Navigating Extended School Year Services for Students: The Legally Blind Justice Podcast: Episode 40

Summary

This conversation provides an in-depth overview of Extended School Year (ESY) services, emphasizing their importance for students with disabilities. The discussion covers the definition of ESY, its individualized nature, eligibility criteria, goals, service delivery models, and the curriculum structure. The speakers highlight the benefits of ESY, including preventing regression, maintaining skills, and providing consistency. They also discuss the flexibility of ESY programs and the importance of collaboration and data collection in ensuring effective support for students. Real-life examples of ESY plans are shared to illustrate how these services can be tailored to meet individual needs.

Keywords

Extended School Year, ESY, special education, individualized support, eligibility criteria, goals, service delivery, curriculum, benefits, collaboration

Takeaways

• ESY is essential for maintaining meaningful progress for students with disabilities.
• Individualized support is crucial in the IEP process.
• ESY is mandated by IDEA and must be discussed annually.
• Eligibility for ESY is determined on a case-by-case basis.
• The primary goal of ESY is to prevent regression of skills.
• ESY programs can include various services outlined in a child's IEP.
• Flexibility in ESY programs allows for better adaptation to individual needs.
• Data collection during ESY is vital for tracking progress.
• Collaboration among educators enhances the effectiveness of ESY.
• Real-life examples demonstrate the individualized nature of ESY plans.

Transcript

The transcript is AI-generated and may contain transcription errors.

Welcome back to another episode of the Legally Blind Justice Podcast, where we bring clarity to the law—and justice to education. I’m your host, Tim Markley.

Today’s episode tackles a topic that matters deeply to families of students with disabilities—Extended School Year services, or ESY. As school districts tighten budgets and families navigate special education with increasing complexity, understanding what ESY is—and what it is not—has never been more important.

Joining us today are two of K. Altman Law’s most dedicated special education advocates, Crystal Ash and Lindsay Oram. They’ll walk you through the core purpose of ESY, break down the myths, and explain how these federally mandated services can prevent skill regression and help maintain consistency for students during extended breaks.

Whether you’re a parent wondering how to advocate for your child, a teacher trying to understand what your students are entitled to, or a district administrator hoping to ensure compliance with IDEA, this episode is your guide.

Let’s dive in with Crystal and Lindsay as they explain what ESY is, how it’s determined, and why it’s more than just “summer school.”

All right. Hi, everyone. Welcome to our K. Altman Law Extended School Year Services webinar. I'm Crystal Ash. I'm here as one of our special education advocates and I have Lindsay Oram, also a special education advocate here with me tonight. So our webinar is really to just kind of go over what ESY or Extended School Year Services are.

and just kind of talk about the different options that you might have for services outside of the standard school year that can help your student or your child or anyone in your life that needs a little bit extra push outside of the regular school year really just get what they need and help their needs be met. So like I said, I'm Crystal Ash, Lindsay Oram here. We're both special education advocates with K-Alp and Law and our objectives for ⁓ kind of what we're

Going over tonight, our purpose is just to kind of give you a very general overview of what ESY is as a whole. What can be included in ESY programming and the benefits that ESY can provide to a student with a disability. So just a very quick overview of what those three objectives are. What is ESY? We're going to kind of look at an overarching view of what ESY is, what's included, what, you know, extended school year even means, what the timeframe for that is.

 

and generally kind of what you're looking at for ESY in most states and districts. What ESY includes, this will be kind of a typical overview of the kinds of programming that you can see, you know, the where, when, why, how, what most states and most districts can offer for ESY. And then the benefits of ESY, again, kind of those overarching, very general benefits that ESY is meant to provide.

And of course, each of these aspects will be individualized. It'll be different for every state, every district, every school and every child, because these are all different. And the programming that your child receives is individualized and independent. So we're really here to just give you an overview of what ESY is in general. And then if you feel empowered and you feel like it is something that your child could benefit from, then you have kind of a starting point to...

go to your specific state or district agency to look into ESY a little bit more in detail. So let's start off with what is extended school year? Special Ed teachers and those of us that live in brief special Ed tend to maybe start off away too many abbreviations and way too many letters and expect everyone to know what we're talking about. So first of all, extended school year is a federally funded program.

