Coronavirus and Schools: COVID-19 and ESY NOREPs/Programs
CORONAVIRUS UPDATE
Question from a school district: As you know, for students in the target groups, ESY NOREPs are supposed to be sent by 3/30 to confirm the student's placement. I'm working under the assumption that this timeline is still in place, knowing that details about summer programs could change depending on how long the school closure lasts. Please let us know whether you'd recommend any changes to our usual practice of issuing ESY NOREPs.
Unless and until we hear otherwise from PDE (the March 30 deadline for students in the “mandatory” ESY class is a Pennsylvania creation, not a federal mandate, although the language in Chapter 14 was adopted from a 1980 court decree), the March 30 deadline for issuing ESY-related is still in place. Of course, to issue an ESY NOREP, you should have convened an IEP team meeting to address both eligibility for, and the content of, ESY services. We assume you did so before the closure, given that such meetings for students in the mandatory class were to have occurred prior to the end of February. Yes, consistent with our recommendations of this morning ESY NOREPs can and should issue by the deadline.
You are correct, however, that given the current state of events, the availability of instruction over the summer remains an open question. We therefore recommend that you add either to Section 3 or to the “other considerations” section of the NOREP this caveat: “This offer of ESY services during the summer of 2020 is contingent on whether schools are able to open and operate during this period, in light of the COVID-19 outbreak and mandated closures related thereto.” Or words to that effect.