Ferreira v. New York City Department Of Education
- Jesse Furman
- 1:19-cv-02937
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 8
In Ferreira v. New York City Department of Education, Judge Furman denied the parent’s motions, granted the DOE’s and SED’s motions, and rejected stay-put funding after a unilateral school change.
Justine Ferreira and N.R.; the New York City Department of Education; and, in the second case, the New York State Education Department and the other named defendants.
What happened
In Ferreira v. New York City Department of Education and the related Ferreira v. Richard Carranza case, Justine Ferreira sought funding for her child’s attendance at iBrain while disputes about the child’s education were pending. She argued that the federal special-education law required the school district to continue paying during those proceedings.
The court held that the law did not require funding when a parent unilaterally moved a child from the previously funded school and the school district did not agree to the change. The court also dismissed Ferreira’s claim against the New York State Education Department because the requested hearing had already occurred and she identified no continuing harm.
Judge Jesse M. Furman denied Ferreira’s motions for summary judgment and a preliminary injunction, granted the New York City Department of Education’s motions for summary judgment, granted the State Education Department’s motion to dismiss, and dismissed the complaints in both cases.
The detailed version
- Ferreira v. New York City Department Of Education · No. 1:19-cv-02937
- Jesse Furman
- Mar. 6, 2020
Background
These two related cases concerned Justine Ferreira’s request for funding under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), a federal law addressing the education of children with disabilities. Ferreira is the mother of N.R., a child with disabilities.
During the 2017–2018 school year, N.R. attended the International Academy of Hope, or iHOPE. An impartial hearing officer approved funding for that year and determined that iHOPE was an appropriate placement. The next day, Ferreira notified the New York City Department of Education (DOE) that she intended to move N.R. to the International Institute for the Brain, or iBrain, for the 2018–2019 school year. The DOE did not agree to the transfer, and no hearing officer approved it. N.R. nevertheless began attending iBrain.
Ferreira then sought funding for iBrain under the IDEA’s “stay-put” provision, which generally requires the existing educational placement to remain in place while an administrative or court dispute is pending. An impartial hearing officer denied pendency, or stay-put, funding for the 2018–2019 school year, and the State Review Office upheld that denial on different grounds. Ferreira later enrolled N.R. at iBrain again for 2019–2020 and filed another administrative funding claim. By the time of the court’s decision, a hearing officer had been appointed and had held a pendency hearing, but no decision had issued on pendency or educational funding.
Legal question and analysis
The central question was whether a parent may obtain stay-put funding after unilaterally moving a child from the previously funded school to another school without the school district’s agreement. The court held that the parent may not do so under the circumstances presented here.
The court explained that the stay-put provision requires the district to continue funding the educational placement that was previously agreed upon while the dispute is resolved. It does not allow a parent unilaterally to select a different school and require the district to fund it. The court found no suggestion or evidence that iHOPE was inadequate, unavailable, or selected by the DOE in bad faith. By transferring N.R. to iBrain without the DOE’s agreement, Ferreira assumed responsibility for the costs of obtaining those services.
The court also rejected Ferreira’s argument that iBrain became the operative placement simply because N.R. attended there when the administrative cases were filed. Allowing a parent to create the operative placement through a unilateral transfer, the court reasoned, would undermine the school district’s ability to choose the program funded under the stay-put provision.
Rulings
The court denied Ferreira’s motions for summary judgment and for a preliminary injunction. Summary judgment is a decision without a trial when the key facts are not genuinely disputed. The court granted the DOE’s cross-motion for summary judgment in the first case and granted summary judgment to the DOE in the second case even though the DOE had not filed a formal cross-motion there.
The court also granted the New York State Education Department’s motion to dismiss in Case No. 19-CV-8519. Ferreira alleged that the State Education Department had failed to ensure a timely administrative hearing and sought an order requiring it to appoint a hearing officer. The court found that a hearing officer had already been appointed and had held the pendency hearing, and that Ferreira had identified no other continuing harm.
The opinion states that Ferreira’s complaints in both cases were dismissed. The court’s classification is mixed because it decided the stay-put funding issue on the merits while disposing of the claim against the State Education Department through a motion to dismiss.
Read the full 8-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.