Extended School Year Research Articles

Preparing Special Educators and School Principals in Special Education Law: An Undervalued Area of Professional Training?

Although special education legal knowledge is central to educating students with disabilities, how two critical school professionals—special educators and school principals—garner such knowledge is unclear. This study identified gaps in the professional training for special educators and school principals by examining professional standards and common textbooks. After identifying 32 special education legal concepts, we used content analysis to determine the extent to which each concept was mentioned in professional standards and preservice textbooks (five in special education, six in principal preparation, and four in school law). Compared with special education textbooks (in which 68%–84% of special education legal concepts were mentioned), preservice principals received less information on special education law in their general textbooks (3%–13% of concepts mentioned), although gaps narrowed when examining school law textbooks (63%–81%). Special education and school law texts consistently included concepts related to the six pillars of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA), as well as more specific concepts, such as discipline/behavior and related services. Rarely mentioned concepts were extended school year, resolution meetings, and compensatory services. We discuss training, research, and policy implications.

Rurality and the Provision of Extended School Year Services

We examined differences in the receipt and delivery of extended school year (ESY) services in the United States by locale as being rural, urban, or suburban. We found that there were significant differences in the percentage of students receiving ESY services according to locale, with rural local education agencies (LEAs) having a significantly lower percentage of students receiving ESY services. Additionally, we found that special education directors perceived the number of students receiving ESY services as generally being “about right” for their LEA. We also found that urban special education directors were significantly more likely to report that there should be less students receiving ESY services while rural special education directors were less likely to report this. We then found that rural LEAs generally reported providing significantly fewer types of ESY services offered than urban or suburban LEAs. Finally, we found that urban LEAs reported significantly higher attendance rates of students who attended ESY services as compared with rural LEAs.

Evidence for Transition-Related Behaviors as an Explicit Criterion for Extended School Year Services Eligibility

We examined the association of students’ ability to transition on a daily basis (horizontal transitions) as reported by teachers with academic achievement as mediated by the summer Extended School Year (ESY) services received. Transitions from summer break to re-entry in the fall are referred to as a vertical transition. We examined these relationships via structural equation modeling techniques using multi-group modeling with respect to students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) versus students without IEPs. Among students with IEPs, increased ability to transition was significantly associated with increased academic achievement across time. The receipt of summer ESY services was strongly and significantly associated with increased academic achievement among students with IEPs. The receipt of summer ESY services was also significantly associated with increased ability to transition for these students with IEPs. This ability to transition may be even more impacted by the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has disrupted learning for many school children.

Education Equity During COVID-19: Analyzing In-Person Priority Policies for Students with Disabilities

During the COVID-19 pandemic, schools nationwide failed to provide essential supports and services to students with disabilities. Based on reviews of 115 school district reopening plans, this Note finds that numerous schools sought to remedy these gaps through in-person priority policies designed to return students with disabilities to physical classrooms before other students. This Note evaluates the legal and policy implications of such in-person priority policies through the lenses of critical race theory and DisCrit. This Note begins by identifying the structural barriers to learning that students with disabilities faced during school closures, including disparities in internet access and accessibility, removal or reduction of related services, absence of social interaction and structure, and heightened trauma and mental health concerns. While in-person priority policies are meant to mitigate these barriers, this Note argues that they ultimately create segregated classrooms and exacerbate already egregious disciplinary disparities. Consequently, these policies impose disproportionate harm on students of color with disabilities.Finally, this Note calls on policymakers to develop individualized approaches to in-person priority, adopt non-exclusionary disciplinary policies, and expand access to compensatory education and extended school year services. Beyond the current crisis, policymakers must commit to eliminating systems of stratification that categorically siphon students into segregated classroom settings. By centering students of color, schools can reimagine special education to ensure that all students receive the education they deserve.

Comparing cost effectiveness of video-based instruction versus extended school year for maintaining vocational skills of students with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Comparing cost effectiveness of video-based instruction versus extended school year for maintaining vocational skills of students with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Criteria for Determining Eligibility for Extended School Year Services

Extended school year (ESY) services has been an understudied area of special education research. There is limited information available regarding ESY practices by local education agencies (LEAs) in determining eligibility as well as who receives what types of services. We surveyed special education directors across the nation to examine ESY practices by LEAs. Most notably, approximately two out of three special education directors (63%) reported that ESY services were only received by students in self-contained classrooms in their LEA. These LEAs that had no students outside of a self-contained classroom receiving ESY services also had a significantly lower percentage of students receiving ESY services as a whole. We recommend that this practice be discouraged as it effectively excludes students in inclusive settings who could benefit from ESY services and can steer parents away from inclusive placements if ESY services in the future will cease.

