Complete Guide to Transitioning Between Early Intervention and the School District
The end of your Early Intervention journey is always a little bitter sweet and full of nerves as we prepare for the new. It’s so important to understand the process to help keep parents aware of what is going to happen and alleviate some of the nervous tension we may be feeling. We want to make transitioning to the school district as positive as possible for our child and ensure they get everything they need.
Early Intervention Transitioning to School District Process
When is the Transition from Early Intervention to the School?
A child officially transitions from Early Intervention services on their third birthday. This means that by a child’s third birthday, the local school district should have preformed an assessment to evaluation your child and determine if they qualify for services.
Your Early Intervention coordinator will begin discussing this transition with you sometime between your child reaching 27 and 30 months. They will plan an official transition meeting, which is sometimes prepared with the exit meeting. This meeting usually occurs between your child’s 30 and 34 month, so that the school district has time to get plans in place before your child reaches 36 months (or 3 years old).
A representative from the local school district is invited to attend this meeting. So be sure to have your questions ready for them if they do attend. Sometimes we aren’t so lucky and they either decline the invitation or don’t show up. If this is the case, be sure your Early Intervention coordinator provides you a contact and reach out to the school district if you don’t hear from them in a timely fashion (about a week). From the start, show the school district that you will advocate for your child.
Initial School Contact
Usually your local school district has an early childhood coordinator, or preschool coordinator, that will reach out to you. This may occur at the Early Intervention transition meeting, but may be a separate phone call after the meeting. This really depends on your school district and their availability to attend Early Intervention Transition meetings. It also may depend on the needs of your child.
Your first contact with your local school district’s early intervention coordinator will be rather lengthy usually. Plan for about 30 – 60 minutes depending on how many questions you have. The coordinator should explain the school district process, which varies for each district, as well as gather some information about your child. Much of this may involve them confirming what is written on your child’s IFSP.
Questions to Consider:
- What is their timeline?
- How does qualification work for the district?
- What does their play based evaluation involve? What tool do they use? Where will it take place?
- Can you be present for the evaluation?
- Who is on the team from the school district? Who will be evaluating your child?
- How quickly after the evaluation will the meeting occur to determine if your child qualifies?
- Do they have a parent advocate to share their own experiences?
The Play Base Evaluation
When Is It?
The play based evaluation will usually occur close to your child’s third birthday. The school district doesn’t want to evaluate your child too early because their assessment tools usually look at children who are at least 3 years old. For me, this evaluation has always occurred only one to two months prior to my child turning three. So don’t fret if there is a delay, but do ensure it is scheduled prior to your child’s third birthday.
The evaluation should always occur prior to your child’s third birthday since if your child qualifies for services, the school district must begin services on your child’s third birthday, unless it occurs over the summer. For summer birthdays, services can be delayed until the start of school in the fall, but should be no later. For most children who qualify, they meet with their Early Intervention therapists the week before their third birthday and their school district therapists the week of their school birthday, leaving no gap in services.
What Is It?
Most school districts use a play based evaluation tool. The child is invited into a child friendly classroom, which may or may not be used to other purposes besides the evaluations. Your child will have a few moments to warm up to the setting and the therapists. Usually there are 2 – 4 therapists involved in the evaluation depending on your child’s needs.
Therapists
The therapists will want to watch how your child moves, listen to them speak, and observe how they play and learn. They will look at your child’s large motor skills such as kicking a ball, walking, running, climbing and even sitting. A therapist will also check in on your child’s small motor skills. For example, holding a crayon, using scissors to cut, drawing lines and circles, opening bottles or even picking up small objects. Our posts on pencil grip and scissors has lots of strategies for small motor skills.
For most young children, the team will want to listen to your child speaking. The speech pathologist will listen to your child speaking while playing as well as interacting with the therapists. However, they may also have specific words or phrases they want to hear your child use. Usually this will involve looking at pictures or small objects so the speech pathologist can hear clearly which sounds your child has developed and which are still developing.
