The United States District Court has upheld the decision of an Administrative Law Judge, requiring a New Jersey School district to reimburse parents for placement in an approved private school.
The case involves a preschooler with severe autism for whom private evaluators recommended an intensive 40-hour a week ABA program, with home programming and parent training. The girl’s parents provided a copy of the report to the school district. Following a short stint in a part time ABA program and part time integrated preschool program, the parents unilaterally placed their daughter in a private school specializing in ABA-based autism intervention and filed for reimbursement of tuition.
The ALJ found that the district failed to provide the preschooler with FAPE and granted the parent request for reimbursement and compensatory education. The judge found that the district’s initial evaluation of the girl showed that she exhibited clear signs of autism and failed to look further into “all areas of suspected disability’ as is require by law. The judge further found that the inadequacy of the evaluation prevented the LEA from offering an appropriate program. In addition, the judge found that the integrated preschool was inappropriate, and the child’s lack of “prerequisite learning and social skills” prevented her from benefitted from interaction with her peers. The district appealed the ALJ decision.
The District Court judge, in ruling for the parents, found the school district’s program to be deficient because ABA methods were applied inconsistently, there was no home programming component, and the program was not supervised by a full time behaviorist.
