User:Emgurrola33/Least restrictive enviroment

LRE Criticisms

The IDEA guarantees that accessibility be given for students from all ranges of physical and intellectual disabilities. LRE (Least Restrictive Environment)  was set in place to ensure this goal. Yet, Traditional ‘mainstreaming’ for the child does not ensure equality in the standards that may be needed for the students' individualized needs. The LRE requirement is criticized due to the nature of IDEA promising to provide an education that promotes preparation for “further education, employment, and independent living.”9  Placing a child in LRE cannot ensure that the environment will be the most enriching for their needs. Critics argue that the definition of LRE beneath IDEA needs to be redefined and cannot be subject to a single assessment for an appropriate placement. Placement assessments cannot be final.

The main requirements of IDEA 04 in education are for LRE (Least Restrictive Environment) and FAPE (Free Appropriate Public Education). However, LRE is considered a rebuttable presumption. “The mainstreaming 14 requirement of the IDEA secures an important right. However, there are different concerns and interests depending on whether authorities are excluding a child from public education or where a parent, dissatisfied with the public education offered to their disabled child, has exercised his or her right to opt out of the public system. Those cases articulating tests to determine whether a school district has properly offered a continuum of placements and attempted inclusion are important, and the LRE should be a heavily-weighed factor in cases where parents assert a claim to have their child educated in a public school.15 When, however, a parent seeks reimbursement for private school tuition, public school authorities should not be permitted to challenge the private placement on the sole ground of restrictiveness.16 In such cases, blind insistence upon placement in the LRE tends to misdirect focus and serve to distract from an analysis of a child’s unique educational needs.17 Additionally, in private school tuition reimbursement cases, once it has been determined that the public school district has failed to provide a Free Appropriate Public Education (“FAPE”), the restrictiveness of the alternative environment selected by the parents should be given nominal weight in rare cases, but generally should not be a consideration.”