Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Administrative Law Blogs -> Within the Scope

Administrative Law

: Within the Scope

Appellate Panel: Corrective Action of Special Education Laws Must Remediate Violation

By E.L. Lipman

In an interesting published opinion issued by the Minnesota Court of Appeals issued on Monday, an appellate panel reversed an earlier remediation order of the Minnesota Department of Education. The order directed Independent School District No. 192 to reimburse the parent of a disabled child one-half of the amounts that the parent had spent on hiring a private tutor for the child.

Concluding that any violations of federal special education law that were found by the agency could not be remedied by additional tutoring for the student, Judge Natalie Hudson wrote for the panel:

We recognize the relationship here between student?s behavioral issues and academic progress, but when, as in this case, the record plainly demonstrates and the MDE itself concluded that student made adequate academic progress, there is a fundamental disconnect between the MDE?s finding of broader, procedural [Individuals with Disabilities Education Act] violations and the remedy of reimbursement for private tutoring expenses. When a school district violates an [Individual Education Plan], any corrective action must ?remediate the denial of those services.? Here, the school district?s violations were primarily related to the school district?s failure to provide appropriate behavioral services, not its denial of academic services. Monetary reimbursement for the tutor was not related to the denial of those behavioral services and, therefore, was inappropriate.

The complete opinion is accessible at this link here.

Full post as published by Within the Scope on December 26, 2007 (boomark / email).