Exceptional Children's Program

 

TO:  Parents of Students in Grades PK-12

FROM:  Dr. Alisa McLean, Superintendent

SUBJECT: Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) Annual Notice

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FERPA is a Federal law that is administered by the Family Policy Compliance Office (Office) in the U.S. Department of Education (Department). 20 U.S.C. § 1232g; 34 CFR Part 99. FERPA applies to educational agencies and institutions (e.g., schools) that receive funding under any program administered by the Department. Private and parochial schools at the elementary and secondary levels generally do not receive such funding and are, therefore, not subject to FERPA. 

FERPA gives custodial and noncustodial parents alike certain rights with respect to their children's education records, unless a school is provided with evidence that there is a court order or State law that specifically provides to the contrary. Otherwise, both custodial and noncustodial parents have the right to access their children's education records, the right to seek to have the records amended, the right to consent to disclosure of personally identifiable information from the records (except in certain circumstances specified in the FERPA regulations, some of which are discussed below), and the right to file a complaint with the NC Department of Public Instruction. 

When a student reaches 18 years of age or attends a postsecondary institution, he or she becomes an "eligible student," and all rights under FERPA transfer from the parent to the student. The term "education records" is defined as those records that contain information directly related to a student and which are maintained by an educational agency or institution or by a party acting for the agency or institution. 

FERPA generally prohibits the improper disclosure of personally identifiable information derived from education records. Thus, information that an official obtained through personal knowledge or observation, or has heard orally from others, is not protected under FERPA. This remains applicable even if education records exist which contain that information, unless the official had an official role in making a determination that generated a protected education record. 

Under FERPA, a school is not generally required to maintain particular education records or education records that contain specific information. Rather, a school is required to provide certain privacy protections for those education records that it does maintain. Also, unless there is an outstanding request by a parent to inspect and review education records, FERPA permits the school to destroy such records without notice to the parent. 

Access to Education Records 

Under FERPA, a school must provide a parent with an opportunity to inspect and review his or her child's education records within 45 days following its receipt of a request. A school is required to provide a parent with copies of education records, or make other arrangements, if a failure to do so would effectively prevent the parent from obtaining access to the records. A case in point would be a situation in which the parent does not live within commuting distance of the school. 

A school is not generally required by FERPA to provide a parent with access to school calendars or general notices such as announcements of parent-teacher meetings or extra-curricular activities. That type of information is not generally directly related to an individual student and, therefore, does not meet the definition of an education record. 

Under FERPA, a school is not required to provide information that is not maintained or to create education records in response to a parent's request. Accordingly, a school is not required to provide a parent with updates on his or her child's progress in school unless such information already exists in the form of an education record. 

Amendment of Education Records 

Under FERPA, a parent has the right to request that inaccurate or misleading information in his or her child's education records be amended. While a school is not required to amend education records in accordance with a parent's request, the school is required to consider the request. If the school decides not to amend a record in accordance with a parent's request, the school must inform the parent of his or her right to a hearing on the matter. If, as a result of the hearing, the school still decides not to amend the record, the parent has the right to insert a statement in the record setting forth his or her views. That statement must remain with the contested part of the student's record for as long as the record is maintained. 

However, while the FERPA amendment procedure may be used to challenge facts that are inaccurately recorded, it may not be used to challenge a grade, an opinion, or a substantive decision made by a school about a student. FERPA was intended to require only that schools conform to fair recordkeeping practices and not to override the accepted standards and procedures for making academic assessments, disciplinary rulings, or placement determinations. Thus, while FERPA affords parents the right to seek to amend education records which contain inaccurate information, this right cannot be used to challenge a grade, an individual's opinion, or a substantive decision made by a school about a student. Additionally, if FERPA's amendment procedures are not applicable to a parent's request for amendment of education records, the school is not required under FERPA to hold a hearing on the matter. 

Disclosure of Education Records 

Under FERPA, a school may not generally disclose personally identifiable information from a minor student's education records to a third party unless the student's parent has provided written consent. However, there are a number of exceptions to FERPA's prohibition against non-consensual disclosure of personally identifiable information from education records. Under these exceptions, schools are permitted to disclose personally identifiable information from education records without consent, though they are not required to do so by FERPA. Following is general information regarding some of these exceptions. 

