Dissertation Defense Announcement Ed.D. Program: Sharlene Pinto “Exploring Potential Under/Over-Identification and Disproportionality: A Mixed Methods Case Study of Child Study Team Influences, Beliefs, and Practices in Processing PK and K-12 Special Education Referrals in a Public School District”

Causes of under/over-identification and disproportionality in Special Education are often debated and misunderstood. There is confirmed underrepresentation of minoritized students in PK Special Education and historically acknowledged overrepresentation in K-12 Special Education nationwide. However, few studies have explored identification patterns or eligibility decision making processes for Special Education. This study is a mixed methods case study design used to analyze the identification patterns over the past ten years in a New Jersey public school district along with the influences, beliefs, and practices of Child Study Team (CST) members who are responsible for making decisions regarding eligibility.

Results indicated that the district demonstrates over-identification of students in K-12 Special Education, overrepresentation of Hispanic/Latinx students identified with a Specific Learning Disability (SLD) and Communication Impairment (CI), and inconsistent under-identification and underrepresentation of PK students receiving Special Services. CST members reported that parental input, Intervention and Referral Services (I&RS), and a lack of support in the general education setting directly impacted over-identification patterns within the district. Observations revealed that PK eligibility decisions relied on related service provider input, medical records, timeline constraints, and the social worker’s input. K-12 eligibility decisions were influenced by the LDT-C’s recommendations, attentional concerns, and classification. Little consistency was found between what CST members reported, what was observed, and what was included in documentation. Moderate agreement was found between the PK observations and pre-staff meeting documentation.

Implications for future practice for PK decisions include strengthening protocols, measuring fidelity, standardizing procedures, and enhancing professional development. Implications for K–12 referral practices include strengthening, implementing, and measuring fidelity of interventions, collaboration between Multilingual Learner (ML) and I&RS teams, reassessing incoming high school students, and adopting a standardized discrepancy model.