Washington Extended School Year (ESY): How to Get Services for Your Child

Your child regresses every summer and spends the first two months of school re-learning what they lost. You've watched it happen for years. The school has too — but at each annual IEP meeting, the ESY box gets checked "no" without much discussion, and you're not sure how to push back. Extended School Year is a legal right under IDEA, not an optional program schools can offer when they feel like it. Washington has specific rules, and knowing them is how you make the case.

What Extended School Year Actually Is

Extended School Year (ESY) refers to specially designed instruction and related services provided during a period the district is normally not in session — most commonly summer, but not exclusively. ESY is not summer school. It is not a general enrichment program. It is individualized special education programming required because the student's specific disability-related needs cannot be adequately addressed without services during the extended break.

In Washington, the legal basis for ESY comes from IDEA and is implemented through WAC 392-172A. The state code requires that the IEP team consider ESY for every student with a disability and make an individualized determination. The determination cannot be made by district policy. A blanket rule that "our district only offers ESY to students with severe cognitive disabilities" or "we don't offer ESY in this grade level" is illegal on its face.

The Regression/Recoupment Standard

The primary legal standard for ESY eligibility in Washington is regression/recoupment. Regression means the student loses skills or shows behavioral deterioration during an extended break in services. Recoupment refers to how long it takes the student to recover those losses and return to the level they were at before the break.

If a student experiences significant regression during an extended break — the school year summer is the most common context — and requires an excessive amount of time to recoup those losses upon return, that pattern supports an ESY determination. The standard is not that summer services would be helpful or beneficial. The standard is that without ESY, the student is likely to experience substantial regression that makes the level of IEP progress achieved during the regular school year unachievable without an extended recoupment period.

This is an important distinction. Nearly every child makes more progress when receiving services year-round. The ESY standard asks whether the absence of services causes a level of regression that constitutes a failure to provide FAPE — not just whether progress would be faster with services.

How the IEP Team Makes the Determination

The ESY determination is an IEP team decision, and it must be individualized. The team must consider:

• The student's current IEP goals and present levels
• Data on past regression during extended breaks
• The nature and severity of the disability
• Whether the student is in a critical stage of learning a skill where interruption would cause particular harm
• The student's rate of progress overall

The team does not have a fixed formula. There is no precise number of weeks of regression that automatically triggers ESY eligibility. The determination requires professional judgment based on data about this specific student.

One important point: ESY services do not have to mirror the regular school year program. ESY should be tailored to address the specific skills most at risk of regression. A student who regresses most significantly in functional communication skills might have ESY focused on communication goals without replicating their full school-year schedule.

Building the Case With Data

The most effective way to support an ESY determination is documentation of regression. This is where parents can contribute evidence that the IEP team may not otherwise have.

Document holiday breaks, not just summers. ESY eligibility is not limited to summer. If your child shows meaningful regression after Thanksgiving break, winter break, or spring break, that data is relevant to the ESY analysis even if the extended breaks in question are shorter than summer. Document the behavior and skills at the end of each school session, then again when school resumes. Tracking what took days, weeks, or months to recover is the kind of concrete data that supports an ESY case.

Request progress monitoring data at the end of the year. Ask the school to provide progress monitoring data in writing at the year's end, documenting where each goal stands. Then request the same data at the beginning of the following school year. The gap between those two points is the regression you're measuring.

Keep a home log. For the first two to four weeks of each school return, keep a brief daily or weekly log: your observations of the skills your child is demonstrating or struggling with at home, compared to where they were at the end of the prior school year. Teachers and therapists may report that the child "seems fine" because they are measuring performance against classmates, not against the child's own prior baseline. Your observations at home can fill that gap.

Ask your outside service providers. Private therapists (speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, behavioral therapists) who work with your child year-round observe regression directly. A brief letter or written summary from a private provider documenting observed regression after school breaks is legitimate data the IEP team must consider.

Common District Denials and How to Respond

"Our district doesn't offer ESY for students at that level." This is an illegal blanket policy. ESY eligibility is individualized and cannot be determined by disability category, severity level, or program type. Respond in writing: "The ESY determination must be individualized based on [child's name]'s specific needs and data. A categorical policy excluding students based on disability category or program level does not satisfy WAC 392-172A. I am requesting a written Prior Written Notice explaining the basis of the team's ESY determination for [child's name] specifically."

"There's no data showing regression." If you have documented regression and the district claims there's no data, provide your documentation at the IEP meeting and request that it be included in the IEP record. If the district has conducted formal regression assessments at the beginning of each school year and finds no regression, ask for those assessments specifically.

"Summer services are for more severe students." Same issue as a categorical policy. Submit your request for Prior Written Notice and document the refusal for a potential OSPI complaint.

"We offered ESY but only for [shorter period/fewer services than needed]." ESY must be sufficient to prevent the regression that would constitute a denial of FAPE. If the offered ESY program is inadequate — too few hours, wrong service type, wrong goals — you can decline and document your reasons for declining.

Requesting ESY at the Right Time

ESY should be discussed at the annual IEP meeting, not as an afterthought. If your child's annual IEP review occurs in the spring, that meeting is where the ESY determination should happen — in time for you to request mediation or file an OSPI complaint if you disagree, before the summer session begins.

If the ESY determination was not discussed at the annual review, or if new data since the annual review supports ESY eligibility, you can request an IEP meeting specifically to address ESY. Submit that request in writing and note that you are requesting the meeting to discuss ESY services for the upcoming extended break.

If the District Denies ESY

If the IEP team determines your child does not qualify for ESY and you disagree, request a Prior Written Notice documenting that determination. The PWN must explain what data the team considered and why that data was insufficient to support an ESY determination.

You can then file an OSPI Community Complaint within one year of the denial. The complaint should document the data you provided, the district's stated rationale, and why that rationale does not satisfy WAC 392-172A's individualized-determination requirement.

If you have a pending OSPI complaint about ESY eligibility, you can also request mediation. Mediation is free through Washington's OSPI program and has produced ESY agreements in cases where the formal complaint process was also in motion.

The Washington Special Education Advocacy Toolkit includes ESY request language, Prior Written Notice demand letters, and regression documentation templates that give you the structured records to support an ESY case.

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