ADE/Exceptional Student Services (ESS) and ADE/Early Childhood Education (ECE) sections request that all public education agencies (PEAs) entitled to IDEA Consolidated preschool funds complete a survey that opened on June 17, 2019. The Early Childhood Survey will assist the agency in providing timely technical assistance regarding the operations of early childhood special education programs by PEAs statewide. The survey will be a required activity of each district or charter school serving children with disabilities (3 through 5 years old) and will remain open from June 17, 2019 through September 30, 2019. Instructions for accessing the survey can be found on the ADE web site.

Please email Suzanne Perry (602.542.1113) if you have any questions about the ECE Survey or email Eric Ashenfelter (602.542.4102) if you need help with technical troubleshooting.

DATA MANAGEMENT ALERT

Updated Functionality of SPED72 and SPED73 Reports in the AzEDS Portal

To clearly delineate student data by District of Attendance (DOA) and District of Residence (DOR), the SPED72 and SPED73 reports in the AzEDS Portal will update on Wednesday 8/7/19.

When running the SPED72 or SPED73 report by District of Attendance:

This will display students who attend sites within your PEA (Public Education Agency) with a reported DOR outside of your PEA.  The DOR CTDS column in these reports will display the CTDS number of the DOR PEA.

When running the SPED72 or SPED73 report by District of Residence:

This will display student data reported with your PEA as the DOR.  This report will include all students your PEA reports to AzEDS including sites within your PEA, tuitioned-out students, and student data reported by your PEA attending sites outside of your PEA.

Examples:

District of Attendance selection:

• If a student is attending a site within your PEA from another PEA that is identified as the DOR, the student’s data will appear on the reports by District of Attendance.

District of Residence selection:

• If your PEA is the DOR for a student that attends a site within your PEA, the student’s data will appear on the reports by District of Residence.
• If your PEA is the DOR for a student that attends a site outside of your PEA, the student’s data will appear on the reports by District of Residence.
• If your PEA is the DOR for a student that is tuitioned-out to a Private Day school, RTC, or head start program, the student’s data will appear on the reports by District of Residence.

ADE/Exceptional Student Services (ESS) has fielded questions throughout the past year relating to students receiving special education (SPED) services and least restrictive environment (LRE) reporting. As a result, ESS has developed an infographic that helps delineate time spent inside the regular classroom against time spent outside the regular classroom. It can also be applied to help delineate appropriate LRE reporting for students in educational environments.

On the ESS web site are the definitions for the placements and the environments along with the infographic to support the field on their data submissions.

Please email the ESS Data Management Team with questions. Thank you.

Special Education Directors,

Following the passage of Senate Bill 1177 during the last legislative session, the definition of home school district (HSD) has changed. The Arizona Department of Education/Exceptional Student Services (ADE/ESS) has reviewed this statutory change and the attached guidance is being provided to clarify which PEA is a child’s home school district for the purposes of vouchering a student. The guidance in this memo takes effect August 1, 2019.

If there are any questions or concerns, please email the Exceptional Student Services Voucher Unit.

Given recent findings and questions from the field, the ESS/Program Support & Monitoring Hot Topic reviews the requirements for English Learners (ELs) under the IDEA. Specifically, July’s Hot Topic addresses the requirements for consideration of EL with regard to eligibility determination and IEP development.

Additionally, there have been some changes regarding EL testing requirements provided to the field by ADE/OELAS. The OELAS communication, “ELs with Disabilities,” explains the testing and exiting requirements for all ELs, including those with disabilities. Also of note is the guidance document, “EL and Title III Addendum,” recently released by the USDOE, addressing EL requirements.

ESS realizes this is a complex issue and wants to assist however we can. We are planning on including ELs and Students with Disabilities as a topic on the upcoming Talk with ADE schedule. Additionally, per the ADE/OELAS communication, an ADE EL/Special Education Taskforce will be convened in the fall to discuss these issues.

In the interim, for questions regarding IDEA requirements and compliance, please contact your ESS program specialist. For questions regarding AZELLA and/or EL programming, please contact your regional OELAS program specialist.

Dear Special Education Administrators,

It has recently come to ADE’s attention that there is some confusion about the credentialing requirements for speech personnel working in the public schools. Speech-Language Technicians (SLTs) and Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) must hold both a current license from the Arizona Department of Health Services (AZDHS) and a current professional non-teaching certificate from the Arizona Department of Education (ADE). Speech-Language Pathology Assistants (SLPAs) are only required to hold a current license from AZDHS; the ADE does not issue a certificate for SLPAs.

PEAs are responsible for verifying that speech personnel working with their students hold the appropriate credentials. The potential repercussions of providing speech-language services without the appropriate credentials are serious for both the individual and the public education agency (PEA), regardless of whether they were employed directly by the PEA or contracted through a staffing agency.

