McAndrews Law Offices has received yet another successful federal court decision of critical importance to children with disabilities and their families. In Rayna P. v. Campus Community School, Judge Gerald McHugh, a judge in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, but who was sitting specially in Federal District Court in Delaware due to a backlog in that state’s federal courts, issued critical interpretations of the manner by which compensatory education is calculated and implemented where a child has been denied critical special education services.
This decision also joined other courts in holding that where parents timely file for a special education due process hearing, the entire period of deprivation to the child must be remedied. This decision reversed a Delaware panel decision where the panel provided minimal compensatory education to the child despite extended time periods of failure to provide appropriate educational programs to the child, both while the student was attending school, and during periods of medical absence where the child required specially designed instruction in the home.
The decision awarded full days of compensatory education over a nearly three-year period for every day that the child was in school, and 2 1/2 hours of compensatory education for every day that the child was absent for medical reasons but received inadequate specialized instruction in the home. Significantly, the order of the court awarded compensatory education at a rate of $75 per hour, and expressly ruled that the compensatory education funding be placed into a third party trust for the child, which is an issue long championed by McAndrews Law Offices in securing meaningful compensatory education services for children with disabilities.
