1999 Report Process Used to Review State Policies

To update the NCEO files on state participation and accommodations policies, we first assessed the need for updating. We noted that two states had not revised their policies since 1995, and seven states did not have guidelines in the 1997 publication. We knew that many states had been developing or revising their guidelines because of calls we had received from them about these efforts. Thus, we requested information from all 50 states. We also requested guidelines from educational entities that receive special education funds, unique states such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the District of Columbia. We accepted new documents through mid-August, 1999. We made the appropriate updates to our matrices and then sent the new tables back to the states for review. States could indicate that there were no changes needed, ask for more information in order to decide whether the tables were accurate, or change the tables. If states indicated the need for a change after reviewing the summary table, we requested written documentation before making the changes. We accepted any new changes or revisions through October 15, 1999. In total, we updated the participation policies of 48 states and the accommodation policies of 48 states. A complete list of state documents is in Appendix A. We also received policies from three unique states (BIA, CNMI, DoDDS). These policies are included in Appendix B.