PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

___________

No. 14-1387

___________

G.L.; MR. G.L. and MRS. E.L., in their own right

v.

LIGONIER VALLEY SCHOOL DISTRICT AUTHORITY,

Appellant

_____________________

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Pennsylvania

(D.C. No. 2-13-cv-00034)

District Judge: Honorable Mark R. Hornak

_____________________

Argued: December 16, 2014

Before: McKEE, Chief Judge, GREENAWAY, JR., and 

KRAUSE, Circuit Judges

(Filed: September 22, 2015)

_____________
2

John K. Greiner, Esq.

Charles W. Jelley, Esq. [Argued]

Margaret A. Tremba, Esq.

Kristen C. Weidus, Esq.

Tremba, Jelley & Kinney

302 West Otterman Street

Greensburg, PA 15601

Counsel for Appellees

Christina Lane, Esq. [Argued]

Sanchez Legal Group

2403 Sidney Street, Suite 242

Pittsburgh, PA 15203

Counsel for Appellant

Mark L. Gross, Esq.

Holly A. Thomas, Esq.

United States Department of Justice

Civil Rights Division, Appellate Section

P.O. Box 14403

Ben Franklin Station

Washington, DC 20044

Counsel for Amicus Curiae

Jennerifer N. Rosen Valverde, Esq. [Argued]

Rutgers University School of Law

Special Education Clinic

123 Washington Street

Newark, NJ 07102

Counsel for Amici Appellees1

 

1 We thank the seven organizations led by the 

Education and Health Law Clinic at Rutgers University 
3

___________

OPINION

KRAUSE, Circuit Judge.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act 

(“IDEA”) broadly authorizes the courts to provide appropriate 

relief, including compensatory education, to children who 

have been deprived by their state or local educational 

agencies of a free appropriate public education. When 

Congress reauthorized the IDEA in 2004, it enacted 20 U.S.C. 

§ 1415(f)(3)(C), a statute of limitations that requires parents

to file a due process complaint no more than two years after

the parents “knew or should have known” about the alleged 

deprivation, that is, within two years of the reasonable 

discovery of that violation.

2

 The legislation simultaneously 

amended 20 U.S.C. § 1415(b)(6)(B), which previews the

various procedural safeguards available to parents, including 

the opportunity to file that due process complaint. The new 

language added to this prefatory subsection, however,

described the due process complaint as alleging an injury that 

occurred not more than two years before the reasonable 

discovery date. 

 

School of Law-Newark for their helpful perspective and 

excellent briefing and argument in this case.

2 The parties here, like some district courts in our 

Circuit, referred to the reasonable discovery date as the 

“KOSHK date.” See, e.g., Jana K. ex rel. Tim K. v. AnnvilleCleona Sch. Dist., 39 F. Supp. 3d 584, 596 (M.D. Pa. 2014).
4

In an appeal stemming from a due process complaint

filed by the parents of G.L., a student with special needs, we 

consider, in a matter of first impression among the Courts of 

Appeals, how these two provisions should be interpreted 

together and what effect they have on the courts’ authority to 

remedy IDEA violations, in particular, through the award of 

compensatory education. We address today which, of a 

variety of interpretations, is correct: Does § 1415(b)(6)(B) 

limit compensatory education to injuries occurring two years

before the filing of the complaint, even if earlier injuries are 

claimed within two years of their reasonable discovery, as 

urged by Appellant Ligonier Valley School District 

Authority? Does it limit compensatory education to injuries

that occurred from two years before their reasonable 

discovery through the filing of the complaint, up to two years 

after that discovery, i.e., the “2+2” approach taken by the 

District Court and urged by G.L.? Does it impose only a 

pleading requirement, without affecting the availability of a 

remedy for timely and well-pleaded claims, as argued by 

Amici Appellees and G.L. in the alternative? Or is it simply a 

restatement, albeit ill-phrased, of the same two-year statute of 

limitations set forth in § 1415(f)(3)(C), as asserted by the 

United States Department of Education (“DOE”)? 

Recognizing the uncertainty in this area, the District Court 

certified the question for interlocutory appeal.

We now conclude, after careful consideration of the

parties’ plain language arguments, the statutory context and 

structure, the DOE’s interpretive guidance, and the legislative 

history, that § 1415(b)(6)(B) is simply an inartful attempt to

mirror § 1415(f)(3)(C)’s two-year statute of limitations. That 

is, both sections reflect the same two-year filing deadline for 

a due process complaint after the reasonable discovery of an 
5

injury, and § 1415(b)(6)(B) neither imposes a pleading 

requirement nor in any respect alters the courts’ broad power 

under the IDEA to provide a complete remedy for the 

violation of a child’s right to a free appropriate public

education.

I. Facts and Procedural History

A. G.L.’s Schooling

After spending the previous year at a parochial school, 

G.L. entered high school in the Ligonier Valley School 

District (the “District”) in the fall of 2008.3 At a school open 

house shortly after he started, G.L.’s teacher told his father 

that G.L. seemed distracted in class and lacked organizational 

skills. G.L.’s father then orally requested that the District

evaluate G.L. for any special education needs. The request 

was to no avail: No evaluation was conducted and, instead, in 

the wake of a tragic car accident in which G.L. lost his older 

sister, the District, purportedly on the basis of information in 

her obituary, opened an investigation into whether G.L. even 

lived within District boundaries. That investigation confirmed 

G.L.’s residence and thus the District’s obligation under the 

IDEA to provide him with a free appropriate public education

(“FAPE”). 

In the meantime, however, G.L. continued to struggle 

academically. For a time, he was able to keep those struggles

 

3 We review the allegations of the complaint and all 

reasonable inferences drawn therefrom in the light most 

favorable to G.L., the non-moving party. See D.E. v. Cent. 

Dauphin Sch. Dist., 765 F.3d 260, 271 (3d Cir. 2014).
6

partially hidden from his parents by intercepting and altering 

his report card. At the conclusion of the 2008-09 school year, 

however, District officials informed G.L.’s parents that he 

would need to repeat the ninth grade. It was at this point that 

his parents learned that he was being bullied at school on the 

basis of his sexual orientation, with students regularly calling 

him a “faggot” and a “homo,” and that as a result he was 

having trouble eating, sleeping, and concentrating on his 

studies. 

Faced with the District’s contention that G.L. should 

repeat the ninth grade, G.L.’s parents complained to the 

school principal about the bullying and again requested that 

G.L. be evaluated for special education needs. The 

conversation became heated, and the principal told G.L.’s 

father to speak with the parents of the bullying students

himself. The principal also informed G.L.’s parents that a 

request for special education evaluation needed to be in 

writing. G.L.’s father then immediately handwrote and 

submitted a request, which G.L.’s mother followed up with an 

email to the principal. Apparently not caring for the tone of 

that email, the principal made an angry phone call to each of 

G.L.’s parents. The same day, the principal requested that the 

District again investigate the residency of G.L. and his 

family. 

The District then began another investigation, 

representing to the family that the new investigation was 

based on an anonymous phone call to the District. 

Meanwhile, the principal also conducted his own ad-hoc 

investigation, using school computers to search for voting 

records of G.L.’s parents. Over the next month, it appears 

little was done to assist G.L. with the challenges he faced 

either academically or socially. The District did, however, 
7

demand that the family provide a number of additional 

documents to prove residency. Eventually, the District 

agreed to formally evaluate G.L. for the remedial support to 

which he might be entitled pursuant to the IDEA, and in 

August 2009, after the family hired an attorney, yet again

confirmed that G.L. lived within District boundaries. 

Thus, when G.L. returned to school in the fall, the 

District finally evaluated him for his special education needs 

for the 2009-10 school year and instituted a plan to prevent 

him from being bullied. That evaluation revealed that G.L. 

did indeed have learning disabilities in math, reading, and 

writing. In November 2009, the District offered to G.L.’s 

parents an Individualized Education Program (“IEP”), which 

G.L.’s parents found inadequate and sought to supplement 

with supports tied to each of G.L.’s special needs. Despite

multiple meetings between the parents and District officials 

during the months of December and January, they were 

unable to agree on the educational goals that would satisfy a 

FAPE for G.L. 

While the parties were attempting to negotiate a 

satisfactory IEP over the fall and winter, the District also 

attempted to implement a plan to prevent G.L. from being 

bullied. However, by January 2010, the bullying not only had 

continued, but had grown to include the participation of the 

school’s football coach, who allegedly made a disparaging 

remark to another student about that student’s relationship 

with G.L., and did so in front of some of the very students 

who were bullying G.L. When he learned of this public 

remark by the coach, G.L. became distraught and refused to 

return to school. Instead, his parents picked up and returned 

his school work, which he completed at home. As this went 

on, G.L.’s IEP team continued to meet, and his parents were 
8

in regular contact with District officials to attempt to address 

the bullying situation. 

In March 2010, G.L. was evaluated by an intermediate 

unit psychologist, who conditionally diagnosed him with two 

additional disabilities, including post-traumatic stress disorder 

caused by the ongoing bullying. On March 8, 2010, 

frustrated with the bullying that had been allowed to escalate 

and apparently had caused additional disabilities in their 

child, upset by his academic struggles, and dissatisfied with 

the IEP offered by the District, G.L.’s parents withdrew him

from the school and enrolled him in a cyber charter school. 

The District has conceded that March 9, 2010 reflects the date 

G.L.’s parents “knew or should have known” about the 

deprivation of a free appropriate public education to G.L., 

that is, the reasonable discovery date for purposes of this 

case.4

On January 9, 2012, within two years of the reasonable 

discovery date, and thus within the statute of limitations set 

forth in § 1415(f)(3)(C), G.L.’s parents filed their due process 

complaint, alleging that the District denied him a FAPE and 

requesting compensatory education for September 2008 

through March 2010—that is, the entire period that G.L. was 

allegedly denied a FAPE by the District before he withdrew 

from school. 

