The student attended kindergarten in the district during the 2019-20 school year. During that year, the parents raised concerns about his progress in reading, writing, and math, along with organization and fine motor skills. When the student was in second grade, the individualized education program (IEP) team met on May 19, 2022, for an initial eligibility determination. An IEP for the remainder of the school year followed, with an implementation date of June 6, 2022. The team also developed an IEP for third grade to begin on September 1, 2022. According to the parent, the district refused to discuss compensatory services at the meeting.

In February 2023, the parents requested reimbursement for an independent educational evaluation (IEE) consisting of an independent psychological report, a vision assessment, and a reading assessment. The district agreed to fund only the vision assessment. The parents filed for due process on June 20, 2023. They alleged a denial of a free appropriate public education (FAPE) based on violations of child-find obligations, failure to evaluate in all areas of suspected disability using appropriate evaluative tools, improper classification, interference with parental participation in decision making, partial denial of the IEE reimbursement request, and failure to develop an adequate IEP.

The IHO ruled for the parents. The IHO found a denial of FAPE for the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years, a failure to evaluate appropriately that resulted in an improper disability classification and inadequate IEP goals and programming, and a denial of parental participation rights based on the failure to discuss compensatory services. The FAPE denial extended from January 2022 through June 2023. The IHO ordered reimbursement for all of the independent evaluations, reimbursement and ongoing payment for vision therapy, and 240 hours of compensatory education consisting of 120 hours of occupational therapy (OT) and 120 hours of reading tutoring.

The SRO reversed much of that decision. The SRO reversed the FAPE finding and compensatory education award, along with the findings concerning improper evaluation, disability classification, goals and programming, and parental participation. The SRO affirmed the IHO’s decision concerning the IEE.

The district court, however, found problems with the SRO’s analysis. It concluded that the SRO’s reversal of the IHO’s child-find finding was not thorough and therefore was not entitled to deference. The court reinstated the IHO’s finding. It likewise found that the SRO’s reversal of the parental participation finding was not well reasoned and was not entitled to deference, and it reinstated that finding as well. Because the court found a procedural child-find violation, it reinstated the IHO’s compensatory relief. The court did not reach the substantive adequacy of the IEP after finding a procedural violation. It also concluded that neither the SRO nor the IHO erred in finding that the district should have funded the two additional independent assessments requested by the parents. 2026 WL 1674597, at *1.

The parties agreed that claims arising before June 20, 2021, were barred by the limitations period. The court concluded, however, that the SRO improperly excluded all evidence predating June 20, 2021, when deciding the child-find claim. The limitations period did not prevent consideration of earlier evidence when that evidence was relevant to events occurring within the limitations period. The court therefore found the SRO’s decision insufficiently thorough to warrant deference.

The IHO, by contrast, had considered evidence from kindergarten and first grade concerning the school’s awareness of the student’s writing difficulties, as well as second-grade evidence showing awareness of his academic struggles and the initiation of multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) services. The court reinstated the IHO’s child-find finding. The court found a similar problem with the SRO’s treatment of parental participation. The SRO gave little explanation for reversing the IHO’s finding that the parents had not been afforded a fair opportunity to participate in the discussion of compensatory services. The evidence showed that the district had refused to discuss the issue, so the court again rejected the SRO’s conclusion.

The court also agreed with the IHO that the child-find violation, although procedural, caused harm and warranted compensatory relief. Because the court found the IEP procedurally inadequate, it did not address its substantive sufficiency.

On the IEE issue, the court concluded that the district should have invoked due process to challenge the portions of the IEE request it rejected. The court distinguished D.S. v. Trumbull Board of Education, 975 F.3d 152 (2d Cir. 2020), and Alex W. v. Poudre School District R-1, 94 F.4th 1176 (10th Cir. 2024). Those decisions restricting the number of independent evaluations that must be funded did not limit the number of individual assessments that could be included within a properly requested IEE. Here, “the IEE requested was a reevaluation of the May 2022 evaluation with different components, not multiple, separate evaluations.” 2026 WL 1674597, at *13.

The decision is significant for the district court’s treatment of the competing IHO and SRO decisions. The court declined to defer to the SRO where it found the SRO’s analysis of child-find insufficiently thorough and its analysis of parental participation inadequately reasoned. It also distinguished between claims barred by the limitations period and earlier evidence relevant to timely claims, and treated the requested IEE as one reevaluation with multiple components rather than multiple separate evaluations.

The St. James School Board approved the enrollment. On October 22, Cypress Grove found the student eligible for special education and scheduled an individualized education program (IEP) meeting for November 7. On November 1, a St. James Parish official contacted the parent. She acknowledged that she lived in St. John the Baptist Parish but maintained that the student lived in St. James Parish. On November 4, the board informed her that the student would be disenrolled. The parent filed for due process and requested a stay-put order and an independent educational evaluation (IEE). She alleged a denial of a free appropriate public education (FAPE) based on the disenrollment and the failure to conduct an IEP meeting or provide services after the residency determination.

