In 2010, the New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE) initiated a

citywide reform of the special education services for young people. The overall goal of
the reform was to provide educational opportunities for young people with labeled
disabilities at their neighborhood school. However, the reform explicitly states, all but
the most severely disabled students should be enrolled at their community school
(Medina, 2010). The rationale is young people labeled with severe disabilities (e.g.
autism, intellectual impairment, and multiple disabilities) require specialized programs to
meet their needs. Prior to 2010 it was common practice for a neighborhood school to send
any student labeled with a disability to specialized programs within the city to address
their specific academic and social/emotional needs. Typically these programs and schools
are organized and run through District 75, New York Citys citywide special education
district. The current NYC DOE reform is working to develop more inclusive practices for
students with labeled disabilities, yet, students labeled with severe disabilities continue
to be excluded and educated in segregated, specialized programs (Slee, 2011).
Most often, these specialized programs are referred to as self-contained special
education classrooms. A self-contained classroom is composed of young people with
individualized education plans (IEPs), and has a lower student to teacher ratio than a
general education classroom. Students in self-contained classrooms are segregated from
their same age peers for up to sixty percent of the school day. The intention is that in selfcontained classroom settings, with fewer students, there is the ability to receive more
intensive service provision (Taylor, 2004).
For the purposes of this project I define specialized program as an individualized
education plan (IEP) that includes supports and structures (often referred to as service

provision) for students while enrolled in school to access academic and social/emotional
curriculum (Algozzine, Morsink, and Algozzine, 1988). I define service provision as an
academic or social/emotional support, such as, speech and language therapy, physical
therapy, occupational therapy and counseling that is mandated by a young persons IEP
document. Service provision changes in frequency and duration based on the intensity of
support that a young person with a labeled disability requires to access curriculum
(Taylor, 2004). Intensity refers to the frequency (how often) and duration (how long) a
student receives a service, for example a young person may receive speech and language
therapy three times a week for thirty minutes each time. This would be considered on a
higher intensity level than a student who receives speech and language therapy once a
week for thirty minutes.
Currently, in the North American schooling system service provision occurs either
inside the classroom where a young person is enrolled, which is referred to as push in
services or through pull out services which occur outside of the classroom in a smaller
setting, generally a one on one environment (Valle and Connor, 2011). The continuum of
special education services is the tool that educators use to determine placement for young
people with labeled disabilities. It is based on the least restrictive environment (LRE)
principle, which is commonly associated with the most integrated or normalized setting
possible, e.g. the general education setting (Taylor, 2004).
As a result, via the continuum, the self-contained classroom is viewed as the
educational space for young people with labeled disabilities who require a higher
intensity of service provision. In recent years, the phrase, Special education is a service,
not a place, has often been repeated to help educational professional re-conceptualize

service provision as context-free, meaning the intensity of service provision a young

person receives should not impact their classroom placement. Yet self-contained
classrooms persist (Ware, 2010). It is from this standpoint that I situate my study, using a
Disability Studies in education framework to understand what happens in these
specialized programs and more specifically during service provision as way to determine
why four students labeled with severe disabilities remain excluded from certain
classroom settings.