One of the exceptions to the prior written consent requirement in FERPA allows "school officials," including teachers, within a school to obtain access to personally identifiable information contained in education records provided the school has determined that they have "legitimate educational interest" in the information. Although the term "school official" is not defined in the statute or regulations, this Office generally interprets the term to include parties such as: a teacher; administrator; board member; support or clerical staff; attorney; nurse and health staff; counselor; human resources staff; information systems specialist; school security personnel; and a contractor, consultant, volunteer or other party to whom the school has outsourced institutional services or functions. 

A school may disclose personally identifiable information from education records without consent to a "school official" under this exception only if the school has first determined that the official has a "legitimate educational interest" in obtaining access to the information for the school. A school that allows school officials to obtain access to personally identifiable information contained in education records under this exception must include in its annual notification of FERPA rights a specification of its criteria for determining who constitutes a "school official" and what constitutes "legitimate educational interests." A school official generally has a legitimate educational interest if the official needs to review an education record in order to fulfill his or her professional responsibility. 

Another exception permits a school to disclose personally identifiable information from a student's education records, without consent, to another school in which the student seeks or intends to enroll. The sending school may make the disclosure if it has included in its annual notification of rights a statement that it forwards education records in such circumstances. Otherwise, the school must make a reasonable attempt to notify the parent in advance of making the disclosure, unless the parent or eligible student has initiated the disclosure. The school must also provide a parent with a copy of the records that were released if requested by the parent. 

FERPA permits a school non-consensually to disclose personally identifiable information from a student's education records when such information has been appropriately designated as directory information. "Directory information" is defined as information contained in the education records of a student that would not generally be considered harmful or an invasion of privacy if disclosed. Directory information could include information such as the student's name, address, e-mail address, telephone listing, date and place of birth, major field of study, participation in officially recognized activities and sports, weight and height of members of athletic teams, dates of attendance, degrees and awards received, the most recent previous educational agency or institution attended, photograph, grade level (such as 11th grade or junior year), and enrollment status (full-time or part-time). 

A school may disclose directory information without consent if it has given public notice of the types of information it has designated as directory information, the parent's right to restrict the disclosure of such information, and the period of time within which a parent has to notify the school that he or she does not want any or all of those types of information designated as directory information. Also, FERPA does not require a school to notify parents individually of the types of information it has designated as directory information. Rather, the school may provide this notice by any means likely to inform parents of the types of information it has designated as directory information. 

FERPA also permits a school to disclose personally identifiable information from education records of an "eligible student" (a student age 18 or older or enrolled in a postsecondary institution at any age) to his or her parents if the student is a "dependent student" as that term is defined in Section 152 of the Internal Revenue Code. Generally, if either parent has claimed the student as a dependent on the parent's most recent income tax statement, the school may non-consensually disclose the student's education records to both parents. 

There are several other exceptions to FERPA's prohibition against non-consensual disclosure of personally identifiable information from education records, some of which are briefly mentioned below. Under certain conditions (specified in the FERPA regulations, 34 CFR Part 99), a school may non-consensually disclose personally identifiable information from education records: 

• to authorized representatives of the Comptroller General of the United States, the Attorney General of the United States, the U.S. Secretary of Education, and State and local educational authorities for audit or evaluation of Federal or State supported education programs, or for the enforcement of or compliance with Federal legal requirements that relate to those programs; 

• in connection with financial aid for which the student has applied or received; 

• to state and local authorities pursuant to a State statute concerning the juvenile justice system and the system's ability to effectively serve the student whose records are being disclosed; 

• to organizations conducting studies for or on behalf of the school making the disclosure for the purposes of administering predictive tests, administering student aid programs, or improving instruction; 

• to comply with a judicial order or a lawfully issued subpoena; and 

• in connection with a health or safety emergency. 

As stated above, the conditions specified in the FERPA regulations have to be met before a school may non-consensually disclose personally identifiable information from education records in connection with any of the exceptions mentioned above.

An effort called Project Child Find is underway in the Granville County area to identify children and youth ages 0 through 21 who have disabilities and need special education and other services.

The local efforts to identify children and youth are part of a concentrated statewide effort to find children who need special help, which they are not currently receiving.  Project Child Find is also an endeavor to inform the parent(s) and/or guardian(s) of these children about services available from their local school system and other state and community agencies.

According to the Director of the Department of Public Instruction's Exceptional Children Division, help is available for children with special needs.  This help includes a complete evaluation, an individualized education program designed specifically for the child and a referral to other agencies providing special services.