In response to the hearing request, St. James Parish challenged the administrative law judge’s (ALJ) jurisdiction. The ALJ entered a stay-put order that would remain in effect while the due process proceeding was pending and held a hearing focused on residency. The ALJ ultimately concluded that there was no jurisdiction over the due process complaint and dismissed the proceeding. The parent then sued the school board in federal district court. The district court denied her request for a preliminary injunction and dismissed the case with prejudice.

The Fifth Circuit affirmed. It first concluded that the complaint did not allege sufficient facts to state a claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act or Section 504. The court also concluded that the district court properly conducted de novo review and rejected the parent’s Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) claim concerning St. James’s failure to respond to her request for an IEE at public expense because of the residency issue.

On residency, the court explained that Louisiana law requires local educational agencies to provide FAPE to students with disabilities who are residents. Residency is defined by the geographic boundaries of the local educational agency in which the parent or parents have legal residence. Because the parent had custody of the student, the student’s residency followed the parent’s residency rather than the student’s asserted physical residence. The court also rejected the parent’s estoppel argument.

The court also addressed the district court’s refusal to reinstate the ALJ’s stay-put order. It concluded that when an ALJ determines that there is no jurisdiction, the stay-put order ends. The district court therefore did not abuse its discretion by declining to reinstate the ALJ’s stay-put order. The court also found no basis for compensatory education because there had been no IDEA violation.

The residency portion of the decision was less notable than the court’s treatment of stay-put. The principle that a student has the residency of the parent or guardian is commonly observed, and one court rejected the argument that waiver of a residency requirement was a reasonable accommodation required by disability discrimination laws. P.F. v. Taylor, 914 F.3d 467 (7th Cir. 2019). The text of 20 U.S.C. § 1415(j) provides that a child’s placement must be maintained “during the pendency of any proceedings conducted pursuant to this section.” That language has been applied to court proceedings challenging due process hearing decisions. See Joshua A. v. Rocklin Unified Sch. Dist., 559 F.3d 1036 (9th Cir. 2009). Other cases have rejected that reading, and a court may modify the stay-put placement when circumstances require. See Honig v. Doe, 484 U.S. 305 (1988), superseded in part by statute, 20 U.S.C. § 1415(k). Nothing in the text of § 1415(j), however, creates an exception to stay-put for appeals from decisions based on a denial of jurisdiction.

The decision is significant for the Fifth Circuit’s conclusion that an ALJ’s stay-put order ends when the ALJ determines that there is no jurisdiction. That conclusion is notable because the statutory language requires maintenance of placement during the pendency of proceedings, and the opinion recognizes authority applying that protection to court proceedings challenging due process decisions. The court nevertheless upheld the refusal to reinstate stay-put after the jurisdictional dismissal.

The administrative law judge (ALJ) ruled against the parent, and the district court affirmed. The court said that “to warrant the most restrictive learning environment, Plaintiff must demonstrate that ‘full-time residential placement is necessary for educational purposes as opposed to medical, social, or emotional problems that are separable from the learning process.’ Tenn. Dep’t of Mental Health v. Paul B., 88 F.3d 1466, 1471 (6th Cir. 1996) (citing Kruelle v. New Castle Cnty. Sch. Dist., 642 F.2d 687, 693 (3d Cir. 1981)).” 2025 WL 2799994, at *4. “Plaintiff must show by a preponderance of the evidence that (1) Defendants’ non-residential placement is not reasonably calculated to provide educational benefit appropriate to [the student’s] unique needs and that (2) a residential placement is. And to satisfy her burden as to the latter requirement, Plaintiff’s evidence must show that residential placement is necessary for educational purposes, not for medical needs that are segregable from the learning process. Id.

The court declared that the student did make progress in the public school. Factors such as regression over school breaks, being on antibiotics, and autism itself were said to contribute to lack of progress on two of the three main goals on the IEP. The student did make progress on other goals, including two relating to aggressive and injurious behavior. The court also said that the law does not guarantee progress. Although the parent believed that the student’s behavior was worsening, school district witnesses said they felt equipped to handle the behavior, and said the student was not the most challenging or most behaviorally severe student in the school. The court discussed two incidents of self-harm and aggression on the bus in 2021 and 2022 plus eight other incidents occasioning accident reports (required when student came home with some kind of mark or injury), but some of the incidents were deemed minor or unavoidable.

The court rejected the residential placement proposal advanced by the parent, saying that the evidence indicated residential placement was more a response to medical and behavioral than educational needs. The court dismissed the parent’s argument that the behaviors and medical needs could not be segregated from the student’s learning process. The court said that even though the behavior impeded the student’s educational progress, that did not mean that the “medical and educational needs are so intertwined that it would be impossible to separate them or to address one without addressing the other.” Id. at *10. The statutory LRE mandate was said to support the model used at the public school. The court echoed the ALJ’s finding, “No witness testified that [S.M.T.] needs residential placement to effectively learn.” Id.

