When making a decision about what classroom setting a student will have, convene the IEP team! A Nevada school district decided to stop providing a high school student’s language arts instruction in a co-taught class and provided it in a special education class because the co-taught class was not available to juniors at the school. This violated the student’s IEP because the team did not meet and the parent was not provided an opportunity for input and was not provided written notice. To avoid the same issues, do this instead:
Convene the IEP team because a decision to change placement must be made with team member input.
Don’t base these decisions on administrative convenience. Schools need to have a continuum of placements that are available for students’ unique needs.
Comply with the least restrictive provisions for the needs of each student.
Provide written notice of the change that includes an explanation of the changes that are to be made before actually implementing the changes
~From LRE’s Special Ed – connections newsletter