 

4 The District has not disputed at any point during

these protracted proceedings, including on appeal, that March 

9, 2010 was the reasonable discovery date. Having not raised 

such an argument to date, the District has waived it in any 

event. See Del. Strong Families v. Att’y Gen. of Del., 793 

F.3d 304, 310 n.5 (3d Cir. 2015).
9

B. Procedural History

As required by the IDEA, G.L.’s parents initially 

requested their due process hearing by filing a complaint with 

the Pennsylvania Department of Education, which in turn 

assigned it to a Hearing Officer. The Hearing Officer 

acknowledged that the language of § 1415 seemed to describe 

two different time periods relevant to the IDEA’s statute of 

limitations: 20 U.S.C. § 1415(f)(3)(C), which provides that a 

due process complaint must be filed no more than two years 

after the reasonable discovery date, and 20 U.S.C. 

§ 1415(b)(6)(B), which describes the due process complaint 

as alleging an injury that occurred not more than two years 

before the reasonable discovery date. However, the Hearing 

Officer adopted the District’s position that the subsections, 

first, were actually the “same,” and, second, barred relief for 

violations that occurred more than two years before the 

complaint was filed. Put differently, the Hearing Officer

adopted an effective two year remedy cap, compensating only 

injuries that actually occurred within two years of the filing

date, regardless of whether the parents filed within two years 

of reasonably discovering older injuries. 

Applying this interpretation to G.L.’s complaint, the 

Hearing Officer held that—even assuming that the District 

deprived G.L. of a FAPE from September 2008 until March 

9, 2010, that the parents reasonably did not know about the 

injury before March 9, 2010, and that the January 9, 2012 

complaint was timely filed within two years of that March 9, 

2010 discovery—G.L.’s remedy was limited to injuries that 

occurred in the three months between January 2010 and 

March 2010 because that was the only period G.L. attended 

the District school within the two-year window before the 

filing of the complaint. Because the Hearing Officer 
10

proceeded to hold that G.L. was not injured during this 

period, i.e., that the District had provided a FAPE to G.L. 

during the 2009-2010 school year, the Hearing Officer denied 

any award of compensatory education, even for those three 

months.5 

The District Court, reviewing this decision, disagreed. 

In denying the District’s motion to partially dismiss the 

complaint on the basis of the alleged remedy cap, the District 

Court construed § 1415(f)(3)(C) and § 1415(b)(6)(B), in 

combination, to mean that G.L.’s relief may extend from two 

years before the reasonable discovery date through the date 

the complaint was filed, which could be up to two years after

the reasonable discovery date, for a maximum period of relief 

of four years. G.L. v. Ligonier Valley Sch. Dist. Auth., No. 

13-34, 2013 WL 6858963, at *4 (W.D. Pa. Dec. 30, 2013). 

The District Court thus adopted what has become known as 

the “2+2” construction of these statutory sections, id. at *4-6, 

applying the same construction embraced by three other 

district courts in this Circuit, see M. v. Penn Manor Sch. Dist., 

No. 12-3646, 2015 WL 221086, at *5 (E.D. Pa. Jan. 14, 

2015); Jana K., 39 F. Supp. 3d at 596-600; I.H. ex rel D.S. v. 

 

5 Given his interpretation of the statute of limitations 

provision, the Hearing Officer did not have occasion to 

address the parents’ contention that G.L. was denied a free 

appropriate public education throughout the 2008-2009 

school year. He did, however, hold that the District had

discriminated against and had retaliated against G.L. in 

violation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. 

§ 794.
11

Cumberland Valley Sch. Dist., 842 F. Supp. 2d 762, 773-74 

(M.D. Pa. 2012). Because the 2+2 construction would render

G.L.’s injuries from September 2008 to January 2010 

redressable upon finding a violation, the District Court 

remanded for the Hearing Officer to address whether the 

District provided G.L. a FAPE during the relevant period. 

2013 WL 6858963, at *6. However, recognizing the 

uncertainty in this area and correctly identifying this issue as 

one that was “important, controlling, and recurring,” id., the 

District Court stayed its remand order and certified the issue 

for interlocutory appeal, which we then granted.6 

II. Jurisdiction and Standard of Review

The District Court had jurisdiction pursuant to 20 

U.S.C. § 1415(i)(2)(A) and 28 U.S.C. § 1331. We have 

jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b). 

The District Court’s construction of § 1415(f)(3)(C) 

and § 1415(b)(6)(B) presents a legal question over which we 

apply plenary review. See P.P. ex rel. Michael P. v. W. 

Chester Area Sch. Dist., 585 F.3d 727, 735 (3d Cir. 2009).

 

6 Because the District Court remanded on this basis, it 

did not address the Hearing Officer’s finding that, 

notwithstanding the disturbing manner in which the District 

treated G.L. and his family, the District did not deprive G.L. a 

FAPE during the 2009-2010 school year.
12

III. The Individuals With Disabilities Act

A. Statutory Overview

The IDEA is intended to ensure that every child with 

special needs is afforded a “free appropriate public education 

designed to meet [those] unique needs,” 20 U.S.C. 

§ 1400(d)(1)(A), through the statute’s “comprehensive . . . 

remedial scheme,” A.W. v. Jersey City Pub. Sch., 486 F.3d 

791, 803 (3d Cir. 2007) (en banc). The law ensures that right 

“by mandating that public educational institutions identify 

and effectively educate those children, or pay for their 

education elsewhere if they require specialized services that 

the public institution cannot provide.” P.P., 585 F.3d at 735. 

Once a child is identified as having special needs, “[a] 

school district provides a FAPE by designing and 

implementing an individualized instructional program set 

forth in an [IEP], which ‘must be reasonably calculated to 

enable the child to receive meaningful educational benefits in 

light of the student’s intellectual potential.’” Id. at 729-30 

(quoting Shore Reg’l High Sch. Bd. of Educ. v. P.S., 381 F.3d 

194, 198 (3d Cir. 2004)). To the extent a school district fails 

to provide a student with a FAPE, a parent may file a due 

process complaint on behalf of his or her child, with a 

subsequent hearing held before an administrative hearing 

officer. 20 U.S.C. §§ 1415(b)(6), (f)(1)(A); D.E., 765 F.3d at

274. A party dissatisfied with the result of that hearing may 

then file an action in state or federal court. 20 U.S.C. 

§ 1415(i)(2); D.E., 765 F.3d at 274. 

Under the IDEA, a “district court is authorized to grant 

‘such relief as the court determines is appropriate,’ including 

attorneys’ fees, reimbursement for a private educational 
13

placement, and compensatory education.” A.W., 486 F.3d at 

802 (quoting 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(2)(C)(iii)). Compensatory 

education “aim[s] to place disabled children in the same 

position they would have occupied but for the school 

district’s violations of IDEA,” by providing the educational 

services children should have received in the first instance. 

Reid v. District of Columbia, 401 F.3d 516, 518 (D.C. Cir. 

2005). This “judicially-created remedy . . . has received the 

imprimatur of this Court,” D.F. v. Collingswood Borough Bd. 

of Educ., 694 F.3d 488, 496 (3d Cir. 2012), and reflects the 

“broad discretion,” Bucks Cnty. Dep’t of Mental 

Health/Mental Retardation v. Pennsylvania, 379 F.3d 61, 67 

(3d Cir. 2004), that Congress has granted to the courts “to 

remedy the deprivation of the right to a free appropriate 

education,” Carlisle Area Sch. v. Scott P., 62 F.3d 520, 536 

(3d Cir. 1995). 

B. The 2004 Reenactment and Its 

Aftermath

Prior to 2004, the IDEA did not include a statute of 

limitations. See Steven I. v. Cent. Bucks Sch. Dist., 618 F.3d 

411, 413 (3d Cir. 2010). Congress found this problematic 

because parents could knowingly wait for many years to file 

complaints, resulting in school districts that were “often 

surprised by claims . . . involving issues that occurred in an 

elementary school program when the child may currently be a 

high school student.” H.R. Rep, 108-77, at 115 (2003). 

Waiting many years to bring actions on behalf of a child, 

Congress reasoned, jeopardized that child’s education and 

created distrust between school administrators and parents. 

Id. 
14

In the 2004 reauthorization of the IDEA, Congress 

sought to remedy this problem by adding a statute of 

limitations to 20 U.S.C. § 1415(f), which is entitled 

“Impartial due process hearing” and sets forth the procedures 

for the life cycle of such hearings, from the initial receipt of 

the due process complaint that constitutes the request for the 

hearing, 20 U.S.C. § 1415(f)(1), through the findings of the 

hearing officer, 20 U.S.C. § 1415(f)(3)(E). The new 

subsection, § 1415(f)(3)(C), was entitled “Timeline for 

requesting hearing” and states:

A parent or agency shall request an impartial 

due process hearing within 2 years of the date 

the parent or agency knew or should have 

known about the alleged action that forms the 

basis of the complaint, or, if the State has an 

explicit time limitation for requesting such a 

hearing under this subchapter, in such time as 

the State law allows.

20 U.S.C. § 1415(f)(3)(C). Accordingly, under the IDEA 

parents must file their due process complaint within two years 

of the date they “knew or should have known” of the 

violation, unless the state has its own statute of limitations, in 

which case the state’s statute controls. Id.; D.K. v. Abington 

Sch. Dist., 696 F.3d 233, 244 & n.2 (3d Cir. 2012). The 

reauthorization also added two equitable tolling exceptions to 

this statute of limitations, which apply regardless of whether 

the state has enacted its own statute of limitations: specific 

misrepresentations by the school district and the withholding 
15

of statutorily mandated disclosures. 20 U.S.C. 

