A school district is obligated by law (IDEA, 504, ADA, etc.) to serve your child in what ever capacity he or she needs to be served in order to make them a successful student. This will vary with each child depending on his disability but I can give a few examples. For a child who has Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder he may receive preferential seating (seated close to teacher), tests taken in a smaller quieter environment, a study buddy, prompts to get back on track, like a tap on the shoulder or a signal the teacher will have that only the child will recognize.

For a child that is visually impaired, services would include mobility instruction, Braille instruction, adaptive physical education, braillers supplied at home and at school along with the special paper and writing devices. For the deaf child, services would include sign instruction, mobility instruction, safety instruction, FM systems if required.

For the learning disabled student, the child may receive specialized instruction in a smaller classroom, private instruction if needed, tests read to them, for state testing they need all the accommodations that they would have on their IEP including special quieter rooms for testing and instructions read to them.

For those with physical disabilities, they may require the use of a chair lift or elevator, special pencils, or writing equipment, communication devices, special physical education adaptations, magnifiers for text, amplification magnification, nurses for doing tube feedings, catheterizations, injections, etc.

Many children are served in smaller classrooms called Resource Rooms where there is to be no more than 12 students to one teacher. If children cannot learn in any other way, sometimes private tutors are required. For some children that are medically fragile tutors will be sent to the homes for home instruction, not to be confused with home schooling! Home instruction is a special educator sent to the child’s home or hospital or nursing home to provide the lessons that they are missing out on during their recuperation or medical interventions at no cost to the parent.

Sometimes children need surgeries to correct problems with muscles, nerves or tendons. In these instances the school is responsible for seeing to it that the child does not fall behind in their education while they are recuperating. If a child is being bullied, it is the responsibility of the school to ensure that the child is free from this distraction. There are strict anti-harassment laws now in place for this and the district has the responsibility to ensure the child’s safety in his educational setting.

All of these and more can be included on an IEP or 504 plan. The evaluation will dictate what types of accommodations and services the child will qualify for. If the child needs fine motor improvement as found in the MFE then he should receive the services of an occupational therapist for this deficiency. If the child has trouble communicating then a Speech and Language therapist would be hired to teach the child to speak or communicate effectively.

In other words, whatever your child needs to be successful in school the district, is under the legal obligation to provide. Services such as occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech and language therapy, adaptive physical education, etc are all called "Related Services" and are written in the law as such. Transportation of the child to and from the services is also a related service.

To see more about Related Services go to IDEA Regulations page 22 in the PDF or page 46760 in IDEA.

An IEP is an Individualized Education Plan which is developed from a very thorough MFE to enable a disabled child to succeed in his school environment. IDEA defines it as a "written statement for a child with a disability that is developed, reviewed and revised in accordance with 300.320 through 300.324."

A good IEP will have several components to it. First of all, it will give all the personally identifiable information that a district employee would need to contact that child’s parents if needed. Then, it would have the disability of the child stated on it. Then, it would most likely name the category for which the child qualified for services under, such as an ADD child would qualify for services under the category of "Other Health Impaired" in Ohio, or the blind child would qualify under, "Visually Impaired", etc. Then, it would have the present levels of performance of the child as he is performing today in school.

This would be identified either by the MFE or a child's teacher could write how he is performing or the parent could be responsible for this as well. For example, if a child was having difficulty hearing the teacher, the auditory discrimination evaluation may have revealed that he has a problem discriminating the sounds of the classroom from the sounds of the teacher's voice. So a present level for this would state that "Johnny has difficulty distinguishing sounds in the classroom from the teacher's voice, as reported in the MFE page 12." Another present level could be that Johnny has difficulty differentiating between the "th" sound and the "f" sound as reported in the MFE page 12. The IEP will also have goals for the child.

The first goal would be an annual goal which is what we want to see Johnny accomplish over the school year. The second goal would be the short term goals we use to accomplish the annual goals. For example, if we want Johnny to be able to differentiate the sound "th" from the sound of "f", we would write an annual goal of "Johnny will differentiate the "th" sound from the "f" sound when given 5 words with the "th" or "f" sounds, correctly with 100% accuracy by June of 2009. The short term goals would be something like this, "When given 5 "th" sound words, Johnny will correctly identify the "th" sound with 100% accuracy by 12/08. When given some words with "th" sounds an some with "f" sounds, Johnny will describe the difference between the two sounds with 100% accuracy by 3/09." As you can see the long term goal is just that, it states the goal we are looking for in the long term, the year goal. The short term goal describes the steps we take to get to the long term goal.

The IEP will also tell who is responsible for completing the goal. If the special education teacher is responsible it will list her position as the person responsible. If it is a speech goal it would list the speech and language pathologist as the person responsible.

