June 14, 2013
Director of the Information Collection Clearance Division
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue SW.
LBJ, Room 2E105
Washington, DC 20202-4537
RE: Docket ID number ED–2013–ICCD–0047
On behalf of the District of Columbia Association for Special Education (DCASE), I am pleased
to offer comments on changes proposed to IDEA Part B State Performance Plan (SPP) and
Annual Performance Report (APR). These comments will address how the Department might
enhance the quality, utility and clarity of the information to be collected.
DCASE is a collective of nonpublic schools, public charter schools and clinical practitioners
serving students with special educational needs that reside in the District of Columbia. Our
members collectively support over 1600 students and their families. Our Vision is: To fulfill the
promise of a quality education for all children. Our Mission: DCASE supports its members in
helping students with special needs succeed. We do this through advocacy, special education
resources, and strong partnerships that provide services to children, families and schools.
We have been concerned for some time over the zealousness of efforts within the District to
move students in a wholesale manner from appropriate educational placements into public school
settings mistakenly termed Least Restrictive Environment (LRE), over strident objections from
parents and professional members of IEP teams. The Office of the State Superintendent of
Education has recently paid cash rewards to Local Education Agencies (LEAs) that remove,
divert from, or do not refer students to placements outside the public school environment (see
attached: Achieving Success in the Least Restrictive Environment). It is likely that the reporting
required of states, while itself worthwhile, has led to pressures and incentives being placed on
Local Education Agencies to effectively abandon the requirements of IDEA meant to safeguard
students' rights to a free and appropriate education when those students require services outside
their public school's regular classroom.
US Department of Education - Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services (OSERS)
has previously offered guidance on LRE, stating that:
"If the IEP of a student with a disability can be implemented satisfactorily with the provision of
supplementary aids and services in the regular classroom in the school the student would attend
if not disabled, that placement is the LRE placement for that student. However, if the student's
IEP cannot be implemented satisfactorily in that environment, even with the provision of
supplementary aids and services, the regular classroom in the school the student would attend if
not disabled is not the LRE placement for that student."
We have seen the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) interpret LRE strictly as a regular
classroom in a public or public charter school, and a strong pattern of forcing transfers even
when the student's team disagrees that the student's IEP can be implemented satisfactorily.
We urge the Department to stress the importance of appropriately placing students based on their
individualized needs, and to explicitly acknowledge the continuum of placements required to
meet the many and varied educational challenges of students with disabilities. We further urge
the Department to emphasize successful outcomes wherever a student with disabilities is being
served, and to reiterate that LRE can and will occur in a variety of settings.
Thank you for this opportunity to comment.
Very truly yours,
Lisa M. Ott
Executive Director