What seems to be an effective service on the continuum that may limit the number of students who need to be totally segregated, the resource room is provided to the student in the general education classroom or a special class who needs more personalized supplementary instruction (Continuum, 2013). This is a classroom with a limited number of students, usually no more than 5 per SPED teacher, where the student receiving the service may use general education content and assignments to meet learning goals listed in their IEP (ibid.)
There are policies regulating the resource room and its function. For example, there are guidelines as to how many students a SPED resource room teacher may be assigned. In New York, it is 20 students. Only the commissioner may, in certain cases, increase the number of assigned students. In addition, there is a maximum and minimum of how many hours a student can spend in the resource room. If a student’s IEP includes the resource room as a service, the student must spend no less than three hours a week with the SPED resource room teacher. On the other hand, a student is not to exceed 50% of their school hours in the resource room.
