Opinion ID: 4535004
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: First Reason: The IDEA’s Text and Structure

Text: We start by recognizing the well-settled principle that “[b]y and large, public education in our Nation is committed to the control of the state and local authorities.” 57 By choosing to accept federal funds under the IDEA, participating States do not relinquish their control over public education, including their authority to determine the educational programs of students. 58 Nor do States agree to the wholesale transfer of that authority to the parents of children with disabilities. Rather, by accepting federal funds, States primarily agree to establish procedures to ensure that a FAPE is provided to children 57 Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97, 104 (1968). 58See Tilton v. Jefferson Cty. Bd. of Educ., 705 F.2d 800, 804 (6th Cir. 1983) (“Congress did not compel, as the price for federal participation in the education for the handicapped, a wholesale transfer of authority over the allocation of educational resources from the duly elected or appointed state and local boards to the parents of individual handicapped children.”), cited with approval in Fallis v. Ambach, 710 F.2d 49, 56 (2d Cir. 1983). 29 with disabilities. 59 One of those “procedural safeguards” 60 is the right to pendency services under the stay-put provision. 61 The stay-put provision therefore was enacted as a procedural safeguard in light of the school district’s broad authority to determine the educational program of its students. The provision limits that authority by, among other things, preventing the school district from unilaterally modifying a student’s educational program during the pendency of an IEP dispute. It does not eliminate, however, the school district’s preexisting and independent authority to determine how to provide the most-recently-agreed-upon educational program. As we have recognized, “[i]t is up to the school district,” not the parent, “to decide how to provide that educational program [until the IEP dispute is resolved], so long as the decision is made in good faith.” 62 If a parent disagrees with a school district’s decision on how to provide a child’s educational program, the parent has at least three options under the IDEA: (1) The parent can argue that the school 59 20 U.S.C. § 1415(a) (“Any State educational agency, State agency, or local educational agency that receives assistance under this subchapter shall 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 such agencies.”). 60 Id. § 1415 (entitled, “Procedural Safeguards”). 61 See id. § 1415(j). 62 T.M., 752 F.3d at 171 (citing Concerned Parents, 629 F.2d at 756). 30 district’s decision unilaterally modifies the student’s pendency placement and the parent could invoke the stay-put provision to prevent the school district from doing so; (2) The parent can determine that the agreed-upon educational program would be better provided somewhere else and thus seek to persuade the school district to pay for the program’s new services on a pendency basis; or (3) The parent can determine that the program would be better provided somewhere else, enroll the child in a new school, and then seek retroactive reimbursement from the school district after the IEP dispute is resolved. That said, what the parent cannot do is determine that the child’s pendency placement would be better provided somewhere else, enroll the child in a new school, and then invoke the stay-put provision to force the school district to pay for the new school’s services on a pendency basis. To hold otherwise would turn the stayput provision on its head, by effectively eliminating the school district’s authority to determine how pendency services should be provided. Here, the Parents’ pendency claims seek to do exactly that. The Parents and the City had agreed that the Students’ educational program would be provided at iHOPE. When apparently dissatisfied with unspecified changes to iHOPE’s “management” and “philosophy,” the Parents unilaterally decided that iBRAIN was a 31 better school for the Students. 63 The Parents are certainly entitled to make that decision for the benefit of their children, but in claiming that the City must continue to pay for iBRAIN’s services on a pendency basis, the Parents effectively “seek a ‘veto’ over school choice rather than ‘input’—a power the IDEA clearly does not grant them.” 64 Regardless of whether the educational program that the Students are receiving at iBRAIN is substantially similar to the one offered at iHOPE, when the Parents unilaterally enrolled the Students at iBRAIN for the 2018-2019 school year, they did so at their own financial risk. 65 63At oral argument, counsel for the Parents generally attributed the exodus of students from iHOPE to iBRAIN to “changes in the management” and “philosophy” of iHOPE. 64 T.Y., 584 F.3d at 420. 65 We do not consider here, much less resolve, any question presented where the school providing the child’s pendency services is no longer available and the school district either refuses or fails to provide pendency services to the child. Those circumstances are not present here. We note, however, that at least one of our sister Circuits has acknowledged that, under certain extraordinary circumstances not presented here, a parent may seek injunctive relief to modify a student’s placement pursuant to the equitable authority provided in 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(2)(B)(iii). See Wagner v. Bd. of Educ. of Montgomery Cty., 335 F.3d 297, 302– 03 (4th Cir. 2003) (involving a situation in which the pendency placement was no longer available, and the school district had failed to propose an alternative, equivalent placement). 32