Why this session exists
Most campuses have never been told what you do
You are in and out of classrooms all year, you send teachers forms with deadlines attached,
and you sit at ARDs holding a report nobody has read. Meanwhile the building calls the
diagnostician about a counseling crisis, tells parents to "finish RTI first," and treats
a Friday input deadline as a suggestion. None of that is malice. It's an introduction
that never happened.
Ten minutes buys back a year
This is deliberately short. It is built to drop into an existing faculty meeting
in August or after a staffing change, not to occupy a PD day. Every slide earns its
place by changing something a teacher will actually do — who they call, what they
send you, and what they say in the hallway when a parent asks about testing.
The four takeaways
A faculty should leave knowing: who to call, what an FIE is
and what it can't do, what to do when a parent asks about testing,
and why the 45-day clock is the state's, not yours.
Run of show
| Slide | What it covers | Why it's in here |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Title & promise | Ninety seconds. Name yourself, set the four takeaways, promise to get out of their way. |
| 2 | Two roles, the same question | Diagnostician vs. school psychologist, including the LSSP → school psychologist title change. |
| 3 | What we do — and what we don't | Stops the misdirected phone calls. Lands on "no" being a real answer. |
| 4 | Full and Individual Evaluation | Each word unpacked, plus the FIIE-vs-reevaluation distinction. |
| 5 | One question, in two parts | Disability and need for specially designed instruction. The most useful slide in the deck. |
| 6 | What's actually in the report | The assessment areas, and why not every FIE covers every one. |
| 7 | Your input is evidence | A can't-use-it quote next to a can-use-it quote. The contrast does the teaching. |
| 8 | The clock | 15 school days / 45 school days / 30 calendar days, cited to statute and rule. |
| 9 | When a parent asks about testing | Four moves, plus the "we have to try interventions first" myth. |
| 10 | A diagnosis is not an eligibility | Medical model vs. educational model, in both directions. |
| 11 | What you get back | How to use a long report in five minutes. Sells the impact statement. |
| 12 | Three asks | Call first, send data, read the impact statement — and correct me if it's wrong. |
Download the package
PowerPoint · 12 slides
The deck
Every slide carries speaker notes, including what to say when the room pushes back. Two fill-in slides: title and closing.
PDF · 1 page
Teacher leave-behind
The whole session on one printable page. Who to call, the three timelines, what to do when a parent asks, and what usable data looks like.
Web · printable
Leave-behind, editable
The same page in HTML if you want to swap in your own name, campus, and contact information before you print it.
Before you present
- Fill in slides 1 and 12. Presenter name, campus, date at the front; your name, role, email, and extension at the back. They are the only placeholders in the deck.
- Name your campus's evaluation contact out loud on slide 9 — and put the email on the board. It is the single most actionable moment in the session.
- Decide which bottleneck you're naming on slide 8. Teacher input forms, vision and hearing screenings, attendance data — name the process, never a person.
- Bring a real report to hold up on slide 11. De-identified, or just let them see the thickness. The object makes the point faster than the slide does.
- Know where reports live in your SIS and who grants access. A teacher who can't find the report will not read the report.
- Adapt slide 2 to your staffing. If your campus has only one of the two roles, say so plainly rather than reading both columns as if they're both down the hall.
What to say when they push back
"So we did all that testing for nothing?"
No — we now know the barrier isn't a disability, which means the fix is something the building
controls: instruction, attendance, intervention intensity, language support. That is a faster
answer than special education, not a lesser one. A non-qualifying evaluation closes a question
that would otherwise stay open for years.
"Don't we have to finish interventions before we can refer?"
No. Intervention data is valuable, we want it, and it often makes an evaluation better or
unnecessary. It is not a prerequisite for evaluation and it cannot be the reason a parent's
request sits. This is the item campuses most often get wrong, and it is the one most likely
to show up in a complaint.
"The parent already has a diagnosis from a doctor. Isn't that enough?"
An outside evaluation is information the committee is required to consider, and it frequently
shortens our work. It is not a decision, because eligibility is an educational determination
and the doctor wasn't asked an educational question. It runs the other way too: a student can
be eligible with no outside diagnosis at all, which is why nobody should wait for a family to
afford one.
"Why do you need all this from me? You're the one doing the testing."
Because classroom data is the only part of the evaluation nobody else can produce, and it
carries real weight — a disability determination requires evidence of educational impact,
and impact lives in your room, not in a testing session. When a report and a classroom
disagree, that disagreement belongs in the report.
"Which one are you again — the diagnostician or the school psychologist?"
Different training paths into the same job. The diagnostician comes through teaching and
SBEC certification; the school psychologist comes through psychology and a license from the
Texas Behavioral Health Executive Council. Both write FIEs. Who picks up which referral is a
staffing decision in your district, not a limit on either credential.
Use it, change it, put your name on it
Everything here is free and deliberately generic. Cut slides, rewrite the examples for your
campus, translate it — no attribution required. If you present it, I'd like to hear how it
landed.