Accountability | The Nia Foundation

NIA Foundation

Accountability Program

Case Management

A case manager is a teacher, office assistant, or related service provider who is a member of the IEP team and is responsible to coordinate instruction and related services for the student. The case manager will coordinate the delivery of special education services and will be the primary contact for the parent. Our case managers work with your Special Education Local Planned Area (SELPA) to ensure compliance and assists with preparation for program quality reviews.

California Department of Education (CDE)

School districts, direct-funded charter schools, and county offices that receive funding for certain programs may be chosen for a review by the state. The purpose of the review is to ensure that they are spending the funding as required by law. At the end of each review, the state will complete a report that details any findings of non-compliance and informs the school, district, or county office how to correct the findings.

Assistance With The CDE Compliance Documentation

The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) section 300.600 requires the CDE to place the primary focus of its monitoring activities on improving educational and functional results and outcomes, as well as ensuring compliance with Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requirements with an emphasis on those most closely related to improved results for students.

Performance Indicator Review

CDE approves standards for the local indicators that support local educational agencies (LEAs) in measuring and reporting their progress within the appropriate priority area. For each local indicator, the performance standards are as follows:

01.

Measuring LEA progress on the local indicator based on locally available information.

02.

Reporting the results to the LEA’s local governing board at a regularly scheduled meeting of the local governing board.

03.

Reporting to stakeholders and the public through the Dashboard.

An LEA uses the CDE-adopted self-reflection tools to report its progress through the Dashboard. The collection and reflection on locally available information relevant to progress regarding local priority areas will support LEAs in completing the self-reflection tools, reporting in the Dashboard, and in local planning and improvement efforts.

Data Identified Noncompliance

Data Identified Non-Compliance (DINC) is a means of monitoring, the schools’ requirements to hold timely assessments and IEPs. LEAs should work to ensure that all the students identified and any additional students have timely assessments and IEPs at the beginning of the next school year as outlined in 34 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 300.323 (a).

Disproportionality Reviews

Disproportionate representation The following State Performance Plan Indicators are designed to collect data indicative of performance regarding the requirement to address the disproportionate representation of racial and ethnic groups in special education and related services, to the extent the representation is the result of inappropriate identification

Discipline – Measures the percent of districts that have: (a) a significant discrepancy, by race or ethnicity, in the rate of suspensions and expulsions of greater than 10 days in a school year for children with IEPs; and (b) policies, procedures, or practices that contribute to the significant discrepancy and do not comply with requirements relating to the development and implementation of IEPs, the use of positive behavioral interventions and supports, and procedural safeguards.

2. Disproportionality Overall – Measures percent of districts with disproportionate representation of racial and ethnic groups in special education and related services that is the result of inappropriate identification.

3. Disproportionality by Disability – Measures percent of districts with disproportionate representation of racial and ethnic groups in specific disability categories that are the result of inappropriate identification. Each year, the CDE completes calculations to identify the disproportionate representation of students by race, ethnic group, and disability in-district special education programs throughout California using data from the California Special Education Management Information System (CASEMIS).

Evaluations of the rates of suspensions and expulsions of students with disabilities are also performed. These calculations relate to the State Performance Plan Indicators 4b, 9, and 10 (above). As a result of these calculations and preliminary determinations, the CDE will review the LEA’s special education policies and procedures and evaluate a sampling of student records when an LEA is deemed disproportionate.

Items that are determined to be noncompliant during the student record reviews will be adopted by the CDE as findings of noncompliance and will require a second evaluation, referred to as a Prong Two record review, in which a second set of student records is evaluated subsequent to the first student record review. All findings of noncompliance will be corrected as soon as possible, and in no case later than one year after the noncompliance is identified. The results of the reviews provides further data utilized by the CDE to monitor performance regarding the requirement to address disproportionate representation of racial and ethnic groups in special education and related services, to the extent the representation is the result of inappropriate identification.

Significant Disproportionality

Pursuant to 34 C.F.R. § 300.646, CDE is responsible for collecting and examining data to determine if significant disproportionality is occurring in local educational agencies (LEAs) in the state. In rare cases, a school may find themselves in a position of Significant Disproportionality.

CDE must look at data related to the over-representation of students by race and ethnicity with respect to:

1) Identification as children with disabilities

2) Identification in various disability categories

3) Placement in educational settings

4) Disciplinary actions including suspension and expulsion

Disproportionality is a result of the over-representation of a specific race or ethnicity in relation to the overall general education and special education populations of the district and state. CDE uses the Alternate Risk Ratio and the E-formula to calculate disproportionality. Significant disproportionality is determined if the district has been identified as disproportionate for the same race or ethnicity in the current year and in two of the three previous years. If an LEA is determined to be significantly disproportionate in any one of the four areas identified above, the CDE will:

ï Review the LEA’s policies, procedures, and practices to ensure compliance with the requirements of the IDEA

ï Require the LEA to publicly report on any required revision of policies, procedures, and practices

ï Require the LEA to reserve 15 percent of its IDEA grant funds to provide comprehensive coordinated early intervening services to children in the LEA (including, but not exclusively for, those children in the groups that were identified as significantly disproportionate)

Our Specialists at the NIA Foundation will assist your teams in completing the necessary policy documents, Root Cause Analyses, SPED Assessments, and Action Plans required to restore your schools to compliant status.

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