District Wins: Foster Care School Transfers and IEP Implementation Disputes

What Happened

Student was a teenager with severe emotional disturbance (ED), diagnoses of depression, ADHD, and PTSD, and a documented history of eloping from school and home. At the start of the 2010-2011 school year, Student entered foster care, which created a complicated situation: Parents held educational rights, but Student's foster parents — not Parents — were physically enrolling her in schools. Without notifying Parents, Student's first foster mother enrolled her at Pete Knight High School for two days, and a second foster mother enrolled her at Eastside High School for approximately three weeks. Parents had enrolled Student at Quartz Hill High School, where her IEP called for placement in a special day class (SDC) for students with ED. The situation was eventually resolved by Superior Court orders requiring Student to attend Quartz Hill, with Parents providing transportation and receiving reimbursement from the county child welfare agency.

Parents filed two due process complaints alleging that the District violated Student's right to a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) in four ways: (1) enrolling Student in multiple schools without consulting Parents; (2) failing to adequately supervise and monitor Student during the school year, as evidenced by incidents involving alcohol, marijuana, a self-administered lip piercing, and two instances of eloping; (3) failing to provide all required counseling sessions under the IEP; and (4) discontinuing bus transportation. Parents sought findings that the District had violated the law and orders requiring future compliance, but did not seek compensatory education.

What the ALJ Found

The ALJ ruled in the District's favor on every issue. On the school transfer question, the ALJ acknowledged that the District should have involved an educational liaison and the holders of educational rights before placing Student in new schools, as required by California's foster care education law. However, because the transfers were initiated by foster parents — not the District — and the District had no reason to know Parents had not consented, the procedural lapse did not rise to the level of a significant impediment to parental participation. Student's time at Pete Knight lasted only two days with no behavioral incidents; her time at Eastside lasted three weeks in an appropriate ED special day class. Neither placement materially harmed Student or deprived her of educational benefit.

On supervision, the ALJ found that the IEP's monitoring provisions operated through a four-level system that gave students progressively more independence as their behavior improved. Parents had consented to every IEP and never objected to the level system or asked that Student be exempt from earning greater independence at higher levels. The incidents Parents pointed to — alcohol use, alleged marijuana use, a lip piercing, and two instances of eloping — either occurred in a bathroom (which the IEP did not require to be supervised) or lacked sufficient evidence connecting them to a District monitoring failure. On counseling, the District conceded Student missed three hours of required DIS counseling sessions, but had offered make-up sessions that Parents refused. Given Student's overall behavioral improvement across the year, the ALJ found this was not a material failure. On transportation, the Superior Court had already resolved the issue by ordering Parents to transport Student and directing child welfare to reimburse them; Parents never raised the transportation gap with the IEP team at any subsequent meeting.

What Was Ordered

1. The student's requests for relief were denied in their entirety.
2. The District was found to have prevailed on all four issues heard and decided.

Why This Matters for Parents

1. Foster care creates a legal grey zone for school placement — but you can act quickly to protect your child's rights. When a foster parent enrolls a child in a new school without the educational rights holder's knowledge, the District may not be held responsible if it had no reason to know parental consent was missing. If your child is in foster care and you hold educational rights, notify the District in writing immediately when any unauthorized placement occurs — don't rely solely on court proceedings or third parties like CASAs.

2. IEP monitoring provisions must be specific — vague language can be used against you. The ALJ found that the level system was the primary supervision mechanism in every IEP, and that Parents had consented to it without objection. If you have concerns about how your child will be monitored, especially regarding eloping or safety risks, insist that specific, concrete supervision requirements be written directly into the IEP — not left to a general behavioral level system.

3. Refusing offered make-up services can undermine your claim. The District missed three hours of required counseling sessions, which would normally be a real concern. However, because Parents rejected the District's offers to make up those sessions and did not seek compensatory education as a remedy, the ALJ weighed that refusal against the family. If your child misses IEP services, document it, accept reasonable make-up offers in writing, and if make-up sessions are inadequate, formally request compensatory education.

4. Transportation disputes can be mooted by court orders and your own conduct. Parents accepted DCFS reimbursement to transport Student themselves and never raised the transportation issue at any IEP meeting after September 2010. The ALJ found this effectively resolved the issue outside the IDEA process. If transportation is in your child's IEP and the District stops providing it, raise it explicitly at the next IEP meeting and document your objection in writing — do not assume that a court order in a dependency case covers your IDEA rights.