Special Education Evaluation Toolkit

Scoring rubric for self-assessing PSW constructed-response practice essays. Pairs with the TExES 253 crosswalk and Future Diag Academy materials for candidates preparing for certification.

A short diagnostic for IEP goal quality: five questions that separate a goal written for a child's future from one written for the next annual review. Useful for ARD prep, goal review, and campus-level PD conversations.

Fellow diagnosticians and educators building their own resources for the field — tutoring, advocacy, blogs, and reference tools. A thank-you to the colleagues who cross-link and share generously.

A 150-year interactive timeline tracing civil rights law, disability activism, and federal legislation — from Reconstruction-era exclusion through IDEA, the ADA, and the present day. Covers PARC, Mills, Brown v. Board, Section 504, the eugenics era, Texas-specific history, and the ongoing work of equity in special education. Advocacy-informed with expandable narrative detail.

An interactive governance-chain diagram tracing authority from Congress down through TEA, ESCs, district leadership, ARD committees, and the classroom. Toggle between the pre-2026 and post-June 2026 IDEA interagency agreement chains, layer in the Part B funding flow and 40% full-funding gap, or surface key legal milestones — from PARC and Mills through Endrew F. — at each level of the chain.

Curated books, organizations, films, podcasts, and key legal documents for practitioners who want to understand the civil rights and advocacy history behind the work. Covers foundational texts, disability justice frameworks, dyslexia science, parent advocacy, and landmark cases. Searchable and filterable by type.

A comprehensive guide to what educational diagnosticians do in Texas special education — evaluation scope, the FIE process step by step, ARD/IEP participation, collaboration with teachers and families, legal and ethical foundations, and caseload context. Grounded in 19 TAC §239.83 and the Field 253 framework. Useful for new diags, administrators, teachers, and families.

How 10 states implement IDEA 2004 for SLD, LD, and ADHD evaluations — evaluation timelines, SLD identification methods (PSW, RTI, discrepancy), dyslexia laws, and ADHD/OHI guidance. Texas as baseline anchor. Built for Texas diagnosticians thinking across state lines.

A complete, ready-to-present faculty session for general education teachers. A teacher holding four IEPs, two BIPs, and three 504s isn't managing nine plans — she's managing six supports, and she's probably already doing four of them. Teachers build their own accommodation crosswalk, watch ~40 accommodations collapse into six routines, and walk out with a chart that doubles as implementation fidelity documentation. Grounded in IDEA's LRE mandate (supplementary aids and services come first) and TEA's routine-and-effective-use requirement for STAAR designated supports. Generic by design — nothing to strip out.

A ten-minute faculty introduction to the evaluation roles and the FIE — built to drop into an existing faculty meeting, not to occupy a PD day. What a diagnostician and a school psychologist actually do (and don't), what "Full and Individual Evaluation" means word by word, the two-part eligibility question, the 15 / 45 / 30 timelines and why they aren't yours to move, and exactly what a teacher should do the moment a parent asks about testing. Twelve slides with full speaker notes, plus a printable one-page leave-behind. Generic by design — fill in two slides and present it.

What exists, what doesn't, and how to advocate for access through your district. Covers IDEA-B CEIS funds, Title II, the NEA Foundation Learning & Leadership Grant, TEDA scholarships, and ESC training — plus a clear-eyed look at the funding infrastructure gap compared to school psychology.

Studying for the 253? All eight competencies crosswalked to the hub — which spine phases are each competency's home turf, which tools to practice with, and a practice loop for the Domain IV constructed response.