Speech personnel should provide a copy of the required credentials prior to employment. You may confirm the AZDHS license by entering the holder’s name in the AZDHS’ Care Check Portal. District and charter school HR administrators may confirm the ADE certificate through the Certification Portal via their ADE Connect account.

For additional information about the provision of speech services in the schools, please refer to ADE/ESS’ Arizona Technical Assistance System (AZ-TAS) document, “Speech-Language Services in Arizona’s Schools: Guidelines for Best Practice” on the ADE website. Please forward this information to any interested parties, including your PEA's HR office.

Questions can be directed to [email protected].

See this graphic for further information.

Exceptional Student Services (ESS) has launched the ESS Portal, which will give users a single platform for all Special Education applications in one place! Over the next year, ESS will work on providing an easier and cleaner application interface to all public education agencies (PEAs) required to use Special Education applications. Users who have permission to any ESS application will see the ESS Portal application under ADEConnect. Over time, ESS will be reviewing permissions for all its applications and streamlining the number of applications. This will reduce confusion and save time for everyone using these applications. Please see this screenshot of the ESS Portal, as well as an explanation of some of the current features:

• Red and green dots (blue arrow) indicate which applications are open for collection/input and which are closed
• Grayed out sections (orange arrow) indicate applications for which the user does not have permission
• Upcoming Data Events (green arrow) highlights items that are either due soon, are critical dates in data collections, or are critical process times in applications

As ESS moves into the 2019-2020 school year, there are other enhancements to the ESS Portal in the works. We will add data dashboards for students with disabilities for all PEAs down to the student level. Additionally, we will be consolidating some applications to and making them easier to use, so users can save time on data collection and avoid unnecessary clicks in applications. We are excited to see how the portal will help PEAs and students! Please email the ESS Data Management team with any questions or call 602-542-3962

Please see the updates from the ESS Program Management Team and share with your Business Manager.

MOE Eligibility Please see the linked PowerPoint to learn more about the MOE Eligibility Testing requirements that will go into effect this July. The FY 2020 Budget that will be submitted to School Finance by July 15, 2019, will be subjected to the MOE Eligibility test in the ESS Maintenance of Effort Application. The PowerPoint will walk you through how to submit data if your Budget fails to meet the Eligibility Standard.

Substantially Approved Date Please note: The FY2020 IDEA Consolidated – Entitlement Grant applications have a different Substantial Approval Date process than other ADE grants due to federal IDEA fiscal requirements. ESS is required to wait until July 16, 2019, to review MOE Eligibility statuses and then change a public education agency’s (PEA’s) Substantially Approved Date based on whether the budget meets the Eligibility standard. This date is contingent upon when an adopted budget must be submitted to School Finance. Once your PEA’s application is approved by the ESS Program Specialist, the Substantial Approval Date will revert to July 1 if your application was submitted prior to July 1 or to the most recent date that the grant was updated to LEA Authorized Representative Approved if that occurs after July 1. If your Substantial Approval Date is after July 1, your PEA will be unable to obligate funds prior to that date.

FY 19 Completion Reports The FY19 IDEA Consolidated – Entitlement grant’s project period end date is September 30, 2019. Completion reports will be available in the Grants Management Enterprise (GME) System for PEAs that would prefer to close out the FY19 books immediately after June 30, 2019. The official due date for the completion report isn’t until 90 days after the end of the project period, so you have until December 30, 2019 to submit your data.

Expanding Charter Requests If your charter school is expanding and meets the definition of Significant Expansion as found on http://www.azed.gov/specialeducation/operations/, please e-mail ESS Program Management to notify your intent to expand and receive a new calculation for your IDEA allocation. The deadline to notify ADE for consideration of FY20 reallocation will be August 1, 2019.

As always, please e-mail ESS Program Management for any questions regarding your IDEA Consolidated – Entitlement grants. Thank you.

The Arizona Department of Education/Exceptional Student Services (ADE/ESS) is excited to announce the release of the SY 2019—2020 Monitoring Guidesteps and Student File form! This release is the earliest ESS has ever been able to provide this important resource to the field. We hope this helps all public education agencies (PEAs) in planning for the upcoming school year.

Each year, the ESS/Program Support and Monitoring (PSM) team reviews this document, along with findings of noncompliance and technical assistance provided to the field, to enhance the document and make it a better product for PEAs. An overview of this year’s enhancements is included below. As always, please contact your PEA’s assigned program specialist for any questions or assistance needed.

Enhancements:

• Cross-check for reporting in AZEDS re: eligibility and LRE
• Collection of why progress reporting was called out, when called out
• Frequency and duration for special education services
• Progress monitoring for secondary transition services