Opinion ID: 203107
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Requests for Relief.

Text: This essentially ends our inquiry. Although reimbursement of parental expenses for private residential placements sometimes is available under the IDEA, such reimbursement is contingent upon a showing that the parents diligently pursued the provision of appropriate services from the public school system, yet the school system failed to provide those services; and that the private placement is a suitable alternative. See Florence Cty. Sch. Dist. Four v. Carter, 510 U.S. 7, 12, 114 S.Ct. 361, 126 L.Ed.2d 284 (1993); Burlington Sch. Comm., 471 U.S. at 370, 105 S.Ct. 1996. When the parents make a unilateral choice, they must bear the associated risk: if the conditions for reimbursement are not met, the financial burdens are theirs. Burlington Sch. Comm., 471 U.S. at 373-74, 105 S.Ct. 1996; Roland M., 910 F.2d at 1000. That is precisely what transpired here. The parents made a unilateral choice to abandon the collaborative IEP process without allowing that process to run its course. Thus, the parents are precluded from obtaining reimbursement for the costs of the Chamberlain School placement, see supra Part II(C), and a fortiori, they have not satisfied that prong of the reimbursement analysis. [6] The parents' alternative claim for compensatory education is easily dispatched. Compensatory education is a surrogate for the warranted education that a disabled child may have missed during periods when his IEP was so inappropriate that he was effectively denied a FAPE. See Me. Sch. Admin. Dist. No. 35 v. Mr. & Mrs. R., 321 F.3d 9, 18 (1st Cir.2003). However, compensatory education is not an automatic entitlement but, rather, a discretionary remedy for, nonfeasance or misfeasance in connection with a school system's obligations under the IDEA. See Pihl v. Mass. Dep't of Educ., 9 F.3d 184, 188 (1st Cir.1993); see also G v. Ft. Bragg Dependent Schs., 343 F.3d 295, 309 (4th Cir.2003) (stating that [c]ompensatory education involves discretionary . . . relief crafted by a court to correct a school district's failure under the Act). As we have explained, the parents have failed to establish any violation by the School District of its duties under the IDEA. Their claim for compensatory education cannot surmount this barrier.