1. School Designs Servicing the Special Education
Population
Understanding a charter schools
responsibility to the SpEd population
Students with Individual Education Plans (IEP) m ust b e
provided a free appropriate public education (FAPE) in an
instructional environment that most closely resembles
that of their non-disabled peers per the Individuals
with Disabilities Education Act of 2004 (IDEA) and state
regulations regarding the provision of services for students
with disabilities. The way this gets carried out, however,
differs widely due to many factors, the most important of
which are a charter school’s legal identity and its linkage to
a traditional LEA for purposes of special education.
Some charter schools are their own LEAs and others are
connected to the LEA in which the school is located. It is
critical that charter schools understand the nature of
their relationship to their LEA in order to understand their
responsibilities for providing a free appropriate public
education (FAPE) to children with disabilities.
EdisonLearning School Designs has hands-on experience
providing special education services to charter schools.
Whether you are your own LEA or are part of an existing
LEA, EdisonLearning will support your need for delivering
FAPE and for meeting the individualized needs of all the
students in your care.
Response to Intervention
EdisonLearning schools utilize a multi-tiered approach to
Response to Intervention (RtI) in order to quickly identify
and support students who fail to respond to core academic
and/or behavioral curriculum. The RtI process begins with
FAAST, a Family and Student Support Team who actively
monitors and responds to identified challenges to students’
academic progress.
EdisonLearning’s RtI/FASST formula includes 5 steps along
a continuum of interventions, assessing the efficacy
of intervention along the way. Regular tracking and analysis
of student performance data guarantees informed
decision-making and high quality instruction throughout
the intervention process.
An LEA is usually defined as an
entity that has responsibility for the
education of all children who reside
within a designated geographical
area of a state.
The major effect of a charter
school’s LEA status is the type
of linkage that is mandated or
voluntarily established between that
charter school and a traditional LEA.
Step 1 Teacher-parent collaboration about
student concern
Step 2 Student Concern Meeting
Step 3 House RtI/FASST interventions could be
Tier I meeting
Step 4 Core RtI/FASST interventions Tier I or Tier II
Step 5 Full RtI/FASST Tier III interventions
Tier III
Intensive Intervention
Students who need
individualized interventions
Tier II
Strategic Intervention
Students who need more support
in addition to the core curriculum or
school wide positive behavior program
Tier I
Core Instruction
All students (including those
who require acceleration)