It's not extended school year. it doesn't mean all just during the summer. It can mean any time in the year. So IDEA has funds that will help ensure those students with disabilities can receive their free appropriate public education. So it's part of faith. And just so that school year, if need be, can be extended beyond whether it be spring break, Christmas break, summer break.

 

Thanksgiving break if yours is long in your area, all those things. It is typically a shortened schedule. ⁓ It's not an eight to three. It's not long and exhausting for kids. It is, we all know that kids do need a little bit of a break. So it's typically shorter than the average school break or school day. And ⁓ because there's less kids too, and they're usually working on.

Just a few things that make that we need to work on to ensure that we don't lose skills or we don't put a hiccup in the gaining of skills. ESY is not when size fits all. So there used to be a time when districts would be like, OK, we'll just set up our ESY school year and we'll put these ingredients into it and it will work for everyone. And that's not what it is. It is.

 

Just like your students IEP, it is a recipe for what your student needs during that break. So it's a specialized program. It is not summer school. Now there can be fun things about it and they may go on a field trip or two, but it is not summer school. is a specific program for your students. ESY versus summer school. So.

ESY is actually mandated. The team has to talk about it every year. We have to look at if there's a need for it. So it's mandated by IDEA. ⁓ And so students may just need it. Can a parent opt out because they need a break because their student needs a break? That's an option, but it is IDEA mandates that ESY be discussed and that the team decides which best for each child. Summer school.

is optional and it's often enrichment. For example, I had my own children that were involved in English language learners. They were actually, they did a dual language program. So my students, my kids' home language was English, but we lived in an area that was high Spanish speaking area. So they had a dual language program and in that dual language program,

was summer school options so that the kids could come in and be enriched in both languages during the summer. That was enrichment. Sometimes there's science summer schools that go above and beyond. So not something that's mandated. ⁓ ESY is, like I said earlier, individual to each student. Summer school is that one side-stitch-all that a teacher would really like to do this program over the summer or these field trips or

these science projects or these reading these library trips. Those sorts of things. ESY focuses on maintaining skills. That's huge. We want to maintain skills. We may not always build skills. We could, but the school doesn't have to prove that that the student has built skills. The school just needs to make sure we don't lose. We don't regress. We don't put a hiccup in our ability to start to continue growth.

A lot of times a break may come when speech is just on the verge of doing well and just on the verge of making a big gain or it may come when reading is like right there for a student or if it's occupational therapy, maybe some of those skills are just coming and if a break comes and interrupts that growth, then that's where ESY would come into place. it focuses on maintaining those skills or maintaining

the growth curve that that the school year has produced. Summer school office often focuses on remediation, catching up or like we said earlier, even enrichment. Yes, why is based on a team decision that EP team that will meet and summer school is usually open enrollment or based on grades, sometimes on like a social economical need. Yes, why is free to eligible students?

 

Summer school can be fee based or have some other strings attached to it. Oftentimes like a grant pays for it because they'll feed the kids or something. ⁓ summer school may be free because there's a food grant, but often it's, know, summer school, have to pay the teachers out of the district's pocket. So they have to find that money somewhere. IDEA provides funding for ESY. So that's why it's different there.

Eligibility guys, this is the big one. This one is the one that sometimes districts may have districts may remember. They think it costs, you know, costing money and resources and gathering resources and things that's hard. So school districts can be real sticklers on the eligibility piece. So this is where it's really important that families and and people that support our kiddos understand this eligibility piece so.

Although it's protected by IDEA, not all students with disabilities or an IDP, even a 504 in some cases are eligible. ⁓ Eligibility is determined case by case, student by student, by the entire team. And we all know that it's often that the team disagrees on lots of decisions. And that's okay too, but it's just another one of those decisions that the team really needs to discuss and look at. There's not...

We say this, there's no one standard or criteria list checklist, but eligibility can include, I'm going to before I go on to what it can include. Some states actually do have checklists like Florida has a checklist and you can find those by like Crystal said earlier, looking at your state, your Department of Ed for your state and looking at the ESY criteria for that. It's just, it's weird that there is checklist, but some people need checklists and so they've made those things that make it work.