§ 1415(f)(3)(D).7 

Section 1415 overall is a lengthy and detailed section, 

the “entire purpose” of which “is to provide parents 

‘procedural safeguards with respect to the provision of a free 

appropriate public education.’” D.M. v. N.J. Dep’t of Educ., 

--- F.3d ----, No. 14-4044, 2015 WL 5255088, at *5 (3d Cir. 

Sept. 10, 2015) (quoting 20 U.S.C. § 1415(a)).8 The section

opens with § 1415(a), entitled “Establishment of procedures,”

which requires state and local educational agencies to 

“establish and maintain procedures in accordance with this 

section to ensure that children with disabilities and their 

parents are guaranteed procedural safeguards with respect to 

the provision of a free appropriate public education” by these

agencies. 20 U.S.C. § 1415(a). It proceeds in § 1415(b),

entitled “Types of procedures,” to list out and briefly 

summarize “[t]he procedures required by this section,” 20 

U.S.C. § 1415(b), (b)(2)-(8), in roughly the same order these 

procedures are then more fully described in the subsections 

that follow, 20 U.S.C. § 1415(c)-(f). Among the procedures 

listed in § 1415(b), even before the 2004 reenactment, was 

“an opportunity to present complaints with respect to any 

matter relating to the identification, evaluation, or educational 

placement of the child, or the provision of a free appropriate 

public education to such child,” 20 U.S.C. § 1415(b)(6)

 

7 These exceptions are not at issue in this case.

8 We describe in some detail here the structure of this 

section because, as will become apparent, it provides 

important context for our interpretation of the two subsections 

at issue.
16

(1999) (amended 2004), corresponding to the fuller 

explanation of the due process hearing procedures set forth in 

§ 1415(f) (1999) (amended 2004). 

Accordingly, along with the addition of the statute of 

limitations to § 1415(f)(3)(C), the 2004 reenactment also 

amended § 1415(b)(6) to read:

(b) Types of procedures

The procedures required by this section shall 

include the following: . . . 

(6) An opportunity for any party to 

present a complaint—

(A) with respect to any matter 

relating to the identification, 

evaluation, or educational 

placement of the child, or the 

provision of a free appropriate 

public education to such child; 

and

(B) which sets forth an alleged 

violation that occurred not 

more than 2 years before the 

date the parent or public agency 

knew or should have known 

about the alleged action that 

forms the basis of the 

complaint, or, if the State has an 

explicit time limitation for 

presenting such a complaint 
17

under this subchapter, in such 

time as the State law allows, 

except that the exceptions to the 

timeline described in subsection 

(f)(3)(D) shall apply to the 

timeline described in this 

subparagraph.

20 U.S.C § 1415(b)(6) (emphasis added). With this 

amendment, the complaint procedure described at 

§ 1415(b)(6)(B) came to mirror the statute of limitations at 

§ 1415(f)(3)(C) in almost all respects: they both describe a 

two-year time limit that hinges on the reasonable discovery 

date; they both provide that any state statute of limitations 

will override this timeline; and they both incorporate the two 

exceptions to the statute of limitations set forth in 

§ 1415(f)(3)(D).

9 Unlike § 1415(f)(3)(C), however, 

 

9 While § 1415(b)(6)(B) describes “present[ing] a 

complaint,” and § 1415(f)(3)(C) describes “request[ing] an 

impartial due process hearing,” both sections address the 

filing of the same due process complaint because there is no 

dispute that presenting a complaint is merely the vehicle by 

which a due process hearing is requested. See 20 U.S.C. 

§ 1415(f)(1)(A) (noting that a hearing is held “[w]henever a 

complaint has been received under subsection (b)(6)”); see 

also United States Department of Education, Questions and 

Answers on IDEA Part B Dispute Resolution Procedures, 

OSEP Memo 13-08, 34 (2013) (explaining that “[t]he IDEA 

Amendments of 2004 made significant changes to IDEA’s 

due process procedures, and parties no longer have the right 

to request a due process hearing directly” but instead “first 

must file a due process complaint”).
18

§ 1415(b)(6)(B)’s two-year limitations period runs backward

instead of forward from the reasonable discovery date. 

The differences in the language of these provisions and 

the fact that they appear to move in opposite directions from 

the reasonable discovery date, has given rise to confusion in 

the wake of the 2004 reenactment, with district courts within 

this Circuit interpreting them in a range of ways. Some have 

construed them to limit redress to the two years preceding a 

complaint. See, e.g., D.C. v. Mount Olive Twp. Bd. of Educ., 

No. 12-5592, 2014 WL 1293534, *21-22 (D.N.J. Mar. 31, 

2014). Some have interpreted them to impose a filing 

deadline but not to limit the remedy for timely-filed claims. 

See, e.g., Cent. Sch. Dist. v. K.C. ex rel. S.C., No. 11-6869, 

2013 WL 3367484, at *12 n.6 (E.D. Pa. July 3, 2013)

(collecting cases) (“We also agree with the conclusion 

reached by several courts within this district, that the IDEA’s 

statute of limitations does not apply to limit the permissible 

period of compensatory educational awards.”). And at least 

four, including the District Court here, have adopted the 2+2 

analysis. See, e.g., G.L., 2013 WL 6858963, at *3-6.

The District contends there can be no confusion 

because we have already addressed and resolved the question 

of how these provisions interact with each other and how they 

apply to claims dating back a number of years in Steven I.,

618 F.3d 411, and D.K., 696 F.3d 233. That resolution, 

according to the District, is that we “definitively stated that 

claims are barred where they are alleged to occur two years 

prior to the date of filing.” Appellant’s Br. 8 (citing Steven I.,

618 F.3d at 417, and D.K., 696 F.3d at 254). This argument 

reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of our prior cases. 

Those cases held that § 1415(f)(3)(C) bars claims that are not 

filed within two years after the parents “knew or should have 
19

known” about the injury—a proposition that is now wellestablished and is not disputed by either party to this case. 

However, neither Steven I. nor D.K. says anything about 

claims that are filed within two years of that “knew or should 

have known” date but happen to relate to an injury that took 

place more than two years before the complaint was filed.

In Steven I., we considered a case brought by parents 

who had knowingly sat on a claim for years, see Mark v. 

Cent. Bucks Sch. Dist., No. 08-571, 2009 WL 415767, at *4 

(E.D. Pa. Feb. 18, 2009), rev’d and remanded sub nom. 

Steven I., 618 F.3d at 417, and held that § 1415(f)(3)(C)’s 

two-year statute of limitations applies retroactively to claims 

that predated the 2004 amendments and “bars any causes of 

action that accrued prior to” two years before the filing of the 

due process complaint, even if the violation continues into the 

two-year window before the complaint was filed. 618 F.3d at 

417 (emphasis added). Likewise, in D.K., where we held that 

the statutory tolling provisions of § 1415(f)(3)(D) precluded 

application of common law tolling doctrines and were 

therefore the exclusive exceptions to the IDEA’s two-year 

statute of limitations, we reaffirmed our rejection of the 

“continuing violation” doctrine and held that the claims in 

that case, which we observed had been discovered years 

earlier, were, as the parents conceded, “limited to the twoyear time period” before the filing of the complaint under 

§ 1415(f)(3)(C). D.K, 696 F.3d at 248, 254. Indeed, contrary 

to the District’s reading, we expressly stated in D.K. that 

parents must request a due process hearing, not within two 

years of the occurrence of the injury, but “within two years of 

‘the date the parent . . . knew or should have known about the 

alleged action that forms the basis of the complaint.’” Id. at 
20

244 (alterations in original) (quoting 20 U.S.C. §

1415(f)(3)(C)). 

Although we observed in passing in D.K. that this twoyear statute of limitations in § 1415(f)(3)(C) was “the same” 

two-year period that parents had to file an administrative 

complaint under § 1415(b)(6)(B), id., we did not there and 

have not since had occasion to reconcile the differences 

between the language of § 1415(b)(6)(B) and § 1415(f)(3)(C) 

or to consider how these provisions affect the remedy 

available for claims spanning multiple years that were filed 

within two years of the date the parents first “knew or should 

have known” about the basis for those claims. Nor has any

other Court of Appeals addressed the interplay between

§ 1415(f)(3)(C) and § 1415(b)(6)(B). We resolve these issues

today.

IV. Analysis

The starting point of all statutory construction is the 

text of the statute, but where that text is ambiguous, “we 

‘must do our best, bearing in mind the fundamental canon of 

statutory construction that the words of a statute must be read 

in their context and with a view to their place in the overall 

statutory scheme.’” King v. Burwell, 135 S. Ct. 2480, 2492 

(2015) (quoting Util. Air Regulatory Grp. v. E.P.A., 134 S. 

Ct. 2427, 2441 (2014)). Thus, we consider below (1) the 

plain language arguments of the parties and amici; (2) the 

broader context of the statute; (3) the position of the DOE; 

and (4) the legislative history of the 2004 amendments, and 

we conclude that applying the plain language of the text 

would force us to give § 1415(b)(6)(B) a meaning that “turns 

out to be untenable in light of the statute as a whole.’” King, 

135 S. Ct. at 2495 (internal quotations marks and alteration 
21

omitted). Instead, our analysis confirms that, as we presaged 

in D.K., § 1415(b)(6)(B) and § 1415(f)(3)(C) do indeed 

reflect “the same” statute of limitations, 696 F.3d at 244, 

which imposes a deadline on the filing of claims once they 

are reasonably discovered but does not limit the redress 

available for timely-filed claims.

A. The Plain Language of § 1415(b)(6)(B) 

Is Ambiguous

In interpreting § 1415(b)(6)(B), we confront a 

statutory provision that by its plain terms does not impose any 

obligation on parents, but rather identifies the “opportunity

. . . to present a complaint” among a list of procedural 

safeguards in the prefatory subsection of § 1415, which are 

then explicated in the subsections that follow. 20 U.S.C. 

