On behalf of the Arizona Graduation Workgroup, ADE/ESS is pleased to present two guidance documents related to graduation for students with disabilities: Graduation and Students with Disabilities: A Guide for Public Education Agencies and Graduation and Students with Disabilities: A Guide for Parents. These documents are attached to this email, but are also available on a newly developed ADE/ESS graduation website: http://www.azed.gov/special-education/graduation.

In order to better understand the perspectives of students, families, schools, and agencies involved in graduation planning, the Arizona Department of Education, Exceptional Student Services (ADE/ESS), solicited volunteers from the field to compose a graduation workgroup. This workgroup includes representatives from all relevant stakeholder groups, and its purpose is a continuing one—to discuss and develop guidance to assist public education agencies (PEAs) and individualized education program (IEP) teams in making informed decisions about graduation for students with disabilities.

These documents are intended to clarify Arizona’s graduation requirements, their interplay with the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and how graduation requirements impact students with disabilities. They represent the first communication from the graduation workgroup and are not intended to be “one size fits all” guides for all graduation issues nor will they address all questions related to graduation. ADE/ESS, through the advisement of the graduation workgroup, ADE/Legal Department, and other ADE program areas, will continue to generate helpful documents, resources, and web links and to disseminate them to the field on a regular basis. Additional related topics will be addressed in future communications and presentations related to this guidance will be provided at the Directors Institute (August 2013) and Arizona’s Thirteenth Annual Transition Conference (September/October 2013).

On October 5, 2010, President Obama signed legislation requiring the federal government to replace the term “mental retardation” with “intellectual disability” in many areas of government. The measure known as Rosa’s Law, will strip the terms “mental retardation” and “mentally retarded” from federal health, education and labor policy. “Intellectual disability” or “individual with an intellectual disability” will be inserted in their places. The rights of individuals with disabilities will remain the same. 

The ADE is working towards making this change to be consistent with this new legislation. Even with the new law in effect, this change will not occur immediately. The current disability categories of MIMR, MOMR, and SMR within SAIS will not be changed to reflect the new terminology until FY 2014. Please note however, that budget forms and worksheets for FY 2013 provided by School Finance includes the change from MMR to “Moderate Intellectual Disability”. 

Over the course of this year, ADE/ESS will begin the conversion of all ESS related documents and business rules to the new terminology. Thank you for your patience as we make this transition.