The IEP team met again on October 28, 2020, to review the 2020-21 IEP. The parents requested additional evaluations. A psychoeducational evaluation completed on December 30, 2020, was discussed and accepted at an IEP team meeting on January 26, 2021. The parents asked for daily individualized education and a differentiated strategy to address the student’s academic delays. They contended that the draft IEP did not include the evaluation’s recommendations for a smaller class and one-to-one teaching in the areas of deficit.

Meetings scheduled in May 2021 to prepare the 2021-22 IEP did not take place. With no IEP in place at the start of the school year, the parents placed the student in a private school and filed an administrative complaint. The hearing officer found that the DOE had failed to take the evaluation recommendations into account. The hearing officer ordered payment of private school tuition and an IEP team meeting before February 2022 for the 2021-22 school year. The meeting occurred, but no IEP was approved.

On May 16, 2022, the team developed an IEP for the 2022-23 school year, and the student attended two public schools. The IEP included transportation services, education assistants, and, after an amendment, a transportation assistant. On August 13, 2022, however, the DOE told the parents that transportation could not be provided. The parents filed a complaint with the Department of the Family over the lack of transportation. The school director then allegedly retaliated by filing a Department of the Family complaint against the parent for not taking the student to school. Both complaints were dismissed after the parties reached an agreement on transportation. On December 27, 2022, the parents filed another administrative complaint with the DOE seeking placement, transportation reimbursement, service assistance, and an IEP meeting. The parties settled. The student enrolled at Luis Lloréns Torres School and attended from mid-February through May 2023 in a regular classroom with a special education teacher providing one-to-one instruction in Spanish, English, and mathematics.

The IEP team met on May 31, 2023, to prepare the 2023-24 IEP, but the parties disagreed about whether another evaluation should be conducted. The parents later met with the Secretary of the DOE, and a proposal emerged for a temporary placement at Lysander Borrero Terry School. The parent, a librarian employed by the DOE, would be reassigned to work at that school. The proposal was not implemented after the Secretary resigned and the parent’s reassignment was rejected. More meetings followed. At the start of the 2023-24 school year, the student was not attending school. The parents said Luis Lloréns Torres lacked the resources to provide the small-group classroom ordered by the hearing officer and sought placement at Lysander Borrero Terry.

On September 5, 2023, the IEP team met again while the student remained out of school. The DOE offered placement at Lysander Borrero Terry in a reduced group of eight students, along with transportation, a transportation assistant, and classes at the Fine Arts School. The parties continued to disagree over the IEP. The parents wanted the student’s needs identified in the evaluation incorporated into the program. The DOE maintained that she should be placed in tenth grade with reasonable accommodations but without changes to the regular curriculum. At meetings on February 8 and February 20, 2024, the parties agreed to pre-place the student at Lysander Borrero Terry while discussions over the 2023-24 IEP continued. She would receive one-to-one education from a special education teacher, a service assistant, and transportation. No IEP was completed for that school year, and transportation was not actually provided until April 1, 2024. Another Department of the Family complaint was filed against the parent in April based on the student’s absences.

The DOE received another clinical psychological evaluation on March 15, 2024. It proposed a one-to-one teacher to address the student’s academic deficiencies. The parents asked the DOE to consider a psychoeducational evaluation by Dr. Karla Narváez, who recommended groups of six to eight students and a special education teacher to work on academic deficiencies. At a May 20, 2024, IEP meeting, the parties agreed to use Dr. Narváez’s evaluation and to meet again on June 5 to draft the 2024-25 IEP.

At the June 5, 2024, meeting, DOE representatives said they would work on an IEP with goals and objectives tied to the student’s age and corresponding grade level. The parents said the IEP needed to account for the student’s strengths and emotional needs, provide a permanent school placement, and include an evaluation for compensatory education. No IEP was approved. The parties disagreed about placing the student in tenth grade with a tenth-grade curriculum when her English, Spanish, and math skills did not match those of a tenth-grade student. When the lawsuit was filed on August 11, 2024, there was still no decision about where the student would attend school for 2024-25 or what services she would receive. No IEP had been written, and the student was not attending school.

The parents sued in district court. They sought injunctive relief providing a temporary placement at Lysander Borrero Terry and the Fine Arts School with specified services while an IEP was prepared. They also sought a writ staying the educational negligence proceedings against the parent, an order for an IEP meeting, compensatory education, and permanent relief. A magistrate judge facilitated an agreement for a temporary placement at Lysander Borrero Terry, held evidentiary hearings, and issued a report and recommendation on March 31, 2025. Both sides objected. On January 27, 2025, the parents informed the court that they had temporarily placed the student in a private school while an IEP was being prepared and requested reimbursement. They renewed their request for a preliminary injunction, and the court ordered an IEP meeting for October 1, 2025.

