Compensatory Education in New Hampshire: How to Claim Make-Up Services Your Child Is Owed

Your child's IEP calls for 45 minutes of speech therapy per week. The school has had no SLP for three months. By now, your child is owed hours of services they never received—and the fact that the district "couldn't find anyone" does not erase that debt. In New Hampshire, compensatory education is the legal remedy that addresses exactly this situation.

What Compensatory Education Is

Compensatory education is an equitable remedy—a package of additional educational services designed to make up for a period during which the school district failed to provide a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE). It is not a punishment or a fine; it is an attempt to put the child in the position they would have been in had the services been delivered as required.

Compensatory education can arise from:

• Missed therapy sessions (SLP, OT, PT, counseling) due to staffing shortages
• Failure to implement any other component of an approved IEP
• Improper IEP goals or placements that resulted in educational regression
• Any FAPE denial that caused the student to lose educational benefit

The legal authority in New Hampshire comes from federal IDEA regulations and is explicitly addressed in the NHDOE's own Compensatory Education Guidance document. That document states directly: "if a district cannot staff a related service explicitly outlined in an approved IEP, the district is failing to implement the IEP and is therefore denying the student a FAPE."

The Staffing Shortage Reality in New Hampshire

New Hampshire has a severe, documented statewide shortage of related service providers—Speech-Language Pathologists, Occupational Therapists, Physical Therapists, and school psychologists. This shortage is not a localized or temporary problem. Districts across the state regularly rely on unqualified substitutes, delay services, or pivot to contracted teletherapy to bridge gaps. In some cases, services outlined in the IEP simply go unprovided for weeks or months.

When this happens, the district cannot escape compensatory education liability by claiming the shortage is a systemic problem or an unforeseeable circumstance. The obligation to provide FAPE is on the district, not contingent on staffing convenience.

What Compensatory Education Is Not

New Hampshire guidance is explicit that compensatory education is not simply a minute-for-minute replacement. Three months of missed speech therapy at 45 minutes per week does not automatically mean 12 sessions of makeup speech therapy. The remedy is qualitative, not purely quantitative.

The standard is: what services are necessary to put the child in the position they would have been in had FAPE been properly provided? For a child who experienced regression during a service gap, the compensatory package may need to be more intensive than the original services to address lost ground. For a child who maintained skills despite the gap, a less intensive makeup may be appropriate.

This distinction matters because districts often try to offer minimal compensatory services—"we'll give back the exact minutes we missed." Push back on this framing and insist the team assess actual educational impact before determining the compensatory package.

How to Document Missed Services

The foundation of a compensatory education claim is documentation. Start now, even if the situation is ongoing.

1. Review the IEP: Write down every service, frequency, duration, and location specified in the current IEP.
2. Request attendance records: Ask the Special Education Director in writing for all service delivery logs, attendance records, and provider session notes for the school year.
3. Communicate in writing: If you are being told verbally that services will be missed, follow up immediately in writing: "I understand that [student] will not receive speech therapy this week due to [staffing issue]. Please confirm in writing. I am concerned about the impact on [student]'s IEP and will need to discuss compensatory education at our next meeting."
4. Track it yourself: Keep a calendar of when services were supposed to occur and when they did not.
5. Ask for written notification: Under IDEA and NH rules, parents must be informed of service changes. If the district is making schedule changes without Written Prior Notice (WPN), that is itself a procedural violation.

How to Request Compensatory Education

Submit a written request to the SAU's Special Education Director requesting an IEP team meeting specifically to address compensatory education for missed services. Include:

• The specific services listed in the IEP that were not delivered
• The dates of known missed sessions
• A request for service delivery logs to verify the full scope of the deficit
• A statement that you are requesting a compensatory education plan that addresses the educational impact of the service gap—not merely a minute-for-minute replacement

The district must respond to your meeting request within a reasonable timeframe (typically 30 days is the standard). If they do not schedule a meeting, escalate to a state complaint filed with the NHDOE Bureau of Special Education.

What Compensatory Services Can Look Like

Compensatory education is flexible. Depending on the child's needs and the nature of the service gap, the compensatory plan might include:

• Intensive summer tutoring in the area where services were missed
• Additional sessions per week above the normal IEP frequency for a defined period
• Private therapy sessions with an outside provider, funded by the district
• Training or materials provided to parents to implement strategies at home
• Assistive technology to support skill maintenance

Each option should be documented in a written agreement, signed by both parties, specifying the services, provider credentials, duration, and monitoring plan.

The Statute of Limitations

New Hampshire's statute of limitations for filing a due process complaint is two years from the date the violation was discovered. If services have been missed for an extended period, do not delay in documenting and requesting compensatory education. Waiting too long can limit the period of time for which you can recover services.

If informal negotiation with the district does not produce an adequate compensatory education plan, New Hampshire's Neutral Conference (under Ed 1114.06) is a free, faster alternative to a full due process hearing for reaching a compensatory education agreement.

The New Hampshire IEP & 504 Blueprint includes templates for documenting service delivery failures, requesting compensatory education meetings, and negotiating a compensatory education package that reflects the actual educational impact of the service gap.

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