Parents Involved in Landmark Case Denied Reimbursement for Private Special Education

As we noted earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that parents who haven’t been able to get special education services through their public school may be able to get reimbursement from the school district for private school tuition. This was a landmark decision because in the past, parents could only get reimbursement for private special education if they first tried public services and found them to be inadequate.

Here comes the lawyer-y part: even though the Supreme Court’s decision said that they were eligible to apply for reimbursement, the parents who brought the Supreme Court case still had to return to the trial court to argue that their particular circumstances warranted reimbursement. Recently, the trial court ruled that the school district was not required to reimburse the costs of the student’s private education because it found that he had been put into the private institution to address drug and behavioural issues, and not because of learning problems caused by his disability (ADHD). If you’re even more lawyer-y than that, read the court’s full opinion here.

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