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MIDWAY INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT
Department of Special Education w 13885 Woodway Drive w Woodway, TX 76712 w 254.761.5625 w FAX 254.761.5778
MISD Handbook for General Education Homebound Instruction
Eligibility for General Education Homebound InstructionHow Homebound Services are Initiated and Determined
Section 504 and General Education Homebound
Amount and Type of Services Provided
Attendance
Test Administration and Attendance Credit
Attendance Credit During Periods of Transition
Attendance Credit for Students with a Recurring Health Condition who Receive Combined Homebound and School-Based Instruction
Absences
Grading
Responsibilities of the Parent/Adult Student
Responsibilities of the Campus GEH Coordinator
Responsibilities of the Classroom Teacher (Teacher of Record)
Responsibilities of the Homebound Teacher
The Process of Homebound Instruction
Procedures for Communication Breakdown
Extracurricular Activities
Pay for Homebound Teachers
Dismissal from Homebound Instructional Setting / In order to be eligible for general education homebound (GEH) services, a student must meet the following three criteria:
· The student is expected to be confined at home or hospital bedside for a minimum of 4 weeks (The weeks need not be consecutive).
· The student is confined at home or hospital bedside for medical reasons only
· The student’s medical condition is documented by a physician licensed to practice in the United States.
The parent’s request for services should be made through the principal. The principal or the campus GEH coordinator (who will also be the Section 504 coordinator if the student is or may be served under Section 504) will provide the parent with a form entitled Physician Statement of Eligibility for Homebound Services. When the form is returned by the parent, the campus GEH coordinator will convene a GEH placement committee meeting, composed of at least a campus administrator, a teacher of the student, and the parent or guardian of the student, to consider the necessity of providing general education homebound instruction to the student. The committee will review the Physician Statement of Eligibility for Homebound Services as well as other information about the student in order to determine whether or not GEH services will be provided and, if applicable, the amount of services to be provided. The physician’s input, while important, is not the sole determining factor in the committee’s decision making process. The decisions of the GEH committee will be documented on the form entitled Midway ISD Determination of General Education Homebound Eligibility and Services.
Eligibility for homebound services may not be carried from one school year to another. Prior to the beginning of a new school year, a GEH or combined GEH/504 meeting must be held to consider updated information and recommendations from the physician and to determine whether services from the previous school year will continue. A new Physician Statement of Eligibility for Homebound Services form (or other written input from the physician) must be obtained and reviewed in the meeting.
Procedures for determining pregnancy-related services (PRS), including compensatory education home instruction (CEHI) for students during pregnancy or the postpartum period, differ from other general education homebound services and are coordinated through the District’s PEP program.
In many if not most cases in which a student qualifies for GEH services, the student will demonstrate a substantial limitation in one or more major life activities due to the medical condition in question, and will therefore also qualify for eligibility under Section 504. The exception will be when a student has a relatively short term (less than 6 months) condition, but will nevertheless require confinement in the home or hospital for four weeks or more. When the student is (or may be) eligible under Section 504, a single committee will serve simultaneously as the Section 504 committee and the GEH committee. In this case, the committee must have all the required members for both GEH and Section 504; therefore, the committee must contain the parent, a teacher of the child, an administrator, and a third staff member, and must collectively be knowledgeable about the child, the meaning of the evaluation data and the placement options. All paperwork required for both GEH and for Section 504 will need to be completed in this case. There will be two separate statements from the physician, one regarding homebound eligibility, and one regarding Section 504 eligibility (since these are two separate but related issues). Paperwork for a joint GEH/Section 504 committee meeting in which initial eligibility for both is determined will include the following:
Sent home to the parents in advance:
· Notice of Rights and Procedural Protections under Section 504
· Documentation of Student Disability by Physician/Health Care Provider
· Physician Statement of Eligibility for Homebound Services
· Consent to Disclose Confidential Information
· Notice of Evaluation Under Section 504
· Consent for Evaluation Under Section 504
· Notice to Parent of Student Eligible under Section 504 of Destruction of Protocols and Electronic Communication
· Information from Parents form
· Notice of/Invitation to Section 504 Committee Meeting.
Completed within the school prior to the meeting:
· General Health Inventory and Vision and Hearing Screening
· Information from Teacher
Completed in the GEH/Section504 Committee meeting:
· Documentation of Section 504 Committee Meeting
· Evaluation of Eligibility for Services under Section 504.
· MISD Determination of General Education Homebound Eligibility and Services
· Section 504 Accommodations and Services Plan (if applicable)
· Notice of Identification and/or Placement under Section 504 (if applicable)
· Consent for Initial Placement under Section 504 (if applicable)
The GEH committee or combined 504/GEH committee determines the type and amount of instructional services provided. The student must be provided instruction in all of the courses, including electives, in which the student is enrolled. Four hours per week of direct homebound instruction is necessary in order for the student to receive credit for full-time attendance (see chart in Attendance section below). Services must be provided by a certified general education teacher.
The homebound teacher must keep attendance records and turn them in weekly to the staff member responsible for attendance records on the student’s home campus. Please use the form available on the website entitled General Education Homebound Weekly Attendance Record.
Days present are counted as specified in the chart below:
General Education Homebound Attendance Chart
Amount of Time Served per Week / Eligible Days Present Earned Each Week
1 hour / 1 day present
2 hours / 2 days present
3 hours / 3 days present
4 hours / 5 days present for a regular 5-day week (4 days present if it is a 4-day week)
More than 4 hours / 5 days present for a regular 5-day week (4 days present if it is a 4-day week)
Eligible days present are determined each week. A week for general education homebound purposes stars on Sunday and ends on Saturday, and the homebound teacher’s hours must be entered into the computerized time clock (TimeClock Plus) by Monday of each week. Homebound services may be made up if missed, but only within a given week. They may not be carried forward to the next week, or made up and applied to a previous week.
