Federal Way School Case Summary

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M.L. v. Federal Way School District (2005)

This particular case involved a child with autism that was allegedly denied a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) and was removed from school by his parents. This student was removed from school because his parents did not feel that the school’s principal and teachers did not take adequate enough actions that were preventative from other students harassing their student, even though the school knew these actions were happening. From the time of the complaint, to the time of the parents pulling the student out of school was only 5 days.

The courts decided, “If a teacher or principal is deliberately indifferent to the harassment of a student with disabilities and the harassment leads to a denial of educational benefits, then the student would have been denied a FAPE” (Yell, 2015, p.331). However, in this case, the parents could not convince the court that bullying had resulted from the denial of FAPE. This was based on the time frame of the complaint from the parent and the parents’ removal of the student from the school. The courts felt that the school district did have an adequate amount of time to address the harassment in the
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If the amount of time from the complaint from the parents to the day the parents removed the students form the school was extended, then the courts ruling could have had more evidence. With more evidence and time, if it could have been proven that the teacher or principal was ignoring harassment on purpose, which lead to the denial of educational benefits, then the student would have been denied the Free Appropriate Public Education (Yell, 2015, p.331). Ultimately, if the student was being harassed in this, or any case similar, the school should address this promptly, especially when this starts to affects a student’s