While considering the parents’ request for preliminary and other relief, the court also addressed the defendants’ motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction based on failure to exhaust administrative remedies. The court concluded that most of the complaint, which alleged violations of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), was subject to exhaustion. The parents could obtain most, if not all, of the requested relief through due process, and an administrative record would be beneficial. The court therefore found that futility did not apply. It also rejected irreparable injury and systemic violations as potential excuses, noting that the First Circuit had not recognized the latter.

The court reached a different conclusion on the parents’ claims that the DOE had a practice of failing to finalize proposed IEPs, keeping obsolete IEPs in place, and not using due process to validate its proposals. Those claims were not subject to exhaustion. The court explained:

[W]hen faced with the parents’ consistent rejection of an IEP proposal, and once it is evident that no consensus will be reached by the beginning of the school year, the DOE likely has the obligation under IDEA to submit its IEP proposal to the administrative process to obtain a binding resolution as to its compatibility with the statute. IDEA imposes on the DOE the duty to have an IEP in effect at the beginning of the school year. 20 U.S.C. § 1414(d)(2)(A). The DOE likely cannot avoid complying with this obligation by insisting [on] a consensual process that has evidently gone past the point of futility. IDEA gives the DOE the administrative procedure as a tool to comply with this obligation, and it stands to reason that DOE should use it when faced with an impending non-compliance with another statutory obligation.

2025 WL 2793079, at *16. The court said it made no sense to require the parents to file for due process to determine who had the duty to file for due process. That, the court concluded, would be futile. The court also rejected exhaustion for the parents’ claim that the DOE had a practice of referring the parent to the Department of the Family for negligence when she refused to accept a deficient IEP.

The court dismissed the claims against the Department of the Family as moot and barred by the abstention doctrine. It modified some of the magistrate judge’s factual findings related to the request for injunctive relief against the DOE. It also found that some requested relief had become moot because of the private school enrollment and the DOE’s promise of prospective payment. The remainder was subject to exhaustion.

The court nevertheless ordered the DOE “to make use of its due process rights under IDEA and submit its final, proposed IEP for [the student] to a due process hearing.” Pending the October 1, 2025, IEP team meeting and unless the court ordered otherwise, the DOE was required to do so within fourteen days of the order and notify the court of its compliance. The court then stayed the case pending the administrative proceeding.

The opinion is significant because it distinguishes between claims that had to proceed through IDEA’s administrative process and claims about who had the responsibility to invoke that process when no IEP had been finalized. On the latter issue, the court concluded that requiring the parents to initiate due process to determine who had to initiate due process would itself be futile, and it ordered the DOE to submit its proposed IEP to a due process hearing.

The student had been offered a placement at the Horan School, a District 75 program for children with special needs. The parent had instead enrolled the student at the private iBrain school and sought tuition reimbursement, first in her due process complaint and then on appeal. She lost before the IHO, lost again before the state review officer (SRO), lost a third time before the district court, and now the Second Circuit has affirmed.

On the procedural side, the parent argued she had been shut out of the decision-making process because the prior written notice of the public school placement did not arrive until a March 30, 2022 letter – even though the individualized education program (IEP) had been issued on February 11, 2022, and was supposed to be implemented by February 21, 2022. The court agreed that the timing was off, but said the lapse did not amount to a denial of FAPE. By the time the late notice went out, the student had already been offered a placement at Horan for the 2021–22 school year, and the parent had already rejected that school for that year. The parent also never explained what she would have done differently with timelier notice, and, as the court pointed out, she had filed her due process complaint objecting to any District 75 placement before the placement letter ever reached her.

On substance, the parent’s pitch was that the proposed IEP failed to provide FAPE because it did not include music therapy, hearing education services, or vision education services. The Second Circuit sided with the district court, which had affirmed the administrative decision that those particular services were not needed – the goals they would have addressed were already covered by other services in the IEP. Communication gains were to come through sign language support and speech-language therapy. As for visual tracking, focus, movement, and self-care, the IEP folded those into physical and occupational therapy exercises, with five 60-minute occupational therapy sessions and four 45-minute physical therapy sessions per week. 2025 WL 2775936, at *3. The parent also raised complaints about the lack of air conditioning at Horan and the adequacy of its service areas, but the court noted those points had not been raised in the due process complaint. Same with the argument that the public school system had predetermined the denial of music therapy through a blanket policy of always refusing it – the court said no such policy had been shown to exist.

The parent’s last set of arguments turned on Horan itself: that the school lacked the personnel to deliver what the IEP called for, and that the student, who has cerebral palsy, would be grouped with students with autism. The court called the staffing concern speculative, pointing to testimony from Horan’s assistant principal that the school could implement the IEP and would contract with outside service providers if it had to. On the grouping point, the court – citing the non-precedential order in J.C. v. New York City Department of Education, 643 F. App’x 31, 33 (2d Cir. 2016) – said “grouping evidence is not the kind of non-speculative retrospective evidence that is permissible.” 2025 WL 2775936, at *4.

