ESY decisions are made at the IEP meeting. There is guidance from the Pennsylvania Department of Education regarding students who are identified as severely disabled — mentally, physically, or emotionally. Decisions about ESY for this target group of students need to be made by February 28 of each year to ensure that parents have sufficient time to exercise their procedural safeguards rights, if necessary. This means that the Notice of Recommended Educational Placement/ Prior Written Notice (NOREP/PWN) concerning the school district’s recommendation regarding eligibility for ESY can be issued no later than March 31, in order to give parents enough time to raise concerns.
For purposes of ESY eligibility determination, the IEP review meeting is to occur no later than February 28 of each school year for these students. Notice of the team’s determination (NOREP/ PWN) will be issued to the parents no later than March 31 of the school year. These timelines offer a way to comply with the guidance in the federal regulations that states that public agencies should decide of need in a timely manner so that a student with a disability who requires Extended School Year (ESY) services in order to receive FAPE can obtain the necessary services (Fed. Reg., Vol. 64, No. 48, Attachment 1, p. 12576). An eligibility determination would be considered timely if there was sufficient time for the parent to appeal a denial of ESY services before the service break occurs.
ESY determinations for students not in the target group are not subject to the above timelines but must still be made as soon as possible in accordance with the timelines in Chapters 14 and 711. If the parents of those non-target group students disagree with the LEA’s recommendation, the parents will be afforded due process.