Part 1 of the Parent’s Guide to the Special Education Continuum
By Frances Shefter, Esq. (and mom)
Placement is an important part of your child’s IEP because it describes the type of educational setting in which your child will receive special education and related services. Under IDEA, placement is not simply the name of a program or the school building your child attends. It is an individualized decision based on your child’s IEP and the setting needed to provide the services and supports identified in that IEP.
Because students with disabilities have very different needs, IDEA does not create one special education setting that is supposed to work for everyone. Instead, school districts are required to have a continuum of placement options available. Some students may receive all of their special education services while remaining in general education, while others may need specialized instruction outside of the general education classroom for part of the day. Some students need self-contained classes for certain subjects or for most of their academic instruction, and others may need a separate public or private special education school or another more specialized setting.
That continuum is what we are going to walk through in this series. My goal is to help parents understand what the different placement options generally look like, how they differ from one another, and why one type of setting may be appropriate for one child but not another. Before we get into each option in more detail, though, it is important to understand that the continuum is not supposed to drive the IEP. The IEP should drive where on the continuum the child belongs.
The team should first determine what your child needs and what services are necessary to address those needs. That includes looking at the evaluations, Present Levels, goals, progress data, related services, accommodations, communication needs, behavior, executive functioning, social-emotional needs, and anything else that affects your child’s ability to access instruction and make meaningful educational progress. Once the team determines what services your child needs and how those services should be delivered, it can determine which type of placement along the continuum can appropriately provide them.
In practice, however, I often see the process happen in the opposite order. The team starts talking about a particular program and then begins determining the services based on what that program typically provides. Before long, the IEP is being shaped around the program instead of the placement being selected because it can provide the services the child actually needs. The process should work the other way around: your child’s needs should determine the services, and those services should help determine the appropriate placement.
Understanding the Special Education Continuum
The continuum exists because there is no single educational setting that is appropriate for every child with a disability. One student may be able to receive all of the needed special education services in the general education classroom. Another student may need to leave general education for part of the day to receive more intensive reading, math, communication, behavioral, or other specialized instruction. Some students may need self-contained classes for particular subjects, while others may need a more specialized setting for most of the school day. For students with more significant needs, the continuum can include separate public programs, private special education schools, residential placements, home instruction, and other settings.
The continuum is not a ladder that every child has to climb and it is not a checklist where every option has to be tried before the team can consider something more specialized. Two children with the same disability may need very different placements because their individual needs are different. One autistic student may spend the entire day in general education with support, while another may need a much smaller, highly structured environment. One child with dyslexia may need specialized reading instruction for part of the day, while another may require much more intensive services. The diagnosis may help explain why a student qualifies for special education, but it does not tell us where that student should receive services.
The IEP team should be looking at the child in front of them and considering which setting can appropriately provide the services identified in the IEP. That is why understanding the continuum is helpful for parents. It gives you a framework for the different options that may be discussed, but the decision should always come back to the individual child.
Least Restrictive Environment Is Part of the Placement Discussion
The special education continuum is closely connected to the Least Restrictive Environment requirement, usually called LRE. IDEA requires students with disabilities to be educated with nondisabled students to the maximum extent appropriate. This means the IEP team should consider whether your child can receive an appropriate education in general education with supplementary aids, services, accommodations, specialized instruction, behavioral supports, assistive technology, or other supports before moving to a more restrictive setting.
That does not mean, however, that general education is always the correct placement. For one student, general education with support may work very well. Another child may need to leave the classroom for specialized instruction in reading or math. Another may need self-contained classes for core academic subjects while still participating in general education for electives, lunch, extracurricular activities, or other parts of the school day. The right answer depends on the individual student.
The focus should be on whether the child can access instruction and make meaningful progress in the setting being considered. I have seen students remain in general education because everyone wants to preserve inclusion, but the child is overwhelmed, academically lost, anxious, dysregulated, or unable to meaningfully participate in the instruction. Simply being physically present in a general education classroom does not necessarily mean the child is receiving an appropriate education.
At the same time, a child should not be moved into a more restrictive setting simply because it is easier for the school to provide services there. The question is not which setting is easiest to staff or schedule. The question is which setting can appropriately meet that child’s needs while still allowing the child to be educated with nondisabled peers to the maximum extent appropriate.