Taken together, the strands of the decision share a common thread: a procedural slip that comes after the parent has already rejected the placement and filed for due process is not, on this record, a denial of FAPE; an IEP can satisfy FAPE without every requested service so long as the underlying goals are met by the services it does include; objections that were never raised in the due process complaint do not get a second life on review; and arguments about staffing and grouping at the assigned school, where the testimony is that the IEP can be implemented, are treated as speculative rather than as proof that FAPE was denied.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) defines FAPE to require that the education “meet the standards of the State educational agency.” 20 U.S.C. § 1401(9)(B). After clearing away other issues, the Second Circuit decided that whether the 12:1:4 IEP delivered FAPE turned on a question of state law that the New York courts had not yet answered. The court flagged the friction between two provisions of N.Y. Comp. Codes R. & Regs. tit. 8 § 200.6(h)(4): subsection (ii)(a) caps classes at six for “students whose management needs are determined to be highly intensive, and requiring a high degree of individualized attention and intervention,” while subsection (iii) caps classes at twelve for “students with severe multiple disabilities, whose programs consist primarily of habilitation and treatment.” Whether courts should defer to the agency’s reading of that tension, the court added, was itself a question for the state court. So it certified the question: “When a student is covered by more than one class size regulation under § 200.6(h)(4), do the varying restrictions serve as distinct requirements that must be independently fulfilled or as a list of class size options from which the DOE may pick?” 134 F.4th at 698-99.

In February, the New York Court of Appeals answered. Cruz v. Banks, No. 1, 2026 WL 436354, at *1, 126 LRP 3907 (N.Y. Feb. 17, 2026), held that section 200.6(h)(4) “sets forth a list of mutually exclusive alternatives” for class sizes and staffing in special education classes. A student’s committee on special education (CSE), the equivalent in New York State of an IEP team, the court said, must therefore pick the listed alternative that best meets the student’s individual needs. The court described section 6(h) as supplying a default — a maximum class size of 15, or in some cases 12, for students who need a self-contained setting — with four exceptions layered on top.

The first exception, in section 200.6(h)(4)(i), caps class size at 12 for students whose management needs interfere with instruction enough to require an additional adult, with one or more supplementary school personnel assigned. The second, section 200.6(h)(4)(ii)(a), caps class size at six for students with highly intensive management needs requiring a high degree of individualized attention, again with supplementary personnel. The third, section 200.6(h)(4)(ii)(b), caps class size at eight for students with intensive management needs requiring a significant degree of individualized attention, with the same staffing add-on. The fourth, section 200.6(h)(4)(iii), caps class size at 12 for students with severe multiple disabilities whose programs consist primarily of habilitation and treatment, with a staff-to-student ratio of one to three.

On the text alone, the court said, the fourth exception could be read as an alternative to the first three or as an additional requirement piled onto them. 2026 WL 436354, at *4. Structure pointed the other way. Reading the fourth exception as cumulative would force schools to run not only the five configurations the regulation expressly contemplates, but also additional classrooms in 6:1+(3:1) and 8:1+(3:1) setups for students who fell under both the fourth exception and either the second or the third. The court found it unlikely that the agency had quietly required those more resource-intensive configurations through the awkward intersection of list items. Students with severe multiple disabilities who primarily need habilitation and treatment, the kind of students contemplated by the fourth exception, likely have intensive or highly intensive management needs. If the State Education Department had actually wanted those students placed mainly in 6:1+(3:1) or 8:1+(3:1) classrooms, the court reasoned, it would have said so, rather than writing a 12-person cap that would then apply to almost no one.

Regulatory history pulled in the same direction. Earlier versions of the rule had set special class requirements by disability classification, with ratios that ran from 18:1 to 5:1:1, and under that older regime the State DOE had unambiguously treated 12:1+(3:1) classrooms as an alternative for certain students rather than as an additional requirement. 2026 WL 436354, at *4. The 1982 amendments referred to the new needs-based options as mutually exclusive alternatives, and so did a draft version. The final 1982 amendments dropped the prior requirement that a student could be placed in a 12:1+(3:1) class only when the other options were unsuitable, but, the court said, nothing in the amendments’ history suggested the agency had stopped viewing the 12:1+(3:1) ratio as the regulation’s most supportive alternative. The amendments simply reshaped existing “special class” categories into needs-based ones. Id. at *5. The current regulation tracks the 1982 version. A later amendment added the 8:1:1 ratio and raised the default cap from 12 to 15, and the court read those newer pieces as reinforcing the same reading: a list of mutually exclusive alternatives, with the CSE charged to use its knowledge and expertise to select the one that best serves a student’s individual needs.

Back in federal court, a brief per curiam opinion, Cruz v. Banks, 72 F.4th 208, 126 LRP 10055 (2d Cir. Apr. 7, 2026), applied the state court’s reading and affirmed the district court’s judgment upholding the 12:1:4 placement. Because O.F. had both severe multiple disabilities and highly intensive management needs, the Second Circuit said, he could properly be placed in either a 12:1:4 classroom under section 200.6(h)(4)(iii) or a 6:1:1 classroom under section 200.6(h)(4)(ii)(a). Id. at 209. The CSE’s pick was in line with state law. The state review officer (SRO) and the impartial hearing officer (IHO) had reasonably ruled the 12:1:4 placement appropriate for this student, and the Second Circuit would not disturb that finding.

