According to IDEA 300.17, "FAPE" means: "Special Education and related services that -

(a) Are provided at public expense, under public supervision and direction without charge; (b) Meet the standards of the SEA (State Educational Agency), including requirements of this part; (c) Include an appropriate preschool, elementary school, or secondary school education in the state involved; and (d) Are provided in conformity with an individualized education program (IEP) that meets the requirements of 300.320-300.324."

In other words, the district or Local Education Association (LEA) as you will see in the laws, is responsible for providing your child with a Free, that means at no cost to you, all supplies needed for evaluation, education, the teachers, the tutors, counselors, nurses, etc must be provided for your child without you incurring any costs. The LEA is given money by the state and federal governments to educate your child, you should never have to give money to the district for this to occur. Also they are to provide items needed for the child to do their homework as well. This means that if your child is blind, they need to provide the Brailler at home so that your child can do his homework, as well as the Braille paper, etc. "Appropriate" means that the education that they require should be appropriate for their disability. That means that an evaluation should be done so as to ascertain what the child needs before an IEP is administered. It also means that the district must provide free of charge, an appropriate preschool, elementary and secondary school. "Public" means that they are to receive education along with other school children and not in a sheltered environment for disabled students only away from other non-disabled children. The public education system receives money to educate your child along with the other children in your neighborhood. Therefore your child's education should not cost you anything, it should be appropriate for his disability, and occur in the public education system that your children would attend if they were not disabled. To see the law on this go to the IDEA Regulations page 220 in the pdf or page 46758 of the Federal Register.

A MFE by IDEA definition is "Evaluation means procedures used in accordance with 300.304 through 300.311 to determine whether a child has a disability and the nature and extent of the special education and related services that the child needs." 300.15.

A MFE is a thorough evaluation that will assess the abilities and needs of a child in an accurate and thorough manner. The evaluation must consist of several areas. Those areas need to include the following:

• Psychological (Abilities, such as IQ tests.)
• Academic (Math, Reading, Writing, etc.)
• Vision (This should include not only the eye chart but also visual perception, processing, fields, etc.)
• Fine Motor (This should entail how they write, handle a pencil, use scissors, grasp, etc.)
• Gross Motor (This should entail how they walk, run, jump, compete with other kids their age, climb, etc.)
• Auditory (This needs to be more than just a tone test. They need to assess how they hear in noisy environments (discrimination) and how they process the sounds they hear (processing).)
• Social-Emotional Status (How they get along with their peers and teachers.)
• Communicative Status, also known as Speech and Language (This area should not only include oral structures but how they use language, such as semantics, morphology, pragmatics, etc.)
• Functional Behavior Assessment (If behavior is an issue.)

All these areas must be assessed according to law (See IDEA Regulations 300.304(c)(4) page 247 or 46785.) In addition to these evaluations they must be administered by the appropriate personnel. That means that the Fine Motor section cannot be administered by a teacher, it should be administered by an Occupational Therapist who is familiar with the functions of the muscles in the hands and the disabilities that can effect them and their functions. Gross motor should be done by a Physical Therapist, communicative status by a Speech and Language Therapist, etc. If these are not completed by the professionals in the specialized areas, the evaluation will not be accurate. IDEA dictates that the evaluations be administered by "trained and knowledgeable personnel". The evaluation must be comprehensive enough to identify all of the child's special education and related services needs..."300.304 (c)(6)page 247 or 46785.

Also the evaluation has to use a variety of assessment tools. Not one tool can be used to evaluate the student for all areas. Also the tools have to be technically sound instruments to assess the child. The instrument cannot be administered as to discriminate on a racial or cultural basis.

If you are having an MFE to determine if a child has a disability for an initial evaluation and the evaluation has found and area of disability you will need to formulate an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) form the information you collected in the MFE, so it must be a good diagnostic tool so that you can formulate an appropriate IEP. Once the disability is established a MFE should be repeated at least every 3 years, by law, or as requested by parent or teacher if something changes, for example health, learning environment, etc. A parent may request a new MFE at any time, but do so in writing so you have your "paper trail" to prove you asked for it and when.

MFEs must be done within certain time limits. Different States have different time limits. Go to LINK to find what your states' requirement is. In Ohio, it is within 60 days from the time the parent signs the letter or the permission to evaluate; whichever comes first.

Yes, you can make the district do the MFE. First you must always put every request in writing and address it to the Special Education Director by name if possible. Once a request is in writing they cannot refuse since you are covered by IDEA and 504 on this request. Some districts do not do good evaluations, and to make sure that they do you must ensure that the people doing the evaluation are qualified to do that, meaning that they must have a degree in that area, for example, to do the fine motor evaluation they must be licensed in Occupational Therapy, to do gross motor they must be licensed in Physical Therapy, etc.

They must also hit all the areas covered in question number 2, especially if this is an initial evaluation to determine the presence of a disability. When you write your letter to the director of special education you should write, “I understand that under the laws of IDEA and 504 my child is entitled to a Multi-Factored Evaluation at no cost to me and that evaluation should cover the areas of (See question 2)…..” If you wish to quote the specific law and number you should quote 34 CFR 300.304.

Now, if the schools evaluation comes back and it is deficient in several areas and you don’t agree with it, you have the right to request what is called an “Independent Educational Evaluation” or IEE. With an IEE the school district cannot limit the pool of evaluators. In other words they cannot tell you that you can only see one IEE. They must give you a large list of evaluators for you to choose from. If I were you I would check this list out and make sure they are evaluators that have a respected reputation in the community. Many times the district will try to give you the cheapest evaluator which isn’t always the best, to cut their costs.

Always remember that the district gets money to do the evaluations and to serve your child so don’t let them tell you they have no funds to do an evaluation. They receive state and federal monies to do this. If they do give you that excuse all you have to say is, “That is not my problem, if you need more money you need to ask the state government for it.” This will usually make them stop using excuses. If they pursue this tactic then tell them you know that by IDEA and 504 they receive monies to do this type of testing and to serve your child with a disability.

Each child receives his own funds. If you want to see the laws associated with Independent Evaluation go to CFR 300.502 in IDEA. If you still are not happy with the evaluation that the school does and your insurance pays for it, usually the children’s hospital in the area will do a pretty good MFE for your child. You must make sure that they also use qualified personnel to administer the evaluation and are accurate. Sometimes it is nice to have one done by the school and one done by the physician to see how they compare. Usually the one done by the prescribing physician is more accurate, at least in Ohio this is true. Also in Ohio we have what are called Regional Centers that will also do testing, but again beware! Many of them do deficient testing by unqualified personnel.