Gary: A special education student, labeled emotionally disturbed, with a history of physical violence in and out of school, is attending a small rural district. This district is unable to provide the services he needs. What are the options available to the small district?
In any discussion about placement, the starting place should be the student. What exactly does the student need? What type of adaptions, services, and other supports are necessary to help him learn? Then the discussion should move to environment and what particular characteristics it should have to meet the student’s needs. Only after that should the discussion center around where and how the needed level of supports can best be provided.
Gary –
Each school district is required to provide a continuum of placement options to serve the needs of students with disabilities – from the general education classroom, to resource rooms, to separate classrooms, to separate day and residential schools. This is true of small rural districts just as much as large urban districts.
Districts often cannot provide all these environments in house with district staff, but there are many ways to work around this. The district could contract with another entity to provide in house services, or work with another district to pool services. They could tuition a student into another school district’s program, or pay for the student to attend a public or private day or residential school.