In this case, the parents requested an evaluation and an IEP from the school district prior to the student attending his second grade year. The district delayed the evaluation and the parents gave notice of their intent to unilaterally place the student in a private school. In response to their notice of their intent to place, the district hurriedly agreed to conduct an evaluation and develop an IEP days before the start of the school year. The parents provided several outside evaluations as well as extensive data from the student's prior private school placement regarding his extensive educational and behavioral needs.

Despite this data, the district recommended placement in a mainstream classroom, citing the district's policy to assign all children to mainstream programs. The parents, their outside professionals and the existing data on the child were ignored by the district. The district made many errors in determining (pre-determining) the placement including the failure to develop a behavior plan. The hearing officer, and ultimately the Court, found that the district's program failed to provide a free, appropriate, public education to the student. The opinion is lengthy and there is a well-reasoned analysis on a number of issues. However, in summary, the following are several highlights of the Court's reasoning:

1. The district's insistence on a mainstream placement and their blanket inclusion policy for all students violated IDEA's mandate that a continuum of placements be available to all students. The purpose of providing a continuum of placements is to ensure that the student's IEP be individualized and confer educational benefit.
2.  IDEA requires that school districts educate disabled children in the least restrictive environment to the maximum extent appropriate. IDEA's least restrictive environment cannot trump the provision of a free, appropriate, public education.
3. The district ignored prior information about the student, the extent to which his behavior impacted his learning and their own earlier information that this student required a small structured classroom.

This opinion is worth reading because it is not unusual for school districts to explain that they are offering a program because this is what they have. This failure to provide a continuum of placements directly contravenes the mandate that the IEP should provide a student what they need.  

 Board of Education of Evanston-Skokie Community Consolidated School District 65 v. Risen et. al. (ND Ill. 2012)     

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