Significant Disproportionality

About

Under Section 618 of The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, States are required to collect and examine data to determine if significant disproportionality based on race and ethnicity is occurring in the State and the public education agencies (PEAs) of the state with respect to:

Identification
- The identification of children ages 3 through 21 as children with disabilities;
- The identification of children ages 3 through 21 as children with the following impairments:
  - Intellectual disabilities;
  - Specific learning disabilities;
  - Emotional disturbance;
  - Speech or language impairments;
  - Other health impairments; and
  - Autism
Placement
- Placements of children with disabilities ages 6 through 21, inside a regular class less than 40 percent of the day; and
- Placements of children with disabilities ages 6 through 21, inside separate schools and residential facilities, not including homebound or hospital settings, correctional facilities, or private schools
Discipline
- For children with disabilities ages 3 through 21, out-of-school suspensions and expulsions of 10 days or fewer;
- For children with disabilities ages 3 through 21, out-of-school suspensions and expulsions of more than 10 days;
- For children with disabilities ages 3 through 21, in-school suspensions of 10 days or fewer;
- For children with disabilities ages 3 through 21, in-school suspensions of more than 10 days; and
- For children with disabilities ages 3 through 21, disciplinary removals in total, including in-school and out-of-school suspensions, expulsions, removals by school personnel to an interim alternative education setting, and removals by a hearing officer

The State has moved to a Risk Ratio method to determine the likelihood of overrepresentation of a group when compared to another group. Arizona defines significant disproportionality as a rate of greater than or equal to 3.0 within a group compared to another group. If the ratio is greater than or equal to 3.0 for three consecutive years, the PEA is significantly disproportionate. PEAs that do not meet minimum cell size (10) are exempt from calculation. PEAs that do not meet the minimum n-size (30) are calculated using the alternate risk ratio.

Public Education Data - Fiscal Year 2022

KEY:

Disability Type

Race/Ethnicity

Autism (A)

Emotional Disturbance (ED)

Intellectual Disabilities (ID)

Other Health Impairments (OHI)

Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD)

Speech or Language Impairments (SLI)

American Indian or Alaska Native (AM)

Asian (AS)

Black or African American (BL)

Hispanic/Latino (HL)

Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander (PI)

Two or more races (MU)

White (WH)

ENTITY ID	PEA NAME	CATEGORY	RACE/ETHNICITY	FY22 RISK RATIO	FY21 RISK RATIO	FY20 RISK RATIO
4272	Avondale Elementary District	Identification - ED	WH	4.28	4.58	3.02
4282	Cartwright Elementary District	Identification - A	WH	3.08	3.11	3.05
4282	Cartwright Elementary District	Identification - ED	BL	4.04	4.22	4.91
4446	Casa Grande Elementary District	Identification - ED	WH	3.01	3.41	3.57
81027	Cochise Community Development Corporation	Identification - SLI	WH	3.69	3.28	3.68
4247	Fountain Hills Unified District	Identification - SLD	AM	4.54	4.73	4.66
4271	Glendale Elementary District	Identification - ED	MU	7.6	8.12	4.87
10974	Great Expectations Academy	Identification -SLI	WH	4.84	4.02	4.06
79499	Masada Charter School, Inc.	Identification -SLI	WH	4.27	4.1	4.24
79959	Pima Prevention Partnership dba Pima Partnership School, The	Identification - SLD	HL	4.36	4.23	3.62
4279	Roosevelt Elementary District	Identification - ED	BL	4.74	5.62	4.83
4393	Show Low Unified District	Placement - Separate School/ Residential Facilities	WH	3	3.53	3.86
4288	Tolleson Union High School District	Identification - ED	WH	4.96	6.17	4.94
4385	Young Scholars Academy Charter School Corp.	Identification - SLI	WH	3.74	3.59	4.58

State Data

Ages 3 to 21 School Year 2021 to 2022

Identification of Children with Disabilities (CWD) as

Race/eTHNICITY	CWD	iD	SLD	ED	SLI	OHI	A
AM	1.30	1.57	1.69	1.23	1.20	0.78	0.81
As	0.47	0.87	0.26	0.37	0.66	0.39	1.34
bl	1.13	1.93	1.17	2.13	0.69	1.43	1.15
hl	0.98	1.14	1.21	0.51	0.96	0.61	0.72
pi	0.89	1.97	0.96	1.74	1.59	1.37	1.89
mu	1.03	0.92	0.87	1.76	1.21	1.32	1.38
WH	1.00	0.64	0.76	1.41	1.09	1.55	1.28

Ages 3 to 21 School Year 2021 to 2022

Race/Ethnicity	Out-of-school suspensions and expulsions of 10 days or fewer	Out-of-school suspensions and expulsions of more than 10 days	In-school suspensions of 10 days or fewer	In-school suspensions of more than 10 days	Disciplinary removals in total
AM	0.58	0.39	0.40	0.69	0.46
As	0.40	0.63	0.25	0.00	0.30
Bl	1.49	1.91	1.60	1.93	1.51
Hl	0.70	0.74	0.74	0.43	0.68
pi	1.91	0.00	0.84	0.00	1.67
mu	1.98	1.31	1.80	0.00	1.83
Wh	1.25	1.25	1.25	2.38	1.35

Ages 3 to 21 School Year 2021 to 2022

Race/Ethnicity	Placements of children with disabilities inside a regular class less than 40 percent of the day	Placements of children with disabilities inside separate schools and residential facilities*
Am	0.96	1.15
As	2.05	1.63
Bl	1.39	1.81
Hl	0.98	0.57
pi	1.96	1.28
mu	1.08	1.69
Wh	0.87	1.29

* Calculation ignores students placed by a state placing agency into a residential facility

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Page revised 8/01/22

From the Exceptional Student Services Blog

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It is a requirement for all entities defined as PEAs regardless if they get federal funds or not.

All PEAs must submit the IDEA Statement of Assurances (SOA) through the ESS Portal of ADEConnect.

The application will open on 4/3/23 and close for submissions on 6/15/23.

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