Justia Education Law Opinion Summaries

B.G. lived alternately with his mother (who speaks only Spanish) and siblings in a small apartment, and with his father, who apparently left B.G. to his own devices. He repeated first grade. B.G. was diagnosed with a specific learning disability and had significant behavior and attendance issues. B.G.’s father died in 2014. B.G was hospitalized with diagnoses of morbid obesity, hypertension, severe hypoxia syndrome, Type 2 diabetes, and obstructive sleep apnea. The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services received a report that his mother was not able to care for her children. B.G.’s mother requested a Due Process Hearing with the State Board of Education, alleging that the Chicago Public School District had violated the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act. The District gave B.G. an aide, moved him to a classroom with a teacher familiar with “multisensory approaches,” and performed assessments of B.G.’s educational needs. Although she did not object to the report, B.G.’s mother requested Independent Educational Evaluations at public expense in seven areas. The State Board of Education concluded that the District's evaluations were appropriate. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The hearing officer conducted a five-day hearing, heard the relevant evidence, and concluded that the District’s experts evaluated B.G. appropriately; the record shows that the District’s evaluators were competent, well-trained, and performed comprehensive evaluations. Particularly under the deferential standard of review applicable here, there is no cause to set aside the hearing officer’s well-reasoned decision. View "B.G. v. Jackson" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's order denying the school's motion for summary judgment in a qui tam action brought by relators under the False Claims Act (FCA). Relators alleged that the school violated an incentive compensation ban included in its program participation agreement with the Department of Education, through which it qualified for federal funding.The panel held that a reasonable trier of fact could conclude that the school's actions met the falsity requirements in Universal Health Servs., Inc. v. United States ex rel. Escobar, 136 S. Ct. 1989 (2016). The panel held that Escobar did not overrule United States ex rel. Hendow v. Univ. of Phoenix, 461 F.3d 1166 (9th Cir. 2006), which held that, with regard to materiality, the question is whether the false certification was relevant to the government's decision to confer a benefit. The panel applied Esobar's standard of materiality and held that a reasonable trier of fact could find materiality because the DOE's payment was conditioned on compliance with the incentive compensation ban, past enforcement activities, and the substantial size of the incentive payments. Finally, the safe harbor provision was inapplicable in this case. View "US ex rel. Rose v. Stephens Institute" on Justia Law

L.H. has Down Syndrome. Through second grade, L.H. was “mainstreamed,” i.e., educated in the standard Normal Park School setting, integrated with non-disabled grade-level peers, and taught the standard curriculum, with special supports and services. An “IEP team” comprising his parents, teachers, and staff, prepared an annual “individualized education program” (IEP). L.H. made progress academically but did not keep pace with his peers. Staff members suggested moving L.H. to a Comprehensive Development Classroom (CDC) at a different school. L.H.’s parents resisted. L.H. remained at Normal Park. Teachers reported that L.H.’s behavior became disruptive; they changed his curriculum and attempted to minimize distractions by isolating L.H. L.H.’s behavior improved but progress toward his goals did not. Over his parents’ objections, L.H.’s 2013-2014 (third grade) IEP unilaterally ordered L.H. transferred to the CDC, where the curriculum uses an online special-education program (ULS) to teach reading and math. ULS follows Common CORE standards but is not peer-reviewed nor is it tied to Tennessee’s general-education standards. The CDC had two teachers and nine students. There would be little interaction between disabled and non-disabled students. L.H.’s parents rejected the IEP and enrolled L.H. at a private school, where he has remained.They sued under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 20 U.S.C. 1400. The district court held that placement of L.H. in the segregated classroom was more restrictive than necessary and violated the IDEA, but that the parents’ alternative placement did not satisfy the IDEA. The Sixth Circuit affirmed that the CDC placement violated the IDEA, but concluded that the private placement did satisfy the IDEA, and remanded for a determination of reimbursement. The Normal Park teachers were openly unwilling to properly mainstream L.H., rather than removing him when it became challenging. View "L. H. v. Hamilton County Department of Education" on Justia Law

