Complainants, the parents of a 7-year-old girl with Down syndrome, raise a number of procedural and substantive challenges to the IEP developed for her in the spring of 2011 and assert that the Respondent school district and AEA violated Iowa law by inactivating her IEP and refusing to provide special education services identified in the IEP after she was enrolled in an accredited private school.

The Complainants prevailed. The IEP was found to be procedurally and substantively flawed. The IEP proposed a more restrictive placement and a significant reduction in support services provided to the student without adequate notice or a sufficient justification. The failure to provide adequate notice of proposed change in placement and support services denied the Complainants an opportunity to meaningfully participate in the placement decision. The proposed placement did not represent the lease restrictive appropriate placement for the student. A violation of state law was also established. Iowa Code section 256.12(2) requires school districts and AEAs to provide special programs and services to children attending nonpublic schools in the same manner and to the same extent that they are provided to public school students. The school district violated section 256.12(2) by refusing to provide special education support services, that were included in the student's IEP, to the student on the premises of the nonpublic school she was attending.