What is a unilateral placement letter and how do I write one?

If you are planning to withdraw your child from public school and enroll them in private school, you should send written notice to the public school at least 10 days before withdrawing your child. This is sometimes called a 10-day letter or unilateral placement letter.

If you want to seek reimbursement from the public school for private school tuition, sending this written notice is crucial. The district school can deny funding if you don’t share your concerns or intent to pull your child out of public school in advance. You must tell your IEP team at an IEP meeting that you are rejecting the proposed IEP, and why, and that you intend to enroll your child in a private school at public expense. The IEP team must have explored all alternative options. Then, you can seek tuition reimbursement through a due process hearing.

Here's a 10-day notice sample letter for Undivided members to reference.

Note that you must send the 10-day letter every year and request an annual IEP meeting with the district. Even if you don't plan to seek reimbursement, you may want to send the letter anyway in case your plans change in the future.

For more information, see our full article Private School 101.