I live in Colorado as well and you should contact The Arc they can help you advocate. They also offer a free 6 week class that helps teach parents to advocate it is called Mobilizing Families. ElizabethLane is correct choose your words carefully and maybe call the Arc to see if they can help you. The school will do what they can to keep you because Colorado will require the school district to pay for a special school if the school cannot accommodate your child's needs. The school district does not want to do that as the average cost for a special Autism school in Denver is 61k per year.

You probably know this, but instead of presenting the fact that you want what is best for him etc. choose your words carefully. present what he needs as the thing that is appropriate. That is what the school legally has to provide.

Chicago Public Schools chose a blended room for our son. We saw a Developmental Pediatrician over the Summer when he turned 3. He wrote a report stating that our son needs a self contained classroom until he becomes truly communicative.I do not believe that this holds up legally, but we shared this information with both his school and the CPS person that transferred him form Early Intervention. They started to plan for the change, but said that we legally had to try blended first because that was in his IEP. The room had 20 kids, 2 teachers, and 1-3 aids. He ran and tried to escape every day. We did not let this happen for more than a few days. He was moved to a self contained room, because he was not successful in the larger room. Equipt for Equality can answer legal questions about this.

check out wrightlaw.com
Also I have known many parents fight for a more restrictive placement. You need to request the data showing progress, assessments/results for strengths and weaknesses and then you can work with the arguments for why a more restrictive place is needed. MANY parents of course argue for ABA therapy, for which there are many legal precedents that say schools must provide a minimum of 20hrs a week of ABA for children with autism…good luck!

My son was put in a SCC room and it was the worst thing that could of ever happened to him, it was not the place for him. He now goes to a school only for hfa kids and even the scholarship agreed that a SCC is not the place for a kid on the spectrum due to the diversity of reasons s kids are in that classroom