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New director of special services outlines goals, reports 459 IEPs districtwide
Summary
The district’s newly appointed director of special services summarized early priorities including individualizing services, strengthening secondary-transition work for students 14 and older, and aligning services to a district-developed service-delivery continuum; she provided counts of IEPs and 504 plans.
The Clear Creek Amana Community School District’s new director of special services (name given in the meeting as "Mrs. Clark," full name not specified in the transcript) updated the board on initial priorities and counts for special education services.
The director said she has completed about six weeks on the job and has focused on relationship-building with families and staff, participating in summer programming, and meeting multiple principals. She reported the district had 459 active individualized education programs (IEPs) as of the data pull on the 13th of the month; 377 students received district-provided special-education services and 82 received AEA (Area Education Agency) support only. She estimated about 139 active 504 plans for students in grades 3–11.
A primary short-term goal is to individualize services rather than sorting students into funding-level “buckets.” The director said funding levels assigned by the state reflect a funding category but do not capture the full set of services a student needs; she emphasized a plan to review individual IEPs, confirm case managers and special-education teachers, and schedule twice-monthly coaching. The district is also involved in a DE pilot project to support secondary-transition outcomes for students age 14 and older, and staff are completing corrective-action work targeting secondary transition in high school and for eighth graders preparing for high school.
Other short-term items listed were aligning associate schedules across buildings, tightening purchasing procedures to link purchases to IEP needs, ensuring Medicaid billing practices are fully utilized (the director said billing may be underused and parental consent can affect reimbursement), and improving behavior-intervention-plan implementation. Longer-term goals include building staff capacity for co-teaching and collaborative planning, continuing to develop high-quality IEP goals and specially designed instruction, reviewing the 504 process for identification and support, and developing comprehensive behavior supports for students with IEPs.
Board members asked how the district’s funding-level assignments relate to open enrollment decisions. The director clarified that Iowa assigns a funding level for each student that informs state funding but does not determine services outright; open-enrollment decisions will be based on whether the district can offer the specific services identified in a student’s IEP rather than on funding level alone.
The director invited board members to follow up with questions and said the corrective-action work remains a priority at the high school level before it expands districtwide.
