Evaluation Procedures

A.    In conducting the evaluation, each LEA shall:

1.     use a variety of assessment tools and strategies to gather relevant functional, developmental, and academic information about the student, including information provided by the parent that may assist in determining:

a.     whether the student has an exceptionality; and

b.     the content of the student's IEP, including information related to enabling the student to be involved in and progress in the general education curriculum (or for a preschool child, to participate in appropriate activities);

2.     not use any single measure or assessment as the sole criterion for determining whether a student has an exceptionality and for determining an appropriate educational program for the child; and

3.     use technically sound instruments that may assess the relative contribution of cognitive and behavioral factors, in addition to physical or developmental factors.

B.    Other evaluation procedures. Each LEA shall ensure that the provisions in Paragraphs 1 through 7 below have been met.

1.     Assessments and other evaluation materials used to assess a student under these regulations:

a.     are selected and administered so as not to be discriminatory on a racial or cultural basis;

b.     are provided and administered in the student's native language or other mode of communication and in the form most likely to yield accurate information on what the student knows and can do academically, developmentally, and functionally, unless it is clearly not feasible to so provide or administer;

c.     are used for the purposes for which the assessments or measures are valid and reliable;

d.     are administered by trained and knowledgeable personnel; and

e.     are administered in accordance with any instructions provided by the producer of the assessments.

2.     Assessments and other evaluation materials include those tailored to assess specific areas of educational need and not merely those that are designed to provide a single general intelligence quotient. In no event shall IQ scores be reported or recorded in any individual student's evaluation report or cumulative folder. Whenever it is necessary to conduct an individual intellectual assessment as a component of an individual evaluation, the examiner shall review all available information regarding the student.

3.     Assessments are selected and administered to best ensure that if an assessment is administered to a student with impaired sensory, manual, or speaking skills, the assessment results accurately reflect the student's aptitude or achievement level or whatever other factors the test purports to measure, rather than reflecting the student's impaired sensory, manual, or speaking skills (unless those skills are the factors that the test purports to measure).

4.     The student is assessed in all areas related to the suspected exceptionality including, if appropriate, health, vision, hearing, social and emotional status, general intelligence, academic performance, communicative status, and motor abilities.

5.     Assessments of students with exceptionalities who transfer from one public agency to another public agency in the same school year are coordinated with those students' prior and subsequent schools, as necessary and as expeditiously as possible, to ensure prompt completion of full evaluations.

6.     In evaluating each student with an exceptionality, the evaluation is sufficiently comprehensive to identify all of the student's special education and related services needs, whether or not commonly linked to the exceptionality category in which the student has been classified.

7.     Assessment tools and strategies provide relevant information that directly assists persons in determining the educational needs of the student.

  Required Initial Individual Evaluation

A.    A comprehensive initial evaluation must be conducted before the initial provision of special education and related services to a student. Either a parent of a student or a public agency may initiate a request for an initial evaluation to determine if the student has an exceptionality.

B.    An initial individual evaluation shall be conducted when informed parental consent for the initial individual evaluation has been received by the LEA. If a request was made for an evaluation during the time period in which the student is subject to disciplinary measures, the evaluation shall be conducted in an expedited manner as defined in §511, Evaluation Timelines.

C.    If the LEA suspects that the student is exceptional, an evaluation shall be conducted with parental consent. If the LEA does not suspect that the student is exceptional, then it may refuse to conduct an evaluation. The SBLC, through interventions, may attempt to resolve the student's difficulties. When an LEA refuses to initiate an evaluation upon parental request, the parents must be given a written explanation of the reason for the decision according to the requirements listed in Chapter 5 of Bulletin 1706 and provided a copy of their rights, which includes the right to a due process hearing.