United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued December 5, 2017 Decided May 1, 2018

No. 16-7113

Z. B., A MINOR, BY HER PARENTS AND NEXT FRIENDS, ET AL.,

APPELLANTS

v.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, A MUNICIPAL CORPORATION,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:15-cv-01037)

Michael J. Eig argued the cause and filed the briefs for 

appellants.

Richard S. Love, Senior Assistant Attorney General, 

Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, 

argued the cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Karl 

A. Racine, Attorney General, Todd S. Kim, Solicitor General at 

the time the brief was filed, and Loren L. AliKhan, Solicitor 

General.

Before: MILLETT and PILLARD, Circuit Judges, and 

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge PILLARD.
2

PILLARD, Circuit Judge: Z.B. is an elementary school 

student who, from pre-kindergarten through third grade, 

attended the Phoebe Hearst Elementary School in the District 

of Columbia Public Schoolssystem (DCPS). Her parents claim

that DCPS failed to offer Z.B. a fourth grade education 

appropriate to her needs under the Individuals with Disabilities 

Education Act (IDEA or Act). Because they thought the 

education at Hearst was deficient, they withdrew Z.B. in the 

summer of 2014 and enrolled her at the Lab School, a private 

school for children with disabilities. By all accounts, Z.B. did 

well at the Lab School. DCPS, however, stands by the 

adequacy of the individualized education programs (IEPs) 

Hearst offered, so it denied Z.B.’s family reimbursement under 

the IDEA of the tuition costs at the Lab School.

On cross-motions, the district court granted summary 

judgment for DCPS. The court determined that DCPS, after 

reviewing and responding to diagnostic information and action 

requests from Z.B.’s parents, offered Z.B. an adequate 

education. The Supreme Court thereafter, in Endrew F. ex rel. 

Joseph F. v. Douglas County School District RE-1, 137 S. Ct. 

988 (2017), raised the bar on what counts as an adequate 

education under the IDEA. Endrew F. held that the Act

requires education “reasonably calculated to enable a child to 

make progress in light of the child’s circumstances”—a 

standard that the Court described as “markedly more 

demanding than the ‘merely more than de minimis’” standard 

the Tenth Circuit had applied, id. at 999-1000, and that also 

appears more demanding than the district court’s approach 

here, see Z.B. v. District of Columbia, 202 F. Supp. 3d 64, 75-

80 (D.D.C. 2016). In requiring more than merely some 

“educational benefits,” id. at 77 (quoting Bd. of Educ. v. 

Rowley, 458 U.S. 176, 207 (1982)), the Court in Endrew F.

stressed that “every child should have the chance to meet 

challenging objectives,” and that a student’s “educational 
3

program must be appropriately ambitious in light of his 

circumstances.” 137 S. Ct. at 1000.

The district court ably and extensively engaged the record 

in this case, but we discern certain errors in the legal standards 

it applied. The court excused arguable shortfalls in the IEP 

DCPS offered to Z.B. in June 2014 because of “the short time 

frame between the eligibility determination and the adoption of 

the initial IEP.” 202 F. Supp. 3d at 80. The court did not 

explain, however, why that short time frame was not DCPS’s 

own fault. The IDEA places affirmative obligations on 

schools, but the district court appears to have accepted DCPS’s

passivity: Z.B.’s parents, not DCPS, finally procured the 

evaluations used for the 2014 IEP. And the court affirmed the 

administrative finding that the 2014 IEP was adequate in part 

because, when the school “was made aware” by Z.B.’s parents 

of their “issues” with an initial version of that IEP, the school 

“agreed to all of plaintiffs’ proposed changes.” Id. It thus 

remains unclear whether and how DCPS itself made a valid 

assessment of Z.B.’s needs before it offered the 2014 IEP—and 

so whether that IEP was adequate.

The district court also faulted Z.B.’s parents for failing to 

show that Z.B.’s special education needs could not be met 

“within DCPS.” Id. at 66; see id. at 75-79. But the legal issue 

is not whether, as a general and hypothetical matter, the school 

system as a whole somehow could have met Z.B.’s needs; it 

was not Appellants’ burden to show that any possible 

placement in DCPS “was not a viable option” or “would not 

have worked.” Id. at 76-77. The issue, rather, is whether each 

of the IEPs that Hearst actually proffered was adequate at the 

time; if not, DCPS may be responsible to pay for an education 

that was. 
4

Given the legal standard the district court actually applied,

we are not confident that DCPS met its duty under Endrew F.

to evaluate Z.B. and offer a 2014 IEP that adequately 

responded to her needs: Was it too little, too late? We thus 

vacate and remand for further consideration of the substantive 

adequacy of Z.B.’s 2014 IEP under the standards of the IDEA 

as Endrew F. and this opinion describe them.

