Student discipline disputes frequently give rise to due process proceedings, and the expedited timelines applicable to exclusionary discipline cases place a premium on prompt and careful adjudication. In G.D. v. Utica Community Schools, No. 20-12864, 2023 WL 2719426, 83 IDELR 12 (E.D. Mich. Mar. 30, 2023), the district court affirmed key portions of an administrative decision favorable to the parents and denied the school district’s effort to overturn those rulings.
The case involved a five-year-old kindergarten student with a disability during the 2019–20 school year. On January 24, 2020, the student threw various objects at school staff, including school supplies, books, pieces of a broken thermometer, and the base of a plastic telephone. The school principal recommended long-term suspension. The district convened a manifestation determination review, and the district’s director of special education invoked the IDEA’s “special circumstances” provision, asserting that the student had used a dangerous weapon. On that basis, the district removed the student to an interim alternative educational setting (IAES) for up to 45 school days.
The district proposed an IAES consisting of four hours of instruction per week—three hours at the district administration building and one hour at the student’s home—and indicated that it intended to revise the student’s IEP and possibly the IAES. The parents filed for due process. After making efforts to convene an IEP meeting with the parents, the district proceeded without them and issued a revised IEP on March 17, 2020. The parents challenged that IEP in a due process complaint filed on March 30, 2020. The expedited portion of the dispute was heard over several days in late March 2020.
On May 1, 2020, the administrative law judge (ALJ) issued an interim order designating a program known as SEED as the student’s IAES for the remainder of the school year. The SEED program served students with behavioral needs and included four students, one transitioning student, and four staff members. The non-expedited portions of the case were heard in June 2020, and the ALJ issued a final decision on September 11, 2020.
In that decision, the ALJ resolved some issues in favor of the district but ruled for the parents on several key points. The ALJ concluded that the student did not possess a dangerous weapon, that the district improperly placed the student in the IAES, that the proposed IAES failed to provide appropriate educational services, and that the student was entitled to compensatory education.
The district court affirmed the ALJ’s ruling that the student did not possess a dangerous weapon. The court explained that the IDEA adopts the federal criminal code definition of “dangerous weapon.” Under 18 U.S.C. § 930(g)(2), a dangerous weapon is an object that is used for, or readily capable of, causing death or serious bodily injury. “Serious bodily injury” is defined as injury involving a substantial risk of death, extreme physical pain, protracted disfigurement, or protracted loss or impairment of a bodily function. Applying that standard, the court agreed that a kindergarten student could not cause death or serious bodily injury with the objects thrown at staff members.
The court also agreed with the ALJ that a program such as SEED could have provided FAPE during the suspension period, but that the district’s proposed four hours of instruction per week was inadequate. The court emphasized that behavioral challenges in a general education setting do not preclude providing instruction for a full school day in a more supportive environment.
With respect to compensatory education, the court noted that the ALJ had already reduced the award from 30 hours to 18 hours based on the parents’ failure to attend an IEP meeting that might have resulted in placement in the SEED program. However, the court declined to reduce the award further, observing that the district had not proposed the SEED program at the relevant meeting. The court requested additional briefing on attorneys’ fees and costs.
Disciplinary removals under the IDEA—particularly those involving the dangerous weapons provision of 20 U.S.C. § 1415(k)(1)(G)(i)—are relatively infrequently litigated. This decision therefore provides useful guidance regarding the scope of the dangerous weapons exception and the limits on a district’s authority to impose an IAES based on that provision.