One of the IDEA’s main purposes is to prevent the segregation and exclusion of students with disabilities from public education, a practice that was all too common prior to the law’s enactment. To achieve this purpose, the IDEA mandates:

To the maximum extent appropriate, children with disabilities . . . are educated with children who are not disabled, and special classes, separate schooling, or other removal of children with disabilities from the regular educational environment occurs only when the nature or severity of the disability of a child is such that education in regular classes with the use of supplementary aids and services cannot be achieved satisfactorily.1

This substantive protection is known as the right to be educated in the Least Restrictive Environment (“LRE”). Notwithstanding the robust nature of this protection, courts have held that schools 

need not provide every conceivable supplementary aid or service to assist the child. Furthermore, the Act does not require regular education instructors to devote all or most of their time to one [disabled] child or to modify the regular education program beyond recognition

as part of the right to education in the LRE.2  At the same time, a student in special education should not be “removed form education in age-appropriate regular classrooms solely because of needed modifications in the general education curriculum.”3  To determine if a student in special education is being educated in the LRE, one must look to the placement listed on a child’s IEP and determine if the student could be educated in a less restrictive setting with the appropriate supplementary aids and services.

• 120 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(5)(A); see also 34 C.F.R. § 300.114 (a)(2)(i); La. Bulletin 1706 § 114(A).
• 2Daniel R.R. v. State Bd. of Educ., 874 F.2d 1036, 1048 (5th Cir. 1989) (citations omitted).
• 3La. Bulletin 1706 § 116(A)(5); 34 C.F.R. § 300.116(e).

LEAs administer their special education programs using a number of different delivery methods in various settings, but all LEAs must offer a continuum of alternative placements categorized according to the amount of time the special education student spends with nondisabled peers.1  The continuum of placements must include, in order of least restrictive to most restrictive, regular classes, special classes, special schools, residential facilities, and hospital/homebound instruction.2  Students who are educated in a regular class with their non-disabled peers for 80% or more of the day are said to be placed in a regular education setting.3  This type of setting is also commonly referred to as “inclusion” or “mainstreaming”.” Within a regular education setting, students can receive special education and services within the regular classroom, a model known as “push-in” services, or in a separate resource classroom, in a model known as “pull-out” services.4  More restrictive settings include a resource setting (40-79% of the day inside a regular class) and a self-contained setting (less than 40% of the day inside a regular class).5  The placement must be reviewed at least once a year at the annual IEP meeting, and a student cannot be placed in a more restrictive self-contained setting without first conducting an evaluation.

• 134 C.F.R. § 300.115; La. Bulletin 1706 § 115(A).
• 2La. Bulletin 1706 § 115(B)(1); La. Bulletin 1530 § 117; 34 C.F.R. § 300.115(b)(1).
• 3La. Bulletin 1530 § 117(A)(1).
• 4Id. § 117(A)(1)(a).
• 5Id. § 117(A)(2)–(3).

The site determination (i.e., the particular school or type of classroom listed on a student’s IEP) is separate from but related to the student’s IEP placement. School districts will often concentrate a program or type of classroom for students with lower-incidence disabilities or needs at one or more school sites to serve students from across the district or regions of the district. To illustrate, one district may choose to create classrooms designed to serve the needs of children with severe or profound cognitive impairments at a few schools spread throughout the district. While allocating resources in this manner is allowable, a student should generally be assigned to a school as close as possible to the student’s home and should be educated in the school the student would attend if non-disabled unless the IEP requires some other arrangement.1  Site determination procedures require that students in special education “be placed in programs on the basis of their unique special education needs, not as a result of their particular disabling condition.”2  Furthermore, the LEA cannot base the placement or site determination either on its particular “special education delivery system or on the availability of related services.”3  For example, a school district should not place all students with Emotional Disturbance in the district’s alternative school for expelled students because that is the site where the district has chosen to place all of its social work and counseling services. Instead, the district should work to ensure those commonly needed services are available at schools throughout the district so students can go to the school in their zone of attendance.

• 1La. Bulletin 1706 § 116(A)(2)–(3); 34 C.F.R. § 300.116(c).
• 2La. Bulletin 1530 § 129(B)(1).
• 3Id. § 129(B)(2).