Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issues decision on taping IEP meetings

The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit recently issued a decision that it recommended not for publication and that should have limited application to Ohio parents of students with disabilities. The appeals court upheld a lower court's decision against parents who represented their child in a case against their school district under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

The parents asserted that they had a right to tape record the Individualized Education Program (IEP) meetings. They also objected to the school's insistence that its attorney attend all of those meetings. Because of the dispute, no IEP was prepared for the student for two years prior to the filing of the federal complaint. The school district initiated the case when it filed for an impartial due process hearing. The parents argued that their child was denied her right to a free appropriate public education because of the districts' actions.

The court of appeals noted that:

• nothing in the IDEA expressly precludes the district from having an attorney serve as a member of the IEP team;
• it is the U.S. Department of Education's policy that a school district can limit or prohibit recordings of IEP meetings unless recording is needed to ensure that the parent understands the process.

In this case, the parents did not argue that tape recording was necessary to enable them to understand the IEP process. The court also looked to Ohio law which prohibits a court from substituting its decision for a decision of a school board where the board has discretion to make that decision. Finally, the court rejected the parents' argument that the district did not have a policy regarding recordings because the district's collective bargaining agreement with its teacher's union included a no-recording policy.

Parents and advocates can expect that some school districts and their attorneys may attempt to use this case as authority to limit parents' recording of IEP meetings. However, parents should be allowed to tape record meetings when the district has no policy and when necessary to enable them to understand the process.

Read the order: Horen v. Board of Education of the City of Toledo Public School District (PDF file)

To view and print PDF documents, you need to have Adobe® Reader®, a free software program, installed on your computer. Download Adobe® Reader®

Keywords: