A federal court of appeals has ruled that a New Jersey school district is required to provide compensatory education to a student with disabilities, even though the student have moved out of state. Under Federal law, compensatory education is awarded to special education students who have not received the services to which they are entitled in order to “compensate” for missed learning opportunities.
The case, D.F. vs. Collingswood Borough Board of Education, involves a boy with ADHD and other disabilities whose mother had filed a due process complaint, alleging that the district failed to comply with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The family was in the middle of due process when they moved out of state and withdrew all claims except for those for compensatory education. A district court held that the claim for compensatory education was rendered moot because the family had moved to another state.
This fall, however, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed that ruling, ordering the New Jersey district to provide compensatory education. In the decision, the court wrote that to do otherwise would undermine the purpose of IDEA and would disproportionately affect low-income families, who cannot afford to front the costs of their children’s education.
The court suggested that the district could provide compensatory education in a number of ways, including establishing a fund that could be spent on his education, paying the student’s new district or contracting with a local provider in the boy’s new area to provide tutoring, counseling, or other support services.
