I believe that all the Adult Education and Literacy agencies in Missouri use the same screening tool as our program. You can see it on page 54 of a document from the state AEL section's website: http://www.dese.mo.gov/divcareered/AEL/AEL_Guidelines_For_Serving_Students.doc
 
The document as a whole details the rules we follow for providing all students an equal opportunity to learn in our program; a program-specific adaptation of the document is the Learning Differences portion of our program handbook. I think all adult education programs that receive federal money have to follow pretty much the same protocols we do; the explanations we got from the LD listserv today were exactly how I've heard it all explained.
 
To answer Angela's questions -- first about cooperating with other agencies: Sometimes we locate classes within an agency and specifically serve that organization's clientele. In that case, the building is already accessible and students have case managers helping them get the tools and accommodations they need. More often, though, agencies bring their clients to us and provide support for them if what's needed is more than we can manage. Teachers and/or our director and case managers stay in touch about the students' needs (with their permission, of course). Students with identified disabilities are in many ways easier to accommodate because they do have specific diagnoses and professional recommendations for effective learning strategies. It's more difficult to help students with learning issues that have not been professionally identified. We use the assessment tools we have and recommend further testing if it seems indicated, and we implement strategies we think might help, but our efforts can't approach professional evaluation.
 
Second, about getting IEPs and so forth: We are lucky in the St. Louis area that a single agency, Special School District, provides the special ed services to most of the school districts in the county. Teachers have easy access to a centralized source of most IEPs and request those themselves using a standard form filled out and signed by the student. When we need an IEP from anywhere else, teachers turn in the form to the ABE/ASE coordinator (me), whose responsibility it is to find out where to fax the request form.
 
Debra