A.S. v. Five Town Community School District
United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
513 F.3d 279 (2008)
- Written by Carolyn Strutton, JD
Facts
A.S. was a teenage girl with emotional disabilities. A.S.’s parents (the parents) (plaintiffs) believed that a residential therapeutic placement was the only appropriate educational option for A.S. and requested that the Five Town Community School District (the district) (defendant) pay for that placement. The district denied the parents’ initial request but began the special-education process to determine what services would be appropriate for A.S. The district formed a team to begin developing an individualized education program (IEP) for A.S., including an independent evaluator. As the district worked to develop the IEP, however, the parents obstructed the process by refusing to consider any placement options besides a therapeutic residential school. The parents made a unilateral choice to abandon the IEP process, send A.S. to a school of their choice, and seek to be reimbursed for the tuition by filing an administrative appeal. The administrative review rejected the parents’ reimbursement request, after which the parents filed a claim in federal district court, alleging that the district had violated the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) by failing to provide a free appropriate public education (FAPE) to A.S. The district-court judge held for the district, finding that the parents had disrupted the IEP process, which would have provided a FAPE for A.S. if it had been completed. The parents appealed.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Selya, J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 805,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 46,300 briefs, keyed to 988 casebooks. Top-notch customer support.
- The right amount of information, includes the facts, issues, rule of law, holding and reasoning, and any concurrences and dissents.
- Access in your classes, works on your mobile and tablet. Massive library of related video lessons and high quality multiple-choice questions.
- Easy to use, uniform format for every case brief. Written in plain English, not in legalese. Our briefs summarize and simplify; they don’t just repeat the court’s language.