The second IEP DCPS offered in 2015, which Z.B.’s 

parents also challenge as inadequate, is a different story. By 

the time it composed the 2015 IEP, DCPS had fully 

familiarized itself with Z.B.’s individual circumstances and 

needs. Hearst had by then made its own evaluation of the 

information Z.B.’s parents and the Lab School provided, and 

conducted its own further assessments of Z.B. The record 

shows that the IEP DCPS offered Z.B. in 2015 was supported 

by the requisite analysis of Z.B.’s circumstances, and that it 

was reasonably calculated to afford her an opportunity to make 

progress in light of her particular circumstances. We 

accordingly affirm the decision of the district court as to the 

adequacy of the 2015 IEP.

I.

A.

The IDEA, 20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq., offers states federal 

funding to provide a “free appropriate public education” to 

students with disabilities, id. § 1412(a)(1)(A). The IDEA

details evaluation procedures that schools must use to 

determine precisely what services an eligible child should 

receive. See id. §§ 1414(a)-(b); see also 34 C.F.R. § 300.301, 

300.304-06. Operationally, when a school has reason to 

believe that a child with a disability is not receiving an adequate 

education, see 20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(3), it must first take 

initiative to “review existing evaluation data,” including those
5

the parents may have provided and observations of teachers 

and other professionals, “before” it begins providing services 

under the IDEA. Id. §§ 1414(a)(1)(A), (c)(1)(A). “[O]n the 

basis of that review, and input from the child’s parents,” the 

school must “identify what additional data, if any, are needed 

to determine” the child’s current needs and skills. Id. 

§ 1414(c)(1)(B). The burden is on the school to “ensure that 

. . . the child is assessed in all areas of suspected disability.” Id. 

§ 1414(b)(3)(B). If the school determines additional 

assessment is needed, the school is responsible for conducting 

that assessment. Id. § 1414(c)(2). If, however, the school 

determines no more data is needed to create an adequate

educational program tailored to the student’s needs, it must so 

notify the child’s parents and inform them of their right to 

request further assessment. Id. § 1414(c)(4).

With the “results of [that] initial evaluation” before it, the 

school and the parents—together, the “IEP Team,” see id.

§ 1414(d)(1)(B)—must design an individualized education 

program. Id. § 1414(d)(3)(A)(iii). An IEP operationalizes a 

specific student’s appropriate educational plan: It sets out, in 

writing, the student’s existing levels of academic and 

functional performance, establishes appropriate goals, and 

describes how the student’s progress toward those goals will be 

measured. Id. § 1414(d)(1)(A)(i)(I)-(III); see id. § 1401(9)(D). 

Failure to follow those procedures is actionable where it denies 

the child an appropriate education. Id. § 1415(f)(3)(E)(ii)(I).

Substantively, the IDEA “requires an educational program 

reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress 

appropriate in light of the child’s circumstances,” Endrew F., 

137 S. Ct. at 1001, even as it stops short of requiring public 

schools to provide the best possible education for the individual 

child, Rowley, 458 U.S. at 200, or an education “equal” to that 

of non-disabled peers, Endrew F., 137 S. Ct. at 1001; Rowley, 
6

458 U.S. at 198-99. If a school system fails to provide a student 

with an appropriate education and such education is offered at 

a private school, the school system may be liable to reimburse 

the student for the cost of private education. See 20 U.S.C. 

§ 1412(a)(10)(C)(ii); see generally Leggett v. District of 

Columbia, 793 F.3d 59 (D.C. Cir. 2015). 

B.

Z.B. began her schooling in pre-kindergarten at DCPS’s 

Hearst Elementary School. Because Hearst was not Z.B.’s 

neighborhood school, she was able to enroll there only after 

winning a place through a DCPS lottery.1 In their initial 

administrative complaint, Z.B.’s parents claimed they first 

noticed in pre-kindergarten that Z.B. struggled to pay attention 

and that her impulsivity and disorganization increasingly 

affected her daily functioning and ability to learn at school. 

The record contains neither evidence of any steps taken by 

DCPS to evaluate Z.B. during her pre-kindergarten or 

kindergarten years for possible disabilities, nor any direct

explanation that such steps were unnecessary.

Z.B.’s first and second grade experiences were marked by 

bullying and other interpersonal conflicts between Z.B. and 

other students, which her parents claim prompted Z.B. to 

behave inappropriately and negatively affected her academic 

progress. Nothing in the record suggests that DCPS then 

evaluated Z.B. to determine whether she was eligible for 

special education under the IDEA. Concerned about her 

behavior and academic performance, Z.B.’s parents took her in 

the spring of her second grade year for a private psychological 

evaluation at their own expense. In March 2013, a doctor at 

Children’s National Medical Center (Children’s) diagnosed 

 

1 Unless noted otherwise, the facts recounted are drawn from the 

administrative record before the Hearing Officer and District Court. 
7

Z.B. with “[a]ttention deficit hyperactivity disorder combined 

type” (ADHD). That doctor also recommended that Z.B. 

receive a functional behavioral assessment.

