How were school districts and students selected for the study?
Through a careful process, a selected number of school districts were identified, based on their geographic region, size, and socioeconomic status. These school districts were invited to participate in the study. Based on their agreement to participate, SEELS asked for the district’s list of special education students along with their date of birth and disability classification. From this list, only a certain number of students were randomly selected to participate in SEELS. This selection was based primarily on the student’s age and disability classification. In a few cases, SEELS used a different approach to select students based on what student information the district was willing to provide. For example, some districts wanted to notify parents regarding the study before giving out the names of the students; others asked SEELS to select students from a roster that did not include student names, but included an ID number along with the other information SEELS needed to make a selecti