Project Child Find is looking for children and youth who have been diagnosed or are suspected to have mental, physical or emotional disabilities and are unable to benefit from a regular school program without assistance.

Dr, Suzanne Cotterman, Exceptional Children's Program Director and Dr. Alisa McLean, Superintendent of Granville County Public Schools, encourage anyone who knows a child or youth who have disabilities and is not in school or receiving special assistance, to urge the parent(s)/guardian(s) to contact: the superintendent, the exceptional children director, principal, or the Department of Public Instruction's Exceptional Children Division.

"We need the help of all citizens in this effort to find children and youth who could benefit from special services… Without this help, a child with a disability may not be found.  The right to a free appropriate public education is guaranteed to every child with a disability, ages 3-21."

For more information, call your local school system at (919) 693-1103, 693-4613 or call the Exceptional Children Division at (919) 807-3969.  Parent(s) or guardian(s) may call the toll-free Information and Referral Service / CARE-LINE at 1-800-662-7030 and ask for the Exceptional Children Division; or the Family Support Network at 1-800-TLC-0042.

Positive Behavior Intervention and Support

The primary goals of the NC SIP II Positive Behavior Intervention and Support Network are:

• To use a screening procedure to identify emergent risk factors in children,

• To provide in-service training to promote understanding of characteristics of specific mental disorders and their behavioral manifestations,

• To use a school-wide proactive approach by teaching social/interpersonal skills and social responsibility to children at risk for special behavioral/emotional problems, and

• To establish a plan that emphasizes inter-agency and parental participation in educational/behavioral planning for students with special behavioral/emotional needs.

Beginning in 1997, the State Board of Education implemented a statewide accountability system that sets annual performance standards for each school in the state to measure the growth in performance by students. Students in North Carolina have made significant academic gains as reported by the ABC Accountability Program since that time. Rigorous and relevant academic standards and assessment systems have been developed. The No Child Left Behind federal legislation has created a new way to look at academic progress. Schools have begun to use research-based practices to teach students reading, writing and mathematics. In addition NCLB is requiring that states identify "Persistently Dangerous Schools." Positive Behavior Intervention and Support Programs are a way to impact the learning environments in the schools in order to support high student performance and to reduce behavioral problems.

Positive Behavior Intervention and Support Programs provide a whole school process for teaching socially appropriate behaviors in order to optimize academic achievement for each student. Whole School Positive Behavior Intervention and Support is a systematic approach that establishes and reinforces clear behavioral expectations. It is a team-based system involving the entire school staff and must have the ownership of teachers, administrators, families, and students. The school staff must adopt a common approach to discipline that is proactive, instructional, and outcome-based. The data about the school is used to guide decision making. The school team looks at the entire school campus and the whole school day.

PBIS is a systems approach or process, not a specific curriculum. The goal is to help educate all students, even students with challenging behaviors. Because of the emphasis on continuous, data-based improvement, PBIS has to be individualized to each school. The adoption and sustained use of effective practices is emphasized throughout. PBS is also an instructional approach that focuses on systematically teaching social behavior using effective instructional methodology. There is an emphasis on teaching and encouraging prosocial behavior, as well as systematically teaching and implementing behavioral interventions for the most difficult students. Positive Behavior Intervention and Support Programs can be integrated with Safe School Plans and Character Education. According to GS. 115C-105.47 each local board of education has to develop a safe school plan designed to ensure that each school is safe, secure, and orderly, has a climate of respect and appropriate personal conduct for all students and all public school personnel. Parents and representatives of the community are to be included in the development of the plan. Similarly according to GS. 115C-81, each local board of education has to develop and implement character education instruction with input from the local community. This instruction is supposed to be incorporated into the standard course of study and include specific traits named in the legislation. Many of the requirements of both safe school plans and character education instruction can be incorporated into the PBIS approach at each school.

Using Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports

There are currently major "barriers” identified in the literature that expose children to serious risk factors in their formative years which cause them to develop anti-social and aggressive behavioral characteristics. These major barriers, which we have also identified as widespread in North Carolina schools, are: failure to recognize and address emergent risk factors dependence on punitive and exclusionary tactics as a primary solution strategy failure to directly teach socialization/interpersonal skills and social responsibility competencies as part of the core curriculum to children, and ineffective home/school/inter-agency coordination and implementation of multi-component intensive “wraparound” interventions to the students with severe behavioral/emotional needs. Addressing these barriers through primary, secondary and tertiary intervention approaches is the essential focus NC SIP II.

