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ASDOE required to provide professional services for students with disabilities

fili@samoanews.com

As part of the settlement agreement with the federal government, the local Department of Education (ASDOE) has agreed to put in place by early next year, policies and procedures to ensure that students with disabilities attending public schools are entitled to a free education as required by federal law.

The agreement, signed Oct. 11 by ASDOE deputy director Philo Jennings, addressed findings by the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, which received four separate complaints from parents of students with special needs, who were not provided appropriate service in accordance with federal law during school year 2013/2014.

One of the issues found by OCR was that students didn’t get required services by professional service providers because ASDOE didn’t have them on staff; and OCR is now requiring ASDOE to ensure these services are made available for students, with the prerequisite qualified providers.

According to the settlement agreement, by Jan. 12, 2017 the ASDOE in consultation with OCR will review and revise policies and procedures to ensure that ASDOE provides — in accordance with federal law — a free appropriate public education (FAPE) to all students within its jurisdiction, regardless of the nature or severity of the student’s disability.

OCR also outlined specific policies to be addressed by ASDOE; and among them a procedure to provide disabled students with regular or special education and related aids and services that:

•     are designed to meet individual educational needs of disabled students as adequately as the needs of non-disabled students are met; and

•     are based on the procedures contained in federal law pertaining to evaluation and place as well as educational  setting.

Additionally, ASDOE is to have in place a procedure to ensure that students receive all the services that students’ require as determined appropriate for students to receive a FAPE, included but not limited to, services that may require a professional service provider.

A footnote in the agreement explains that “professional service providers” refers to those providers that require special training and/or qualifications to provide necessary services for disabled students in order for the students to receive a FAPE including behavior specialists, occupational therapists; speech and language pathologies; psychologists; and physical therapists.

According to the agreement, ASDOE is also required to put in place a policy that ensures that any services provided to disabled students that need to be provided by a professional service provider are provided by professionals that have the appropriate certification, licensing and/or training to provide the services to the disable students.

Another policy required of ASDOE is one that ensures students with disabilities are not treated differently than non-disabled students with respect to instructional time, unless based on the individuals needs of the disabled student.

Additionally, the policy will specifically state that it is not appropriate to provide a shorter academic year for disabled students in a special program for reasons that are not based on the students’ needs and ensure that disabled students do not receive less instructional time than non-disabled students for reasons unrelated to the student’s individual needs, such as remodeling a self contained classroom.

In such cases, where a temporary change in scheduling is unavoidable, the policy will state that ASDOE will take steps to ensure that it provides instructional time for the affected disabled students that is equivalent to non-disabled students such as providing instruction in temporary alternative appropriate setting, or providing compensatory education to disabled students to make up for the missed instructional time.

The OCR investigation found that students with special needs at Matafao Elementary School missed one week of class during school year 2013-2014, because their classroom was being renovated and ASDOE didn’t provide them with an alternate classroom.

Samoa News should point out that ASDOE's FY 2017 funding from USDOE is $3.6 million, and there are about 41 students in special education.

Samoa News will report on other issues cited in the settlement agreement this week.