Where to Place Wally? A Special Education Due Process Case Study

Abstract The purpose of this manuscript is to provide the case study of a student with Emotional Behavioral Disorders (EBD) whose services were in dispute resulting in a due process hearing. Wally, age 12, resided with his mother and attended school in his local district. He had had a label of EBD since kindergarten. He had failed in multiple placements until his district tried a slow, careful process leading to full inclusion in the general education classroom. Following a year of success and a move to a new school, Wally again exhibited serious behavioral outbursts. At the District’s expense and urging, his mother took him to a world famous psychiatric facility to obtain an evaluation. While there, he had serious aggressive outbursts and experienced a number of restraint and time-out situations resulting in his mother removing him without completion of the process. The District filed for hearing when Wally’s mother refused to place him in a segregated facility for students with EBD and a return to the psychiatric hospital to complete the aborted evaluation to help determine where to place Wally