As more and more public schools turn to online learning due to Coronavirus, parents may wonder how these changes will impact their child's education, particularly, children with undiagnosed learning disabilities.
Federal law (IDEA) requires public schools to develop practical methods in identifying, locating, and evaluating children from the ages of 3 to 21 years old for suspected learning disabilities. This mandate, known as "child find," typically results in public school districts creating a comprehensive system of activities including public awareness campaigns, community screenings, publicizing evaluation request forms, and offering training for child care professionals.
Two important facts about child find:
1) The child find mandate applies to all children whether they are students in public schools, private schools, charter schools, home schools, virtual schools, etc.
2) Anyone can request a public school to evaluate a child for learning disabilities. State law requires that the school district document the request in writing and process it using procedures approved by the Tennessee Department of Education.
By far, most evaluation requests come from educators and other child care professionals who have been trained to recognize children who struggle in school or lag behind their peers. But as COVID-19 forces more and more schools into on-line learning, this creates challenges. A student's lack of personal interaction with teachers and other children may prevent educators from noticing disabilities. Regardless, public schools still bear the same child find responsibilities to locate, identify, and evaluate students in need of special education services.
More importantly, the burden to identify learning disabilities can not be shifted to parents or caretakers. In 2016, the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services issued a "Dear Colleague" letter to address internet based or online instruction. The letter adamantly states, "The educational rights and protections afforded to children with disabilities and their parents under IDEA must not be diminished or compromised when children with disabilities attend virtual schools..."
The Dear Colleague letter goes on to warn that "[i]n general, reliance on referrals by parents should not be the primary vehicle for meeting IDEA’s child find requirements." Instead, schools should take active steps "...to ensure that all children with disabilities..., including those who attend virtual schools, who are in need of special education and related services, regardless of the severity of their disability, are identified, located, and evaluated."
You can read the Dear Colleague Letter here in its entirety and if you need help getting your child evaluated for suspected learning disabilities, call our office at 901-Law-Help (901-529-4357).