How to Include a Student in ESY Planning

Explain the real decision

Tell Zoe what ESY is, which needs and services the IEP team is considering, what is already known, and which choices are open. Use concrete dates, times, locations, pictures, visits, staff information, transport details, and examples. Avoid asking a vague yes-or-no question about “summer school” when several parts could be accepted or declined separately.

Prepare communication access

Give Zoe her ordinary communication system or an effective backup, relevant vocabulary, privacy, wait time, breaks, and a trusted partner if wanted. Record Zoe's direct words or selections separately from family or staff interpretation. A person can support access without supplying the answer. Check that the summary reflects Zoe's intended message.

Treat dissent as information

Record how Zoe shows willingness, uncertainty, pause, distress, or withdrawal and how adults respond. A difficult schedule, inaccessible transport, missing AAC, unfamiliar site, pain, or unwanted activity can affect participation. Route nonemergency concerns back to the IEP team or responsible role instead of using compliance as the measure of program fit.

Review experience during the program

Ask Zoe about communication, staff response, peers, activities, sensory conditions, travel, fatigue, safety, learning, and whether the goals still matter. Pair her report with implementation evidence. Make authorized adjustments promptly where possible. Preserve unresolved requests and convene the appropriate team before the compressed ESY calendar turns a fixable issue into a full-program failure.

Prepare Zoe's accessible ESY discussion

For student participation in ESY planning, show Zoe each schedule, setting, transport, activity, support, and communication option in a usable format. Ask what she wants to try, change, avoid, or learn. Preserve pauses and corrections. Give the IEP team Zoe's direct input and ask it to show how the final service design addresses her preferences and access needs.

Build Zoe's source-attributed ESY record

Create a restricted student ESY participation profile for Zoe's goal, option, setting, schedule, AAC, support, peer, transport, choice, assent, dissent, student statement, decision, and review. Give every field a source, event or observation date, author, status, owner, next action, due date, correction, and closure evidence. Keep Zoe's direct statement, family report, school record, private-provider observation, transport record, and interpretation separately attributed.

Within the student ESY participation profile, separate individualized ESY need, IEP content, school implementation, private clinical recommendation, health-plan authorization, provider capacity, family or student choice, records disclosure, transportation, and delivered service. A shared schedule or goal never combines those authorities.

Protect Zoe's access and ordinary needs

Give Zoe accessible information, AAC or another communication mode, privacy, enough time, useful choices, breaks, and a way to decline or correct a nonemergency discussion. The ASHA AAC portal says AAC users should always have access to communication tools or devices. Record the student's message separately from adult prediction or interpretation.

Preserve Zoe's food, water, bathroom access, mobility, prescribed care, rest, relationships, preferred activities, and emergency help. The BACB Ethics Code guides covered behavior analysts on communication, consent and assent when applicable, competence, assessment, documentation, risk, and referral. It does not assign IEP, school, payer, transportation, or legal authority.

Ask eight ESY evidence questions for Zoe

Use these questions in the student ESY participation profile:

• Which student need and FAPE question is the IEP team deciding?
• What does Zoe want, value, question, or decline?
• Which current state criterion and record supports the decision?
• What service, schedule, setting, staff, transport, and technology are required?
• Which opportunity, support, prompt, source, and period produced the evidence?
• Which school, clinical, payer, family, or transport owner controls each action?
• What current access or interim support is needed while a decision remains open?
• What evidence and student feedback will close or revise the action?

Classify Zoe's fields as complete, failed, pending, declined, disputed, or inapplicable with a reason. Pending work stays visible and blocks only the dependent action.

A fictional ESY example for Zoe

Zoe is fictional and involved in an ESY planning meeting with two schedule options. Reviewers freeze 23 participation and response fields and complete 18 of 23 by the checkpoint. Missing student, school, provider, transport, AAC, health, privacy, or implementation evidence remains in Zoe's denominator with an owner, age, and next action.

The student ESY participation profile reports evidence completion separately from IDEA compliance, FAPE, clinical quality, coverage, student choice, service delivery, educational benefit, and satisfaction. Reviewers preserve the original cohort and all failed or pending states. They do not infer that ESY or one support caused change when instruction, health, access, schedule, experience, and time changed together.

Use compatible ESY denominators for Zoe

For Zoe's student ESY participation profile, report completed decisions divided by decisions due; required IEP elements documented divided by elements reviewed; service minutes delivered divided by approved service minutes due; accessible communication checks passed divided by checks due; transport arrivals completed by target divided by scheduled rides; and validated corrections divided by corrections due.

Segment Zoe's results by school, program, service, setting, provider, communication access, transportation, decision state, missed-service reason, and source version when useful. Publish raw counts with percentages and age open items. Keep different definitions, service units, and maturity windows in separate measures.

Create Zoe's dated ESY path

List Zoe's request, evidence cutoff, IEP review, decision, notice, IEP update, staffing, transport, AAC readiness, health handoff, first service, missed service, progress review, correction, last service, fall handoff, and retest in chronological order. Distinguish proposed, scheduled, event, entry, receipt, decision, and effective dates.

The joint FERPA-HIPAA guidance classifies records by holder and capacity. Use the current school, state, provider, payer, and student-specific source for each decision. Share purpose-needed information through the applicable route and preserve authorship, receipt, corrections, and privacy.

Explain ESY source scope for Zoe

For Zoe, 34 CFR 300.106 provides the federal ESY rule: services must be available as necessary for FAPE, the IEP team decides individually, and the public agency cannot use the prohibited categorical or unilateral limits. The general FAPE rule supports this educational duty; it neither authorizes private care nor decides Zoe's individualized ESY plan. Current state criteria, procedures, calendars, and dispute routes can add important detail and require direct verification.

The CASP organizational overview supplies broad operations and risk framing for page 8 in this cluster. Give Zoe and the authorized adult an accessible summary of decisions, evidence, owners, dates, limits, and review triggers. Keep the page draft and noindex pending named review.