The Six Pillars of Special Education.

One of the ways that the history of the United States can be written is to tell the story of its education system. A key theme of this story has been the broadening of access to education. Over our history, public education’s reach has widened to include more and more members of society. One of the groups benefiting from that access has been children with disabilities. 

The Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, or the IDEA, was passed in 1990. Prior to this, a patchwork of laws, including the Rehabilitation Act and the Education for All Handicapped Children Act provided some assistance to the families of disabled children. Many children ended up falling through the cracks in the system, however. The IDEA was passed to address this and to provide avenues for children with disabilities to benefit from the public education system. There are six different “pillars” of the IDEA, each addressing a critical aspect of its functioning.   

1.     IEPs.  The backbone of any special education program is an Individualized Education Plan, or IEP. This is a document that spells out the specific program taiolored that a student’s unique educational needs. An IEP measures a student’s present academic levels and how that student performs. It delineates measurable annual goals for the student, provides how progress towards those goals is measured, and what and how often that Specially Designed Instruction is provided to help meet those objectives. Importantly, an IEP is a legal document; a school district is legally obligated to provide the special education and related services spelled out in the IEP. 

2.     FAPE. The IDEA was enacted to guarantee that every child receives a Free and Appropriate Public Education, or FAPE. In order to be FAPE, a special education program must be "reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress appropriate in light of the child’s circumstances." See Endrew F., v. Douglass County School District, 580 U.S. __ (2017). The program must be geared to enable a student to receive more than a de minimus educational benefit. 

There are four elements to FAPE. A program must 1. Be free of cost to the family and under public supervision, 2. Meet the standards of the applicable state educational agency, 3. Include appropriate pre-school, elementary, and secondary education standards, and 4. Be provided in conformity with an IEP. 

3.     LRE. The IDEA states that, to the extent possible, a student with a disability is to be educated with students who are non-disabled, in the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) for that student.  A disabled student should only be removed from the regular education environment when the disability is serious enough that education in a regular education environment is not sufficient. Evan when a disability mandates education in a fully supported environment, a student should be integrated with non-disabled students where possible. 

4.     An Appropriate Evaluation. An IEP and its resulting special education program can not be developed in a vacuum. The IEP is driven by a comprehensive educational evaluation of a student. The evaluation determines whether a child is eligible for special education and related services and what category of disability the child is eligible under. An evaluation should include appropriate testing and should look at a student’s strengths and deficits and should make educational recommendations. 

5.     Parent-Teacher Participation. The success of any venture depends on the performance of its team members. A student’s parents or caregivers are an important part of an IEP team, as are school psychologists, teachers and appropriate school staff who are involved with the student. Each team member should offer input and help formulate appropriate IEP goals for the student. It is paramount that school staff keep a student’s parents informed and updated on the student’s progress on his or her IEP goals during the IEP term so that appropriate educational decisions and adjustments can be made. 

6.     Procedural Safeguards. Any right that you have is only as strong as your ability to enforce that right. The IDEA provides many procedural safeguards to protect the rights that it creates. Among these are access to educational records, prior written notice when a school district proposes changes, notices to be provided to a family to inform them of their rights, an ability to dispute the decisions of a district, both administrative and in court, and “stay-put” rights while that dispute is pending. 

These six pillars of special education are designed to work together in order to deliver on the IDEA’s promise of equal access to education for students with disabilities.