A hearing officer from the Oregon Department of Education recently ruled in Portland School District that schools cannot merely use “professional judgment,” to determine whether students require Extended School Year (“ESY”) services. In this matter, the school district denied eligibility for ESY services for a student with Autism because the school believed the child had “plateaued.” The hearing officer chastised the District for failing to take data and report on progress monitoring, stating the, “…omission of critical information did not allow the IEP team, including the parents, to make an informed decision…”
March 2022