Another therapist will observe how your child problem solves, plays, and learns. This therapist may ask your child about colors, numbers, or letters. They may wish to watch as your child completes a simple matching puzzle, stacking blocks, or sorting shapes. The therapist may offer your child a book and watch how they engage with the book, asking your child to point to or name pictures in the book.
Some Cautions
First, You should know that many districts may ask to video tape the evaluation. The video tape is meant to help the therapists type their reports and ensure they don’t forget anything. Be sure to ask the purpose of any video and how long the school district retains the video. If the video becomes part of the student record, it could be used in court if you ever have to go to due process. You never have to give permission to video tape the evaluation.
Second, you should also know that many times the school district asks the family to wait in a separate room. Sometimes you have the option to watch the evaluation from a separate location. Child act differently when around their families and family members may offer assistance without even knowing it. Therefore, the test results may not be as accurate. However, you are the expert on your child, so don’t feel bad asking to stay with them if this doesn’t sit well with you.
The Qualification Meeting when Transitioning to the School District
This meeting can be anywhere from one to two hours. Most are around one and half hours. For these meetings, the school district will prefer your child not attend. However, they will understand if you child needs to attend due to daycare or babysitting options. Just be sure to give them a heads up that you need to bring your child with you.
Sharing Reports
The meeting begins with each therapist sharing their report. There is no set way that districts have to share these results, but usually each therapist will take a turn summarizing or reading their report. Most therapists will provide you a copy as they share, but some prefer to provide the copies all together at the end of the meeting. If you would feel more comfortable reading along, ask for a copy in the beginning or any time that they are sharing. It’s okay to pause the therapist and ask questions.
After having three children go through this process and watching this process as a teacher, I have a few observations. First, the therapists usually have the nurse go first since they need to get back to class. Second, the order of the reports usually goes from your child’s strongest area to the weakest area. It’s always nice to start with positives and sharing what your child does well. So expect to hear from the therapist where you have concerns last.
Third, the therapists talk really fast and tend to use educational jargon. They don’t mean to do this but this is their job and they have these types of meetings often. It is perfectly okay to ask a therapist to slow down, to repeat themselves, or even to show you where they are reading from on the report. Pause them, ask questions, and learn about your child.
Qualification
After sharing the reports, the entire team (including parents) will determine if the child qualifies for services. Just because your child had an IFSP, doesn’t mean they will qualify for services at the school district. An IFSP has different criteria for qualifying for services than a school district. The information from the reports, include information parents share, all works together to determine if a child qualifies for services.
A child can qualify for services in a variety of ways. First, a child can qualify for special education services and receives an Individual Education Plan (IEP). This option usually offers the most support and the highest level of legal actions to ensure services are being met. Second, your child could qualify for a Section 504 plan. This is usually for children needing a little less support than those on an IEP. However, these children tend to have a medical diagnosis from an outside doctor or therapists.
A third option to qualify for services is through Response to Intervention (RtI). These children generally need just a little more support and generally lasts for a shorter time. Any child placed on RtI has a written plan, but the plan is not legally binding. This should be a short term plan to determine if the child makes adequate progress or needs more intervention. If your child qualifies through RtI and makes growth, awesome. If you don’t see the growth, ask for the IEP or 504.
Placement
If your child qualifies for services, the team will determine the appropriate placement for your child and the accommodations your child needs for success. The district will share at least three placement options they have available for your child, they often do not share the entire list of options. Therefore, if the options for placement shared are not what you were hoping for, ask for other options. The district has them.
Placement Options
These options usually involve receiving itinerant services. Itinerant services generally means you will bring your child to the school district at a schedule time to meet with a therapist. This can mean bring your child once or twice a week for 30 minutes or longer. The frequency and duration are also decided at this meeting.
