Least Restrictive Environment

Legislative Origins and Evolution of LRE

Following the Brown v. Board of Education landmark civil rights case that determined a separate school system violated the rights of African American students, two right-to-education cases for students with disabilities, the Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children (PARC) v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (1971) and Mills v. District of Columbia (1972), successfully argued that the exclusion of students with disabilities also violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. In 1972, Congress launched an investigation into how students with disabilities were being educated. This investigation revealed that fewer than half of all students with disabilities were receiving an appropriate education, whereas 1.75 million of these students were receiving no education at all. This prompted Congress to pass the Education for All Handicapped Children Act in 1975, which mandated a free appropriate public education and LRE for all students with disabilities.

When Education for All Handicapped Children Act was reauthorized in 1990, the act was renamed the IDEA. Regulations of the 1990 reauthorization specified that local education agencies needed to provide a continuum of placements outside the general education setting, should individuals’ needs dictate more restrictive settings. IDEA was reauthorized in 1997 and in 2004. In 2004, Congress clarified that state funding should not include mechanisms that influenced placements, such as providing more state dollars for educating students in more restrictive placements.

Although IDEA has been reauthorized multiple times, the definition of LRE continues to lack clarity. This has resulted in disagreements between individual families and local education agencies regarding the implementation of LRE. Through due process hearings, disagreements might be mediated locally, and if disagreements persist, they may be challenged in district courts and circuit courts. Mediations and district court rulings impact individual cases, whereas circuit court rulings become case law in that circuit. Although circuit court rulings only have direct influence in the circuit where they were settled, circuit courts tend to notice the findings in other circuits. The Supreme Court, which would influence every circuit, has not heard a case involving the implementation of LRE. The remainder of this section provides summaries of circuit court cases that settled disputes in the areas of (a) placement, [Page 966](b) proximity of placement to home-zoned school, (c) educational methodologies, and (d) educational benefit.

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