The Theory Behind Identification

The mechanics are simple. A psychologist (or speech-language therapist, or occupational therapist, etc.) meets with the child one-on-one and administers a series of tests. The test-giver then sits down and looks over the results, scoring everything and coming up with a set of numbers that tells you how your child did in comparison to the rest of the known universe (well, at least our little corner of it). They then send their report outlining the student's strengths and weaknesses back to the school, where the SPED Coordinator processes it and schedules a Multidisciplinary Team (MDT) meeting.

The MDT is made up of a diverse group of people, including minimally the coordinator, the student's teacher, the school social worker/psychologist, any other related service providers and a SPED teacher. At the meeting, the MDT (adults only at C.J.'s age) reviews the findings. If a disability is identified (so if there is a large enough gap between how the student should be achieving based on their abilities and how they are achieving) they then develop an Individualized Education Plan (the IEP) to serve the child, including goals they will need to achieve that year and accommodations that will allow them to be successful at achieving those goals.

It is a beautiful system on paper, one that would result in all students with IEPs sailing through the rest of their school years completely at ease with their surroundings and achieving at high levels. The reality, however, is often much messier, with stressed-out parents and over-whelmed teachers meeting to try and determine what is feasible to do for that child (the ideal is out there but not anywhere near possible at this point). Especially in places like DC, the needs of students (those with and without IEPs) far outstrip the resources of the school system. I have seen teachers go to heroic lengths to reach out to and help students, but it is often done on their own time and their own dime. Teachers at our school average a 55 hour work week and there is only so much more any of them can do. The other problem is that to be identified for extra support students need to have already fallen behind, so teachers expend a great deal of effort trying to get students back to where they should be, much less moving them forward.

There is a new model out there that is trying to fix this. Response to Intervention (RTI) is based on the simple idea that we should catch students before they fail, not afterwards. In this model, which we are beginning to implement at my school, students are assessed at the beginning of the year to identify those at risk for failure and a series of interventions are put in place to support them. Ongoing progress monitoring identifies students who still struggle and they receive additional supports. Those who require even more support are identified the same way and receive IEPs. The theory is that the number of students needing IEPs would drop from 10% of the school population to 4-5%.