Primary intervention approaches are universal and preventive in nature and include proactive efforts directed toward reducing the likelihood of problems emerging. School-wide discipline programs that combine clear expectations, close monitoring/supervision, and standardized consequences for rule violations, as well as social skills, anger management, and conflict resolution, are examples of such approaches that achieve prevention goals.

Secondary interventions require individually-tailored programs applied with specific students. Mentoring programs and individual behavior management programs are examples of secondary interventions.

Tertiary intervention strategies involve intensive intervention approaches applied to children and youth with the most severe behavioral/emotional needs. These are often referred to in the literature as “wraparound “ approaches. Such interventions commonly require a case manager who coordinates, supports, and services across families, schools, mental health, juvenile justice, and various social service agencies.

Granville County Public Schools currently has 25% of their schools involved in training or implementing Positive Behavior Intervention and Support. For additional information contact the Exceptional Children's Program Director at (919) 693-1103.

There is clear and concise classroom research evidence that the vast majority of students with disabilities can learn to read on grade level IF appropriate, research validated instruction and learning techniques are effectively employed. Not surprisingly, research has demonstrated that with students with reading difficulties comprehension continues to be highly dependent on word recognition skills (Stanovich, 1991.  The amount of assistance readers receive from their ability to translate written words to phonological representations varies directly with the speed with which items to be remembered are encoded (Baddely, Thomson, & Buchanan; Case, Kurland, & Goldberg; Dempster; cited in Adams, 1990). Poor and young readers who are not yet facile at processing letters and sounding out words fail to recode words in meaningful groups and, therefore, are less likely to maintain the meaning of a clause or sentence in short-term memory (Adams, 1990). In effect, readers who are less able to generate high-quality phonological representations as a part of word recognition are at a disadvantage and at-risk for memory loss (Daneman, 1991). Thus, poor word recognition appears to limit (a) storage of and access to word meanings and (b) ability to access or remember sequences of words.  The activities that served as the basis of the reading interventions can be thought of as more systematic components of activities that teachers always have done with kindergartners.

In a review of research on teaching reading to diverse learners, Chard, Simmons, and Kameenui make the following summary statements. “Our review of the research literature suggested that learning to read words is anything but natural. On the contrary, learning to read words requires integration of numerous complex processes. Successful acquisition of these complex processes appears to be incidental for some children, but for others it must be systematically and planfully taught. (Chard, D.J., Simmons, D.C., & Kameenui, EJ., Word Recognition: (National Center to Improve the Tools of Educators, Curricular and Instructional Implications for Diverse Learners 

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) has supported a systematic research program to conduct long-term, prospective, longitudinal, and multi-disciplinary work designed to better understand the causes of reading disabilities as well as effective treatments. To date, more than 100 researchers in fourteen research centers have been funded to study these issues. Because of more stringent scientific requirements, the studies have produced a growing body of similarly designed studies conducted by different researchers that consistently demonstrate the same findings.

For years educators have been puzzled by children with persistent reading problems, many of whom have average to above average intelligence and come to school with good oral language and rich experiences with books.   Many of these students have identified disabilities.  Since the early 1960's such students have been considered to have a specific learning disability and/or dyslexia and special educational services have been provided although little was understood about the nature of such disabilities and no consensus existed concerning philosophy of teaching reading or instructional methods. 

Research focusing on the causes of "unexpected" reading failure indicates that, for many individuals, their difficulties are related to inherited brain differences. Several NICHD studies have found that deficits in working with the sounds (phonemes) of language is related to atypical functioning in specific brain regions. The strongest finding to date is that phonological processing is the primary area in which children with reading difficulties differ from other children. NICHD studies indicate that about 40% of the general population of students have reading problems sufficient to hinder their enjoyment of reading, although for research purposes an arbitrary cutoff point of 20% has been utilized to designate children as reading disabled. For most of these students, however, the primary problem is poor phonological processing and the difference between a student with a learning disability in reading and other poor readers is one of degree (severity) and not a difference in the nature of the problem.

The extensive body of research on students with reading disabilities has uncovered two widely held beliefs among educators about children who are having serious and persistent reading problems.  First, an IQ-achievement discrepancy, such as used in most states in identifying students with specific learning disabilities, is not important in the determination of reading disabilities.  Second, there is very little relationship between learning to fluently decode and the child's measured intelligence level. 

