What is required to have my child exited out of Special Ed. if I no longer want services.?

Question

I wish to have my son removed from Special Ed. He is in a general ed class and is pulled out for 30 mins twice a month for resource to work on his writing. I feel that he can meet any writing goal solely in a general ed setting. I was told by the school that he has to be re-assessed in order to exit him out. Is this true or should I request a Due Process Hearing.

Answer 1

Asking for a due process hearing is a little extreme.  As a parent you have the right to call an IEP meeting at any time.  Any IEP team without assessments can re-evaluate placement.  Typical students are not exited from special ed unless they are assessed but they can be.  As a parent you have the right to say that services are not necessary.  Depending on the grade level of your son you may want to keep an IEP in place with specific accommodations related to his disability.  This can be done without providing any services, you may even be able to get these addressed with a 504 plan depending on his disabilities.  If you keep an IEP without services it is frequently called a watch and consult, then at the annual review time your son will be assessed to see if he is making sufficient progress and can be exited from special ed at that time.

Answer 2

I just want to add that the school is *not* wrong for allowing him to receive support from the resource teacher.  Is he receiving direct instruction from the resource teacher or is your son just accessing that teacher for instructional support?  Not all special education support must take place within the general education classroom.  Otherwise resource teachers and self-contained/cross-categorical teachers would not exist.

Answer 3

We have exited children from special education services at the request of the parent without assessment, although this is rare.  Data does need to be collected in order to support the decision, but it does not have to be a formal multi-factored evaluation. Placement is an IEP team decision, and you are part of the team.  Ask for a new IEP meeting to discuss his placement.  If he is only receiving services twice a month, he is not receiving much service now anyway - unless he is also part of an inclusion setting where a special education teacher works with the general education teacher to support him in his regular education classroom.  In that case, you would want to keep the IEP, but change his least restrictive environment to reflect only the general education classroom with consultation and support provided by the special education teacher.  This is an easily accomplishable task.  Usually we don't exit a student immediately, but rather write an IEP to reflect the accommodations that (s)he is receiving and keep the IEP for a year. If the student does not require any special education support, then we use that as data for discontinuing the student in special education.  If, on the other hand, the student requires more support, then the IEP is in place and a new evaluation does not have to take place in order to receive the services.  A due process hearing is an extreme measure, and during the process the student remains in the special education program because no changes are made until the decision is reached.  Since the process can take a long time (lawyers are involved!), that would defeat your purpose in the long run.

Answer 4

Yes it is true that the school will have to do a full educational evaluation to determine if child is ready to exit sped.

However, you can just write a letter stating you no longer want services and want them terminated immediately, they will have to do this.

If they DON"T  want to stop services, THEY have to file due process hearing if you want it stopped.

If your child is taken out of special ed he will NOT recieve help for writing at all.

The ONLY way he can recieve help for this is IN special ed.

The school is wrong in sending him to a resource class. He is suppose to be getting help in a REGULAR classroom with his writing problem. This is called 'least restrictive environment'.

If you want him to continue to get help, he will HAVE to be in special ed and get this help in a REGULAR ed classroom.

In order to make this happen, write and request an official IEP meeting, for the purpose of having your child placed in the 'least restrictive environment' which is a regular ed classroom.

If they say no to this, there are more things you can do. if you need help email me  [e-mail]