Helping all students experience success in school and in life
Services for Schools
Discovery Educational Services works with school districts to ensure they have access to expert school psychologists, and other related service providers, to meet the growing needs of their students, family, and staff. We provide comprehensive and defensible psycho-educational evaluations, Educationally Related Mental Health Services (ERMHS) assessments, mental health services, and more. We attend Individualized Education Program (IEP) team meetings, consult with parents and staff, and do everything we can to help districts stay in compliance and provide high quality services for students with disabilities.
EVALUATION SERVICES
— Individualized Evaluations
We provide high quality, individualized, assessments based on the child’s unique needs to help IEP teams make appropriate determinations regarding special education eligibility and develop programs that are appropriately tailored to the needs of each student.
As an educational psychologist our psycho-educational evaluations are tailored to the individual needs of each learner and the questions driving the referral for assessment. We provide comprehensive and legally defensible assessments reports that are also written with the end user in mind, teachers and parents. A psycho-educationally evaluation is only valuable if those who are responsible for a students education can understand the results, see the connection between assessment findings and school performance, and have a better sense of what they can do to support the students success.
In determining eligibility for ERMHS, IEP teams must consider a student’s mental health functioning as well as determine whether additional related services (e.g. counseling) are required for the student to benefit from his or her special education program. In other words, the question is not whether a student would benefit from ERMHS but whether they require ERMHS to benefit from their specialized academic instruction (i.e. adaptations in the content, methodology, or delivery of instruction that address the unique needs of the child and provide access to the general curriculum). We aim to answer this question through a careful review of a students health, developmental, and educational records; interviews with key stakeholders; observations across setting; standardized assessments of social and emotional functioning; and measures of executive function/self-regulation.
Independent Educational Evaluations (IEE) are a second opinion for the IEP team to consider when the parent disagrees with the District’s evaluation. Often, there are additional questions the parents and/or other IEP team members have about the students functioning and the type of service required to meet their needs. Discovery Education Services understands this role in providing IEEs and offers truly independent, student focused evaluations. Because the nature of these cases are often complex and the questions go beyond a typical psycho-educational evaluation, we follow neuro-educational assessment model that thoroughly assesses all areas related to learning and school performance.
EDUCATIONALLY RELATED MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES
— School Based Mental Health
In additional to providing ERMHS assessments, Discovery Educational Specialist provide school based mental health services for students whose social, emotional, and/or behavioral functioning is interfering with their ability to access their education. We employ a wider range of therapeutic techniques including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), mindfulness based interventions, Play Therapy, and trauma focused therapies to address a wide range of needs. We serve students experiencing major depression, anxiety, school refusal, externalizing disorders, traumatic stress, and more.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
— Development for School Staff
We have been providing high quality professional development on a wide range of relevant topics at state conferences (CASP, ACSA), for Special Education Local Plan Areas (SELPAs) throughout the state, and for local school districts and parent groups.
- Dyslexia
- Dysgraphia
- Dyscalculia
- ADHD
- Executive Functioning
- Emotional Disturbance
- School Refusal
- Technology Addiction
- Intellectual Disability and Mental Health
- And more
CONSULTATIONS
— Both Direct & Indirect
We provide consultation services for both families and school districts. Examples of the types of consultation we provide school districts include the following.
- Case consultation regarding special education eligibility and program placement
- Consultation to parents regarding their child’s disability and supporting them in carrying out necessary recommendations at home
- Consultation to school staff regarding a students educational needs and in carrying out necessary recommendations at school
- Supervision and support for school psychology interns and others who are new to the field
