Transition from Early Intervention to School Age Special Education: Data Report for FY11 Chapter 68 of the Acts of 2011, Line Item 7061-0012 November 2012 Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education 75 Pleasant Street, Malden, MA 02148-4906 Phone 781-338-3000 TTY: N.E.T. Relay 800-439-2370 www.doe.mass.edu This document was prepared by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Mitchell D. Chester, Ed.D. Commissioner Board of Elementary and Secondary Education Members Ms. Maura Banta, Chair, Melrose Ms. Beverly Holmes, Vice Chair, Springfield Dr. Vanessa Calderón-Rosado, Milton Ms. Harneen Chernow, Jamaica Plain Mr. Gerald Chertavian, Cambridge Mr. Matthew Gifford, Chair, Student Advisory Council, Brookline Dr. Jeff Howard, Reading Ms. Ruth Kaplan, Brookline Dr. Dana Mohler-Faria, Bridgewater Mr. Paul Reville, Secretary of Education, Worcester Mr. David Roach, Sutton Mitchell D. Chester, Ed.D., Commissioner and Secretary to the Board The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, an affirmative action employer, is committed to ensuring that all of its programs and facilities are accessible to all members of the public. We do not discriminate on the basis of age, color, disability, national origin, race, religion, sex or sexual orientation. Inquiries regarding the Department’s compliance with Title IX and other civil rights laws may be directed to the Human Resources Director, 75 Pleasant St., Malden, MA 02148-4906. Phone: 781-338-6105. © 2012 Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Permission is hereby granted to copy any or all parts of this document for non-commercial educational purposes. Please credit the “Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.” This document printed on recycled paper Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education 75 Pleasant Street, Malden, MA 02148-4906 Phone 781-338-3000 TTY: N.E.T. Relay 800-439-2370 www.doe.mass.edu Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education 75 Pleasant Street, Malden, Massachusetts 02148-4906 Telephone: (781) 338-3000 TTY: N.E.T. Relay 1-800-439-2370 Mitchell D. Chester, Ed.D. Commissioner November 2012 Dear Members of the General Court: I am pleased to submit this report, Transition from Early Intervention to School Age Special Education: Data Report for FY11. In cooperation with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH), the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (the Department) is required by Chapter 68 of the Acts of 2011, line item 7061-0012 to track and report on the number of children receiving Early Intervention (EI) services and the number of those children who later receive special education services. At the time of this report, the confidentiality issues of two departments sharing student specific information have precluded the Department from comparing child-specific information about young children receiving EI services (from DPH data) and child-specific information about young children after age three found eligible for special education (from the Department data). Therefore, this report provides an overview of aggregate data from DPH and the Department about the number of young children receiving early intervention (EI) services who exited from EI in school year 2010-2011 (FY11); the number of those children who were determined to be potentially eligible for special education services and referred by the EI program to the local school districts for evaluation; and the number of young children who received an initial evaluation to determine eligibility for special education services. As new federal requirements for providing the Department with information about children referred by EI programs to school districts for evaluation for special education eligibility are implemented, the Department will be able to track and report this information with more specificity. If you have any questions about the report, please feel free to contact Marcia Mittnacht, State Director for Special Education, at mmmittnacht@doe.mass.edu or at 781-338-3375. Sincerely, Mitchell D. Chester, Ed.D. Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1 Federal Requirements for Early Intervention .............................................................. 2 FY11 Data ....................................................................................................................... 