Opinion ID: 619866
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Timeliness of Request for Tuition Reimbursement

Text: K.D. challenges the district court's finding that his request for tuition reimbursement for the 2007-08 school year was time-barred. The IDEA provides an opportunity for any party to seek an impartial hearing, and permits a state to set the timeline for when such a request must be filed. 20 U.S.C. § 1415(b)(6)(B). Hawaii has set a timeline for the filing of a request seeking a due process hearing, in Hawaii Revised Statutes Section 302A-443. The statute, in relevant part, read as follows during the 2007-08 school year: (a) An impartial hearing may be requested by any parent or guardian of a child with a disability, or by the department, on any matter relating to the identification, evaluation, program, or placement of a child with a disability; provided that the hearing is requested: (1) Within two years of the date the parent, guardian, or department knew or should have known about the alleged action that formed the basis of the request for a hearing; and (2) Notwithstanding paragraph (1), within ninety days of a unilateral special education placement, where the request is for reimbursement of the costs of the placement. Haw.Rev.Stat. § 302A-443. [3] Thus, whether the two-year or 90-day statute of limitations applies depends on whether a placement is a unilateral special education placement. Id. § 302A-443(2).
K.D. contends that a unilateral placement occurs only when a parent physically removes the child from public school and enrolls him or her in a private school, without DOE agreement. K.D. also asserts that his placement at Loveland was bilateral because it was agreed upon in the 2007 settlement agreement with the DOE, and that settlement agreement was not time-limited. The term unilateral placement is not defined by statute, and at least two Hawaii-based courts have concluded that the legislative history of Section 302A-443 is silent on the meaning of unilateral and placement. See D.C. v. Dep't of Educ., 550 F.Supp.2d 1238, 1248 (D.Haw.2008); Makiko D. v. Hawaii, No. 06-CV-00189, 2007 WL 1153811, at  (D.Haw. April 17, 2007). Nevertheless, the Makiko D. court defined the term as follows, based on its plain meaning: a unilateral special education placement occurs when one party unilaterally (i.e., without consent or agreement of the other party) enrolls the student in a special education program. Id. at . For purposes of this opinion, and given the plain meaning of the statute, we adopt the definition of unilateral special education placement used in Makiko D. As so defined, the term unilateral special education placement does not support K.D.'s contention that placement only occurs upon the physical removal of a student from one school to another. Here, the agreement between the DOE and K.D. ended after the 2006-07 school year, and the DOE proposed a new IEP placing K.D. at a different school. However, C.L. unilaterally decided to enroll K.D. at Loveland for the 2007-08 school year. This enrollment thus occurred without consent or agreement of the other party. Id. K.D.'s contention that the settlement agreement is not time-limited is likewise without merit, as discussed supra at section I.B, in our stay put provision analysis. K.D. also argues that the settlement agreement somehow modifies K.D.'s enrollment at Loveland to be bilateral from that point forward. K.D. claims that the effect of the agreement is analogous to situations in which a hearing officer's decision in favor of the parent changes a unilateral placement to a bilateral placement. To support this argument, K.D. cites D.C. v. Department of Education, which held that a favorable administrative ruling constituted the State's agreement to the private placement and changed an otherwise unilateral placement to a bilateral placement. 550 F.Supp.2d at 1249. However, in so holding, the D.C. court relied on the reasoning that we have applied to the stay put provision of the IDEA. Id. (citing Burlington, 471 U.S. at 372, 105 S.Ct. 1996 (holding same in the context of the stay put provision of the IDEA) and Clovis, 903 F.2d at 641 (holding same also in the stay put context)). Thus, just as we found that Loveland was not K.D.'s stay put placement based on the settlement agreement, we also conclude that the settlement agreement did not operate to change the placement from unilateral to bilateral.
Because K.D.'s enrollment at Loveland for the 2007-08 school year is a unilateral placement, the 90-day statute of limitation applies. K.D. filed his request for an impartial due process hearing challenging the 2007 IEP on August 29, 2008. This was over a year after his enrollment at Loveland for the 2007-08 school year. Thus, K.D.'s claim requesting tuition reimbursement for the 2007-08 school year is barred by the statute of limitations in Section 302A-443(2).