Moving is stressful for any child. Whether across town or the country, moving means a new neighborhood, a new school, and new friends.
For students with disabilities, moving can be especially challenging. They're not just leaving friends but also the support structure that's helped them succeed in school.
Federal law requires that all public schools offer disability support to qualifying students. For families who relocate, the challenge is that states have flexibility in how they implement special education laws, and both federal and state laws give schools latitude in what programs, accommodations, and services they offer.
What modifications worked for your student at their previous school may not be available at their new school. In some cases, a child who qualifies for special education services and support in one state may not qualify in another state.
Ineffective accommodations and a lack of support can detrimentally affect a student's education. Students are more likely to fall behind or experience disciplinary issues.
With planning, families can minimize the impact relocation may have on their students. Ideally, both a student's former and current school will assist in helping a student's transition and minimizing the disruption.
Unfortunately, in some cases, a new school may provide inefficient accommodations or not consider a student's previous IEP and support. For families, one of the challenges of navigating a new school is the lack of established relationships at both the school and in the community. If you need help with your child's new school, the Education Law Team at the Lento Law Firm can help. Contact us at 888-535-3686 or by using this form.
Disabilities and Change
Most people struggle with change. Humans are creatures of habit, and disrupting those habits can be stressful. Leaving behind a community and the connections we have is stressful, especially when we move to a city where we don't have an existing social network.
Annually, about 13 percent of Americans move. While most people move within their current county of residence, over 3 percent move within the same state but to a different country, and over two percent move out of state.
For children, moving has been found to disrupt friendships and potentially increase the risk of anxiety. They no longer have their usual support structures and moving can be especially difficult during the middle school years. Frequent moves can have negative lifelong implications on social skills, and moves in general can potentially detrimentally affect mental health.
One of the challenges of moving is that it's a complex transition. There's no one way to deal with it. Even moving for positive reasons, such as relocating for a promotion or to be closer to family, can be stressful. It's not just a new house but a new social circle and even things as small as adjusting to a new grocery store.
Children with disabilities face not only the loss of friends and routines but also crucial support systems that aid their development and education. Children with vision impairments have to adjust to navigating new physical surroundings.
For children with autism, moving can be especially challenging. One of the common symptoms of autism is a resistance to change and a preference for routine. Relocating disrupts the familiar and requires adapting to new places, people, and even new routines or coping mechanisms.
Preparing and establishing a plan can help minimize the disruption. When possible, explaining the move and highlighting the positives of the move or a new home can assist in understanding.
Whether you're moving during the summer or the school year, an important part of that planning is preparing for the transition between schools and possibly services. Working with both a student's former and new school can potentially help smooth the transition.
Plan Ahead
One way to prepare for a move is to request meetings with school districts in your new town before renting or purchasing a house. These early meetings can't guarantee services or accommodations, but they can give you a better idea of what different districts offer. You should plan on bringing a copy of your student's current IEP and any other relevant documents to this meeting.
What is IDEA?
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is the federal law that mandates special education services for qualifying K-12 students. Public schools must provide services to all children who reside within a district's boundaries, even if children aren't enrolled in their local public schools. A school cannot refuse to provide services to any child due to being too young, attending a private school, and being homeschooled.
Children believed to have a disability must undergo an assessment. The extent and nature of this assessment will depend on the potential disability and what is already known about a child's disability.
For qualifying students, schools must provide all services free of charge to families. These services will be listed in a student's Individualized Education Program (IEP). IEPs are written documents that are created during meetings between school staff and parents or guardians.
IEPs will outline what services and support a student receives during the school year. Once agreed upon and in writing, IEPs are legally binding. Schools must provide families with the opportunity to meet to review and revise IEPs at least once a year, and families can request additional meetings if they have concerns, such as an IEP no longer being effective or not being fully implemented.
Qualifying Disabilities
Students qualify for IDEA when they have one of the following disabilities and that disability impacts their education:
- Intellectual disabilities
- Hearing impairments
- Speech or language impairments
- Visual impairments
- Serious emotional disturbance
- Orthopedic impairments
- Autism
- Traumatic brain injury
- Other health impairments
- Specific learning disabilities
States may add additional disabilities. States also have flexibility with how they define developmental delays.
Developmental Delays
Of the disability categories listed in IDEA, developmental delay eligibility is the most likely to vary between states. IDEA not only leaves the definition to each state, but states also decide the eligible age range for developmental disabilities. IDEA states a developmental delay can be between the ages of 3 and 9 or any range within those ages.
States will also have definitions of developmental delays for early intervention, which is usually from birth to age 3.
Virginia and Maryland provide a good example of the differences in how states define development delays. Both states have separate definitions for early intervention and K-12 students. While Maryland's Department of Education handles both age groups, the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services handles early intervention while the Department of Education is in charge of all services once a child turns three.
