ESY (Extended School Year)

Student’s IEP team should consider the following when determining ESY eligibility. Case manager will consult related service providers as appropriate for ESY eligibility in their respective area. School Psychologist will be included in team discussion for ESY eligibility. It is recommended that teams discuss eligibility prior to meeting with parents in order to have data ready for review at the meeting as well as have ESY Eligibility Form completed for signatures from related service providers as applicable and final signature from school psychologist.

1. Extended school year services must be provided only if a child's IEP team determines, on an individual basis, that the services are necessary for the provision of FAPE. Alaska regulations, the DEED state handbook and court decisions indicate that a student is provided ESY only when FAPE requires these services for the student to receive meaningful educational benefit.
   Educational benefit is provided when a student makes the expected progress each quarter on his or her goals and objectives so that it is reasonable that such goals will be achieved at the end of one year's implementation of an IEP.
2. ESY eligibility and the amendment including goals/ objectives will be determined at the annual review meeting for each student. A few exceptions may arise and those situations may result in not eligible at this time and will likely require an IEP amendment meeting, to be noted in ESY justification. Contact your Resource Specialist for unique ESY situations.
3. At the annual review meeting the IEP team will review the progress notes from the previous year's IEP.
   1. If progress is significant or goals are met then FAPE has been provided and meaningful educational benefit has been acquired, thus ESY is not required.
   2. If progress notes indicate the student has not been achieving satisfactory progress, the team will need to review the progress reports and underlying data in order to determine whether the student requires ESY.

ESY eligibility can be based on one of three areas

1. Progress on Critical Skills (limited)
   1. Review baseline for each goal
   2. Review progress notes from previous year's IEP to determine gain.
2. Regression / Recoupment
   1. Determine areas of educational need for which the student did not make sufficient progress during the prior year and then identify goals for ESY eligibility review
      1. Review data required for regression / recoupment
         1. Data indicating student's level of functioning immediately prior to break
         2. Data regarding the student's level of functioning at the conclusion of the break (no regression = no eligibility for ESY)
         3. Data at the end of a reasonable period of time for recoupment (if a student has not relearned the skill by the end of a reasonable recoupment period that he / she possessed at the beginning of the break, that student should be considered for ESY for that skill)
      2. Reasonable recoupment periods
         1. Summer break= 6-9 weeks
         2. Winter break = 5-7 days
         3. Spring break = 2-3 days
      3. Sources of data for regression / recoupment
         1. Progress monitoring, including behavioral
         2. IEP progress notes
         3. Benchmark assessments (MAP or AIMSWeb spring and fall)
3. Self-sufficiency - generally applies to students with functional and adaptive needs that interfere with the development of independence at level similar to typically developing peers
   1. Does the data demonstrate that ESY services are necessary to prevent the loss of skills necessary to independently function and reduce the dependency on care givers?
   2. This includes students with scores on the ESER in functional communication, functional academics and other adaptive areas that present two standard deviations below the mean.