What programs do you evaluate?

Private Special Education School Placement: Each special education private school has a unique offering to prospective students and families. When the decision is made by the IEP/PPT team to meet a student’s needs outside of their home district, the process of selecting the best option can be overwhelming for teams. Illumine Collaborative’s extensive experience working with a wide range of students and schools functions as an objective perspective to inform the team of appropriate placement options.

This same service can also be useful in guiding the IEP/PPT team’s planning for a student’s transition back to the home district from an alternative placement. To protect the progress that a student has made in a special education school, adequate planning for the generalization of skills into the home district setting is vital. We provide assessment and recommendations for a transition plan that will consider the academic, social and emotional needs of the student and how to best facilitate a smooth transition.

Special Education Programs: Along the continuum of services, schools provide varying levels of supports and instructional settings to meet students’ needs. Developing this continuum can be daunting and can inadvertently under serve some students. Given our experience with general and special education in a variety of settings, we offer a fresh perspective to schools on how they can best utilize their supports and resources to maximize student progress and ensure the program’s sustained effectiveness.

While we offer program evaluations and recommendations for programs and schools that serve many students, we also offer evaluations of individualized programs for specific students. This evaluation can serve as a “second opinion” to an IEP/PPT team that may need more information to reach a consensus on developing the IEP or as a tool to evaluate potential barriers to a student’s progress.

Can a parent request a program evaluation?

This service is best utilized if agreed to by the IEP/PPT team as a resource for collecting information to develop an IEP and determine appropriate placement. Since parents are a valuable member of these teams, they may request this service from the team, however, the district is not required to fund these evaluations.

If a parent chooses to fund an individual program evaluation, this would include a review of pertinent student records provided by the parent. After review, we will offer recommendations for the parent to bring to the IEP/PPT team. In addition, a review of the applicable state’s “Parent Rights” or “Procedural Safeguards” will be given along with any applicable advisement pertaining to these rights.