Publication Sneak Peek

This segment features content from other AAEA publications. School Law Review is a quarterly publication available to subscribing districts. The following excerpt comes from the March 2024 issue.

RECENT COURT DECISIONS: SPECIAL EDUCATION/SECTION 504

R.M. v. Joshua Sch. Dist., U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas (Nov. 16, 2022)

The parents of a 15-year-old student with an intellectual disability filed suit against a district alleging that the district violated Section 504 by discriminating against the student when it placed the student at a campus for students with behavioral issues despite the fact that the student did not present with any behavioral issues.

The court denied the district’s motion to dismiss the case, concluding that the parents provided many details that supported their allegations of intentional discrimination, including evidence that the student had benefited from her placement in the general education environment for many years; the district changed the placement without providing any explanation for the proposed placement; and, the district offered virtually the same option when the parents expressed concerns about the proposed placement and sought appropriate accommodations.

D.R. v. Redondo Sch. Dist., U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (Dec. 20, 2022)

The parents of an elementary school student with autism claimed that the district violated the IDEA’s least restrictive environment mandate by proposing to place the student in a blended program despite the fact that the student’s progress toward his academic goals established that a general education classroom was the child’s LRE.

The court reversed the lower court's ruling, finding that the student’s LRE was in the general education classroom because she had achieved the majority of the goals in her IEP. The district court erred in focusing on the student’s grade-level performance in determining that she did not received sufficient benefit in the general education classroom, because grade-level performance is not the appropriate benchmark for all children with disabilities; rather, the appropriate benchmark for measuring the academic benefits they receive is progress toward their IEP goals.