Z.B.’s parents hired a therapist at Children’s to work with 

Z.B. soon after that diagnosis. On May 1, 2013, near the end 

of Z.B.’s second grade year, the therapist wrote DCPS to 

recommend developing a Section 504 plan for Z.B. A Section 

504 plan, named after the section of the Rehabilitation Act of 

1983 in which it was established, defines and commits to 

provide public support for persons with disabilities. See 29 

U.S.C. § 701 et seq.; see generally Fry v. Napoleon Cmty. Sch., 

137 S. Ct. 743, 749-50 (2017). While the IDEA applies to all 

school-aged children, 20 U.S.C. §§ 1401(3)(A), 1412(a)(1),

Section 504 applies more broadly to federally financed 

programs or activities, requiring as a condition of public 

funding that recipients provide certain accommodations for 

physically or mentally impaired individuals, 29 U.S.C. 

§§ 705(20)(A), 794(a)-(b), and, in the school context, requires 

a free, appropriate education for students with qualifying 

disabilities, 34 C.F.R. § 104.33.

DCPS developed a Section 504 plan for Z.B. within two 

weeks of receiving the private therapist’s request. The plan 

provided for classroom accommodations such as simplified 

directions, extra time, and preferential seating in the classroom 

to minimize distractions. After DCPS implemented the Section 

504 plan, Z.B.’s father periodically contacted the school with 

concerns about the slow pace of Z.B.’s progress. He testified 

that, after DCPS implemented Z.B.’s section 504 plan, school 

officials were “dragging their feet on getting” Z.B. tested. Joint 

App’x (J.A.) 326.

Z.B.’s parents report that her “situation came to a head” 

after she received a threatening note on the playground in the 
8

spring of third grade. J.A. 9, 129. They maintain that Z.B. 

experienced significant distress in the period following the 

note, including bouts of insomnia and physical illness. Her 

parents alleged in their administrative complaint that, though 

Z.B.’s struggles did not subside, DCPS failed to refer her for 

special education and still refused to test her for learning 

disabilities. Instead, Z.B.’s parents—again at their own 

initiative and expense—took her for a psychiatric evaluation at 

Children’s.

In May 2014, licensed psychologist Dr. Jacqueline Sanz, 

an expert in neuropsychology, oversaw the evaluation. Her 

report concluded that Z.B. had ADHD, “weakness” in math and 

written expression, attention and executive functioning

challenges, and “problems with anxiety, depressed mood, 

oppositional behavior, and social skills.” J.A. 56-57. Dr. Sanz 

also reported Z.B. struggled with impulsivity, inattention, and 

“mood dysregulation.” J.A. 58. Based on her evaluation, Dr. 

Sanz recommended that Z.B. receive specialized instruction, 

classroom accommodations, and various therapies to support 

her learning. Z.B.’s parents shared the report with Z.B.’s 

teacher and principal at Hearst.

In May 2014, near the end of Z.B.’s third grade year—four 

school years into an elementary school experience that by 

Z.B.’s parents’ account was not working from its start—

Hearst’s principal scheduled an IEP eligibility meeting. The 

meeting was scheduled at Z.B.’s parents’ request, to respond to 

the report that Z.B.’s parents had obtained from Dr. Sanz.

Within approximately two weeks of receiving Dr. Sanz’s 

report, DCPS developed the 2014 IEP for Z.B. That IEP 

described Z.B.’s then-current levels of achievement and set 

goals for her in math, written expression, and emotional, social, 

and behavioral development. It provided that Z.B. would 
9

receive one hour per day of specialized math education outside 

the general classroom, thirty minutes per day of specialized 

written expression instruction within the general classroom, 

and one hour per week of behavioral support services outside 

the general classroom. It also provided that Z.B. would 

continue to receive the services called for in her Section 504 

plan. DCPS put the IEP into effect immediately. 

Four days later, a week and a half before the scheduled end 

of the school year, Z.B.’s parents withdrew her early from 

Hearst to enroll her in a summer camp session that began before 

the public school semester concluded. Then, on August 28, 

2014, Z.B.’s mother notified Hearst that she was withdrawing 

Z.B. and would instead enroll her at the Lab School, a private 

K-12 day school in the District for students with learning 

disabilities. Z.B. began her fourth grade year (2014-15) at the 

Lab School, which developed an IEP for her in mid-October of 

2014.

Late in 2014, pursuant to its statutory obligation to provide 

an IEP every school year for each eligible child in the 

jurisdiction, see 20 U.S.C. § 1414(d)(2)(A), DCPS for the first 

time conducted its own formal evaluations of Z.B. to prepare 

to develop its 2014-15 IEP for her (hereinafter 2015 IEP). A 

DCPS social worker in November 2014 administered a 

functional behavioral assessment by observing Z.B. at the Lab 

School and interviewing her, her parents, and her teachers. 

DCPS also administered an occupational therapy assessment

around the same time.