§ 1415(b)(6)(B). Meanwhile, the amendment to § 

1415(f)(3)(C) by its plain terms describes the “[t]imeline for 

requesting [a] hearing” and mandates that “[a] parent . . . shall 

request an impartial due process hearing within 2 years” of 

the reasonable discovery date. The amendment to 

§ 1415(b)(6)(B) appears to conform the description of the 

complaint that previously appeared in § 1415(b)(6), i.e., the 

mechanism to “request an impartial due process hearing,” to 

§ 1415(f)(3)(C) in every respect—including the exceptions—

but one: the timeframe of before, rather than after, the 

reasonable discovery date. Id. § 1415(b)(6)(B), (f)(3)(C). No 

explanation is given for this singular difference. The clearest 

way to demonstrate the ambiguity it has created in the statute, 

however, is through the diametrically opposed interpretations 

proposed by the parties themselves. 
22

i. The School District’s Proposed 

Remedy Cap

We begin with the District, which contends, first, that 

§ 1415(b)(6)(B) describes the same two-year statute of 

limitations as § 1415(f)(3)(C) and, second, that this statute of 

limitations limits the scope of a child’s remedy to those 

injuries that actually occurred in the two years before the 

filing of a complaint, no matter when the parent reasonably 

discovered the injury. The obvious problem with the 

District’s first contention is that, as the District Court noted in 

rejecting it, the language and plain meaning of the 

subsections are, in fact, quite different: Section 1415(f)(3)(C) 

provides that parents who have been unable to secure relief 

for alleged violations through informal channels and are 

resorting to requesting a due process hearing must do so

“within 2 years of the date the parent or agency knew or 

should have known about the alleged action that forms the 

basis of the complaint.” 20 U.S.C. § 1415(f)(3)(C). Section 

1415(b)(6)(B), on the other hand, describes that very same 

complaint that parents shall have the opportunity to present as 

“set[ting] forth an alleged violation that occurred not more 

than 2 years before the date the parent or public agency knew 

or should have known about the alleged action that forms the 

basis of the complaint.” Id. § 1415(b)(6)(B).

The District does not attempt to reconcile the language

of these provisions; it simply asks us ipse dixit to declare 

them identical and further asks that we read this single statute 

of limitations to permit relief only for those injuries that

occurred no more than two years before the filing of the 

complaint. The problem is that this is not what the statute 

says and the District’s logic proves an unworkable syllogism: 

Section 1415(b)(6)(B) makes reference to (a) injuries that 
23

occurred no more than two years before (b) the reasonable 

discovery date; § 1415(f)(3)(C) provides that (b) this

reasonable discovery date must be no more than two years 

before (c) the filing of the complaint; but neither subsection

references (a) injuries that occurred no more than two years 

before (c) the filing of the complaint. 

The District’s reading not only lacks textual support 

but affirmatively contravenes the language and purpose of

Congress in using a reasonable discovery date. When 

fashioning a statute of limitations, a legislature may choose as 

the date from which the limitations period begins to run either

the date the injury actually occurred, an approach known as 

the “occurrence rule,” or the date the aggrieved party knew or 

should have known of the injury, that is, the “discovery rule.” 

See Knopick v. Connelly, 639 F.3d 600, 607 (3d Cir. 2011) 

(discussing these rules in the context of Pennsylvania tort 

law); see also Oshiver v. Levin, Fishbein, Sedran & Berman, 

38 F.3d 1380, 1385 (3d Cir. 1994) (explaining that the 

discovery rule provides that the date the statute of limitations 

begins to run “is not the date on which the wrong that injures 

the plaintiff occurs, but the date on which the plaintiff 

discovers that he or she has been injured”). Under the 

discovery rule, a plaintiff’s time to bring suit is not in any 

way shortened by his or her reasonable ignorance: “the 

statutory limitations period begins to run and the plaintiff is 

afforded the full limitations period, starting from the point of 

[discovery], in which to file his or her claim.” Oshiver, 38 

F.3d at 1386.10

 

10 We have acknowledged there are different views as 

to whether the discovery rule is properly characterized as 

delaying the date of claim accrual or as tolling the limitations 
24

The discovery rule controls here. Generally, “absen[t] 

. . . a contrary directive from Congress, we apply the federal 

discovery rule” as a default. Disabled in Action of Pa. v. 

SEPTA, 539 F.3d 199, 209 (3d Cir. 2008) (internal quotation 

marks omitted). Here, of course, Congress left nothing to 

doubt, unambiguously providing in the IDEA that the date 

from which any limitations period begins to run is the date the 

parents “knew or should have known” of the basis for the 

claim. See 20 U.S.C. §§ 1415(b)(6)(B), (f)(3)(C). The 

District thus does not argue that the occurrence rule applies, 

nor could it, because to do so would be contrary to the 

IDEA’s explicit, twice-repeated discovery rule. Instead, it 

attempts an end run around the rule by proposing a two-year 

cap on redress from the date of the complaint, with the same 

effect: the requirement that a claim be filed within two years 

of the date the violation actually occurred (not the date it was 

reasonably discovered) for that claim to be cognizable.

Take a practical example. Assume a school district 

unreasonably fails to identify a child’s disability from the

beginning of first grade through the end of third grade. 

Assume also that at the end of third grade, the parents first 

reasonably discover the injury, and the school district

immediately begins providing the student with the 

 

period for a claim that accrued upon occurrence of the injury, 

and recently have held that the federal discovery rule is 

properly viewed as the latter. See William A. Graham Co. v. 

Haughey, 646 F.3d 138, 150 (3d Cir. 2011). This distinction 

is immaterial to our resolution here, for “[t]he distinction 

between the two concepts . . . makes no difference for 

purposes of deciding whether a claim survives a statute-oflimitations defense.” Id. at 148. 
25

educational supports he or she needs going forward but 

declines to provide that child with compensatory education to 

make up for the three years the child was deprived a FAPE. 

Under the theory espoused by the District, even if the parents 

filed a due process complaint the very same day they 

reasonably discovered the injury, the child’s compensatory 

education for the three years of this violation would be 

capped at two years (the second and third grade years that 

occurred within the two years before the filing of the 

complaint). Moreover, those two years of compensatory 

education would diminish daily for each day after the

reasonable discovery date that the parents or their counsel 

conducted due diligence, explored settlement options, or 

prepared the complaint before filing. Nothing in the plain 

language of the statute suggests such an absurd result. Cf. 

Reiter v. Cooper, 507 U.S. 258, 267 (1993) (“While it is 

theoretically possible for a statute to create a cause of action 

that accrues at one time for the purpose of calculating when 

the statute of limitations begins to run, but at another time for 

the purpose of bringing suit, we will not infer such an odd 

result in the absence of any such indication in the statute.”).11

 

11 Perhaps for this reason, at oral argument, the District 

took another tack, stating that if a parent’s complaint was 

filed “very close in time” to the reasonable discovery date—

that is, if a parent only waited a week or two to file a 

complaint, versus the two years he or she is entitled under the 

statute—a child would not lose any remedy at all. Oral Arg. 

at 13:25, available at http://www.ca3.uscourts.gov/oralargument-recordings. This supposed two-week grace period, 

like the District’s position generally, finds no support in the 

statutory text.
26

Putting aside the oddity of a statute of limitations 

functioning in this manner and its inconsistency with the 

broad remedial purposes of the IDEA (discussed more fully 

below), the text is clear that Congress eschewed the 

occurrence rule in favor of the discovery rule by hinging both

§ 1415(f)(3)(C) and § 1415(b)(6)(B) on the date the parents 

“knew or should have known” of the injury. See, e.g., Merck 

& Co. v. Reynolds, 559 U.S. 633, 651 (2010) (holding that 

when a “statute says that the plaintiff’s claim accrues only 

after the ‘discovery’ of . . . facts,” a limitations period does 

not “begin before ‘discovery’ can take place”); Beauty Time, 

Inc. v. VU Skin Sys., Inc., 118 F.3d 140, 144 (3d Cir. 1997)

(“It is well-established that Pennsylvania law recognizes an 

exception to the statute of limitations which delays the 

running of the statute until the plaintiff knew, or through the 

exercise of reasonable diligence should have known, of the 

injury and its cause.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). 

Thus, the limitations period of § 1415(f)(3)(C) “begins to run 

once the plaintiff did discover or a reasonably diligent 

plaintiff would have discovered the facts constituting the 

violation—whichever comes first.” Merck & Co., 559 U.S. at 

653 (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted).12 

 

12 The discovery rule, of course, has a practical and 

“fundamental difference” with general equitable tolling 

doctrines, Oshiver, 38 F.3d at 1390, the concept we 

considered with regards to the IDEA in D.K., 696 F.3d at 

245-47. Specifically, “[t]he purpose of the discovery rule is 

to determine . . . when the statute of limitations [effectively] 

begins to run.” Oshiver, 38 F.3d at 1390. Our general 

equitable tolling doctrine, on the other hand, “steps in to toll, 

or stop, the running of the statute of limitations in light of 
27

Accordingly, § 1415(b)(6)(B), which runs backward from the 

reasonable discovery date (not the filing date), appears on its 

face to mean something different and, whatever that is, it is 

not, as the District would have it, that claims not known or 

reasonably known expire of their own accord if the injury 

occurred more than two years before the filing date.

ii. G.L.’s 2+2 and Pleading 

Requirement Theories

In a diametrically different but no less problematic 

reading, G.L. argues that the text of § 1415(b)(6)(B) supports 

two interpretations, each of which entitles him to relief. First,

he argues that the District Court’s 2+2 approach was 

correct—that § 1415(b)(6)(B) provides a two-year window

before the reasonable discovery date within which he may 

claim IDEA violations occurred, thus effectively serving as a 

four-year remedy cap. Second, he argues, along with Amici

Appellees,

13 that this subsection is merely the description of a 

 

established equitable considerations,” despite a plaintiff’s 

discovery of his or her injury. Id.

