Apr 28, 2014
In Fort Bend Independent School District v. Z.A. Douglas A. 62 IDELR 231 (S.D. Tex. Jan 29, 2014), a school psychologist terminated a teenage student's counseling sessions after just one session because the counselor assumed the student's educational issues were due to marijuana use rather than the after-effects of the student spending four years in a Russian orphanage and severe depression and anxiety. The student had been abandoned at the age of 4 months and spent the next four years in an orphanage until his parents adopted him. He was diagnosed with ADHD and determined eligible for IDEA services as a student with an emotional disturbance. It was known that he smoked marijuana and he displayed an extreme lack of focus and refused to do school work. The school district developed an IEP that included weekly counseling sessions and classroom modifications. Unfortunately, the school counselor ended the counselling sessions and referred the student to a drug counselor based on the psychologist's determination that the student's school difficulties were caused by marijuana induced laziness. Concerned that their son's behavior was escalating the parents placed him in a residential facility where he was diagnosed with RAD (reactive attachment disorder). The parents then filed for due process to obtain tuition reimbursement. The hearing officer determined the district had denied the student a free appropriate public education and ordered it to partially pay the facility tuition at $7000 a month. The school district appealed arguing it was unaware that the student had RAD.
The district court determined the district may have been unaware of the RAD, but it was aware of the student's anxiety and depression and their impact on his ability to access learning. The district did little to address those issues and, although the IEP required counseling, the counselor had unilaterally terminated the weekly sessions and referred the student to a drug counselor. The court held that by failing to address the student's learning-linked depression and anxiety, the school district had failed to provide a program reasonably calculated to enabler the student to receive meaningful educational benefit.
