The regulation allowing parents the right to refuse an eligibility decision to remove a student from special education needs to be removed from the state regulations. When decisions are made by an eligibility committee to release a student from special education there is ample data to make such a decision in the best interest of the child.

From my experience parents will often not the sign the release from special education for the wrong reasons most often due to fear. Either the student is moving from one level to the next and they feel they want someone watching over them or fear of losing supplements from outside resources etc...These are not reasons why students should remain in special education.

Resources are a hot comodity in the world of education, monies are dwindling we must preserve all of our resources so we may serve the students who really need our services and are eligible under IDEA 2004.

IDEA 2004 has afforded SEA's to remove the inclusion of short term objectives from the IEP. The intent of this provision was to reduce paperwork, one of many included in the reauthorization. As a state we must take care not to confine the LEA's to going above and beyond the federal statuate by keeping objectives within the state regulation. Allowing the LEA's the flexibility to keep or remove short term objectives will be necessary as each of us works with our locality on this issue.

Making it mandatory to keep short term objectives will only be cause for additional work on the part of our teachers, countless hours writing if the option is taking away from the LEA.