1. Students who are currently enrolled in ESOL services must be
referred to the BAT office before the student is referred to the Individualized
Education Program (IEP) team.
2. Students who have been exited
from ESOL within one calendar year of subsequent referral to the school IEP team should
be referred to the BAT before they are referred to the IEP
team.
3. Private school students in Montgomery
County who meet one of the criteria listed above or
who received all of their schooling in a language other
than English may be referred to the BAT through the
Division of Placement and Assessment Services Unit as private
school referrals.
The Educational Management Team (EMT), including
the ESOL teacher, should have implemented systematic interventions and documented their effectiveness
before referring an English
Language Learner (ELL) to the BAT office. The appropriate ESOL
instructional specialist can provide advice and suggestions
during this process. Following implementation of interventions and referral for language dominance determination, students who do not show appropriate
progress and students who show
evidence of a disability should be referred
to the IEP Team.
The EMT should request completion of a language dominance assessment before the screening IEP team meeting is held.
Action Steps for ELL students prior to referral for IEP screening:
- Initiate Collaborative Problem Solving
- Implement interventions/accommodations with integrity
- Use data-based decision making to determine if the intervention is successful
- Return to Collaborative Problem Solving/EMT when interventions are not successful to determine next steps
- When EMT team data supports the suspicion of an educational disability and the student is a student identified in #2 above, then the EMT refers to BAT for language dominance determination before the IEP screening so that the results of the language dominance determination will be available during the screening IEP meeting.
- Refer to IEP Team and BAT (Use MCPS
Form 336-26.)
- BAT will assign an instructional
assessment specialist to determine student's dominant language
- The instructional assessment specialist
may attend screening IEP meeting, report on language dominance, participate in discussions, and help with testing decisions.
Federal and state laws require that special education
eligibility testing be conducted in a student's primary
language when feasible. The main purpose of a language dominance determination is to determine the appropriate language(s) for testing if evaluation is recommended by the IEP team. There
are essentially three possible outcomes from language dominance
assessment:
1. First Language Dominant: All
testing should be done bilingually. Educational and
psychological assessments will be done by the BAT. Speech-language
assessments in Spanish or French will be done by the
BAT except in special circumstances dictated by the
Speech and Language Programs office.
Speech-language assessments in languages other than Spanish or French will be done by school-based personnel with an interpreter. 2. English Dominant: All testing
will be conducted in English by school-based personnel.
3. Mixed Dominant: Typically, a student who demonstrates mixed language dominance is more competent academically in English
than in his or her first language but the student may understand and communicate better in his or her first language. For this reason, the educational assessment
is done by local school personnel in English, but the psychological
and speech-language assessments are completed bilingually.
1. If an assessment plan has been developed, testing
is assigned based on the findings from the language dominance determination.
2.
If the school is requesting BAT to complete assessments(s) the school personnel must send a complete BAT referral (MCPS form 336-26) and packet with all necessary documents to the BAT office. Referrals should be sent to the BAT office as soon as possible after the IEP meeting.
3. A school representative should contact the BAT office 3 work days after the referral has been mailed to the BAT office to confirm its receipt.
4. When the BAT office receives the referral, the appropriate personnel will be assigned to
conduct the requested assessments.
5. School personnel need to obtain an interpreter
for the Evaluation IEP meeting.
6. BAT assessments will be reviewed at the Evaluation IEP meeting.
As timelines and scheduling permit, the BAT psychologist assigned to a case may attend the Evaluation IEP meeting; otherwise assessments should be reviewed by members of the school IEP team.
Phone the BAT office at 301-230-0656.
Other questions can be directed
to the BAT instructional assessment specialist assigned
to the school. |