These two states show how your state of residence can impact what services and support your child receives. This includes whether they qualify for services.
Virginia
In Virginia, between birth and three years of age, a child qualifies for support through the Infant & Toddler Connection of Virginia when they have a developmental delay or atypical development.
- A developmental delay means a baby or toddler is 25 percent or more below in cognitive, physical, communication, social or emotional development, or adaptive development.
o Until 18 months, babies and toddlers born prematurely are measured based on their adjusted rather than chronological age.
- Atypical development has no threshold for qualifying but occurs when a baby or toddler manifests atypical development or behavior
Toddlers and children between the ages of two and six have developmental delays when:
- An assessment shows a child has a physical, cognitive, communication, social or emotional, or adaptive delay, or a child has a physical or mental condition with a high probability of delaying development
- Delays are not due to cultural, environmental, or economic factors or limited English proficiency
- The delay adversely affects educational performance and requires a child to have specially designed instruction to access and make progress with general education activities and requirements.
Virginia leaves it to each school district to determine the eligibility criteria for developmental delays.
Maryland
Maryland uses different age ranges, and all services are covered by the state's Department of Education. For birth to age two, a baby or toddler qualifies as having a developmental delay when:
- They have a 25 percent or greater delay in at least one of the following areas:
- Cognitive
- Physical, including vision and hearing
- Communication
- Social or emotional
- Adaptive
- They show atypical development or behavior in one of the five developmental areas, or their development or behavior is likely to result in a subsequent delay.
o Under this category, babies and toddlers don't have to meet the 25 percent threshold
- They have a diagnosed physical or mental condition with a high probability of causing delays in development
For ages three to seven, the state defines a “student with a developmental delay” as:
- Having at least a 25-percent delay in adaptive, cognitive, communicative, emotional, physical, or social development
- Demonstrating atypical development or behavior
- A diagnosed physical or mental condition
Virginia and Maryland's definitions are similar but not identical. Children who qualify in one state may not qualify in the other. Assuming a child doesn't otherwise qualify for support under IDEA, a child with a developmental delay in Maryland will receive support for a year longer than a child in Virginia.
IDEA Requirements for Relocating
IDEA briefly touches on schools' responsibilities for students who transfer schools. IDEA differentiates between students who transfer to a different school within the same state and students who move to a new state. Its provisions apply to students who transfer schools during the school year and who already have an IEP.
For all moves, IDEA requires the following for transmitting a student's records:
- A student's new school will take reasonable steps to get a student's records, including their IEP and any supporting or related documents.
- A student's previous school will take reasonable steps to provide those records to a student's new school.
Before leaving a school, parents and guardians should request current copies of all relevant documents. IDEA doesn't require parents to provide these documents, but they can be useful if there's any delay in sending or receiving records. Having these documents available may minimize any disruptions to your student's education and support.
IDEA requires that both schools must ensure a student's records are transferred. By putting this as a requirement, families have recourse if and when a school fails to either send or receive a student's records.
Schools must also ensure they follow federal laws regarding transmitting and sharing student records. This includes providing the new school with a student's disciplinary record in addition to their IEP and special education documents.
Transfers in the Same State
For students who move to a different school during the academic year, a school must provide comparable services to what the student received at their previous school in the short term. Schools should consult with parents about what services the school will offer until the school either adopts the student's IEP or revises a new IEP.
In other words, a school cannot decline to provide support and accommodations to students because the school hasn't updated the student's IEP. An intra-state move also doesn't trigger any additional assessments or evaluations for students.
Transfer to a Different State
For students who move to a different state during the school year, the same requirement for providing comparable services in the short term applies. A school must also consult with parents and guardians about these comparable services.
Where interstate moves differ is that schools can:
- Accept the student's current IEP
- Develop a new IEP or revise the student's current IEP
- Request additional evaluations and assessments
Evaluation
When you move to a new state, your child's new school may decide your child needs to be evaluated under that state's eligibility requirements. While IDEA and federal law set the majority of requirements for assessment and eligibility, parents and guardians should be aware of potential differences between their former and current states.
It's important to ask questions throughout the evaluation process, including why a school believes a new assessment is necessary. Remember that assessments should be tailored to a student's specific disability and sufficiently comprehensive.
That a school requires an assessment isn't automatically negative. IDEA, after all, requires reassessments every three years. While these assessments can be waived when a student remains at the same school, this option for new evaluations highlights how students can grow and change. What services were best for a second grader may no longer be as effective for a fifth grader.
When assessments are properly administered, they could result in a better profile of your child's current development, strengths, and needs. The result could be an IEP that better supports your student.
In some cases, however, an assessment may be improperly administered or incomplete. If you have concerns that a school requires an assessment to find a way to deny your child's special education eligibility or to limit what services they receive, the Education Law Team at the Lento Law Firm can help.
