Check a requested adjustment for a student with a disability

Key facts

Human involvement

Yellow · Close supervision

How AI is used

From the request and the file, list whether the student is in a public elementary or secondary program or in a postsecondary program, the adjustment asked for, and which of the written-statement elements in 34 CFR 300.320 are absent from an elementary or secondary file. Do not write an IEP, a Section 504 plan, or the letter that grants or refuses the adjustment.

What the lawyer must review

You decide which regime applies and what is offered, and you write any plan or letter. For a public elementary or secondary recipient, 34 CFR 104.33 requires a free appropriate public education for each qualified handicapped person in the recipient's jurisdiction, regardless of nature or severity. An appropriate education is regular or special education and related aids and services designed to meet individual needs as adequately as the needs of persons without handicaps are met, and based on the procedures in sections 104.34, 104.35, and 104.36. An IEP developed under the Education of the Handicapped Act is one means of meeting that standard. Free means without cost except fees also imposed on persons without handicaps. The Department's Section 504 FAPE questions use that FAPE standard and state the three ways a student is protected: a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity, a record of such an impairment, or being regarded as having such an impairment. At elementary and secondary level a qualified student is of an age at which nondisabled students receive those services, of an age at which State law makes them mandatory, or a student to whom the State must provide FAPE under the IDEA. The questions say a district must individually evaluate a student before classifying the student or providing special education, citing 34 CFR 104.35(b), and must draw from a variety of sources under 104.35(c). Where the IDEA applies, 34 CFR 300.320 requires a written statement developed, reviewed, and revised in a meeting, including present levels, measurable annual goals, how and when progress is reported, special education and related services and supplementary aids, the extent of nonparticipation with nondisabled children, assessment accommodations, and the projected beginning, frequency, location, and duration. Beginning not later than the first IEP in effect when the child turns 16, or younger if the team so determines, the IEP includes postsecondary goals and transition services. Not later than one year before the age of majority under State law, it states that the child has been informed of rights that will transfer. Section 300.324 requires the team to consider the child's strengths, the parents' concerns, the most recent evaluation, and the child's academic, developmental, and functional needs, and the special factors in paragraph (a)(2), including behavior that impedes learning and limited English proficiency. At postsecondary level the FAPE questions require appropriate academic adjustments and auxiliary aids necessary for equal opportunity, and do not require a change that would fundamentally alter the program or impose an undue burden. The Department's pamphlet, revised September 2011, says a postsecondary school is not required to provide FAPE, the student must identify the disability to obtain an adjustment, a high-school IEP or Section 504 plan is generally not sufficient documentation, and the IDEA does not apply. The school need not lower essential requirements or provide a personal attendant, an individually prescribed device, a reader for personal use or study, or tutoring or typing.

Written for / version

United States versionUS