What the post-certification picture leaves us with is the conclusion the opinions themselves draw: when a student is covered by more than one provision of section 200.6(h)(4), those provisions describe mutually exclusive options rather than overlapping demands; the CSE chooses among them based on what best meets the student’s individual needs; and where a student fits more than one provision, a placement that matches any of the available options is in accordance with state law. As the closing observation in the post puts it, IHOs working through class-size disputes for self-contained placements now have a definitive answer from the State’s highest court on how the regulation’s options are to be applied.

The student was a kindergartner with an unspecified disability. Believing the program the public schools proposed failed to offer a free appropriate public education (FAPE), the parents unilaterally placed the child at a Jewish private school and sought full tuition reimbursement in a due process proceeding. The Impartial Hearing Officer (IHO) agreed the public school program did not offer FAPE and ordered reimbursement – but deducted the share of tuition attributable to Judaic Studies, reasoning that that portion of the instruction was non-secular. The parents appealed that exclusion to the SRO, who reversed the IHO’s deduction. The public school system then sued in district court to overturn the portion of the SRO’s decision requiring payment for the Judaic Studies share of tuition.

In affirming the SRO, the court said that a plain-language reading of 34 C.F.R. § 76.532(a)(1) – which provides that “[n]o State or subgrantee may use its grant or subgrant to pay for . . . [r]eligious worship, instruction, or proselytization” – would violate free exercise principles as articulated in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, 591 U.S. 464, 488–89 (2020), and other recent Supreme Court holdings. The court made the same point about the New York State Constitution’s language that “[n]either the state nor any subdivision thereof, shall use its property or credit or any public money, or authorize or permit either to be used, directly or indirectly, in aid or maintenance, other than for examination or inspection, of any [religious school].” N.Y. Const. art. XI § 3. Recent Supreme Court cases such as Espinoza prohibit disqualifying otherwise eligible recipients from funding based on their religious character, and the Court has viewed funding disqualification as a form of indirect coercion. The E.L. court further observed that the relevant New York State Constitution language may not even apply to education of children with disabilities.

The court went on to say that even under Supreme Court caselaw predating the recent Free Exercise developments, funding the Judaic Studies classes did not violate the federal regulations, New York’s Constitution, or the Establishment Clause. The aid here, in the court’s view, conformed to a principle of neutrality, and any religious indoctrination was not done at the direction of the government – the religious use of the aid was the result of the independent choice of the aid recipient. The school system argued that the Judaic Studies classes were not covered by a neutral program, but the court said it would defer to the SRO’s determination that, for this student, the absence of enrollment in those classes would deny FAPE. Even without applying deference, the court said, it would conclude that the Judaic Studies classes were a core part of the student’s FAPE, as they were said to develop reading comprehension skills and expressive and receptive language skills.

The court continued: “Moreover, the classes comprise a key part of the school day, taking place for thirty minutes to an hour in the morning, between other classes such as language studies, art therapy, and educational therapy. . . . For a five-year-old, these are critical periods of learning and development. To deny funding for these specific class periods would effectively exclude the child from these periods of learning.” 2025 WL 1781305, at *4. On that basis, the court rejected an argument that equitable principles militated against a full tuition reimbursement award, explaining that the classes were not extraneous school services but a part of the core curriculum. The court also noted that the Free Exercise principles advanced by the parents might provide an additional basis for its decision, though it said it was not necessary to resort to those principles to uphold the SRO’s determination that full tuition reimbursement should be provided.

The significance of E.L. lies in how the opinion weaves together several threads the court itself identifies. It treats a plain-language reading of the federal regulation and the parallel state constitutional provision as, in this setting, incompatible with recent Free Exercise doctrine. It accepts that aid flowing to religious instruction can still satisfy neutrality and independent-choice principles when the religious use results from the recipient’s decision rather than government direction. And it ties all of that to the FAPE determination: because the Judaic Studies classes were found to be a core part of the student’s FAPE rather than extraneous services, carving them out of the reimbursement would, as the court put it, effectively exclude the child from critical periods of learning. The court’s observation that Free Exercise principles might independently support the same outcome – though unnecessary to the result – underscores why, on these facts, full tuition reimbursement survived challenges grounded in federal regulation, state constitutional text, and the Establishment Clause alike.

