The Special Education department provides academic support for students who are identified through a staffing process as qualifying for Special Education services as defined by the IDEA and Exceptional Children’s Education Act. We assess students to determine their academic needs and eligibility for Special Education based on those needs. Students are provided support for reading, math, writing, language development, and other areas such as motor development and social/emotional skills when appropriate to support the academic needs of the student.

The Special Education Team is made up of Special Education Teachers, Speech/Language Pathologist, School Psychologist, Occupational Therapist, Physical Therapist, Social Worker and the School Nurse. This team in combination with the regular education teacher and administrators discusses the needs of individual students identified as requiring additional academic support, designs appropriate goals and objectives and provides intervention designed to enhance the student’s academic performance.

Students begin the process of entering the Special Education program when their classroom teacher identifies a student as struggling to learn academic or language concepts. The Response to Intervention Team (RtI) suggests strategies and interventions designed to meet the needs of the student. If the student’s difficulty learning is severe enough, the RtI Team will suggest Special Education intervention as a Tier III service and possible testing.