Child Find
Child Find is a process designed to identify, locate, and evaluate individuals who may need special education and related services. Meridian World School is responsible to ensure all children with disabilities enrolled in the charter school, regardless of the severity of their disability, and who need special education and related services, are identified, located and evaluated. If you are concerned that your child may have a disability, contact our Special Education/504 Coordinator or Director of SPED/504.
Special Education Referral and Evaluation
Students must be identified as in need of special education through a referral and evaluation process. At Meridian, assessments are performed by a Licensed Specialist in School Psychology (LSSP), an Educational Diagnostician, and/or a Speech Language Pathologist (SLP). Other qualified professionals also may contribute to the assessment. All evaluations include information about the student’s health, language skills, sociological status, emotional and behavioral status, cognitive abilities, adaptive behavior, academic performance and assistive technology needs.
To qualify for special education, students must have been evaluated in accordance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004. “There is a two-part test for determining whether your child is eligible for special education and related services: (1) your child must have a disability; and (2) as a result of the disability, your child must need special education and related services to benefit from education. To meet the first part of the two-part test for eligibility, a child between the ages of 3 through 21, except as noted, must meet the criteria for one or more of the disability categories listed below:
- speech or language impairment
- auditory impairment (from birth);
- visual impairment including blindness
- deaf-blindness (From birth)
- orthopedic impairment
- autism
- traumatic brain injury
- emotional disturbance
- intellectual disability
- other health impairment
- specific learning disability
- multiple disabilities
The ARD committee must make the eligibility determination within 30 calendar days from the date of completion of the initial evaluation report.”
The assessment will produce a Full and Individual Evaluation (FIE), which will assist in determining the presence of a disability and identifying an educational need for specialized instruction. Students placed in special education are re-evaluated every three years to determine whether they continue to qualify for services. While the evaluation team determines the disability, the ARD committee determines placement in special education and instructional programming.