District 107 follows the federal and state laws when making decisions about eligibility for special education services. The federal government recognizes 14 categories under which children may qualify for special education. These disabilities include: autism, deaf-blindness, deafness, developmental delay, emotional disorder, hearing impairment, intellectual disability, multiple disabilities, orthopedic impairment, other health impairment, speech or language impairment, traumatic brain injury, and visual impairment. Information about the eligibility criteria for each disability can be found on the ISBE website.

• The first step in the process to consider the need for special education services is a domains meeting to review information that we already have about a student, information we would like to gather and how we would like to collect it.  With parental consent provided at this meeting an evaluation, or case study, is initiated. The school team has 60 school days to complete the evaluation upon receiving parental consent.
• At the conclusion of the evaluation the team will convene a meeting to review the results. District 107 provides families with drafts of all reports at least 3 days in advance of this meeting. The evaluation team includes the parents, a general education teacher, a special education teacher, the school psychologist, the Director of Special Education  and related service providers who participated in the evaluation.
• If the evaluation team determines that the student is eligible for special education services an Individual Education Plan (IEP) will be developed. The IEP includes goals, accommodations, related services and placement. More detailed information can be found on the U.S. Department of Education’s website.
• Additional information about Parental Rights in the IEP process.