District Denied FAPE by Bypassing IEP Team for Home Instruction of Student with Down Syndrome

What Happened

Student is a child with Down syndrome who was found eligible for special education under the category of intellectual disability with a secondary speech-language impairment. After returning to Buena Park School District in 2013, District conducted assessments and developed an IEP in January 2014 offering placement in a special day class at Gilbert Elementary School, along with speech-language services and extended school year instruction. Student attended the Gilbert class for about three weeks before Parent withdrew him in February 2014 due to concerns about the placement, including fears about other students' behavior and Student's safety.

In March 2014, Parent obtained a physician's note recommending home schooling for three months. Rather than convening an IEP team meeting to determine what special education services Student should receive at home, District placed Student on a general education "home/hospital instruction" program — providing only one hour per day of academic instruction and no speech-language services. District continued this arrangement for over two years, through the filing of the complaint in September 2016, relying on a series of physician prescriptions without ever consulting Student's IEP team. Parent repeatedly asked District to update Student's IEP to reflect home instruction and include speech-language services, but District refused. Parents' native language is Romanian, and District further failed to provide translated copies of Student's assessments and IEP documents until June 2015 — years after those documents were issued.

What the ALJ Found

The ALJ ruled in favor of the district on three of the four issues. Claims about the adequacy of the 2013 multidisciplinary assessment, the 2014 occupational therapy assessment, and the January 2014 IEP were all dismissed as time-barred. Although District did withhold required Romanian-language translations of its assessments, the ALJ found that Parents already knew — by May 2014, when they hired an attorney and formally objected to the assessments — that the assessments might be inadequate and that Student might not be receiving a FAPE. That awareness started the two-year clock, and the complaint filed in September 2016 came too late for those claims.

However, on the fourth issue, the ALJ found that District violated the IDEA from September 2014 forward by unilaterally deciding — without any IEP team meeting and without parental participation — that Student was entitled only to one hour per day of general education home/hospital instruction. California law is clear: when a special education student misses more than five consecutive days of school due to a health problem, the district must inform parents about the availability of home instruction under the IEP and must convene an IEP team to determine appropriate services. District never did this. It ignored Parent's written request to update the IEP, never told Parents or the physicians what medical documentation was needed, and never filed for due process to resolve the standoff — even though California law requires districts to do exactly that when a parent withdraws consent for a placement the district believes is necessary. Notably, the one time District's nurse did contact a physician, she learned the disability was long-term — yet District still never changed its approach.

What Was Ordered

1. District must provide Student 76.6 hours of compensatory group speech-language services, delivered by a licensed speech therapist with experience working with children with Down syndrome.
2. District must provide Student 40 hours of compensatory specialized academic instruction, delivered by a credentialed special education teacher (either a District employee or through a non-public agency).
3. District must contact Parents within 30 days to begin scheduling the compensatory services at times agreeable to both parties.
4. If compensatory services are provided at a location other than Student's home, District must provide transportation.
5. Any unused compensatory hours expire at the end of the 2019 extended school year.

Why This Matters for Parents

1. A district cannot swap your child's special education IEP for a general education homebound program just because your child is home due to illness. When a special education student misses more than five consecutive school days due to a health issue, the district must hold an IEP team meeting to decide what services to provide at home — the regular special education rules still apply.

2. Districts must file for due process if they believe their IEP is appropriate and parents won't consent — they cannot simply stop providing services and wait. California law requires districts to go to hearing to resolve placement disputes, not to unilaterally implement a different program. If your district is doing nothing while a dispute sits unresolved, that is itself a legal violation.

3. The statute of limitations clock starts when you knew or had reason to know there was a problem — not when you fully understood the legal details. In this case, Parents lost their claims about the 2013 and 2014 assessments because they had already hired a lawyer and formally objected within two years of those assessments — even though they never received translated copies. If you suspect a problem, consult an advocate or attorney promptly, because waiting too long can forfeit your legal rights even if the district also did something wrong.

4. Districts must provide IEP documents and assessment reports in your native language. If your primary language is not English, you have the right to receive assessment reports and IEP documents translated, and the district must provide an interpreter at IEP meetings. Failure to do so is a procedural violation — and while it did not change the outcome on the time-barred claims here, it was a confirmed violation that can support other remedies in timely-filed cases.