Wisconsin Extended School Year (ESY) and Permissive Summer School

Extended School Year (ESY)

“Extended School Year (ESY) services are required special education and related services provided beyond the limits of the school term, in accordance with the student’s IEP, and at no cost to the families. A school district is required to provide ESY services to a student when the student requires such services to receive a free appropriate public education (FAPE). The student’s IEP team must consider, as appropriate, whether a student needs ESY services in order to receive FAPE. In determining eligibility for ESY services, the IEP team generally considers regression during an interruption in services and recoupment of skills after services resume. ESY is a predictive analysis based on how the student has fared in the past during periods of breaks in instructional time. If a break in services during the summer months is a concern based on past performance, the IEP team uses data collected before and after a previous break in services to help determine if a student is likely to experience significant loss of skills during the up-coming summer break and difficulty recovering skills when school resumes.

Permissive Summer School

Unlike ESY services, summer school activities are not part of a student’s IEP or required in order to provide FAPE. Students with disabilities, however, must be provided the same opportunities as all other students to participate in summer school programs. Districts must provide reasonable accommodations to give students with disabilities access to summer programs unless those accommodations would fundamentally alter the nature of the summer programs. These accommodations may be documented in a Section 504 plan, if appropriate.”