The Wisconsin Department of Education recently ruled against a school district in In re: Student with a Disability, when the District failed to consider a special education student’s individual needs prior to determining how many minutes of in-person instruction they were to receive during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Department of Education found that the District, which implemented a district-wide policy for how many minutes per week all special education students would receive, committed a procedural violation in pre-determining minutes. The Department ordered the school district to convene an IEP meeting for the student who was the subject of the complaint, stating that the amount of in-person minutes, supplementary aids and supports recommended should be an IEP team decision based on a student’s individual needs, not a District-wide policy.
February 2021
