U.S. Supreme Court to weigh special-ed case

In a case with potential financial repercussions for school districts and families, the U.S. Supreme Court soon will decide when public schools must reimburse parents of special-education students for private-school tuition.

The case before the court involves an Oregon high-school student, identified in court documents only as T.A., whose parents enrolled him in a $5,200-a-month residential school after he became a heavy marijuana user and ran away from home.

Although his guidance counselor had noticed his difficulties and arranged an evaluation, the teen, who had angry outbursts and a history of behavioral problems, was found ineligible for special-education services at his high school in the Forest Grove School District.

Lawyer's argument

"The district evaluation looked only at whether he had learning disabilities," said Mary Broadhurst, the lawyer representing T.A. "Even though staff notes mentioned suspected attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder, they never evaluated him for it. So they refused to help."

Forest Grove, in its effort to reverse an appellate-court decision ordering it to pay the teen's tuition, argues that precisely because the boy never received special-education services in public school, he is not eligible for tuition reimbursement under the federal disabilities law.

Disability-rights advocates, backed by the federal Department of Education, argue that the law must allow such reimbursement, even for children who were never in special education, or risk forcing them to waste precious learning time languishing in classrooms where they are not getting an appropriate education.

School districts contend paying for private school for students whose parents enrolled them without district consent — and without previous eligibility for special-education services — diverts resources from the millions of special-education students in the public schools.

Initial agreement

In this case, Forest Grove School District v. T.A., the district said the family agreed with the initial finding that their son was not eligible for special education and removed him to private school without following all the procedures to get what ultimately was a diagnosis of ADHD and other problems for their son.

The Supreme Court, which heard arguments in the case in April, is taking its second pass at the issue. Two years ago, in New York City Board of Education v. Tom F., the court deadlocked after Justice Anthony Kennedy recused himself without an explanation.

In the case, Tom Freston, the former chief executive of Viacom, sought tuition reimbursement after enrolling his learning-disabled son in private school without trying public school. The split left standing the appellate-court ruling in favor of Freston. In the Forest Grove case, the U.S. District Court ruled that the boy's family could not receive reimbursement, but the decision was overturned by the appellate court.

Legally, both cases center on the interpretation of a 1997 amendment to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which provides that disabled children are entitled to a "free appropriate public education."

That amendment says that parents of children with disabilities "who previously received special education" services in a public setting may be entitled to reimbursement for private-school tuition if their public school did not make free appropriate public education available in a timely manner.

While most of the nation's 6 million special-education students attend public school, the law allows parents to seek public financing for private school if the public schools cannot adequately serve their children. Almost 90,000 students are in private placements, most of them with their public school's agreement.

But increasingly, thousands of families unilaterally enroll their learning-disabled, emotionally disabled or autistic children in private schools — often with staggeringly high tuitions — and then seek reimbursement.