In December of 2014, with Z.B. attending the Lab School, 

Z.B.’s parents met with the DCPS IEP team to discuss possible 

revisions to its draft of this second IEP. DCPS worked to 

update Z.B.’s IEP and, by January 2015, finalized a program 

that contemplated serving her educational needs at Hearst.
10

The DCPS 2015 IEP provided for nine hours of specialized 

instruction per week outside the general classroom (five in 

math, three in written expression, and one in reading), and one 

hour per week of specialized reading instruction in the general 

classroom. On top of those instructional services, the IEP 

included two hours per month of behavioral support services 

outside and another two hours per month inside the general 

classroom; half an hour per week of occupational therapy 

outside the general classroom; and half an hour per month of 

occupational therapy consultation. That IEP incorporated all 

of the information offered and requests made by Z.B.’s parents 

and lawyer, but specified that Z.B. would attend Hearst. She 

would have received some of her education inside the general 

classroom there rather than all of it in the special-education 

classroom as she did at the private Lab School—which

exclusively serves students with disabilities, and which her 

parents preferred.

C.

Z.B.’s parents then filed a due process administrative 

complaint against DCPS. An impartial hearing officer at the 

D.C. Office of the State Superintendent of Education oversaw 

three days of testimony from several witnesses. In a 

determination that the district court described as unworthy of 

deference because it lacked “a detailed and reasoned 

explanation of how the evidence supports its findings and 

conclusions,” 202 F. Supp. 3d at 74, the hearing officer held 

that the 2014 and 2015 DCPS IEPs were both reasonably 

calculated to provide Z.B. an appropriate education, so DCPS 

owed Z.B.’s parents no reimbursement, see Hearing Officer 

Determination at 10-13. The hearing officer held that DCPS 

did not deny Z.B. an appropriate education by failing to include 

certain requested goals and additional special instruction, or by 

setting Hearst, rather than a full-time special-education school, 
11

as her educational institution. DCPS also did not fall short, the 

hearing officer held, by relying on “the information the [IEP] 

team had at the time,” including outside evaluations and 

recommendations—all of which were provided by Z.B.’s 

parents—“even though other assessments were needed.” Id. at 

10-11.

Z.B.’s parents filed suit in district court challenging the 

hearing officer’s determination. On cross motions for 

summary judgment, the court held that both of DCPS’s IEPs—

for 2014 and 2015—were reasonably calculated to provide 

Z.B. an appropriate education. The court first asked “whether 

removing Z.B. from DCPS is necessary to provide her with an 

education that is ‘reasonably calculated to enable the child to 

receive educational benefits’” within the meaning of Rowley. 

202 F. Supp. 3d at 77 (quoting 458 U.S. at 207). It answered 

in the negative: Nothing in Dr. Sanz’s report, the court 

reasoned, expressly or implicitly determined that Z.B. required 

full-time special education, id. at 75-76, and evidence of Z.B.’s 

later progress at the Lab School did not show that Hearst was 

unable to serve Z.B.’s educational needs, id. at 76-77.

Regarding the 2014 IEP in particular, the court concluded 

that, measured principally against the descriptions and 

recommendations in Dr. Sanz’s report, that IEP was reasonably 

calculated to enable Z.B. to make educational progress. Id. at 

79-80. As part of the adequacy analysis, the district court 

emphasized DCPS’s responsiveness under time pressure. Id. 

at 80. The 2015 IEP, too, was substantively adequate in the 

district court’s view: It addressed all of Z.B.’s identified needs, 

so offered Z.B. an appropriate education for the balance of the 

2014-15 school year. Id. The court accordingly concluded that 

Z.B.’s parents were not eligible for reimbursement for Lab 

School tuition. Id. at 81. 
12

Z.B.’s parents appealed. 

II.

The question before us is whether DCPS denied Z.B. a 

free, appropriate public education. The IDEA requires an 

education “reasonably calculated to enable a child to make 

progress appropriate in light of the child’s circumstances.” 

Endrew F., 137 S. Ct. at 999. Understanding the particulars of 

a child’s current skills and needs is critical to developing an 

“individualized” educational plan: “An IEP is not a form 

document. It is constructed only after careful consideration of 

the child’s present levels of achievement, disability, and 

potential for growth.” Id. (citing 20 U.S.C. 

§§ 1414(d)(1)(A)(i)(I)-(IV), (d)(3)(A)(i)-(iv)). As noted

above, the Act extensively details information-gathering 

procedures to ensure that school systems provide children with

qualifying disabilities an education tailored to their distinctive 

needs. See 20 U.S.C. § 1414(d)(3)(A); see also id. §§ 1414(a)-

(c). 

Z.B. does not argue that DCPS failed to meet its threshold 

“child find” obligation—that is, to make its initial 

identification of Z.B. as a student qualifying for services under 

the IDEA. And DCPS does not dispute that, as of the time of 

her IEP eligibility meeting, Z.B. was eligible for an IEP. The

parties’ dispute centers on the substantive adequacy of the 

education DCPS offered to Z.B.—in particular, in the 2014 and 

2015 IEPs.

The evaluation and information-gathering procedures of 

the IDEA are designed to position the IEP team—composed of 

both school personnel and parents—to create an IEP tailored to 

the student’s special educational needs. Failure to follow those 

procedures may yield an IEP that is not appropriately tailored 

to the student, denying her an appropriate education. See id. 
13

§ 1415(f)(3)(E)(ii); Leggett, 793 F.3d at 67. We consider the 

shortcomings Z.B.’s parents complain of in DCPS’s 

information-gathering process to determine whether the IEPs 

DCPS offered substantively fell short of what the IDEA 

requires.

