On June 22, 2009 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that parents of a disabled child are entitled to tuition reimbursement for the child’s private school education even though the child’s public school never found that he needed special education services and, therefore, never provided him with special education services. In reaching this decision, the Supreme Court evaluated the Individuals with Disabilities Act which provides that public tuition may be available for students who “previously received special education” services in a public school if the public school does not provide a “free or appropriate public education (“FAPE”) for that student.
The student in question exhibited serious academic problems during his high school years. On one occasion, he even brought a knife to school. A school psychologist evaluated him and found no evidence of any learning disability. Based on that decision, the school did not prepare an Individualized Educational Plan (“IEP”) nor did it place him in a special education program. A private doctor later diagnosed this child with a form of attention deficit disorder and his parents enrolled him a private school.
The school district argued that this child never tried a special education program at the public high school and, therefore, was not entitled to tuition reimbursement. The Supreme Court rejected this argument and found that the school could not deny tuition reimbursement when it denied special education services to this child based on a wrong diagnosis. In essence, the school district could not have it both ways – refuse to provide special education services and then refuse to reimburse the parents when they seek these services for their child.
In summary, this case highlights the importance of a school district obtaining a proper diagnosis for a child having difficulties, creating a proper IEP based on IDEA’s “Child Find” requirement “to identify, locate and evaluate all children with disabilities” to ensure they receive needed special education services and then providing these services either through the school district or another acceptable program. Failure to do so could result in substantial expenses incurred by the public school district.
