When school personnel fail to provide students with disabilities with the free appropriate public education (FAPE) called for in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the courts can grant appropriate relief (20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(2)). One of the more common forms of relief is to provide tuition reimbursement to parents who may have obtained appropriate services privately.

The administrative and judicial proceedings concerned with contested placements under the IDEA can take months or even years before reaching final resolution of the underlying dispute. While these actions are pending, the IDEA requires that students remain in their current educational placements unless their parents and school board officials or states agree otherwise (20 U.S.C. § 1415(j)). Parents who are convinced that their child's current placement is inappropriate ...