Another placement option that is often considered is a school district preschool program. Each district offers a unique preschool program for children who qualify. Generally, the preschool program is half day, five days a week. However, be sure to ask because these programs do vary from district to district. Some districts programs include community members without any delays, while other programs are only for children with delays. Some districts only offer preschool programs for students needing early childhood special education.
A third common placement option is a special education preschool classroom. These classes tend to offer more support than the district preschool classes. There are usually smaller class sizes with assistant teachers and more specialists in the classroom. The students in these classes generally have more severe needs or benefits from more therapy sessions. Sometimes these are the same hours as the preschool and sometimes they are longer hours or different days. The teachers will have a background in special education.
Related Services
After placement, the team will discuss the related services your child needs. These services could include social work, speech and language, occupational therapy, physical therapy, behavioral therapy, bilingual services. There are other therapies but they are much less common. The team will document which services your child qualifies for, the duration of the services, and the frequency of the services. So right here you will know how often and for how long your child receives services.
Accommodations
The next big area to discuss is the accommodations your child needs. These are child specific but is anything your child needs to be successful in the classroom or related service. Depending on your child’s placement, they may not need any accommodations. However, if you feel your child benefits from something ask for it. The worst that happens is the district notes it on the paperwork but doesn’t provide it.
Areas to Consider:
- Transportation – how your child will get to and from school (itinerant services)
- The classroom or school environment – sensory input and output
- Communication in the classroom
- Physical mobility in the classroom (or hallways)
- Behavior in the classroom
- Snack or lunch
- Transitions in the classroom
- Learning Aids, Organizers, or Assistance
- Language or cultural supports
- Assessments or Evaluations – usually only classroom evaluations but if your child qualifies for English Language Services there is a preschool assessment and one given prior to kindergarten
Beginning Services at the School District
If your child has a birthday during the school year, services will begin on your child’s birthday. You can delay the start of services if that works better for you. The school district will not begin services prior to your child’s third birthday though.
If your child has a summer birthday, services will most likely begin in the fall with the new school year. However, you can ask about summer support from both the school district and the Early Intervention team. Some states allow Early Intervention to continue if a child qualifies for school district support but cannot begin until the fall due to their birthday. Some school districts offer a summer program called extended school year for children who need the added support. It never hurts to ask.
Final Thoughts
Always remember that you are part of the team! The school district should include you in all decisions regarding your child and should consult you when making changes to your child’s IEP. You give permission for any evaluation or assessment outside of what the district gives all students. You have the right to attend all meetings and the district should work with you to hold them with your schedule in mind.
The therapists and specialists bring a wealth of knowledge to the team. Just don’t forget that you do too! You know your family and your child best. You know what works at home and what doesn’t. These therapists have the privilege of working with your child for the year, maybe a few years. On the other hand, your child is with your every year, even after they graduate the school district. You should be open to perspective of all team members but they should also be open to yours as well.
Please leave a comment below and let us know how the process went for your child or what other questions you may have. For more information on IEPs, check out our Parents’ Guide to the IEP Meeting and Beginning the IEP Process. We are happy to help parents advocate for their children in any way we can. For more support, subscribe to our newsletter and snag our FREE IEP Meeting Checklist for Parents. Check out our posts on awesome preschool series to read and our learning to read series to give your child a boost when it comes to school
Hi, I’m Nicole.
Here at Creatingbutterflies we provide families with practical solutions to real life problems for everything parenting, scouting, dual language, and enjoying time outdoors. We are a family of 6 with 4 wonderful becoming bilingual children who loves scouting, camping, and hiking with their family. Mom is an educator and dad is a firefighter/paramedic.
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Not only is this informative, but empowering to parents to know they can fully be involved in the process and decision-making regarding their child’s development.
Thank you! Very true! The more families are involved, the better the results for the children.
This is so helpful for parents to walk them through the process so they know what to expect!
Absolutely! The more information families have, the better they can support their child.