Placement is one of the key parts of an Individualized Education Program (IEP). As a parent, if you feel that your child’s current placement isn’t working, it could be due to a variety of factors. It might be that the location where your child’s special education services are implemented is inappropriate, or it could be that your child or the professionals implementing the IEP need more support to make the placement work. Sometimes, the professionals themselves can unintentionally make the placement harder, perhaps needing additional training, or maybe your child just needs a different type of support.
As a parent, what can you do if your child’s placement doesn’t seem to be meeting their needs or isn’t the right fit? In this article, we’ll break down the difference between placement and location in an IEP — and walk you through the steps you can take to request a change in where your child receives services. We’ll explore how to adjust the level of support, whether that means increasing, decreasing, or even changing the personnel involved. Plus, we’ll guide you through the process of changing placement and highlight common pitfalls to avoid along the way.
The answer to that question is no. Before we discuss situations where a placement might not be working for your child, let’s clarify what placement is (and isn’t) and how it’s different from location — such as a classroom or a school.
Placement isn’t one-size-fits-all
IDEA is very specific about placement as an integral part of the IEP process. Placement decisions must be discussed annually, so you don’t need to wait for a full assessment. These decisions should be based on the child’s unique IEP, not a one-size-fits-all approach, like “This is where we educate kids with this diagnosis.” The IEP team should take into account not only the least restrictive environment but also how close the placement is to your home.
Placement isn’t the same as location
Remember that placement is a service, not a place. Several court cases have clarified the distinction between placement — which the IEP team must determine annually through a specific process — and location, more specifically, the school site. For example, if your IEP team chooses a non-public school (NPS) placement, there’s no guarantee that the district will be able to place your child at a particular NPS. Your IEP team might suggest a different campus because certain resources are concentrated there.
Undivided Non-Attorney Special Education Advocate Lisa Carey explains, “If a child’s going to be in a general education classroom with supports and one of the supports they need is more easily provided at a different location, then they can offer the other location. But switching locations isn’t considered a placement change as long as the amount of time in and out of special education is remaining the same.” Here’s an example Carey gives us of when a location change might be helpful: if your child uses a mobility device and the school’s pavement is uneven or full of potholes, it could make using a walker really challenging. In this case, the school might suggest a different location with better accessibility. The placement itself stays the same, but the location shifts to better meet your child’s needs.
Non-Attorney Special Education Advocate Dr. Sarah Pelangka explains more about how location and placement are different:
You might be asking yourself, "Do I have a say in the location — the school, teacher, or classroom my child will be in?" The problem from the parent’s perspective is that the actual campus and classroom where the student spends their time is not an IEP decision but a school district decision, and parents do not have either guaranteed input into that decision, nor does the decision require their consent. In other words, if you agree to a moderate to severe special day class in the IEP (placement), you don’t have a say in where that classroom is or who is teaching it (location). However, there are some steps you can take if you feel the location of your child’s placement isn’t working.
If your child is at their home school but needs services, such as modifications to their curriculum that need to be provided by a teacher with a specific credential, the district might move the student to a different campus because the child’s needs can be more easily met there. Although the district can do this, there’s nothing to stop the family from advocating for “portable services.” Special education services ought to be portable and can be brought directly to individual children where they are learning.
If your child’s placement is available only far from your home, parents can call an IEP meeting to explain why the placement at that location isn’t working. For example:
Parents can also advocate outside of the IEP, meeting with the district special education director or Board of Education members, or speaking at school board meetings. This is particularly effective if other students question why students with developmental disabilities can’t be welcomed at their campus.
Another example often occurs with a non-public school (NPS) placement. Families who have a placement at a separate school often have a specific school mentioned in the narrative of the IEP, but the placement is just “a separate school,” so the district has the power to change the school that is providing those special education services. (Note that if you have a settlement agreement with the school that lists a named school, they have to stick to the wording of the agreement as long as you do). If you feel that the current NPS isn’t working and you want another NPS, you can:
More problematic is when the NPS feels that the placement isn't working and issues a 20-day notice to the student, in effect terminating the contract between the NPS and the school district for that individual student. This might happen because of behavior issues or due to nonattendance. At that point, the district has to follow the IEP and find another separate school for the student, but that can be difficult if other NPS schools don’t want to accept them. It's important to remember that, unlike the district, the NPS does not have an obligation to educate the student but is paid to do so by the district. Here are some tips:
Often, parents advocate for an inclusive environment, but several months in they see that their child isn’t learning or meeting their IEP goals, or is increasingly communicating with their behavior that they are overwhelmed by challenges. This can also happen in separate special education classes. Many parents notice their children struggling in a separate classroom, not reaching their full potential, or feeling frustrated by low expectations. In any situation like these, you might feel your child needs an environment that is more or less restrictive.
Call an IEP meeting
While placement decisions must be reviewed at every annual review meeting, a parent can call an IEP at any time of the year to revisit the placement discussion. It’s also a good idea to set up a team check-in about 30 days after the initial meeting to see how things are going and ensure that the issue was truly resolved. Even at a meeting called to review placement, the IEP team should still work through the process of reviewing:
Here is a sample letter written by an Undivided advocate you can use to write your request for an IEP meeting. It’s also a good idea to record the IEP meeting so that you have a thorough record, especially if the notes turn out to be insufficient for an attorney’s review. To do this, you’ll need to provide written notice to the case manager at least 24 hours before the meeting — email works fine for this. The district will also record the meeting. Using a transcription service like Otter.ai can be helpful since it automatically creates a written record.
If something doesn’t sit right with you during the IEP meeting, ask the district’s note-taker to include it in the meeting narrative. This ensures it’s documented as part of the IEP.
