Related Services and Supplementary Aids and Services

A free appropriate public education (FAPE) is comprised of special education and related services tailored to meet a child's unique needs and supportive services to permit the child to benefit from the school’s instruction, extracurricular programs, and nonacademic settings. See 20 U.S.C. §§ 1401 (9), (26), (33).

“Related Services” refers to services that are connected to a child’s development. They include transportation, speech-language pathology and audiology services; interpreter services; psychological services; physical and occupational therapy; recreation, including therapeutic recreation; counseling services, including rehabilitation counseling; orientation and mobility services; and medical services for diagnostic or evaluation purposes. Related services also include “school health services and school nurse services, social work services in schools, and parent counseling and training. See 281 I.A.C. 41.34,

“Supplementary Aids and Services” means aids, services, and other supports that are provided in classes,  other education-related settings, and in extracurricular and nonacademic settings, to enable children with disabilities to be educated with nondisabled children to the maximum extent appropriate.  refers to the additional supportive services that a child needs in order to benefit from the school’s programs in education, extracurricular, and nonacademic settings, and to enable the child to be educated with nondisabled children to the maximum extent appropriate. See 34 C.F.R. § 300.320(a)(4); 281 I.A.C. 41.42. Examples of supplementary aids and services include adaptive technology, direct services and supports to the child, instruction modifications, instructional delivery, testing accommodations, and support and training for staff who work with the child.

Child Find

 The IDEA and the Iowa Rules of Special Education require public schools to find and evaluate children who need special education. This requirement is called Child Find and it covers children from birth through age 21. It applies to all children, including those who are home-schooled, homeless, migratory, and in private schools. See 281 I.A.C. 41.111.

The Child Find process begins when a child's parent or a staff member of the school district or Area Education Agency expresses concern about a child’s progress or development in one or more of eight domains: 

1. Academic (reading, math, writing)

2. Health

3. Adaptive behavior (life skills, safety, rule-following, organization, etc.)

4. Social Emotional Behavior

5. Hearing

6. Vision

7. Physical skills (handwriting, walking, etc.)

8. Communication

When a parent has concerns that differences in their child’s progress or development in one or more of the following areas are interfering with their child’s participation at school, I encourage the parent to send an email (to the principal of the child’s school) describing the concern and asking that the child be evaluated regarding the child’s need for special education. If the child has been diagnosed with a disability by a private healthcare provider, the parent should also attach a copy of the diagnostic report to that email. See 281 I.A.C 41.300 (stating that either a parent of a child or a school district/AEA staff member may initiate a request for an initial evaluation to determine if the child is a child with a disability).

When a concern has been expressed or an evaluation requested, an evaluation team comprised of the child’s parents, teacher, and AEA staff gather information for use in determining if they suspect the child has a disability. They will gather data from sources such as:

○ Classroom assessments

○ Screening results

○ District-wide assessments

○ General education intervention results

○ Attendance records

○ Office referrals or other behavior data

○ Medical or other professional reports from outside providers

○ Observations inside or outside of the classroom

If the team decides that it suspects the child may need special education and related services to access the general school curriculum, the school will ask the parent to sign a consent form authorizing the school/AEA to perform a full evaluation to determine whether the child is eligible for special education. See 281 I.A.C. 41.111(5).  

After the parent has signed the consent form, federal and state law require the school district and AEA to complete the full initial evaluation within 60 calendar days of receiving parental consent for the evaluation. See 281 I.A.C. 41.301(3). 

Transition Services

 In the first section of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (20 U.S.C. § 1400(d)(1)(a)), Congress stated that one of the chief purposes of the Act is: to ensure that all children with disabilities have available to them a free appropriate public education that emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs and prepare them for further education, employment, and independent living. 

The IDEA requires that when a child turns 16, the child’s IEP includes: appropriate measurable postsecondary goals based upon age-appropriate transition assessments related to training, education, employment, and, when appropriate, independent living skills" and the transition services (including courses of study) needed to assist the child in reaching those goals." 20 U.S.C. § 1414(d)(1)(A)(i)(VIII). 

