A federal judge ruled Monday in favor of a Douglas County couple who’d sought reimbursement from the Douglas County School District for their son’s education at a private school for students with autism.
In the latest chapter of a landmark special education case, U.S. District Judge Lewis Babcock ordered the 68,000-student district to reimburse the student’s parents for the cost of his placement at the private school as well as attorney fees and litigation costs, according to the Denver Post.
The couple’s attorney estimated the amount the district owed was “in the seven figures,” according to the Post.
The couple said in an email Tuesday morning they were “very pleased” with the district court ruling,
“It is unfortunate this case ever got to this point, frankly,” they wrote. “Our attorney reached out many times over the past 8+ years in an attempt to speak and potentially settle this case out of court, but the school district time and again rejected our overtures to sit down and talk.”
Nearly a decade ago, the couple pulled their fourth-grade son, Endrew, out of his Douglas County elementary school after years with little educational progress. They placed him at a specialized school in Denver — Firefly Autism House — where they saw immediate improvements. Tuition at the school is more than $70,000 a year.
In 2011, they sued the school district in a case known as Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District. Three courts ruled against them before they took their case to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2017.
Monday’s decision comes almost a year after the high court ruled in favor of the couple, saying the Douglas County district had not provided Endrew with a free and appropriate education as mandated by federal law.
While the Supreme Court ruling was hailed as a momentous decision with enormous significance for millions of students with disabilities across the country, it kicked the question of whether the district should repay the family for years of private school back to the lower court. After seven years in the legal system, that question was answered Monday.
The Douglas County School District issued a two-sentence statement in response to the ruling, saying in part, “Earlier today, the District Court issued its ruling in the Endrew F. case. We are in the process of assessing the ruling, along with next steps.”
In their email Tuesday, Endrew’s parents — Joe and Jennifer — said, “Even after the strongly worded unanimous ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court in early 2017, (the district) still stood steadfast in their belief (and made the exact same argument again at the district court last week) that the education they provided – a ‘merely more than de minimis’ education (or barely more than nothing), was good enough. It’s not good enough, nor has it ever been.”
They added, “Our attorney, Jack Robinson, summed it up perfectly in both our reply brief to the court, and again during the oral argument last week: ‘The school district still just does not get it.’ Hopefully now they do.”
Throughout the case, Jennifer and Joe asked that their last name not be used to protect their family’s privacy.
Read more about Joe and Jennifer’s long journey to the Supreme Court here and their frustration at being portrayed as a school choice success story by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy Devos here.