So eligibility can include that big word. Everybody knows that's the first one regression. If a student shows regression. So say we have a student that is will make it basic and easy learning their ABCs and they are learning ABCs and letter sounds and letter recognition with that. If we have information from kindergarten that going into Christmas break they knew letters.

sounds and the symbols for letters A through ⁓ before Christmas break. But when they came back after Christmas break, they could only remember even after some time letters A through F. There was regression. They couldn't, maybe they didn't know all the sounds again, or maybe they lost some of the symbol recognition. That would be a basic way to know that over Christmas break they lost that much information. And sometimes

 

There's time where it's the recruitment piece will run into it and maybe it takes them a month to go, ⁓ wait, and click and start learning again. And sometimes that recruitment piece is longer and sometimes it's shorter. So the other piece of that pie is recruitment. How long does it take them? Do they recover it? While they're recovering it, do they miss out on other instruction? Those pieces are all part of it.

Now you can take data, this you can take data, the school can take data over short breaks, long breaks, whether it be Thanksgiving break, maybe it's over a holiday weekend like we just had Easter break, which was Thursday, Friday, and then of course Saturday, Sunday, and then Monday. That would have been a great block of time to take some data if that's something you're concerned about. Maybe there's emerging skills and I led into this earlier.

⁓ Is there a critical point in the child's learning development? They're learning a new skill, everything from reading to something with their occupational therapy to some social skills. Maybe there's some social skills that are making a really good like certain they really crest and we're making some good growth. Maybe there's some behaviors. Maybe there's their self help things. It's any area that your child is receiving special services in.

So if they have goals in their IEP for it, then these are areas that you can show that there may be a need. ⁓ And then the last part is interruption. Will a break disrupt the momentum of learning, which is what we led into? Does a student struggle to begin learning each school year? I've had students in the past that have taken a month and a half to get back into the school routine to where they're actually learning, not just showing up. And so.

Is it common for some kids to take two weeks? Absolutely. Once you're past, you know, a certain amount of time, we're losing valuable instruction time and those kids are still remembering how to learn and be present and be a student. And that that's another area that could justify ESY.

So the goals of ESY, like Lindsay touched on in one of our previous slides, they will be individualized to each student, but overall, the goal of ESY is not necessarily to teach new academic skills over the summer or to do credit recovery or to ⁓ catch up on missed work. It's primarily to focus on just building those skills that we were in the middle of building.

and they are not necessarily academic skills. So social emotional learning, regulation, communication and language skills, daily living skills, ⁓ all of the related services that your child might be participating in. The things that are not necessarily exclusively academic that do impact a child's education. Those are really the types of things that ESY typically focuses on. There is of course always room to

 

continue working on academic skills, very basic things like reading and math and fluency and things like that. But again, it's not to build new academic skills, it's to continue working on the skills that the student was in the middle of building and that a very significant break would cause some aggression on or cause some delay in learning. Or on the piece for non-academic skills, do they need to continue with routine?

Do they need to continue having a social stimulation, community interaction? Do they need to continue working on their communication skills and open up the opportunity to work with ⁓ a diverse group of individuals? Would it be beneficial to them to get out of the house every day and make sure that they're continuing with their OT and PT and speech services? So like we said earlier, it's not summer school because it's not focused on any one type of learning.

and it's not focused on new learning. It's focused on maintenance learning. So the three big goals because of that, like Lindsay said in our last slide, primarily to prevent regression, we definitely see the biggest benefit in ESY is for students who would have some sort of significant regression of skills like the ABCs example that Lindsay gave.

if they were to go over an extended break period with no further instruction in the areas that they were building skills in. So we primarily look to prevent regression so that students don't constantly start off two steps forward, one step back, two steps forward, one step back after every single break. That's how students really tend to fall further and further behind until, you know, by the time they're in, you middle school or high school, they're at a significantly lower academic or even related

social emotional communication related service level than their peers. And that's when we find that students have a really hard time even meeting the level of achievement that they are able to meet, let alone going further to then look at things like post-secondary education or living skills, vocational skills or vocational schools. So ESY is really a really excellent tool to help prevent regression so students don't continually start off on the wrong foot.

and maintain the skills that are essential to learning so that they can continue to make forward progress in those essential core skills that that student might struggle with. Another main goal of ESY, like we kind of talked about, is to provide consistency and routine to students, like Lindsay mentioned, who may struggle to get back into the swing of things at the beginning of the school year. So they may not be at any significant risk for regression.

but they may be at risk for not being able to start and stop very easily. So if a student went over the entire summer break, for example, with no instruction and it takes them two, three, four months, however long they were on break and then some to get back into the swing of things, they are going to start regressing once we get back into school because they have such a hard time actually starting up the process of learning again.

