Pennsylvania’s State Performance Plan requirements under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004 include collecting and reporting data on the involvement of families in special education programs. Specifically, states must report annually to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and the public on State Performance Plan Indicator 8, which is the “percent of parents with a child receiving special education services who report that schools facilitated parent involvement as a means of improving services and results for children with disabilities.”

Like many other states, Pennsylvania is collecting this data through a large-scale survey. Pennsylvania reports results of the survey to OSEP in its State Performance Plan/Annual Performance Report. This report is posted on the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) and the Pennsylvania Training and Technical Assistance Network (PaTTAN) websites. Reporting on local educational agency (LEA) performance is done through the Special Education Data Reports on the PennData website.

To ensure that parents from every LEA in the Commonwealth are included in the survey, PDE developed a sampling plan that was approved by OSEP. Under this sampling, each year PDE collects data from a representative sample of parents in approximately one-fifth of the LEAs in the Commonwealth. This year, Brookville Area School District was selected for participation in this survey.

Not all parents will receive the survey as it is a sample within each LEA. Parents receiving the survey were selected from PA Special Education Data using a stratified random sample of school age students in each LEA. Surveys will be mailed directly to the parents from Leader Services. Parents may direct questions about the survey to the Special Education Consult Line at (800) 879-2301. Of course, parents are also welcome to reach out to Brookville's Special Education Department at (814) 849-1109.