Where, as here, a district court grants a motion for 

summary judgment on the administrative record without 

accepting additional evidence, we are on appeal “in exactly the 

same position as the district court” and accordingly “review its 

decision de novo.” Reid ex rel. Reid v. District of Columbia, 

401 F.3d 516, 522 (D.C. Cir. 2005). Like a district court, we 

must give “due weight” to the hearing officer’s determinations, 

Rowley, 458 U.S. at 206, but we afford “less deference than is 

conventional in administrative proceedings,” especially when 

the decision is insufficiently supported by fact or reasoning,

Reid, 401 F.3d at 521 (internal quotation marks omitted). As 

the party seeking relief, Z.B. bore the burden of proof at the 

hearing, see Schaffer ex rel. Shaffer v. Weast, 546 U.S. 49, 51 

(2005), and bears the burden of persuasion on appeal, see Reid, 

401 F.3d at 521.

A.

Appellants challenge the 2014 IEP that DCPS offered to 

Z.B. at Hearst Elementary School as inadequate in several 

respects. Appellants contend that the IEP was substantively 

inadequate in the math and writing goals it set for Z.B., which 

they claim were too high given her current skill levels, and in 

lacking a reading goal, appropriate types and hours of 

instruction, specific executive functioning goals, and 

occupational therapy services. Across those substantive areas, 

in Appellants’ view, DCPS dropped the ball on obtaining the 

information needed to provide Z.B. with an adequate and 

tailored IEP, including by failing to perform a functional 
14

behavior assessment. See, e.g., J.A. 9, 12; Hearing Officer 

Determination at 10, 11. As a result, they contend that the 2014 

IEP was not reasonably calibrated to Z.B.’s needs, as measured 

against what the school should have known about them at the 

time, and they say those perceived shortcomings are confirmed 

by later assessments of Z.B. in preparation for the 2015 IEP.

Because an IEP must be tailored to the student’s 

reasonably known needs at the time it is offered, the underlying 

evaluation of the student is fundamental to creating an 

appropriate educational program. “The IEP is the means by 

which special education and related services are ‘tailored to the 

unique needs’ of a particular child.” Endrew F., 137 S. Ct. at 

994 (quoting Rowley, 458 U.S. at 181). The evaluation 

requirement “serves a critical purpose: it allows the child’s IEP 

Team to have a complete picture of the child’s functional, 

developmental, and academic needs, which in turn allows the 

team to design an individualized and appropriate educational 

plan tailored to the needs of the individual child.” Timothy O. 

v. Paso Robles Unified Sch. Dist., 822 F.3d 1105, 1119 (9th 

Cir. 2016); see id. at 1110-11, 1124-25. 

The Act welcomes parental input, but specifically charges 

the evaluation of the student and the framing of an adequate 

IEP to the school. To be sure, that evaluation does not always 

require a school to conduct additional testing. When “existing 

. . . evaluations and information provided by the parents” and 

“observations by teachers” and other professionals provide the 

IEP Team with a reasonable picture of the student’s skills and 

needs, the school may finalize an IEP without any further 

testing unless requested by the child’s parents. Id. 

§§ 1414(c)(1)(A)-(B), (c)(4). 

Applying the IDEA as interpreted in Endrew F., we must 

ask whether, in developing the 2014 IEP, DCPS adequately 
15

evaluated Z.B.’s particular needs and offered her an IEP 

tailored to what it knew or reasonably should have known of 

her disabilities at the time. See Endrew F., 137 S. Ct. at 999. 

Without the requisite assessment of Z.B.’s needs as of the time 

the 2014 IEP was drafted, neither the IEP team nor reviewing 

officer nor the district court could determine what services 

were needed to provide an appropriate education, nor could we. 

As the Second Circuit has explained, for example, the failure 

to conduct an adequate functional behavioral assessment is a 

procedural violation that can have substantive effects, “because 

it may prevent the [IEP team] from obtaining necessary 

information about the student’s behaviors, leading to their 

being addressed in the IEP inadequately or not at all. . . . [S]uch 

a failure seriously impairs substantive review of the IEP 

because courts cannot determine exactly what information [a 

functional behavioral assessment] would have yielded and 

whether that information would be consistent with the student’s 

IEP.” R.E. v. N.Y.C. Dep’t of Educ., 694 F.3d 167, 190 (2d Cir. 

2012).

The key inquiry regarding an IEP’s substantive adequacy 

is whether, taking account of what the school knew or 

reasonably should have known of a student’s needs at the time, 

the IEP it offered was reasonably calculated to enable the 

specific student’s progress. See Endrew F., 137 S. Ct. at 999. 

As the district court aptly explained, that standard calls for 

evaluating an IEP as of “the time each IEP was created” rather 

than with the benefit of hindsight. 202 F. Supp. 3d at 75-76. 

