Complaint Summary

Date:

February 15, 2024

Case Number:

24-0290

Grade Level:

Middle

Person filing complaint:

Parent

School District:

Manchester Public Schools (single student) and Magnet School

Allegation(s):

• Failure to provide FAPE due to fidelity of IEP implementation and staff qualifications. (34 CFR § 300.101)

Conclusion(s):

• The Magnet School is out of compliance with 34 CFR § 300.17(d) as the Student’s IEP services were not fully implemented.
• Neither the District nor the School are in violation of providing staff that is not in compliance with the Student’s IEP as specific reading interventions and the necessary qualifications of School staff to implement those interventions are recorded on the Student’s IEPs. Since the IEP is the definitive record of the full program that is required to be provided to a student, and, when services were provided, the School did provide the staff that is listed on the Student’s IEP.
• The Student’s IEP did not provide FAPE as written progress report indicates that the Student was making limited or minimal progress in three of the seven goals (43% limited/minimal progress). Added to that is the question of the accuracy of the report of progress for Goal 6 which potentially results in a report of progress with four of seven annual goals (57%) demonstrating less than di minimis progress and no evidence that the PPT revised the Student’s IEP goals and objectives based on that lack of progress since at least the December 21, 2022, IEP through the present.
• Due to incomplete service provision records, the number of service hours owed to the Student cannot be calculated with any degree of accuracy. For that reason, corrective actions in developing a compensatory services plan will focus on a highly collaborative process between the Parent and School (facilitated by the District via PPT) in which the Parent must be allowed to meaningfully participate.

Corrective Action(s):

• The District shall convene a PPT meeting and facilitate the meeting activities with the Parent and the School in attendance. The purpose of the PPT meeting shall be to develop a compensatory services plan to provide the Student with programming to compensate for the IEP not being implemented with fidelity resulting in a failure to provide FAPE to the Student. The compensatory services must be provided by the School or a contracted representative of the School, unless all parties agree otherwise. Staff implementing compensatory services must be qualified to provide whichever services are described in the plan. Compensatory services described in the plan may, but are not required to, represent a one-to-one correlation of hours of missed services to hours of compensatory services. However, if the PPT determines that an alternate type of service/programming (e.g., such as a specific educational intervention or a combination of alternate programming and tutoring, etc.) would be more beneficial to the Student, the PPT may develop the compensatory services plan to reflect in lieu of a one-to-one correspondence between hours of services owed and hours to be provided.
• The School must establish a formal and frequent communication plan with the District in order to proactively identify the District’s students attending the School who may be demonstrating minimal or limited progress and/or who may be experiencing an interruption in the provision of IEP services resulting in a lack of the provision of FAPE.
• Beginning immediately, the School shall comply with the Student’s IEP accommodation that the F&P reading assessment be administered quarterly to assess the Student’s reading progress. If the most recent F&P reading assessment for the Student is more than 2 months old, the School shall administer the assessment immediately, followed by quarterly administration.