In S.M. v. Chichester School District, No. 2:21-cv-04266, 2024 WL 4438472, 124 LRP 35901, aff’d, No. 24-2727, 2025 WL 649894, 125 LRP 6255 (3d Cir. Feb. 28, 2025) (unpublished), the district court ordered, and the Third Circuit affirmed, injunctive relief requiring a school district to secure and fund a residential educational placement for a student with significant disabilities where day programming had proven ineffective.
The case involved a seventeen-year-old student with autism and intellectual disabilities who required assistance with dressing, bathing, and toileting. When living at home, he was hospitalized multiple times due to safety concerns for himself and his family. The district court found that the student made progress only when educated in a residential setting. After the family moved into the Chichester School District, the parents requested a residential placement, but the district offered only a day program.
The parents unilaterally placed the student at Elwyn RTF, a medical residential treatment facility, while the student attended school through the Delaware County Intermediate Unit. The court found that the student struggled in that arrangement because his medical and educational programming were not coordinated and he failed to make progress in basic life skills.
In February 2022, the district court issued a preliminary injunction requiring the district to make all necessary referrals and arrangements for a residential educational placement, fund that placement, and plan a transition in consultation with the parents. Although that order was affirmed on appeal, the parties could not agree on an appropriate placement among the limited options willing to accept the student.
The parents proposed a residential educational placement at the Melmark School, while the district maintained that residential placement was unnecessary or, alternatively, proposed Elwyn Children’s Residential Treatment and Learning Center. After hearing testimony, including from a court-appointed independent evaluator, the district court ordered the district to secure the student’s immediate admission to Melmark and to fund the placement.
In support of that order, the court emphasized that the student continued to exhibit significant behavioral challenges and ongoing deficits in basic self-care, communication, and social functioning, particularly when he spent time at home. The court concluded that education for a student with such needs encompassed instruction in basic self-help and social skills. It found that the Elwyn program was not appropriate and that the district lacked evidentiary support for its proposal, noting that Elwyn’s programming included academic instruction inconsistent with the student’s developmental level. By contrast, Melmark’s program focused on life skills and applied behavior analysis (ABA), which the district acknowledged was necessary.
On appeal, the Third Circuit affirmed. It observed that the district court acted under time constraints because Melmark’s offer of admission was set to expire. The court of appeals noted that the parents had exhausted administrative remedies and that it was within the district court’s authority to determine compliance with its prior orders. It rejected arguments that the injunction required a termination date or that the district lacked sufficient time to comply. The court found no clear error in the determination that the student required residential education or that the Elwyn placement was inadequate. It also cited the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act’s (IDEA) stay-put provision, 20 U.S.C. § 1415(j), and remanded the case for further proceedings on the merits.
The decision reflects that where a student’s significant behavioral and life-skills needs cannot be met through day programming, courts may order residential educational placement as injunctive relief, and that such relief may be upheld on appeal where the record supports the necessity of residential education to provide a free appropriate public education (FAPE).