If the homebound teacher must be absent from a scheduled homebound session for any reason, it is the responsibility of the homebound teacher to find another, mutually agreeable time to make up that session within the week that it is missed. If the homebound teacher must be absent for an extended period of time such that an absence cannot be made up within the week, the homebound teacher should contact the campus administrator to make arrangements for coverage of the absence.
A student being administered any test (state assessment, 6 weeks test, midterm, final exam, etc.) is limited to earning 1 day of attendance for a minimum of one hour of testing. When it takes a student more than one hour to take any kind of test, the student can still only earn one day of attendance credit for taking that test. For example, if a student is typically served for 2 hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and earns 2.5 days of credit. However, on a given Tuesday, the student takes a test which requires the full two hours. The second hour of testing cannot count toward attendance, so that student will have to receive an extra hour of homebound services that week in order to gain full attendance credit. If a test takes a student less than one hour, the remainder of the hour must be used for provision of homebound services in order for the student to receive one day of attendance credit. With a physician’s release, a student may come to campus to take state assessments; however the time spent testing cannot be counted toward general education homebound hours.
A student transitioning back to a school-based setting may continue to earn attendance credit based on the GEH attendance chart above during the transition period. The length of the transition period and the amount of time that will be spent in each setting (home and school-based) should be determined by the GEH committee based at least in part upon updated physician input.
A GEH or GEH/504 committee may, based at least in part on input from the physician, determine that a student with a recurring chronic or acute health condition may attend school on some days and remain at home and receive homebound instruction on other days as needed. Use the attendance chart below to calculate attendance for these students.
Attendance Chart for Students with a Recurring Chronic or Acute Health Condition who Receive Combined Homebound and School-Based Instruction
For any week in which the student with a recurring condition: / the student earns contact hours and/or attendance credit:
Is served solely at home/hospital bedside through the GEH program / according to requirements of the regular GEH Attendance Chart (above)
Is served for at least 4 hours at home/hospital bedside through the GEH program AND spends some time on the home campus / according to requirements of the regular GEH Attendance Chart (above)
Is served 1-3 hours at home/hospital bedside through the GEH program AND attends school on his/her home campus / · According to the regular GEH Attendance Chart for the days the student receives instruction at home/hospital bedside
· According to whether or not the student is present at official attendance taking time on days when the student attends school on his/her campus.*
* The student may not under any circumstances earn more than the equivalent of one ADA per day.
If the student notifies the teacher at least 24 hours in advance of an absence, the homebound teacher should make every effort to reschedule the session within the week. If a mutually agreeable time is not available within the week, the student should be counted absent. When a student does not show up for a session or does not give advance notice to the teacher of an absence, the student will be counted absent and the session will not be rescheduled. When a student is receiving four hours per week of homebound instruction, absence for one 2-hour session will be counted as two full days of absence.
It is the teacher of record, rather than the homebound teacher, who determines the grade for a general education homebound student. The teacher of record is responsible for providing and grading assignments. A student may not be held responsible for work that was not provided to the student in a timely manner.
Responsibilities of the parent/adult student include the following:
· Ensure that the student is available and present on time for each scheduled homebound session.
· Ensure that a responsible adult is present in the home for each scheduled homebound session. A responsible adult is defined as an individual who has the right to make health and/or medical decisions regarding the homebound student during the absence of the parent or guardian.
· Ensure that the student and homebound teacher have a place to work that is clean, quiet, and reasonably free from distractions. Other children and pets should not be allowed in the work area.
· When possible, notify the homebound teacher at least 24 hours in advance of any absences. When 24-hour notice is not possible, provide as much notice as possible.
· Notify the student’s case manager and homebound teacher of any significant changes in the student’s medical condition that may impact instruction
It is the campus general education homebound coordinator’s responsibility to:
· Keep campus and District administrators informed regarding any student whose parents have indicated that they may pursue general education homebound placement.
· Notify campus administrators of the need for a homebound teacher.
· If the condition for which homebound is being considered may also lead to initial eligibility under Section 504, complete all procedures and paperwork for an initial eligibily evaluation and meeting under Section 504.
· If the student is already served under Section 504, send notice and schedule a meeting.
· Provide the parents/physician with a copy of Physician Statement of Eligibility for Homebound Services form (available on the MISD website) for completion by the physician prior to the meeting in which homebound services are considered.
· Schedule GEH or combined GEH/504 meeting to consider homebound services. Ensure that the homebound teacher is invited and attends if possible.
· Distribute the MISD Handbook for General Education Homebound Instruction (available on the MISD Special Education website) to all classroom teachers (teachers of record) and review the classroom teachers’ responsibilities with each of them.
· Provide the parent(s)/adult student with a copy of the MISD Handbook for General Education Homebound Instruction and review their responsibilities with them.
· Notify the homebound teacher of the student’s schedule, list of teachers, and contact information for teachers.
· Provide both the classroom teachers (teachers of record) and the homebound teacher with the a copy of the Section 504 Accommodations and Services form if applicable.
· Consult with the campus principal to determine a specified location (box or basket) where each teacher of record will place the assignments for the following week. Notify all teachers of record and the homebound teacher of this location.