ASU Preparatory Academy - Family Handbook
Services
Special Education Services
In accordance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requirement that all educational agencies provide parents of students with disabilities notice containing a full explanation of the procedural safeguards available under the IDEA and U.S. Department of Education regulations, please review the Procedural Safeguards Notice.
Annual Public Notice of Special Services & Programs
In accordance with federal and state regulations, ASU Prep Digital will provide an annual public notice to families informing them of ASU Prep Digital’s child find responsibilities, procedures involved in the identification of educational disabilities and determination of students’ service and support needs.
Families are encouraged to review the following information that describes these regulations. Information regarding ASU Prep Digital’s internal practices to comply with these will be available in the ASU Prep Digital’s Special Programs Manuals.
Child Find
ASU PREP DIGITAL strives to identify, locate, and evaluate all enrolled children who may have disabilities. Disability, as stated in IDEA, includes such conditions as hearing, visual, speech, or language impairment, specific learning disability, emotional disturbance, cognitive disability, other health or physical impairment, autism, and traumatic brain injury. The process of identifying, locating, and evaluating these children is referred to as Child Find.
As a public school, we will respond vigorously to federal and state mandates requiring the provision of a Free Appropriate Public Education regardless of a child’s disability or the severity of the disability. In order to comply with Child Find requirements, ASU Prep Digital will implement procedures to help ensure that all ASU Prep Digital students with disabilities, regardless of the severity of their disability, who are in need of special education and related services—are identified, located, and evaluated—including students with disabilities who are homeless or students who are wards of the state.
Parent/Guardian permission and involvement is a vital piece in the process. Once a student has been identified as having a “suspected disability” or identified as having a disability, ASU Prep Digital will ask the student or the student’s parent/guardian for information about the child such as:
- How has the suspected disability or identified disability hindered the student’s learning?
- What has been done, educationally, to intervene and correct the student’s emerging learning deficits?
- What educational or medical information relative to the suspected disability or identified disability is available to be shared with the school?
This information may also be obtained from the student’s present or former teachers, therapists, doctors, or from other agencies that have information about the student.
All information collected will be held in strict confidence and released to others only with parental permission or as allowed by law. In keeping with this confidence, ASU Prep Digital will keep a record of all persons who review confidential information. In accordance with state regulations, parents have the right to review their child’s records.
As part of the Child Find process, some services may include a complete evaluation, an individualized education program designed specifically for the child, and a referral to other agencies providing special services.
ASU Prep Digital cannot proceed with an evaluation, or with the initial provision of special education and related services, without the written consent of a student’s parents/legal guardians. For additional information related to consent, please refer to the Procedural Safeguards Notice. Once ASU Prep Digital receives written parental/guardian consent, ASU Prep Digital will proceed with the evaluation process. If the parent disagrees with the evaluation results, the parent can request an independent education evaluation at public expense.
Special Education (IEP) or Service Agreements (504 Plans)
Once the evaluation process is completed, a team of qualified school personnel, parents/guardians, and other relevant service providers hold an evaluation determination meeting to come to agreement on whether the student meets eligibility for one of the disability categories under IDEA. If the student is eligible and requires specially designed instruction, an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) will be coordinated; during which the IEP team will review and finalize the proposed details of an appropriate educational program to meet the student’s documented needs.
For students confirmed to present with special education needs, once the IEP team agrees on the IEP and the student’s educational placement, a Prior Written Notice (PWN) will be sent to the parent/guardian for signature. This must be signed and returned to ASU Prep Digital. ASU Prep Digital can only proceed with implementing the student’s IEP (or 504 Plan) upon receipt of the signed initial consent for placement. Some students are found to present with one or more impairment, but do not meet the eligibility criteria outlined under IDEA (special education); however, their impairment may still require ASU Prep Digital to develop a 504 Service Agreement (504 Plan) to outline the special provisions a student may require for adaptations and/or accommodations in school-based instruction, facilities, and/or activities.
Students may be eligible to receive certain accommodations or services if they have a mental or physical impairment that substantially limits or prohibits participation in or access to an aspect of the school program and otherwise qualify under the applicable laws. ASU Prep Digital will ensure that qualified students with disabilities have equal opportunity to participate in the school program and activities to the maximum extent appropriate for each individual student. In compliance with applicable state and federal laws, ASU Prep Digital will provide students with impairments the necessary educational services and supports they require to access and benefit from their educational program. This is to be done without discrimination or out of pocket cost to the student or family for the essential supplementary aids, services or accommodations determined to provide equal opportunity to participate in and obtain the benefits of the school program and extracurricular activities to the maximum extent appropriate to the student’s abilities and to the extent required by the laws. See more information related to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Active of 1973.
