PROGRAMMING IN THE LEAST RESTRICTIVE ENVIRONMENT
ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURE

Determinations regarding least restrictive programming may be made by the student’s Pupil Evaluation Team (PET) in the following manner:

A. The PET should first assess whether education in the regular classroom, with the use of
    supplementary aids and services, can be achieved satisfactorily. In making that determination, the
    PET should assess each of the following factors:

    1. What supplementary aids and services may assist the student in obtaining a satisfactory
        education in the regular classroom?

        Supplementary aids and services may include, but are not limited to, resource room services,
        itinerant services, assistive technology services, modifications of curriculum, use of teacher aides,
        and consultation services from special educators.

        When assessing supplementary aids and services, the PET need not order placement in the regular
        classroom if it would require modification of the regular curriculum beyond recognition or would
        result in the student not having to learn any of the skills normally taught in that regular education
        curriculum.

    2. A comparison of the benefits the student would receive in the regular education
        classroom with those that the student would receive in a more restrictive setting, such as
        a self-contained program.

        The assessment of benefits should consider both academic and social benefits of participation in
        the placement at issue. The PET should also assess academic and social detriments for the student
        that may arise from the placement at issue.

        In some circumstances, large social benefits of regular education may outweigh small academic
        benefits, just as large academic benefits of a more restrictive setting may outweigh small social
        benefits of a regular education placement.

    3. What effect would placement of the student in the regular classroom have on other
        students in the classroom?

        The PET need not place a student in the regular classroom when the student’s behavior, even with
        supplementary aids and services, would be so disruptive that the education of other students is
        significantly impaired. Nor would the PET need to place the student in the regular classroom when
        the student would require so much of the teacher or the aide’s time that the rest of the class
        suffers.

    4. What the financial cost would be of the supplementary aids and services accompanying
        an appropriate placement in the regular classroom.

        Placement in the regular classroom may not be rejected under this factor simply because it would
        be incrementally more expensive than placement in a more restrictive setting. Yet the school unit
        need not educate a student in the regular classroom if the cost of such a placement would
        significantly impact upon the education of other students. In most circumstances, the school unit
        need not place a student in the regular classroom if such placement requires that the student have
        his/her own full-time teacher.

B. If the PET determines after assessing the above factors that the student is unable to be educated
    satisfactorily in the regular classroom with supplementary aids and services, the PET shall then
    determine the maximum extent of mainstreaming that the student may appropriately receive.

    In making this determination, the PET shall consider the full continuum of alternative placements –
    such as placing the student in regular education for some academic classes and in special education
    for others, mainstreaming the student for nonacademic classes only, or providing interaction with
    non-disabled students during lunch and recess.

    In making placement determinations, the PET shall attempt to give preference to placements in the
    student’s neighborhood school district. When the special services needed by the student are
    sufficiently specialized or expensive that they are provided by the school unit only in a school building
    other than the student’s neighborhood school, the PET may place that student in the school where
    the specialized services exist, rather than replicate those services in the neighborhood school. This
    determination should not impact, in most circumstances, on the PET’s determination regarding the
    extent to which the student is able to participate in regular education.

    Placements in residential programs shall be made only when the PET determines that the student is
    not otherwise able to receive some educational benefit from a day program.

Legal Reference: 20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(5)
                          34 CFR §§ 300.550-.552
                          Me. Dept. of Ed. Reg. ch. 101 §§ 11.1-11.3 (Nov. 1999)

DATE ADOPTED: July 1, 2003