Special Education CLD Student Over-Identification Prevention Protocol

Preventing the over-identification of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students in special education programs requires intentional, data-driven protocols that address implicit bias and ensure equitable evaluation practices. This Special Education CLD Student Over-Identification Prevention Protocol template helps schools and districts implement systematic safeguards throughout the referral and evaluation process.

Designed for special education coordinators, intervention teams, and school psychologists, this form guides educators through critical pre-referral interventions, cultural and linguistic considerations, and disproportionality monitoring checkpoints. By documenting evidence-based interventions, language acquisition timelines, and cultural factors that may impact learning, teams can distinguish between genuine disabilities and differences related to language development, cultural adjustment, or inadequate prior instruction.

The protocol includes sections for response to intervention (RTI) documentation, English language proficiency assessment, culturally responsive teaching strategies, family engagement in the student's native language, and bias awareness checkpoints. This structured approach helps teams make more informed, equitable decisions about special education referrals while maintaining compliance with federal guidelines on disproportionality.

Paperform makes it easy to customize this template to match your district's specific intervention frameworks and monitoring procedures. The conditional logic adapts the form based on student demographics and intervention outcomes, while calculation fields can track intervention duration and progress monitoring results. With Paperform's integration capabilities, you can connect this protocol to your student information system, special education case management software, or Google Sheets for ongoing disproportionality analysis.

For districts looking to automate their equity monitoring workflows, Stepper can route completed protocols to appropriate team members based on risk indicators, trigger follow-up assessments, and maintain a centralized dashboard of disproportionality metrics across schools and demographic groups.