Four Years of Compensatory Ed upheld

[Sheila]

From: http://www.wrightslaw.com/nltr/08/al.0310.draper.htm

Excerpts:

On March 20, 2007, the District Court of Georgia ordered the Atlanta Independent School System to pay Jarron Draper's tuition at a private special education school for four years, or until he graduated from high school, as prospective compensatory education for their persistent failure to educate him.

The Judge ruled that [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"Compensatory awards should compensate, and this means that they must do more than provide ‘some benefit' as required by ordinary IEPs ...[/FONT]" Decision

The Atlanta Independent School System and Jarron appealed to the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit to resolve different legal issues.
On March 6, 2008, the Court of Appeals unanimously upheld the decision of the District Court in Jarron Draper v. Atlanta Independent School System (11th Cir. 2008).

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]This Alert describes the case and how it will help other families and their attorneys negotiate better settlements with school districts. The Alert includes additional information about Jarron and the legal issues in these decisions.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Prospective Compensatory Ed in a Private School [/FONT] In [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Jarron Draper v. Atlanta Independent School District (N.D. GA 2007)[/FONT], the District Court held that: [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]

"Compensatory education involves discretionary, prospective, injunctive relief crafted by a court to remedy what might be termed an educational deficit created by an educational agency's failure over a given period of time to provide a FAPE to a student ...

"Compensatory awards should compensate, and this means that they must do more than provide ‘some benefit' as required by ordinary IEPs ... compensatory education is necessary to preserve a handicapped child's right to a free education."[/FONT]

The U. S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upheld the District Court's award of compensatory education that required the school system to pay prospective educational services provided by a private school. The Court specifically rejected the notion that the student had to prove that the public school system was incapable of providing the compensatory education.

The Court relied on the Supreme Court decisions in Sch. Comm. of Burlington v. Dep't of Educ., 471 U.S. 359, 105 S.Ct. 1996 (1985) and Florence County Sch. Dist. Four v. Carter ex rel. Carter, 510 U.S. 7, 114 S.Ct. (1993), which held that school districts are required to reimburse parents for the costs of private placements in nonpublic schools when the public school failed to provide the child with an appropriate education.

Relying on these decisions, the Court reasoned that the District Court had the authority to require a public school to pay the cost of prospective compensatory education that would be provided by a private school.



[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Read more about it at http://www.wrightslaw.com/nltr/08/al.0310.draper.htm .
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[Sheila]

"Poor Man's Burlington Remedy" [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][/FONT]
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The harsh reality is that most families cannot afford to remove their child from an inappropriate public school program and pay tuition for a private placement, while also incurring the expenses of a due process hearing and subsequent litigation.​

In Draper, the 11th Circuit fashioned a "poor man's Burlington remedy" for these families:

"The Act does not relegate families who lack the resources to place their children unilaterally in private schools to shouldering the burden of proving that the public school cannot adequately educate their child before those parents can obtain a placement in a private school. The Act instead empowers the district court to use broad discretion to fashion appropriate relief."

Read more in Poor Man's Burlington Remedy by Steve Wyner, one of Jarron's attorneys.