HLG is proud of its attorneys’ consistent advocacy for our clients, and for the scores of decisions that we have participated in to improve special education programs, reduce unnecessary litigation costs, and clarify special education laws for our partners. Our work has benefited not only the individual clients who were parties to the appeals, but has positively impacted all school districts in California and the Ninth Circuit who can rely on the law established through our litigation.
Below is a small sampling of some of our most impactful legal work.
Rewriting Public Obligations To Parentally-Placed Private School Students
Eliminating a decades-long dispute over school districts’ obligations to parentally-placed private school students, the Ninth Circuit clarified that public schools have no obligation to convene an IEP meeting for a private school student—including an annual IEP team meeting—unless the parents explicitly request that the public school develop an IEP for their child. This decision has greatly changed and streamlined how our clients, and public schools throughout the Ninth Circuit, both respond to parental notices of unilateral placements in private school and seek out private school students under their Child Find obligations. Capistrano Unified Sch. Dist. v. S.W., 21 F.4th 1125, 1138 (9th Cir. 2021).
Establishing That Two Year Statute of Limitations Applies to IEE Requests
In this precedent setting case, HLG successfully argued that the District did not have any obligation to “file or fund” in response to parents’ untimely request for an IEE. Parents’ request for the IEE was barred by the statute of limitations, because it was made 28 months after the District completed its evaluation of the student. The decision was the first opinion establishing a time limitation on parents’ ability to request IEEs in the state of California, and, in the years since, this case’s time limit on requesting IEEs has saved California’s public schools hundreds of thousands of dollars in vital public funding. Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified Sch. Dist. v. Student, OAH Case No. 2012051153.
Defining Stay Put Placements For Students Without An Implemented IEP
The IDEA provides for a student to “stay put” in their current educational placement during the course of litigation regarding the appropriateness of their IEP. In this case, the court considered whether a parent’s placement in their own program could be “stay put” where the family had never consented to implementation of an IEP by the district. The Ninth Circuit found that a parental placement can only be subject to stay put if the administrative decision also formally finds that the parental placement is appropriate moving forward. L.M. v. Capistrano Unified Sch. Dist., 556 F.3d 900, 913 (9th Cir. 2009).
