Bennington Public Schools

Individual Education Plans (IEPs) are written for students who receive special education services.  IEPs document the student's present level of functioning, set annual goals for improvement, and designate the specially designed instruction and modifications that a student requires to remediate their deficits.  The document itself is much lengthier than a 504, and parents have specific rights when their child receives special education services that are different from those afforded by a 504. Please see “Parental Rights” for further information.  IEPs are rewritten annually, and students are re-evaluated every three years to determine eligibility for special education services.  IEPs are legally binding documents enforced through the Office of Special Education (OSEP).  The IEP Team is responsible for the implementation of IEPs.

Parental Rights
Parents have specific legal rights throughout the special education process. These are referred to as Procedural Safeguards. A copy of these rights can be found here.

Nebraska Department of Education, Rule 51- Regulations and Standards for Special Education Programs – includes 13 primary terms under the main definition of “a child with a disability.” These definitions guide how states define who is eligible for a free appropriate public education under special education law. 

Autism
To qualify for special education services in the category of Autism, the child must have a developmental disability which significantly affects verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, is generally evident before the age of three, and adversely affects the child’s educational performance. Other characteristics often associated with autism are: engagement in repetitive activities and stereotyped movements, resistance to environmental change or change in daily routine, and unusual responses to sensory experiences.  Autism does not apply if a child’s educational performance is adversely affected primarily because the child has an emotional disturbance as defined in 92 NAC 51-006.04E.  A child who manifests the characteristics of autism after age three could be identified as having autism if the other criteria in NAC 51 – 006.04B1 are satisfied.

Deaf-Blindness
To qualify for special education services in the category of Deaf-Blindness, the child must have concomitant hearing and visual impairments, the combination of which causes: severe communication needs; and other developmental and educational needs.  The severity of these needs is such that they cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for children with deafness or blindness.

Developmental Delay
Developmental Delay shall mean either a significant delay as measured by appropriate diagnostic instruments and procedures in one or more of the following areas and, by reason thereof needs special education and related services: Cognitive development; Physical development; Communicative development; Social or Emotional development; or Adaptive behavior or skills development, or a diagnosed physical or medical condition that has a high probability of resulting in a substantial delay in function in one or more of such areas. Developmental delay must be considered as one possible eligibility category for infants and toddlers birth through age four, and is a discretionary option for school districts to use for children age five through eight. A child remains eligible for services under the category of developmental delay through the school year in which the child reaches age eight.

Emotional Disturbance 
To qualify for special education services in the category of emotional disturbance, the child must have a condition exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time and to a marked degree that adversely affects the child’s educational performance: 1) an inability to learn which cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors; 2) an inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers; 3) inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances; 4) a general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression; or 5) a tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems.  The term includes schizophrenia. The term does not apply to children with social maladjustments, unless it is determined that they have an emotional disturbance.

Hearing Impairment
To qualify for special education services in the category of Hearing Impairment, a child must have an impairment in hearing which is so severe that the child is impaired in processing linguistic information through hearing, with or without amplification, or is permanent of fluctuating, and adversely affects the child’s educational performance.

Intellectual Disability
To qualify for special education services in the category of Intellectual Disability, the child must demonstrate significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested during the developmental period, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.

Multiple Impairments
To qualify for special education services in the category of Multiple Impairments, the child must have concomitant impairments (such as intellectual disability-visual impairment, intellectual disability-orthopedic impairment), the combination of which causes such severe educational needs that they cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for one of the impairments.  This classification does not include children with deaf-blindness.

Orthopedic Impairments
To qualify for services in the category of Orthopedic Impairment, the child must have a severe orthopedic impairment that adversely affects the child’s educational performance.  The category includes children with impairments caused by congenital anomaly, Impairments caused by disease (e.g., poliomyelitis, bone tuberculosis), and Impairments from other causes (e.g., cerebral palsy, amputations and fractures or burns that cause contractures).