Former School's Responsibilities
Legally, a school's only requirement for a student transferring to a new school is to provide that student's records to the new school upon request. Parents and guardians, however, should do what they can to use their established contacts with that school to help their child's transition.
Before leaving your child's former school, you should consider requesting meetings with your student's IEP team or any staff members who worked closely with your child. Ideally, you want records above and beyond the IEP, including any information not included in their IEP.
In addition to other records, you may also want to consider updating the IEP. IEPs are legally binding, and the new school should have the most recent information on the support and accommodations your child received.
You may also wish to ask teachers, staff, or aides if they would be willing to write letters or other guidelines for your student's new IEP team. Such informal documents may assist your student's transition.
School staff may decline these requests. They're under no legal obligation to provide these documents, but it doesn't hurt to ask.
Transferring and Revising a Student's IEP
Above and beyond federal or state requirements, you should plan to meet with your child's new school once enrolled. In most cases, when a student transfers schools, they will likely need a new IEP.
Even if you've already revised your student's IEP for the current school year or the new school offers services similar to those offered by the previous school, you should plan to meet with school staff. This is the case even if a school says that your child can continue to use their existing IEP.
These meetings allow you to get to meet your student's new IEP team and discuss the IEP, its implementation, and any changes. You want to make sure your child is benefitting from the services and support their new school offers beyond just what was comparable to their previous school.
IDEA allows parents and guardians to request meetings at any point during the year. A school cannot refuse a meeting because they've adopted your student's existing IEP.
Reasonable Accommodations
For families who relocate, one of the challenges can be a new school's different services and accommodations. A new school isn't required to provide the same services and accommodations a student received at their previous school. Federal law requires only that schools provide reasonable accommodations.
Reasonable accommodations must be effective. They don't have to be the most expensive, the newest, the most efficient, or the newest technology. If you transfer from a school using the newest research and technology, a new school isn't obligated to update as long as what it currently offers is effective.
As IDEA states about transitions between schools, schools must provide comparable services. That doesn't mean families shouldn't ask about implementing a service or accommodation used at their student's previous school.
When requesting a new service or accommodation, families should remember that schools can deny any request if it would put an undue burden on the school or any member of the school community. Undue burdens can include the price, the time commitment, or how it would affect other members of the school community.
Different State Laws
Each state may have additional rules and services to support students with disabilities. When you move from one state to another, while the same federal laws apply, the different state laws may mean your student's IEP and accommodations change.
States and schools cannot reduce their responsibilities to provide special education and other services to students with disabilities. They can only add more protections.
California, for example, has several policies that are above federal requirements. These include:
- Extending IEP support to age 22
- Requiring all IEPs to have an emergency plan
- Transition planning may begin at 14 rather than 16
- In an example of a district-specific policy, the Los Angeles Unified School District requires all IEPs to have Individual Transition Plans in place before a student turns fourteen
- In comparison, Sonoma County recommends but does not require transition planning beginning at age 14
For students with hearing impairments, state schools for the deaf can provide both residential and statewide outreach. While the majority of states have publicly funded schools, New Hampshire, Nevada, and Nebraska do not. The states do have resources for hearing-impaired students, but they may differ from what's available in states that do have publicly funded schools.
Tennessee offers four different high school diplomas, three of which focus on students with disabilities. These three diplomas allow students with disabilities to continue to receive special education services and support even after they graduate from high school.
Whether another state allows a student who has received this diploma to continue to receive services isn't a yes-or-no answer. IDEA requires that states provide special education services until a teenager graduates from high school or turns 21. Another state may consider the Tennessee diploma as a high school diploma that disqualifies a student from receiving special education services.
These are just a few examples of how different states and school districts can implement IDEA or add additional protections. While every state follows IDEA, specific provisions or policies may be state and district-specific. Don't assume that one state's policies will automatically transfer to another state because it's part of IDEA or IEP.
Minimize the Stress of a Move
Ideally, your family moves to a school that has better services and support than your child's current school. The new school is proactive in revising your student's IEP, arranging meetings, and minimizing the disruption to your child's education and support.
As we don't live in an ideal world, moving to a new school often presents challenges. Comparable services may be less effective. Differences in state policy may change what type of support your child receives. A school may try to use an assessment to find your child is no longer eligible. Your child may struggle with the transition and not be given adequate support, which may result in disciplinary problems.
For parents, these challenges may be magnified because they're also dealing with a new environment and the stress of moving. The Education Law Team at the Lento Law Firm can help.
We help families understand their rights under both IDEA and state laws. We work nationwide to help families support their students with disabilities and ensure their students receive the best possible education and accommodations. Call us at 888-535-3686 or fill out this form.
