The Scoop

Hello TISD Special Services #IslandInnovators! I am so excited to see all we can do for our students and families during the 2024-2025 School Year! Your dedication, passion, energy and innovation will make Tomball ISD a true Destination for Excellence and our own little slice of Paradise!

The Scoop is a place for you to make sure you are in the know and have all the information you need. You are responsible for the information in the SCOOP. If you need clarification, please reach out to your Student Support Specialist or me.

You all do an amazing job and service for our students, families and staff. You set the stage for communication, service and trust. Keep building that community trust with parents, students and staff and over communicate!

~Keri

Team Tomball is doing an amazing job drinking and reporting their water intake!!

Keep up the great health and wellness this month and participate and report your water consumption… even if you don’t feel you met your goal, go ahead and report.

Lastly, check out our TISD MOVES site with healthy tips and information!

**** We are listed with C&I department, so participate and report under C&I.****

If you were not able to complete the survey at the Cross Talk Meeting on Friday, please do so by this Friday! We do review all feedback to help us improve as a department!

https://forms.gle/ip2AAkbuTzs5iNpP6

As we prepare for our Annual ARD meetings in October, please ensure that Extended School Year (ESY)services are considered during the meeting. Case Managers should assess whether students regressed over the summer and if they recouped skills by the first progress report. Avoid stating that we will "wait and see"; instead, use current data to determine eligibility for ESY. For students who have not been in special education long enough to have relevant data, we will indicate "no" for ESY. If circumstances change, we can address this in a Revision ARD.

For students eligible for ESY, please upload the data in Frontline Archive Manager, select "Yes" for ESY, complete the ESY supplement, and specify the goals affected by selecting ESY on the goal. Don't forget to add the ESY dates to the schedule of service page. Also, address transportation needs and complete the ESY section of the transportation supplement if transportation is needed for the summer. Add the student’s name to this list. Please share the ESY Google form with the parents. You can check if the parents completed the form using this link.

If you have questions, please reach out to your student support specialist.

Special Education Language Acquisition (SELA) is a yearly data collection process for children who are deaf or hard of hearing and are eight years old or younger. The data is used to create a report on the children's language acquisition.

In Tomball ISD we will have 3 scenarios for completion of this requirement:

Cy Fair based TISD students: Cy Fair will assess and report.

TISD based students receiving itinerant services: The itinerant teachers will reach out to parents that meet the criteria (DHH or DB and 0-8 years old) to obtain consent. They will coordinate with the ARD team to complete the assessment.

TISD students not receiving direct DHH services:

a. The Assistant Director of Student Support will complete the SELA spreadsheet with student names and campuses each year.

b. Diagnosticians will update the spreadsheet with any students transferred in or added that meet the criteria during the year.

c. TISD campus SLP will obtain * consent from parents and coordinate with the team as needed, as to what approved assessment is appropriate.

d. Eileen Garza with support of the team, will provide information on amplification questions.

e. Document results using assessment rubric on this spreadsheet by April 30th.

1. Unless a student is undergoing sped evaluation, results do not need to be in a formal report, rather place protocol and consent in the protocol folder and send it to Student Support.

ii. Upload consent into eSped.

*click here for Spanish and Vietnamese versions on the TEA website

Letter from TEA explaining the consent form. This is for our information only.

SAAH

Speech Only Students: 00 instructional code with 24 as the speech indicator code (previous 1)

Speech & Other Services: instructional code anything other than 00 with 25 as the speech indicator code (previous 2)

No Speech Services: instructional code anything other than 00 with 23 as the speech indicator code (previous 0)

If you have any questions, then reach out to your student support specialist.

Expectations for Prior Written Notice (PWN) and Deliberations

Remember that deliberations need to be personalized to show parent participation along with what was considered and decided upon in the meeting. All parent requests will be considered with a district response either accepting the request, explaining (using data) why the request is not necessary for FAPE, or discuss how the need is already addressed within the current IEP. The deliberations always need to be read aloud.

#FAPE Amendment Without a Meeting

Here is a helpful document on how to complete an amendment.

The people who sign the amendment should be all of the required stakeholders that would be necessary to hold an ARD.

FAQs For the Re-Evaluation Process

All three-year reevaluations due through September 30, 2025 should already be discussed to determine what is needed. All stakeholders need to be involved in this decision including the parents. Call parents and discuss the evaluation needs and make sure you document the conversation in the Frontline Parent Log. Remember parents have a right to request formal evaluation and we need to make sure to share this information with the parent. It is okay to explain why formal testing may not be necessary, however, please explain to the parents how the evaluation team can address their concerns without formal testing (i.e. How much progress has the student made?).

#EVALUATION-Independent Educational Evaluation

Parents have the right to request an IEE for the areas of a suspected disability that the school district evaluated for or should have evaluated for. If data indicates that another area may be impacting a student (other than the suspected area) then we must explore that area.

