Part B State Performance Plan (SPP) for 2005-2010

Overview of the State Performance Plan Development

See Overview of the State Performance Plan Development preceding Indicator #1.  In addition, NYS consulted with the NYCDOE to identify NYC specific issues and needed improvement activities.

Indicator 12:  Percent of children referred by Part C prior to age 3, who are found eligible for Part B, and who have an IEP developed and implemented by their third birthday.

(20 U.S.C. 1416(a)(3)(B))

Overview of Issue/Description of System or Process

The Department of Health (DOH) under the Early Intervention Program (Part C) provides services to children with disabilities, birth to two.  SED has responsibility for providing services to preschool children with disabilities, ages three to five (Part B).

The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between SED and DOH focuses on activities that will result in a smooth transition from Part C to Part B services for children beginning at age three. Early Intervention Officials (EIO) have responsibility under Public Health Law for notifying school districts (with parental consent) of an Early Intervention (EI) child’s potential eligibility for services under preschool special education and for arranging a transition conference at least 120 days before the child is first eligible for preschool programs and services. A parent may also refer the child directly to the CPSE. The transition conference is scheduled at least 90 days before the child is first eligible for preschool programs and services, and is attended by the EIO, the service coordinator, the parent(s) and the chairperson of the CPSE. The purpose of the transition conference is to decide whether the child should be referred to preschool special education for determination of eligibility, to review program options available to the child and family, and to develop a transition plan. This process ensures continuity of services for the child. The timely referral and evaluation of children to preschool special education and the provision of a free appropriate public education (FAPE) in the LRE by school districts are reviewed under the SEQA preschool focused monitoring review process. 

The evaluation and eligibility determination of a preschool student must be made within 30 school days of receipt of the parent's consent to evaluation.  The CPSE provides the parent with a list of approved programs that have a multidisciplinary evaluation component. The parent selects the approved evaluation program to conduct the individual evaluation of his or her child and the board of education arranges for the evaluation by the service provider selected by the parent. In addition, with the consent of the parents, approved evaluators and CPSEs must be provided with the most recent evaluation report for a child in transition from programs and services provided pursuant to title two-a of article 25 of the Public Health Law.

New York State Public Health Law, section 2541(8)(a) provides that a child’s eligibility for EI services ends as of his or her third birthday, unless the child has been referred to the CPSE and found eligible for preschool special education services before his or her third birthday. Under these provisions, parents may elect to either transition the child to preschool special education or continue their child in early intervention programming beyond the third birthday until either September or January, according to the following rules:

• If the child turns three years of age on or before the thirty-first day of August, the child shall, if requested by the parent, be eligible to receive early intervention services contained in an Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) until the first day of September of that calendar year; or,

• If the child turns three years of age on or after the first day of September, the child shall, if requested by the parent and if already receiving EI services, be eligible to continue receiving such services until the second day of January of the following calendar year.

When the parent elects to continue in EI under these provisions, the CPSE would write the IEP and indicate the starting date for special education services as of September or January, respectively. In no cases may the child receive EI and preschool special education services simultaneously.

Upon receipt of the recommendation of the CPSE, the board of education must arrange for the preschool student with a disability to receive such programs and services commencing with the July, September or January starting date for the approved program, unless such services are recommended by the CPSE less than 30 school days prior to, or after, the appropriate starting date selected for such preschool student, in which case, the IEP must be implemented no later than 30 school days from the recommendation of the CPSE.

Baseline Data for FFY 2005 (2005-06)

SED did not collect data using the same specific measurement required by OSEP for the SPP in order to report baseline data for 2004. 

Plan to collect the data

SED developed a new form (PD-9) to collect data from a representative sample of school districts during the 2005-06 school year (July 1, 2005 to June 30, 2006) on the percent of children referred by Early Intervention (IDEA, Part C) prior to age three, who are found eligible for preschool programs and/or services under IDEA, Part B, and who have an IEP developed and implemented by their third birthday.  NYS will use these data to identify noncompliance and establish corrective actions for those school districts in which the data indicates less than 100% of children referred by Part C prior to age 3, who are found eligible for Part B, have an IEP developed and implemented by their third birthday for noncompliant reasons.

To collect baseline data on the transition of children from early intervention (Part C of IDEA) to preschool special education programs and/or services (Part B of IDEA), the PD form will direct the school districts to report the following information:

• The numbers of children referred from Part C (Early Intervention) to Part B for preschool special education programs and/or services prior to the age of 3 who were found eligible and not eligible on or before age three and after the age of 3.  Of this number, how many had their IEPs developed and implemented on or before the age of 3 and after the age of 3.

• The reasons for more referrals for evaluation than initial eligibility determinations (e.g., parents withdrew consent; student moved out of the district before the evaluation was completed; student awaiting an evaluation; other reasons).

• The reasons for delays in initial eligibility determinations (e.g., an approved evaluator was not available to provide the evaluation in a timely manner; the parents refused or repeatedly failed to make the child available for the evaluation; the parents canceled the scheduled evaluation and/or selected another approved evaluator; the child transferred to the district after the evaluation period began in a previous school district and the parents and district agreed to an extended time period to complete the evaluation; other reasons).

