A Private Report Arrives Three Months Before the Triennial
Ava is a 9-year-old fourth grader with autism spectrum disorder and grade-level academic skills. Her triennial reevaluation is due in six weeks. School testing last spring showed a full-scale IQ of 88 and reading comprehension at the 40th percentile. Her parents now bring a private neuropsychological report completed three months ago: cognitive scores 15 points higher, an added diagnosis of ADHD, combined type, and a recommendation for 30 hours per week of home-based ABA plus a 1:1 paraprofessional all day at school. Ava's current IEP includes 30 minutes weekly of social work services and testing accommodations. Her teacher reports she completes most work, has one close friend, and has two to three outbursts weekly during unstructured hallway transitions. Parents say the school 'missed her needs' and want the IEP rewritten to match the private report.
1. How should the team treat the private evaluation relative to its own data?
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The district must consider the private evaluation but is not required to adopt its conclusions or its recommendations.
The team's job is to explain the discrepancy, not simply pick a winner. Likely sources worth examining:
- Different norms and subtests can shift a full-scale score by 15 points without either number being wrong.
- Testing conditions and rapport differ between an unfamiliar clinic and a familiar school.
- Diagnosis is not eligibility. An ADHD diagnosis does not by itself entitle Ava to services; the team must find an adverse educational impact.
- Functional impact matters more than labels. The teacher's report of one friendship and mostly completed work is direct evidence about that impact.
The team should document what it accepted, what it rejected, and why - typically through evaluation review and a written summary in the reevaluation report. Silently ignoring the report and rubber-stamping the old IEP are both errors.
2. How should the team respond to the two specific requests: a full-time 1:1 aide and 30 hours weekly of home ABA?
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Treat them separately, because they are governed by different questions.
1:1 aide. This is a highly restrictive support that can reduce peer interaction and foster dependency. The team should ask what need the aide would address, what the data show about Ava's functioning during transitions specifically, and whether less restrictive options (visual transition schedule, adult proximity faded over time, peer buddy, earlier hallway release) would close the gap. If the team does agree, it should write the support with a fading plan and review dates.
30 hours of home ABA. That is a home/medical service, not a school service; the district is not obligated to fund it. The team can coordinate with the outside provider and share goals, but it should not write a home program into the IEP.
If the team declines either request, it owes the parents prior written notice with reasons and procedural safeguards. The core principle: placement and services follow from assessed need, not from a diagnosis or a program name.
3. What data should the reevaluation collect so the resulting IEP is defensible either way?
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The reevaluation should be built around the disputed questions, not around a standard battery:
- Transition-specific data. Frequency, duration, antecedent, and consequence for each hallway outburst over at least three weeks, in multiple settings.
- Direct observation in unstructured settings, since that is the only area of reported concern.
- Executive-functioning rating scales from multiple raters (teacher and parent), so the ADHD question is addressed with converging evidence rather than one report.
- Social engagement measures - initiations, reciprocal play, peer nominations - to test the 'missed needs' claim on its merits.
- Progress data on current IEP goals, which answers whether existing services are working.
- Reconciliation narrative explaining differences between the two evaluations.
The reasoning: if the team gathers data on the specific contested behaviors and the data do not support the requested level of support, the team has a documented basis. If they do support it, the team must revise.