Recent Decisions On IDEA Claim Exhaustion; AR Desegregation Consent Decree Upheld; and CA Education Quality Suit Again Rejected

Third Circuit Holds that Non-IDEA Claims Are Subject to IDEA Exhaustion Requirement

Plaintiffs must exhaust claims that implicate services within the purview of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, even if those claims are raised under a non-IDEA statute. Because a student’s complaint that a school board discriminated against him under Section 504 and the Americans with Disabilities Act claims raised educational injuries that implicated IDEA services, the claims raised were held subject to the IDEA exhaustion requirement. The case is S.D. v. Haddon Heights Board of Educ., 15-1804 (3rd Cir. Aug. 18, 2016).

California Appellate Court Again Rejects Education Quality Suit

The California Court of Appeal recently refused to reinstate the claims of the Campaign for Quality Education, a case alleging that California's current educational financing system violated the state constitution. In the appellate opinion in April, Campaign for Quality Education v. California, the plaintiffs argued that article IX of the California constitution required the state to adequately fund education and that the state  should be compelled to do so under court supervision. The appellate court found that the California Constitution did not require the state to provide a certain quality of education. In the this week's opinion, appellate affirmed the trial court's dismissal of the complaint for failure to state a cognizable claim and again cited its decision to "leave the difficult and policy-laden questions associated with educational adequacy and funding to the legislative branch." The latest opinion is Campaign for Quality Education v. California, No. A134423S (Cal. Ct. App. Aug. 22, 2016).

Eighth Circuit Holds That Arkansas School Districts’ Desegregation Consent Decree Duties Did Not End with Repealed Statute

In W.T. Davis v. Cutter Morning Star School, 15-1919 (8th Cir. Aug. 18, 2016), several individual school districts in Arkansas sued to end a desegregation consent decree, arguing that subsequent state legislation invalidated the decree. The case arose under the following facts: part of a 1991 consent decree to desegregate the Garland County, Arkansas school system adopted the Arkansas’ School Choice Act, which included a race-based limitation on students applying to attend a school outside of their resident school district. In independent litigation in 2012, a federal district court held that that provision of the Act violated the Equal Protection Clause. The Arkansas legislature then passed the 2013 School Choice Act, removing the race-based limitation on public school transfers and including a provision preventing a receiving school district from discriminating on the basis of race.

In the recent case, the Eighth Circuit held that because the 2013 Act had a carve-out for pre-existing judicial consent decrees that remedied the effects of past discrimination, the individual school districts could not show that the new law had an actual effect on the target of the decree and thus nothing warranted termination of the entire agreement.