ARD AMENDMENT GUIDELINES
Amending an IEP without Convening an ARD Committee Meeting
An IEP may be amended without convening the student’s ARD Committee, but only if:
❖ the student is currently enrolled in RRISD,
❖ is currently in special education, and
❖ there is a current Annual ARD committee report filed in eStar. Annual ARD must be
within current IEP year (not school year).
The school may contact the parent if they wish to propose amendments to a student’s IEP
without an ARD committee meeting, or a parent may request the school amend their child’s IEP.
Regardless of who initiates the consideration of an IEP amendment, the school and the parent
must all agree that the IEP may be amended without holding an ARD committee meeting.
Advantages
There are many advantages to the new IEP Amendment process:
❖ It eliminates the hassles of scheduling an ARD committee meeting.
❖ You don’t have to struggle with finding an available time slot in your campus’ busy ARD
schedule.
❖ You do not have to provide formal written Notice of ARD Committee Meeting, or followup on the notice when there has been no response from the parent, or negotiate a
mutually agreeable alternate date and time.
❖ Not all of the members of the ARD committee are required for the new IEP Amendment
process.
Required Participants
There are three persons who are always required to sign and date the IEP Amendment Report:
❖ The parent, or when appropriate a guardian, surrogate parent, or an adult student.
❖ An administrative representative, such as the principal or an assistant principal.
❖ And the Special Education Representative. Typically this is the student’s Special
Education Case Manager.
❖ There are also times when a fourth person is required to be part of the IEP Amendment
process. If you are adding or discontinuing school health services, then the school nurse
must agree to the changes, complete or modify the School Health Services form, and
must sign and date the IEP Amendment report. Also, if the school nurse modifies an
existing School Health Services form, then the school nurse must sign and date the IEP
Amendment report.
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Required Communication
While the IEP Amendment process does not require a meeting, communication with parents
must be documented. This communication may occur via a meeting, such as a parent-teacher
conference or a home visit or it may involve communication via telephone calls, written notes or
e-mail but must be documented on the ARD amendment form. Attempts must be made to
obtain parent signature for the ARD amendment - there are cases where a signature may not be
returned. Use the following in determining if you can proceed with an ARD Amendment:
Proceed with ARD Amendment Decisions if:
You have verbal consent and a signature - YES
You don’t have a signature but have verbal consent - YES **Note: Must send home and archive
cover letter to ARD Amendment.
You don’t have verbal consent, but you do have a signature - YES
May not Proceed with ARD Amendment Decisions if:
You don’t have a signature and don’t have verbal consent - NO
There are some general areas of the IEP that may NOT be amended:
❖ You may not amend a transfer student’s IEP that you have adopted from another Texas
school district.
❖ You cannot use the IEP Amendment process to conduct a Manifestation Determination
review.
❖ You cannot use the IEP Amendment to change a student’s educational placement, or
instructional setting.
❖ You cannot determine or change a graduation plan.
❖ You cannot extend or shorten the current IEP end date.
❖ You cannot discontinue or change existing goals.
❖ And finally, you cannot use the IEP Amendment to “develop” a new IEP such as when
you admit a student into special education or as part of an “annual” IEP review.
The parent and school must agree to the specific amendments of the IEP. If any one of
the required members does not agree, then an ARD committee must be convened.
The printed IEP Amendment report will be a complete IEP. It will include not only the amended
areas of the IEP, but also the information in the IEP that was not amended.
When selecting a projected IEP begin date, be sure to select a date just far enough into the
future when you reasonably expect to have obtained all required signatures. The amended IEP
cannot be implemented until all required members have signed and dated the IEP Amendment
report.
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Just like a signed ARD Committee Report, the signed IEP Amendment Report is a “legal”
document and should be treated as such. The original signed IEP Amendment Report must be
filed in the student’s Special Education Audit Folder in the same section with ARD Reports. A
copy of the signed IEP Amendment Report must be provided to the parent. Remember that the
law requires schools to provide a copy of the IEP to parents in their native language. For
parents whose native language is other than English, this typically consists of an audio taped
translation.
Additional Guidance by topic for use of ARD Amendment:
Schedule of Services:
May not:
❖ You may not make changes to the student’s schedule that would result in a change in
their instructional arrangement or graduation plan.
❖ You may not add service support and minutes to an instructional area that is not
supported by PLAAFP or an evaluation.