At the same time, the district court observed, evidence that 

“post-dates” the creation of an IEP is relevant to the inquiry to 

whatever extent it sheds light “on whether the IEP was 

objectively reasonable at the time it was promulgated.” Id. at 

76 n.23.
16

Taking as the statutory baseline that DCPS had an

affirmative obligation to adequately assess Z.B’s needs, and 

that the object of our evaluation is the IEP that DCPS offered, 

we highlight two shortfalls in the district court’s analysis that 

call for remand:

First, in holding that the 2014 IEP was reasonably 

calculated to provide Z.B. with an appropriate education, the 

district court emphasized the school’s responsiveness. The 

IDEA does, to be sure, require schools to respond meaningfully 

to parents’ reasonable requests. See generally Leggett, 793 

F.3d 59, 68-70. But merely reacting when parents complain is 

not enough. A school has an affirmative obligation to “conduct 

a full and individual initial evaluation” of an eligible student 

“before” it begins providing services. 20 U.S.C. 

§ 1414(a)(1)(A). If it considers only whatever information 

parents pass along, a school may miss what reasonable 

evaluation would uncover and, as a result, offer an inadequate 

education.

DCPS is not absolved of its statutory obligations to 

appropriately evaluate Z.B. simply because it offered an IEP in 

response to her parents’ formal request for one. The district 

court generally recognized the school’s obligation to evaluate 

Z.B., 202 F. Supp. 3d at 66-67, and was aware of potential 

inadequacies in the 2014 IEP, see id. at 79 (acknowledging 

evidence supporting parents’ critiques); Hearing Officer 

Determination at 10-11 (acknowledging that additional 

assessments were needed). It excused those concerns, 

however, in part because of the “short time frame between the 

eligibility determination and the adoption of the initial IEP,” 

and the school’s willingness to address Z.B.’s parents’ specific 

complaints once they raised them. Id. at 80. The Act expects 

schools with reason to believe that a student may be suffering 

from a disability to evaluate the student promptly and 
17

appropriately. See 20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(3). When data are 

needed to understand a child’s unique needs, it is the school 

that “shall” administer the necessary assessments. Id. 

§§ 1414(c)(1)(B), (c)(2). Z.B. had been a student in the DCPS 

system for several years; even if Z.B.’s parents had never made 

any requests whatsoever, once DCPS was or should have been 

aware of Z.B.’s potential special educational needs, it was 

obligated to evaluate her.

To the extent that the district court relied on the premise 

that DCPS only needed to respond to the requests Z.B.’s 

parents made and incorporate the evaluations Z.B.’s parents 

provided, that was error. Of course, a school’s ready 

agreement with parents to provide services is not in itself 

evidence (even if coupled with later additions of further 

remedial measures) that the district had been ignoring an 

obvious problem. Because, however, the district court did not 

directly address what DCPS would have known had it met its 

own obligation to evaluate Z.B. rather than waiting for and 

reacting to her parents’ evaluations, it is not clear from the 

proceedings below whether DCPS would have learned 

anything more or different. If it would have, Z.B. may well 

have been entitled to a substantively different IEP from the one 

DCPS offered her in June 2014.

As things stand, we cannot discern whether the 2014 IEP 

was in fact tailored to Z.B.’s needs. It is not enough to say, as 

the district court and DCPS did, that the 2014 IEP accorded

with the recommendations of Dr. Sanz’s May 2014 report. See 

202 F. Supp. 3d at 79-80. A reviewing court must answer the 

predicate question whether—combined with all other relevant 

data—any assessment parents may have sought and funded on 

their own provided a materially accurate and adequate account 

of the student’s circumstances. While some parents may seek 

out private evaluations and bring them to the school’s 
18

attention—as Z.B.’s parents have commendably done here—

not all parents have the resources or expertise to obtain an 

accurate evaluation. See Eloise Pasachoff, Special Education, 

Poverty, and the Limits of Private Enforcement, 86 Notre 

Dame L. Rev. 1413, 1437-39 (2011). Yet all students with 

disabilities, regardless of their parents’ involvement or ability, 

are entitled under the IDEA to receive IEPs reasonably 

calculated to enable their educational progress. The school 

may not simply rubber stamp whatever evaluations parents 

manage to procure, or accept as valid and sufficient whatever 

information is already at hand. 

