Co-teaching refusal

[Shannon M]

My son is currently a sophomore. He has an IEP with co-taught ELA, social studies and science. Math is not in there because he was a year ahead. (Now I wish I would have fought for that, he’s struggling a little with the higher level). Next year he wants to take chemistry. Our district is refusing to put him in co-taught chemistry. They are only allowing him to take a non regents level chem because they don’t offer regular level chem as co-taught. We are going to hire a lawyer to fight this. He doesn’t want to take a lower class because they refuse co-teaching. He has every right to take the regular level class. Is this something worth fighting? 

[JSD24]

I remember being in a meeting with my special ed director.  She said that the school is obligated to meet the needs of students - it's really another way of saying they need to provide FAPE.  Doesn't matter if what the student needs currently exists or not.  They need to meet his neets.  If it is appropriate for him to take Regents Chemistry as a co-taught class, they need to provide it.

I'm not from NY so I'm not exactly sure what a Regents Chemistry does versus the non-Regents version of the class.  I did find this with doing a search of case law in NY:  https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=3365753441522273465&q=co+taught+regents&hl=en&as_sdt=4,33  If he's denied the class, he's being denied the Regents diploma.  If the Regents diploma is FAPE, he need the co-taught Regents class.