The IEP should also have the percentage of accuracy with which we hope to accomplish the goal. This is in a large part determined by what percentage the child is accomplishing the task at the present. If the child now reads at a 3rd grade level with 100% accuracy but only reads at the 4th grade level with 50% accuracy then in a year you would hope for that child to at least get to the 80% accuracy level by the end of the school year. This of course will depend on how quickly your child is able to achieve in one year’s time.

The IEP should also include dates that you expect the child to achieve the goal by. You will notice that the annual goal was set for the year marking of June of 2009, when the school year would be over. However, if your IEP was set up in April of 2008, then you would have your year ending in April of 2009. The short term goals would have goals set to achieve those short term goals at intervals to help you achieve the long term goal. I always separate my children’s goals into section. For example, I would have them separated into reading comprehension, word attack, syllable identification, sound identification, etc. That just made the goals easier to build.

The IEP should also have accommodations listed on it, such as a calculator for math problems, preferential seating, lap top computer for notes, spell checker, brailler, etc. If it is not listed on the IEP they do not have to use it for your child so make sure everything you want for your child is included on the IEP. The IEP is a legal document and once it is signed by both parties it is legally binding.

The IEP needs to have a section for special testing like the Iowa’s or state proficiency testing. This page should contain all the accommodations that you have for the normal IEP on this page as well. For example if your child is in a resource room for the majority of his day then the special tests should be given in this room also. If he uses a calculator to do his math then that should be on the testing form. Any reading devices or organizational devices should be here as well.

There will also be a section that asks for the LRE or Least Restrictive Environment for services to take place. The LRE is the school where your child would normally attend if they were not disabled. Today states are very clear that your child should be educated in the LRE or where your child would normally attend school. The days of sending your child to a special school or even a special classroom in your school is gone. For the most part children who can be educated with the other children in the home school should be educated there. The only time this would be different is if the district would contract another school in the area to serve severely disabled children or if there is a school for the deaf in the area, then the district may contract them to serve your child if they don’t have the facilities to serve them appropriately in their home district.

In this instance, the home district must pay for the transportation to send your child to the contracted school or provide the transportation themselves. Most of the time the LRE is either in the regular classroom or in a resource room, another classroom where smaller numbers of children are served with a special education teacher. Usually the last page of the IEP has several sections on it. One section is for everyone to sign saying that they participated in the IEP process. This should be signed by all members present at your IEP meeting, including yourself and any advocates or relatives or friends you brought to the meeting to represent you.

Another section will have a place for you to sign if you agree with the IEP. Once you sign this the school can put into place everything that is on that IEP, so if you do not agree to this IEP, do not sign it! You must reach an agreement on what is on that IEP before you let them put it into place. IF they go ahead and place your child without your signature on that IEP you can file a complaint against that school district, for that is a violation of law.

The IEP is a legal document and it does bind them to attempt to educate your child in the manner that is on that IEP. IF they fail to do anything on the IEP whether it is an accommodation or a goal you must point this out to their attention! You either put it in writing or call a new IEP meeting to discuss the issue. If they refuse to do what is written on the IEP after you have brought it to their attention then you can file a complaint against the district.

This is the link to view the law on IEPs. Look through sections 300.320-300.324 page 46787-46790 in IDEA.

The Least Restrictive Environment for a disabled child is usually the school in which the child would normally be educated if he didn’t have a disability. IDEA says that the public agency (district or LEA) must educate the disabled child with other non-disabled children and that "Special classes, separate schooling, or removal of children with disabilities from the regular educational environment occurs only if the nature or severity of the disability is such that education in regular classes with the use of supplementary aids and services cannot be achieved satisfactorily." IDEA 300.114(a)(2)(ii).

Therefore, a child who is visually impaired should be educated with children who are not visually impaired. Ideally all children no matter what their disability would go to school with children in the regular school and in regular classrooms. However sometimes this is not practical.

There are schools for the deaf and blind that do a much better job of educating children with these special needs than the public school system does. They understand the specific needs for these children and address those needs very well. Although some parents feel that their child has to deal with a seeing and hearing world and wants them to be educated within this population, which is admirable.

In cases such as these the law is on the parent’s side and says that the child should be educated by the home district. When the district provides what the child needs to be successful, this can work. Even severely disabled children who are wheelchair bound can participate in a regular school environment with modifications made to the environment.

If a school refuses to make the accommodations to serve a child a complaint can be filed with either the state department of education or with the Office of Civil Rights. Complaints against physical barriers that prevent a wheelchair bound student from accessing an educational environment are usually handled by the Office of Civil Rights under the laws of 504 or ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act).