Problem: Students were not given about four hours of instruction per day due to a lack of accommodation for disabilities.
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WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on June 12th unanimously sided with a disabled student trying to sue the school for not doing enough to deal with epilepsy among people with disabilities.
The judge said lower courts used the wrong criteria when denying discrimination cases.
And the court rejected arguments from schools that would have raised bars for all victims of disability discrimination, even outside of the claims of educational guidance.
The incident was closely monitored by schools in the AJT vs. Osseo area. They say the court has created “nearly insurmountable barriers” for the help school children and their families seek.
However, school officials across the country are worried that by making the case win easier, it will create a more hostile relationship between parents and schools in the challenging negotiations needed to balance student needs with the school’s limited resources.
A seizure prevents you from going to school by noon
In this case, Gina and Aaron Talpe said they spent years asking the Ozeo Regional School District to deal with their daughter’s severe cognitive impairment and the rare epilepsy of epilepsy, known as Lennox-Gastaud syndrome. Her attacks are frequent in the morning and are unable to attend school by noon.
The previous school in Tennessee changed the AVA school days, so it started in the afternoon and ended with evening instruction at home.
However, Tharpes says that the Minnesota school system, where she is currently registered, refused to provide the same adjustments. As a result, she only received 4.25 hours of instruction per day.
The judge says the school didn’t do enough
A local judge said the district’s biggest concern in 2021 was not the needs of the AVA. Instead, they were interested in the desire to ensure that employees had to work past the traditional end of school day. The district had to provide more guidance under the Disability Education Act.
However, while a federal judge upheld the decision, the court said that Tarps cannot permanently set compensatory damages and court orders using section 504 of the American Disability Act of 1990 and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Section 504 is the law that launched the school-based “504 Plan,” a central tool for providing accommodation to students with disabilities.
Similarly, the St. Louis-based Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit said their hands were tied for the 1982 circuit decision – Monaghan v. Nebraska – said school officials need to deal with “malicious or serious misconceptions” for lawsuits involving educational services for children with disabilities.
The Tarps “may have established a real debate about whether the district is negligent or intentionally indifferent, but under Monaghan, that’s not enough,” the appeals court said.
The school said there was no intentional discrimination.
According to Talpez’s attorneys, hundreds of district court decisions on that standard have filed suits under that standard, most of which ended with family losses.
These courts unfairly used stricter standards than “intentional indifference,” a prohibiting damages in cases of disability discrimination that are not based on educational services.
Rather than lowering bars for cases like the AVA, district lawyers pushed the court to apply stricter standards for all cases.
However, the district did not discuss it until the court agreed to file a lawsuit, so the judge said it could not be considered.
“We do not entertain important issues that have not been fully presented with district invitations to inject this case,” Chief John Roberts wrote to the court.
The two Justice said the district raised important issues that the courts should consider in future cases.
“It is a nationally important question of whether federal courts are applying the correct legal standards, and districts have raised serious arguments that the general standards are wrong,” wrote Judge Clarence Thomas in a consensus opinion joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh. “The consequences of these issues is why they wait for cases where they are straight ahead of us, and we have the advantage of hostile briefing.”
Ava’s lawyers warned that the school’s argument threatened “asserts protections for all Americans who endure discrimination with disabilities, and perhaps other kinds of discrimination.”
The court’s decision will be revived, but Tharpe’s case will not be resolved.
District lawyers said the school did not show “intentional indifference.”
The school refused to provide after-school support at AVA’s home, but authorities said it “effectively utilized rare resources shared among all students, including other students with disabilities,” while also providing other measures to address her needs.