NOTICES TO PARENTS / GUARDIANS OF CHILDREN WHO RESIDE IN THE FOX CHAPEL AREA SCHOOL DISTRICT ox Chapel Area
FOX X CHAPEL AREA SCHOOL NEWS
ANNUAL PUBLIC NOTICE OF SPECIAL EDUCATION SERVICES AND PROGRAMS, SERVICES FOR GIFTED STUDENTS, AND SERVICES FOR PROTECTED HANDICAPPED STUDENTS
Child Find
In compliance with state and federal law, notice is hereby given by the Fox Chapel Area School District that it conducts ongoing identification activities as a part of its school program for the purpose of identifying students who may be in need of special education and related services. Child Find refers to activities undertaken by public education agencies to identify, locate, and evaluate children residing in the state, including children attending private schools, who are suspected of having disabilities, regardless of the severity of their disability, and determine the child’ s need for special education and related services. The purpose is to locate these children so that a Free Appropriate Public Education( FAPE) can be made available. Identification activities are performed to find a child who is suspected as having a disability that would interfere with their learning unless special education programs and services are made available. These activities are sometimes called screening activities. The activities include: review of group data, hearing and vision screening, assessment of a student’ s academic functioning, observation of the student displaying difficulty in behavior, and determining the student’ s response to attempted remediation. Input from parents / guardians is also an information source of identification. If your child is identified by the district as possibly in need of such services, you will be notified of applicable procedures. Individualized services and programs are available for children who are determined to need specially designed instruction due to the following conditions: autism / pervasive development disorder, blindness or visual impairment, deafness or hearing impairment, deaf blindness, orthopedic impairment, developmental delay, multiple disabilities, traumatic brain injury, other health impairment, emotional disturbance, specific learning disability, and / or speech or language impairment. We offer a continuum of services for students with disabilities that begins with full inclusion in the child’ s home school and class, to separate programs within other schools in which peers without disabilities would not participate.
If you believe that your school-age child may be in need of special education services and related programs, or your child( ages 3 to school age) may be in need of early intervention, screening and evaluation processes designed to assess the need of the child and their eligibility are available to you at no cost, upon written request. You may request screening and evaluation at any time, regardless of whether your child is enrolled in the district’ s public school program. Requests for school-age evaluations and screenings are to be made in writing to: Special Education and Pupil Services Department, Fox Chapel Area School District, 611 Field Club Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15238. Requests for children ages 3 to school age should be made in writing to: AIU Preschool Early Intervention Program, Allegheny Intermediate Unit, 475 East Waterfront Drive, Homestead, PA 15120.
24 FOX CHAPEL AREA
Potential Signs of Developmental Delays and Other Risk Factors that Could Indicate a Need for Special Education Services
Some indications that your child may be a child with a disability who is in need of special education are:
• Exhibition of an emotional disturbance over a long period of time that affects your child’ s ability to learn;
• Consistent problems in getting along with others;
• Difficulty communicating;
• Lack of interest or ability in age-appropriate activities;
• Resistance to change;
• Difficulty seeing or hearing that interferes with the ability to communicate;
• Health problems that affect educational performance, including attention problems;
• Difficulty performing tasks that require reading, writing, or mathematics; and
• When, a child who is at least 3 years of age but before they have started school as a beginner, scores on a developmental assessment device, on an assessment instrument which yields a score in months, which score indicates that the child is delayed by 25 % of the child’ s chronological age in one or more developmental areas, or if the child is delayed in one or more of the developmental areas, as documented by test performance of 1.5 standard deviations below the mean on standardized tests.
22 Pa. Code Chapter 14
The Fox Chapel Area School District provides a free appropriate public education to eligible students. To qualify as an eligible student, the child must be of school age, in need of specially-designed instruction, and meet eligibility criteria for one or more of the following physical or mental disabilities, as set forth in Pennsylvania state regulations:
• Autism
• Deafness
• Visual impairment, including blindness
• Emotional disturbance
• Hearing impairment
• Intellectual disability
• Multiple disabilities