A more restrictive placement is also not automatically a negative outcome. For some students, a smaller classroom, more intensive instruction, or a more specialized environment gives them the opportunity to learn, regulate, communicate, and make progress in a way that was not happening in a less restrictive setting. Placement is not a grade and it is not a measure of how successful a child is. It is a decision about the educational environment the child needs.
Placement and Location of Services Are Different
Another area that creates a lot of confusion is the difference between placement and location of services. These terms are often used interchangeably during IEP meetings, but they are not the same thing.
The IEP team determines the placement. The school district determines the location where the services will be provided.
Placement refers to the type of educational setting the child needs based on the IEP. Location of services refers to the actual school building where the district will provide that placement and the services identified in the IEP.
For example, the IEP team may determine that a student needs self-contained classes for the core academic subjects but can participate in general education for electives and other parts of the school day. Based on those needs and services, the team may determine that a Learning Center placement is appropriate. That is the placement decision. The district then determines which school with a Learning Center will be the location where the student receives those services.
This distinction matters because placement conversations can quickly become focused on a specific school before the placement decision has really been made. Once someone mentions that a Learning Center is located at a particular middle school, it is natural for everyone to start talking about that building, the teacher, the class size, transportation, or how that particular program is structured. Those are important questions, but they come after the IEP team has determined what type of placement the child needs.
The same issue comes up when a parent is told, “We do not provide that at this school.” That may be completely accurate. A child’s neighborhood school may not have the type of classroom, program, or level of support that the IEP team determines the child needs. But the fact that the service is not available in the current building should not change the child’s needs or the services written into the IEP. It may simply mean that the district needs to identify another location where the placement and services can be provided.
When the discussion starts blending placement and location together, it can be helpful to separate the two questions. First, what type of placement does my child need based on the IEP? Once that is determined, where will the district provide those services?
How Shefter Law Can Help
Placement discussions can become complicated because so many issues are often being discussed at the same time. Parents may be trying to understand the services in the IEP, the type of classroom being proposed, the difference between one program and another, whether their child will still have access to general education, and whether the child may need to receive services in a different school building. When all of those issues are discussed together, it can be difficult to tell whether the team is truly focusing on the child’s individual needs.
At Shefter Law, we help families look at the process in the right order. We start with the child’s needs and the IEP by reviewing evaluations, Present Levels, goals, progress data, special education services, related services, accommodations, and supports. Once we understand what the child needs, we can look at whether the proposed placement actually makes sense based on those services.
We also help families separate the placement decision from the location of services. If the team is talking about a particular program before the child’s needs and services have been fully identified, we can help bring the discussion back to the IEP. If the district is saying that a certain service or program is not available in the child’s current school, we can help parents understand whether that changes the placement discussion or simply means the district needs to identify a different location where the IEP can be implemented.
Sometimes families need help preparing for an IEP meeting and understanding the different options that may be discussed. Other times, they need support during the meeting itself or help addressing a disagreement about whether the current or proposed placement is appropriate. The goal is to make sure the discussion stays focused on the child’s individual needs and whether the proposed setting can provide an appropriate education.
Final Thoughts
As we begin this series, the most important thing I want parents to remember is the order in which these decisions should happen. The IEP team should first understand the child’s needs and determine the services required to address them. Those services should then help the team determine the appropriate placement along the special education continuum. Once the placement has been determined, the school district can decide the location where those services will actually be provided.
Understanding that order makes it easier to follow what is happening in an IEP meeting and to recognize when the conversation may be getting ahead of itself. If the team starts talking about a particular program before the services have been identified, it is okay to bring the discussion back to what your child actually needs. If the discussion starts focusing on a particular school building, it is okay to ask whether the team has already determined the placement or whether everyone has moved into the location discussion too soon.
Throughout the rest of this series, we are going to look more closely at the different placement options available under IDEA and talk about what each one generally looks like in practice. The goal is to help you understand the options so that when placement is discussed at your child’s IEP meeting, you can better understand what the team is considering and why.
Coming Next Week…
In Part 2 of the Special Education Continuum of Services series, we will look at what special education can look like when a student remains in the general education setting, including the different ways specialized instruction and support may be provided there.