Chapter 3: Referrals and Evaluations

Parental Notification

The term, "Parental Notification," is different from the term "Parental Consent." Parental Consent requires your signature. Parental Notification means that schools are only required to notify you before proceeding with any of the following:

• Initial referral to special education;
• Performance on additional evaluations in already identified areas of concern, copies of which must be provided prior to the Pupil Evaluation Team (PET) meeting;
• Any PET meeting (initial, on-going/annual, or transitional);
• Implementation of the Individual Educational Program (IEP);
• Implementation of an IEP transferred from another school;
• Any change of special education placement (due to suspension beyond the 10 day limit; the stopping of services; or graduation);
• Any changes of special education program on the IEP (new services to be implemented; amount or frequency of services to be changed; or goals and objectives to be changed);
• Changing roles of the parents and student, when the student reaches the age of majority, 18 years of age; and
• The initiation of Due Process (Dispute Resolution) procedures by the school.

Parental Notification must be provided in the language that you most commonly use in your own home. If the school has reason to believe that your native language is not a written language or that you are not a proficient reader they must take appropriate steps to ensure that you fully understand the intent of the notification.

Notification must be written in language understandable to the general public. This must be translated orally or by other means to you in your native language or other necessary modes of communication. You must understand the contents of the notification. The school is required to document that these notification requirements have been met.