EDC Risk Management & Mitigation 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A diagnostician notices a student's IEP goals have not been reviewed for over a year. Which risk does this represent?
- Inadequate parent communication
- Procedural compliance failure under IDEA (Correct answer)
- Insufficient classroom accommodations
- Lack of assistive technology
Correct answer: Procedural compliance failure under IDEA
IDEA requires annual IEP reviews, and failing to conduct them is a procedural compliance violation that creates legal and educational risk.
Question 2: When a student exhibits sudden behavioral changes alongside academic decline, the FIRST risk mitigation step for the diagnostician is to:
- Immediately refer for psychological evaluation
- Review cumulative records and consult with the teacher (Correct answer)
- Notify child protective services
- Administer a full psychoeducational battery
Correct answer: Review cumulative records and consult with the teacher
Gathering existing data and consulting the teacher provides context before escalating to formal evaluations or mandatory reports.
Question 3: Which scenario poses the greatest ethical risk during the assessment process?
- Using a norm-referenced test outside its intended age range
- Scheduling evaluations during standardized testing week
- Testing a student without obtaining written parental consent (Correct answer)
- Administering assessments in the student's second language
Correct answer: Testing a student without obtaining written parental consent
Evaluating a student without written parental consent violates IDEA and FERPA, creating serious legal and ethical risk.
Question 4: A diagnostician suspects a student may have been coached on a standardized test by a previous evaluator. The BEST risk mitigation strategy is to:
- Re-administer the same test after a 30-day waiting period
- Document the concern and select alternate measures for the same constructs (Correct answer)
- Discard all prior test data and start fresh
- Report the evaluator to the state licensing board immediately
Correct answer: Document the concern and select alternate measures for the same constructs
Documenting the concern and using alternate instruments preserves assessment validity without prematurely escalating to disciplinary action.
Question 5: Under FERPA, sharing a student's evaluation report with a community mental health agency without consent creates which type of risk?
- Tort liability for negligence
- FERPA violation and potential loss of federal funding (Correct answer)
- ADA compliance failure
- Section 504 procedural error
Correct answer: FERPA violation and potential loss of federal funding
Unauthorized disclosure of education records violates FERPA and can result in the district losing federal funding.
Question 6: A student with a disability is placed in a more restrictive environment without documented justification. This represents a risk under which principle?
- Zero reject
- Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) (Correct answer)
- Child Find
- Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE)
Correct answer: Least Restrictive Environment (LRE)
IDEA's LRE mandate requires placement in the least restrictive appropriate setting, and violating it creates legal risk for the district.
Question 7: Which practice BEST mitigates the risk of cultural bias in psychoeducational evaluations?
- Translating all test instructions verbatim into the student's home language
- Using a single standardized test with national norms
- Employing multiple data sources including nonverbal measures and observations (Correct answer)
- Relying on parent reports to supplement standardized scores
Correct answer: Employing multiple data sources including nonverbal measures and observations
A multisource approach including culturally appropriate nonverbal measures reduces reliance on any single potentially biased instrument.
EDC Risk Management & Mitigation 2
A diagnostician notices a student's IEP goals have not been reviewed for over a year.
Which risk does this represent?