•  The reasons for delays in developing and implementing children’s IEPs prior to the children’s third birthday (e.g., parents chose to continue their child in the Early Intervention program after the child became age three; parents chose not to enroll their child in the recommended program; programs and/or services were not available; child moved out of the district prior to the child’s third birthday; other reason).

•  The number of days of delay in developing and implementing IEPs by a preschool child’s third birthday (1-10 days; 11-20 days; 21-30 days; more than 30 days).

Sampling Methodology

Sampling will be used to establish the 2005-06 baseline for this indicator.  One-sixth of the school districts in NYS that are representative of the State will report data for this indicator annually until all school districts have reported these data over a six year period.  This represents approximately 120 school districts each year.  The NYC School District will be included in the sample each year.  It is the only school district in the State with a total enrollment of 50,000 or more students.

NYS has distributed all school districts among six statewide representative samples. These six groups of school districts were tested with Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and there was no statistical difference among the six groups of school districts on the population variables described in Attachment 2.  All school districts will have a choice of reporting data on all eligible students for this indicator or they may submit data on a randomly selected sample of minimum number of students using the sampling guidelines provided below. 

Baseline Data for 2005 (2005-06)

86.5 percent of children who were referred from Part C to Part B for eligibility determination and services had their eligibility determination made and IEP implemented by their third birthday. This percentage includes children whose delays in eligibility determination or IEP implementation were for reasons that are in compliance with State requirements.

In the 2005-06 school year, 117 school districts that are representative of the State provided data to the State on the numbers of children who were receiving EI services for whom parents provided consent to evaluate for determination of eligibility for preschool special education programs or services under Part B of IDEA. Data were collected on the numbers of children found eligible and numbers of children found not eligible prior to their third birthday and on the numbers of IEPs developed and implemented prior to children’s third birthday.  Data were also collected on the number of days past the children’s third birthday when the IEP was implemented and the reasons for the delays. Of the 117 school districts reporting data for this indicator, 116 provided information on all eligible children and 1 provided information on a sample of students.

The table below provides NYS’ baseline data calculation for the 2005-06 school year.

*The federal calculation described in the measurement section of this indicator for NYS is as follows:  [(C ) /(A-B-D)]*100 = 26.9%

Column D in the table above includes the following other reasons determined to be "in compliance” with State requirements for implementing the IEP past the child’s third birthday for children included in Column A above:

• Parents chose to continue their children in EI and transition to preschool after the child became three years of age. (1172 children)

• Parents chose not to enroll child in recommended program. (This is the same as parents did not provide consent for services.) (84 children)
• Child moved from district prior to determination of eligibility or prior to IEP implementation by age 3. (16 children)
• Parents refused or repeatedly did not make the child available for the evaluation. (158 children)
• Parents canceled the scheduled evaluation and/or selected another site or approved evaluator. (21 children)
• Children were referred to CPSE less than 30 days before their third birthday. (113 children)
• Child transferred to a new district after the evaluation period began and parents and new district agreed to an extended time period. (2 children)
• Eligibility determined within timelines but services to start opening of school which is past child’s third birthday. (4 children)

Some of the reasons provided by school districts for implementing the child’s IEP past the third birthday determined to be "out of compliance" with State requirements were as follows:

• Evaluator was not available or evaluator caused delays

• CPSE did not meet to determine eligibility in a timely manner
• Additional evaluations were needed than originally scheduled
• Scheduling difficulties
• Recommended Part B programs and/or services were not available when the child turned three years of age.
• Still awaiting evaluations as of reporting date

Number of Days past the Third Birthday When IEPs were Implemented: Some of these children had delays for reasons that are “in compliance” with State requirements and some are for reasons that are considered to be “out of compliance” with State requirements. Data were not collected in such a way as to be able to distinguish between the two types of delays:

Of all the Children in Each SEQA Region Whose IEPs are Delayed (displayed in the table above), What Percentage are Delayed by the Number of Days:

Discussion of Baseline Data

• All school districts that reported having less than 100% of children whose eligibility was not determined or whose IEPs were not implemented by their third birthday according by NYS’ formula for baseline calculation for this indicator  will be required to take actions to improve their compliance rates and report improvement to the State.

• NYS will modify its data collection instrument for the 2006-07 school year such that we will be able to compute a compliance rate based on all students referred from EI to preschool more precisely.

• NYS is working towards being able to collect these data at the student level in such a way as to determine the student specific reasons for delays in eligibility determinations and IEP implementation.

•  School districts reported large numbers of children whose parents opted to continue receiving services in EI until after the child turned three years of age.

• Based on NYS’ baseline calculation, the Central SEQA region had the lowest percentage of children who had timely determinations of eligibility and IEPs implemented by children’s third birthday (59.3%). The Eastern region had the largest such percentage (96.5%).

• NYC reported the greatest percentage of children who experienced the longest delays (more than 30 days) in receiving services (84.6%) compared to other regions.

• School districts reported that most of the delays in implementing IEPs were for reasons that are “in compliance” with State requirements.

Measurable and rigorous targets

Improvement Activities/Timelines/Resources