Supreme Court to hear IDEA case about reimbursement for private school placement
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Board of Education of City of New York v. Tom F., Docket No. 06-637, involving whether parents who place their children with disabilities in private schools, without the students ever having been enrolled in the public school system, are entitled to reimbursement at public expense. The justices held in the 1985 case of Burlington School Committee v. Massachusetts Department of Education that parents are entitled to reimbursement for "unilateral placements" when courts later determine that the school district’s placement of the child was inappropriate under the IDEA and the parents’ private school placement was appropriate.
The New York City school system contends that it made a free, appropriate public education (FAPE) available to the student, Gilbert Freston, but that the boy’s father, Thomas E. Freston, did not accept the placement. Therefore, the district should not be responsible for the costs of the private placement, it says in legal briefs. Mr. Freston is one of the co-founders of MTV: Music Television and the former president and chief executive officer of the entertainment company Viacom Inc. He enrolled Gilbert in a New York City private school for children with special needs in the fall of 1995. In 1997 and 1998, the New York City district established an individualized education program (IEP) for Gilbert, which the school district acknowledged was inadequate, according to Neal Rosenberg, a lawyer for the Freston family. The New York City school board reimbursed the family about $36,000 for tuition for those two years. In 1999, the district offered a different placement for Gilbert. Despite never visiting the public school suggested for his son, or any of the other public schools suggested for his son in the past, the district’s brief said, Mr. Freston again sought tuition reimbursement for the 1999-2000 school year.
In April 2001, a state special education hearing officer determined the district had not met its burden of proving that its recommended placement was appropriate for the student. On appeal, a state review officer upheld the hearing officer’s decision that the district must pay the 1999-2000 tuition. The school system appealed to U.S. district court, which in July 2005 concluded that the text of the IDEA suggests "that where a child has not previously received special education from a public agency, there is no authority to reimburse the tuition expenses arising from the parent’s unilateral placement of the child in private school." Mr. Freston appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
A three-judge appeals panel unanimously vacated the district court, applying the reasoning of a recent decision the Second Circuit had made in a similar case, Frank G. v. Board of Education of Hyde Park Central School District. In that case, a different Second Circuit panel said the idea of parents having to enroll their child in a public school first places them "in the untenable position of acquiescing to an inappropriate placement in order to seek reimbursement from the public agency that devised the inappropriate placement." The New York City district argues the Second Circuit court’s rulings in this area conflict with a 1997 amendment to the IDEA that made clear the statute does not require public schools to reimburse parents when a district offers an appropriate placement but the parents voluntarily place their children in private schools. The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case during the term that starts next October.
Education Week
By Christina A. Samuels
[Full story]
[Editor’s Note: The Second Circuit’s decision in Frank G., 459 F.3d 356 (2d Cir. 2006), is summarized below. The Hyde Park school board has filed a petition for certiorari with the Supreme Court in that case as well, Docket No. 06-580.]
[NSBA School Law pages on Frank G. v. Board of Educ. of Hyde Park]