3 Appendix A .................................................................................................................... 8 Introduction The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (the Department) respectfully submits this Report to the Legislature pursuant to Chapter 68 of the Acts of 2011, line item 7061-0012: “…Work in conjunction with the Department of Public Health to track, by community, the number of children receiving early intervention services and the number of those children who later receive special education services, and report on the findings.” Certain laws that govern the confidentiality of personally identifiable student record information currently preclude the Department and the Department of Public Health (DPH) from sharing with each other certain student information without parental consent. For that reason, the Department is not able to track and report at this time on the number of children receiving early intervention (EI) services and who later received special education services. Because of current limitations on allowable sharing of data, the Department does not have childspecific information about children receiving EI services, and is therefore unable to crosswalk it with special education data from the Department’s Student Information Management System (SIMS). However, recent changes to federal law have amended notice requirements for referrals from EI (Part C of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act or IDEA) to special education (Part B of IDEA). These changes, which will take effect in the summer of 2012, will result in DPH having the ability to provide the Department and the school district with specific information about young children in EI programs who are deemed to be “potentially eligible” for Part B special education services. With this new information, the Department will be able to track and report with specificity on the number of children receiving EI who later receive special education. This report describes how the requested data can and will be produced in the future as a result of changed requirements in federal law. Also, the report includes aggregate information that has been provided to the Department by DPH about the number of young children exiting EI programs in FY2011, and the number of these young children who were referred to school districts because they were identified as “potentially eligible” for Part B special education services under IDEA and state special education law, G.L. c. 71B. The data on the number of children referred is sorted by community for school year 2010-2011. 1 Federal Requirements for Early Intervention The Department of Public Health (DPH) is the designated lead agency responsible for providing the early intervention program for infants and toddlers with disabilities in Massachusetts according to the requirements of Part C of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (Part C of IDEA). The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is the lead agency for special education services (Part B of IDEA) for students aged 3 through 21. Changes to Part C IDEA regulations (34 CR Part 303), which were published in the Federal Register on September 28, 2011 and made effective on October 28, 2011 (Final Regulations)1, will affect some of the ways that DPH and the Department work together. The revised regulations reflect changes made to IDEA, as amended by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004, to implement the Early Intervention Program for Infants and Toddlers with Disabilities. These new regulations have presented an opportunity to allow the Department and DPH to share information about students in a new way which will allow the agencies to track the number of children receiving EI services are who are subsequently found eligible for special education services, and other relevant information about the link between EI and special education. By way of background, the Massachusetts Early Intervention (EI) system is comprised of community-based programs certified as Early Intervention providers by DPH. EI in Massachusetts is a statewide, integrated, developmental service available to families of children between birth and three years of age. Children may be eligible for EI if they have developmental difficulties due to identified disabilities or delays, or if typical development is at risk due to certain birth or environmental circumstances. DPH Certified EI programs determine eligibility through an evaluation conducted