Parents/Guardians have the right to revoke consent for services after initial placement. Please note, a revocation of consent removes the student from ALL special services and supports outlined on the IEP or 504 Plan.
To maintain privacy of students’ special education records, across school systems and databases, ASU Prep Digital follows protocols consistent with the federal regulations associated with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
Accommodations
Notice of these rights is available, upon request, on audiotape, in Braille, and in languages other than English. Should you need further assistance or information regarding any of these accommodations, please contact any member of your child’s ASU Prep Digital team for guidance.
Click here to translate text to a language other than English. Professional interpreter services may be requested at any time for parents/guardians of students with disabilities.
Special Education Grievances or Disputes
ASU Prep Digital recognizes that despite best intentions of all parties, disagreements or miscommunications may arise between the school-based team and ASU Prep Digital families or students. Should this situation occur, the ASU Prep Digital special education case manager will initiate an IEP team discussion where the specific details contributing to any educational concern are fully discussed and addressed as the entire team determines what is most appropriate for the student. Collaboration is a primary focus for this type of meeting. ASU Prep Digital’s Special Education Team seeks to establish and maintain the confidence of its families and to maximize their students’ educational success.
Dispute Resolution Options
- IEP Facilitation – IEP facilitation is a voluntary process that can be utilized when all parties to an IEP meeting agree that the presence of a neutral third party would help facilitate communication and the successful drafting of the student’s IEP. This process is not necessary for most IEP meetings. Rather, it is most often utilized when there is a sense from any of the participants that the issues at the IEP meeting are creating an impasse or acrimonious climate.
- Mediation – A voluntary process in which both parties seek to resolve the issues involved in the concern with an unbiased, third party mediator from the Arizona State Department of Education. The mediator who will write up the details of the agreement that the parties come to through the mediation conference, the agreement is signed by both parties, and thus what the document states is mandated to be implemented; This process is overall less time-consuming, less stressful, and less expensive to complete than a due process hearing (see below).
Formal Due Process
Children with disabilities placed in private schools, by their parents, do not have an individual entitlement to the special education and related services they would receive if they were enrolled in a public school because the private school does not receive state funding.
There are several different options to obtain special education instruction or therapies for your student.
- The local school district you are a resident of may provide proportionate share of services. The writing of the IEP and provision of the IEP services are handled by the local school district on an annual basis as addressed in the ESA Program Handbook.
- The parent or guardian can secure special education instruction and therapies privately or through the use of ESA funds.
This information may also be obtained from the student’s present or former teachers, therapists, The Exceptional Student Services team can provide students with accommodations listed in the IEP to the best of their abilities provided that it is supplied to ASU Prep Digital.
45-Day Screening for Full-Time Arizona Students
As mandated by Arizona Administrative Code (A.A.C.) R7-2-401 (C) and (D), ASU Prep Digital is required to establish a process to ensure that any academic and/or developmental concerns of its students are not overlooked, and to determine this within the first 45 days of each child’s attendance at a new school. To comply with this mandate, your child’s teacher will screen your child on aspects of your child’s development such as language, cognition, perception and motor skills. Screening is a process of rating skill strengths and weaknesses. Should you have any questions with regard to the screening process, please feel free to contact your child’s teacher or Learning Success Coach.
During the 2023/24 school-year, ASU Prep Digital will offer a gifted education program for full-time students in grades K-6 to focus on intellectual rigor, individual creativity, and social-emotional development.
- There is no cost for full-time students who reside in Arizona, are not paying tuition, and are not part of a partnership through another district.
- Full-time students who are paying tuition or currently accepting empowerment scholarship funding from the state are invited to participate in our Gifted program for an additional cost above the tuition.
Gifted Testing will be conducted twice per year for placement in the next school year; communication will be shared out during the school year. After testing is complete, parents/guardians will receive a complete report summarizing the student’s achievement on the CogAT. This report will be sent through email approximately one week after completion of the assessment. ASU Prep Digital follows the Arizona State Board of Education’s guidance which states that a score at or above the 97th percentile in any one of the three reasoning categories assessed through the CogAT (Verbal, Nonverbal, or Quantitative Reasoning) qualifies the student to be identified as gifted. Any student scoring in this range will be invited to be part of the gifted program at ASU Prep Digital and will be provided with more information at that time.