California OAH special education order · December 22, 2015

Order Denying Motion for Reconsideration

OAH Case No. 2015110982 · ALJ Rebecca Freie

OAH denied Oceanside's request to reconsider a stay put order for Student's afterschool program transportation, finding no new law and an unexplained late declaration that misread the original order.

Denied Reconsideration

Summary

OAH had granted Student stay put for transportation to his afterschool program, Together We Grow, in Vista. Oceanside asked OAH to reconsider. It pointed to later OAH orders in other cases that denied stay put transportation to the same program, and it offered a new declaration from its transportation director about a 90-minute bus route. OAH denied the request because orders in other OAH cases are not binding, the District cited no new statutes, regulations, or Ninth Circuit cases, the declaration assumed a bus arrangement the order did not require, and the District never explained why the declaration was not filed with its original opposition.

Why it matters

A district cannot undo a stay put order just by pointing to different results in other families' OAH cases, because those rulings do not bind the ALJ. Evidence offered on reconsideration must be new or come with a good explanation for why it was not filed the first time.

Key authority cited

Gov. Code, § 11521
Code Civ. Proc., § 1008
Baldwin v. Home Savings of America (1997) 59 Cal.App.4th 1192
Cal. Code Regs., tit. 5, § 3085

People named in the order

Linda Horton, Transportation Director, Oceanside Unified School District (declarant)

Topics

stay put transportation afterschool program reconsideration non-precedential oah orders

Full text of the order

Published text of the OAH order. Page headers and numbers from the original PDF have been dropped.

BEFORE THE

OFFICE OF ADMINISTRATIVE HEARINGS

STATE OF CALIFORNIA

In the Matter of:

PARENT ON BEHALF OF STUDENT, OAH Case No. 2015110982 v. ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR

RECONSIDERATION

OCEANSIDE UNIFIED SCHOOL

DISTRICT.

On December 2, 2015, the undersigned administrative law judge issued an order that granted Student’s motion for stay put in regards to transportation to his afterschool program, Together We Grow, in Vista, California. On December 22, 2015, Oceanside Unified School District filed a motion for reconsideration.

APPLICABLE LAW

The Office of Administrative Hearings will generally reconsider a ruling upon a showing of new or different facts, circumstances, or law justifying reconsideration, when the party seeks reconsideration within a reasonable period of time. (See, e.g., Gov. Code, § 11521; Code Civ.

Proc., § 1008.) The party seeking reconsideration may also be required to provide an explanation for its failure to previously provide the different facts, circumstances or law. (See Baldwin v. Home Savings of America (1997) 59 Cal.App.4th 1192, 1199-1200.)

DISCUSSION

Oceanside alleges no new law in support of the request reconsideration. For example, although Oceanside references four orders, in OAH case numbers 2015111073, 2015110951, and 2015120015, issued after December 2, 2015, in which other OAH ALJ’s denied stay put transportation services to the same afterschool program Student attends, an ALJ is not bound by orders or decisions in other OAH cases. (5 C.C.R. § 3085.) In fact, Oceanside does not cite any Ninth Circuit case law in support of its motion for reconsideration, although such case law would be precedential. Nor does Oceanside cite any state or federal statutes or regulations in support of its motion for reconsideration.

Oceanside has submitted a declaration by Linda Horton, Transportation Director, in support of its motion. Ms. Horton claims that “[b]ased on traffic patterns in the afternoon in and around Oceanside, it would take a District bus approximately 90 minutes to deliver other student passengers to their homes, and [Student] to Together We Grow’s [current] location.”

(Emphasis supplied.) The undersigned ALJ’s order granting Student stay put for afterschool transportation does not require Oceanside to provide this transportation via one of its school buses. Nor does the order require other students to be transported to their homes at the same time Student is transported to Together We Grow’s location. Finally, Oceanside does not provide any explanation as to why this declaration was not filed with OAH when it submitted its original opposition to the motion for stay put in this case. Accordingly, Oceanside’s motion for reconsideration is denied.

ORDER

Oceanside’s motion for reconsideration of the stay put order of December 2, 2015, is denied.