Because the district court did not question whether DCPS 

needed additional or different metrics of Z.B.’s skills to 

develop the June 2014 IEP, it failed to establish a reliable 

baseline of Z.B.’s current needs against which to evaluate the

IEP’s adequacy. The district court recognized that “[t]here 

[was] evidence that supports plaintiffs’ specific criticisms of 

the June 2014 IEP.” 202 F. Supp. 3d at 79. In evaluating it, 

the court first looked for “fatal inconsistencies between the 

Sanz Report and the June 2014 IEP,” id., assuming the Sanz 

report sufficed as a measure of Z.B.’s needs. Somewhat in 

tension with that approach, the court did not consistently 

identify what data the school used when it set baselines and 

goals that departed from Dr. Sanz’s evaluation. The district 

court relied on testimony of DCPS officials in accepting the 

IEP’s lack of reading goals, id. at 80, but pointed to no 

testimony or other evidence in excusing the discrepancies 

between the Sanz report and the 2014 IEP for math and writing 

goals, id. at 79-80. In reviewing Z.B.’s contention that the IEP 

should have included occupational therapy goals, the court did 

not fault DCPS’s non-responsiveness to testimony that “Z.B.’s 

need for occupational therapy was probably longstanding,” id. 

at 73, only because of the “short time frame between the 

eligibility determination and the adoption of the initial IEP,” 
19

id. at 80. Neither the district court’s opinion nor the parties’ 

briefing reveals whether or on what ground DCPS may have 

reasonably concluded that the IEP was tailored to Z.B.’s needs 

at that time.

Appellants contend that the content of the 2015 IEP, which 

offered Z.B. more specialized instruction, proves that the 2014 

IEP did not take full account of Z.B.’s needs. DCPS counters 

that the later IEP is not relevant to the question whether the 

earlier IEP was adequate. The district court correctly rejected 

DCPS’s contention that, in reviewing the IEP, the court could 

not consider “any evidence that was not before the IEP team at 

the time the IEP was adopted.” 202 F. Supp. 3d at 76 & n.23. 

Sometimes a belatedly obtained professional opinion, for 

example, may suggest a longstanding problem that a school 

should have but failed to identify and account for earlier. At 

the same time, the fact that the 2015 IEP offered more services 

than its 2014 counterpart is not per se evidence that the 2014 

IEP was inadequate. 

We do not know whether the June 2014 IEP in fact fell 

short, in part because we do not know whether Z.B.’s needs, as 

reflected in the 2015 IEP, were already present in June 2014.

The district court failed to grapple with whether, taking into 

account DCPS’s duty to be proactive, Hearst should have 

offered in the 2014 IEP the full range of services it eventually 

offered in the 2015 IEP. We do not conclude that was the case, 

nor do we say that it was not. 

Second, the district court further erred by placing an 

inappropriately heavy burden on Z.B.’s parents in their 

challenge to the 2014 IEP, requiring that they show that no IEP 

that DCPS could have offered would have sufficed. The 

district court correctly recognized that “the question before” it 

was “not whether placement at the Lab School is appropriate”;
20

it erred, however, in framing as the right question “whether 

placement in DCPS is not.” Id. at 76; see id. at 66. In 

determining whether the offered IEPs were reasonably 

calculated to provide Z.B. an appropriate education, the 

pertinent question is what DCPS actually offered, not what it is 

“capable of providing,” id. at 76 n.25. The district court gave 

DCPS the benefit of any capacity it might potentially have 

mustered when it faulted Z.B.’s parents for not having broadly 

established that “removing Z.B. from DCPS is necessary” to 

provide her with an IDEA-compliant education. Id. at 77. 

Establishing that DCPS did not provide Z.B. an appropriate 

education does not require, as the district court demanded, 

“persuasive evidence that placing Z.B. in DCPS was not a 

viable option.” Id. at 76.

No parent can be expected to rule out the ability of an 

entire school system to serve their child. Parents are only 

promised the support articulated in the IEP. See R.E., 694 F.3d 

at 185-87. The focus of a parent’s IDEA claim and the courts’

review is the IEP, not the school system’s overall capacities. 

The IDEA does not permit us to sustain an inadequate IEP 

because the school system theoretically might bolster it. Cf. 

Leggett, 793 F.3d at 68-70. Under the IDEA, plaintiffs need 

only prove the shortcomings of the IEP the school in fact 

offered.

* * *

Because the district court accepted DCPS’s reactive mode, 

and applied the wrong burden in requiring plaintiffs to show 

that DCPS could not provide adequate services, we cannot 

credit its determination that the 2014 IEP was adequate. We 

remand to the district court to consider in the first instance 

whether DCPS satisfied its obligation to assess Z.B. and offer 

her a tailored IEP in June 2014. We do not here resolve the 
21

specific challenges to the IEP. Deciding whether DCPS was 

on notice that Z.B. needed additional support or evaluation 

beyond what the IEP proposed requires a “fact-intensive” 

inquiry. See Endrew F., 137 S. Ct. at 999. The parties present 

conflicting accounts of the severity of Z.B.’s learning 

challenges as of June 2014, and of what DCPS knew or should 

have known and done in the circumstances. 

Should the parties seek to supplement the existing record, 

the district court has authority under the IDEA to “hear [that] 

evidence at the request of a party.” 20 U.S.C. 

§ 1415(i)(2)(c)(ii); 202 F. Supp. 3d at 74 & n.21. Z.B. might 

point to or introduce evidence of any aspect of her disability or 

need for additional services that she contends DCPS should 

have known at the time but failed to take into account in the

2014 IEP. For its part, DCPS might factually dispute whether 

it knew or should have known of any need of Z.B.’s for 

additional evaluations beyond what it considered in developing 

the 2014 IEP.

