The Summer Slide: Summer Regression and IEPs

The summer slide is real, particularly when it comes to reading. As advocates, we try hard to prevent the summer slide by advocating for summer school (also known as extended school year services or ESY) when appropriate. It is shocking how often district personnel are mistaken (intentionally or unintentionally) when they tell parents that their children do not qualify for ESY or for the one-size-fits-all program they have “available”. In doing so, they overlook the fact that IEPs are supposed to be individualized and that summer services are not only for the severely disabled (as they often claim).  

The IEP itself has an option for “extended school year services”. Take a look at the IEP document, typically near the end, there is an ESY section. School personnel usually do not discuss ESY as a real option with parents during IEP meetings, other than to say your child does not qualify and simply mark it as not required. We, however, suggest parents ensure the ESY discussion is a real and substantial one when ESY is mentioned.

To do so, parents need to understand the eligibility requirements before asking for ESY. According to Wrightslaw.com, which contains an article summarizing court cases across the country and U.S. Department of Education OSEP policy letters prescribing the basic requirements for ESY eligibility, there are seven standards for establishing ESY, including (1) there is no single criteria, (2) regression of skills over the summer with limited recoupment during the school year, (3) the child is on the brink of an emerging skill (like learning to read) and the current level will be lost over summer break, (4) the nature and severity of the disability, (5) notice and timing (district must document discussion at annual review), (6) the content and duration of the child’s ESY program must be determined on an individual basis, and (7) the ability of the parents to provide a structured learning environment at home. https://www.wrightslaw.com/info/esy.standards.barlev.htm (be sure to check out this great Wrightslaw article for the details). 

Parents must understand their individual state's ESY requirements as well. For instance, according to Disability Rights California, to qualify for extended school years services in California, it must be shown that the student's disabilities are likely to continue indefinitely or for a prolonged period; interruption of her educational program may cause regression; limited recoupment capacity; and the above factors make it “impossible or unlikely” that she will attain self-sufficiency and independence without ESY services. https://serr.disabilityrightsca.org/serr-manual/chapter-1-information-on-basic-rights/1-31-how-can-my-child-qualify-for-extended-school-year-services/  However, according to Disability Rights California, the “lack of clear evidence” of the above factors may not be used to deny a student extended school-year services if the IEP team determines the need for such a program and it is written into the IEP. Id. 

Therefore, the key to a substantive ESY discussion at your next IEP meeting is knowing the ESY eligibility requirements in your state and in your district. The best way to start might be to email the head of special education in your district and ask for a copy of the district’s ESY eligibility policy and requirements. Once a parent has the district policy, it makes advocating for ESY much easier and more focused. Instead of throwing everything up against the wall to see what sticks, the parent knows what arguments must be made for ESY and can collect the necessary data and support. Of course, parents would be smart to ensure that the district’s requirements match their state laws in this regard. Google and parent forums on social media, such as a Facebook Decoding Dyslexia group in your state, would be helpful in gathering such information as well.

As an example, for some children, especially those learning to read, summer break causes enough regression that the students are not able to progress much from year to year because they regress so much over the summer and have limited recoupment of those skills afterward. Let’s assume a child has a January IEP, meaning the annual review and reading goals were created in January. A parent may then receive very positive and accurate reports from the teacher throughout the following spring, stating that the student is making good reading progress. Summer break then comes, along with the summer slide (aka summer regression). At the start of the next school year, the parent and new teacher might be unaware of the summer slide especially if they do not take the time to compare before and after summer reading assessments, which is often the case. So, the new teacher may continue to report the student is making good reading progress without any understanding of the summer regression. 

As a parent advocate, the parent must verify such progress through facts and data and keep track of the progress or lack thereof (we love using graphs or charts). The easiest way to gather such data after the fact is to look at the student’s reading levels at the start of the IEP for the year(s) in question. Usually, the IEP itself will contain a student's reading level so a close review of the IEP is a good place to start. In addition, we encourage parents to gather all the reading assessment results from the current and prior teachers because these assessments are usually done three times a year in elementary general education and allows for the tracking progress over a school year as well as year over year. Furthermore, we encourage parents to collect all assessment data from the reading specialist or specialized academic instruction provider from the current and prior year. Usually, these providers have beginning and end-of-year assessment and/or placement data that is separate and apart from the general education teacher’s data. We like private progress monitoring much better for ESY purposes, but using such district assessment data can work when you need data from the past. (And, now that you are in the know, we suggest you collect such data for your records regularly by asking the teachers/providers when and how often they do assessments and then following up for copies of the results afterward.)

After reviewing such data, many parents discover that a comparison between the spring and fall reading level assessments reveals the student regressed so much over the summer that the reading level is lower in the fall than it was at the time of the prior IEP meeting. And, at the next annual January IEP meeting, it may be further discovered that the student is only at or near the very same reading level identified at the time of the prior IEP (a year earlier) and thus there was limited recoupment despite all the great progress reported by the teacher. Oftentimes, the IEP team will not realize or admit this is happening without the parent pointing out that the child’s reading level is essentially the same year over year. Even if the child's reading level is a little higher, it is still unacceptable because the student should be making enough progress that he is starting to close the gap with his peers. This is exactly the type of regression-limited recoupment data a parent can use to establish the need for ESY.

Once the IEP team agrees that ESY is appropriate, the discussion should turn to what services are required as part of ESY. Districts regularly offer a standard one-size-fits-all program but we like the parent to focus the team on what exactly is required to ensure the student does not regress in reading over the summer. If a specific reading program is being used during the school year, we encourage the parent to start the negotiation there. Ideally, if the student is making progress, the parent would argue for the same amount of service minutes and the same program offered over the summer, continuing just where the school year service left off. We have seen districts offer continuation of the same reading program over the summer when a student is very far behind but not too often. An agreement on a specific program or modified number of service minutes that would ensure the student maintains his pre-summer reading skills would be an adequate compromise in most cases, particularly because the district's obligation is only to stop the regression-limited recoupment cycle.  We would be very hesitant to place a student like the one described above in a standard summer program not designed around the child's reading needs and, if the parents were to agree nonetheless, we would encourage them to do before and after private progress monitoring so they do not make the same mistake twice.