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