Special Education/504
NJDOE Issues Guidance on ESY 2020 During COVID-19 Pandemic
On June 12, 2020, the New Jersey Department of Education (“NJDOE”) provided guidance to school districts on the delivery of extended school year (“ESY”) services to eligible students with disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. The NJDOE’s guidance was in response to the Governor’s recent Executive Order 149 allowing for in-person ESY programming beginning on or after July 6, 2020. Pursuant to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”) and corresponding New Jersey regulations, once a school district determines that a student with disability requires additional educational services during the summer, the school district is required to include an ESY program […]
NJDOE Finally Releases Notice Stating Permissibility of Delivering Related Services to Special Education Students through Remote Technology
Editor: Sanmathi (Sanu) Dev, Esq. With most schools in New Jersey closed for nearly two weeks, and all closed since Governor Murphy issued Executive Order 107 on March 21, 2020, school districts across the State have been awaiting further guidance from the New Jersey Department of Education (“NJDOE”) on the important issue of whether NJDOE would permit the provision of related services to special education students through remote technology and distance learning during this period of school closure due to the COVID-19 virus. That much-awaited guidance came yesterday, as Commissioner of Education Dr. Lamont Repollet issued a letter titled “Notice […]
N.J. District Court Affirms Dismissal of Parent’s Special Education Case as Time-Barred
In a case decided on February 11, 2020 by the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, Camden Vicinage, the Eastampton School District (“District”) successfully dismissed a parent’s lawsuit brought under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”) on the basis that it was filed beyond the two-year statute of limitations. In McLean v. Eastampton School District, the parent of a special education student initiated a due process petition in August 2018 against the District alleging that an individualized education program (“IEP”) developed by the District in June 2016 failed to provide the student with a free […]
Court Affirms Dismissal of Parent’s Suit Challenging School’s Communication Plan Setting Reasonable Limits on Father’s Constant, Aggressive E-mails
In the world of special education, parents come in all shapes and sizes in terms of their mode of interaction with the child study team and school personnel. Some parents of special needs children are cordial, while others are friendly and appreciative. Some are matter-of-fact, while others can be much more emotional or animated. Special education parents come with varying degrees of how engaged they are or wish to be in the process of planning and communicating with the school district child study team. For the thousands of child study team members around the country who serve as case managers, […]
Third Circuit Clarifies Law on Independent Evaluation Requests & Need for Disagreement with District Eval
Occasionally, school district child study teams (“CSTs”) are faced with special education parents who are resistant to allowing the CST to evaluate their child, yet demand independent evaluations from an outside evaluator at the school district’s expense. In such circumstances, districts were often faced with a dilemma – either acquiesce to such demands, or file for due process themselves and incur legal fees to resist such requests, or deny the parent’s request without filing for due process and risk an Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) finding that the district committed a procedural violation. This is because previous decisions of the Office […]
OSEP Clarifies: Parental Consent Not Required to Conduct Post-Secondary Transition Assessments if Child Study Team not Reevaluating
By: Cameron R. Morgan, Esq. and Nicole Crincoli, Law Clerk The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”) requires informed parental consent to be provided prior to a child study team performing any number of different actions in the course of the special education process. Whether a school district needs to obtain written parental consent prior to administering postsecondary transition assessments had been a question of some debate. In a recent guidance letter from the Office of Special Education Programs (“OSEP”), Letter to Olex, 119 L.R.P. 8445, 74 I.D.E.L.R. 22 (Feb. 22, 2019), OSEP indicated that individualized education program (“IEP”) teams generally […]
Special Education Settlement Subject to 6-Year Statute of Limitations
When boards of education resolve disputes with parents of special education students, they often enter into settlement agreements with the parents which are approved by an Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) of the New Jersey Office of Administrative Law (“OAL”). On February 27, 2019, the New Jersey Appellate Division in L.A. v. South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education issued a decision affirming that parties to a settlement agreement approved by the OAL are subject to a six-year statute of limitations to enforce that agreement. In 2000, the parent of a special education student initiated litigation against the South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education (“Board”) seeking reimbursement […]
District Court Denies Parents’ Request for IEE
Parents of special education students have the right to request an independent educational evaluation (“IEE”) at the expense of the school district if they disagree with any assessment conducted as part of an initial evaluation or a reevaluation conducted by the school district. However, that right is not unfettered. On January 31, 2019, the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey in S.S. and M.S., o/b/o H.S. v. Hillsborough Township Public School District overturned an Administrative Law Judge’s decision and determined (1) parents are only entitled to an IEE at the district’s expense when they disagree with an evaluation or reevaluation […]
Parents Not Entitled to IEE at Public Expense Due to Minor Flaws in Reevaluation
In the realm of New Jersey special education, it is not a rare occurrence for parents to request an independent educational evaluation (“IEE”) of a special education student at public expense in response to an evaluation of the student conducted by the child study team. Each year, New Jersey school districts are faced with hundreds of requests for IEEs at public expense. The vast majority of these are granted voluntarily by the district, sometimes on the basis of a cost-benefit assessment that has little to do with whether the evaluation was appropriately conducted or whether the IEE will shed any […]
Attorney’s Fees Relevant to Ten-Day Offers in IDEA Cases
A major concern for school districts in special education cases is the potential for parents to recover attorney’s fees if they are considered prevailing parties under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”). School districts may limit exposure by extending a “ten-day offer” in which it makes an offer of settlement to the parents at least ten days before an administrative due process hearing. If the parent rejects the ten-day offer, the parent may only recover attorney’s fees for work done after the time of the offer if (1) the hearing leads to more favorable relief than the offer included, […]
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