Defining Summer Gain Among Elementary Students With or at Risk for Reading Disabilities

Summer reading programs are a form of extended school year services for students in special education. However, previous studies have not reported including high percentages of participants in special education, nor have studies sufficiently controlled for selection bias. This study combined propensity score weighting with partially clustered models to examine the effects of a summer reading program on the growth in reading skills of K–4 students, roughly 50% to 75% of whom were in special education. Results suggest that students in most grades improved on some but not all skills. However, fewer improvements were apparent when participating students were compared with peers via propensity score analyses. In addition, Grade 3 students in the control group outperformed their peers who attended summer school.

Barriers to Providing Extended School Year Services to Students With Disabilities: An Exploratory Study of Special Education Directors

The purpose of the current study was to examine barriers, if any, reported by special education directors to providing extended school year (ESY) services. Results indicate four barriers to providing ESY services listed in order of importance by special education directors: difficulty in finding qualified personnel to work over the summer, determining eligibility for ESY services, compliance of parents, and limited financial resources to provide ESY services. Rural special education directors reported the barrier of difficulty in finding qualified personnel significantly more often than nonrural directors. Rural special education directors also reported significantly more barriers to providing ESY services in general.

Extended School Year: Legal and Practical Considerations for Educators

Extended School Year: Legal and Practical Considerations for Educators

Using Daily Behavior Report Cards during Extended School Year Services for Young Students with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

Using Daily Behavior Report Cards during Extended School Year Services for Young Students with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

Nine Tips for Creating an Effective Extended School Year Program for Students With Disabilities

Extended school year (ESY) is a summer program available for students with disabilities who meet specific qualifying criteria. Teachers are often hesitant to accept the position of the ESY teacher due to the ambiguities and demands of the position. The purpose of this article is to briefly share the impetus and focus of ESY and give special education teachers nine tips to create and execute an effective ESY program. When implemented correctly, ESY programs have the potential to help students maintain learned skills and master targeted skills.

The Sooner the Better? Compulsory Schooling Reforms in Sweden

This paper evaluates the impact on earnings, pensions, and other labor market outcomes of two parallel educational reforms increasing instructional time in Swedish primary school. The reforms extended the compulsory years of schooling from 6 to 7 years and the annual term length from 34.5/36.5 to 39 weeks per year. Gradually introduced over the 1930-1950 period in more than 2,500 school districts, the extensions generated large exogenous variation in educational attainment at different points in primary school while the overall school system and curricula remained unchanged. The reforms thus constitute an ideal quasi-experimental setting for analyzing the long-run causal impact of compulsory education keeping other school characteristics fixed.With a majority of students receiving only primary schooling, both reforms affected large shares of the population and consequently had large impacts on educational attainment at the compulsory level. We find striking differences in impact between the two reforms, and between males and females. Estimated returns to compulsory schooling are robustly positive only for females, who experience a small increase in early career earnings (~ 2%) when exposed to a 7th year of schooling, and large and persistent increases in earnings (~ 4 – 5%) when exposed to an extended school year. The effects are driven by the extensive margin, in particular increased employment in the public sector.

SchoollS Out for Summer: But Should it Be?

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”) provides eligible children with disabilities a right to a free appropriate public education (“FAPE”), which includes special education and related services designed to meet the student’s individual needs. As part of the FAPE mandate, school districts may be required to provide special education and related services beyond the typical 180-day school year. These services are known as extended school year (“ESY”) services. While it is clear from the courts and the federal IDEA regulations that states are required to consider the need for ESY services, the federal regulations do not identify specific factors for determining a child’s need for ESY, instead relying on the states to determine the proper standard for assessing ESY eligibility. This article begins with a 50-state review of the various standards that have been applied, which reveals that some states have applied a single-factor analysis that focuses primarily on the student’s regression during a break in instruction, while others consider a variety of factors including the nature and severity of the child’s disability, the child’s progress in reaching his or her goals during the school year, and whether a child’s ability to master a particular skill is emerging. Given the statute’s purpose of ensuring that children with disabilities receive an education designed to meet their individual and unique needs, this article argues that a single-factor analysis - particularly one that looks only at regression - fails, as it does not recognize that children with disabilities - even those with the same disability - face a variety of challenges and have different needs depending on their individual abilities. Further, limiting the analysis to the regression factor raises significant challenges for parents. Parents seeking ESY services based on regression are often disadvantaged as they, unlike the school district, are likely unable to obtain empirical proof of regression and are typically unfamiliar with the education system. Parents are also disadvantaged under the regression analysis as they are likely unwilling to allow their child to regress in order to obtain evidence to meet the school district’s ESY requirements. As such, this article concludes that a multi-factored standard that evaluates the degree of the child’s impairment, the rate of the child’s progress during the school year and whether a critical skill is emerging at the end of the academic year, would provide a more comprehensive analysis of the child’s needs for ESY services.

School-sponsored before, after, and extended school year programs--the role of the school nurse: position statement.

