Unreasonable related service?

Question

I am teaching emotionally disabled students on an emergency license, so I am taking a special education law class. One of my questions asks what are some reasonable related services and what are some unreasonable related services. I have a lot of reasonable ones, but what would some unreasonable ones be? The only one in our book is having a physician for intensive and continuous school health care. I can see what that is an unreasonable one, but what are some others?

Answer 1

Just think of "unreasonable" as you would think of a service that is not needed to achieve the educational goals of the student being served. A student that is ED does not automatically qualify for speech services or visually impaired services, etc.

Answer 2

Unreasonable things I've been asked for

Service animals, one-on-one teaching for a student who can manage in a regular classroom, summer school for a student without major memory problems, paid for college training programs while in high school part-time, glasses (covered by health care program for people with disabilities), creating a self-contained class for a student when the same program is offered at another district school, Occupational therapy for a child who can write with a pencil already, Speech therapy for a child with profound mental retardation with no reaction to sound/light, Laptop computer for a child with ADHD to use (parents thought it would keep  an eleven year old's interest better), College tours for a child going to college

Answer 3

You're thinking to hard on this one.  If a student has a math deficit and reads at grade level, an unreasonable related service would be to have and IEP English class.  How about a student who obtains solid A's in Math, but his parents want him to have an IEP Math class?  How about having a parent demand that her son, who writes beautifully, be allowed NOT to take notes in class?  You get the drift.

Answer 4

It would depend on the individual student what might be unreasonable for one student might be very reasonable for another student.

Wrights law has great information on what is a related services. http://www.wrightslaw.com/info/relsvcs.f...

Therapy needs to be considered for a student based on students abilities. For example, just because a student can write should not be a reason that the student doesn't need OT. There are other reasons that students have OT services.

Speech therapy for a student that demonstrates after evaluation no areas of deficits or minimal deficits.

Physical therapy for a student that demonstrates after evaluation no areas of deficits. Often ED students don't require PT however individuals may need it.

An unreasonable related services might be one to one nursing for a child that has mild asthma that requires medication ones in a while.

A related service that might be unreasonable is asking the district to supply a home health aide to get the student on and off the bus. Again, this might be reasonable depending on the student.

A related service is asking the district to supply daily counseling services for the student. Again this might be reasonable depending on the student.

As for devices such as eye glasses, hearing aides or laptops or other tools they are covered under the assistive technology consideration. If the student needs eye glasses or hearing aides the district can be responsible for purchase. The same thing goes for a child that might need a wheelchair.

Answer 5

Sometimes parents just push too far.  We have one now who wants all of her child's absences excused because she brought in a doctor's note that says he has Crohn's disease and sometimes has a stomach ache - even though she admits that they also took a week and went on vacation, and sometimes he just doesn't want to go to school.  

We also had a parent who wanted her child to have extra time between classes so he could talk to his friends - he wasn't physically handicapped or anything.

Then we had a child with Down's Syndrome whose mother wanted him in a resource class (7th and 8th grade).  He would say crude things to the girls, and the mom wanted me to let it go because, "The girls need to learn to tell him no."  I was supposed to treat him, in her words, "like any other student," but she didn't want him to have to do homework because he wanted to go to the baseball field and movies with his older brother every night, and that socialization was more important than doing homework.  She also wanted him to be allowed to sleep in class if he was tired because his brother often kept him out later than he should have.  It was an absolutely horrible experience for me and the other kids in class!  And Mom was absolutely positive that he was college bound!

Answer 6

You can't see one because you are perfect for this job.  In order to help ED kids you have to care deeply about everyone no matter who they are, and since you can find nothing unreasonable it means you see the "extra" mile as just the mile.  Good for you!  

However, here is an example of what is unreasonable.  my friends mother worked with ED kids and when one of them became homeless the mother of the child asked her if her child could life with my friend and his mother.  Her instincts told her to say yes, but given how prone he was to violence the child was, and that any harm that became of the child while in her care would leave her legally responsible.  In addition, had she said yes she would have had to leave that job.  She was forced to say no, and made the right choice.