When a family moves across town and the school district reassigns their child to a different building, is that a change of educational placement under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)? That is the question at the heart of Fofanah v. Board of Education of Montgomery County, No. 25-3090-TDC, 2025 WL 2962754, 125 LRP 30308 (D. Md. Oct. 20, 2025), a recent decision that turned on the familiar but perennially contested stay-put provision. That provision says that, except in certain disciplinary-removal matters, “during the pendency of any [due process and subsequent] proceedings . . . , unless the State or local educational agency and the parents otherwise agree, the child shall remain in the then-current educational placement of the child . . . .” 20 U.S.C. § 1415(j). Simple on its face, messy in application.
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.