Will I see you in September? A question of educational relevance.

When should therapists termi· nate direct occupational therapy in the school system? Is a student entitled to occupational therapy in schools because it is free? How much therapy is enough? Do occupational therapy goals and intervention have a unique focus? When is consultation or monitoring more appropriate than direct service? Who should make the decision to terminate direct therapy? The issues and questions that therapists face in public schools are extraordinarily comr1ex; no simple answers exist for any of them (Bundy, 1991a). Although the questions listed above are posed by Nesbit elsewhere in this issue, they might have been (and are routinely) asked by thousands of occupational therapists employed in public schools. These questions are important, but the issue of when to terminate direct therapy reflects a more fundamental set of questions. What is educationally relevant therapy? What are the outcomes associated with direct service, consultation, and monitoring? What are the outcomes (i.e., objectives) sought for this student? What seems to be in· terfering with this student's meeting the objectives? What types of service rrovision are most closely associated with this student's needs? When therapists have addressed these fundamental questions, the question of when to terminate direct service in schools will be answered much more readily.