The student at the center of the case has autism and ongoing gastrointestinal care needs. During the 2024–25 school year he attended Bradley Hills, a public school in Bethesda. Over the summer, the family moved to Germantown, and, based on the new address, Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) assigned him to Fox Chapel Elementary School. In July 2025, the parent filed a due process complaint, alleging that MCPS did not provide the student necessary reasonable “accommodations relating to his medical and feeding needs, transportation needs, and need to be near medical care; failed to evaluate [the student] and consider his behaviors and symptoms in a timely and adequate manner; failed to provide an appropriate IEP placement; and failed to maintain his placement at Bradley Hills, which [the parent] deemed necessary to provide him with a free appropriate public education (‘FAPE’) in the least restrictive environment.” Id. at *1. The parent asked that the student be allowed to remain at Bradley Hills under stay-put and filed a motion for stay-put relief with the office of administrative hearings.

In late August, the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) granted the motion, but the parent promptly sought clarification that the ruling required the student to remain at Bradley Hills specifically. That clarification motion was still pending on September 17, when the parent filed a pro se federal suit alleging violations of IDEA, Section 504, and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) tied to the transfer to Fox Chapel, along with a motion for temporary relief. The ALJ later denied the clarification motion, ruling that the move to Fox Chapel did not amount to a change in educational placement because the basic education program and support services were not claimed to have been fundamentally changed or eliminated.

The federal district court first addressed exhaustion and ruled that the parent did not need to exhaust administrative remedies in seeking a stay-put injunction. The court noted that the Fourth Circuit has allowed a district court to consider a preliminary injunction motion to implement stay-put while due process proceedings are still pending, and observed that other circuits have explicitly said exhaustion does not apply because a belated decision will not remedy the alleged violation and would not vindicate the right to remain in the current placement. Citing the exhaustion requirement, however, the court dismissed all claims to the extent they sought anything other than a stay-put injunction.

On stay-put itself, the court leaned on circuit precedent: “‘the term ‘educational placement’ as used in the stay-put provision refers to the overall educational environment rather than the precise location in which the disabled student is educated.’ AW ex rel. Wilson v. Fairfax Cnty. Sch. Bd., 372 F.3d 674, 676 (4th Cir. 2004).” 2025 WL 2962754, at *4. The parent, the court said, offered no grounds to dispute that the new placement was identical in specialized instruction, related services, and other supports. Without a material difference in the educational services, the stay-put requirement was satisfied.

The court acknowledged, however, that “issues relating to the commute to or from school could, under certain circumstances, provide a basis to conclude that a change in the geographic location of an educational placement results in a material change that would violate the stay-put requirement . . . .” Id. at *5. The parent argued that the transfer prevented safe implementation of the Individualized Education Program (IEP) because of the new school’s distance from the student’s gastrointestinal specialist and his feeding therapy and medical providers, and that a long commute carried serious medical risks including motion sickness, reflux, and g-tube complications. But the parent had not presented evidence of those matters to the ALJ and furnished only limited information about them. On that record, the court said, the ALJ properly denied the motion to enforce stay-put.

The parent did submit various medical documents to the court in lieu of a reply brief on the motion for temporary relief. The court said the commute argument and the new evidence, including letters from the student’s medical providers, should be presented to the ALJ in the first instance. The court therefore denied the motion for a preliminary injunction, dismissed the portions of the case that had not already been dismissed on exhaustion grounds, and remanded to the ALJ for consideration of stay-put relief. The court added that the parent “may also, as suggested by the Board, submit a request for a Change of School Assignment based on [the student’s] unique circumstances, to which [the school system] should give careful consideration.” Id. at *6. The dismissal was without prejudice to refiling.

In the absence of a requirement to exhaust a request for stay-put injunctive relief in the first place, it may seem odd for the court to remand the stay-put issue to the ALJ. But the parent was the one who sought stay-put relief from the ALJ to begin with, and parents do frequently pursue that option. A more basic concern with the decision may be that, since “placement” embodies “place,” the idea that a change of place is not a change of placement might seem wrongheaded. The courts are widely of the view, though, that an interpretation consistent with that of the Fofanah court is correct, and it is true that school districts frequently change school assignments of children without disabilities based on factors such as moves within the district and availability of space and personnel.

The significance of Fofanah lies in what it confirms within its own four corners: stay-put protects the overall educational environment rather than a specific building, so a reassignment that leaves specialized instruction, related services, and other supports intact ordinarily will not trigger stay-put. At the same time, the opinion leaves open that commute-related circumstances can, in a given case, render a geographic change material enough to violate stay-put – but only on a developed record. And because a parent need not exhaust administrative remedies before seeking a stay-put injunction, yet the ALJ remains the proper forum for evidence that was never presented there, the decision illustrates how these parallel tracks can meet, and how a case can be routed back for the factual record the provision’s application requires.

The court applied the familiar factors governing fee awards, including “‘(1) the time and labor required; (2) the novelty and difficulty of the questions; (3) the level of skill required to perform the legal service properly; (4) the preclusion of employment by the attorney due to acceptance of the case; (5) the attorney’s customary hourly rate; (6) whether the fee is fixed or contingent; (7) the time limitations imposed by the client or the circumstances; (8) the amount involved in the case and the results obtained; (9) the experience, reputation, and ability of the attorneys; (10) the ‘undesirability’ of the case; (11) the nature and length of the professional relationship with the client; and (12) awards in similar cases.’” S.C., 2024 WL 3518522, at *2 (quoting Arbor Hill Concerned Citizens Neighborhood Ass’n v. County of Albany, 522 F.3d 182, 186 n.3 (2d Cir. 2008)).

With respect to hourly rates, the court concluded that the magistrate judge adequately considered the relevant factors and reasonably determined that the case was not novel or difficult. The report characterized affidavits from other IDEA practitioners as self-serving, found survey data on New York City attorney rates insufficient as to education law practitioners, and rejected a ChatGPT-4 compilation of rate information as not probative and unreliable. Instead, the magistrate judge relied on prior fee awards found reasonable for the specific attorneys involved, which were lower than the rates requested.

The court also rejected the argument that the fee reduction improperly penalized the parent because the defendant did not contest the administrative case. It noted that counsel billed 88.8 hours preparing for a hearing that lasted 2 hours and 43 minutes, and more than 20 hours preparing a closing brief after learning that the defendant would not present a case. In addition, the court applied the IDEA’s offer of settlement provision, 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(3)(D)(i), observing that the defendant had offered $35,000 in fees and that the court ultimately awarded $34,397.99 for fees incurred through the date of the offer. The court entered a total fee award of $34,397.99 and rejected the parent’s request for $88,290.00.

Reductions from requested fee amounts are not unusual, although the magnitude of the reduction here may draw attention. The court’s discussion of artificial intelligence is also notable. Relying on the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation, the court observed that the ChatGPT response contained no probative information and cited a Second Circuit decision addressing AI fabrication of precedent. The magistrate judge stated: “In light of its propensity to fabricate information, ChatGPT, at least in its current iteration, should not be utilized to support a fee application.” S.C. v. New York City Dep’t of Educ., No. 23-CV-1266 (LGS) (JLC), 2024 WL 1447331, at *5 n.1, 124 LRP 10444 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 2, 2024).

The opinion underscores the court’s adherence to established fee-award principles while declining to credit AI-generated compilations as evidentiary support. Within the framework applied, the court treated both the billing record and the reliability of supporting materials as central to determining a reasonable award.

The parents filed suit on July 7, 2024, and litigation over emergency relief for pendency costs extended into the following year. They moved for summary judgment and later renewed their request for emergency relief on May 23, 2025. The requested relief was broad: a declaration that iBrain constituted each student’s pendency placement during proceedings concerning the 2024–25 extended school year; an order requiring funding of tuition, transportation, and, where applicable, nursing services throughout the administrative and judicial proceedings; and an order directing that payments be made directly to iBrain and other providers.

The four students’ procedural histories varied. In one matter, the Impartial Hearing Officer (IHO) ordered partial transportation funding, and the State Review Officer (SRO) later ordered full funding; neither party appealed. In another, a pendency order required private transportation funding, and an SRO decision had issued, though the appeal period had not expired. In a third, the pendency order addressed transportation and related services, and an SRO decision had issued, but the record before the court did not include information about it. In the fourth, the pendency order included supplemental related services, nursing, and transportation, and the IHO decision was on appeal to the SRO.

The court began by addressing mootness. After criticizing aspects of the parents’ evidentiary submissions, it concluded that the claims regarding educational placement and tuition for the 2024–25 school year were moot. The undisputed record established that all pendency tuition payments for that year had been made. The voluntary cessation exception did not apply because the tuition dispute for that school year could not recur, and in some matters the pendency period itself had ended. A claim for late fees was deemed waived, both because it had not been properly raised and because the pendency orders did not include late fees, the iBrain contract did not treat late fees as tuition, and pendency tuition is paid retrospectively.

The analysis did not end there. With respect to transportation and nursing services for three students, the court determined that although some payments had been made, the plaintiffs were entitled to declaratory relief and to an order requiring payment of outstanding balances in the ordinary course of business. For one student, however, the IHO had denied inclusion of nursing services in the pendency order, and summary judgment was denied as to that claim. The court also emphasized that the ultimate merits determination regarding entitlement to transportation did not govern a claim seeking payment during pendency.

In addressing the mechanics of payment, the court acknowledged that IDEA does not require circumvention of ordinary payment procedures and that 20 U.S.C. § 1415(j) operates as an automatic injunction with respect to educational placement, not payments. Still, it found that the specific circumstances mattered. Where the school year had concluded, all contractual services had been delivered, and reimbursement had been delayed for months, directing payment in the “ordinary course” made little sense. The court concluded that the full cost of the student’s transportation services for the academic year was long past due and must be reimbursed in full, and it entered orders addressing each student’s claims for related service payments.

The decision draws a clear line between moot tuition claims once fully paid and outstanding related service balances that remain unpaid after services are rendered. Within the confines of the pendency framework, the court treated completed services and prolonged delay as determinative under the facts presented.