Phonological processing includes three basic components which have been found to be important for success in reading:  (1) phonological awareness, (2) rapid naming, and (3) holding sounds in working memory.   Of these components, phonological awareness is the most prevalent area of deficit in disabled readers.

Phonemic awareness skills involve the ability to segment words into sounds and to manipulate the sounds of words in different ways. For example, to be a good reader a student must first be able to: recognize that two words have the same beginning, ending or middle sound; segment words into syllables and phonemes; blend syllables and sounds into words; and count, add, and delete sounds within words.  Students must also know that letters represent sounds and must be able to map speech onto print.  Students with weaknesses in phonological awareness will have difficulty developing these skills which will impact their ability to develop beginning reading skills. Such students do not understand the alphabetic principle of English and fail to develop adequate decoding (letter to sound) skills for reading or encoding (sound to letter) skills for spelling. They may be unable to produce good invented spellings because they do not have the requisite skills necessary to segment words into sounds and map those sounds onto the appropriate letters. Such students tend to rely on their knowledge of words memorized as "sight words' and attempt to read new words based on context or by guessing based on partial letter cues (such as the first and last letters of the word). They may not recognize the common spelling patterns in words so do not benefit from the regularities that exist in the English language. Deficits in decoding (and encoding) are the most critical factors in poor reading for the majority of students. Studies clearly indicate that a major portion of the difficulty students have in reading comprehension is related to inaccurate identification of the individual words encountered which is, in turn, strongly related to decoding skills.  It is, of course, possible to read words accurately and still have problems with comprehension and this is an area which is now being studied more carefully.

Students with difficulties in rapid naming are characterized by slow and difficult naming of items such as letters, numbers, and colors. Such students often have difficulty learning letter names/sounds in kindergarten and irregular, high frequency words in first grade; teachers and parents remark that these students seem to learn the information only to have forgotten it later. For such students, learning the names of items requires multiple repetitions over a long period of time and they may be slow to recall the names of the items even when they have been learned. Because they may not be able to accurately or quickly recall letter-sound associations, such children often make "reversal errors" such as hearing the sound of /b/ and writing the letter 'd'- such errors are not related to "seeing" the letter backwards. The result of naming problems is that learning to read is very difficult - decoding and encoding will be affected by the difficulty such students have learning letter-sound associations and memorization of sight words is equally difficult.  Even when such students learn to decode accurately, they often have to decode the same words over and over rather than recognizing those words quickly and automatically. Thus, reading is very slow and laborious and these students typically hate reading and avoid practicing.

NC SIP II has divided the necessary teacher training leading to the demonstration of appropriate reading instruction skills and knowledge into two phases:
 
Phase 1: Reading Instruction Foundation Training

The NC SIP II staff development resource program has adopted a staff development program entitled Reading Research to Classroom Practice. The content and media in this program have been developed by Rebecca Felton and David Lillie in partnership with the Guilford County School System in North Carolina. The staff development program has been designed to introduce teachers to the knowledge, skills and procedures needed to provide effective instruction for students with persistent reading difficulties. The teaching principles, techniques and strategies presented in the program are supported by an extensive body of instructional research involving students with reading difficulties.

The program is designed to provide teachers with a solid foundation of knowledge and skills needed to deliver effective instruction for students, who, after several years of instruction and learning experiences in reading, still have difficulties reading fluently and are significantly behind their age peers. The program consists of nine units and provides a solid foundation on which to build an effective reading instruction program.

 
The content and teaching techniques presented in the program are derived directly from the extensive research-based literature available on teaching students with severe reading difficulties. The program reflects the findings of two recent National reports addressing the instructional needs of students with reading problems: Teaching Children to Read, a report of the National Reading Panel, and Preventing Reading Problems of Young Children, a report sponsored by the National Reading Council of the National Academy of Sciences.

Phase 2: Training in the Use of a Sepcific Proven and Tested Teaching Procedure and Materials Model or Approach

The staff development program, Teaching Students with Persistent Reading Problems, is designed to be use as a self-directed learning program and a primary training resource in support of staff development programs for practicing teachers or as a supplemental program for pre-service teacher education courses. It provides a prerequisite solid foundation of knowledge and skills to begin using research-proven teaching strategies and to make long range decisions about the use of instructional procedures and materials. 

For additional information, please contact the Exceptional Children's Program Director.