by a multidisciplinary team based on informed clinical opinion and utilizing a DPH-approved developmental inventory tool. A young child is referred from his/her EI program to the school district where the child resides prior to the child’s third birthday if the child is determined by the EI program to be “potentially eligible” for Part B special education services. (A very small number of children are referred for other types of services, such as an early childhood program.) In general, greater numbers of children are referred than are found eligible for special education after evaluation because the criteria for determining a child is “potentially eligible” is broader than the criteria used to determine special education eligibility. The “potentially eligible” terminology comes from a requirement under the IDEA that a child served by early intervention (Part C) be referred to the school district to receive an evaluation to determine eligibility for special education (Part B) as the child approaches age three when the child appears to meet the criteria for one of more disabilities or impairments consistent with the definitions in state regulations at 603 CMR 28.02. EI providers are not required to determine specifically the type of disability a child has or may have, but rather to consider the likelihood that the child might meet the eligibility criteria for Part B. Not all children who are “potentially eligible” meet the actual eligibility criteria articulated in 603 CMR 28.05(2) and are determined to be eligible for special education under Part B. 1 The final Part C Regulations can be found at: http://idea.ed.gov/part-c/search/new, 2 Previously, federal regulations governing Part C of IDEA required EI programs to forward childspecific information for the “potentially eligible” students to the school district of residence only, and not to the Department. The Department collects student information from school districts about preschool students only after students are given a state-assigned-student-identification number (SASID) upon request by the school district. School districts do not report to the Department whether a child was referred by an EI program. Therefore, the Department was unable to track whether children who received EI services later received special education or related services. New Part C regulations require that EI programs forward child-specific information for potentially eligible children to the school district that will be asked to assess the child and to the state education agency (34 CFR § 303.209(b)). This provision takes effect on July 1, 2012. The Department currently is revising internal procedures and data collection systems to support its receipt of this information and the maintenance of it in a way that will allow for longitudinal tracking. Additionally, the Department and DPH are updating the terms of an interagency agreement to ensure the smooth transfer of information as well as a clear understanding of the responsibilities of the Part C programs and the Part B programs for data sharing, timely referrals, and evaluations. FY11 Data The following data tables include information currently available for school year 2010-2011 (FY11) about young children exiting EI and identified as potentially eligible for Part B special education. This information includes only the number of children exiting EI programs during this period, and the number of children who were referred to school districts as “potentially eligible” for special education. As noted above, with the new data sharing requirements, the Department anticipates that data reports for school year 2012-2013 will be able to reflect the number and percentage of the young children who received early intervention services that have subsequently been found eligible for special education as they enter the school age program (at age three). In school year 2010-2011, 16,798 children exited from the EI programs, and 6,601 (or 39 percent) were referred from EI programs to school districts across the Commonwealth as “potentially eligible” for special education. Reasons for exit are included in Table 1 below. 