Compensatory Education - What is it?
Compensatory education (comp ed) are services a school district may provide your child with special needs. This especially true when he or she has lost time from services that are guaranteed in his or her IEP. The district may be required to “make-up” the lost time, as it cannot deviate from your child’s IEP – it’s goals and objectives, it’s modifications and accommodations, and all of it’s special services, including progress reporting and evaluations.
These comp ed services could include:
- Tutoring,
- Extended school year,
- Assistive technology that helps your child fulfill the goals of the IEP,
- Additional assessments and evaluations, especially for regression.
This year, because of the Coronavirus pandemic, many of these may be demanded by the parents of special needs children:
- Regression assessments should be conducted twice during the school year at the beginning and end of the year. They designed to determine: How much has your child regressed since he or she was last in school? This is especially important when you consider the lack of or efficiency of the services that were provided since the schools were closed. How much did this affect your child’s efforts to achieve the goals and objectives of the IEP? Should the IEP be changed to reflect any regress or inability to satisfactorily achieve each of his or her goals and objectives?
- Tutoring services. Will your child be given tutoring services to help regain lost ground?
- Extended School Year. This issue may arise at the end of the current school year, when regression data become available.
- Is there any assistive technology available to help your child learn or reinforce his or her knowledge in certain disciplines?
NOTE: if you ask for anything you deem to be important in your child’s
IEP, in your request to include a prior written notice. This tells the district
that it must provide you with a written reason why your request will not be
accommodated.
Compensatory education is used to supplement, not supplant services that a district is obligated to provide. Comp Ed is in addition to the services the district is providing as stated in your child’s IEP, including speech, occupational therapy, and physical therapy.
