Multilingual Special Education Family Toolkit

The Multilingual Special Education Family Toolkit is a set of cards that show the Special Education process, eligibility categories, and placement/services options in PPS. These procedures and concepts are often complex and create barriers for families that prevent their meaningful participation, which is critical to positive outcomes for their students.

The Toolkit currently consists of a Special Education overview, A Roadmap for the evaluation/IEP process, Eligibility cards that describe all the Disability Categories in PPS and a Placement/Services card. The cards represent these important ideas in a visual way using universal graphics along with the implementation of language access principles, including: family-friendly terms, plain language and translations.

The cards are available in the six supported languages at PPS: English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Simplified Chinese, Russian, and Somali.

Special Education Family Toolkit (WEB) | English/Español Special Education Family Toolkit | English/Tiếng Việt Education Family Toolkit | English/中文 Education Family Toolkit | English/Soomaali Education Family Toolkit | Русский Education Family Toolkit

The roadmap for the evaluation/IEP process | El proceso de educación especial | Quy Trình Giáo Dục Đặc Biệt | 特殊教育过程 | Habka Waxbarashada Khaaska ah | Процесс получения услуг инклюзивного образования

If you use these cards with your program or district, please cite Portland Public Schools when sharing or distributing them.

Child Find

The Portland Public Schools conducts specific activities for the purposes of locating, evaluating and identifying students ages birth to twenty-one (21) with suspected disabilities and who reside within the district’s boundaries. This includes students attending private schools within the Portland Public School’s attendance area.

Evaluations birth to 5 years The Early Childhood Team conducts comprehensive developmental evaluations for children birth to 5 years old who are suspected of having a disability. The team determines eligibility for Early Intervention, Early Childhood Special Education and school age eligibilities. Once children are determined to be eligible for services, Multnomah Early Childhood Program (MECP) will work with families to develop an Individual Family Service Plan. For more information about early childhood services, contact MECP at 503-261-5535.

Evaluation Referrals- Multnomah County Early Intervention

For children ages 5-21 years of age, please call Special Education Department at (503) 916-3152