Opinion ID: 4538518
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Eligibility Evaluation

Text: Notably, Minnesota regulations require school districts to provide the student regular and special-education services, whether or not the student is disabled, when a student spends extended time at home or in a medical facility being treated for illness. Minn. Stat. § 125A.515; see also id. §§ 125A.15 and 125A.51. Nevertheless, once the parents requested the District evaluate the Student for a disability, the applicable regulations under the IDEA required the District to “conduct a full and individual evaluation . . . to determine if [she] is a child with a disability.” 34 C.F.R. § 300.301(a)–(b). The District was also required to “ensure that . . . the evaluation [was] sufficiently comprehensive to identify all of the child’s special education and related services needs.” Id. § 300.304(c)(6). Although the District contends that its evaluation met the regulation’s requirements, its position cannot be squared with the requirement for a “full” and “sufficiently comprehensive” evaluation under the IDEA or Minnesota law. Id. §§ 300.301(a), 300.304(c)(6). Minnesota’s special-education regulations require that when a student is evaluated for “emotional or behavioral disorders” and the “other health disabilities” categories of disability, the evaluation “must be supported by -8- current or existing data from,” among other sources, a “functional behavioral assessment” and “systematic observations in the classroom or other learning environment by a licensed special education teacher.” Minn. R. 3525.1329 subp. 1, 3 (emotional or behavioral disorders), id. 3525.1335 subp. 1, 3 (other health disabilities). The District admits that it did not conduct either a functional behavioral assessment or make systematic observations of the Student. The District argues that it should be absolved of this duty because the Student was chronically absent, especially in the eleventh grade when the District’s evaluation took place. We acknowledge that while the Student’s absences might have made a comprehensive evaluation more difficult, the evidence does not support the conclusion that task was impossible to undertake. A functional behavioral assessment, which “identifies the antecedents, consequences, and reinforcers that maintain the behavior,” does not depend on the Student’s presence in the classroom. Minn. R. 3525.0210 subp. 22. And Minnesota’s regulations make plain that “systematic observations” can be made both “in the classroom,” and in “other learning environment[s]” as well. Id. at 3525.1329 subp. 3. The record reflects that the District made no effort to assess the Student in her virtual classroom, at home, or in any one of the psychiatric facilities from which she earned school credits. The District’s failure to avail itself of these possibilities or develop another way of gathering the necessary data is virtually conclusive evidence that the District’s evaluation of the Student was insufficiently informed and legally deficient.