 

So even if we have students who are not at risk of losing skills or who need more, you know, FaceTime with their educators to maintain these skills, we can still offer ESY services for students who just need that consistency and that routine of going to school and learning and being in an educational environment and stimulating their brains just to make sure that, you know, there's no significant break that just kind of has that hard stop for them that they might struggle with.

So all of these things in mind with what ESY typically looks like and why we might need ESY, what the goals are, what does ESY usually include? Like we talked about, ESY pretty much includes anything that could be in your child's IEP that they might need. So any of the core academic skills that they are starting to develop, any of the...

you know, social emotional communication, daily living, essential life skills, any of those kind of education adjacent skills that they might need, and then any related services that they might be participating in as well during the regular school year. All of these skills and all of these services, all of their accommodations, curricular modifications, ESY will continue to tackle all of the things that your child's IEP and their IEP goals are already working towards.

So although it is individualized and it is on a smaller scale than the standard school year is and their IEP would address in the school year, we're still using those tools like the IEP and the related services to make sure that we continue the work that we started in the school year. So speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, behavior support, if that was a big piece, like a behavior intervention plan, academic support, social emotional support.

It really is just kind of like ⁓ a mini version of the IEP and a mini version of what you were working on during the school year. We just continue that throughout an extended break on a smaller, less rigorous scale for that consistency and that routine and just to make sure that they're still being exposed to the things that have been proven to help them and to meet their needs on a regular basis.

Some of our service delivery models, ⁓ just like there's not any one particular checklist, not one particular eligibility requirement, not one particular standard for what a student might need, there's also not one particular standard for how those services can be delivered. So obviously in-person is the traditional option where

 

Usually the school that your child attends or maybe one central building in the district. If there's not a huge population of students looking for ESY services, you would go to a location within your district and they would get those face to face services, instruction, modifications, accommodations, just like they would in the regular school building, maybe just at a different location, but they would still get it face to face just, you know, on a schedule.

a little bit less rigorous of a curriculum, a little bit shorter of a timeframe. Then we also have on the other hand, virtual. So you can do it completely online. This is a good option for families who maybe have medically complex children or health needs, or for people who live in remote areas, if there is no in-person ESY option, because it might be too far or too expensive for the district to host things.

⁓ In person, a virtual option may be available. And then kind of meeting in the middle, there's a hybrid option most times as well for people who need flexibility because again, especially for our students who don't need the very, you know, extensive ESY where it's not necessarily that strict routine and that you repeated exposure. If you have to go on vacation or you have to go to the doctor or

ou know you need to be out here and there. The hybrid model would allow a little bit more flexibility in terms of time and place for an ESY schedule than either the in person or the virtual models independently would offer. So you know the ESY locations they can change. They can flex. It really will depend on you know your state and your district. What is offered, but there should be options available to you and that information should be pretty easy to hunt down your.

SPED coordinator for your district or perhaps your caseworker at your school. They would be able to let you know what your district typically offers. And especially if you do have an extenuating circumstance like a medically complex child or a very rural district, they may be a person that you can go to contact to see if there are any more flexible options for you. Because of course, at the end of the day, the goal of ESY is to continue helping a child with

very individualized needs. And that is something that the school should be willing to work with you on in terms of how can we make this work if our traditional options don't currently work.

And I hope what you guys are hearing is that maybe ESY isn't as rigid in how it's set up as what's maybe what you had in your head or what's typically out there. You know, the typical idea of ESY might be, have my student has to go to school all summer long and do all these things all summer long. And I just don't know if we're willing to sacrifice all of our time or I can't get them back and forth with my work schedule.

 

So there is more flexibility and there is more resources than you may think. So don't be afraid to ask because you're worried that you'll feel guilty if you can't get them there. There's resources. All right, it's like programming. We talked earlier that it is based upon each student. It's very individual. So of course there's curriculum. It's not just going in and hanging out and spending time and hoping to get some things done.

