Service substitution means a service, support, provider, timing, or method is changed from what was expected or written. The key question is whether the student’s need is still being addressed and whether the change is documented clearly.
This checklist helps review whether a substitution or workaround still addressed the student’s documented need. Because “we did something else” is a beginning, not an explanation.
Ask what changed, why it changed, how your child’s need was still addressed, and whether follow-up is needed. You do not have to assume the worst. You also do not have to pretend it does not matter.
A workaround is not always wrong. Sometimes it is the adult thing to do when the day breaks. The question is whether the workaround still addresses the student’s need, whether it is documented, and whether the team is treating it as temporary, corrective, or a plan change.
Workarounds happen. The problem is when the workaround quietly becomes the plan. A team misses a service, changes a routine, uses different staff, or substitutes a support. Maybe it was reasonable that day. But if it repeats without documentation, the written plan and real plan start to separate.
Schools have real days. People are absent. Schedules break. Equipment goes missing. Services get moved. Sometimes a workaround is necessary. But a workaround is not automatically implementation. If the team substitutes, delays, reduces, or changes a support, it still needs to ask: is the student’s documented need being met?