The Iowa Rules of Special Education require transition planning to be in place not later than the first IEP to be in effect when a child turns 14, or younger if determined appropriate by the IEP team. 281 Iowa Admin. Code r. 41.320(2). 

Transition services means a coordinated set of activities for a child with a disability that:

a. is designed to be within a results-oriented process, that is focused on improving the academic and functional achievement of the child with a disability to facilitate the child's movement from school to post-school activities, including post-secondary education, vocational education, integrated employment (including supported employment), continuing and adult education, adult services, independent living, or community participation;

b. is based on the individual child's needs, taking into account the child's strengths, preferences, and interests; and

c. includes instruction, relation services, community experiences, the development of employment and other post-school adult living objectives, and, when appropriate, acquisition of daily living skills and functional vocational evaluation.

20 U.S.C. § 1401(34); see also 34 C.F.R. § 300.320(b) (noting a transition IEP "must include appropriate measurable secondary goals . . . related to training, education, and employment . . . [and] transition services (including courses of study) needed to assist the child in reaching those goals.").

When a child needs specially designed instruction (SDI) to benefit from the child’s transition services, it is “special education” and should be tied to an IEP goal. 34 C.F.R. § 300.18(b)(2)(i). When a child needs related services to benefit transition services, those services should be written into the IEP. These determinations should be made on a case-by-case basis by the IEP team. Letter to Hamilton, 23 IDELR 721 (OSEP 1995). 

When a child with an IEP does not require special education to benefit from the child’s transition services, as long as the transition services are determined by the student's strengths, preferences, and interests, and are provided as a coordinated set of activities, the transition services may include instruction that is available to all children. Id. 

A few more things:

• The IEP team must clearly state the amount of services provided in the IEP so that the school district’s commitment of resources will be clear to parents and providers. 71 Fed. Reg. 46,667 (2006). 

• School districts and AEAs may not tell a student with a disability what that child can or cannot achieve.

• School districts may not restrict transition services solely to a menu of experiences that can be provided on school grounds. 

• School districts are expected to take a leadership position in contacting agencies expected to provide services to the student and to act as a liaison between the parents and the other agencies while the student is enrolled in school. See Letter to Bereuter, 20 IDELR 536 (OSERS 1993). See also Yankton Sch. Dist. v. Schramm, 93 F.3d 1369 (8th Cir. 1996). 

• A school district may not unilaterally delegate its transition responsibilities to parents.

• A district is ultimately responsible to the student for ensuring that the transition services called for in the student's IEP are implemented. 

Child Find and Initial Evaluation

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) includes the Child Find mandate (20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(3)), which essentially requires schools to identify, locate and evaluate all children with disabilities, regardless of severity, including children who receive passing grades and are “advancing from grade to grade,” children who attend private schools and public schools, highly mobile children, migrant children, homeless children, and children who are wards of the state. 34 C.F.R. § 300.101; 281 I.A.C. 41.101.

Iowa’s Rules of Special Education require that a child be evaluated when the school or AEA is aware of facts and circumstances that would cause a reasonably prudent school or AEA to suspect that the child might have a disability for which the child might be eligible for special education and related services. If it is suspected that a child’s educational difficulties arise from a disability and that the child may need special education services, the AEA and school district are obligated to promptly seek parental consent to conduct a Full and Individual Initial Evaluation (FIE).

Although a school district may attempt to resolve educational difficulties before deciding to conduct a FIE, this must not delay an appropriate evaluation if the child is suspected of having a disability, regardless of the number of days, tiers, or levels in such interventions the child has completed, if any. As stated by the United States Department of Education concerning “pre-referral interventions,” the school district “in conjunction with the AEA “cannot refuse to conduct the evaluation or delay the evaluation until the alternative strategies have been tried if the school district  suspects the child has a disability.” Letter to Anonymous, 19 IDELR 498 (OSEP 1992). 

Occasionally, some school personnel do not “suspect” a child has a disability, although the parent has provided copies of the child’s diagnostic report, and symptoms of the disability are significantly interfering with the child’s functioning at school. When this problem confronted an Iowa parent, she contacted me.  With a few changes to conceal her identity and her written permission, I am posting the first parts of our initial email exchange. I was especially pleased that the parent contacted me to address this matter before her child missed further school and became more frustrated at school.  

