(Superseded March 2025 by new memo/guidance)

Quarterly Special Education Events Data Submissions: 2024-2025 School Year

In November of 2023, the New York State Education Department (NYSED) communicated to the field that it would be expanding its collection of Special Education Events Data to meet the requirements and purposes of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and to more effectively monitor and support school districts in compliance with federal and state regulations under the State Performance Plan (SPP) Indicator 11 (Child Find) and SPP Indicator 12 (Early Childhood Transition). As previously communicated, beginning in the 2024-2025 school year, all school districts are required to submit Special Education Events Data four times a year and use the PD system to certify these data. These submissions will provide an additional opportunity for each school district to review its data on an ongoing basis to ensure it is implementing effective systems resulting in 100 percent compliance with regulatory requirements. Data submissions will also be used for NYSED compliance monitoring purposes including the potential identification of noncompliance and, if applicable, verification of the school district’s correction of student-specific and regulatory noncompliance.

Schedule For Submissions During the 2024-2025 School Year

The below table outlines the submission and certification due dates for Special Education Events occurring in the 2024-2025 school year.

Compliance Standard

SPP Indicator 11 (Child Find) measures the percent of children who were evaluated within 60 days of parental consent for initial evaluation through Special Education Events Data submitted and certified via the verification report (VR) 11. To determine compliance with regulatory requirements, student-level Special Education Events Data is reviewed to identify whether the committee on special education (CSE) or committee on preschool special education (CPSE) meeting at which evaluation results are discussed (all evaluations are completed) is being held within 60 days of receipt of parent consent. If the CSE/CPSE meeting to discuss all evaluation results was not held, but all evaluations were completed within 60 days, the school district can also report this event to meet compliance standards. The school district may also report where a mutual written agreement between the CSE and the parent of a student suspected of having a learning disability has extended the 60-day timeline in compliance with regulatory requirements.

SPP Indicator 12 (Early Childhood Transition) measures the percent of children referred by Early Intervention prior to age 3, who are found eligible and who have an individualized education program (IEP) developed and implemented by their third birthday through Special Education Events submitted and certified via the VR 12. To determine compliance with regulatory requirements, student-level Special Education Events Data is reviewed to identify whether the student’s IEP implementation date was on or before their third birthday.

Reasons for any delay in evaluation or early childhood transition are also collected and used to determine whether the delay was due to a reason that is in compliance with regulatory requirements or not. The Special Education Events Data codes and the compliant reason codes for a delay are further described in Special Education Codes and Descriptions for SIRS : SEDCAR : IRS : P-12: NYSED. If the delay is for a compliant reason, that record does not reflect student-specific noncompliance. The expected compliance rate for both VR11 and VR12 is 100 percent. School districts must review their data to ensure this compliance standard is met and if not, must ensure that any individual case of noncompliance is resolved as soon as possible.

Monitoring Schedule

NYSED has a monitoring plan to review school district records for compliance with Child Find and Early Childhood Transition requirements, as applicable, based on a submission schedule to ensure all school districts are reviewed at least once during a six-year period with annual monitoring of the New York City Department of Education. This monitoring plan additionally includes continued monitoring of those school districts on the resubmission schedule which includes those school districts with identified noncompliance not yet verified as resolved, school districts that had no student records to report during the submission schedule, and school districts that failed to submit or certify timely or accurate Special Education Events Data during the submission schedule.

During the period in which the school district is being monitored, NYSED will review student records according to the applicable Child Find or Early Childhood Transition compliance standard. Any identified noncompliance must be verified to be resolved from both a student-specific and regulatory perspective. Updated L0 Historical Data is used to verify the correction of student-specific noncompliance with additional documentation required when necessary to ensure each individual case of noncompliance has been resolved. (The PD data system will not update to show any dates submitted through the L0 Historical process. "Not Reported" will continue to appear in the VR11 or VR12 Student Specific Noncompliance Chart, as applicable.) A new subsequent data sample is reviewed from the current school year to verify all records meet the applicable compliance standard and the school district is meeting regulatory requirements. Data from each submission date is reviewed until all student-specific noncompliant records are verified as resolved and the subsequent sample records reviewed from the current school year demonstrate 100 percent compliance with regulatory requirements. If further information is required to verify correction of noncompliance, source documentation may be required for review.

School districts that have no student records to report during the submission schedule will be placed on the resubmission schedule. For SPP Indicator 11 (Child Find), this may occur if no parent consent for initial evaluation was received during the submission period. For SPP Indicator 12 (Early Childhood Transition), no records to report may occur if no child was referred by the Early Intervention program for preschool special education services during the submission period. School districts that have no student records to report during its submission schedule will be placed on the resubmission schedule and its subsequent school year data will be reviewed in the next monitoring period. For example, school districts on the submission schedule for the 2024-2025 school year that certify zero student records to report for that year will have their 2025-2026 school year data subject to NYSED monitoring.

Failure to submit or certify timely and accurate data may result in the identification of noncompliance with section 100.2(bb)(3) of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education relating to special education data reporting requirements. This may also result in a deduction of points in the school district’s timely and accurate data rubric used for annual accountability purposes under the IDEA: Annual IDEA Determinations for School Districts | New York State Education Department. School districts that fail to submit or certify timely and accurate data will be placed on the resubmission schedule. The school district is required to cure its data reporting errors and its subsequent school year data will be reviewed in the next monitoring period. For example, school districts on the submission schedule that failed to submit or certify data for the 2024-2025 school year will have their 2025-2026 school year data subject to NYSED monitoring. The below table outlines the monitoring schedule and standard for VR11 and VR12:

Six Year Retention Policy for Special Education Events Documentation

It is important to note that source documentation for Child Find and Early Childhood Transition events must be made available upon request during the monitoring process if further information is required to verify the correction of noncompliance.
School districts are reminded that the Retention and Disposition Schedule for New York Local Government Records (LGS-1) includes retention requirements for special education records. Specifically, (LGS-1) section 931[b] states that, among other special education records, the retention of referral and evaluation information is 6 years…

“Other special education records including but not limited to attendance record, copy of high school transcript or student progress reports, referral form, individual evaluations, IEP's (except most recent), behavior intervention plan (except most recent) parent communication, agency communication, and attendance/staff reports, behavior/staff changes records, test papers, psychologists' notes and "protocols," regardless of whether or not student is declassified from special education” is 6 years.”

Contact Information

For questions related to data and data submission, please contact the Office of Information and Reporting Services at Datasupport.
For questions related to the verification of compliance and/or regulatory requirements, please contact the Special Education Quality Assurance (SEQA) Unit located in your region of the state or email seqa@nysed.gov.