Special Education Service Delivery Report About the Data (FAQ) Prepared by Quin Werthauer Division of Students with Disabilities & English Language Learners 01/06/2011
Introduction The Special Education Service Delivery Report provides information on a number of special education issues, including enrollment, timely special education evaluation, provision of special education services, movement of students to least restrictive environment (i.e., spending the majority of the school day in general education classes), initial referral rate, and declassification rate. The report was originally developed in response to requests from parents and community organizations to enhance the availability and transparency of special education data. The various indicators on the report were developed with input from staff at the CFN, representatives from the SSOs, and principals. The report is generated twice a year; once in January and again in June. This is our 4th year producing the SESDR and, although the format and metrics of the report are unchanged, we want to take this opportunity to formally address issues that have arisen each time the report is produced: The data is static and represents a point-in-time. This data comes directly from our electronic data systems which are the systems-of-record for all reporting, and so reflect the information that is recorded there. We also understand the data is very fluid and can change daily. The SESDR will not reflect these changes and only represents a point in time. The SESDR is not a compliance report. Although some of the metrics on the report are the starting point for use on the PPR, the Compliance Office uses various algorithms and cutoffs to calculate actual compliance statistics. The Enrollment/Register data is not linked to your classroom and/or funding allocations. This section of the SESDR simply reports the LRE/MRE distribution in the school. The statistics are not used for any other purpose. New - Students awaiting a Related Service due to an uninvoked RSA are now omitted from the awaiting numbers. After many complaints by schools who have felt that they are unfairly dunned on the SESDR due to RSAs that have been issued but have not been invoked by the parent, we now omit these transactions from the Provision of Services section of the report. Note that this will lower the total number of related services recommendations you see as well. No changes can be made to the report. Data is fluid and fluctuates on a daily basis. These changes typically account for differences between the report and a viewer s expectations. No changes can be made to the published report. The rest of this document is dedicated to helping you understand the methodologies and data sources used to generate the report. In this document we will answer the following questions: Where did the data come from? How was the data processed? (rules of omission/inclusion etc) What time period is represented? Snapshot? Cumulative? We hope that this will help in answering your questions and give you a better understanding of the content in your Special Education Service Delivery Report.
1. Enrollment The Enrollment Section shows the number of Special Education students on register at a given point in time. It also shows the LRE/MRE distribution and the number of English Language Learners (ELL). The General Education register is also included. Data is from 12/18/2010 and is a snapshot. The register data comes from a mid-month Dec 2010 snapshot that is taken from both ATS and CAP data systems. The students are reported by where ATS says the student is enrolled on the ATS snapshot. The role of the CAP snapshot is to provide evidence that a student has a disability and is therefore counted in the Special Education LRE/MRE register. It is important to note that, in the event a student is reported on the CAP snapshot as being enrolled in a public school, but ATS does not have the student enrolled, the student is not counted in the SESDR. Are all my students included in the Register numbers? Only students who are A status (Active) on ATS are included. However, students who are listed on ATS as being in Pre-Kindergarten or Infant programs are not included. The reason for this is that all of the Special Education measures are for School-Age students only. What students are counted in the Special Education Enrollment number? For students to be characterized as Special Education and counted in the Enrollment Section, they must be receiving Special Education services. The evidence for this is a first attend on CAP. The Special Education enrollment number includes students receiving services in a Team Teaching or Special Class, students receiving Special Education Teacher Support Services (SETSS) or Related Services Only (i.e. Speech, Counseling). It is important to note that students who have been recently identified and have a completed IEP, but have not yet started services are not included. In contrast, your Projected Register report https://ats.nycboe.net/sec/reports/ will generally show more students since it includes students who are authorized to, but not yet attending, your school. How are the ELL, LRE & MRE categories derived? Students are characterized as ELL, if, on the ATS register snapshot, the ELL Flag is set to Y. The LRE and MRE designations are taken from the CAP register snapshot. Students who are receiving SETSS, Related Services Only or Team Teaching are included in the LRE category. Students in Special Classes are counted under MRE. Remember, for any student to be counted, the student must be enrolled in a public school on ATS.
Enrollment - Continued I m a District 75 school site. Are numbers reported by individual physical site? No. District 75 physical sites are not recognized as discrete schools on ATS. District 75 s physical locations roll up to administrative schools that have a distinct ATS DBN code. Please note that all of District 75 s data on the SESDR, not just enrollment, is reported by administrative ATS DBN code. Why are you showing General Education enrollment numbers for my District 75 school? Some District 75 schools actually serve students w/o IEPs. These will appear in the general education numbers. If this is not the case in your school, then another reason is that, at the time of the run, students appeared in your school on ATS, but had not yet been first-attended into CAP. Since CAP is used to generate the special education enrollment numbers, students who are missing from the CAP enrollment file due to non-entry of the first-attend date will automatically appear to be general-ed.
