Location v. Placement

A recent U.S. Ninth District Court of Appeals court case surrounding the Individual Education Plan (IEP) of a student with Down syndrome is creating a larger conversation surrounding placement versus location change. In kindergarten, the IEP team wanted to add 20 minutes more pull-out time. The parents disagreed with where the team wanted to do these extra minutes. Instead of the resource room at his neighborhood school, the team wanted to move him to another school with a self-contained class.

This complex case brings up some very important questions: What defines a placement change? Is placement only about percentage of time in general education? Or is it also about setting?

The student’s lawyers in the R.M. v. Gilbert Unified School District case argue that placement is more than just a math computation. “If a district can call a change to a different school a location change, then any child who receives any amount of specialized instruction on a pull-out basis can be moved to a different school at any time as long as the general education minutes remain the same. This will greatly interfere with students attending their neighborhood school, developing friendships in a school that they stay at throughout their education. LRE should mean more than how much time you are in a general education classroom,” Susan Marks, attorney who represented R.M. at the administrative hearing level.

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The school district, on the other hand, wants to broaden their power of location change. If the judges rule that this was a location issue, then moving a student to any school in the district would be left up to the professional judgement of the school district. “The district gets more bang for their buck if they can pull student into a self-contained class at a centralized location. It’s the medical model. And many people don’t understand why a parent wouldn’t want a specialized program for their child,” explains Marks.

In fact, 9th District Judge Susan Graber reinforced this societal stereotype of parents and students with disabilities when she said “I’ve never heard of a parent who wanted less services.” The implications of this statement sent shock waves through the Down syndrome community. Of course the parents in this case don’t want less. They’re more concerned with what they’ll lose if their son is moved to a school outside his neighborhood and put in a self-contained class instead of a resource room. Disability advocates know what happens next: More minutes spent in a self-contained class. Then they’ll propose a different curriculum, no hope to graduate, and 80% unemployment upon transition to the real world.

It’s obvious these parents care. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) gives parents the right to decline services. The district can’t say all or nothing. We all have known a parent who refused Physical Therapy or some other service, because it would mean more pull-out time for their student with an intellectual disability. More turns to less.

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Many advocates in the special education advocacy community are very anxious about this case, because the impact could be far reaching. There are legal limitations to LRE and inclusion. The law does give deference to school districts to consolidate services at limited locations. IDEA says students with disabilities must be educated with their typical peers, unless their IEP requires otherwise. The district has argued that R.M.’s current school does not have a self-contained program, so he needs to go to a school that does. Still, Marks argues this is not just a location change, because the self-contained class is a different program than the resource room at his neighborhood school.

This case won’t be as clear cut as L.H. v. Hamilton School District, because in that case Luka went from being fully included in general education all day to a proposal to move him to a fully self-contained class at a different school. The boy in this case has more pull-out time already, and the school district argues his general education time will remain the same albeit at a different school.

The issue in this case comes down to resource room at his neighborhood school or the same amount of time in a self-contained class at another school. Does he need the self-contained class? “We argue he doesn’t because he’s making progress on 100% of his IEP goals in his current placement,” Marks explains. While the school district uses Endrew F. v. Douglas School District to argue they’re trying to be more ambitious, the truth is they’re trying to segregate him into a homogenous group with other kids like him. This is the very anti-thesis to LRE, and not what the research is finding as best practice for inclusive education. 

Read Related Post: How School Districts are Using Endrew F. Against Students with Down Syndrome

9th Circuit judges have yet to make a decision in R.M. v. Gilbert Unified School District. I will be sure to keep you updated. The family or school district can appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.