Carole L. Clancy, Director of the PDE Bureau of Special Education, sent a PennLink memo to LEAs titled Special Education Plan Information for Phase 3 School Districts. It states that the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) is responsible for ensuring that all special education programs in public schools are appropriate and effective. To do this, school districts must submit a Special Education Plan every three years to PDE as required under 22 Pa. Code § 14.104. The school district’s Special Education Plan outlines planning generated from district special education data, compliance monitoring, professional development activities, and training necessary to provide appropriate programs to students with disabilities. 

The special education plan will continue to be developed in the Future Ready Comprehensive Planning Portal (FRCPP). The first step to gaining access to the FRCPP is to ensure that you are a registered user on the PDE Portal. If you are not a registered user, please register here: Register a Username and Log In. 

Your school district’s Local Security Administrator can add/remove users in My PDE Suite. If you need help adding users to the new portal, please use the step-by-step guide for Accessing the Future Ready Comprehensive Planning Portal. If you do not know who your Administrators are, you can find this information by clicking on Find my Security Administrator on the main page in My PDE Suite.

School districts in Phase 3 must submit their plans by May 1, 2024 in the FRCPP.

A mandatory pre-recorded webinar was released on March 16, 2023 for all school districts. It can be accessed at: https://www.pattan.net/legal/special-education-plans/. The purpose of the webinar is to train school districts on the special education plan requirements and the FRCPP system.

Should you have any questions, please contact Sandy Zeleznik in PDE’s Bureau of Special Education at [email protected].