2. Timely Evaluation The Timely Evaluation Section shows the number of school-age Initial and Re-evaluations that have been completed within mandated timelines since the start of the 2010-11 school year (Sept- 12/31/2010). The evaluation completion data comes from CAP. The school that is responsible for the evaluation comes from ATS. The connection between the two systems is made by looking at when students are referred and when they have their IEP meeting and by comparing these dates to their enrollment history on ATS. Students enrolled in the same school at the time of the referral and at the time of the IEP meeting are allocated to that school s report. In addition, the referral must have been opened, and the conference held during the current school year, up to 12/31/2010. Students who are turning five this year (2006 YOB) and are being evaluated are not included in this section. What are you counting, Students or Evaluation Events? For initial evaluations, we only count an evaluation once. So, if a particular student is initially referred, then case-closed and referred again, we only count the referral once. In other words, one distinct initial evaluation per student. We select the most recent initial referral, if more than one exists. With Re-evaluations, we select every instance that we find. So, a student can be counted more than once if there have been several re-evaluations. How do you determine when an evaluation is Completed? For each evaluation that is selected, we look for the earliest IEP meeting that was entered into CAP. For initial evaluations, this would be the first meeting where eligibility determinations are discussed. Although the outcome of this first meeting may be an agreement to defer final eligibility determination, or placement, this meeting satisfies the completion requirement. The earliest meeting following a re-evaluation request is also used in this context. What is included in Re-evaluations? Re-evaluations are referrals that are either requested by the school or the parent. They do not include mandated annual reviews or the mandated three-year triennial evaluation. How do you determine Timeliness? For initial evaluations, we calculate the number of calendar days from parental consent to the date of the first IEP meeting. If the number of days is 60 days or less, we include the evaluation in the report statistics. For re-evaluations, we calculate the number of calendar days from the date the referral was started to the date of the first IEP meeting. If the number of days is 60 calendar days or less, we include the evaluation in the report statistics.
Timely Evaluation - Continued How do you calculate the Pct Completed in 60 days? For each category (initial and re-evaluation), we aggregate the total number of completed evaluations. Note that this number is not shown on the report. Then we divide the number of evaluations completed in 60 days or less by the total number of completed evaluations to arrive at the Pct Completed in 60 Days. What does N/A represent? N/A means that, as of 12/31/2010, your school had no completed initial or re-evaluations, so no meaningful numbers could be produced. This is not the same as zero (0), which is shown if your school does have a record of completed evaluations but none have been completed within 60 days.
3. Provision of Special Education Services The Provision of Special Education Services Section shows, by selected service, the total number of school-age students recommended, awaiting and receiving service. It also shows the distribution of awaiting and receiving as a percent of the total recommendations. The data is a snapshot and represents the condition as of 12/31/2010 (see below for more details). The Provision of Services data comes from one of our new Special Education data systems called SEC. SEC provides a web page that is dedicated to Special Education Reports at https://ats.nycboe.net/sec/reports/. All principals should have access to this valuable resource, where you can see, on a daily basis, the status of services being provided to students in your school. The Division of Students with Disabilities & ELL encourages you to visit this page often. If you cannot access this page from your DOE computer, please send a note to CAPSECsupport@schools.nyc.gov to request this access. For the SESDR we used SECprovided data as of 12/31/2010 to select the students only. We then took this cohort and retrieved their service status (awaiting/receiving) on 01/14/2010. This method was used to give schools the opportunity to retroactively record service start dates for those students who were receiving services but, due to the school holiday break, may not have been called into IVR. Are students counted more than once? A student is only counted once in each service. So, for example, if one of your students is receiving OT and SETSS, that student would be counted once in each service. However, if a student has a recommendation for Speech in an individual setting and has a recommendation for Speech in a group setting, that student is counted once in the Speech numbers on your report. How are students counted who are getting partial service? Take our previous example where a student has been recommended for Speech in both an individual and group setting. If the student is getting some part of his recommended service, then he is counted in the Receiving column. Note that this favorable weighing is only within service. If a student is receiving Speech, but awaiting Counseling, the student will be counted in the Receiving column for Speech and in the Awaiting column for Counseling. What does N/A represent in the Pct columns? N/A means that, as of 12/31/2010, your school had no students recommended for the service, so no meaningful percentage could be produced. Note that students must have at least been authorized for the service to be included in your report. Students who have been recommended for a service on their IEP, but have not yet been authorized to start the service will not be counted in your school s report. What about students who are deferred, LTA or are awaiting under an RSA? Are they included? Students who have had their recommendation deferred or are LTA are not included in the report. In addition, starting this year, we are omitting students who are awaiting services due to an RSA that has not yet been invoked by the parent.
