Educational Placement for Students with Disabilities

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The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), America's special education law, says that "In determining the educational placement of a child with a disability, including a preschool child with a disability, each public agency shall ensure that the placement decision is made by a group of persons, including the parents, and other persons knowledgeable about the child, the meaning of the evaluation data, and the placement options." Sec. 300.552(a)(1). (Clerc) Inclusion is based on IDEA’s principle of the least restrictive environment and it plays a huge role in this process. Inclusion refers to the participation of students with disabilities alongside their nondisabled peers in academic, extracurricular, and other school activities. Inclusive practices have a long history in the field of special education. It is important that children with disabilities are not removed from the regular educational environment unless the nature or severity of the disability of the child is such that education in regular education with the use of supplementary aids and services cannot be achieved satisfactorily. (Turnball, 2010). The least restrictive environment gives a student who has a disability the opportunity to be educated with nondisabled peers, to the greatest extent appropriate. The U.S. Department of Education reports annually on students with disabilities who receive special education and related services in different educational settings. (Turnball, 2010) The three types of educational placements for students with disabilities that I chose to discuss in this paper are special education outside the regular classroom, special education in separate classes outside of the regular classroom, and special education in public separate facility. Special Education outside the regular class for less than 21 percent of the day: unduplicated numbers of children
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