Complaint Summary

Date Findings Report Sent:

March 10, 2025

Case Number:

25-0342

Grade Level:

High school

Person filing complaint:

Parent

School District:

Groton (single student)

Allegation(s):

• Issue 1: The Parent alleged that the teacher in the Student’s self-contained special education classroom was not appropriately certified in special education to implement the Student’s IEP. ( 34 CFR § 300.17(d))
• Issue 2: The Parent alleged that the Student was not provided with the required 1:1 aide with fidelity. ( 34 CFR § 300.17(d))
• Issue 3: The Parent alleged that they requested the Student’s education records (i.e., Program Book) on multiple occasions and the District did not provided it. (RCSA § 10-76d-18(a)(1-2))
• Issue 4: The Parent alleged that they requested data in the specific form of “graphs on objectives, prompt levels, phase lines and trend lines” collected on the Student’s IEP objectives and the District did not provided it. (RCSA § 10-76d-18(a)(1-2))

Conclusion(s):

• Issue 1: It was found that the District did not provide the required certified special education personnel to oversee and implement the Student’s IEP. A review of the Student’s IEP progress during the time that certified special education personnel was not provided indicated that the Student’s progress was impacted in a manner that demonstrated less than de minimis progress. It was concluded that the District was out of compliance with 34 CFR § 300.17(d) and corrective actions were issued.
• Issue 2: The investigation did not uncovered any evidence that the Student’s 1:1 support was not provided to any substantive measure. It was concluded that the District was not out of compliance with 34 CFR § 300.17(d) and no corrective actions were issued.
• Issue 3: The District was not able to verify that they provided the requested education record (i.e., Program Book) to the Parent within the required timeframe when requested. Therefore, it was concluded that the District was out of compliance with RCSA § 10-76d-18(a)(1-2) and corrective actions were issued.
• Issue 4: The District was able to verify that they provided the education record (data related to the Student’s IEP objectives) to the Parent within the required timeframe when requested. It is important to note that the District was not required to provide such data in the specific format requested by the Parent, but, rather, in the format in which they typically collected such data. It was concluded that the District was not out of compliance with RCSA § 10-76d-18(a)(1-2) and no corrective actions were issued.

Corrective Action(s):

1. On or before April 10, 2025, the District shall convene a PPT meeting to:
   1. develop a compensatory services plan to provide the Student with the missed 96.56 hours of missed IEP math services.
   2. Should all parties feel that the total number of owed compensatory services hours will be overly burdensome to the Student, the parties may determine a mutually agreed upon alternate number of hours and inform the State of that agreement.
   3. The full measure of missed service hours must be delivered to the Student no later than December 31, 2025.
2. Immediately upon delivery of the Student’s full measure of compensatory services, the District shall inform the State.
3. The District shall provide training in the documentation and response to educational records requests from parents.
   1. Such training may be in a form chosen by the District (e.g., memorandum, video, live, etc).
   2. The District may determine the appropriate personnel to participate in such training.
   3. Such training must take place no later than June 30, 2025.
4. No later than June 30, 2025, the District shall provide the State with a copy of the Student’s compensatory services plan (see #1 above) and an attestation that the Education Record Training (see #3 above) has occurred.
5. Given the finding that the Student’s classroom did not include certified special education personnel to oversee and implement Students’ IEPs from January 9, 2024, through June 13, 2024, this complaint is also being referred to the Bureau’s Differentiated Monitoring System team for review.