The call comes at 10:40. Then again on Thursday. A shortened day here, a "he's having a rough morning, can you pick him up" there. Each one feels small. Nobody — not the school, not last year's file — has ever shown you the running total. This page is about the total, because the rules are too.
When a school sends a child with an IEP home early, shortens the school day, or suspends them, that is a removal — whether or not anyone used the word "suspension." Federal rules (34 CFR 300.536) provide that a series of removals totaling more than 10 school days in one school year may amount to a disciplinary change of placement when the removals form a pattern — judged on their total length, the child's behavior, and how close together they happened. When a removal decision does amount to a change of placement, a manifestation determination review is due within 10 school days of that decision (34 CFR 300.530(e); in Ohio, the review is documented on form PR-03). Whether a pattern exists in your child's case is a determination this page does not make. The count, though, is yours to keep — and most families have never seen theirs.
One school day = 360 minutes. A full-day removal counts as 1 day; a partial removal counts its minutes ÷ 360 (never more than 1 per event). Count removals within one school year. Ohio's rules (OAC 3301-51-05) follow this same federal counting framework — and Ohio has no separate rule defining informal removals like early pickups, which is one more reason the family's own count matters: if you don't count the pickups, they may never be counted at all.
Dates and minutes are enough to start. You do not need the school's permission, or the school's records, to count what happened to your child.
Bring the total to the meeting. A family that can say "fourteen removals, totaling eleven day-equivalents, since September" is having a different conversation than a family that can only say "it happens a lot" — and the record you build from that count is what an advocate or attorney would start from.
RoomRecord is the software that builds the full record around numbers like these — what was said vs. what was written in meetings, whether the required notices are present, your removal-day count, and services promised vs. delivered — from your own uploads and logs, with the general rules cited beside your facts. Families in the founding cohort build their record free; the software does the organizing and the counting, and flags anything that may conflict with a cited rule in informational terms — never verdicts.
Andrew Peal is not an attorney, RoomRecord is not a law firm, and nothing here is legal advice or representation: it does not speak for you, file anything for you, or communicate with your district. Records you keep are not protected by attorney–client privilege. No outcome is promised or predicted.