Our Significant Cases

Parents of A.J.T. moved from Kentucky to Minnesota in 2015 knowing exactly what education their child needed and contacted school administrators in various districts to ensure that the school they picked would provide A.J.T. with appropriate instruction. A.J.T. suffers from a severe seizure disorder and qualifies for special education. Because of her disability, the student requires an altered school day schedule starting at noon so she can learn during a timeframe when her seizures are reduced. She also requires a full day of school to make adequate progress. Parents came to an agreement with Osseo Area Schools prior to their move that it would provide AJT a full school day, but the District reneged after their move and enrollment and offered only a shortened day of school unrelated to AJT’s needs. A.J.T. received only four hours and fifteen minutes of instruction daily compared to the full six and a half hours that her non-disabled peers received. The parties attempted many team meetings and conciliation conferences but could not reach an agreement. Osseo Area Schools initiated a Due Process Hearing against the Parents on February 1, 2019 to further shorten AJT’s school day. Parents retained the School Law Center (SLC) as counsel and an expert to complete an Independent Educational Evaluation (“IEE”) for A.J.T., prompting the District to voluntarily withdraw their complaint on March 9, 2019.

Despite the IEE recommendation for significantly increased communication services, proper communication technology, and a full day of instruction, the District refused to provide a full day of school and sought to further reduce her already shortened school day. Parents, with the assistance of SLC, filed a Complaint and Request for a Due Process Hearing on September 14, 2020 for violations of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The latter two claims were dismissed as outside of the authority of a special education hearing officer, and the case progressed under the IDEA for failure to provide a free appropriate public education (“FAPE”) by denying repeated requests for a full school day and developing an IEP that did not address all of AJT’s individualized needs. An administrative hearing commenced on February 9, 2021 with five days of testimony from District staff, AJT’s father, multiple expert witnesses, and thousands of pages of exhibits. All witnesses established the conclusion that AJT cannot attend school before noon without jeopardizing her medical condition, that she needs a full day of school to make adequate progress, and that the decisions to shorten her school day were made outside of the IEP Team without input from her Parents, her teachers, or her medical providers, and unrelated to her individual needs. The only outlier on the core issue was a neurologist from Tennessee hired by the District who never met or evaluated AJT, never spoke with her Parents or teachers, and had not read the full educational or medical records, who testified than an hour per day of instruction would be enough for AJT.

On April 21, 2021, the Administrative Law Judge appointed by the Minnesota Department of Education ruled in favor of A.J.T. and her Parents, finding that Osseo Schools denied the student a FAPE and ordered the District to provide her a full school day, from 12:00-6:00 pm, 495 hours of compensatory education services to make up for lost instruction over the previous two years, and a trial of communication technology that was first recommended in the 2019 IEE. The ALJ specifically found the District’s reasons to refuse to provide a full school day on the modified schedule AJT needs were “more pretextual than real” recognizing that the student’s current IEP was inadequate and inappropriate based on her individualized needs. The District was more concerned with “the need to safeguard the ordinary end-of-the-workday departure times for its faculty and staff” rather than following an individualized assessment of A.J.T.’s needs. In fact, the District could not offer a colorable explanation for their decisions to reduce A.J.T.’s school day. The ALJ identified several changes that were ordered to be added to the IEP immediately, including increased instruction, provision of communication technology and compensatory education, and discrete trial training.

The District did not follow the administrative orders and Parents again had to resort to legal remedies. They filed two complaints with the Minnesota Department of Education for failing to implement the Administrative Order and continued lost instruction. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, A.J.T. did not attend school in-person because she is vulnerable to disease and her online learning plan was disturbingly non-existent. Contrary to the IEP, A.J.T. received no educational services from March 2020 to July 2021. The Parents hoped the previous Due Process Hearing would correct these recent inadequacies as the school was ordered to provide compensatory education but unfortunately, it did not. After an investigation, on October 1, 2021, MDE found that the IEPs did not address appropriate modifications for distance learning and the District must provide additional compensatory services to make-up for services missed over the period of school shut-downs. MDE did not enforce the Administrative Order because the District was “trying” to get ordered services in place.

