Home as the Least Restrictive Environment for Students with Medical Disabilities

Abstract

School leaders have a prominent role on Individual Education Program (IEP) teams and often face very challenging obstacles when determining substantive educational services and placement in the least restrictive environment (LRE) for students with medical disabilities. In absence of federal statutory and regulatory policy, standard legal research methodology was used to determine whether explicit and implicit recommendations existed for school leaders elsewhere in the law for the use of homebound placements for students with medical disabilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Homebound instructional services can be an LRE because educational services are provided to students who would be unable to attend school programs and activities.