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Whether or not the Parents are entitled to reimbursement is a complicated legal question. The notice to the District must meet certain procedural requirements. I would NEVER recommend a unilateral placement without working with a special education attorney or a seasoned special education advocate. If Parents' notice is not sufficient, they are not entitled to reimbursement.
On July 9, 2018, the Bureau of Special Education Appeals ("BSEA") ruled that the Andover Public Schools ("Andover") had violated the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ("IDEA") by failing to offer a nine-year-old boy with dyslexia an Individualized Education Plan ("IEP") that provided a Free Appropriate Public Education ("FAPE"). The BSEA ordered Andover to reimburse the family for their costs of unilaterally placing their son at the Landmark School and found that the student continued to require intensive, specialized instruction in a fully-subseparate language-based program.
Like any litigation, a special education hearing can become expensive and risky. Therefore, many parents choose to enter settlement agreements, even paying part of the costs of special education programs, rather than go to a full hearing and risk losing. This is reflected in statistics from the Bureau of Special Education Appeals, indicating that over the last 10 years between 95 and 97 percent of all of these disputes are resolved without a full hearing. (See attached) This is not an unusual statistic. In Superior Court in Massachusetts the percentage of all types of litigation disposed without a trial is strikingly similar.
Question: My child has complicated issues and the district granted a 45 day placement for evaluation. I am not in agreement with what they have proposed. The 45 day placement is over and I wanted to reject their proposal to bring him back to district. I am told I have no stay put rights. Is this true?
How do I get my Autistic son into an out of district school when the public school continues to ignore a doctor's recommendation? My son is autistic and I have filed due process last year because of an incident that should not have occurred if he had not been moved to a school that did not have an adequate autism program in place.
I recently came across this article in my copy of Parenting magazine. While I applaud the magazine for addressing learning disabilities, I was disappointed with the advice. In the article, a mother of a child with learning disabilities asked the magazine financial expert, "My son has been diagnosed with learning disorders. A special school could help him -- but it costs $7,000 a year. That's about what we have budgeted for savings and chipping away at our debt. Should we do it?" While the expert did indicate that public funding for the school may be available, that was not the main focus of her answer.
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