Meanwhile, Osseo Area Schools appealed the administrative decision to the federal District Court of Minnesota on June 21, 2021 to seek reversal of the decision in its entirety, expending significant additional taxpayer and insurance funds to finance continued litigation against the family. The Parents initiated a separate lawsuit against Osseo Area Schools for discrimination and retaliation against them and AJT on the basis of her disability under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

In the special education case the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the decision of the federal district court on March 21, 2024.  Osseo Area Schools v. A.J.T., 96 F.4^th 1062 (8^th Cir. 2024).  The Court determined that an IEP must be “tailored to the unique needs” of the individual student and “appropriately ambitious” in order to be substantively adequate.  The Court rejected “the notion that the IDEA’s reach is limited to the regular hours of the school day.  Neither the District nor amici identify anything in the IDEA implying – let alone stating – that a school district is only obligated to provide a FAPE if it can do so between the bells.”  The Court was convinced that A.J.T. did not receive a free appropriate public education despite the short school day because she made de minimis progress overall, regressed in toileting skills, and “would have made more progress with evening instruction.”  The Court was unconvinced by the District’s arguments that her progress was significant in many areas and that even minimal progress was “remarkable” given her disability, because it could point to only slight progress in a few areas, she met none of her annual goals between 2016 and 2020, and her limited progress and regression “was both predictable and known” by the District over time.  The Court also concluded from the District’s own records that “A.J.T. regressed in toileting and that it removed her toileting goal for lack of time in the short day – not for lack of ability to improve.  A.J.T.’s toileting ability is essential for her to live a healthy and dignified life, and the District’s failure to take steps to address that goal violated its obligation to provide a FAPE.”  Finally, the Court decided that asking whether A.J.T. would have made more progress with evening instruction “isn’t about maximizing her potential – it’s about whether the District’s purely administrative decision not to provide evening education caused her de minimis progress and regression” and that “[t]he expert testimony shows that the District’s choice to prioritize its administrative concerns had a negative impact on A.J.T.’s learning.”  In addition, “[n]one of the District’s explanations for refusing to provide evening instruction have ever been grounded in A.J.T.’s individual needs” and it failed to offer any cogent and reasonable explanation for its decisions.  The District’s petition for rehearing en banc was denied.

In the disability discrimination case the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals also affirmed the decision of the federal district court on March 21, 2024.  A.J.T. v. Osseo Area Schools, 96 F.4^th 1058 (8^th Cir. 2024).  The Court determined that the District did not act in bad faith or exhibit gross misjudgment so as to establish violation of the ADA and Rehabilitation Act based on Monahan, a 1982 Circuit precedent.  The Court decided that “[c]laims under Section 504 and the ADA live and die together” because the enforcement, remedies and rights are the same.  The Court concluded that, when ADA and Section 504 claims are based on educational services for disabled children, a school’s “simple failure to provide a reasonable accommodation is not enough to trigger liability” but a plaintiff “must prove that school officials acted with ‘either bad faith or gross misjudgment’” that “requires ‘something more’ than mere non-compliance with the applicable federal statutes.”  The Court also found that “[t]he district’s ‘statutory non-compliance must deviate so substantially from accepted professional judgment, practice, or standards as to demonstrate that [it] acted with wrongful intent.’”  However, the remainder of the opinion is the most encouraging.  The Court acknowledged that A.J.T. “may have established a genuine dispute about whether the district was negligent or even deliberately indifferent, but under Monahan, that’s just not enough” because the District’s “non-compliance does not amount to a deviation ‘so substantial’ that it demonstrates ‘wrongful intent.’”  The Court could not conclude that the District ignored A.J.T.’s needs or delay efforts to address them, “even if the efforts were inadequate,” where officials met with her parents, updated her IEP annually that included a variety of services, and offered summer programming.  In an apologetic conclusion, the Court found “A.J.T. has failed to identify conduct clearing Monahan’s bar, so we are constrained to hold that summary judgment was proper.”  The Court then explained why it applied “such a high bar for claims based on educational services when we require much less in other disability-discrimination contexts” by describing Monahan as a lesson in why courts should not add provisions to federal statutes, where the Court “speculated that Congress intended the IDEA’s predecessor to limit Section 504’s protections, and without any anchor in statutory text, we added a judicial gloss on Section 504 to achieve that end.”  However, “Congress rejected Monahan’s premise just a few years later” in the Handicapped Children’s Protection Act and Monahan has been questioned by other courts and commentators.  In the end the Court lamented: “But for the time being, it remains the law of our circuit.”  A.J.T.’s petition for rehearing en banc was denied and a petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court on this important issue is underway.

