Delayed or Denied Evaluations & Compensatory Services
WHAT ARE COMPENSATORY SERVICES?
Compensatory services are used to help students make up for progress or skills they lost when their special education services were not provided. This includes situations where a child does not get special education services because he or she was denied a timely initial evaluation, but later found eligible.
If an initial evaluation was denied when it should not have been, compensatory services may be needed to make up for the delay in your child getting special education services.
WHO DECIDES IF COMPENSATORY SERVICES ARE NEEDED?
Admission, Review, and Dismissal (ARD) committees decide if compensatory services are needed and what those services will be. Parents and guardians are members of the ARD committee. Your participation is very important.
Decisions about compensatory services have to be made for your child as an individual. The ARD committee will discuss the amount and type of special education services that your child did not receive and any non-special education supports, services, or interventions that were provided.
HOW DO I REQUEST COMPENSATORY SERVICES FOR MY CHILD?
If you believe your child needs compensatory services then you should request an ARD committee meeting. Parents may request an ARD Committee Meeting at any time. It is best to put your request in writing to an administrator. Your child’s school must respond to your request and let you know if it agrees or refuses to meet.
HOW WAS YOUR CHILD IMPACTED BY NOT RECEIVING SPECIAL EDUCATION SERVICES?
Think about the supports, services, or interventions that your child received before they were eligible for special education and how well they worked.
- Did your child improve?
- Did your child’s skill gaps get bigger or smaller?
- Be ready to talk about what worked and what didn’t and what progress you noticed.
WHAT SERVICES DO YOU THINK YOUR CHILD NEEDS?
If compensatory services are needed, think carefully about how and when those services could be provided. It’s very important to have high expectations for your child’s learning but at the same time to be careful to not overwhelm your child by adding in too much at one time and causing problems in another area.
Providing compensatory services doesn’t mean that every minute of service that wasn’t provided needs to be made up. Try to think more about how to reduce the impact of missing those services and ways that your child’s progress can be accelerated rather than simply making up for service minutes that weren’t provided.
