State education officials endorse wide revisions to Bulletin 1508 on special-education evaluations

The Louisiana Superintendents Advisory Council voted to endorse proposed revisions to Bulletin 1508, the state pupil appraisal handbook that governs child-find and special-education evaluations.

The revisions, presented to the council by State Superintendent Dr. Capron and Meredith Jordan, executive director for Diverse Learners at the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE), update eligibility criteria, related services language and procedural guidance for pupil appraisal teams statewide.

The changes are aimed at reducing administrative burden on local pupil appraisal teams and clarifying how districts should evaluate and support students suspected of having disabilities. "I am happy to review with you all some proposed revisions to Bulletin 1508, our pupil appraisal handbook," Meredith Jordan said, explaining the document guides how the state conducts child find and evaluations. Dr. Capron noted statewide gains for students with disabilities on LEAP assessments and thanked districts for participation in statewide collaborations: "I just wanna speak out about the results that we're seeing with students with disabilities statewide," he said.

Key revisions highlighted by LDOE staff include adding licensed specialists in school psychology and licensed psychologists with a school specialty to broaden evaluators that districts may use; allowing speech-language-pathologist assistants to support assessments and interventions; and expressly stating that evaluations should not be delayed solely because a student is moving through tiered interventions when a disability is suspected (added to Section 301.1). Jordan said the update also codifies the department's definition of high-quality intervention within the state’s response-to-intervention (RTI) framework.

The proposed revisions add language linking the state’s dyslexia screening requirements from Bulletin 1903 into the pupil appraisal handbook so that pupil appraisal teams explicitly factor dyslexia screening evidence into specific learning disability determinations. LDOE staff said this clarifies steps that teams should take when dyslexia is suspected and aligns local practice with state law.

Another change broadens acceptance of medical documentation: where the handbook previously limited acceptance of diagnoses from adjacent states, the update allows districts to accept documented diagnoses from any U.S. state, a shift Jordan said will reduce burdens on families and districts who previously had to seek new local evaluations to meet state paperwork requirements.

LDOE staff also described edits clarifying reevaluation cycles — emphasizing the three-year reevaluation requirement and discouraging long gaps without current assessment data — updates to autism and emotional-disturbance language to align with current clinical definitions, and technical cleanups such as updating the required credential for certified school nurses to registered nurses and ensuring early-childhood (ages 3–5) evaluation procedures are referenced.

Council discussion was supportive. A council member said the added flexibility for psychologist certification was important for districts struggling to hire specialists. A motion to endorse the revisions was made and seconded; the motion passed unanimously.

LDOE staff said the department engaged broad stakeholder groups while drafting the revisions, including clinicians, related-services providers, pupil appraisal leads and a state special education panel, and will continue to seek feedback as the revisions move forward to subsequent advisory bodies for refinement.

The council’s endorsement is a nonbinding step that signals support for the proposed bulletin language; the department will continue stakeholder review before formal adoption steps.