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

The State and other defendants the New Hampshire Department of Education; Margaret Wood Hassan, individually; Christopher T. Sununu, as Governor; Virginia M. Barry, individually; and Frank Edelblut, as Commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Education, appealed a superior court order granting plaintiffs Bedford School District and William Foote (collectively, “Bedford”), attorney’s fees in a case that Bedford had filed to recover adequate education funding that the State withheld in fiscal year 2016 because of a statutory limit on state funding imposed under RSA 198:41, III(b) (Supp. 2015) (repealed 2015, repeal effective July 1, 2017). On appeal, the State argued that because the trial court specifically declined to find that the State had acted in bad faith in this litigation, the trial court unsustainably exercised its discretion in awarding attorney’s fees. The State also argued that Bedford waived its right to attorney’s fees when it accepted education funds appropriated by a bill that contained a waiver provision. The New Hampshire Supreme Court found after review of the superior court record, that Bedford waived its right to an award of attorney’s fees, and thus reversed the superior court’s order. View "Bedford School District v. New Hampshire" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, a student and two student groups behind a Free Speech Event at the University of South Carolina, filed suit alleging that University officials violated their First Amendment rights when they required one of the students to attend a meeting to discuss complaints about their event. Plaintiffs also alleged a facial challenge to the University's general policy on harassment, arguing that it was unconstitutionally vague and overly broad.The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for the University defendants, holding that the University neither prevented plaintiffs from holding their Free Speech Event nor sanctioned them after the fact. Plaintiffs failed to show a credible threat that the University would enforce its harassment policy against their speech in the future, and thus they lacked standing to pursue their facial attack on the policy. View "Abbott v. Pastides" on Justia Law

Washington public school teachers filed a class action to order the Director of DRS to return interest that was allegedly skimmed from their state-managed retirement accounts. The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of a stipulated motion to certify a class and dismissal of the action as prudentially unripe. The panel held that the district court erred in dismissing the teachers' takings claim as prudentially unripe because DRS's withholding of the interest accrued on the teachers' accounts constitutes a per se taking to which the prudential ripeness test in Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, 473 U.S. 172 (1985), did not apply.In regard to the Director's alternative grounds for summary judgment, the panel held that plaintiffs stated a takings claim for daily interest withheld by the Director; the panel clarified that the core property right recognized in Schneider v. California Department of Corrections, 151 F.3d 1194 (9th Cir. 1988), covered interest earned daily, even if payable less frequently; plaintiffs' takings claim was not barred by issue preclusion or by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine; and the takings claim was not foreclosed by the Eleventh Amendment. The panel also held that the district court erred in denying the motion for class certification. Accordingly, the panel remanded for further proceedings. View "Fowler v. Guerin" on Justia Law

The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the school district in an action filed by plaintiffs of a student, alleging violation of the student's rights under the Rehabilitation Act when the school district failed to make reasonable accommodations for her. The court held that the parents' complaint sought relief available under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) -- relief for the denial of a free and appropriate public education-- and thus they must exhaust their administrative remedies unless an exception to the exhaustion requirement applied. In this case, none of the three exceptions to the exhaustion requirement applied. Therefore, the district court properly granted summary judgment for failure to exhaust administrative remedies under the IDEA. View "Nelson v. Charles City Community School District" on Justia Law

M.B., a second-grade student with dyslexia and epilepsy, took her service dog to school to detect and respond to her seizures. In third grade, M.B. switched to the School, which had a specialized program for dyslexic students. M.B.’s mother explained the need for a dog; the principal stated that M.B. was a “good fit.” Later, M.B. was paired with a new service dog, Buddy, but the principal asserted that Buddy would be “too much of a distraction.” Because Buddy was not allowed to accompany her, M.B. had extensive absences in third and fourth grades. In fifth grade, M.B.’s pediatric neurologist recommended that Buddy accompany M.B. at school. The principal then said that another student was allergic to dogs. M.B. missed school for more than two months. The parents of the allergic student informed the principal that they had arranged for allergy treatments and did not want M.B. to be excluded on their son’s behalf. The principal finally agreed that M.B. could return with Buddy in a special therapeutic shirt. The shirt made Buddy overheated and he failed to alert to M.B.’s seizures. At one point, M.B slept on the floor for hours after seizing. M.B. withdrew and enrolled in the local public school, which allowed Buddy to accompany her. M.B. had fallen behind and had to repeat fourth grade.M.B.’s parents sued. The Third Circuit reinstated their Rehabilitation Act claim: As a matter of first impression, despite the absence of a regulation specifically interpreting the RA's mandate of “reasonable accommodations,” the RA generally requires that individuals with disabilities be permitted to be accompanied by their service animals, consistent with the mandate of “reasonable modifications” under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Such requested accommodations are per se reasonable. View "Berardelli v. Allied Services Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine" on Justia Law

School administrators filed suit alleging that the school board's investigation and discipline of their efforts to convert their school into a charter school violated their freedom of speech and association in violation of the First Amendment. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the school board under D'Angelo v. School Board of Polk County, 497 F.3d 1203 (11th Cir. 2007). The panel held that the Supreme Court's most recent opinion in Lane v. Franks, 134 S. Ct. 2369 (2014), did not undermine, let alone abrogate D'Angelo's precedential effect. In this case, the administrators spoke not as private citizens but as the principal and assistant principal of a public school, pursuant to their official duties, when they undertook to convert their public school into a charter school. Therefore, their speech was not protected by the First Amendment. View "Fernandez v. The School Board of Miami-Dade County" on Justia Law