Special Education Services & Tele-Therapy During Home Instruction

March 18, 2020

Dear Charter Schools,

I hope all is well.

Starting on Monday March 23rd, speech therapists, counselors, occupational therapists and physical therapists currently assigned by the NYCDOE to serve charter school students will provide tele-therapy, where appropriate and feasible.

Attached please find the memo that agencies received today, which outlines requirements and procedures guiding this process, including obtaining required parental consent. Please review this memo and gather questions. We will be setting up opportunities for schools to ask questions in the coming days via office hours and a sector-wide call on Friday March 20th.

In the meantime, please follow these immediate steps:

  • Give agencies and providers 24 hours to read and digest this memo and get organized.
  • Reach out to your providers to walk through the process with them, working through questions and issues where possible and flagging others for support from the DOE; agencies will be provided with a protocol for this. (The providers may contact you in advance of your outreach, please be ready to discuss) 
  • The providers/therapists will then reach out to families directly to discuss the service delivery plan and obtain consent if tele-therapy is appropriate for the student.

As mentioned above, we are planning to offer the following to support schools:

  • Office hours (date/time forthcoming) 
  • Sector wide call in partnership with the Charter School Center.
    • Save the date: Friday March 20th at 3pm.
  • Frequently Asked Questions Document (FAQ): we will send a survey to gather questions and will be issuing an FAQ document.

Thank you in advance for your flexibility and patience as we work to support special education students during this crisis. We are looking forward to partnering with you on this process.

In partnership,

Special Education Office (SEO)
Charter Schools Office (CSO)