Counsel's Corner

Least Restrictive Environment for Disabled Students, Parents, and School Districts

By Jeff Weber, PWDF Summer Law Student Intern

Edited By C. Monica Eskridge, Interim Program Manager for Education

Educating children with special needs presents a unique challenge for educators and parents. Schools struggle to provide individualized and efficacious curricula within their budgetary constraints. Parents seek to enhance their child’s ability to interact with non-disabled peers. The benefits of more segregated, individualized educational programs may or may not be greater than the value of cultivating social skills and increasing non-disabled children’s exposure to children with disabilities.

The law governing the education of students with special needs is the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). No legal mandate is more fraught with the tension of competing interests than IDEA’s least restrictive environment (LRE) requirement.

While this article is not intended to be a comprehensive guide on compliance with the IDEA, it does tease out the major factors courts consider to determine whether a school district placed a student in the least restrictive environment.

OVERVIEW OF THE IDEA

The LRE requirement states that, “[t]o the maximum extent appropriate, children with disabilities . . . are educated with children who are not disabled . . . . [R]emoval of children from the regular education environment occurs only when the nature or severity of the disability of a child is such that education in regular classes . . . cannot be achieved satisfactorily.”[1] Public schools must provide a “free appropriate public education,” otherwise known as FAPE. IDEA intends to create equal access to educational opportunities for students with disabilities.

The appropriate LRE depends on the individual educational plans (IEPs)[2] of specific students. The student’s progress in a regular classroom must be compared to potential achievement in a more segregated environment. Because of the profound benefits of integrating students, a more efficacious academic program can be discarded in favor of a program that permits full integration into the regular classroom.

HOW TO COMPLY

While the IDEA evinces a clear preference for mainstreaming students with special needs, it is important to remember that the LRE will not always involve placement in a regular classroom. It may not entail meaningful interaction with non-disabled students. The LRE is best conceptualized as a continuum that will vary based on the unique qualities of the individual student. The degree of segregation will vary and can include full integration with support aids, partial segregation, self-contained special education classrooms, residential treatment facilities, and everything in between.

A. Supplementary Aids and Services

This factor embodies what is essentially a threshold test—whether schools provide disabled students a fair opportunity to succeed in a regular classroom setting. If the school and the parents differ, the parents may appeal. If a mutually satisfactory outcome is not achieved, the parents may file suit in federal district court.

Supplementary aids and services are a statutorily required means of accommodating students with special needs.[3] Supports devised and applied ad hoc by teachers in the classroom will generally not be satisfactory. A school’s failure to consider expert recommendations, even if the school provided some accommodations, may also constitute a violation of the LRE requirement.

Courts also examine time spent and progress made to determine a student’s appropriate placement. In some cases, a fully individualized program with specifically trained teachers, counselors and disability-specific programming is the only way a child can achieve meaningful educational results. In such cases, the specialized placement would be the LRE for this student and removal from the classroom would not constitute a violation of the requirement.[4]

If a satisfactory education cannot be provided in the regular classroom setting, schools must mainstream the child to the maximum extent possible. Thus, schools will allow students with disabilities to join their non-disabled peers in nonacademic subjects, lunch, and special projects.

B. Comparison of Educational Benefits in Segregated Programs vs. Regular Classroom with Supplementary Aids [5]

The LRE analysis is not a straightforward comparison of the academic benefits of segregated and regular educational programs. To justify placement in any type of segregated program, schools must show that the disabled child can progress in a segregated program better than he or she could in a regular classroom.

Actual educational results are relevant to determining the efficacy of educators’ choices in the child’s IEP. If a student performed well with adequate supplementary aids, it is more likely that a court will find that a regular classroom placement is appropriate.

C. Disruption of the General Classroom

It is important to note that mere behavioral problems are not sufficient to justify removal from the regular classroom. Instead, courts are looking for a significant disruption of the classroom environment. If teachers and school administrators can devise strategies to cope with disruptive behavioral issues, courts are less inclined to consider that behavior justifies removal from the regular classroom. Except in the most egregious cases, disruption is only probative in making the decision to remove the student from the regular classroom setting.[6]

CONCLUSION

Parents must stay active and involved in the development of their child’s individualized education plan. Parents should know the extent and nature of their child’s disability and vigorously advocate for the school district’s compliance with the IDEA mandate.

School districts should pursue viable supplementary aids, even when they have already implemented some to little or no avail. Schools must remain vigilant in their efforts to provide comprehensive support for students with special needs.

Educating parents and schools about their obligations can help preempt conflicts and ensure that children with special needs reap significant social and educational benefits. Most importantly, it will help all parties realize that they are working for essentially the same thing: The best possible educational experience for the child.