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