Breakthrough School provides opportunities for students with diverse learning styles, including those identified as Talented and Gifted, to participate in specially designed educational programming in order to help each student achieve his or her full potential.

Breakthrough provides special education services for children with disabilities in accordance with the Individual with Disabilities Education Improvement Act, Amendments of 2004 and the Alabama Exceptional Child Education Act (Act 106).

Child Find services are employed to locate and provide appropriate educational and related services to all children with disabilities between the ages of Birth to 21. A wide range of services is available to meet the needs of all students (Pre-K through 10th grade) who are identified as exceptional learners.  Exceptionalities recognized by the State of Alabama include Autism, Deaf-Blindness, Developmental Delay, Emotional Disability, Hearing Impairment, Intellectual Disability, Multiple Disabilities, Orthopedic Impairment, Other Health Impairment, Specific Learning Disability, Speech or Language Impairment, Traumatic Brain Injury and Visual Impairment.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) allows for research-/evidence-based programs and strategies to be used before identifying students in a category of special education. The goal of the Response to Intervention (RtI) model is to address deficits as soon as the interferences of learning are noticed instead of waiting for the students to fail. The Three-Tier Model incorporates flexible grouping practices to group and regroup students based on their progress, interests, and changing. Interventions are individualized plans designed to assist in meeting general education students’ academic and behavior needs. The term PST stands for Problem Solving Teams.

PST Facts

• Provide the ability to successfully teach all students in the regular education setting
• Identify both strengths and needs of students
• Address discipline, academic and behavioral needs for students
• Provide immediate support for teacher, parent and/or student concerns that need to be addressed in a timely manner
• Are written to specific individual needs of students and teachers
• Are interventions and strategies that can be evaluated by the level of success
• Require follow-up meetings to assist in weekly and monthly monitoring the success of the plan
• Ensure that appropriate referrals are made for special education services

Referral Process

A Special Education referral can be made from a parent of a child, state education agency, other state agency, or local education agency to determine if the child is a child with a disability. As a part of the referral process, information is gathered from the PST team plan, classroom environmental observation, a parent interview and the Environmental, Cultural and/or Economic Concerns checklist. The IEP Team makes the decision to accept or reject the Special Education referral.

Eligibility

An eligibility meeting will be held once the testing is completed as agreed upon from the referral meeting. The purpose of the meeting is to review and discuss the assessment results and any other pertinent information and to determine whether or not the child has a disability and is eligible for special education services. If the IEP team has determined the child eligible for Special Education services, another meeting is scheduled within 30 days to develop an Individualized Educational Program (IEP) to address needs for the child.

504

What is Section 504?
Civil Rights legislation for persons with disabilities
Legislative intent is to prevent discrimination based on disability

Who is handicapped under 504?

“Handicapped person.” (1) “Handicapped persons” means any person who (i) has a physical or mental impairment which substantially limits one or more major life activities, (ii) has a record of such an impairment, or (iii) is regarded as having such an impairment.

What is a substantial limitation?

1) Unable to perform a major life activity that the average person in the general population can perform, or 2) Significantly restricted as to the condition, manner or duration under which an individual can perform a particular major life activity as compared to the condition, manner or duration under which the average person in the general population can perform the same major life activity.

What are major life activities?

“Major life activities” means functions such as caring for one’s self, performing manual tasks, walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, learning, and working.