MS HB1504

Requires local school districts to screen all students in spring of kindergarten and fall of Grade 1 for dyslexia using components including phonological awareness, sound-symbol recognition, alphabet knowledge, decoding, encoding, and rapid naming.

Entitles parents of students failing the initial dyslexia screener to have a comprehensive psycho-educational evaluation conducted by licensed psychologists, psychometrists, or speech-language pathologists, with results that must be accepted by school districts for dyslexia program placement eligibility.

Mandates the State Department of Education reimburse the cost of comprehensive psycho-educational evaluations resulting in dyslexia diagnosis up to $800.00 and establish policies and procedures for the reimbursement program.

Establishes minimum fine of $800.00 (up to the full evaluation cost) for schools or school districts that fail to accept dyslexia diagnoses from subsequent comprehensive psycho-educational evaluations, with fines prohibited from being paid using Mississippi Adequate Education Program or other state funds.

Specifies that qualifying evaluations must assess family history, intervention history, oral language skills, word recognition, decoding, spelling, phonological processing, fluency, reading comprehension, and vocabulary knowledge.