Changes in the Procedural Safeguards Notice
Click HERE for the most recent Procedural Safeguards Notice
Effective December 31, 2008
The Dallastown Area School District is in the process of issuing the Procedural Safeguards Notice to families with students who currently receive special education services. After the Procedural Safeguards Notice was published, the following changes were made to the document by the Pennsylvania Department of Education:
B. WHAT IS PRIOR WRITTEN NOTICE? (34 CFR §300.503)
THIS SECTION EXPLAINS WHAT, HOW, AND WHEN AN LEA MUST TELL YOU ABOUT ACTIONS IT PROPOSES OR REFUSES TO TAKE.
1. When Notice Is Required
Your local education agency (LEA) – the entity responsible for providing a free appropriate public education to your child – must notify you in writing whenever it:
a. Proposes to initiate or to change the identification, evaluation, or educational placement of your child, or the provision of a free appropriate public education (FAPE) to your child; or
b. Refuses to initiate or to change the identification, evaluation, or educational placement of your child, or the provision of FAPE to your child.
c. Change of placement for disciplinary reasons.
d. Due process hearing, or an expedited due process hearing, initiated by LEA.
e. Refusal of LEA to agree to an independent educational evaluation (IEE) at public expense.
f. Parents’ revocation of consent for special education and related services.
In Pennsylvania, prior written notice is provided by means of a LEA Prior Written Notice Form/Notice of Recommended Educational Placement. You should be given reasonable notice of this proposal or refusal so that if you do not agree with the LEA you may take appropriate action. Reasonable Notice means ten days.
2. Content of notice
The prior written notice must:
1. Describe the action that your LEA proposes or refuses to take;
2. Describe the parents’ action for the revocation of special education and related services;
3. Explain why your LEA is proposing or refusing to take the action;
4. Describe each evaluation procedure, assessment, record, or report your LEA used in deciding to propose or refuse the action;
5. Include a statement that you have protections under the procedural safeguards provisions in Part B of IDEA;
6. Tell how you can obtain a description of the procedural safeguards if the action that your LEA is proposing or refusing is not an initial referral for evaluation;
7. Include resources for you to contact for help in understanding Part B of the IDEA;
8. Describe any other choices that your child’s IEP Team considered and the reasons why those choices were rejected; and
9. Provide a description of other reasons why your LEA proposed or refused the action.
3. Notice in understandable language
a. The notice must be:
1) Written in language understandable to the general public; and
2) Provided in your native language or other mode of communication you use, unless it is clearly not feasible to do so.
3) If your native language or other mode of communication is not a written language, your LEA must ensure that:
a) The notice is translated for you orally or by other means in your native language or other mode of communication;
b) You understand the content of the notice; and
c) There is written evidence that 1 and 2 have been met.
B. WHAT IS PARENTAL CONSENT? (34 CFR §300.9)
THIS SECTION EXPLAINS WHAT INFORMED PARENTAL CONSENT IS AND WHEN YOU NEED TO PROVIDE IT, SO AN LEA MAY PROCEED AS PROPOSED IN THE NOTICE.
1. What is Parental Consent?
Consent means:
a. You have been fully informed in your native language or other mode of communication (such as sign language, Braille, or oral communication) of all information about the action for which consent is sought;
b. You understand an agree in writing to that action, and the consent describes that action and lists the records (if any) that will be released and to whom; and
c. You understand that the consent does not negate (undo) an action that has occurred after you gave your consent and before you withdrew it.
2. Can the Parent Revoke Consent?
a. Yes. You must submit written documentation to the LEA staff revoking consent for special education and related services;
b. When you revoke consent for special education and related services, the LEA must provide you with Prior Written Notice;
c. Special education and related services cannot cease until the LEA provides you with Prior Written Notice;
d. Prior notice is defined as ten calendar days;
e. LEA staff cannot use mediation or due process to override your revocation of consent;
f. The LEA will not be considered in violation of the requirement to make FAPE available to the child because of the failure to provide the child with further special education and related services;
g. The LEA is not required to amend the child’s educational records to remove any references to the child’s receipt of special education and related services because of the revocation of consent.
h. The LEA is not required to convene an IEP team meeting or develop and IEP for the child for further provision of special education and related services.