The District has won a significant battle in its 16-year war to lift a federal court injunction for failing to make tuition payments for special education students. The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the U.S. District Court must revisit a decision denying the District’s bid to eliminate court supervision.
The injunction is part of the Petties vs. D.C. class-action lawsuit filed in 1995 by parents whose children had been placed in private schools because the District’s public schools couldn’t provide adequate special-education services.
| Tuition payments | |||
| Both D.C. Public Schools and the Office of the State Superintendent for Education had a strong record of making federally required tuition payments for special-education students between October 2009 and September 2010, the year before the District’s motion to scrap court supervision was denied. | |||
| DCPS | OSSE | ||
| Paid on time | 94.8% | 98.9% | |
| Total received | 1,816 | 6,012 | |
| Paid late | 89 | 46 | |
| Disputed in part | 170 | 35 | |
| Disputed in full | 75 | 1 | |
| Source: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia | |||
Parents were outraged that the city was failing to make timely payments to the private schools, as required by federal law. At least one private, the Chelsea School, threatened to disenroll 42 students because the District wasn’t paying up, and hadn’t indicated an intention to pay at all.
The court placed a preliminary injunction in March 1995, saying that the District’s failings “has placed plaintiffs’ education in constant jeopardy.”
But 16 years later, the appellate court ruled that that District’s current record of success needs to be a weightier consideration toward lifting the supervision; the District Court was concerned that settlements between parents and the city would be disrupted if the injunction were lifted. The parents did acknowledge, however, that much progress had been made in 16 years.
Between October 2009 and September 2010 –the year leading up the denial of the District’s motion — the Office of the State Superintendent for Education paid 98.9 percent of its invoices on time, and D.C. Public Schools paid 94.8 percent on time. Both agencies have adopted written policies and procedures for these payments, among other steps.
The appellate court notes, “actions taken by the District of Columbia appear to have remedied the systemic payment problems that existed in 1995.”
Attorney General Irv Nathan said the “broader significance of the ruling is that the district courts in this circuit will need to pay closer attention to the current circumstances to determine whether long-standing decrees such as this one should be modified or ended.”
The District pays for 1,545 students to attend private schools for special-education services, at an average daily cost of $212.20 per student.
Fred Lewis, a spokesman for DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson, said, “All the evidence shows that the District has made tremendous progress in its payment system to private providers of special education services.”
Without court supervision, the schools’ payments would theoretically proceed as normally — just without monitoring from the federal government. What happens next would be a real test for Henderson, Mayor Vincent Gray and the rest of the schools’ leadership, said local political analyst Chuck Thies.
“The proof will be in the pudding, and it’s something you can’t get wrong, because the cost to the children and families is unthinkable,” Thies said.
