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Extended School Year, or ESY, is intended for those students who require constant educational support in order for them to retain and maintain skills.
Extended School Year, or ESY, is intended for those students who require constant educational support (specifically over lengthy summer and winter breaks) in order for them to retain and maintain skills. Especially those skills and behaviors critical to life and the ability for a child to function as independently as possible.
The school uses data based on your student’s individual special education needs and goals in order to evaluate regression. You can specifically ask to see the data being collected for this purpose. Data to discuss possible regression of skills over the summer, along with documentation that your student does not quickly relearn these skills will be collected in the weeks following summer break. The same data should also appear in your child’s first quarter progress report.
Also, there is still opportunity to prove regression of skills over winter break as well. You always have the right to call an IEP meeting at any time.
At your next Annual IEP meeting, you can discuss Extended School Year in depth. Here is what the team will be considering:
Your child will have to re-qualify for ESY every year. That is to say, that at every annual IEP meeting the team (including you) will discuss ESY and your child’s need for these services. This discussion will be based on data collected in the days and weeks after the break in education.
Extended School Year is not mandatory for your child. However, the team must discuss ESY qualifications even if you do not wish for your child to attend. If your child qualifies for ESY, it will be recorded in their IEP, and the school district is responsible for providing transportation to the program.
If your child qualifies for Extended School Year, the goals targeted at ESY will only be those goals and objectives from which your child had proven regression over a break in education. For example, if a student has retained their ability to toilet by themselves but lost the skill of utilizing a visual schedule and is unable to quickly re-coup this knowledge, then the student would only work on the visual schedule skill at ESY and not, necessarily, receive direct teaching of toileting skills.
Like other special education services, Extended School Year is a resource that can be tapped to help your student retain and develop key skills. Not every student will qualify for ESY, however, the team is mandated to discuss the possibility at the Annual IEP meeting.
If you feel as though you would like some support in getting the ESY discussion going with your child’s IEP team, I am here to help. CLICK HERE for my contact details.
Have a look at the IDEA site regulation description.
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