Rowan-Salisbury Schools (RSS) has procedures in place to ensure that the district identifies, locates and evaluates all children residing in Rowan County with suspected disabilities who may be in need of special education and related services. This includes all children aged 3 to 21 who

• attend public or private schools;
• are homeschooled;
• are advancing from grade to grade; and/or
• are homeless, wards of the state, or highly mobile (migrant) children.

Child find activities implemented in RSS include screening and general education intervention.

Referral of a Child with a Suspected Disability By Parent:

In the event a parent suspects their child is has a disability who may need specially designed instruction, they may submit a written request for an evaluation of their child to the administration or staff of their child’s school. Parents can verbally request an evaluation if he/she needs assistance putting the request in writing. A case manager will be assigned and will schedule a meeting to complete a special education referral as soon as possible. At the special education referral meeting the IEP team, of which the parent is a member, will review all existing data including any information submitted by the parent.

Notification of a Child with a Suspected Disability by Individuals other than the Parent or School System Staff:

In the event the district is notified that a child is a student with a suspected disability who may be in need of specially designed instruction, through a written request from someone other than the parent or LEA, the district is obligated to respond in writing within 30 days. An assigned case manager will contact the parent to notify the parent of the concern. If the parent indicates they agree with the concern, the parent will be asked to put their request in writing and an IEP team meeting will be scheduled to consider the referral. If the parent does not share the concern and does not make a referral, the case manager will send a written summary of the discussion with the parent.

Upon receiving a special education referral, the district has 90 days from the date the referral is received from parent or Individual problem solving team to review existing information, complete any necessary evaluations, determine eligibility, develop an IEP and obtain parent consent for services.

Child Find Brochure English/Spanish

• EC Parent Rights Handbook- English
• EC Parent Rights Handbook- Spanish

Eligibility for exceptional children services is determined by an IEP team, which includes the parent(s), after a review of all existing data to include the results of any evaluations.

Autism (AU): Means a developmental disability significantly affecting verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, generally evident before age three, which adversely affects a child's educational performance. Other characteristics often associated with autism are engagement in repetitive activities and stereotypical movements, restricted interests, resistance to environmental change or change in daily routines, and unusual responses to sensory experiences.

Deaf-Blindness (DB): Means hearing and visual impairments that occur together, the combination of which causes such severe communication and other developmental and educational needs that they cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for children with deafness or children with blindness.

Deafness (DF): Means a hearing impairment that is so severe that the child is impaired in processing linguistic information through hearing, with or without amplification, and that adversely affects the child's educational performance.

Developmentally Delayed (DD): Means a child aged three through seven whose development and/or behaviors is delayed or atypical, as measured by appropriate diagnostic instruments and procedures, in one or more of the following areas: physical development, cognitive development, communication development, social or emotional development, or adaptive development, and who, by reason of the delay, needs special education and related services.

Emotional Disturbance (ED): Means a condition exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time and to a marked degree that adversely affects a child's educational performance: (a) an inability to make educational progress that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors; (b) an inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers; (c) inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances; (d) a general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression; (e) a tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems. Serious emotional disability includes schizophrenia. The term does not apply to children who are socially maladjusted unless it is determined that they have an emotional disturbance.

Hearing Impairment (HI): Means an impairment in hearing, whether permanent or fluctuating, that adversely affects a child's educational performance but that is not included under the definition of deafness.

Intellectual Disability (ID): Means significantly sub-average general intellectual functioning that adversely affects a child's educational performance existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested during the development period that adversely affects a child's educational performance. The term "intellectual disability" was formerly termed "mental retardation."

Multiple Disabilities (MU): Means two or more disabilities occurring together (such as intellectual disability - blindness, intellectual disability - orthopedic impairment, etc.), the combination of which causes such severe educational needs that they cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for one of the impairments. Multiple disabilities does not include deaf-blindness.

Orthopedic Impairment (OI): Means a severe physical impairment that adversely affects a child's educational performance. The term includes impairments caused by a congenital anomaly, impairments caused by disease (e.g., poliomyelitis, bone tuberculosis, etc.), and impairments from other causes (e.g., cerebral palsy, amputations, and fractures or burns that cause contractures, etc.).

Other Health Impairment (OHI): Means having limited strength, vitality, or alertness, including a heightened alertness to environmental stimuli, that results in limited alertness with respect to the educational environment; that is due to chronic or acute health problems such as asthma, attention deficit disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, diabetes, epilepsy, a heart condition, hemophilia, lead poisoning, leukemia, nephritis, rheumatic fever, sickle cell anemia, and Tourette's Syndrome, etc.; and that adversely affects a child's educational performance.

