Opinions please!

[lillian]

Least Restrictive Environment means that a child is placed with non-disabled peers, both for academic and non-academic subjects, as much as possible, using accommodations to the curriculum and assistive technology to help the child stay with his non-disabled peers in the general education classroom. Generally speaking, the more a child receives special education services outside of the general education classroom, the more restrictive the enviornment is considered to be.

As other posters have pointed out, many schools no longer have resource classrooms, which are considered restictive environments. Your choices today, particularly in middle, junior, and high schools is a general ed classroom with no special education support or a general education classroom with special education support. The latter often is a special education teacher co-teaching the class with the general education teacher. This is considered a more restrictive environment, than a general education classroom that is not co-teaching.

[katiekat]

He currently does go to a resource room for reading, writing, and now math. He is with his regular ed class for science,ss,spelling, and all "specials" like gym, art, music, and French.(Yes, they start teaching French in kindergarten here which is completely useless.) In this school distict they do still have self-contained classrooms through high school. They also have inclusion. I just want him to learn and understand what he is learning which I am not seeing. He needs a lot of 1 on 1 attention and review. We have his IEP in 3 weeks so we will see what they say.

[lillian]

What they are pretty much required to do by law is to discuss the least restrictive environment--general ed classroom with accommodations/assistive technology reinforcement to the general ed curriculum--first, then move from there. LRE does not mean that all children are suppose to be placed in the general ed classroom. It only means that the general ed classroom must be considered first.

Another thing--inclusion vs. mainstreaming. Although these terms often today are used synonymously, they are actually different terms. The child with severe mental disabilities, who can't truly access the general ed curriculum because of an extremely low IQ, yet is put in general ed for the social and psychological benefit it allows, is in inclusion. The child with normal/above average IQ's but has LD's or some other kind of disability and is put in the general ed classroom and assisted through accommodations/modifications/assistive technology to access the general ed curriculum is mainstreamed. In other words, whenever a child with LD's is put in the general ed class with a 504 or an IEP, that child is mainstreamed.

[bugsmom]

Awesome job explaining LRE Lillian....Thank you:)

And we've missed having you around....come back soon.