13 G.L. focused his argument almost exclusively on the 

2+2 rule, candidly explaining at oral argument that, because 

he only alleged two years of violations, the Court’s adoption 

of that rule would give him complete relief. He did, however, 

also support the broader position urged by Amici Appellees, 

i.e., that properly construed, neither § 1415(f)(3)(C) nor 

§ 1415(b)(6)(B) imposed a cap on remedies. Even if G.L. 

had not espoused this interpretation of the statute, we are 

bound, “on the basis of our independent judgment, [to] 

exercis[e] a plenary review of the purely legal question[] 

presented” to us by the parties, pursuant to “our duty to 
28

prima facie cause of action, with no limit on remedy at all.

That is, § 1415(b)(6)(B) requires that a due process complaint 

allege an injury under the IDEA that occurred within two 

years of a parent’s reasonable discovery, but imposes no 

limitation on the remedy if these elements are pleaded and the 

complaint is timely filed. 

Both of these interpretations, however, would render 

the text illogical. For like § 1415(f)(3)(C), § 1415(b)(6)(B) 

provides in the very same sentence that if a “State has an 

explicit time limitation for presenting such a complaint,” the 

complaint shall instead be filed “in such time as the State law 

allows,” rather than the time described in § 1415(b)(6)(B), 

and further provides that if the state does enact its own statute 

of limitations, the federal exceptions still apply to the state’s 

statute of limitations. 20 U.S.C. § 1415(b)(6)(B). Yet, it 

would be nonsensical for Congress to specify that a federal 

statute’s remedy cap or the elements of a prima facie case be 

replaced by a state’s statute of limitations, and it would be 

equally illogical to have two bases for equitable tolling—a 

doctrine used to determine whether a statute of limitations has 

expired—apply to a provision that is not a statute of 

limitations in the first place. We decline to interpret the 

 

interpret statutory provisions” and accord them the meaning 

that Congress intended. Vornado, Inc. v. Trs. of the Retail 

Store Emps.’ Union Local 1262, 829 F.2d 416, 421 (3d Cir. 

1987); see also Loretangeli v. Critelli, 853 F.2d 186, 189 n.5 

(3d Cir. 1988) (“This court may consider a pure question of 

law even if not raised below . . . where the issue’s resolution 

is of public importance.”).
29

statute in this bizarre fashion. See, e.g., Dep’t of Revenue of 

Or. v. ACF Indus., Inc., 510 U.S. 332, 343 (1994) (rejecting 

statutory interpretation that would render a statute “illogical” 

and contrary to congressional intent). 

In sum, the supposedly straightforward textual

arguments of the parties more resemble the twists and bends 

of a contortion artist, presenting us with the option, on the one 

hand, of ignoring swaths of the statutory text or, on the other,

accepting a reading that is absurd on its face. The parties’ 

positions are illustrative, however, of the difficulty of 

applying a plain language reading to this text. We conclude, 

as we observed in addressing the pre-2004 version of the 

IDEA, “the language of section 1415(b)(6) is at best 

ambiguous.” Lawrence Twp. Bd. of Educ. v. New Jersey, 417 

F.3d 368, 371 (3d Cir. 2005).14 We therefore must resort to 

other tools of statutory construction.

B. Statutory Interpretation of 

§ 1415(b)(6)(B)

The Supreme Court has instructed that “[t]he 

meaning—or ambiguity—of certain words or phrases may 

only become evident when placed in context.” F.D.A. v. 

 

14 In Lawrence, we addressed whether a school district 

had standing to bring a private right of action under § 

1415(b)(6) and concluded the provision was intended to 

provide a private right of action only to disabled children and 

their parents. 417 F.3d at 371-72. While the question was 

wholly unrelated and we were addressing a pre-amendment 

version of the IDEA, our observation about the opacity of § 

1415(b)(6) pertains even more so to the amended version.
30

Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U.S. 120, 132 

(2000). That is, “[a] provision that may seem ambiguous in 

isolation is often clarified by the remainder of the statutory 

scheme . . . because only one of the permissible meanings 

produces a substantive effect that is compatible with the rest 

of the law.” United Sav. Ass’n of Texas v. Timbers of Inwood 

Forest Assocs., Ltd., 484 U.S. 365, 371 (1988); accord

Gwaltney of Smithfield, Ltd. v. Chesapeake Bay Found., Inc., 

484 U.S. 49, 59-60 (1987) (analyzing statutory language in a 

way that is in accord with the “language and structure” of the 

section of law at issue). Such is the case here, where 

examining § 1415(b)(6)(B) in the context of § 1415 and the 

IDEA as a whole points unequivocally in one direction: that

§ 1415(b)(6)(B) indeed restates § 1415(f)(3)(C)’s two-year 

statute of limitations and that this limitations period functions 

in a traditional way, that is, as a filing deadline that runs from 

the date of reasonable discovery and not as a cap on a child’s 

remedy for timely-filed claims that happen to date back more 

than two years before the complaint is filed. 

i. The Structure, Language, and 

Context of the Act

We begin with the overarching structure of § 1415. 

See Gwaltney, 484 U.S. at 59-60; Evankavitch v. Green Tree 

Servicing, LLC, 793 F.3d 355, 363 (3d Cir. 2015) (examining 

the “structure and . . . parallels” of a statute to determine the 

meaning of its terms). As previously noted, after opening 

with a preamble that reiterates that a state must “establish and 

maintain procedures . . . to ensure that children with 

disabilities and their parents are guaranteed procedural 

safeguards,” 20 U.S.C. § 1415(a), the section next proceeds to 

list and briefly describe the “[t]ypes of procedures” mandated

by the IDEA, id. § 1415(b). That listing, in § 1415(b), serves 
31

in effect as a table of contents for the expanded descriptions 

of these same procedures that then appear in roughly the same 

order in § 1415(c)-(f). Thus, for example, § 1415(b)(3) 

requires written prior notice of changes to a child’s 

educational program, the details of which are described in 

§ 1415(c)(1); § 1415(b)(4) ensures notice is available in a 

parent’s native language, as described in § 1415(d)(2); 

§ 1415(b)(5) provides “[a]n opportunity for mediation,” as 

described in § 1415(e); and, as relevant here, § 1415(b)(6)

provides an “[a]n opportunity for any party to present a 

complaint,” which is more fully described in § 1415(f). Id.

§ 1415(b)-(f). This structure makes clear that § 1415(b) was 

intended to preview and convey the same essential meaning 

as § 1415(f).

Given that § 1415(b), in context, appears to be nothing 

more than a summary listing of the procedural safeguards 

more fully described in later subsections, we cannot conceive 

that Congress intended to bury within § 1415(b)(6) a sea 

change in the IDEA. That, however, would be the effect of

cutting off at twenty four months in virtually all cases the 

courts’ power to award compensatory education, and

“le[aving] parents without an adequate remedy when a school 

district unreasonably fail[s] to identify a child with 

disabilities.” Forest Grove Sch. Dist. v. T.A., 557 U.S. 230, 

245 (2009) (noting “Congress’ acknowledgment of the 

paramount importance of properly identifying each child 

eligible for services”). This proposition appears particularly 

fanciful considering that Congress failed to even hint at such 

an intention either in § 1415(f), the full version of the due 

process hearing procedure of which § 1415(b)(6) is merely a 

précis, or in § 1415(i), which was reenacted in 2004 without 

any alteration to the “broad discretion” it grants federal courts 
32

to remedy violations of the IDEA, Forest Grove, 557 U.S. at 

238. As the Supreme Court “ha[s] repeatedly said[,] . . . 

Congress ‘does not alter the fundamental details of a 

regulatory scheme in vague terms or ancillary provisions—it 

does not, one might say, hide elephants in mouseholes.’” 

E.P.A. v. EME Homer City Generation, L.P., 134 S. Ct. 1584, 

1612 (2014) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (quoting Whitman v. Am.

Trucking Ass’ns, 531 U.S. 457, 468 (2001)).

Moreover, it is “[a] standard principle of statutory 

construction . . . that identical words and phrases within the 

same statute should normally be given the same meaning.” 

Powerex Corp. v. Reliant Energy Servs., Inc., 551 U.S. 224, 

232 (2007). Here, the words and phrases describing the 

IDEA’s statute of limitations and its exceptions indicate that 

§ 1415(b) was intended to have the same meaning as the other 

references to a limitations period in § 1415, and, like them, to 

function as a filing deadline and not a remedy cap.

Specifically, in three separate subsections of § 1415, the 

statute provides a federal time limit, but—using identical 

language—provides as an alternative: “or, if the State has an 

explicit time limitation . . . , in such time as the State law 

allows.” 20 U.S.C. §§ 1415(b)(6), (f)(3)(C), (i)(2)(B). Given 

that state limitations periods generally function as filing 

deadlines on claims that are known or should have been 

known, not remedy caps on claims not yet reasonably 

knowable, the only way those words can be read sensibly is if 

they provide an alternative to a federal filing deadline, i.e., a 

traditional statute of limitations.

“Textual cross-reference confirms this conclusion,” 

Brown v. Gardner, 513 U.S. 115, 118 (1994), for 

§ 1415(b)(6)(B) not only mirrors § 1415(f)(3)(C)’s state 

statute of limitations provision but also its two equitable 
33

tolling exceptions, and does so simply by cross-referencing 

the “the exceptions to the timeline described in 

[§ 1415(f)(3)(D)],” 20 U.S.C. § 1415(b)(6), (f)(3)(C). This 

shorthand reference to these important tolling provisions, 

which are then set forth in full in § 1415(f), fortifies our 

conclusion that § 1415(b)(6) was merely intended as an 

abstract of § 1415(f), that it reflects the same limitations 

period as § 1415(f)(3)(C), and that this limitations period, 

pursuant to the “cooperative federalism” inherent in the 

IDEA, Schaffer ex rel. Schaffer v. Weast, 546 U.S. 49, 52 

(2005) (quoting Little Rock Sch. Dist. v. Mauney, 183 F.3d 

816, 830 (8th Cir. 1999)), defers to state limitations periods 

when appropriate and otherwise functions as a traditional 

statute of limitations—not a remedy cap.