Specific Learning Disability (SLD): Means a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, that may manifest itself in the impaired ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or do mathematical calculations, including conditions such as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia. Disorders not included: Specific learning disability does not include learning problems that are primarily the results of visual, hearing, or motor disabilities, of intellectual disability, of serious emotional disturbance, or environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.

Speech or Language Impairment (SLI): A communication disorder, such as an impairment in fluency, articulation, language, or voice/resonance, that adversely affects a child's educational performance. Language may include function of language (pragmatic), the content of language (semantic), and the form of language (phonologic, morphologic, and syntactic systems). A speech or language impairment may result in a primary disability or it may be secondary to other disabilities.

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI): Means an acquired injury to the brain caused by an external physical force or by an internal occurrence resulting in total or partial functional disability and/or psychosocial impairment that adversely affects a child's educational performance. Causes may include but are not limited to, open or closed head injuries, cerebrovascular accidents (e.g., stroke, aneurysm), infections, kidney or heart failure, electric shock, anoxia, tumors, metabolic disorders, toxic substances, or medical or surgical treatments. The brain injury can occur in a single event or can result from a series of events (e.g., multiple concussions). Traumatic brain injury also can occur with or without a loss of consciousness at the time of injury. Traumatic brain injury may result in impairments in one or more areas, such as cognition; language; memory; attention; reasoning; abstract thinking; judgment; problem-solving; sensory, perceptual, and motor abilities; psychosocial behavior; physical functions; information processing; and speech. Traumatic brain injury does not apply to brain injuries that are congenital or degenerative but can include brain injuries induced by birth trauma.

Visual Impairment (VI): Means an impairment in vision that, even with correction, adversely affects a child's educational performance. The term includes both partial sight and blindness.

Related Services Related services are supportive services that an eligible student with a disability requires to benefit from special education. The IEP team determines the need for related services in the educational setting. Eligibility for special education services does not automatically entitle a student to related services.

Common related services include, but are not limited to:

Occupational Therapy: 

Occupational therapy means- Student-centered continuum of services provided by a licensed occupational therapist or a licensed and supervised occupational therapy assistant. These services assist a student to engage in meaningful and/or necessary occupations that allow a student to participate in and benefit from special education. These occupations may include student role/interaction skills, learning academics and process skills, personal care, play and recreation, written communication, and community integration and work. Occupational therapy services may include: (i) Screening, evaluation, intervention, and documentation; (ii) Assistance with occupational performance when impaired or lost; (iii) Modification of environments (both human and physical) and tasks, and selection, design, and fabrication of assistive devices and other assistive technology to facilitate development, promote the acquisition of functional skills, and engagement in meaningful occupations; (iv) Integration of occupational therapy interventions into a student’s educational program to assist the student in participation and acquisition of goals; (v) Collaboration with appropriate individuals to meet student’s needs including transition planning; and (vi) Provide education and information to families and school personnel to assist with planning and problem-solving.

Orientation and Mobility

Orientation and mobility services - (i) Means services provided to children with blindness or visual impairment by qualified personnel to enable those students to attain systematic orientation to and safe movement within their environments in school, home, and community; and (ii) Includes teaching students the following, as appropriate: (A) Spatial and environmental concepts and use of information received by the senses (such as sound, temperature and vibrations) to establish, maintain, or regain orientation and line of travel (e.g., using sound at a traffic light to cross the street); (B) To use the long cane or a service animal to supplement visual travel skills or as a tool for safely negotiating the environment for students with no available travel vision; (C) To understand and use remaining vision and distance low vision aids; and (D) Other concepts, techniques, and tools.

Physical Therapy

Destruction of Records

Rowan-Salisbury schools has the child find responsibility to identify, locate and evaluate students who are enrolled in private schools (including homeschools) within our LEA (ages 3 – 21) who are in need of special education and related services.

Parents of children who reside in our LEA but attend a private school in another LEA or State, may also request an evaluation from our district.

We will  move through the process using similar activities and in a comparable time period as we do with other students enrolled in our district.

Families that reside in Rowan County who have children that are homeschooled or attend private school, as well as families that live elsewhere but have children that attend a private school located in Rowan County, may submit their request for evaluation to the EC Department by submitting this form: EC Information Request (EC Information Request (private school, preschool, parent concerns). 

• NCDPI - EC Division
• Arc of North Carolina
  • ARC of Rowan County
• Autism Society of North Carolina
• Disability Rights of North Carolina
• Exceptional Children's Assistance Center
• Family Support Network of North Carolina
• North Carolina Post Secondary Education Alliance
• North Carolina Special Olympics
• National Down Syndrome Society
  

Dispute Resolution Brochure