In 2015, E.M.D.H. was an eighth-grade student who became increasingly debilitated by anxiety and depression and was unable to consistently attend school. She was placed by her family into three different day treatment and two different residential treatment programs for mental health treatment over two years, alerting the District to her mental health problems and treatments. The District never offered to locate, identify or evaluate E.M.D.H. for special education, claiming that she was too intelligent to qualify and was not noticeably disabled on the rare occasions she attended school. With the assistance of the School Law Center (SLC) her Parents initiated an administrative hearing against the District and prevailed in the spring of 2018 to establish her eligibility for special education, entitlement to a free appropriate public education, and the District’s obligation to provide compensatory education services and reimbursement for the independent educational evaluation obtained by the family. For the next three and a half years the District mounted one losing appeal after another, first to the federal district court, then to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, and finally to the U.S. Supreme Court, to try and get the decision reversed, using apparently unlimited taxpayer resources and insurance coverage to pay for over one million dollars of its legal fees.

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an uncharacteristically harsh assessment of the District’s “prolonged mishandling of her education” and affirmed her eligibility for special education, her right to receive a free appropriate public education and compensatory education to make up for missed services, as well as reimbursement for a multi-component independent educational evaluation and private tutoring services. When a District knows that a student is missing significant time at school as a result of mental-health issues but still does not conduct a special-education evaluation, it fails in its child-find duty under the IDEA. In determining that the District failed to identify and evaluate the special education needs of E.M.D.H.—and that once it did evaluate the student it did so erroneously—the court ruled that Saint Louis Park school district failed to follow the mandates of the IDEA. E.M.D.H. is entitled to compensatory education services until she has earned all of the credits necessary for graduation from high school. As prevailing parties, the Parents were also awarded significant attorneys’ fees from the District.

The Eighth Circuit decision interpreted the IDEA’s statute of limitations provision expansively, holding that the “continuing violations” doctrine applies to permit claims for violations within the two years before initiation of hearing even if those violations began outside of that two-year period. When the Court found the District committed a pattern of continuing violations by failing to locate, identify and evaluate E.M.D.H. over a number of year it did not permit the District to escape liability by application of a narrow statute of limitations interpretation.

In February 2016, the U.S. District Court of Minnesota held that public schools in Minnesota are responsible for both child-find (locate, identify and evaluate) obligations and to provide a free appropriate public education (FAPE) for all students including those enrolled by their parents in private schools. With the assistance of the School Law Center (SLC), the Student and her Parents prevailed in an administrative hearing and maintained that victory despite the District’s multiple appeals to the federal district court and Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Student was entitled to three years of private school expenses paid by the District. The hearing officer and courts decided that, under the plain language of the IDEA and Minnesota Statutes, Minnesota school districts are required to provide a FAPE to parentally-placed private school students, and parents of such students are entitled to a due process hearing as to whether a FAPE was, in fact, provided.

R.M.M. was voluntarily enrolled at a private religious school from kindergarten through fifth grade located within the boundaries of the District. R.M.M. struggled to learn to read, received extra support and instruction at her private school through Title I funds from the District, but was never identified by the District as a student with a disability in need of special education. When she was asked to not return to her private school at the end of fifth grade because she still could not read, her Parents requested a special education evaluation from the District that revealed a specific learning disability in reading and eligibility for special education. The District did not develop an IEP that provided a FAPE to R.M.M. but only an individual service plan with two hours of direct instruction each week at a public school. Those services were inadequate and disruptive and her Parents discontinued them.