Indeed, while it would make no sense for a state filing 

deadline to displace a federal remedy cap or elements of a 

prima facie case, it makes perfect sense that Congress, 

according due weight to principles of federalism, would allow 

a state filing deadline to displace a federal one. Likewise, it 

would be odd indeed for § 1415(b)(6)(B), if it actually 

described a remedy cap or a prima facie case, to apply 

equitable tolling provisions from § 1415(f)(3)(D), but quite 

logical if § 1415(b)(6)(B) merely restates the statute of 

limitations to which those equitable exceptions apply. That 

is, when we “look to the [section’s] surrounding words and 

provisions and their context,” Tavarez v. Klingensmith, 372 

F.3d 188, 190 (3d Cir. 2004), and apply “the cardinal rule that 

a statute is to be read as a whole,” King v. St. Vincent’s Hosp., 

502 U.S. 215, 221 (1991), it is clear that § 1415(b)(6)(B), 
34

though poorly penned, was intended merely as a synopsis of 

§ 1415(f)(3)(D)’s statute of limitations.15

ii. Forest Grove and the Canon 

against Sub Silentio Repeal

Even if the structure, language, and context of the 

IDEA left room for doubt, we would be loath to interpret 

§ 1415(b)(6)(B) as constricting the remedies available under 

the IDEA in view of the statute’s broad remedial purpose, see 

A.W., 486 F.3d at 803, codified, among other places, in 

§ 1415(i)(2)(C)(iii). That subsection provides that a court 

“shall grant such relief as the court determines is 

appropriate,” 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(2)(C)(iii), and, in a long 

line of cases, the Supreme Court and this Circuit have held 

that it should be interpreted expansively to provide a 

comprehensive remedy for children deprived of a FAPE. See, 

e.g., Forest Grove, 557 U.S. at 237-38 (“In determining the 

 

15 Given the structure of this statute, which includes at 

the outset a digest of the multiple procedural safeguards that 

are each expounded upon in later subsections, we also discern 

no tension between our interpretation of § 1415(b)(6)(B) and 

the canon against superfluity. Moreover, that canon “assists 

only where a competing interpretation gives effect ‘to every 

clause and word of a statute.’” Microsoft Corp. v. i4i Ltd. 

P’ship, 131 S. Ct. 2238, 2248 (2011) (quoting Duncan v. 

Walker, 533 U.S. 167, 174 (2001)). We can identify no 

competing interpretation that could give logical meaning to 

all the words of § 1415(b)(6)(B), and thus conclude this is a 

quintessential case where “rigorous application of the canon 

does not seem a particularly useful guide to a fair 

construction of the statute.” King, 135 S. Ct. at 2492. 
35

scope of the relief authorized, . . . the ordinary meaning of 

these words confers broad discretion on the court and . . . 

absent any indication to the contrary, what relief is 

appropriate must be determined in light of the Act’s broad 

purpose of providing children with disabilities a FAPE . . . .”

(internal quotation marks omitted)); Bucks Cnty. Dep’t of 

Mental Health, 379 F.3d at 67 (“We . . . have broadly 

interpreted the term ‘appropriate’” and “discerned nothing in 

the text or history suggesting that relief under IDEA is limited 

in any way. . . .” (emphasis added) (internal quotation marks 

and alterations omitted)); see also D.E., 765 F.3d at 273

(examining the IDEA’s purpose and rejecting a statutory 

interpretation which “would ‘create an enormous loophole’ in 

a school district’s obligations under the IDEA, while 

‘substantially weaken[ing] the IDEA’s protections’ for 

students” (alteration in original) (quoting D.F., 694 F.3d at 

497)).

Given the broad remedial scheme of the IDEA, neither 

in the period before the 2004 amendments—when we

borrowed a state’s most analogous statutory cause of action to 

determine how long after an adverse decision by a hearing 

officer a parent could wait before filing an IDEA complaint in 

state or federal court16—nor in the period since, have we

imposed a cap on the remedy a child could seek for timelyfiled claims. Instead, we have consistently repeated that a 

 

16 See Ridgewood Bd. of Educ. v. N.E. ex rel. M.E., 172 

F.3d 238, 250-51 (3d Cir. 1999); see also Blunt v. Lower 

Merion Sch. Dist., 767 F.3d 247, 270 (3d Cir. 2014)

(observing that “[p]rior to the [2004] amendment of the IDEA 

. . . , the time for bringing suit . . . after receiving an adverse 

administrative determination had been two years”).
36

child’s right to compensatory education “accrue[s] from the 

point that the school district knows or should know” of the 

injury to the child, and the child “is entitled to compensatory 

education for a period equal to the period of deprivation, but 

excluding the time reasonably required for the school district 

to rectify the problem.” M.C. ex rel. J.C. v. Cent. Reg’l Sch. 

Dist., 81 F.3d 389, 396-97 (3d Cir. 1996); see also D.F., 694 

F.3d at 499 (repeating standard); Mary T. v. Sch. Dist. of 

Phila., 575 F.3d 235, 249 (3d Cir. 2009) (same); Lauren W. 

ex rel. Jean W. v. DeFlaminis, 480 F.3d 259, 272 (3d Cir. 

2007) (same). That standard is grounded in our

understanding, then and now, that “a child’s entitlement to 

special education should not depend upon the vigilance of the 

parents (who may not be sufficiently sophisticated to 

comprehend the problem) nor be abridged because the 

district’s behavior did not rise to the level of slothfulness or 

bad faith.” M.C., 81 F.3d at 397.

Against the backdrop of these cases and the broad 

interpretation the Supreme Court has given to a court’s

remedial power under § 1415(i)(2)(C)(iii), it bears particular 

significance that Congress reenacted that subsection without 

change as part of the 2004 reenactment. Thus, interpreting 

the IDEA’s statute of limitations as a remedy cap would also 

disregard the well-settled canon of statutory interpretation 

that “Congress is presumed to be aware of an administrative 

or judicial interpretation of a statute and to adopt that 

interpretation when it re-enacts a statute without change.”

Lorillard v. Pons, 434 U.S. 575, 580 (1978); see also Tex.

Dep’t of Hous. & Cmty. Affairs v. Inclusive Communities 

Project, Inc., 135 S. Ct. 2507, 2520 (2015).

On this point, we find clear guidance in the Supreme 

Court’s decision in Forest Grove, which examined the 1997 
37

amendments to the IDEA. Those amendments added, among 

other things, § 1412(a)(10)(C), which provided that if the 

parents of a special-needs child “who previously received 

special education and related services under the authority of a 

public agency” enrolled their child in private school without 

the consent or referral of that public agency, a school district 

could still be ordered to provide tuition reimbursement if a 

fact-finder determined that the school district failed to 

provide a student with a FAPE in the first instance. 20 U.S.C. 

§ 1412(a)(10)(C)(ii). In an attempt to limit liability, a school 

district argued that because the IDEA “only discusses 

reimbursement for children who have previously received 

special-education services through the public school, [the] 

IDEA only authorizes reimbursement in that circumstance.” 

557 U.S. at 241. 

The Supreme Court disagreed. It observed that the 

1997 amendments preserved the IDEA’s comprehensive 

remedial goal of providing every child with a FAPE and did 

not alter 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(2)(C)(iii). See id. at 243 n.10 

(stating that the holdings in School Committee of Burlington 

v. Department of Education of Massachusetts, 471 U.S. 359 

(1985), and Florence County School District Four v. Carter, 

510 U.S. 7 (1993), “rested . . . on the breadth of the authority 

conferred by § 1415(i)(2)(C)(iii), the interest in providing 

relief consistent with the Act’s purpose, and the injustice that 

a contrary reading would produce—considerations that were 

not altered by the 1997 Amendments” (internal citations 

omitted)). The Court thus rejected the notion that Congress 

repealed sub silentio those previous Supreme Court holdings 

describing the “broad discretion” afforded by 

§ 1415(i)(2)(C)(iii). Id. at 243. Any other reading, the Court 

reasoned, would be contrary to the IDEA’s broad remedial 
38

purpose and a “child’s right to a free appropriate education . . 

. would be less than complete.” Id. at 244-45 (alteration in 

original) (quoting Burlington, 471 U.S. at 370).

So too here, for the 2004 reauthorization reaffirmed

the IDEA’s first purpose as “ensur[ing] that all children with 

disabilities have available to them a free appropriate public 

education . . . designed to meet their unique needs,” 20 U.S.C. 

§ 1400(d)(1)(A), and once more left unchanged 

§ 1415(i)(2)(C)(iii), which grants courts the broad discretion 

to fashion remedies that accomplish that objective. 

Congress’s purpose in that mandate is clear: In order to 

effectuate the law’s broad remedial goals, a court finding a 

deprivation of a free appropriate public education should 

return a child to the educational path he or she would have 

traveled had the educational agency provided that child with 

an appropriate education in the first place. See D.F., 694 F.3d 

at 498-99; Reid, 401 F.3d at 518; see also Ridgewood, 172 

F.3d at 251 (remanding to district court to consider eight 

years of claims for compensatory education); Lester H. by 

Octavia P. v. Gilhool, 916 F.2d 865, 873-74 (3d Cir. 1990) 

(affirming grant of thirty months of compensatory education).

