Extended School Year Services (ESYS) are special education services that are provided to a child with a disability beyond the normal school year. ESYS is provided in accordance with a student's Individualized Education Plan (IEP) at no cost to the parent or child.

Any services provided beyond the regular school year by the Local Education Agency (LEA) and/or Area Education Agency (AEA) constitute an ESYS program when the following conditions are met:

• The IEP team has made an individualized determination that there is a need for such services to insure an appropriate education for a student with a disability.
• The need and the services are documented in the IEP.
• The services are accessed or provided by a public educational agency.

Iowa has developed three main standards that may be used by IEP teams in deciding whether ESYS is necessary to provide FAPE or an individual student. They are: goal areas of concern; the “regression-based” ESYS standard; and the “rare and unusual circumstances” ESYS standard.