Parents then initiated an administrative hearing and the administrative law judge agreed that the District had failed to fulfill its obligations to locate, identify and serve R.M.M. as a student eligible for special education, awarding her three years of private school tuition at Groves Academy at public expense. Twice the District appealed that decision to seek reversal, first to the federal district court and next to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. Both appeals failed and R.M.M.’s victory was preserved with the assistance of the SLC. The District was also ordered to pay the SLC prevailing party attorneys’ fees.

On April 15, 2014, school staff conducted a random search for drugs on all student lockers using drug-sniffing dogs. One dog alerted to A.D.’s locker due to perfume odor and officers found a three-inch “hunting style pocketknife” but no drugs or other contraband. A.D. had the pocketknife in her possession after helping with chores on a family farm over the weekend and she intended to remove it before school. School policy doesn’t allow students to bring weapons to school and A.D. was suspended for three days. The principal believed A.D. was cooperative and told the truth, which is a sign of good faith, but the policies dictated suspension and expulsion. The school district then commenced expulsion proceedings against A.D for possession of a weapon and endangering herself and others, seeking to prohibit her return to school for an entire school year. An expulsion hearing was held nine days after the incident. The principal and superintendent testified for the district while A.D. herself, her father, employer, athletic director and former teacher testified on her behalf. The school brought evidence showing security camera footage of her wearing the same purse to school on days prior implying that she had violated the policy before the discovery but A.D. did not recall doing so and maintained this one incident was an accident. The school board recommended that A.D. be expelled until the end of the school year, or six weeks. A.D. appealed the decision to the Commissioner of Education under the Pupil Fair Dismissal Act, but the Commissioner affirmed the expulsion.

With the assistance of the School Law Center (SLC), A.D. appealed to the Minnesota Court of Appeals, which reversed the expulsion on July 20, 2015. Even though the actual expulsion time had passed, the court recognized that A.D. may suffer collateral consequences with an expulsion record such as barriers to acceptance for colleges, universities and employment opportunities. The Court determined that the School Board was required find that the “student is aware of the policy and makes a ‘deliberate, conscious, and intentional choice’ to violate the policy” in order to expel any student.

The Court found that A.D. did not willfully violate school policy by bringing the knife to school because forgetting about the weapon until the search and not disclosing it is not intentional conduct. Similarly, she did not willfully endanger herself or others by having a knife in her purse inside her locker unbeknownst to anyone at the school. This is the possibility of harm, not probable harm or loss. During the search, she was prohibited from leaving the classroom and so even if she wanted to tell administration, she could not. In her expulsion testimony she stated, “I didn’t even know it was in there at the time” which suggests she may not have even remembered the knife until much later than the beginning of the lockdown. Neither the School Board nor the Commissioner discussed the dispute in facts and the findings didn’t support expulsion. The FPDA was created to provide expansive protections for students for discipline and should be interpreted to protect students’ rights. Thus, her expulsion was unlawful and reversed.

The School District appealed to the Minnesota Supreme Court. The Minnesota Association of School Administrators, the Minnesota School Boards Association, and the Minnesota Association of Secondary School Principals filed amicus briefs in support of the school. The Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates and numerous other groups including the Children’s Law Center of Minnesota, Children’s Defense Fund, and the NAACP filed briefs supporting the student. The District’s appeal sought to reverse the interpretation of “willful” under the Fair Pupil Dismissal Act and complained that the Court failed to defer to the School Board’s findings. The District argued that A.D. carelessly disregarded school policy that should be considered as willful conduct justifying expulsion. SCL continued to represent AD in the appeal.

On August 3, 2016, the court upheld the Court of Appeals decision, deciding that the School Board and Commissioner of Education did not have statutory authority to expel the student because there was no evidence of a “deliberate and intentional” violation of school policy or “willful conduct that dangers” students. The mere presence of a forgotten, unknown 3-inch pocketknife is not endangerment and there was no evidence that any student or staff member had a reason to access A.D.’s locker to discover the knife in this case. The court emphasized, “the Board did not explain in its findings how A.D.’s secrecy of the knife after she apparently remembered that she had accidentally brought it to school constitutes a willful violation of the District’s weapons policy.” The District did, however, have authority to punish A.D. for possessing a pocketknife on school grounds and had other options of discipline to choose from. They chose not to do so and unlawfully expelled A.D. The School District’s decision to expel A.D. was finally reversed.