B.

Appellants also challenge the substantive adequacy of the 

2015 IEP on the grounds that it lacked executive functioning 

goals for Z.B. and failed to provide appropriate types and hours 

of instruction. The record reflects that, in contrast to its 

approach to the 2014 IEP, DCPS took an affirmative role in 

collecting information to prepare for the 2015 IEP. DCPS staff 

conducted a functional behavioral assessment and an 

occupational therapy evaluation to measure Z.B.’s needs and 

calibrate a tailored learning plan. Taking account of Z.B.’s 

parents’ suggestions, the evaluations the parents provided, 

those the Lab School provided, and DCPS’s own assessments 

of Z.B.’s skills and needs, DCPS created a final IEP that

provided eight combined hours per week of out-of-class math 
22

and writing assistance, one hour per week of out-of-class 

reading assistance, behavioral support services, occupational 

therapy services, and various other learning aids. In view of 

Z.B.’s needs, as reflected in the body of assessments and 

highlighted by specific requests, we hold that the 2015 IEP 

offered Z.B. an appropriate education. 

The district court correctly concluded that the 2015 IEP 

did not deny Z.B. an appropriate education for want of an 

executive functioning goal, because DCPS addressed executive 

functioning skills within the IEP’s treatment of other areas of 

concern. DCPS staff testified that they typically treat executive 

functioning as a crosscutting factor, rather than in a separate 

section of the IEP. They do so because executive functioning 

challenges present themselves distinctly in connection with 

different areas the IEP addresses. Thus, the 2015 IEP set 

various organizational goals for Z.B. and provided services

designed to enable her to achieve them. It described, for 

example, coaching Z.B. to use techniques such as highlighting, 

underlining, story-mapping, and self-questioning to help her

organize her work. The IEP afforded Z.B. extra time to 

implement those organizational strategies in class. Appellants 

therefore have not demonstrated any respect in which the IEP’s 

treatment of executive functioning goals denied Z.B. an 

appropriate education.

Appellants also have not shown that the 2015 IEP lacked 

appropriate types or hours of instruction. They contend, 

essentially, that the 2015 IEP—which provided for, among 

other things, nine hours of special education outside the general 

classroom setting per week—did not provide Z.B. enough 

small-group or individual education, especially by contrast to 

the full-time special education offered at the Lab School.
23

Without more, that argument runs up against the IDEA’s 

imperative that, to “the maximum extent appropriate,” public 

schools provide students with disabilities an education in the 

“least restrictive environment” possible. 20 U.S.C. 

§ 1412(a)(5)(A). Ordinarily, states must ensure “removal of 

children with disabilities from the regular educational 

environment occurs only when the nature or severity of the 

disability of a child is such that education in regular classes 

with the use of supplementary aids and services cannot be 

achieved satisfactorily.” Id. The Supreme Court recently 

affirmed that “the IDEA requires that children with disabilities 

receive education in the regular classroom ‘whenever 

possible.’” Endrew F., 137 S. Ct. at 999 (quoting Rowley, 458 

U.S. at 202). 

Nothing in the record calls into question the 

reasonableness of DCPS’s conclusion that Z.B. would benefit 

developmentally from interaction with her non-disabled peers. 

Appellants made no showing that further special education 

services apart from the general student population were 

required for Z.B.’s educational needs to be met. We thus 

cannot fault DCPS for its decision, consistent with the leastrestrictive-environment mandate, to offer Z.B. substantial 

portions of her instruction in general education classrooms 

rather than in disability-specific groups.

Appellants advance no argument or evidence claiming any 

shortfall other than those two: inadequate attention to 

executive functioning, and failure to provide for full-time 

special education at the Lab School. We accordingly affirm the 

decision of the district court that the 2015 IEP meets the 

requirements of the IDEA. 
24

III.

The IDEA calls on public schools throughout the United 

States to provide a free, appropriate education. Congress has 

not committed to educational perfection: “Any review of an 

IEP must appreciate that the question is whether the IEP is 

reasonable, not whether the court regards it as ideal.” Endrew 

F., 137 S. Ct. at 999 (emphasis in original). If there is a gap 

between the best education that money can buy at a private 

school for a student with disabilities and the free and 

appropriate education at a public school that the IDEA 

promises, one might justly hope to close that gap for all 

students. Meanwhile, what Congress has required is that public 

schools be “ambitious” for every child, giving each the 

opportunity to “meet challenging objectives.” Id. at 1000. 

Disabilities can be subtle and complex. They may require 

expertise to identify accurately. The IDEA requires public 

schools to be alert to the needs of all students they serve. They 

must take steps to identify those students with disabilities and, 

armed with all reasonably available information and expertise, 

ensure that each IDEA-eligible student receives an education 

appropriate to her needs. 

We affirm the district court’s holding that DCPS complied 

with the IDEA in offering Z.B. the 2015 IEP, and remand for a 

determination as to whether it did so when it offered her the 

2014 IEP. 

So ordered.