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Will the school district provide IEP services for my child in private school?


Published: Apr. 23, 2025Updated: Jun. 6, 2025

If your child attends private school, then the private school may offer its own individualized services, but the school district won't provide IEP services in the same way it does to public school students. Parents can still request annual IEPs and triennial IEPs for assessments, but the district does not have an obligation to write an IEP and provide what the child needs like it would at a public school, such as speech therapy, OT, PT, or other individualized education services.

School districts are required to spend the federal funds they get for special education proportionately on services for kids who live in the district and attend private schools. However, they only have to spend proportionately what they spend in federal funds on public school kids, which is about 10% of all special education expenditure. School districts do have Child Find responsibilities, so they usually focus on spending money on assessment to identify children in the district who have disabilities.

Students can get more services when they have a low-incidence disability because they get additional federal funding for that. For example, if the child needs vision services or Deaf or hard of hearing services, that might be provided by the SELPA as itinerant services.

For more information, see our article Private Schools 101.

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