Palmyra School District

THE REFERRAL PROCESS

How is a student referred for a Child Study Team Evaluation?
Students between the ages of 3 and 21 suspected of having an educational disability may be referred to the Child Study Team for an evaluation. This referral generally comes from one of the following sources:

• PARENTS: Parents may request a Child Study Team Evaluation by contacting the Case Manager at their child's school and forwarding the request in writing.

• TEACHERS/ADMINISTRATORS: Teachers or school administrators who have concerns about the progress of a child in their class or building can fill out a form and send to the Child Study Team secretary for processing, though typically teachers with academic concerns begin with a referral to the I&RS committee.

• I&RS: The I&RS Intervention and Referral Services committee is an inter-disciplinary group that meets regularly to provide intervention for students experiencing difficulty in the classroom. Once I&RS has applied its resources and determines that additional information may be necessary, or feels that the student may be potentially educationally disabled, the student may be recommended for a CST evaluation.

• EARLY INTERVENTION: When students age out of Early Intervention (EI) services, a direct referral is made from EI to the Child Study Team.

Each evaluation of the student shall:

1. Include, where appropriate, or required, the use of a standardized test(s) which shall be:

• Individually administered;
• Valid and reliable;
• Normed on a representative population; and
• Scored as either standard score with standard deviation or norm referenced scores with a cutoff score.

2. Include functional assessment of academic performance and where appropriate, behavior. Each of the following components shall be completed by at least one evaluator:

• A minimum of one structured observation by one evaluator in other than a testing session;
• In the case of a student who is suspected of having a specific learning disability,
• one evaluator shall observe the student's academic performance in the regular classroom;
• An interview with the student's parent;
• An interview with the teacher(s) referring the potentially disabled student;
• A review of the student's developmental/educational history including records and interviews;
• A review of interventions documented by the classroom teacher(s) and others who work with the student; and
• One or more informal measure(s) which may include, but not be limited to surveys and inventories; analysis of
• work; trial teaching; self-report; criterion referenced tests; curriculum based assessment; and informal rating scales.

If necessary, evaluations will be conducted by other specialists: speech/language specialists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, audiologists, school nurses, and physicians.