Services & Placement

IEP Process for APE

Present Level of Academic Achievement and Functional Performance

Supplemental Aids, Program Modifications, Services, and Supports

Goals and Objectives

Services

Sec. 300.320(a)(7)

(7)The projected date for the beginning of the services and modifications described in paragraph (a)(4) of this section, and the anticipated frequency, location, and duration of those services and modifications.

This section details the agreed upon specifics to the delivery of services and consists of the listed parts below: 

• The name of the service

• The primary provider

• The setting the service will occur

• The amount of time per session

• The number of sessions

• The frequency of the sessions (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly)

• The number of weeks the service will occur during the annual year. 

It is critical that the student receive the service indicated on the IEP.  If a student has a goal for physical education/adapted physical education; he/she must have an APE service line. 

Sample Narrative of Delivery of Service

Between April 15, 2019 and April 14, 2020,  Samuel will receives adapted physical education services provided by a physical educator and/or adapted physical educator inside the general education setting. The service will be provided two times per week for 45 minutes each session over a period of 36 weeks. 

A continuum of adapted physical education services provides students the opportunity to receive instruction in the least restrictive environment (LRE).  LRE is defined as providing instruction to students with disabilities in the general education setting to the maximum extent appropriate. Students with disabilities should only be removed from the general education setting when they are unable to achieve a satisfactory education in that environment with supplemental aids and services based on the nature and severity of their disability (20 U.S.C. 1412 (a)(5)(A) Special Education).

Section 300.116(a)
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; and is made in conformity with the LRE provisions of the subpart, including §§300.114 through 300.118.

Essential Factors for Making Data-Based Placement Decisions 

Section 300.116(b)

The child’s placement—

(1) Is determined at least annually;

(2) Is based on the child’s IEP; and

(3) Is as close as possible to the child’s home;

Section 300.327
Consistent with §300.501(c), each public agency must ensure that the parents of each child with a disability are members of any group that makes decisions on the educational placement of their child. 

Section 300.503
Parents must be given written notice of a meeting and reasonable time before a public agency implements a proposal or refusal to initiate or change the identification, evaluation, or educational placement of the child or the provision of FAPE to the child.  

The Office of Special Education Programs provided a written response to Estavan, 25 IDELR 1211 in 1997 that indicated there is no requirement in IDEA that a student first fails in the regular classroom before a more supportive placement outside the general education setting can be considered. However, before a more restrictive placement can be considered, the IEP team must consider placement of the student in the regular classroom with appropriate supplementary aids and services. An individualized inquiry into the full range of supplementary aids and services must occur for each student, regardless of the nature or severity of the student’s disability. 

The Office of Special Education Programs provided a written response to Trigg, 50 IDELR 48 in 2007 that indicated a school district cannot allow the lack of available special education services to dictate the student's placement on the least restrictive environment continuum.
The school district may not make placements based on factors such as the following:

• category of disability; 

• the configuration of the delivery system; 

• the availability of space; or 

• administrative convenience. 

Federal Register

• Page 46585: The LRE requirement in §§ 300.114 through 300.117 express a strong preference, not a mandate, for educating children with disabilities in regular classes alongside their peers without disabilities.

• Page 46586: each child’s educational placement must be determined on an individual case-by-case basis depending on each child’s unique educational needs and circumstances, rather than by the child’s category of disability, and must be based on the child’s IEP.

• Page 46587: 300.116 is sufficiently clear that placement decisions must be based on the individual needs of each child with a disability. Public agencies, therefore, must not make placement decisions based on a public agency’s needs or available resources, including budgetary considerations and the ability of the public agency to hire and recruit qualified staff.

• Page 46587: The overriding rule in § 300.116 is that placement decisions for all children with disabilities must be made on an individual basis and ensure that each child with a disability is educated in the school the child would attend if not disabled unless the child’s IEP requires some other arrangement. However, the Act does not require that every child with a disability be placed in the regular classroom regardless of individual abilities and needs. This recognition that regular class placement may not be appropriate for every child with a disability is reflected in the requirement that LEAs make available a range of placement options, known as a continuum of alternative placements, to meet the unique educational needs of children with disabilities. This requirement for the continuum reinforces the importance of the individualized inquiry, not a ‘‘one size fits all’’ approach, in determining what placement is the LRE for each child with a disability.

Placement Explanation and Determination

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) uses the term regular education environment or regular class to mean the general education environment. It defines the general education setting as the regular education environment or regular class with nondisabled peers. The definition of least restrictive environment specifies that removing students with disabilities from a regular education environment (including nondisabled peers) only occurs if the nature and severity of the disability is such that education in regular classes with the use of supplementary aids and services cannot be achieved satisfactorily (Sec. 300.114(a)(2). The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) stated in the 2007 letter to Trigg, “Public agencies are strongly encouraged to place a student with a disability in the school and classroom the student would attend if the student did not have a disability. However, a public agency may have two or more equally appropriate locations [physical surroundings such as a classroom] that meet the student’s special education and related service needs and school administrators should have the flexibility to assign the student to a particular school or classroom, provided that determination is consistent with the decision of the group determining placement”. “The overriding rule is that placement decisions must be determined on an individual, case-by-case basis, depending on each student’s unique needs and circumstances and based on the student’s IEP”. “In all cases, however, placement decisions must not be made solely on factors such as:

• Category of disability

• Severity of disability

• Availability of special education and related services

• Configuration of the service delivery system

• Availability of space

• Administrative convenience”

The 2012 OSEP letter to Chambers states that best teaching practices that are part of the district’s regular education program does not replace or substitute the public agency’s responsibility from prescribing special education and related services in the student’s IEP and delivery of those services. The public agency must provide students with a disability specially designed instruction that addresses the unique needs of the student that results from the student’s disability, and ensure access to the general education curriculum, even if other students with and without disabilities are receiving the best practices in the classroom, grade or building. “OSEP recognizes that classrooms across the country are changing as the field of special education responds to innovative practices and increasing flexibility methods of teaching. While the needs of many learners can be met using such methods, they do not replace the need of a student with a disability for unique, individualized instruction that responds to their disability and enables the student to meet the educational standards within the jurisdiction of the public agency that apply to all students”.

The 2022 OSEP letter to Tymeson states that “Each student with a disability must be afforded the opportunity to participate in the regular physical education program available to nondisabled students unless the student is enrolled full time in a separate facility; or the student needs specially designed physical education, as prescribed in the student’s IEP”. In determining whether a “change in educational placement” has occurred, the public agency responsible for educating the student must determine whether the proposed change would substantially or materially alter the student’s educational program. In making such a determination, the effect of the change in location [physical surroundings such as a classroom] on the following factors must be examined:

• Whether the educational program set out in the student’s IEP has been revised

• Whether the student will be able to be educated with nondisabled students to the same extent

• Whether the student will have the same opportunities to participate in nonacademic and extracurricular services

• Whether the new placement option is the same option on the continuum of alternative placements 

In an August 1, 2016 letter, OSEP specified, “it is important for schools and agencies to keep in mind that, in general, placement teams may not place a child with a disability in special classes, separate schooling, or other restrictive settings outside the regular educational environment solely due to the child’s behavior if the child’s behavior can be effectively addressed in the regular education setting with the provision of behavioral supports. The failure to make behavioral supports available throughout a continuum of placements, including the regular education setting, could result in an inappropriately restrictive placement and may violate IDEA’s LRE requirements. Doing so may constitute failure to provide the child with access to the LRE”.