Opinion ID: 4535004
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Second Reason: Cost of Pendency Services

Text: As a practical matter, it makes sense that it is the party generally responsible for paying a student’s agreed-upon educational program—here, the City—who determines how the pendency services are to be provided. That is so for two reasons: (i) public funding for pendency services can never be recouped; and (ii) the cost of educational services in schools can vary dramatically.
One can imagine circumstances in which a school district pays on a pendency basis for the educational services of a private school selected unilaterally by the parents, after which a court decides in the school district’s favor, by holding that the parents’ unilateral transfer modified the child’s pendency placement, or that the school district’s proposed IEP would have afforded the child a FAPE.66 In these circumstances, the school district would have no recourse under the 66 Cf. S.S., 2010 WL 983719, at  (rejecting claim by the City that it is entitled to be reimbursed for the payments made “to advance the child[’s] . . . private school tuition during hearing and appeal process” pursuant to the stay-put provision in light of the state review officer’s final decision that the IEP “proposed for the child would have afforded him a” FAPE for the relevant school year). 33 IDEA to recoup the sums it expended on the child. 67 By contrast, if the school district were found to have unilaterally modified the child’s placement, the parent could seek injunctive relief against the school district for violating the IDEA. 68
Dramatically different costs may be presented when parents unilaterally choose to enroll their child in a new school. Indeed, the cost of providing pendency services in the new school may be substantially higher than the cost of providing those services at the previous school. 69 Nothing in the statutory text or legislative history 67See ante, note 49. This did not happen here only because the District Court in Navarro Carrillo granted the City’s motion to stay the order granting the application for a preliminary injunction. 68 Cf. T.M., 752 F.3d at 172 (authorizing limited reimbursement to parents in light of, among other things, the fact that the school district refused to provide the child pendency services in the first instance); Mackey, 386 F.3d at 165–66 (authorizing reimbursement for pendency services even after parents lost their IEP dispute for the relevant school year). 69 In these cases, neither the City nor the Parents presented any evidence in the record about the cost of iBRAIN’s services and how they compare to the cost of similar services at iHOPE. At oral argument, however, counsel for the City informed us, without contradiction, that the cost of attending iBRAIN was significantly higher, and that the Parents had disavowed the City’s transportation arrangement at iHOPE in favor of a private transportation service arranged by iBRAIN. 34 of the IDEA, however, “implies a legislative intent to permit” the parents of children with disabilities “to utilize the [stay-put provision’s] automatic injunctive procedure . . . to frustrate the fiscal policies of participating states.” 70