Making Legally Sound Placement Decisions

The primary obligation of special educators is to provide a program that confers a free appropriate public education (FAPE) in the least restrictive environment (LRE). It is the responsibility of the team that develops a student’s individualized education program (IEP) to develop a program of special education and related services that is reasonably calculated to enable a student to make progress appropriate in light of his or her unique educational needs. Additionally, this team is usually charged with determining the placement in which a student’s program will be delivered. Our purpose in this article is to (a) describe what placement decisions are and who makes these decisions; (b) review the placement requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), including the principles of individualization, parental participation, LRE, and a continuum of alternative placements requirements; (c) examine guidelines from important cases that have addressed placement issues; (d) describe the most common and serious errors that IEP teams often make and how they can be avoided; (e) provide a placement flowchart to help IEP teams make legally sound placement decisions, and (f) offer principles to help IEP teams make legally sound placement decisions.