End-of-Year Records Closeout for School Therapists

It is the second week of June. A clinician finds a stack of unsigned notes, a data sheet with no final entry, and a week in March with no log lines at all. By the end of the year, each of these will be harder to explain than it is today.

The last weeks of the school year are when records are most likely to be left incomplete. This guide is a checklist for closing your records in a way that stands up in the fall, when a new teacher, a family, or a reviewer asks what happened in the spring.

The closeout checklist

Tally the year's minutes

Wisconsin's guidance on service interruptions says the district should be able to identify the extent of missed services and describe the reason. At the end of the year, that is your tally. For each student, write:

1. The minutes the IEP called for over the year.
2. The minutes you delivered, from your log.
3. The minutes open, because they were missed and not made up.
4. The reasons for the gaps, in your standard words.

See tracking IEP service minutes for the weekly version of the same check. If a student has minutes open, tell your supervisor before the last day. The decision about what is owed, and how it is provided, belongs to the IEP team, and documenting make-up sessions covers how to describe what happened.

Finish the reports

Final progress reports should say what the data show, in the plain language described in writing progress report sentences from session data. Make sure the last data point is on the sheet, with its date, and that the sheet shows the baseline and the target. If a goal was met, say so with the numbers. If it was not, say what the data show and leave recommendations to the team.

Know where the records are

The IDEA confidentiality rules say that, on request, an agency must give parents a list of the types and locations of the education records it collects, maintains, or uses. That list is the district's. But it depends on you: if your data sheets are in a binder at home, the district cannot list them. Before you leave for summer, make sure every record you created is in a location your district can name.

The Illinois recommended practices for school therapy say the format for collecting progress data and where they are kept are within the district's discretion, in line with federal and state student records laws. They say districts should consult legal counsel on which documents belong to the student record and how long different documents are kept.

What not to destroy

It is tempting to clear out old notes at the end of the year. Do not. Section 300.624 gives the rule for destruction. The district must notify parents when personally identifiable information is no longer needed to provide educational services to the child. If the parent asks, the district must destroy the information. The rule also allows a limited set of information to be kept indefinitely: the student's name, address, and phone number, grades, attendance record, classes attended, grade level completed, and year completed.

Therapy notes are not on that list, so how long you keep them depends on your state and district. The practical result is that destruction is a district process with notice to parents, not a clean-up job for an individual clinician. If your district has a retention schedule, ask for a copy and follow it. If not, ask your supervisor who decides.

Hand-offs

If a student is moving to a new clinician or a new school, send what your district's process requires. A good hand-off summary is short and factual: the goals, the baseline and latest data, what supports work, and any open items. Keep opinions out of it. It will be read as part of the record. And send it through the district's approved channel, not by personal email or message.

Summer and extended year

If a student has extended school year services, your log runs through the end of that period. Close the regular year's records on the last regular day, and start a clearly marked set for the extended period. Keep the two apart, so that minutes and data from each are not mixed.

A ten-day countdown

A little planning keeps the last week calm.

• Ten school days out: run a report of every student's delivered minutes and look for gaps.
• Seven days out: write late entries for anything you can reconstruct from a reliable source, such as an attendance record or your schedule, and label them as late.
• Five days out: finish final data points and draft progress reports.
• Three days out: tell your supervisor about open minutes and any records that are not yet in the district's system.
• Last day: save and sign everything, and confirm that nothing is left on a personal device or at home.

None of these steps is difficult. The trouble is only that they all pile up in the same week if they are put off.

Your own list for September

Before you leave, write yourself a short note for the fall: which students have open items, which goals need new baselines, which forms are due early in the year. It belongs on your own task list, not in a student's record. Starting the year with that list saves a week of rediscovery.

Closeout slips

• Leaving gaps for "later." September memories are worse than June memories.
• Backdating entries to fill a gap. Add late entries with today's date.
• Taking records home for the summer. Records on a personal device or at home may not be where the district thinks they are.
• Destroying notes to tidy up. Destruction is a district decision, with notice to parents.
• Handing on private impressions. Pass on the record, not your hunches.

Terms are in the glossary.