TEACHER INITIATED REFERRALS
The Role of the Regular Educator
The regular educator plays a very important role in the inclusion classroom and within the overall school environment in both identifying students who may be at risk for failure in the regular classroom and in serving students with disabilities in the regular classroom. Teachers help to identify students who may benefit from special education service through our program. Through our state's Project Child Find, the classroom teacher is encouraged to become proactively involved in locating and referring students for evaluation if she/he suspects that the student has a disability. These expectations are also embedded in Article 9 NC General Statutes Here are some helpful tips:
1. Get to know your students very early during your first week of instructions - take note of students who appear shy, overly active, disorganized
pre-occupied, or easily distracted.
2. Collaborate with your fellow teachers and compare the experiences with students on your list.
3. Your team may want to create some interventions for students identified as high on the list for challenges that may be impacting her/his classroom performance. Contacting the parent and discussing the students' challenges and your activities for addressing the challenges should be taking place. Be sure to keep parents informed of any progress or continued challenges. Also discuss any recommendation for referral. It is important to keep the parent informed about the process if referral is necessary since the parent must attend the referral meeting. The team would need the parent's permission before any formal evaluation can take place. See Parent's Handbook . If your parent requests a copy of the handbook, please refer her/him to the special education team for a hard copy or you may download a copy for the parent.
4. Apply interventions created either by you or the team. Collect data on the student's performance. Data collection should be systematic for a period of at least 30 days. In the meantime, submit your formal request for referral for evaluations for the student. This should be done once it is recognized that the student is not making adequate progress.
5. Once your referral has been submitted, continue to apply your evidence based interventions and document results. This is a critical piece of information that will be needed when the referral meeting is convened. Keep all data collected handy to be shared at the meeting.
6. Be prepared to attend the referral meeting within 14 days after the request for referral has been submitted.
Use the button below to submit your referral. This will be a teacher initiated referral.
1. Get to know your students very early during your first week of instructions - take note of students who appear shy, overly active, disorganized
pre-occupied, or easily distracted.
2. Collaborate with your fellow teachers and compare the experiences with students on your list.
3. Your team may want to create some interventions for students identified as high on the list for challenges that may be impacting her/his classroom performance. Contacting the parent and discussing the students' challenges and your activities for addressing the challenges should be taking place. Be sure to keep parents informed of any progress or continued challenges. Also discuss any recommendation for referral. It is important to keep the parent informed about the process if referral is necessary since the parent must attend the referral meeting. The team would need the parent's permission before any formal evaluation can take place. See Parent's Handbook . If your parent requests a copy of the handbook, please refer her/him to the special education team for a hard copy or you may download a copy for the parent.
4. Apply interventions created either by you or the team. Collect data on the student's performance. Data collection should be systematic for a period of at least 30 days. In the meantime, submit your formal request for referral for evaluations for the student. This should be done once it is recognized that the student is not making adequate progress.
5. Once your referral has been submitted, continue to apply your evidence based interventions and document results. This is a critical piece of information that will be needed when the referral meeting is convened. Keep all data collected handy to be shared at the meeting.
6. Be prepared to attend the referral meeting within 14 days after the request for referral has been submitted.
Use the button below to submit your referral. This will be a teacher initiated referral.