4. Movement of Students w/disabilities to a New Educational Setting The Movement Section shows the number of school-age recommendations your school has made to new educational settings. Data is YTD from Sept, 2010 through 11/30/2010. The recommendation that shows a change in setting comes from CAP. The school that is responsible for the recommendation comes from ATS. The connection between the two systems is made by looking at when students had their IEP conference that recommended the change in setting and by comparing this date to their enrollment history on ATS. Students enrolled in the school at the time of the IEP meeting are allocated to that school s report. The movement data is as-of 11/30/2010. What if my school made multiple recommendations for the same student throughout the year? We only look at the most recent recommendation made for each student. So, a student will only be counted once on your report. My school made many more recommendations. Where are they? Many, many recommendations are for the same program or for the same setting and these are not being counted. For example, students who are currently receiving Team Teaching services and are being recommended for Related Services Only or SETSS, would not be shown here since there is no change in the generic educational setting. All of these settings are considered LRE. Is a new recommendation for General Education included? A new recommendation for GE is not included in your LRE numbers. However, we do include the number of students your school has declassified in your Declassification Rate section of the report. I m a District 75 school. Did you include students that I recommended for a Special Class in a regular district program? Yes! Although movement to a Special Class is generally considered an MRE event, for District 75, students who have been recommended for a non-d75 special class in a community school district will appear in your LRE count. I m a District 75 school and there are recommendations made to MRE. What does this mean? Students previously recommended for District 75 inclusion and now being recommended for a special class, would be counted under MRE. I m a District 75 school and there are recommendations made to D/75. I thought you were only showing new recommendations to a different setting? For this situation to occur, it would mean that a student has a recommendation for a special class in a community school district (program SE) while currently sitting in your school and your school is currently recommending a special class placement in District 75 (program SS). This could be the result of incorrect data entry on CAP.
5. Initial Referral Rate This section of the report provides information on your school s Initial Referral Rate. The number of Initial Referrals used in the rate calculation is the cumulative total since Sept, 2010 to 12/31/2010. The initial referrals come from CAP. The school that initiated the referral comes from ATS. The connection between the two systems is made by looking at when students had their referral started and then comparing this date to their enrollment history on ATS. Students enrolled in the school at the time of the referral are allocated to that school s report. Students who are turning five this year (2006 YOB) and are being evaluated are not included in this section. What are you counting, Students or Initial Referral Events? If a particular student is initially referred, then case-closed and referred again, we only count the referral once. We select the most recent initial referral, if more than one exists. How do you determine the Initial Referral Rate? Since the pool of initial referrals to Special Education is the general education population, we use the school s general education register as of 12/18/2010, and divide the number of initial referrals by this number. This is the rate at which students are potentially leaving general education to enter Special Education. Keep in mind that the outcome of the referral may be a recommendation to stay in general education. So, this is not the same as your Acceptance rate, which would be the number of students who are initially referred and found eligible for special education services. For comparison, the report provides the citywide initial referral rate, which is calculated by aggregating all the public school, school-age initial referrals and dividing by the aggregate GE public school register.
6. Declassification Rate This section of the report provides information on your school s Recommended Declassification Rate. The number of recommended declassifications used in the rate calculation is the cumulative total since Sept, 2010 to 12/31/2010. The recommendation for GE comes from CAP. The school that recommended declassification comes from ATS. The connection between the two systems is made by looking at when students had their IEP conference which recommended GE and then comparing this date to their enrollment history on ATS. Students enrolled in the school at the time of the recommending conference are allocated to that school s report. What are you counting, Students or Decertification Events? If a particular student is decertified more than once, we only count the most recent decertification. How do you determine the Decertification Rate? Since the pool of students recommended for decertification comes from special education, we use the school s special education register (in this case the 12/18/2010 snapshot), and divide the number of decertifications by this number. This is the rate at which students are recommended to return to general education. For comparison, the report provides the citywide recommended decertification rate, which is calculated by aggregating all the public school, school-age decertifications and dividing by the aggregate SE public school register.