There's structure and there's activities. So ⁓ the curriculum has to be built around their IEP goals. We don't just say, ⁓ this is one thing we didn't get to this year. I'd really like to get to. It's still working on goals and maintaining those skills. It's working on things that you've been working on all year. It's all individually crafted. There may be two students working on the same thing or similar things, but it's all individual to ⁓ to where your student is.

⁓ The materials may be modified, so there might be curriculum and they that they just totally modified and make it more friendly for a smaller group or for ⁓ for a wider range of abilities in the group. It also includes this is the best one. It includes opportunity to gather more data. I know data. I hope you don't ever get sick of hearing data because data is your friend.

Data will help you get your kiddo what they need. It will help you know where your kiddo's at and it will help your teachers know where your kiddo's at and what they need. Data is your friend. Let them take all the data they're willing to take. ⁓ So but it includes another opportunity to get that data. ⁓ It's collaboration. There's I always love I do appreciate ESY because it gets other educators engaged with students they may not.

have an opportunity to engage with. And I think it's a really great opportunity to have other professionals have an eye on and a hand in on educating exceptional students. Like we may learn something through that that we didn't realize ⁓ just because it was another eye and another hand. And I love that piece. The collaboration between different teachers, the parents brought in a little bit differently during ESY as well. So that's super great.

And the IEP team is able to look at things a little differently too because of the data that's offered. ⁓ And of course, flexibility in how we do it because we have different time constraints, not as rigid, not as rigid. It is relaxed. is still summer break, but it is work, but it's not as rigid. The structure, which brings us right to structure. ⁓ Although we said it doesn't...

 

It's not typically as long as the school day is a school year school day. It does typically try to mirror the schedule just so it's something consistent for the students. So just like we said, we want it needs to be something that helps them maintain their learning curve, helps them maintain skills they have. Well, if we change up the structure, then we're changing up that group. So we try to keep the structure the same. ⁓

The hard part to understand and the hard part that does vary a lot is the length of the program. ESY is not going to be all summer long. ⁓ It might be two days a week during the summer. might be for two weeks, four days a week. It might be again, it's very individual and unfortunately, sometimes it is at the mercy of what resources are available. ⁓ But that link.

time of program time and instructional time can vary. ⁓ Hopefully it's always centered on that student though. So if you're involved in an ESY program and things start the planning starts sounding a little bit wonky to you, check your team and make sure that your student is at the center of that programming because we all like things to be in a tidy little box and really, really convenient for all that are involved because after all it's summer.

or it's our winter break or you know this is a time we're supposed to be getting a break from learning and being having all these expectations but sometimes we have to bring it back to what's best for that student when it starts getting wonky and it doesn't it's not necessarily going to be the same every single year it might look different between it's very likely going to look different between second and third grade or during that second grade year as it's going to be during the sixth grade here.

⁓ And yes, ESY for high schoolers is totally a thing. I just don't think it's explored enough in this day and age. Activities are part of the structure. We want students to want to be at those ESY times and when all their friends are getting up and going to the pool and they have to get up and go into school before they can get to the pool, we want to make sure that those opportunities to engage and have a little fun is there too. So it's going to be.

School based, but hopefully those fun activities hands on there's going to be Adapted reading good hands on all the things where we get to make messes and sort things around and do all the things cooking is there All the things that are a little more fun that we can slow down and do with just a few kids Those things are all present. So example of what someone's plan may look like so we said is individual to each student

So this is an example plan of what it may look like for a student with autism, with autism spectrum, excuse me. So they have the dates in there, the disabilities is specified in there, the date and times. So this one is July 8th through August 2nd. The team must have decided that a little break is good, a big break. We need a little reminder in the middle of the summer and then maybe a little break before school starts again.

So this one is July 8th through August 2nd, Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to noon. So we're looking at almost a month of four days a week for half days. ⁓ That must be what this team decided was great for the students focus schools that they're going to work on. ⁓ So this one looks like it's based on a lot of communication and behavior needs. So they're using they've got goals that they want to focus on.

supports and strategies that they've found are working well. ⁓ Communication using their prologue to go in there prompting remembering how to use that. So maybe the issue with this student is reteaching at the beginning of every year of how to use their communication device. ⁓ Notes from the behavior plan are it's really nice with these plans because it should be a glance at ⁓ there is coming tools that the students struggling with. They like the beanbag. Those are quiet.

