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What is a FAPE?

What is a Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE)?

FAPE is...

  • NOT every special service to maximize each child's potential.

  • NOT the Rowley standard: "adequate" education, "advancing from grade to grade," or "a basic floor of opportunity." CASE-overturned  CASE

  • NOT the Cadillac of an education.  CASE

  • NOT merely more than de minimus.  CASE 

  • NOT the repetition of a significant amount of goals from one IEP to another.  CASE

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FAPE IS:

  • High expectations for students' growth and progress.

  • Meaningful and likely to produce results. CASE       

  • Demonstrative improvements in education and personal skills. CASE

  • An "educational program reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress appropriate in light of the child's circumstances."  CASE

  • "Appropriately ambitious in light of [the student's] circumstances."  CASE

  • A set of goals to allow every child to have the chance to meet challenging objectives.  CASE

  • Described in an IEP whose essential function is to set out a plan for pursuing academic and functional advancement.  CASE

FREE: Special Education should be provided at no cost to parents.  It is a civil rights issue.  Parents of children with disabilities should not need to pay anything more than parents of children without disabilities.  ​

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APPROPRIATE:  "Appropriate" is based on meeting the individual child's needs.  Need is determined by the results of formal and informal evaluations, observations, curriculum-based assessments, MTSS data, report cards, standardized tests, RTI data, progress monitoring, student disciplinary records, behavior trackers, attendance records, restraint and seclusion incidents, and teacher and parent input.  
 

PUBLIC:  A public school means every child may attend.  Public schools cannot say, "Your child is too difficult.  Just keep him home."  By contrast, a private school can turn you away for any or no reason.

 

EDUCATION:  Growth and performance in areas of the general curriculum, adaptive skills, and functional skills, including the following:

  • Reading

  • Mathematics

  • Writing

  • Physical Therapy

  • Behavioral Support

  • Social Skills

  • Communication

  • Emotional Regulation

  • Speech Therapy

  • Occupational Therapy

  • Independent Living Skills

  • Self-Care

  • Attendance

  • Travel Training

  • Executive Functioning

  • Toileting​​

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