How can we get the school to evaluate our first grade son for special education services? He was diagnosed with and has been treated for ADHD since he was three. At home we keep problems to a minimum by using a visual schedule, clearly explaining rules and checking to make sure he understands (at at time when he isn’t tired, hungry or upset), preparing him in advance for transitions, and positive reinforcement. His doctor and preschool teachers told us that punishments will backfire, so we keep them brief and to a minimum. However, punishments seem to be the only way the school deals with his symptomatic behaviors.

This year, he has been suspended four times in three months. The first time the principal had me pick him up because at recess he tried to go to the playground by crawling out a (ground floor) window. The next time he was given an in-school suspension for telling the principal, “I hate you,” after he was sent to her office for chewing his pencil after being told to stop. The next time she had me take him home because he wouldn’t stand still on the risers while rehearsing for the Thanksgiving concert. He was suspended for the rest of the day and not allowed to participate in the concert. He is currently on a day-and-a-half suspension for a “weapons violation” (at recess he was using his bare hand as a "gun" and “shooting” at other boys who were falling down very dramatically). 

I have given the principal copies of his evaluation reports from 2016 and 2017, and have provided a report from his speech therapist (he has articulation difficulties), and asked her at least seven times (in person and by email) to have him evaluated. Each time she has responded, “In Iowa we don’t like to put labels on children. While he may have ADHD, Iowa is a ‘noncategorical’ state in which special education is for children who have ‘educational disabilities,’ not medical diagnoses.” When I pointed  out that the behaviors for which he is punished at school reflect his ADHD symptoms, she responded, “Whether or not he has ADHD, he needs to learn to stop making bad choices.”

This is very frustrating. I would like to talk with his teacher, but the principal has told me that I can only communicate through her. . . .

To make a long story short, the parents and I resolved this matter through a state-facilitated mediation. The child now has an appropriate IEP and BIP, and is receiving compensatory education to make up for the class time he missed while being suspended from school. The school district’s attorney educated the principal in regard to the District’s duties under Child Find, the parents are now able to communicate as needed with their child’s classroom teacher, and some other issues were satisfactorily addressed.

Who is Required to Attend an IEP Meeting?

Question:  At a recent IEP meeting, both the special education teacher and general education teacher left after 15 minutes. As a result we couldn't finish the meeting agenda.  Does Iowa law say anything about this?

Answer:  Yes.

The school district must ensure that the following members of the IEP team attend the meeting:

a.  At least one parent of the child;

b.  At least one regular education teacher of the child;

c.  At least one special education teacher of the child;

d.  A representative of the school district who:

     (1) Is qualified to provide, or supervise the provision of, specially designed instruction to meet the unique needs of children with disabilities;

      (2) Is knowledgeable about the general education curriculum; and

      (3) Is knowledgeable about the availability of resources of the school district.

e. An individual who can interpret the instructional implications of evaluation results, who may also be the same person as the person described in b-f.

f. At the discretion of the parent or school district, other individuals who have knowledge or special expertise regarding the child, including related services personnel as appropriate.

Congress felt so strongly about the attendance of these people at IEP meetings that the IDEA and its implementing regulations require that if the IEP Team will discuss or modify any part of a child’s IEP related to the area of expertise of the Team member seeking to be excused, that before the parent makes written consent to excusing that member, the school district must first:

a.  fully inform the parent IN ADVANCE OF THE MEETING of all information relevant to the excusing the specific type of person,

b.  make sure the parent consents in writing to the excusing the required person, and the consent identifies the specific meeting for which the excuse applies.

c.  make sure the parent understands that granting of consent is voluntary and may be revoked at any time.

If a meeting involves a matter in an IEP team member’s area of curriculum or related services, that member may not be excused from any part of an IEP meeting unless:

1.  the parent, in writing, and the public agency both consent to the excusal; and

2.   the member submits, in writing to the parent and the IEP team, input into the development of the IEP prior to the meeting.

See Iowa Admin. Code r. 281-41.321.