Krawietz v. Galveston Independent School District

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment upholding a hearing officer's decision that the school district deprived plaintiff, a high school student with a disability, of a free and appropriate public education (FAPE) by failing to fulfill its Child Find duty in a timely manner. The court held that the district court did not reversibly err by concluding that taken together, the student's academic decline, hospitalization, and incidents of theft should have led the district to suspect her need for special education services by October 2014, at the latest. Therefore, the school district violated the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act's Child Find requirements by failing to identify, locate, and evaluate students with suspected disabilities within a reasonable time. The court also held that the student was a prevailing party entitled to attorneys' fees because she received a FAPE and thus achieved some of the benefit she sought in requesting the due process hearing. View "Krawietz v. Galveston Independent School District" on Justia Law