What Is FAPE?
FAPE — Free Appropriate Public Education — is the requirement under IDEA that special education and related services be provided at public expense, at no cost to the family, and designed to meet the individual needs of the eligible student. Services must align with the IEP.
In plain language
Families never pay for the special education services in an IEP, and those services must be appropriate — meaning individually designed to enable progress, not one-size-fits-all. What counts as "appropriate" is shaped by the child's needs and the team's decisions, with procedural safeguards in place for families.
Classroom example
When a student's IEP includes speech services and specialized reading instruction, those are provided by the school during the school day — no fees, no family-provided tutoring required to access the program.
Related resources
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