MLK reached the fourth grade still reading at a kindergarten grade level despite documentation of those struggles and special education services for years that did not identify dyslexia or ADHD. The School Law Center (SLC) assisted his family to initiate an administrative hearing in order to change his IEP to produce progress commensurate with his needs and ability. On January 30, 2020, a Minnesota Department of Education appointed Administrative Law Judge ruled in favor of MLK and his Parents on each of their claims, including significant improvements to his IEP with prescribed methods of dyslexia-specific instruction designed to close the gaps in his performance with peers, and reimbursement for the costs of an independent educational evaluation and private tutoring services.

After five days of hearing the ALJ decided that the Parents and Student met their burden to prove that the District did not provide Student with a free appropriate public education and that the District did not prove that its evaluation met the appropriate legal standard, Additionally, despite the student’s clear, documented need for academic remediation and additional learning supports, the District continually failed to adequately review and revise his IEP to meet his needs, and deemed that an Extended School Year (ESY) was unnecessary because “there is no regression, unique needs, or inadequate self-sufficiency skills.”

In its conclusions of law, the Court held that the parents met their burden in proving that the Minnetonka School District denied M.L.K. a FAPE when it failed the student in the following fashions:

1. The Minnetonka School District failed to assess the student in all areas of his suspected disability under federal law. U.S.C.A. § 1414(b)(3).
2. The Minnetonka School District failed to review existing data (and discover additional data) in order to accurately determine M.L.K.’s levels of academic achievement, related developmental needs, and required modifications. This failure resulted in the child being unable to participate in the general education curriculum in accordance with federal law. U.S.C.A. § 1414(c)(1)(A) and (B).
3. The Minnetonka School District failed to develop an IEP considering all required factors under federal law. 20 U.S.C.A § 1414(d)(3)(A) and (B).
4. The Minnetonka School District failed to develop adequate IEP goals that included how the Student’s disabilities affected his progress in the general education curriculum. This included a failure to design regular, measurable goals. The District also failed to develop an IEP with even an adequate amount of information required under law. It further failed to revise the IEP annual goals to address any regression toward these goals. 20 U.S.C.A. § 1414(d)(4)(A)(i)-(v).
5. The Minnetonka School District failed to create IEPs that were reasonably calculated to allow the student to make progress.

Additionally, the District did not meet its burden to prove that its most recent evaluation of M.L.K. was appropriate.

In other words, the Minnetonka Public School district violated federal special education laws by refusing to identify and serve a student with dyslexia. It regularly ignored clear research-based diagnoses from trained experts in child psychology and neurology and actively resisted changing the disabled student’s inadequate educational programming. Adding insult to injury, the Minnetonka School District—rather than delivering a quality, needs-based education as required under federal law—chose to litigate, attack, and try to roadblock M.L.K.’s attempts to secure an appropriate education program. Instead of teaching the child in its care, the Minnetonka School District chose to engage in litigious and hostile legal tactics against that child’s parents, driving up the costs to the taxpayers and parents, all while refusing to implement required curricula available in the District.

Instead of accepting the ALJ’s decision the Minnetonka School District instead chose to appeal this case to federal court and to seek its reversal with apparently unlimited tax-payer dollars and insurance coverage. With the continued assistance of SLC, MLK and his Parents prevailed in that appeal and the administrative decision was affirmed with the exception of an errant interpretation of the IDEA statute of limitations. Again, the District appealed and sought reversal of the decision in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the family cross-appealed to obtain a correct interpretation of the statute of limitations. Powerful organizations filed Amicus briefs in support of the Student and Parents including the National Parents Union, Minnesota Dyslexia Advocates, Minnesota Disability Law Center, and Council for Parent Advocates and Attorneys. Amicus briefs were filed in support of the District by the Minnesota School Boards Association, the Minnesota Association of School Administrators, and the Minnesota Administrators for Special Education. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the case, deciding that improvements and enhancements to services each year were sufficient to prove that M.L.K. received a free appropriate public education.