Is your child eligible for ESY?
The IEP team is responsible for making this determination. On the IEP, this page is listed as Special Education Determinations. “Determine whether the student needs an extended school year (ESY) program. An extended school year program is provided in accordance with the student’s IEP when an interruption in educational programming causes the student’s performance to revert to a lower level of functioning and recoupment cannot be expected in a reasonable length of time.”
Further,”1. The district board of education shall not limit extended school year services to particular categories of disability or limit the type, amount, or duration of those services.” [N.J.A.C. 6A:14-4.3(c)]
The team must list “relevant” factors to support its determination.
What are these factors?
All team decisions must be based on a solid base of information about your child:
- All evaluations—academic, medical, mental health, etc.
- Progress on goals from year to year. For example, if your child read at a 1.2 level at the beginning of grade 2, 1.9 at the beginning of grade 3, and now, in grade 4, is reading at 2.0, there is a problem. Yes, progress is being made; however, at this rate, he/she will be experiencing a wider gap every year and will be unable to understand grade level materials.
- Parent comments on progress
- Teacher and other stakeholder (psychologist, therapist, etc.) comments on progress.
- Basically, the team must be looking at data that informs them if a child (a) may not be able to call upon previously learned skills with an extended interruption of instruction (e.g., summer vacation) and/or (b) has demonstrated “emerging skills” in a goal and will not be able to acquire that skill with an interruption of instruction.
The team must then review the instruction, related services, and assistive technology provided within consideration of the school day* to determine if ESY should be implemented.
*NOTE: ESY is typically delivered during summer vacation; however, it can also be an extended school day during the course of the regular school year. For example, if a student requires three 30-minute individual speech sessions per week during the school year in order to meet a goal, and the team finds it’s not possible to deliver that service during the school day due to the student’s schedule, the team can offer those sessions before or after school during the regular school year. The district would be required to provide transportation as well.
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