Independent School District No. 283 v. E.M.D.H.

Background

E.M.D.H., a minor represented by her parents and next friends, challenged the school district’s handling of her special-education needs under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). In an earlier administrative decision dated March 16, 2018, an administrative law judge found that the student was eligible for special education and related services, that the district had failed to evaluate and identify her appropriately, and that the district had denied her a free appropriate public education. The decision required the district to create an individualized education program (IEP) with specified academic, functional, behavioral, transition, and support services, and also required reimbursements to the parents.

The district brought an earlier federal-court action challenging that decision. The district then created an IEP, and the parents consented to its implementation while asserting that it was insufficient in several respects. The parents later requested a second administrative hearing seeking additional IEP features, including more frequent summer services, private behavioral supports, community-navigation services, and letter grades.

The administrative law judge denied the district’s request for summary disposition. On July 27, 2018, he found that the district had denied the student a free appropriate public education and ordered the IEP to be revised. The required revisions included more frequent instruction, behavioral-skills training, transition services, assistance with nonacademic and extracurricular activities, parent counseling and training, staff training, services during certain school breaks, and letter grades.

Jurisdictional issue

The district asked the federal court for judgment on the administrative record, arguing that the earlier federal appeal had deprived the administrative law judge of authority over the issues involved in that appeal. The court agreed.

The court explained that an administrative due-process decision under the IDEA is final subject to review in federal district court. It applied the rule that filing an appeal transfers authority over the appealed matters to the reviewing court and removes the lower decision-maker’s control over those matters.

The court compared the issues in the second administrative hearing with those addressed in the first hearing and the March 16 decision. It concluded that the requested additions—letter grades, summer services, extracurricular and community activities, and private behavioral services—concerned the required contents of the IEP and had been raised or addressed during the first proceeding. The parents had not filed their own appeal seeking to expand the March decision’s required IEP provisions.

Because the district’s earlier federal appeal placed the March decision and the IEP provisions within the federal court’s jurisdiction, the administrative law judge was not permitted to reexamine, supplement, or change the IEP. The court therefore concluded that the July 27, 2018 administrative decision had to be vacated.

Rulings

The court ordered the following:

The court did not address the parties’ additional arguments. It stated that the district’s allegations concerning administrative-law-judge bias had some merit, but that issue was not relevant to the rulings. The amended opinion corrected only the date of the administrative decision identified for vacatur.