⁓ If I can watch for the stress, then we can head off a big issue, those sorts of things. So as you can see, it's a great little plan. It's not super in-depth, but it's great because it supports everything that student needs during the day, during the school day, and can help that learning progression keep moving. Look, there's even allergies on the bottom. So really, really good. ⁓ Love this little summary example. And that's how simple it could be.

Go ahead, these ⁓ you know this type of example and the types of plans that would be presented for ESY are supposed to be used in conjunction with the IEP. So you know this could be all that this student needed. All the you know explanation, all of the planning that this student needed for their ESY because generally speaking, the person that is going to be administering the ESY, the teacher that's going to be there is probably someone that's going to be familiar with these students.

If not, you know someone from their actual building, it would be someone from the district that you know is familiar with the way things go in that district with their case file, things like that. And then two, they would have the actual IEP there to make sure that they understand not only the disability, but the accommodations that the student has during the regular school year, what they were working on when the break happened, why they were determined eligible for ESY. So you know.

why we need a short break and then school again and then a short break and then back to the regular school year, they would have some additional information. But in terms of an ESY plan, since this is something that we're building off of the regular school year and your standard IEP from, we really don't need much more than this because we're just continuing on. We're not starting over, we're not doing something new, we're just keeping on keeping on with where we were and what we were learning when.

school ended or when that break came. Hopefully through all of our ⁓ going on and on about ESY, you've heard of some benefits and you've understood the value of taking the data, having the hard conversations and trying to work with the school to get students what they need. So if you're feeling that it's right for your child or a child that you're helping care for, looking at and you're wanting to make like an argument to help them out.

⁓ Preventing skill regression is huge, but that's typically that first conversation that everybody has. It's the first argument. ⁓ Preventing the skills regression. Stop wasting time. Stop taking the two steps back. Abdul. ⁓ Promotes continued progress. So once we start on a once we start in a group, we all know once you start in that group, it's great. You just can keep going. So if we have continued progress, we can promote that by keeping on with extended school year.

maintaining structure and consistency who doesn't do better with that. I do like like we know students with behavior struggles or communication delays like the more you can maintain the more consistency we have the better access to social emotional learning. ⁓ It's not a given that whomever a family has to help with kids during the summer. Summer is hard.

with kids, especially younger kids. And it's not a given that whomever parents have available to assist with summer care, it doesn't mean that they're going to have the skills to help with social emotional learning. It just means that they're going to keep them healthy and safe and, you know, put band-aids on them and feed them. We don't like sometimes we need that social emotional learning piece to continue growth. ⁓ I think we forget how hard those changes are can be on kids.

And then those transitions, keeping the easing the transition notes, turning school off and on. And you want me to do this in this setting, but this setting is here and oh, it's summer so I can sleep half the day or I can eat anything all day or I can play video games all day or watch TV. But during the school year, I can't do that. What? And sometimes when we reduce some of those transitions and expectations, our kids are just a little better off and they're learning is a little easier.

Tim Markley:
That brings us to the end of today’s episode. A huge thank you to Crystal Ash and Lindsay Oram for their thoughtful and thorough walkthrough of Extended School Year services.

If there’s one takeaway from this conversation, it’s that ESY is not a bonus—it’s a right, and for many students with disabilities, it’s essential to maintaining meaningful progress. As we heard, ESY isn’t just about academics—it’s about consistency, structure, and individualized support that helps students retain skills and ease transitions between school years.

Whether you’re a parent, educator, or advocate, your role in the IEP process matters. Ask the hard questions. Push for the data. And don’t be afraid to challenge blanket denials. The law is clear: ESY must be considered annually, and it must be based on a student's individual needs, not what’s convenient for a school calendar.

If you’d like more resources or need help advocating for ESY in your district, visit us at kaltmanlaw.com . We're here to help you navigate the system and stand up for what's right.

Until next time, I’m Tim Markley—thanks for listening to Legally Blind Justice, where we see justice clearly… even when the system doesn’t.