Opinion ID: 1272595
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Historical Background and the Felix Consent Decree.

Text: Hawaii has long struggled to provide adequate services to special needs students in compliance with state and federal law. The U.S. DOE performed a site visit to Hawaii in 1991 and determined that the Hawaii Department of Education (Hawaii DOE) was not complying with federal law because mental health services were not always provided to meet the needs of special education students. [1] The U.S. DOE report found that although [t]he [Hawaii] DOE is legally responsible for furnishing these services, . . . [t]he [Hawaii Department of Health (`Hawaii DOH')] provides some free services to these students, but only when it has the resources. The U.S. DOE warned the Hawaii DOE that it must provide or purchase appropriate mental health services for special education students. In January of 1993, a report by the Auditor for the State of Hawaii entitled A Study on the Memorandum of Agreement for Coordinating Mental Health Services to Children, No. 93-1, acknowledged that efforts to coordinate among state agencies the provision of mental health services for special education students had largely failed. The report concluded that the [Hawaii DOE] must provide or purchase mental health services for special education students when the[Hawaii DOH] cannot provide these services. Later in 1993 a class of plaintiffs comprised of disabled children and adolescents eligible for special education and mental health services sued the Hawaii DOE and the Hawaii DOH in federal court, claiming a failure to comply with the IDEA and with § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. Felix v. Waihee, CV. No. 93-00367-DAE. The district court granted summary judgment for the class on the issue of liability, finding that the agencies ha[d] systematically failed to provide required and necessary educational and mental health services to qualified handicapped children, in violation of both federal laws. Thereafter, in 1994, the parties entered into a consent decree (the  Felix Decree), which was approved by the district court. In the Felix Decree, the two state agencies acknowledged that they had violated the federal IDEA and § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. The agencies agreed that the Hawaii DOE would provide all educational services the Felix class members require; that the Hawaii DOH would provide all mental health services the class members require to benefit from the educational services; and that the two agencies would create and maintain a system of care adequate to provide a continuum of services, placements, and programs necessary for disabled students. The Felix Decree defined the plaintiff class as all children and adolescents with disabilities residing in Hawaii, from birth to 20 years of age, who are eligible for and in need of education and mental health services but for whom programs, services, and placements are either unavailable, inadequate, or inappropriate because of lack of a continuum of services, programs, and placements. Autistic children fall within the Felix class.