Radford City Schools Child Find

What is Child Find?

Radford City Schools Policies and Procedures

Radford City Schools shall maintain an active and continuing child find program designed to identify, locate and evaluate those children residing in the jurisdiction who are birth to age 21, inclusive, who are in need of special education and related services.

Procedure I: RCS child find includes children who:

A.      Are highly mobile, such as migrant and homeless children;

B.      Attend private schools, including children who are home-instructed or home tutored;

C.      Are suspected of being children with disabilities under this chapter and in need of special education, even through they are advancing from grade to grade; and

D.     Are under age 18 who are suspected of having a disability who need special education and related services and who are incarcerated in a regional or local jail in its jurisdiction for 10 or more days.

Procedure II:  Radford City Schools shall coordinate child find activities for infants and toddlers (birth to age two, inclusive) with the Part C local interagency coordinating council. 

Procedure III:  Radford City Schools shall locate, identify and evaluate all private school children with disabilities, including religious school children and home-instructed or home-tutored children residing in the jurisdiction of Radford City Schools, in accordance with 8 VAC 20-80-66.  The activities undertaken to carry out this responsibility for private school children with disabilities must be comparable to the activities undertaken for children with disabilities in public schools.  Radford City Schools shall consult with appropriate representatives of private school children with disabilities on how to carry out the child find and evaluation activities.

Procedure IV: Public awareness.

A.      Radford City Schools shall, as least annually, conduct a public awareness campaign to:

1.  Inform the community of a person’s, age two to 21, inclusive, statutory right to a free appropriate public education and the availability of special education programs and services;

2.  Generate referrals; and

3. Explain the nature of disabilities, the early warning signs of disabilities, and the need for services to begin early.

B.      Procedures for informing the community shall show evidence of the use of a variety of materials and media and shall:

1.       Provide for personal contact with community groups, public and private agencies, and organizations; and

2.       Provide information in the person’s native language or primary mode of communication.

C.      Radford City Schools shall show evidence of involvement of parents and community          members in the required child find and community awareness campaign.

• Self help- unable to hold a bottle by 10 months, cannot chew most foods well by 21 months
• Motor - cannot sit up alone by 8 months, cannot walk without help by 2 years, cannot run with ease by age 4 years
• Vision - cannot follow a moving person with eyes by 5 months, is often unable to locate and pick up small objects, sometimes crosses one or both eyes
• Speech / Hearing- does not turn head towards sounds or voices by 6 months, does not say "mama" or "dada" by age 1, speaks less than 50 words by age 2 ½, speech is difficult to understand at age 4
• Learning - does not play games such as pat-cake or peek-a-boo by age 1, unable to follow simple directions at age 2 years, unable to answer simple questions such as "what" and "where" by age 4 years

For children ages 0-2 call the Infant And Toddler Connection / New River Valley Early Intervention Council at 1-800-650-5324

Radford City Schools
1612 Wadsworth Street
PO Box 3698
Radford, VA. 24124
Phone: 731-3647
Fax: (540) 731-4419

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