3 Table 1. Exiting Reason, FY11 FY11 Description TOTAL NUMBER OF INFANTS AND TODDLERS EXITING (ROWS 1-9) SECTION A: PROGRAM COMPLETION 1. COMPLETION OF IFSP PRIOR TO REACHING MAXIMUM AGE FOR PART C (< 3 years) 2. PART B (POTENTIALLY) ELIGIBLE (3 years) 3. PART B ELIGIBLE, CONTINUING IN PART C 4. NOT (POTENTIALLY) ELIGIBLE FOR PART B, EXIT TO OTHER PROGRAMS (3 years) 5. NOT (POTENTIALLY) ELIGIBLE FOR PART B, EXIT WITH NO REFERRALS (3 years) 6. PART B, ELIGIBLITY NOT DETERMINED (3 years) SECTION B: OTHER EXIT REASONS 7. DECEASED (all discharges) 8. MOVED OUT OF STATE (< 3 years) 9. WITHDRAWAL BY PARENT (OR GUARDIAN) (< 3 years)) 10. ATTEMPTS TO CONTACT UNSUCCESSFUL (< 3 years) Source: Massachusetts Department of Public Health Total % 16,798 100.0% 4,671 6,601 0 1,085 154 28 27.8% 39.3% NA 6.5% 0.9% 0.2% 20 497 1,823 1,919 0.1% 3.0% 10.9% 11.4% As noted in Table 1, although 6,601 potentially eligible children is 39.3 percent of all young children exiting from EI programs (16,798), this number is actually the majority (6,601/7,868 = 83.9 percent) of all children who exited EI at age three having completed the EI program. During this period, almost half of the children receiving EI services (7,868 or 46.9 percent) completed the EI program and exited from it at age three. (Table 1, A.2-A.6.) The other half (8,930 or 53.1 percent) exited for other reasons prior to age three (Table 1, A.1 and B). Table 2 lists exit and referral data by community. The total number of young children who formerly attended an EI program from each community is identified along with the total of “potentially eligible” children referred to that community’s school district for evaluation to determine if they are eligible for special education. Some of the larger cities and towns have more than 100 young children identified as potentially eligible and referred from an EI program, including: Boston received 440 potentially eligible referrals; Brockton and Fall River each received 145 potentially eligible referrals; Springfield received 311 potentially eligible referrals; and Worcester received 228 potentially eligible referrals. 4 Table 2. Number of young children receiving early intervention services by district and number referred as “potentially eligible” for special education 001 002 003 004 005 006 007 008 009 010 011 012 013 014 015 016 017 018 019 020 021 022 023 024 025 026 027 028 029 030 031 032 033 034 035 036 037 038 039 040 041 042 043 044 045 046 047 048 049 Town Total Abington Acton Acushnet Adams Agawam Alford Amesbury Amherst Andover Arlington Ashburnham Ashby Ashfield Ashland Athol Attleboro Auburn Avon Ayer Barnstable Barre Becket Bedford Belchertown Bellingham Belmont Berkley Berlin Bernardston Beverly Billerica Blackstone Blandford Bolton Boston Bourne Boxborough Boxford Boylston Braintree Brewster Bridgewater Brimfield Brockton Brookfield Brookline Buckland Burlington Cambridge Total 16,798 50 43 6 24 70 * 69 29 59 111 6 * * 37 19 126 22 17 14 73 16 5 35 24 49 51 12 * * 102 104 16 5 9 1,611 21 10 20 6 67 15 57 * 444 6 42 * 50 179 PE 6,601 21 18 * 7 37 * 19 13 17 49 * * * 15 7 53 14 7 6 34 6 * 14 7 22 19 5 * * 39 48 11 * * 445 8 * 5 * 37 * 18 * 145 5 12 * 22 49 050 051 052 053 054 055 056 057 058 059 060 061 062 063 064 065 066 067 068 069 070 071 072 073 074 075 076 077 078 079 080 081 082 083 084 085 086 087 088 089 090 091 092 093 094 095 096 097 098 099 Town Canton Carlisle Carver Charlemont Charlton Chatham Chelmsford Chelsea Cheshire Chester Chesterfield Chicopee Chilmark Clarksburg Clinton Cohasset Colrain Concord Conway Cummington Dalton Danvers Dartmouth Dedham Deerfield Dennis Dighton Douglas Dover Dracut Dudley Dunstable Duxbury EBridgewater E Brookfield ELongmeadow Eastham Easthampton Easton Edgartown Egremont Erving Essex Everett Fairhaven Fall River Falmouth Fitchburg Florida Foxborough Total 53 5 15 * 21 5 80 169 * * * 188 * * 31 13 * 25 5 * 13 71 39 58 8 27 14 13 5 79 23 * 18 40 6 20 5 33 49 5 * 8 * 128 18 433 35 142 * 35 PE 15 * 6 * 14 * 27 56 * * * 72 * * 19 8 * 9 * * * 24 24 26 * 14 7 6 * 35 14 * * 13 * 6 * 16 19 * * * * 59 7 145 14 72 * 21 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 Town Framingham Franklin Freetown Gardner Gay Head Georgetown Gill Gloucester Goshen Gosnold Grafton Granby Granville GBarrington Greenfield Groton Groveland Hadley Halifax Hamilton Hampden Hancock Hanover Hanson Hardwick Harvard Harwich Hatfield Haverhill Hawley Heath Hingham Hinsdale Holbrook Holden Holland Holliston Holyoke Hopedale Hopkinton Hubbardston Hudson Hull Huntington Ipswich Kingston Lakeville Lancaster Lanesborough Lawrence Total 158 90 17 45 * 31 * 67 * * 47 8 * 17 48 22 18 5 14 23 7 * 17 20 * 5 22 7 288 * * 60 * 19 23 6 28 273 17 31 * 70 15 * 32 24 24 12 5 320 PE 66 48 6 23 * 10 * 29 * * 25 * * 5 19 11 7 * * 8 * * * 9 * * 9 * 85 * * 29 * 10 6 * 11 112 9 8 * 34 7 * 15 11 14 5 * 127 5 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 Town Lee Leicester Lenox Leominster Leverett Lexington Leyden Lincoln Littleton Longmeadow Lowell Ludlow Lunenburg Lynn Lynnfield Malden Manchester-by-S Mansfield Marblehead Marion Marlborough Marshfield Mashpee Mattapoisett Maynard Medfield Medford Medway Melrose Mendon Merrimac Methuen Middleborough Middlefield Middleton Milford Millbury Millis Millville Milton Monroe Monson Montague Monterey Montgomery Mt Washington Nahant Nantucket Natick Needham Leicester New Bedford New Braintree Total 10 17 7 134 * 46 * * 20 28 580 22 12 365 20 136 * 67 33 6 101 43 14 6 27 20 109 31 54 12 16 119 74 * 19 102 22 18 * 53 * 17 10 * * * 7 25 52 67 170 356 * PE * 6 * 65 * 13 * * 12 14 197 11 * 127 5 61 * 29 14 * 43 16 8 * 10 8 38 11 17 6 9 40 33 * * 49 8 10 * 26 * 5 * * * * * 10 20 15 6 174 * 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 Town New Marlborough New Salem Newbury Newburyport Newton Norfolk N. Adams N. Andover N. Attleboro N. Brookfield N. Reading Northampton Northborough Northbridge Northfield Norton Norwell Norwood Oak Bluffs Oakham Orange Orleans Otis Oxford Palmer Paxton Peabody Pelham Pembroke Pepperell Peru Petersham Phillipston Pittsfield Plainfield Plainville Plymouth Plympton Princeton Provincetown Quincy Randolph Raynham Reading Rehoboth Revere Richmond Reading Rockland Rockport Rowe Rowley Royalston Total * * 8 44 140 28 34 64 73 7 25 34 35 43 * 41 20 83 8 * 6 8 * 20 20 6 126 * 28 18 * * * 128 * 27 94 7 5 * 242 81 43 59 22 150 * 168 48 11 * 15 * PE * * 5 12 39 10 9 22 39 5 9 10 19 17 * 16 7 39 * * * * * 13 10 * 41 * 11 8 * * * 46 * 12 37 * * * 110 42 19 28 8 62 * 67 19 * * * * 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 Town Russell Rutland Salem Salisbury Sandisfield Sandwich Saugus Savoy Scituate Seekonk Sharon Sheffield Shelburne Sherborn Shirley Shrewsbury Shutesbury Somerset Somerville South Hadley Southampton Southborough Southbridge Southwick Spencer Springfield Sterling Stockbridge Stoneham Stoughton Stow Sturbridge Sudbury Sunderland Sutton Swampscott Swansea Taunton Templeton Tewksbury Tisbury Tolland Topsfield Townsend Rockland Tyngsborough Tyringham Upton Uxbridge Wakefield Wales Walpole Waltham Total 6 12 97 24 * 34 54 * 28 11 36 9 6 * 6 74 * 31 145 35 15 13 69 16 29 787 13 * 57 53 18 27 30 7 8 19 33 177 11 63 7 * 11 17 -26 26 * 12 38 70 6 59 203 PE * 7 36 8 * 15 32 * 13 7 14 * * * * 32 * 17 46 18 7 5 31 9 16 311 * * 26 21 * 14 12 * * 5 11 79 * 29 * * 9 5 19 12 * 6 14 32 * 28 84 6 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 Town Total PE Town Ware 28 18 324 West Newbury Wareham 72 31 325 West Springfield Warren 11 * 326 W.Stockbridge Warwick * * 327 West Tisbury Washington * * 328 Westborough Watertown 68 24 329 Westfield Wayland 14 7 330 Westford Webster 44 20 331 Westhampton Wellesley 46 16 332 Westminster Wellfleet 5 * 333 Weston Wendell * * 334 Westport Wenham 9 * 335 Westwood West Boylston 20 7 336 Weymouth W.Bridgewater 14 * 337 Whately West Brookfield * * Source: Massachusetts Department of Public Health Total 6 93 6 * 58 164 47 * * 17 28 31 116 * PE * 39 * * 27 73 18 * * 6 13 13 68 * 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 Town Whitman Wilbraham Williamsburg Williamstown Wilmington Winchendon Winchester Windsor Winthrop Woburn Worcester Worthington Wrentham Yarmouth Total 45 18 * 9 68 21 54 * 43 84 519 * 18 41 PE 18 7 * * 34 12 24 * 14 37 228 * 10 22 DPH data show 6,601 referrals of “potentially eligible” young children for evaluation for the school year 2010-11. According to data available from the Department’s Student Information Management System (SIMS) for this same period, 4,927 two- or three year olds received an initial evaluation to determine eligibility for special education services during this period. These initial evaluation numbers suggest that only about 75 percent of the DPH referrals are represented in the Department’s SIMS data for 2010-11. Reasons for the discrepancy may include: Some referrals may have been made in 2010-11, but students were evaluated in the 201112 school year. Districts may not have requested the assignment of SASID for and submitted data reports for the young children who were referred and evaluated, but not found eligible for special education services. School district data on evaluations may include reporting errors. Of the children reported to the Department by school districts as receiving an initial evaluation, 4,791 (4,791/4,927 or 97.2 percent) were found to be eligible for special education. The Department, as part of its activities in relation to the new Part C regulations, will have greater ability to ensure that the data reported is valid and reliable for the 2012-13 school year. 7 Appendix A Chapter 68 of the Acts of 2011 7061-0012 For the reimbursement of extraordinary special education costs under section 5A of chapter 71B of the General Laws; provided, that reimbursements shall be prorated so that expenses of this item do not exceed the amount appropriated in this item; provided further, that upon receipt by the department of elementary and secondary education of required special education cost reports from school districts, the department shall reimburse districts based on fiscal year 2011 claims; provided further, that the department may expend funds to continue and expand voluntary residential placement prevention programs between the department of elementary and secondary education and other departments within the executive office of health and human services that develop community-based support services for children and their families; provided further, that the department shall provide not less than $6,500,000 to the department of developmental services for the voluntary residential placement prevention program; provided further, that the department of elementary and secondary education shall fully cooperate in providing information and assistance necessary for the department of developmental services to maximize federal reimbursement and to effectively serve students in less restrictive settings; provided further, that the department shall expend funds to provide books in accessible synthetic audio format made available through the federal NIMAS-NIMAC book repository for the outreach and training of teachers and students for the use of NIMAS-NIMAC and human speech audio digital textbooks; provided further, that the department shall expend funds for the costs of borrowing audio textbooks by special education students; provided further, that funds may be expended for the monitoring and follow-up activities of the department’s complaint management system, review and approval of local educational authority applications, and local school districts’ compliance with the part B requirements of the federal Special Education Law, known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, in the provision of special education and related services to children with disabilities; provided further, that funds may be expended to administer the reimbursements funded herein; provided further, that funds may be expended to reimburse districts for extraordinary increases in costs incurred during fiscal year 2012 which would be reimbursable under said section 5A of said chapter 71B; provided further, that reimbursements for current year costs shall be limited to school districts which experience increases of greater than 25 per cent from costs reimbursable under said section 5A of said chapter 71B and incurred during fiscal year 2011 to costs reimbursable under said section 5A of said chapter 71B and incurred during fiscal year 2012 or other cases of extraordinary hardship where special education costs increase in relationship to total district costs as the department may define through regulation or guidelines; provided further, that reimbursements for current year costs shall be allocated as one-time grants and shall not decrease reimbursements in the following fiscal year; provided further, that the department shall conduct audits of fiscal year 2011 claims; provided further, that if the claims are found to be inaccurate, the department shall recalculate the fiscal year 2012 reimbursement amount and adjust the third and fourth quarter payments to the districts to reflect the new reimbursement amount; provided further, that the department shall file a report with the house and senate committees on ways and means not later than February 15, 2012, on the results of the audit; and provided further, that the department 8 shall work in conjunction with the department of public health to track, by community, the number of children receiving early intervention services and the number of those children who later receive special education services and shall report the house and senate committees on ways and means on April 1, 2012 detailing the findings. $213,119,160 9