Consistent with that purpose and the traditional way in 

which a discovery-based statute of limitations functions, 

courts since the passage of the 2004 reenactment have 

routinely affirmed awards of compensatory education that 

remedy deprivations of greater than two years, or at 

minimum, remanded for an administrative agency to consider 

those claims. See Ferren C. v. Sch. Dist. of Phila., 612 F.3d 

712, 715 (3d Cir. 2010) (affirming award of three years of 

compensatory education); M.S. ex rel. Simchick v. Fairfax 

Cnty. Sch. Bd., 553 F.3d 315, 324 (4th Cir. 2009) (holding 

that the broad discretion afforded under the IDEA allowed a 
39

district court to consider reimbursement for three years of a 

child’s allegedly inappropriate placement); Draper v. Atl. 

Indep. Sch. Sys., 518 F.3d 1275, 1286-90 (11th Cir. 2008)

(rejecting a school district’s argument that a child’s longundiscovered injury was time barred and upholding an award 

of approximately five years of compensatory education); 

Reid, 401 F.3d at 526 (remanding to consider claims over a 

four and half year period of time); K.H. v N.Y.C. Dep’t of 

Educ., No. 12-1680, 2014 WL 3866430, at *20 (E.D.N.Y. 

Aug. 6, 2014) (finding that “the IDEA’s clear statutory 

language mandates” that a remedy is not limited by the statute 

of limitations when a claim is timely filed); Jefferson Cnty. 

Bd. of Educ. v. Lolita S., 977 F. Supp. 2d 1091, 1123 (N.D. 

Ala. 2013) (holding that a right to redress for a complaint 

filed in October 2011 would be limited to the most recent two 

years “unless . . . the statute did not begin to run on the claim 

because the parent did not know/should not have known 

about that action until a time within two years of the due 

process request”). But see Indep. Sch. Dist. No. 413, 

Marshall v. H.M.J., No. 14-2114, 2015 WL 4744505, at *11 

(D. Minn. Aug. 11, 2015) (“No party may recover for a 

violation occurring outside the two-year statute of 

limitations.”).

Of course, the IDEA’s statute of limitations does still

practically curtail remedy, for it “specif[ies] when a 

[complaint] is timely filed” and thus “has the consequence of 

limiting liability because filing a timely [complaint] is a 

prerequisite to having an actionable claim.” Nat’l R.R. 

Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 120 (2002). In 

context, however, that means simply that once a violation is

reasonably discovered by the parent, any claim for that 

violation, however far back it dates, must be filed within two 
40

years of the “knew or should have known” date. If it is not,

all but the most recent two years before the filing of the 

complaint will be time-barred; but if it is timely filed, then, 

upon a finding of liability, the entire period of the violation 

should be remedied. In other words, § 1415(f)(3)(C), like its 

synopsis in § 1415(b)(6)(B), reflects a traditional statute of 

limitations.

iii. The Department of Education’s 

Regulation and Interpretation

The DOE, the federal agency charged with 

promulgating regulations for the IDEA, see 20 U.S.C. § 1406, 

agrees that § 1415(b)(6)(B) and § 1415(f)(3)(C) state the 

same limitations period. 

In its regulations following the 2004 reenactment, the 

DOE simply reproduced both subsections verbatim. 

Compare 20 U.S.C. § 1415(b)(6)(B), and 1415(f)(3)(C), with

34 C.F.R. §§ 300.507(a)(2), and 300.511(e). In its Analysis 

of Comments and Changes to those regulations, however, the 

DOE reported that commenters were confused and sought 

guidance, “because the statute of limitations is mentioned 

twice and implies that the timeline for filing a complaint and 

filing a request for a due process hearing are different.” 

Assistance to States for the Education of Children with 

Disabilities & Preschool Grants for Children with 

Disabilities, 71 Fed. Reg. 46,540, 46,706 (Aug. 14, 2006). It 

responded that “[t]he statute of limitations in section 

[1415(b)(6)(B)] of the Act is the same as the statute of 

limitations in section [1415(f)(3)(C)] of the Act.” Id. 

In this appeal, at our request, the DOE also submitted 

an amicus letter brief in which it reiterated its position that the 
41

subsections are, in fact, referencing a single statute of 

limitations.17 

We afford the DOE’s interpretation of its regulation 

and its position before us here “‘respect’ . . . to the extent it 

has the ‘power to persuade,’” Gonzales v. Oregon, 546 U.S. 

243, 256 (2006) (quoting Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U.S. 

134, 140 (1944)); see id. at 256-57 (holding that an agency’s 

interpretation of regulations that merely parrot the statute are 

accorded Skidmore deference, rather than the higher

deference generally accorded to interpretive guidance under 

Auer v. Robbins, 519 U.S. 452 (1997)). Here, we find the 

DOE’s position persuasive because it accords with the 

language, structure and purpose of the statute, and it is yet 

one more voice in a harmonious chorus that § 1415(b)(6)(B) 

was intended to reiterate § 1415(f)(3)(C)’s two-year statute of 

limitations.

 

17 The IDEA also tasks the DOE with promulgating a 

model notice of procedural safeguards. 20 U.S.C. § 1417(e). 

In that model notice, it again repeated the language of 

§ 1415(b)(6), but cautioned states that if they “established a 

specific timeframe for requesting a hearing under the IDEA 

that is different than two years (either shorter or longer), 

revise the above statement to reflect that timeframe.” United 

States Department of Education, Part B Procedural 

Safeguards Notice, 17 (2009), 

http://www2.ed.gov/policy/speced/guid/idea/modelformsafeguards.doc. Again, such a caution to revise the 

limitations notice shorter or longer based on a state’s statute 

of limitations only makes sense if § 1415(b)(6)(B) is, in fact, 

a statute of limitations. 
42

To the extent there remains any doubt about this 

conclusion, it is put to rest by the legislative history, to which 

we next turn.

iv. The Legislative History of the 

2004 IDEA Amendments

“Supreme Court cases declaring that clear language 

cannot be overcome by contrary legislative history are 

legion.” First Merchs. Acceptance Corp. v. J.C. Bradford & 

Co., 198 F.3d 394, 402 (3d Cir. 1999) (collecting cases). 

That said, legislative history can play a confirmatory role in 

resolving ambiguity when statutory language and structure 

support a given interpretation. See, e.g., Gen. Dynamics Land 

Sys. v. Cline, 540 U.S. 581, 586-91 (2004); Catwell v. Att’y 

Gen., 623 F.3d 199, 208 (3d Cir. 2010). This is such a case.

A legislature designing a statute of limitations 

confronts certain choices. As we have discussed, it can set 

the date from which the limitations period begins to run by 

using the occurrence rule or the discovery rule. See supra at

23-26. It also can set the expiration date either by counting 

forward from that occurrence or discovery date to the filing of 

a complaint or by counting backward from the date a 

complaint is filed to the occurrence or discovery date. 

When the House of Representatives proposed the

amendment that was eventually incorporated into 

§ 1415(b)(6), it chose to use the occurrence rule and to count 

backward, providing that parents would have:

(6) an opportunity to present complaints–
43

(A) with respect to any matter relating to the 

identification, evaluation, or educational 

placement of the child, or the provision of a free 

appropriate public education to such child; and

(B) which set forth a violation that occurred not 

more than one year before the complaint is 

filed;

H.R. Rep. 108-77, at 254 (2003). The House committee’s 

report unambiguously described this language as a one-year 

statute of limitations. Id. at 115-16 (“Statute of limitations[:]

The Act currently has no statute of limitations and leaves 

local educational agencies open to litigation for the entire 

length of time a child is in school, whether or not the child 

has been identified as a child with a disability. . . . The bill 

includes a statute of limitations of one year from the date of 

the violation . . . .). And as written, it would have

unambiguously functioned like one, barring claims based on 

injuries that occurred more than twelve months before the 

complaint was filed.

The Senate, meanwhile, chose to use the discovery 

rule and to count forward, providing in what became 

§ 1415(f)(3)(C): 

Timeline for requesting hearing.–A parent or 

public agency shall request an impartial due 

process hearing within 2 years of the date the 

parent or public agency knew or should have 

known about the alleged action that forms the 

basis of the complaint, or, if the State has an 

explicit time limitation for requesting such a 
44

hearing under this part, in such time as the State 

law allows.

S. Rep. 108-185, at 222 (2003). Unlike the House’s proposal, 

the Senate’s also added the provision giving primacy to a

state’s limitations period, along with the two statutory tolling 

exceptions. 

Those two bills—both statutes of limitations but 

pointing in different directions and using different starting

dates for the limitations period—then went to conference

where the conference committee sought to reconcile them. 

That committee reaffirmed that each body’s amendment

functioned as a traditional statute of limitations on the filing 

of a complaint: 

The House bill and Senate amendment have 

similar language regarding the opportunity to 

present complaints, but the House bill, not the 

Senate amendment, includes language 

establishing a 1 year statute of limitations on 

the right to present complaints. Senate has a 2 

year timeline for filing complaints at note 221.

H.R. Rep. 108-779, at 213 n.193 (2004) (Conf. Rep.), 

reprinted in 2004 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2480, 2527; see also id. at 

218 n.221, 2532 (“The Senate amendment establishes a 2-

year statute of limitations unless State law already has a 

statute of limitations. The House bill includes a 1-year statute 

of limitations (see note 193).”). 

Apparently concluding that the addition of a statute of 

limitations should involve both a new provision within 

§ 1415(f)(3)(C) and an amendment to its prefatory subsection
45

at § 1415(b)(6), the conference committee opted not to 

choose one body’s addition over the other but to retain both. 

It did so by conforming each and every of the material terms 

of the House’s version to the Senate’s, i.e., by changing the 

House’s limitations period from one year to two, changing the 

occurrence rule to the discovery rule, adding that a state’s

statute of limitations could override the IDEA’s, and adding 

the two equitable tolling provisions specified by the Senate. 

The conference committee then incorporated the Senate’s

version at § 1415(f) and the House’s version in the summary 

listing at § 1415(b). When it did so, however, it omitted to 

change the backward-looking framework of the House’s 

version to the forward-looking framework of the Senate’s. 