❖ You may not use an amendment to add or dismiss related services, with the exception of
transportation.
❖ You may not use an amendment to change to modified curriculum.
Can do:
❖ You may adjust minutes for resource, inclusion and move from direct to consult for
related services as long as the change does not alter the instructional arrangement.
❖ Correct clerical errors--such as month to weekly on schedule. You can amend incorrect
minutes that do not change IA and are listed in the deliberations and change progress
determined by ”…”.
❖ Amend Level change ARDs--if minutes for instruction change after the meeting due to
schedule differences at receiving school.
❖ You may use an amendment to add supplementary aids/services (nursing, personal
care, change Focus times).
❖ You can modify supplementary aid schedule areas including Individual Personal Care
Services (IPCS) and School Health Services (SHS).
❖ You may use an amendment to add ESY services.
❖ You may use an amendment to change ESY time such as number of hours.
❖ You may extend In-Home Training sessions if all parties agree to extend beyond the
number initially agreed upon by the ARD Committee.
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Supplements:
May not:
❖ To address supplements that have not already been addressed through an ARD.
Can do:
❖ You can modify all areas of Transition.
❖ You can address the need for Assistive Technology.
❖ You can modify areas including Individual Personal Care Services (IPCS) and School
Health Services (SHS); and the Autism supplement (i.e. communication strategies, staff
to student ratios, training, etc.)..
REED (Review of Existing Evaluation Data)
May not:
❖ Be used to continue/roll an eligibility
❖ You may not address eligibility. This means you cannot determine that a student is
eligible and admit the student into special education, nor can you determine that a
student is no longer eligible and dismiss the student from special education. You cannot
add, drop or change disability labels.
❖ Be used to complete a Senior REED
❖ May NOT be used to review evaluation results from a special request that result in a new
service or eligibility.
Can do:
❖ May be used when requesting updated assessment for upcoming three year
reevaluation.
❖ May be used to request an evaluation for Adapted P.E., Occupational Therapy, Music
Therapy, Physical Therapy, Counseling, Speech Language, AI, VI, O&M, Psychological,
etc.
Related Service:
May not:
❖ Be used to add an eligibility for related service with the exception of transportation
❖ Be used to dismiss an eligibility
❖ Be used to review an assessment
Can do:
❖ Be used to request a new related service assessment
❖ Be used to change the number of minutes or add/change supplementary services as
long as it does not change the student’s instructional arrangement
❖ Be used to update an objective - as long as PLAAFPs would not require a change
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FBA/BIP
May not:
❖ Add a new BIP
❖ Change or Discontinue Behavior Goals
❖ Create/review a new FBA
Can do:
❖ Update the existing FBA/BIP, as long as it does not alter the areas that would require a
new FBA such as behaviors reported, function of behavior or the BIP target behavior.
❖ Discontinue a BIP (but behavior goals must remain active)
❖ Change objectives in behavioral goals supporting BIP as long as it reflects info currently
in the PLAAFP
Goals/Objectives
May not:
❖ Add an Annual Goal
❖ Add Annual Goal for new Related Service (i.e., OT, PT, O&M, etc.)
❖ Do Anything to Annual Goal
❖ Add objective if PLAAFP needs to be updated.
Can do:
❖ Can add objective related to Annual Goal (as long as PLAAFP information has not
changed)
❖ May be used to update mastery criteria of objective(s)
❖ Discontinue or Mastery of an objective(s)
❖ Addition/Change of a method of evaluation
❖ Addition/Removal of a provider to an objective (i.e., OT, SLP, etc.)
❖ Addition of a service to an objective (i.e., IHT, ESY, adding counseling to an existing
social skills goal/objective) - as long as SOS does not change instructional arrangement.
❖ If all objectives met at current mastery level, then can consider raising the objective(s)
mastery level.
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State Testing/Modifications/Accommodations
May not:
❖ Other than testing accommodations, you cannot amend assessment decisions for State
Testing. In other words, you cannot change which assessment should be administered
to a student.
❖ Change STAAR levels (example: from Modified to Alternate)
Can do:
❖ You can amend how the curricular content, or “TEKS,” of a general education course is
modified.
❖ You can amend accommodations, including those for assessments as well as others
routinely used in the classroom.
❖ May change the complexity levels within STAAR-Alt
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