A federal appeals court has ruled that a school district’s failure to include the parent of a student with disabilities in an individualized education plan (IEP) meeting in which the student’s placement was changed violated IDEA.
The case involves an 18-year-old student with autism from Hawaii. The teen’s father wanted to attend the IEP meeting, but was not able to do so. Following several efforts to reschedule, the IEP team held the meeting without the father, claiming that it was difficult to work with him and his schedule. At the meeting, the team changed the teen’s placement from a private special education school to a workplace-readiness program at a public high school. The father rejected the new IEP, kept his son in the private school, and sought due process.
A local hearing officer and a federal district court ruled in favor of the school system, but the father appealed the decision.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit unanimously reversed those lower rulings, holding that parental participation safeguards in IDEA are vital, and that procedural violations that interfere with parental participation undermine the essence of the law.
“We have consistently held that an agency cannot eschew its affirmative duties under the IDEA by blaming the parents,” the court wrote.
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