Program Support and Monitoring

ADE/ESS has received numerous questions about Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA) evaluations. The purpose of this Hot Topic is to help to highlight the differences between evaluations specified in federal and state special education regulations and ESA evaluations outlined in state regulations.

Recently, ADE/ESS has received many inquiries regarding special education Early Childhood Transition for children referred from IDEA Part C, Arizona’s Early Intervention Program (AzEIP). The attached Hot Topic is intended to provide guidance to address these responsibilities.

Special Education Directors,

ESS/Program Support and Monitoring (PSM) is proud to announce the release of the SY 2022–2023 Programmatic Monitoring Manual. This manual is a critical document for public education agencies (PEAs) participating in monitoring activities and can also be used by all PEAs to self-assess programmatic strengths and needs. 

Special Education Directors,

ESS/Program Support and Monitoring (PSM) is proud to announce the release of the SY 2022–2023 Programmatic Monitoring Guide Steps. Additionally, is the release memo indicating some of the recent updates. The guide steps are a technical assistance document created to aid PEAs in understanding the requirements specific to programmatic monitoring. Legal compliance, as it relates to a state complaint or due process, may be more extensive. Examples included are intended to provide additional clarification and understanding on how to apply a compliance lens to a student’s evaluation or IEP. These examples should not be taken directly and added to a unique student’s IEP or evaluation, because each student is unique and has his/her own set of circumstances that must be addressed through his/her individual evaluation and IEP.

Special Education Directors,

ADE/ESS is pleased to present the Arizona Technical Assistance System (AZ-TAS) documents for Students in Foster Care Receiving Special Education and Certificates of Educational Convenience (CEC). These resources were developed to provide information, clarification, and guidance and are intended to be used as technical assistance. These documents should not be used in place of legal guidance.

Special Education Directors,

ADE/ESS is pleased to announce the availability of the school year 2021–2022 Programmatic Monitoring Manual on the Program Support and Monitoring (PSM) web page. The newly revised manual can be found on the PSM web page under “Resources.”  Please see this memo for more information.

ADE/ESS is pleased to announce the release of the SY 2021—2022 Program Support and Monitoring Guide Steps. Please see the following memo for additional information. All PEAs are encouraged to review the revised Guide Steps to ensure current special education practices are aligned with the requirements. 

Please see the Programmatic Monitoring Alert regarding necessary changes to programmatic monitoring of the preschool transition process, developed in response to findings issued by the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and the resulting corrective action assigned to ADE/ESS. These updates are directly related to the transition of children from Early Intervention (Part C) to School Age (Part B).

ADE/ESS is pleased to announce that the SY 2020-2021 Monitoring Manual is now posted to the Program Support and Monitoring website. ESS/Program Support & Monitoring (ESS/PSM) encourages all PEAs to review the manual for training purposes and to ensure compliance with the state general supervision system.

Special Education Directors,