Modern Education Terminology

ALSDE:  Alabama State Department of Education

HBCOE:  Henry County Board of Education

AHS:  Abbeville High School

 Accommodations: Supports or services provided to help an individual access the general education curriculum and help facilitate learning. Accommodations are any tools and procedures that provide equal access to instruction and assessment for students with disabilities. Accommodations are grouped into the following categories:

Presentation: (repeat directions, read aloud, large print, etc.)

Response: (mark answers in a book, use reference aids, point, use of computers, etc.)

Timing/Scheduling: (extended time, frequent breaks, etc.)

Setting: (study carrel, special lighting, separate room, etc.)

   Behavior Intervention Plan (BIP): A plan to address problem behavior that includes, as appropriate, positive behavioral interventions, strategies, supports, program modifications, supplementary aids, and services that may be required to address the problem behavior.

   Benchmarks (Goals): Assigned progress points at each screening that

students should attain at each grade level. DIBELS has three levels at each grade (Universal, Strategic, and Intensive) that are related to the tiers. Benchmarks in Reading First are generally higher than those in ESS. ESS has one level at each grade. Team decides whether the intervention goal (benchmark) should be modest or aggressive (defined by formula)

   Collaborative team: A group of two or more people (as described above) who meet on a scheduled or as-need basis and fill a specific function or purpose. Collaborative teams can be formed both at the district and school levels. School-based teams are developed and sustained as determined by need and are accessible to any administrator or teacher concerned with the educational needs of students.

   Core Curriculum: The instruction that all students receive, in a classroom, on a daily basis.

   DIBELS: Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills are a set of standardized, individually administered measures of early literacy development. They are designed to be short (one minute) fluency measures used to regularly monitor the development of pre-reading and early reading skills. (DIBELS Manual)

   Differentiated instruction: The matching of instruction with the different needs of learners in a given classroom by modifying delivery, time, content,

 Eligibility: An individual, who by nature of his or her disability and need requires special education and related services in order to receive an appropriate education.

   English Learners (EL): Students whose first language is not English and who are in the process of learning English.

   Section 504: A student is eligible under Section 504 if the student has a mental or physical impairment that substantially limits one or more of the student's major life activities and needs accommodations to access education.

   Full and Individual Evaluation: The purpose of the evaluation is to determine the educational interventions that are required to resolve the presenting problem, behaviors of concern or suspected disability, including whether the educational interventions are special education. The identification process, at a minimum, includes interactions with the individual, the individual's parents, school personnel, and others having specific responsibilities for, or knowledge of, the individual and the implementation of general education interventions.

   Fidelity: The extent to which any program or plan is implemented in the way in which it was designed.

   Functional Assessment: Functional assessment is a "step beyond" standardized testing to determine the educational strengths and needs of the student to progress in the general curriculum. Functional assessments help to identify specific skills the student can and cannot perform in relationship to his or her disability.

Functional assessments also provide diagnostic information about what the student can actually do in the areas of concern. For example, if the student has a qualifying score in reading, and that is the area of concern, what is it the student can and cannot do when reading? Does the student have phonetic or sight word skills? Can the student read words in context? Can the student answer questions about a passage he or she has just read? Data is "functional" if it is skill based and identifies the student's present levels of performance to determine where to begin instruction with the student.

   Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA): A problem-solving process for addressing student problem behavior. FBA relies on a variety of techniques and strategies to identify the reasons for a specific behavior and to help teams select interventions that directly address the problem behavior.

   IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act): Federal special education law that mandates that states allow districts to use Response to Intervention for special education eligibility for learning disabilities.

 Individual Education Plan (IEP): A written statement for a specific child with a disability, in accordance with chapter 24:05:27, based on a full and individual evaluation of the child and developed by an IEP team.

   Informed Consent: Procedures to ensure that the parent has been fully informed of all information, understands and agrees in writing to carrying out the activity for which the consent is sought. The parent understands that giving consent is voluntary and may be revoked at any time. Informed consent is required for an evaluation, a reevaluation, and for the initial delivery of special education services.

   Integrity or Fidelity of Implementation: Teams are asked to establish ways of checking to make sure that Response to Intervention activities are implemented in the manner in which they were designed.

   Interventions: The directing of instruction in the area(s) of concern that is in addition to regular classroom instruction. Interventions are designed to meet the identified needs of an individual and are monitored on regular and frequent basis. Changes in instruction, for the student in the area of learning difficulty, are designed to improve learning and to achieve adequate progress.

   Least Restrictive Environment: To the maximum extent appropriate, children with disabilities are to be educated with children who are not disabled. Special classes, separate schooling, or other ways of removing children with disabilities from the regular educational environment should only occur when the nature or severity of the disability is such that education in regular classes cannot be achieved satisfactorily with the use of supplementary aids and services.

