How can I request general education placement if the district offers a segregated placement?

If your child's school district offers a specialized placement but you would prefer to enroll your child in a general education placement, you can ask for that during the IEP process.

You should tour the school/classroom that the district offers and list why this would not be an appropriate placement for your child. (See our school tour checklist here.) You may also want to review the resources in our inclusion article to discuss with your IEP team about the benefits of inclusion in gen ed.

If you have requested assessments or an IEE, then at your IEP meeting, the team will go through all results. At that meeting, make a case for your child being included in gen ed. Start off with having a vision statement explaining what your hopes are for the future. You can use assessments or an IEE to note your child's strengths and challenges. For example, communication: where will that happen more, in a self-contained class or general education?

You might need to ask the IEP team to agree to a trial period in which the student is partially included. During the trial period, the team can collect data and experiment with the level of support needed for the child to be successful in a general education classroom.

If the IEP team agrees to place your child with gen ed peers for a short time in the day, make sure your child has the necessary support. It can be hard to cope with transitions, resulting in behaviors. Then, this data may look like “doesn’t like being in gen ed classroom” to the school.

If the district won’t budge, you can potentially find private placement, file due process, send a 10-day letter of intent to leave the school, and see if the school will pay for the private placement. See Private School 101 for more information about this route.