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1342.12 Companion
July 12, 2017
Page 187
“School day”
means any day, including a partial day, that students are in attendance at school for
instructional purposes. The term has the same meaning for all students in school, including students
with and without disabilities.
“School health services and school nurse services”
means health services that are designed to enable a
student with a disability to receive FAPE as described in the student’s IEP. School nurse services are
services provided by a qualified school nurse. School health services are services that may be provided
by either a qualified school nurse or other qualified person.
“Scientifically based research”
means research that involves the application of rigorous, systematic, and
objective procedures to obtain reliable and valid knowledge relevant to education activities and
programs and includes research that: 1. Employs systematic, empirical methods that draw on
observation or experiment; 2. Involves rigorous data analyses that are adequate to test the stated
hypotheses and justify the general conclusions drawn; 3. Relies on measurements or observational
methods that provide reliable and valid data across evaluators and observers, across multiple
measurements and observations, and across studies by the same or different investigators; 4. Is
evaluated using experimental or quasi-experimental designs in which individuals, entities, programs, or
activities are assigned to different conditions and with appropriate controls to evaluate the effects of
the condition of interest, with a preference for random-assignment experiments, or other designs to the
extent that those designs contain within condition or across-condition controls; 5. Ensures that
experimental studies are presented in sufficient detail and clarity to allow for replication or, at a
minimum, offer the opportunity to build systematically on their findings; and 6. Has been accepted by a
peer-reviewed journal or approved by a panel of independent experts through a comparably rigorous,
objective, and scientific review.
“Screening”
means those processes that are used routinely with all students to identify previously
unrecognized needs and that may result in a referral for special education and related services or other
referral or intervention.
“Section 504”
means that section of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, which is designed to
eliminate discrimination on the basis of disability in any program or activity receiving federal financial
assistance.
“Separate facility”
means a school or a portion of a school, regardless of whether it is operated by DoD,
attended exclusively by students with disabilities.
“Serious bodily injury”
means bodily injury that involves substantial risk of death, extreme physical pain,
protracted and obvious disfigurement, or protracted loss or impairment of the function of a bodily
member, organ or mental faculty.
“Service coordination”
means activities of a service coordinator to assist and enable an infant or toddler
and the family to receive the rights, procedural safeguards, and services that are authorized to be
provided.
“Special education”
means specially designed instruction, at no cost to the parent(s), to meet the
unique needs of a student with a disability, including instruction conducted in a classroom, in the home,
in hospitals, in institutions, and in other settings and instruction in physical education. The term includes
each of the following if it meets the requirements of the definition of special education: