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A student's least restrictive environment is not a specific place. Rather, it is the environment that offers the most appropriate supports based on an individual student's needs.
The Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) for your child is the educational placement in which your student is most successful. This will look different for each child because each child’s needs are unique. In addition, a student’s needs change as they grow and develop. It is important for a team to constantly monitor progress and update goals to maintain LRE.
Education teams should focus on serving students in the general education setting to the maximum extent possible. However, even though Least Restrictive Environment (LRE), focuses in the least amount of time away from the general education environment, a student’s LRE may require increased service and support times. Such as, increased time in a self-contained environment or increased pull-outs or push-ins to the regular education room.
A student’s Least Restrictive Environment is based on IEP team discussion about how to best ensure learning and development goals are achieved. Time, location, and providers of services are completely individualized and dependent on the very specific needs of the student.
Lets look at some examples.
Kody is a 4th grade student with special education needs in reading. Kody struggles with the basics of reading, and reads at a 1st grade level. The type of remedial instruction necessary to support Kody’s progress may be challenging to deliver in the general education classroom setting. Kody’s 4th grade classmates likely have a higher reading level and are learning more advanced reading skills. Kody would not benefit from sitting through frustrating 4th grade reading lessons from which he does not benefit.
When the IEP team decided that Kody needed specially designed instruction in reading, they weighed the need for specialized reading instruction, against the need to be in the regular education classroom. They determined the benefits of extra reading instruction outweighed the loss of general education classroom time. The team decided that Kody’s Least Restrictive Environment should include pull-out services to the special education room. Kody could also receive accommodations and possibly modifications in the general classroom, to create a successful learning environment.
However, let’s take this same student and add a behavior component. It might be that movement and exercise are extremely important to the student’s ability to learn. If the reading pull-out is scheduled right when gym class happens, this may change the situation from least restrictive to more restrictive, since his need for movement is not being served.
This is where the diligence and patience of the education team is so important. Every aspect of the student’s needs, abilities, and goals, must be considered to develop the best and least restrictive learning environment.
Sara is a high school student who has significant cognitive challenges. Placing Sara in general education classes with typical peers for part of the day may be exactly what she needs to develop her social skills. She might not understand the concepts of discussing literature, however, she gets to observe and possibly mimic the social behaviors of her classmates. In this case general education inclusion is allowing her to progress through her needs in social skills. She might be spending the majority of her day in a self-contained, special education classroom where she is learning life skills and effective communication in a small group setting with other students having similar needs.
However, let’s take this same student and add a behavioral need. It may be that Sara is unable to learn social skills from her typical peers at this point. She may be unaware of the social situation in a general education classroom, or her behaviors might be too challenging to be shaped within the general education room. In other words, the general education setting is this instance would be more restrictive to her ability to learn and progress. Based on this, the team could determine that the student’s needs would be best met in a self-contained environment. This Least Restrictive Environment of a self-contained room might help progress Sara through behavior and social goals while continuing to prepare her for a more inclusive situation in the general education setting.
You can see how each situation and each student are different, and potentially complicated to coordinate. Ultimately, the Least Restrictive Environment for your student is the educational environment in which they are most successful.
Is your student currently placed in their Least Restrictive Environment? I can help answer that question with you.
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