Thus was created the problem we grapple with today.

Section 1415(b)(6), in other words, started in the 

House as a functioning, one-year statute of limitations for the 

filing of complaints:

(A) with respect to any matter relating to the 

identification, evaluation, or educational 

placement of the child, or the provision of a free 

appropriate public education to such child; and

(B) which set forth a violation that occurred 

not more than one year before the complaint 

is filed[.]

H.R. Rep. 108-77, at 254 (emphasis added). 

It ended, however, as something different altogether: 

(A) with respect to any matter relating to the 

identification, evaluation, or educational 
46

placement of the child, or the provision of a free 

appropriate public education to such child; and

(B) which set forth an alleged violation that 

occurred not more than two years before the 

date the parent or public agency knew or 

should have known about the alleged action 

that forms the basis of the complaint, or, if the 

State has an explicit time limitation for 

presenting such a complaint under this 

subchapter, in such time as the State law allows,

except that the exceptions to the timeline 

described in subsection (f)(3)(D) shall apply to 

the timeline described in this subparagraph.

20 U.S.C. § 1415(b)(6) (emphasis added).

The Congressional Research Service described the 

amendments this way:

The 2004 reauthorization includes statutes of 

limitations in various sections. As previously 

discussed [Section 1415(b)] provides for a 

two-year statute of limitations regarding the 

filing of a complaint. There is also a two-year 

statute of limitations regarding requests for a 

hearing. The two years is from the date the 

parent or agency knew or should have known 

about the alleged action. 

Richard N. Appling and Nancy Lee Jones, Cong. Research 

Serv., RL32716, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act 

(IDEA): Analysis of Changes Made by P.L. 108-446, CRS-27 

(2005) (emphasis added). While this post-enactment 
47

observation on its own carries little weight, nothing in the 

IDEA’s legislative history points to a contrary interpretation. 

In fact, quite the opposite. Far from Congress 

intending that the two limitations periods diverge or limit a 

court’s remedial power under § 1415(i), the legislative history 

reflects that the drafters intended the amendments to add a 

single statute of limitations and to leave untouched the 

IDEA’s broad remedies. For example, in its explanation of 

the addition of the statute of limitations, the Senate report 

stated: 

This new provision is not intended to alter the 

principle under IDEA that children may receive 

compensatory education services, as affirmed in 

School Comm. of Burlington v. Department of 

Education of Massachusetts, 471 U.S. 359 

(1985) and Florence County School District 

Four v. Carter, 510 U.S. 7 (1993) and 

otherwise limited under section 

[1412(a)(10)(C)] . . . . In essence, where the 

issue giving rise to the claim is more than two 

years old and not ongoing, the claim is barred;

where the conduct or services at issue are 

ongoing to the previous two years, the claim 

for compensatory education services may be 

made on the basis of the most recent conduct 

or services and the conduct or services that 

were more than two years old at the time of 

due process or the private placement . . . .

S. Rep. 108-185, 40 (emphasis added).
48

After conference, but before final passage, Senator 

Harkin, a co-sponsor of the amendments, addressed the 

addition of a statute of limitations this way: 

In this reauthorization, we also include a 2-year 

statute of limitations on claims. However, it 

should be noted that this limitation is not 

designed to have any impact on the ability of a 

child to receive compensatory damages for the 

entire period in which he or she has been 

deprived of services. The statute of limitations 

goes only to the filing of the complaint, not 

the crafting of remedy. This is important 

because it is only fair that if a school district 

repeatedly failed to provide services to a child, 

they should be required to provide 

compensatory services to rectify this problem 

and help the child achieve despite the school’s 

failings.

Therefore, compensatory education must 

cover the entire period and must belatedly 

provide all education and related services 

previously denied and needed to make the 

child whole.

150 Cong. Rec. S11851 (daily ed. Nov. 24, 2004) (statement 

of Sen. Tom Harkin) (emphasis added); see also Robert R. v. 

Marple Newtown Sch. Dist., No. 05-1282, 2005 WL 3003033, 

at *4 (E.D. Pa. Nov. 8, 2005) (examining the IDEA’s 

legislative history and concluding that “the limitations period 

placed on claims for compensatory education by the [2004] 

amendment to the IDEA was not meant to limit the period 

which the hearing officer could consider when a due process 
49

hearing was timely brought”); Jennifer Rosen Valverde, A 

Poor IDEA: Statute of Limitations Decisions Cement SecondClass Remedial Scheme for Low-Income Children with 

Disabilities in the Third Circuit, 41 Fordham Urb. L.J. 599, 

643-646 (2013). The legislative history is thus crystal clear 

that Congress intended to impose a single statute of 

limitations, but otherwise not to limit a court’s power to 

remedy the deprivation of a free appropriate education.

V. Conclusion

As a general rule, “[t]he plain meaning of legislation 

should be conclusive.” United States v. Ron Pair Enters., 

Inc., 489 U.S. 235, 242 (1989). However, in the “rare cases 

[in which] the literal application of a statute will produce a 

result demonstrably at odds with the intentions of its 

drafters,” the plain meaning need not control. Id. (alteration 

in original) (quoting Griffin v. Oceanic Contractors, Inc., 458 

U.S. 564, 571 (1982)). In those exceptional instances where 

“it is uncontested that legislative intent is at odds with the 

literal terms of the statute, . . . [our] primary role is to 

effectuate the intent of Congress even if a word in the statute 

instructs otherwise.” Morgan v. Gay, 466 F.3d 276, 278 (3d 

Cir. 2006); accord Thorpe v. Borough of Thorpe, 770 F.3d 

255, 263 (3d Cir. 2014). 

Here, the language, context, and structure of § 1415 

lead inexorably to one conclusion: § 1415(b)(6)(B) was 

intended to reflect the same statute of limitations set forth in 

§ 1415(f)(3)(C). To the extent that some of its language 

appears to conflict with that conclusion, the legislative history 

confirms what is apparent from our analysis of the statute 

itself. That is, the inconsistent language reflects nothing more 

than a drafting error in the reconciliation process, turning a 
50

passage that was at each stage of the legislative process 

thought to be a statute of limitations into something that both 

contravenes congressional intent and renders the statute 

illogical. Thus, the IDEA “needs common sense revision,” 

Morgan, 466 F.3d at 279, reflecting congressional intent that 

a due process complaint must be presented “within 2 years” 

of a parent’s reasonable discovery date, not that remedies be 

limited to injuries that occurred “not more than 2 years 

before” that date.

The upshot of all this is two-fold. On the one hand, 

although a child’s right to special education under the IDEA 

does not turn on parental vigilance, M.C., 81 F.3d at 397, 

parental vigilance is vital to the preservation and enforcement 

of that right. As we made clear in D.K., claims that are

known or reasonably should be known to parents must be 

brought within two years of that “knew or should have 

known” date, and parents may not, without satisfying one of 

the two statutory exceptions, knowingly sit on their rights or 

attempt to sweep both timely and expired claims into a single 

“continuing violation” claim brought years later. 696 F.3d at 

248. Parents are often in a position to be forceful advocates 

for their children and through their vigilance and 

perseverance to help fulfill the IDEA’s promise of a free 

appropriate public education. That “cooperative process . . . 

between parents and schools” that results from a parent’s

action, after all, is at the very “core of the statute” itself. 

Schaffer, 546 U.S. at 53. Thus the sooner parents start that 

process and secure appropriate intervention and remedial 

supports after they discover or reasonably should have 

discovered the need for it, the better for the well-being of the 

child, the goals of the school district, and the relationship 

between the family and school administrators. 
51

On the other hand, where parents neither knew nor 

reasonably should have known of the special needs of their 

child or of the educational system’s failure to respond 

appropriately to those needs, the other partner in this 

endeavor—the school district itself—still has its independent 

duty to identify those needs within a reasonable time period

and to work with the parents and the IEP team to

expeditiously design and implement an appropriate program 

of remedial support. 20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(3); see also Forest 

Grove, 557 U.S. at 245; P.P., 585 F.3d at 738. This is a 

profound responsibility, with the power to change the 

trajectory of a child’s life. Thus, the corollary to D.K. is that

when a school district has failed in that responsibility and 

parents have taken appropriate and timely action under the 

IDEA, then that child is entitled to be made whole with 

nothing less than a “complete” remedy. Forest Grove, 557 

U.S. at 244. Compensatory education is crucial to achieve 

that goal, and the courts, in the exercise of their broad 

discretion, may award it to whatever extent necessary to make 

up for the child’s lost progress and to restore the child to the 

educational path he or she would have traveled but for the

deprivation. See D.F., 694 F.3d at 498-99. In this way, the 

courts too have an essential function in fulfilling Congress’s 

mandate in the IDEA and enabling each child with special 

needs to reach his or her full potential.

For these reasons, we hold today that, absent one of 

the two statutory exceptions found in § 1415(f)(3)(D), parents 

have two years from the date they knew or should have 

known of the violation to request a due process hearing 

through the filing of an administrative complaint and that, 

assuming parents timely file that complaint and liability is 

proven, Congress did not abrogate our longstanding precedent 
52

that “a disabled child is entitled to compensatory education 

for a period equal to the period of deprivation, but excluding 

the time reasonably required for the school district to rectify 

the problem.” D.F., 694 F.3d at 499 (quoting M.C., 81 F.3d 

at 397). 

* * *

G.L.’s claim was filed within two years of the date his 

parents knew or reasonably should have known of his injury, 

and thus his right to compensatory education upon proof of a 

violation was not curtailed by the IDEA’s statute of 

limitations. Accordingly, we will affirm the District Court’s 

decision that his claims for remedy prior to March 2010 were 

not time-barred and will remand to the District Court for 

proceedings consistent with this Opinion.