The Perry County School System ensures that a free appropriate public education, consistent with the standards established by state and federal regulations, is being provided to all children with disabilities ages 3 to 21.

The Perry County School System readily contacts The Alabama Department of Rehabilitation Services/Alabama's Early Intervention System to provide full educational opportunities for children with disabilities ages birth through 2 years of age.

The Perry County School System ensures that all children residing within the jurisdiction of the public education agency, birth to 21, regardless of the severity of their disability and who need special education and related services, are identified, located, and evaluated.

Child Find applies to children who attend private schools, including children attending religious schools within the public education agency's jurisdiction, highly mobile children with disabilities (i.e. migrant and homeless children), and children who are suspected of having a disability and are in need of special education even though they are advancing from grade to grade.

Child Find also includes a practical method of determining that eligible children with disabilities are receiving needed special education and related services. Child Find activities will be conducted on a continuous basis as described below:

• Radio Announcements

• Articles/Notices in Local Newspapers

• Fliers Posted in Local Agencies, Businesses, and Schools

• Internet/Website

• Letters to Private and Parochial Schools and Daycares

• Presentations at Community and School Meetings

• Telephone Communication

Autism

a developmental disability that significantly affects verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction generally evident before age three (3) that adversely affects educational performance. This includes other pervasive developmental disorders. Other characteristics often associated with autism are engagement in repetitive activities and stereotyped movements, resistance to environmental change or changes in daily routines, and unusual responses to sensory experiences.

Deaf-Blindness

concomitant hearing and visual impairments, the combination of which causes such severe communication and other developmental and educational needs that they cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for children with deafness or children with blindness.

Developmental Delay

a delay that adversely affects daily life and/or educational performance in one or more of the following developmental areas: (1) Adaptive, (2) Cognitive, (3) Communication, (4) Social or Emotional, and/or, (5) Physical, and results in the need for special education and related services. A child may become eligible for this area of disability on his or her third birthday. A child identified with a developmental delay must be reevaluated prior to his or her ninth birthday to determine continued eligibility for special education services. At age nine, a child can no longer be eligible in the area of developmental delay and must be eligible in another area of disability in order to continue special education services.

Emotional Disability

a condition exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time and to a marked degree that adversely affects a child's educational performance: (1) an inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors; (2) an inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers; (3) inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances; (4) a general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression; or (5) a tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems. Emotional disability includes schizophrenia. The term does not include children who are socially maladjusted, unless it is determined that they have an emotional disability as defined herein.

Hearing Impairment

an impairment in hearing, whether permanent or fluctuating, that adversely affects a child's educational performance. This term includes both deaf and hard-of-hearing.

Intellectual Disability

significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning existing concurrently with significant limitations in adaptive behavior and manifested during the developmental period that adversely affects the child's educational performance.

Multiple Disabilities

concomitant impairments (such as intellectual disability-blindness, or intellectual disability orthopedic impairment), the combination of which causes such severe educational needs that they cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for one of the impairments. Multiple disabilities does not include deaf-blindness.

Orthopedic Impairment

a severe orthopedic impairment that adversely affects a child's educational performance. The term includes impairments caused by a congenital anomaly, impairments caused by disease (e.g. poliomyelitis, bone tuberculosis), and impairments from other causes (e.g., cerebral palsy, amputations, and fractures or burns that cause contractures). If a medical diagnosis is presented, the medical diagnosis alone is not enough to justify being identified in the area of orthopedic impairment. The impairment must adversely affect the educational performance of the child.

Other Health Impairment

having limited strength, vitality or alertness, including a heightened alertness to environmental stimuli, that results in limited alertness with respect to the educational environment, that is due to chronic or acute health problems such as asthma, attention deficit disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, diabetes, epilepsy, a heart condition, hemophilia, lead poisoning, leukemia, nephritis, rheumatic fever, sickle cell anemia, and Tourette Syndrome. If a medical diagnosis is presented, the medical diagnosis alone is not enough to justify being identified in the area of other health impairment. The impairment must adversely affect the educational performance of the child.

Specific Learning Disability

a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, that may manifest itself in the imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculations, including conditions such as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia. Specific learning disability does not include learning problems that are primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor disabilities, of intellectual disability, of emotional disability, or of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.

Speech or Language Impairment

a communication disorder in the area of articulation, voice, fluency, or language that adversely affects a child's educational performance

Traumatic Brain Injury

an acquired injury to the brain caused by an external physical force, resulting in total or partial functional disability or psychosocial impairment or both, that adversely affects educational performance. The term applies to open or closed head injuries resulting in impairments in one or more areas such as cognition, language, memory, attention, reasoning, abstract thinking, judgement, problem-solving, sensory, perceptual and motor abilities, psychosocial behavior, physical functions, information processing, and speech. The term does not apply to brain injuries that are congenital or degenerative, or brain injuries induced by birth trauma.

Visual Impairment

a visual impairment that, even with correction, adversely affects a child's educational performance. The term includes both partial sight and blindness.

Gifted

Intellectually gifted children and youth are those who perform or who have demonstrated the potential to perform at high levels in academic or creative fields when compared with others of their age, experience, or environment. These children and youth require services not ordinarily provided by the regular school program. Children and youth possessing these abilities can be found in all populations across all economic strata, and in all areas of human endeavor.

Second Grade Child Find

All second grade students will be observed as potential gifted referrals using a gifted behavior checklist provided by the Alabama State Department of Education

Standard Referral

A student may be referred for consideration for gifted services by teachers, counselors, administrators, parents or guardians, peers, self, and other individuals with knowledge of the student's abilities. Standard referrals may occur at any time for students six years of age and older. Parents must be informed when students are referred.

For each student referred, information is gathered in the areas of Aptitude, Characteristics, and Performance. The information is entered on a matrix where points are assigned according to established criteria. The total number of points earned determines if the student qualifies for gifted services.

Contact the student's teacher or the school counselor to refer a student for consideration for gifted services.

The below links are provided by ACT to help students prepare for the tests. Preparation ahead of time will help students feel more confident on the day of actual testing.