PUBLIC means that the public school system must either provide an appropriate education program directly or must arrange for it to be provided. EDUCATION means that your child will receive special classroom instruction, special physical education, or special vocational education, depending upon her individual needs. If your child cannot attend school for some exceptional reason, special education can include home teaching or teaching in a hospital. Special education also includes additional services your child needs in order to benefit from her education program. These additional services are called Related Services. (See: Related Services, page 19.) LEAST RESTRICTIVE ENVIRONMENT means that, as much as possible and based on your child's needs, your child must be educated with children who don’t have disabilities. Least restrictive environment also means that your child should attend her zoned (neighborhood) school unless her individualized education program requires some other arrangement. The more a child's education occurs only with other students with disabilities, the more restrictive the placement is. For children younger than school age, the continuum of settings includes typical early childhood settings that a child without disabilities would attend, such as childcare centers and preschools. Through the IEP process, the school system may only move your child to a more restrictive placement if her needs cannot be met in a less restrictive setting. The school system must try to meet your child's needs in a satisfactory way in the less restrictive setting. It must provide supplementary (extra) aids and services in order to try to make the less restrictive placement appropriate for your child. Also, the school system must provide programmatic supports and modifications to staff to help them better meet your child’s needs in a less restrictive setting. Such supports might include training, classroom modifications, or additional staff. The school system cannot move your child to a more restrictive setting because it is convenient to do so, because of the way services are arranged by the school system, or just because your child may have significant disabilities. However, your child is not required to fail in a less restrictive education setting before moving on to a more restrictive setting if that is what she needs. The IEP team must determine if it is possible, or will be possible, to meet your child’s needs satisfactorily in the less restrictive setting.
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