Exceptional Student Services

Child Find is a process that public school systems use to identify, locate, and evaluate all children (birth through age twenty-one) who are suspected of having disabilities which may result in a need for special education and related services.

For children birth through age three, contact Babies Can’t Wait at (706) 272-2219.

For children ages 3-21:

• living in Whitfield County, please contact the Exceptional Student Services office at (706) 876-3921, or complete the Referral to Special Education form 
• living in the city of Dalton, please contact the Exceptional Student Services Director at (706) 876-4023
• living in Murray County, please contact the Exceptional Student Services office at (706) 695-2252

If appropriate, interventions may be implemented and the child’s progress monitored by parents, caregivers, and/or teachers. Students who do not make adequate progress after interventions have been implemented for an appropriate amount of time may be referred for an evaluation to determine eligibility for special education and related services.

For children living in Whitfield County, please complete the Referral to Special Education form.

In compliance with the Georgia Records Act, the Whitfield County Schools Exceptional Student Services retention schedule, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) regulations on destruction of data collected, maintained or used in the provision of a free and appropriate public education of students with disabilities in the District’s schools, the Special Education Department announces its intention to destroy special education record when a student reaches 22 years of age and are no longer needed for educational purposes. 

A student or a parent may need these records for Social Security or other reasons.  If you, as a former student or a parent of a former special education student, wish to obtain these records prior to destruction, you should contact the Special Education Records Department at:  

Whitfield County Schools District Office
3264 Cleveland Highway
Dalton, GA  30721

For more information, contact the Special Education Records Department at 706-876-3948, between 8:00 a.m. and 3:30 p.m.  Positive identification will be required before the records will be released to the individual. 

What is Proportionate Share and who is eligible?

A proportion of federal IDEA funds is available to students parentally placed in private or home school facilities. The amount of funding that can be allocated is based upon a calculation of students with and without an IEP in the public, private, and home settings.

Students located in private or homeschool facilities in the Whitfield County Schools district are eligible for Child Find procedures and proportionate share services. No parentally placed private school SWD has an individual right to receive some or all of the special education and related services that would be received if attending a public school.

The Procedures for Timely and Meaningful Consultation and Notification for Proportionate Share Funding include the following:

Prior to June of a school year, representatives of private elementary and secondary schools, parents or parent representatives of students with disabilities in private elementary and secondary schools, and parents of and home school facilities in the Whitfield County Schools district will receive timely and meaningful consultation covering the following items: 

1. The child find process for private schools – how private school students can participate equitably and how parents, teachers, and private school officials will be informed of the child find process and procedures.

2. What the proportionate share amount is and how it was calculated.

3. The consultation process itself and how it will operate throughout the school year so eligible students can participate in special education and related services. Services must be comparable in quality, not quantity.

4. How, where and by whom proportionate share funds will be allocated, including a description of the types and amounts of services that will be provided. Whitfield County Schools must make the final decisions with respect to the services to be provided (even if there are insufficient funds to serve all students with disabilities) after receiving views from the participants. 

5. How the district, if it disagrees with the views of the private schools on services, will provide a written explanation of why it chose not to follow the views of the private schools.

Each participant in the consultation process will be given an affirmation form to sign indicating that the five essential points were discussed and private and homeschool views were considered.

Each participant and known private and homeschool party will receive a notification of how and where Proportionate Share funds will be allocated.

Under a state law passed by the Georgia State Legislature in 2007, parents of students who
receive special education services may request to transfer their child to another public or private
school in Georgia provided that their child has an IEP and has been enrolled for a full academic
year in a Georgia public school.

Parents who are interested in transferring their child to a private school in Georgia may be able
to take advantage of a Georgia Special Needs Scholarship.  These scholarships provide funding
that can be used to offset tuition costs at participating private schools in the state of Georgia.  For
more information on the Georgia Special Needs Scholarship and the application process, please
visit the Georgia Department of Education's website.

Parents may request a transfer to a school in district other than the one in which they reside if
there is available space, and the system/school has the program with the services in the student’s
existing individualized education program (IEP); however, the school district must agree to
accept the student.  If the parent chooses this option and the school district accepts the child, then
the parent shall be responsible for transportation to a school in that district.  If you are interested
in your child attending a school in another system, please contact that system directly.
A parent may also request a transfer to one of the state schools for the deaf and/or blind operated
by the State Board of Education. Acceptance into a state school will depend on whether the
setting is appropriate for the student’s needs. 

A parent can request for their child to transfer to another school in their district other than the
one in which they are zoned if there is available space and the school has a program with the
services that are in the student’s existing individualized education program (IEP). In addition, the
specific program within the school must also have available space. If the parent chooses this
option, then the parent shall be responsible for transportation.  Parents who wish to consider this
option must submit a request to their local school district.