Pre-Referral Process for SPED

From what I've researched, the purpose of the pre-referral process is to ensure your child tries reasonable modifications before she’s referred for special education assessment. Sometimes, a change in the classroom can turn her performance around and make it unnecessary to consider a SPED referral.  The pre-referral team goes by different names in different places. In some schools, it’s called the Student Study Team (SST) while in others, it’s the Student Intervention Team, Child Study Team, Teacher Support Team, and Student Success Team. Regardless of its name, the purpose of the team is to:

• work together to identify your child's teams
• put strategies into action, and
• evaluate their impact so your child can succeed in the general education classroom.

Team Members:

There are no rules for membership on a pre-referral team. Generally, the team includes general education teachers, who are most familiar with the general education classroom and curriculum, and a counselor or administrator. The team may also include a school psychologist, special education teachers, and related service personnel, such as speech and language pathologists. Each school selects team members depending on what works best for them.

As a parent, you’re a key member of this team. Although law doesn’t require a pre-referral meeting and parent participation isn’t guaranteed, most schools include parents in this process. You’re the one most familiar with your child’s behavior needs.

Process:

Although the steps may vary by school, here’s what often occurs:

Your child is referred to the pre-referral team because there’s a concern about her academic skills or behavior. Although anyone who knows your child can refer her, usually it’s you or the classroom teacher who makes the referral. You’ll be asked to identify specific area(s) of concern, such as not turning in assignments, earning poor grades in a subject area, not paying attention, having trouble understanding homework assignments.

There is a team meeting which goes over many of these steps:

• Reviewing your child’s strengths, interests, and talents.
• Discuss reasons for referral, overall performance level, and behavior in the classroom.
• List interventions previously tried and their rate of success. (School interventions may include modifications, accommodations and behavior plans.)
• Select interventions to try.
• Develop a plan for carrying them out.
• Agree on a time to meet again to discuss progress.
• Put the intervention into action and evaluate it over time. The timeline can vary greatly — from a couple of weeks to a school quarter or trimester, depending on the type of program set up.
• The team meets again to discuss the success of the intervention. As a result of the intervention, did your child’s performance improve, remain the same, or decrease?

If the interventions are effective and your child seems to be back on track, schools generally continue with the plan and hold future meetings as needed. This suggests your child doesn’t need a special education evaluation at this time. Most likely, he will benefit from instruction in the general education classroom with continuing interventions.

Outcomes:

If the interventions don’t bring about desired change, the team may decide to:

• try another intervention or change the current one
• refer your child for a special education evaluation to find out if he’s eligible for special education services as a student with a disability.