This Commissioner’s Memo provides clarification regarding course coding for special education for the 2007-2008 school year. These codes should be used when scheduling special education students into courses. Special education courses/classes in the master schedule section of Pentamation should be ‘flagged’ special education on the “user define screen – CO7” and denote field ‘7’ to indicate a special education environment.
When a special education student is enrolled in a regular education core academic content course that meets the standards required by the Arkansas Curriculum Frameworks and is being taught by a highly qualified teacher (meets NCLB HQT), then the course will be coded in accordance with the core academic content course number and the student will be given course credit if the requirements for the course are fulfilled.
When the regular education core academic content course is an inclusion class that is co-taught by a general education teacher and a special education teacher, the general education teacher is considered the teacher of record for the class. The fact that the class is being co-taught does NOT mean that the class size may exceed the maximum class size standard established for that class.
Special education students NOT enrolled in a core academic content course for a required subject but alternatively are receiving instruction via special education resource services or special education self-contained programming (whether in a T/P Ratio class of 1-6, 1-10 or 1-15) must be coded with the appropriate special education course code set out in the Arkansas Statewide Information System (SIS) Handbook, as follows:
971530 Special Education Resource Services -- This is a special education program that does not meet the standard for a No Child Left Behind (NCLB) core academic content course and therefore is not considered a core academic class. The student’s instruction fulfills requirements based on the student’s Individual Education Plan(IEP)and is provided by a Highly Qualified special education teacher holding the Highly Qualified Teacher (HQT) designation for the grade level being taught as defined by instructional level. The 971530-course code must be used for any course/class of this type.
The 971530-course code should not be utilized to schedule students into any core academic courses. The following NEW course code numbers are to be used when scheduling and reporting the following resource academic courses/classes:
972100 Resource Language Arts
972200 Resource Science
972300 Resource Math
972110 Resource Reading
972700 Resource Social Studies
For these course numbers (972100, 972200, 972300, 972110 and 972700) the highly qualified status of the teacher must be reported for the appropriate content area. Students served in this manner typically are not found to be eligible for alternate assessment and instead take the benchmark exams.
971540 Special Education Self-contained Services (1-10 or 1-15) – This is a special education program that does not meet the standard for a NCLB core academic content course(s) and therefore is not considered a core academic course. The student’s instruction fulfills requirements based on the student’s IEP and is provided by a HQT special education teacher who is HQT at the instructional level being taught. Students receiving such services may include students taking benchmark exams and some found eligible for alternate assessment.
971550 Special Education Self-contained Services (1-:6) – This is a special education program that does not meet the standard for a NCLB core academic content course(es) and therefore is not considered a core academic course. The student’s instruction fulfills requirements based on the student’s IEP. It is likely that many, if not all, students served in this manner will be significantly cognitively impaired and eligible for alternate assessment. Instruction is provided by a HQT special education teacher who is HQT at the instructional level being taught, which likely is at the elementary level.