Moving to a more restrictive placement: consider increasing services and supports
Consider whether services and supports could be added to make the general education placement work. Only when they have exhausted the changes that can be made to the LRE should the IEP team review the continuum of services and consider a more restrictive setting. Working through this process might be time-consuming if a family is ready to give up on the current placement, but it can throw up some “out of the box” ideas for new supports that will keep the student in the LRE. For example,
Moving to a less-restrictive placement: ask the team for a trial period
Based on the law, moving placement from least restrictive (general education) to more restrictive should be more difficult than moving from a less restrictive to a more restrictive placement. In practice, for parents, it’s the other way around. It can be challenging when a student is already in a separate class to get the IEP team to agree to move the child into general education. You might need to ask the IEP team to agree to a trial period in which the student is partially included. This is sometimes called a “diagnostic placement.”
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. Here are a few tips:
Ask for an ecological assessment by an inclusion specialist
If your IEP team pushes back on increasing support, it is helpful to ask for an “ecological assessment.” This is a report written by a teacher with expertise on inclusion who will observe the student in different settings and suggest individualized inclusion supports that could be added to the IEP to make the learning environment more accessible. Typically, this is done by an inclusion specialist with a special education credential. This is still a new idea in many respects, and there might be some confusion about what you mean. It’s important to ask for an ecological assessment that focuses on the learning environment to see what might be added, not an assessment that evaluates placement or focuses on the child’s abilities in an effort to determine whether they are “ready” for the inclusion. Many districts are hiring their own inclusion specialists, or they can contract with a company such as Arielle Starkman, 2Teach, or Sevi’s Smile. They can also seek support from their SELPA, County Offices of Education, or state initiatives like SIP if they don’t have internal inclusion specialists.
Request a functional behavior assessment (FBA)
If behavior issues are the main reason why the setting is not working, a similar strategy is to request a functional behavior assessment by a qualified behaviorist (BCBA). For example, a child might be hitting other children, standing on tables, or eloping, and this is given by the IEP team as a rationale for removing them from the general education classroom. The BCBA can analyze the behavior and write up a behavior intervention plan (BIP), including IEP goals to improve the behavior. The IEP team might include supports such as an aide who is trained in implementing the BIP. The behaviorist might determine that the hitting behavior has a function of getting attention. The BIP might encourage the child to replace hitting with requesting using Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) or a more sophisticated AAC device.
Bear in mind that sometimes the behavior is rooted in the child’s challenges with the environment, in which case the inclusion specialist might offer a better report than a behaviorist. For example, if the child is acting up because the work is too challenging for them, the inclusion specialist can offer suggestions for accommodating or modifying the curriculum presented to make it more engaging for the child, and so the child feels that they can be successful and participate in class with their peers. So, for example, if the child is eloping to escape from assignments that are above their ability level, the inclusion specialist can collaborate with the teacher to provide assignments that connect to the content that the rest of the class is doing but that practice skills at your child’s current levels of achievement.
Consider other placement options
If adding supports and services is not helping, ask your IEP team to consider a placement on the continuum of placements. Here are a few tips:
If you do not agree with your IEP team’s recommendation for placement:
When parents feel that the placement isn’t working, often it’s because they feel that the professionals implementing the IEP are not a good fit. Sometimes, parents just want their child in a different classroom with a different teacher. Or it might be that a particular related service professional has worked well with your child in the past. Often, the paraprofessional isn’t a good fit.
Just as with location, the personnel implementing your child’s IEP are not an IEP decision. Human resources are the school district’s decision. So if your IEP says that your child will have a 1:1 paraprofessional for so many minutes a day, the district is implementing the IEP regardless of whom they have providing the service.
It is possible to add a training or qualification component in your IEP — for example, that the 1:1 needs to be trained in positive behavior intervention or ABA. However, your child’s free and appropriate public education (FAPE) cannot be contingent on the presence of one named employee. So typically, IEPs assign responsibility to “Special Education Teacher” or “Speech Therapist” but not to a named individual. For this reason, the school can change the teacher or the aide and does not need to provide prior written notice. Moving your child from one classroom to another — with a different teacher with the same credentials — or changing the aide does not change the child’s placement.
If you feel that changing the personnel implementing the IEP would make the placement work, here are some things you can do:
Often, parents decide to keep their child at home, particularly when there has been an incident in which the child’s safety is compromised. Schools are very sensitive to school attendance, especially in California, where funding is primarily generated by attendance. Keeping your child from school might result in the school implementing truancy notices. In particular, if your disagreement with the school reaches a due process hearing, not sending your child to school might be considered unfavorably.
It’s understandable that if the district does not agree to a 1:1 and your child has eloped twice and reached the public street, or if your child has been seriously hurt at school due to lack of supervision, sending your child without sufficient support is just not feasible. But in most cases, you should continue to send your child to school.
Contact the case manager
If for safety reasons you don’t feel comfortable sending your child to school, write a letter to the case manager and copy the principal and a district administrator. Explain your reasons for feeling that it’s not safe for your child to be at school and request a meeting as soon as possible to resolve the issue. While the school has 30 days to hold an IEP meeting, they can amend an IEP over the phone with parental consent, where both parties agree to this procedure. If bullying is the reason why your child isn’t safe at school, you might need to write a Gebser letter.
Get support from attorneys
If you decide to remove your child from school and place them in a private school, you should first seek advice from a special education attorney. If you will later seek reimbursement from the school district, you need to provide notice of your intention. You also need to ensure that the private placement offers the setting that you argued was needed in the district school. For example, if you are looking for an inclusive setting, you need to find an inclusive private school while working through the administrative process. Attorneys can give legal advice and assist you in filing due process. They can help you reach collaborative solutions with the district, review documents, and understand your rights. They can also send letters or emails on your behalf.
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