Parental Choice and Educational Benefit:
Florence Co. School District IV v. Shannon Carter (1993)
The Supreme Court agreed to review the Fourth Circuit’s decision in Florence County School District Four v. Shannon Carter after a Court of Appeals ruling in a similar case created a split among circuits.
The Supreme Court found that: Shannon Carter was classified as learning disabled in 1985, while a ninth-grade student. School officials met with Shannon’s parents to formulate an individualized education program (IEP) for Shannon and established specific goals in reading and mathematics of four months progress for the entire school year. Shannon’s parents were dissatisfied and requested a hearing to challenge the appropriateness of the IEP. In the meantime, Shannon’s parents placed her in Trident Academy, a private school specializing in educating children with disabilities. Shannon graduated in the spring of 1988. After a hearing officer and state review officer ruled against them, Shannon’s parents filed suit in federal court, seeking reimbursement for her tuition and other costs incurred at Trident.
The District Court ruled in the parents’ favor and held that the school district’s proposed educational program and achievement goals of the IEP were wholly inadequate and ordered Florence County to reimburse Shannon’s parents for her education at Trident Academy. The school district of Florence County appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, arguing that because Trident was a self-contained school it was not the least restrictive environment (LRE), and they should not have to pay for Shannon’s education.
Citing Rowley, the Court of Appeals held that since the school district had defaulted on its obligation to provide Shannon with a free, appropriate public education (FAPE), the private school placement is proper under the Act if the education provided by the private school is reasonably calculated to enable the child to receive educational benefits. This ruling was in direct conflict with the Second Circuit’s decision in Tucker v. Bay Shore Union Free School District and created a split among circuits. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case and resolve the split.
May a court order reimbursement for parents who withdrew their child from a public school that did not provide an appropriate education under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and put the child in a private school that is in substantial – but not complete – compliance with the Act?
In a unanimous opinion written by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the Supreme Court held that parents who withdraw their child from a public school that does not provide appropriate education and enrolls their child in a private school are entitled to reimbursement if the child receives an appropriate education at the private school. The Court also held that the requirement that public schools meet state standards does not apply when parents place their child in a private program because these requirements were not intended to apply to parental placements.
Citing the Court of Appeals decision, Justice O’Connor wrote:
Indeed the school district’s emphasis on state standards is somewhat ironic to forbid parents from educating their child at a school that provides an appropriate education simply because that school lacks the stamp of approval of the same public school system that failed to meet the child’s needs in the first place.
Justice O’Connor responded to Florence County’s unreasonable burden on financially strapped schools argument with this advice:
Public educational authorities who want to avoid reimbursing parents for the private education of a disabled child can do one of two things: give the child a free appropriate public education in a public setting, or place the child in an appropriate private setting of the State’s choice. This is IDEA’s mandate, and school officials who conform to it need not worry about reimbursement claims.
The decision in Florence County School District IV v. Shannon Carter impacted IDEA monumentally, in that it opened the door to reimbursement for parents who developed special education programs tailored to the unique needs of their children, especially home-based Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) programs for young children with autism.
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