While I'm generally enjoying my school, I've found myself stuck in the middle between evaluation requests and administration bucking it off. I'm new enough that I dno't want to stick my neck out too far, but administration insists that RTIs are necessary for the IEP process and refuses to consider them without one.
My school's RTI program is run through our Title I coordinator. If there's a chance to pull in that service, I would recommend it as a way to provide limited intervention services.
Possibly a state specific thing, but here, RtI is pretty much required for evaluations, if you're talking about identifying learning disabilities. There are two main criteria that must be met in order for the child to be eligible, and one of those is documented non-response to research based interventions. So if you haven't done RtI you really don't have that, and low testing alone will not qualify the child. Technically we are told that if you suspect a disability, you can sign permission for the evaluation and collect the RtI data as part of the 60 day evaluation process. There is also extension paperwork you can have the parent sign if you're specifically looking at SLD- if more time is needed for that RtI piece. But in most cases it's hard to say "we suspect a disability" if literally no intervention has been done at all. Especially in these times where we're getting further and further away from the last "normal school year" for these students (or for K-2, they've never had a normal year). We're seeing a lot of situations where kids are coming in super low, and then we find out their district was remote practically all last year and the kid never logged on. We can't just right away say we suspect a disability in that scenario. My school provides tons and tons of reading intervention for all students; far more than what the vast majority of actually identified students would be getting anywhere else. So I've occasionally seen it done in my school where we sign permission for an evaluation without "doing an RtI process" but really that just means we didn't have meetings and fill out forms. The information that the child received intensive interventions and their progress monitoring data is still all there and can be used for the evaluation.
Good point. In the current situation, the parent has an expired IEP from the last school, medical diagnoses, etc., and has requested we look at renewing the IEP. I admit I was under the impression that RTI doesn't trump an actual request for evaluation, though.
If the student has an expired IEP, that's an entirely different situation. I'm not sure under what circumstances it expired, but in that case a new initial evaluation would need to be done immediately. A disability is already "suspected" based on the student's previous involvement in special education.
