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Case Critique: Endrew F. v. Douglas Cnty. Sch. Dist

Michael Cattell and Gianna Corpora

Department of Education Policy Studies, Penn State University

EDLDR 476: Teacher and the Law

Professor Maria Lewis

February 24, 2022

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Case Critique: Endrew F. v. Douglas Cnty. Sch. Dist

Case Summary

On March 22 of 2017, the Supreme Court of the United States of America reached a

decision on the question of what level of educational benefit must school districts confer on

students with disabilities to provide them with the free appropriate public education (FAPE)

guaranteed by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). In Endrew F. v. Douglas

Cnty. Sch. Dist., the justices were tasked with evaluating a response to this question in relation to

a situation between a student with disabilities and the Individualized Education Program (IEP)

offered in the school. Endrew F., the student with autism enrolled in the Douglas County School

District, received IEP plans through fourth grade until it was determined inadequate by the

parents because they believed their child’s “academic and functional progress had stalled”

(Endrew F. v. Douglas Cnty. Sch. Dist., 2017). IDEA allows for parents of students with

disabilities to enroll their child into private schooling and seek tuition reimbursement if the

public education is not meeting the students’ needs. Endrew F.’s parents filed an IDEA

complaint with their state’s education department looking for the necessary reimbursements, but

it was denied. Their appeals moved through a Federal District Court and the Tenth Circuit Court

as both affirmed the state’s denial of tuition reimbursement and supported that the school

district’s presented IEPs resulted in some progress.

The Supreme Court ruled on a related case, Board of Ed. of Hendrick Hudson Central

School Dist., Westchester Cty. v. Rowley, determining FAPE to be “satisfied if the child's IEP

sets out an educational program that is ‘reasonably calculated to enable the child to receive

educational benefits.’ [The Tenth Circuit] interpreted Rowley to establish a rule that a child's IEP

is adequate as long as it is calculated to confer an ‘educational benefit [that is] merely . . . more
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than de minimis,’ and concluded that Endrew's IEP had been ‘reasonably calculated to enable

[him] to make some progress,’” (Endrew F. v. Douglas Cnty. Sch. Dist., 2017). From the rule of

the Supreme Court, under a unanimous decision and with a majority opinion written by Chief

Justice Roberts, “To meet its substantive obligation under the IDEA, a school must offer an IEP

reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress appropriate in light of the child's

circumstances” (Endrew F. v. Douglas Cnty. Sch. Dist., 2017). The Court advised that the

standards of appropriate progress from the Rowley decision are not applicable in this scenario

because of the inability to integrate Endrew F. into the classroom setting. As a result, the school

was deemed responsible for substantially more than the than de minimis standards for IEP plans,

yet the court would not be determining what that would look like and left it to those in the field

of education to decide.

Implications

Endrew has significant implications for the quality of special education and the level of

accountability that schools are held to for the decisions they make in special education. The

higher standard established in this case was a substantial change in most U.S. Circuit Court

jurisdictions, including in the Tenth Circuit where the case originated. Mitchell Yell and David

Bateman (2020) found that nine circuit courts had established either a vague, mixed, low, or

absent standard for the education benefit that should be provided to students requiring special

education services. As a result, there may be a number of instances where parents request that

their child’s IEP be redesigned in light of the higher standard set in Endrew, citing this higher

standard for educational benefit.Very broadly speaking, Endrew gives parents more leverage

when it comes to challenging districts if parents feel that the district is not providing the FAPE

outlined by the Court. The Court’s opinion stated that school officials should be able to provide a
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“cogent and responsive explanation” about the IEP decision making process and the different

aspects of the IEP (Endrew F. v. Douglas Cnty. Sch. Dist., 2017). This places a higher level of

accountability on schools to keep records on the IEP process, including data that shows whether

an IEP is effective or not. As a connecting piece to that, a district’s legal team may determine

that it is easier to provide tuition reimbursement to parents claiming the district is not providing a

FAPE if the school did not keep strong enough, if any, records records detailing the progress of a

student or if the goals in the IEP are not measurable than to go through legal proceedings (Yell &

Bateman, 2020). As a result, schools that do not adapt to the standard set in Endrew may end up

spending more money sending students to other schools if they do not provide a FAPE.

As stated before, the Supreme Court did not give a clear definition for what standards

substantially greater than the de minimis standards look like; it adopted the “appropriately

ambitious” standard as a result of rejecting the argument from Endrew’s parents that schools

should provide the same educational benefit to students requiring special education services as

those not requiring those services, which is in line with the Court’s reasoning from Rowley

(Endrew F. v. Douglas Cnty. Sch. Dist., 2017). This leaves open the possibility that a case may

arise in the future that forces the Court to give a clearer definition beyond a “reasonably

calculated” IEP designed to be “appropriately ambitious in light of the child’s circumstances”

(Endrew F. v. Douglas Cnty. Sch. Dist., 2017).

Endrew F. v. Douglas Cnty. Sch. Dist. was a significant Supreme Court case within

special education and changed what parents and students can expect from schools and school

districts in terms of the educational benefit provided by the school for students with disabilities.

The resulting opinion substantially raised the standards for how much educational benefit the

school should provide and also increased the power of parents in determining what goes into
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their child’s IEP. While it takes time for the effects of Endrew to run through the court system,

this case is likely to be very significant within special education.

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References

Endrew F. v. Douglas Cnty. Sch. Dist. RE-1, 137 S. Ct. 988, 991, 197 L. Ed. 2d 335, 341, 2017

U.S. LEXIS 2025, *2, 85 U.S.L.W. 4109, 26 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 490 (U.S. March 22,

2017)

U.S. Department of Education. (2020). Questions and Answers (Q&A) on U. S. Supreme Court

Case Decision Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District Re-1. U.S. Department of

Education. https://sites.ed.gov/idea/files/qa-endrewcase-12-07-2017.pdf

Yell, M. L., & Bateman, D. (2020). Defining Educational Benefit: An Update on the U.S.

Supreme Court’s Ruling in Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District (2017).

TEACHING Exceptional Children, 52(5), 283–290.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0040059920914259