The Resource Room

The Resource Room is "an educational setting within a school that offers remedial instruction to students with a learning disability or other handicaps." Students generally spend most of their day in general or regular education classes, but visit the resource room for a portion of their day for individual or small group instruction on specific areas outlined on the student's individualized education plan (IEP).

The resource teacher generally supports the student's regular classroom curriculum while also providing remediation. Special care should be taken when scheduling the student for his resource class. For example, if a student enjoys and excels in art class, care should be taken not to pull him out of that class for his resource time. The different types of remedial instruction settings include:

• Consultative: The child never physically enters the special education class, but a special education teacher consults with the regular classroom teacher who actually provides the instruction.
• Itinerant: The student attends less than one period of special education per day, such as one period once a week, half a period two day per week, and so on.
• Resource: The student attends special education classes for at least one instructional period per day but less than half of the school day. (This is what my son does)
• Self-Contained: The student attends a special education classes for more than half of the school day, but remains in the same school he would attend if he were not handicapped.
• Self-Contained With School Transfer: The student attends a self-contained class but must transfer to another school than she would attend if he were not handicapped. School districts frequently resort to this if there are not enough students in each school for that school to have it's own self-contained class.
• Homebound: The child is sent home and received one to five instructional periods per week from a special education teacher who visits the home. This arrangement occurs if there is some factor that endangers the student if he attends school, or endangers others.
• Segregated, Other Facility: The student is removed from the local school and placed in a facility education only students with handicaps, but the student goes home each night.
• Institutional Placement: Placement in an institution such as a mental hospital, used only in severe circumstances, such as severe medical disorders, psychoses that cause the student to be a danger to self or others, or when a student has been committed to a juvenile facility following criminal charges.

Information taken from "The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities" by Carol Turkington and Joseph R. Harris, PH.D., 2002.