Make sure when requesting consent to include all areas of the evaluation which allows for informal or formal assessments to be conducted as determined by the evaluator if needed. This will keep us from limiting the scope of our evaluations.

Please make sure we are archiving the notice and consent.

Please find these visual supports to communicate with other adults supporting during a crisis moment. These visuals will give clear guidance to other adults assisting to know what to do without alerting the students or having to use too much verbal communication.

Please find classroom set up grids, links to strategies, video tutorials/modeling, etc at this website designed for staff supporting students in self contained settings. Region 6 Education Service Center - Professional Learning Lab for Universal Structured Environments and Supports (esc6.net)

Community Connections assists Special Services in making key chain visuals for staff. There is a minimum of a 1-2 week turn around. If you or anyone on your campus needs the lanyard visuals, please use the link below to order:

Key Ring Visual Order Form

Voter Registration Deadline Oct. 7

Less than three weeks remain for Texas voters to register to vote or update their registrations for the Nov. 5 election. By Oct. 7, voters should verify their voter registration here to ensure that their names and addresses are correct and that their registration statuses are “active.” Name and address changes can be made online.

If you’ve never registered to vote, a fillable online form can be completed, printed, and mailed following the instructions here. Public libraries often carry paper registration forms with postage paid.

Texas does not offer online voter registration.

Physical Therapy facts you may not know:

1. Physical therapy now requires practitioners to be educated at the doctoral level. Yes Whitnee is actually Dr. Drake and Cindy is Dr. Gunn. Neither find the Dr. title important, and only want to be known as our gracious partners for students.

2. Physical therapy education program require a minimum of a 3.8 GPA to even be considered for the program. It is described by many in the medical arena as the most challenging degree to obtain(yes even more that becoming a medical doctor).

3. Physical therapy in schools focuses on helping children with disabilities to “access”, “participate”, and “perform” in the routines and activities required of them in their school day. Each day Whitnee and Cindy apply their knowledge of neuromotor functioning and skill with various intervention methods to support children, their teachers and their families. And, they make it look so easy.

Help us celebrate Whitnee and Cindy - share your quotable recognitions at:

https://forms.gle/Ze2FeD7As2CdnN4BA

• A huge shout-out to Lucinda Marcia! She has worked on a packet of information to provide parents of students she tests in Early Childhood students, in both English and Spanish. THANK YOU Lucinda for providing our students' parents with information to help them help their child!! You are a blessing and much appreciated team member!

• A giant shout-out to Hayley Turner! The school psychologist team often needs to explain the difference between special education criteria for autism and DSM-V-TR criteria (used for diagnoses by medical, psychological, and psychiatry professionals). Hayley found an article regarding a due process hearing in which this subject was addressed. This is incredibly helpful information for us and we appreciate her diligence in finding this. Hayley - we appreciate your research and contributions to the team! THANK You Hayley!

• Thursday, October 10 - Work Day
• Friday, October 11 - Exchange Day (Grades Due)
• Monday, October 14 - Campus PLC Day
• Check HERE for the rest of the year meetings for Special Services

Tina Powell - 9/7

Rosmari Boyrie - 9/21

Tina Ayala - 9/27

Robanne Roberts - 9/29

Brenda Knoepffler - 9/30

Tomball Education Foundation continues to provide grants for TISD staff through an application process to support innovative instruction and high academic achievement. As you plan with your teams before school, please keep in mind the opportunity to be funded for innovative practices. The deadline to apply is Friday, October 18. Last year we were able to provide $125,000 to the TISD staff. Grants can be written as a team or as an individual. If you have questions, please contact us through the Tomball Education Foundation website: www.tomballedfoundation.com/

We just received updated information, and TEA has extended the free access to ATIA webinars for the 24-25 school year. ATIA Videos provide free ASHA credits. Also AOTA, APTA and IACET. ATIA stands for Assistive technology industry association

Here is the link:

https://links-1.govdelivery.com/CL0/https:%2F%2Fspedsupport.tea.texas.gov%2Flearning-library%2Fassistive-technology-industry-association-atia%3Futm_medium=email%26utm_source=govdelivery/1/01000191a4f50317-e7cb9210-8af9-41cc-87c3-3866e37ea9a0-000000/Rghob1Uk5feswgqsbakJySYbsKy8bP6BCbDyW_AorC4=368

The code is: PD25TEA

PASSionate ABout Kids!

Behavior Bulletin

Specialized Support Snippits

Lip Ledger

If you are tweeting anything this school year, do not include identifying information of students nor students that are identified with a "red button". Please use our hashtag: #IslandInnovators our district hashtags: #DestinationParadise, #DestinationExcellence and feel free to tag @gibby1112 and @TStudentSupport

Student Support Personnel by Campus

Our Student Support Personnel are listed by campus on the link above. This will help ensure you know your student support specialist as well as other campus contacts.