It is the position of the National Association of School Nurses (NASN) that the registered professional school nurse (hereinafter referred to as school nurse) has the educational and clinical background to coordinate the necessary school health services to provide students with the same health, nutrition, and safety needs while attending school-sponsored before, after, and extended school year programs as the students receive during the traditional school day/year. In 2010, the White House Task Force on Obesity called for an increase in access to safe supervised physical activities beyond the school day (White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity Report to the President, 2010), and as these programs have expanded, the necessity for providing quality, effective health care services during these hours has developed. As the expert in school health services delivery models of health care, the school nurse is an essential facilitator for student access to these programs. The school nurse plays a vital role in preparing the school-sponsored before and after school and extended school year program personnel with the necessary resources to respond to a health emergency.

The Apple iPad as Assistive Technology for Story-Based Interventions

Literacy-based behavioral interventions expand the work of Gray (2004) to enhance social understanding and change the behavior of individuals with autism spectrum disorder and other developmental disabilities. In addition, visually based assistive technologies (e.g., Picture Exchange Communication System®/picture schedules) have been used to foster communication, provide structure, and change behavior for these same individuals. This study explores the use of the Apple iPad2 as an assistive technology device to deliver literacy-based behavioral interventions and Social Stories™ to students ages 3–11 with autism spectrum disorder enrolled in an extended school year program. Adaptations, strategies for making video Social Stories, and other suggestions for teachers who use this technology also are discussed.

Comparing the Picture Exchange Communication System and the iPad™ for Communication of Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Developmental Delay

Both picture exchange, a low-tech picturebased communication system, and technologybased interventions, such as the iPad™ with communication application, are emerging treatments for students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), according to the National Autism Center (2009). Recently, investigations regarding the use of the Apple iPad™ to communicate have been conducted with mixed results. The authors used a single-subject alternating treatment design during an extended school year (ESY) program for students with disabilities to compare the independent use and effectiveness of the two approaches (low-tech picture-based versus iPad™ equivalent) for three pre-school and two elementary students with ASD and developmental delay (DD). The authors concluded that teaching low-tech picture exchange prior to introducing the iPad™ may be effective progression in teaching communication reciprocity skills for some students with ASD/DD. Limitations and strengths of both technologies are discussed.

Maximizing ESY Services: Teaching Pre-Service Teachers to Assess Communication Skills and Implement Picture Exchange With Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder and Developmental Disabilities

The authors supervised and trained pre-service teachers while conducting extended school year (ESY) services for pre-kindergarten and elementary students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other developmental disabilities (DD). Each classroom was responsible for conducting communication assessments and developing interventions focused on increasing functional communication. One intervention, the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS™), was taught to three pre-service teachers and staff who implemented PECS™ with four students who lacked functional communication skills. The teachers were mentored as they implemented the appropriate level of PECS™ and developed communication books for the students to use in school, home, and other settings.

Modeling Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports for Preservice Teachers

The authors modeled programwide positive behavior interventions and supports (PBIS) principles to 26 preservice teachers during consolidated yearly extended school year (ESY) services delivered to elementary students from four school districts. While PBIS were in place for preservice teachers to implement with students, a similar system was modeled at the organizational level to enhance learning and promote collaboration between teachers and staff. Data collection included use of single-subject reversal design as well as the use of preference assessments, surveys, and frequency recording.

Who Benefits from KIPP?

AbstractThe nation's largest charter management organization is the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP). KIPP schools are emblematic of the No Excuses approach to public education, a highly standardized and widely replicated charter model that features a long school day, an extended school year, selective teacher hiring, strict behavior norms, and emphasizes traditional reading and math skills. No Excuses charter schools are sometimes said to target relatively motivated high achievers at the expense of students who are more difficult to teach, including limited English proficiency (LEP) and special education (SPED) students, as well as students with low baseline achievement levels. We use applicant lotteries to evaluate the impact of KIPP Academy Lynn, a KIPP school in Lynn, Massachusetts that typifies the KIPP approach. Our analysis focuses on special needs students that may be underserved. The results show average achievement gains of 0.36 standard deviations in math and 0.12 standard deviations in reading for each year spent at KIPP Lynn, with the largest gains coming from the LEP, SPED, and low‐achievement groups. Average reading gains are driven almost entirely by SPED and LEP students, whose reading scores rise by roughly 0.35 standard deviations for each year spent at KIPP Lynn.

Case Study on the Implementation of a Video Story-Based Intervention with Self-Modeling Treatment Package to Reduce Stereotypical Spitting Behavior in a Young Girl with Autism

The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of a video story-based intervention with self-modeling to decrease spitting behavior in a female pre-school student with autism during an extended school year ser­vices program. An A-B-A-B design was used to demonstrate a functional relation between a video story-based intervention with self-modeling and decreased spitting be­havior. The results showed that spitting behavior de­crea­sed as a result of the video-based in­ter­vention package. The implications of these re­sults will be explored.