   LEA (Local Education Agency) - Here it is the HCBOE

   Mean: An average found by adding all the values in a set and dividing by the number of values.

   Median: An average determined by finding the number that falls in the middle of a set of data when arranged from least to greatest.

   Mode: To describe a set of data by using the most commonly occurring value.

   Modification: Changes made to the content and performance expectations for an individual.

   NCLB (No Child Left Behind): A Federal Education Act.

 Oral Reading Fluency (ORF): A one minute, timed assessment in which a student reads orally.

 Positive Behavior Supports (PBS):A school wide system for increasing positive behaviors in a school. This includes consistent expectations, positive reinforcement and data driven decisions

   Peers: For school-age individuals, this refers to individuals in the same grade as the targeted individual. For early childhood individuals this refers to individuals of the same age group.

   Percentile: To group into hundredths. Percentiles indicates what percent of a group of numbers is less than or equal to a given number.

 Pre-referral interventions: Interventions delivered to a student that attempt to improve learning, prior to a referral for formal special education evaluation.

   Problem Solving Model: One model of RTI that has the team analyze the data and determine what interventions to use based upon individual student's need.

   Prior Written Notice: A written notice that the school must provide to the parents of a student with a disability, within a reasonable time, if they wish to:

o Evaluate the student

o Determine whether the student is eligible for special education services

o Change the student's evaluation or educational placement or educational plan (IEP)

o Refuse the parent's request to evaluate their child or change their child's educational plan (IEP) or placement.

 Progress Monitoring: The process of using probes to frequently measure the progress of a student when receiving a research based intervention. The data is analyzed and instructional decisions are made. The progress is usually presented in a graphing format. Progress monitoring probes are given at skill level not grade level.

   Response to Intervention: The Response to Intervention (RTI) process is a multi-tiered approach to providing services and interventions to all learners at increasing levels of intensity. This process can be used for making decisions about general, remedial, and special education, creating a well-integrated and seamless system of instruction that is guided by student outcome data. RTI calls for early identification of academic and behavioral support, close collaboration among classroom teachers, other educational personnel and parents, and a systemic commitment to locating and employing the necessary resources to ensure that students make progress in the general education curriculum. RTI is an initiative that takes place in the general education environment and is a framework that supports school improvement.

 Reevaluation: A reevaluation is a data-based decision making process conducted by the IEP team and, as appropriate, other qualified professionals. The process includes:

o A review of existing data and information and the gathering of new assessment data, if needed. The purposes of the reevaluation are to determine whether the individual continues to have a disability and need ongoing special education and related services;

o The present levels of performance in the area(s) of concern;

o Whether any additions or modifications are needed to enable the individual to meet measurable IEP goals and to participate, as appropriate, in the general curriculum or in the case of early childhood, appropriate activities.

 Reliability: Refers to the accuracy, dependability, consistency, or repeatability of test results; to the extent to which measurement results are free of unpredictable kinds of error.

   Scientifically/Research Based: Refers to empirical research that applies rigorous, systematic, and objective procedures to obtain Reading Research (SBRR) valid knowledge. This research:

o Employs systematic, empirical methods that draw on observation or experiment.

o Has been accepted by a peer-reviewed journal or approved by a panel of independent experts through a comparably rigorous, objective and scientific review.

o Involves rigorous data analyses that are adequate to test the stated hypotheses and justify the general conclusions drawn.

o Relies on measurements or observational methods that provide valid data across evaluators and observers and across multiple measurements and observations.

o Can be generalized.

 Special education: Specially designed instruction, at no cost to the parents, to meet the unique needs of a student with a disability, including instruction conducted in the classroom, in the home, in hospitals and institutions, and in other settings; and instruction in physical education. The term includes speech-language pathology services and may include other related services, travel training, and applied technology education, if they meet the definition of special education.

   Strategic Interventions: Interventions provided to students who are not achieving the desired standards through the core curriculum alone.

   Standardized Assessments: Are tests administered and scored in the same way to ensure validity. These assessments depend upon the same questions, conditions and scoring in order to gauge student progress against a norm group.

   Targeted Assessments: An assessment conducted that is focused on a specific desired outcome.

   Team: A group of individuals who are involved in the development, implementation and decision making process as part of RTI. At a minimum, this includes the LEA instructional interventionist, the parent, and other qualified individuals, as appropriate.

   Validity: The extent to which interpretations are useful, relevant, and valuable in making decisions relevant to a given instructional technique; how worthwhile is a measure likely to be for telling you what you need to know in a given situation. Is the Instrument giving you the true story?