## Facts

- Beth B., a thirteen-year-old student with Rett Syndrome, had severe cognitive, physical, and communication disabilities, was nonverbal, and used augmentative communication and a wheelchair.
- The school district educated Beth for several years in a regular classroom at her neighborhood school with a one-to-one aide and an individualized curriculum at a preschool level.
- Despite supports, Beth made no academic progress and only minimal developmental progress in the regular classroom.
- After IEP meetings in 1997, the district proposed moving Beth to an Educational Life Skills (ELS) program focused on functional academics and life skills with a one-to-one student–teacher ratio.
- The ELS program included structured interaction with nondisabled peers through “reverse mainstreaming” and participation in selected regular classes and school activities.
- Beth’s parents opposed the change, asserting the IDEA required full-time education in the regular classroom as the least restrictive environment (LRE).
- The parents sought an IDEA due process hearing and invoked stay-put to keep Beth in the regular classroom during the dispute.

## Issues

1. Whether the proposed ELS placement, with partial mainstreaming, violated the IDEA’s LRE requirement requiring education with nondisabled peers to the maximum extent appropriate.
2. Whether moving Beth from full-time regular education to ELS denied her a free appropriate public education (FAPE) given claimed social and behavioral benefits of full-time inclusion.

## Decision

- The court affirmed summary judgment for the school district and upheld the administrative decision approving the ELS placement.
- The court held the IDEA does not require full-time regular-class placement when satisfactory education there cannot be achieved with supplementary aids and services.
- The court found the record supported that Beth received little to no educational benefit in the full-time regular classroom even with extensive supports.
- The court concluded the ELS program provided an appropriate educational setting and preserved meaningful peer interaction through planned mainstreaming opportunities.
- The court emphasized judicial deference to school officials’ educational judgments when supported by the administrative record.

## Legal Principles

- The IDEA’s LRE mandate requires mainstreaming only “to the maximum extent appropriate”; removal from the regular classroom is permitted when satisfactory education there cannot be achieved with supplementary aids and services.
- FAPE requires an appropriate educational program reasonably designed to confer educational benefit; it does not require maintaining full-time inclusion when it yields minimal educational progress.
- In evaluating LRE, courts consider educational benefit in regular education versus the proposed setting, nonacademic benefits of peer interaction, and the degree of inclusion offered in the proposed placement.
- Courts generally defer to school authorities and administrative findings on placement where the decision is supported by evidence and reflects a reasonable balance of FAPE and LRE.

## Conclusion

The Seventh Circuit upheld a life-skills classroom placement with structured inclusion for a severely disabled student, ruling that the IDEA permits a more specialized setting when full-time regular education does not provide meaningful educational benefit and the proposed program still offers appropriate opportunities for interaction with nondisabled peers.


Beth B. v. Van Clay, 282 F.3d 493 (7th Cir. 2002)