sorry, I'm a little confused with that question. Is the issue that they were receiving 504 services or IDEA services? >> TAJAUNA: Under 504 before, would the IDEA rules and other legislature apply to getting the same services in the new district? >> ELIZABETH: If you're under a 504 plan, then you are receiving services pursuant to The Rehabilitation Act and it would be Section 504 of The Rehabilitation Act. And so the services that you would get would be determined by that law instead of IDEA, unless you have -- you have -- unless there are things that have happened that have now made you eligible for IDEA services. A child who is only on a 504 plan and not on an IEP is not necessarily eligible for the services under IDEA, but they'd be eligible for the services under 504. And if you have your 504 plan, yes, you should provide it to the school system and discuss it with them and develop -- either develop a new 504 plan with them or see if they will agree to the 504 plan that you now have. If you have an IEP, then you would go under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and follow the steps that we talked about earlier in the webcast. So it's two different acts and two different provisions. >> TAJAUNA: Okay. Okay, the last question -- and it's a long one. Many Louisiana school districts are not used to providing surrogate parents. PreKatrina, we have recently gotten several districts to appoint surrogates, but they have expressed qualms about being able to recruit and train enough surrogates. They questioned whether they might be able to get funds to pay the surrogates. Is any of the funding being sought at the national level earmarked for districts to pay surrogates? Any other ideas about how to enable school districts to find and properly train surrogates given the influx of students they are experiencing? >> ELIZABETH: That's a very good question. I did not see anything specific to surrogates, but I believe in the bill that was being proposed it did talk about providing personnel training and I'd have to go back and look, but there may be funds when they are bundled into one group of saying to provide services that might be able to be used to train surrogates for that -- for that -- for students who need surrogate parents. I haven't seen anything that specifically says surrogates and that's a very good issue to raise and as far as ideas for finding more surrogates and training them, you know, that always seems to be an issue for school systems is personnel short anes. And I don't have any great ideas on how to go about finding surrogate parents other than talking to other school systems, finding out if there are other school systems and how they do it and perhaps advertising this need. I think one real issue is some people may not understand what a surrogate parent is and if they can start a program to train people and to advise people of this need, just getting the word out that this is a necessary -- something that's necessary and needed for children is a first step to doing that. But I thank you very much for that question. It's a very good question and an issue that I think sometimes people don't think about, yet a very important issue because sometimes the children who do not have someone to advocate for them are the ones that need it the most. So thank you. >> TAJAUNA: Okay. That was the last of our questions. So before we close, Elizabeth, would you like to make any last comments? >> ELIZABETH: Just I really appreciate the opportunity to speak to everybody. I hope that it was helpful in providing some guidance. If there are -- you know, my E-mail is Elizabeth.Greczek@ndrn.org, if there are questions that I might be able to help with, I'd be happy to, but just remember that as you're going through this process, you know, I know it's a very difficult time for many people and just refer back to the federal law as well as your state laws to see how they intertwine. Do not forget about the McKinney Vento Act which permits states and school districts to enroll students immediately and to begin the process as soon as possible if you don't have your documentation to evaluate your child so that services can begin as soon as possible. >> TAJAUNA: Okay, thank you so very much. You did a great job, and you provided the audience with some terrific and important information and just to let you know, I did get one E-mail that said you were an amazing resource. So thank you very much. I appreciate you taking out the time to provide us with this information. >> ELIZABETH: Thank you. I enjoy doing so. >> TAJAUNA: And I hope all of you listening have learned from today's webcast. Also note that the webcast will be archived on ILRU's website which you can find by visiting www.ilru.org and then you'll see an area that says webcasts. You can also check the ILRU website for our upcoming webcasts and before closing, I would like to acknowledge the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research who funds your host for today's program, the Disability Law Resource Project at ILRU. I encourage anyone with questions on compliance of the Americans with Disabilities Act to call the toll free number at 1-800-949-4232 and if you have any additional questions on today's webcast, you can also E-mail them at DLRP@ilru.org and Elizabeth said you could E-mail her. I would also like to thank the in-house staff at ILRU who without their efforts this webcast would not be possible. They include Marj Gordon, Sharon Finney, Dawn Heinsohn, Vinh Nguyen, as well as the technical expertise provided by Rob Dickehuth and our realtime captioner, Marie Bryant. Thanks to all of you for tuning in and we hope you will join us at the next webcast. Goodbye.