Other Health Impairment
To qualify for special education services in the category of Other Health Impairment, the child must have limited strength, vitality or alertness, including a heightened alertness to environmental stimuli that results in limited alertness with respect to the educational environment that is due to chronic or acute health problems which adversely affects the child’s educational performance such as: asthma, attention deficit disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, diabetes, epilepsy, a heart condition, hemophilia, lead poisoning, leukemia, nephritis, rheumatic fever, sickle cell anemia, and Tourette syndrome.

Specific Learning Disability
To qualify for special education services in the category of specific learning disability, the child must have a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, that may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell or to do mathematical calculations. The category includes conditions such as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia. The category does not include children who have learning problems that are primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor disabilities; of intellectual disabilities; of emotional disturbance; or of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.

Speech-Language Impairment
To qualify for special education services in the category of Speech-Language Impairment, the child must have a communication disorder such as stuttering, impaired articulation, language impairment, or a voice impairment. This disorder must adversely affect the child’s educational performance.

Traumatic Brain Injury
To qualify for special education services in the category of Traumatic Brain Injury, the child must have an acquired injury to the brain caused by external physical force resulting in total or partial functional disability or psychosocial impairment, or both, that adversely affects the child’s educational performance.  The category includes open or closed head injuries resulting in impairments in one or more areas such as cognition, language, memory, attention, reasoning, abstract thinking, judgment, problem solving, sensory, perceptual and motor abilities, psychosocial behavior, physical functions, information processing, and speech.  The category does not include brain injuries that are congenital or degenerative, or brain injuries induced by birth trauma.

Visual Impairment including Blindness
To qualify for special education services in the category of Visual Impairment, including blindness, the child must have an impairment in vision that, even with correction, adversely affects the child’s educational performance. This category includes children who have partial sight or blindness.

Parents of students who have IEPs will find that the IEP team will include the student as a part of the team as he or she approaches 14 years of age.  We encourage students to develop self-advocacy skills and voice their input on post-secondary plans at this age, and the team will begin to set goals and connect students and families to services outside of the school district that may be useful as the student prepares for adulthood.  Students who do not graduate with a signed high school diploma are eligible to continue receiving special education services through the year in which they turn 21 years of age.  Students who receive a high school diploma after the completion of 12th grade will no longer be eligible for special education services, but may receive accommodations at a post-secondary institution, if their plan is to attend a college or university after high school. 

We understand that navigating the transition between having a school age child to that child becoming a young adult can be very overwhelming. Below are resources and contacts that may be of assistance to you as you progress through this process.

Resource Links:

Developmental Disabilities

Transitioning-from-High-School - there are many resources on this webpage, below are two that we have found to be most helpful

• Along the Way: A Guide for Adolescents and Young Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities 
• Available Services for Teens & Young Adults with Developmental Disabilities - created by DDD, Nebraska VR and the Department of Education to explain what each provides during and after highschool

Easterseals Nebraska

• Questions regarding Easterseals NE may be directed towards Shawn Newill at s.newill@ne.easterseals.com

PTI Nebraska

PTI Nebraska is a resource that may be able to assist parents with questions regarding processes, paperwork, and system navigation surrounding application completion for Developmental Disability Services.This resource also assists families in many other avenues related to students with disabilities.

Individual Education Plans (IEPs) are written for students who receive special education services.  IEPs document the student's present level of functioning, set annual goals for improvement, and designate the specially designed instruction and modifications that a student requires to remediate their deficits.  The document itself is much lengthier than a 504, and parents have specific rights when their child receives special education services that are different from those afforded by a 504. IEPs are rewritten annually, and students are re-evaluated every three years to determine eligibility for special education services.  IEPs are legally binding documents enforced through the Office of Special Education (OSEP).  The IEP Team is responsible for the implementation of IEPs.

504 Plans are written for students with disabilities who receive all of their instruction within the general education setting.  These students are able to adequately complete their educational programs alongside their peers when given accommodations, rather than modifications, to allow them to access the general education setting. These students do not require specially designed instruction to in order to access the general education curriculum. 504 Plans are reviewed annually, and are legally binding documents enforced through the Office of Civil Rights (OCR). 

Medical professionals may recommend an IEP or 504 Plan. The school district will take recommendations into consideration, but special education evaluation may still be necessary to determine if the student has a disability under one of the 13 identification areas.