California OAH special education order · May 29, 2018
Order Granting Student's Motion to Compel Response
OAH Case No. 2018050070 · ALJ Tiffany Gilmartin
OAH ordered Oakland Unified to answer Student's due process complaint by May 31, 2018, because districts must respond within 10 days, but denied Student's request for a hearing on the response as premature.
Summary
Student filed a due process complaint on May 1, 2018. On May 17, Student moved to compel Oakland Unified to respond and asked for a telephonic hearing on whether the response was adequate. Oakland Unified did not reply to the motion. OAH noted that the law requires a district to respond within 10 days and to address the specific issues in the complaint, so it ordered Oakland Unified to serve a response by 3:00 p.m. on May 31, 2018. It denied the request for a hearing on adequacy as premature because no response had yet been filed.
Why it matters
When a district misses the 10-day deadline to respond to a due process complaint, parents can ask OAH to order a response. A challenge to whether the response is adequate has to wait until the district actually files one.
Key authority cited
- Ed. Code § 56502(d)(A)(D)
Topics
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. 2018050070 v. ORDER GRANTING STUDENT’S
MOTION TO COMPEL RESPONSE
OAKLAND UNIFIED SCHOOL
DISTRICT.
On May 1, 2018, Student filed a request for due process with the Office of Administrative Hearings. On May 17, 2018, Student filed a motion to compel Oakland Unified to file a response and schedule a telephonic hearing to determine the adequacy of Oakland’s response. No response was received from Oakland Unified.
State and federal law require a school district to respond to a due process complaint within 10 days of receiving the complaint. This response must specifically address the issues raised in the due process hearing request notice. (Ed. Code § 56502(d)(A)(D).)
Oakland Unified is hereby ordered to provide Student with a response to their due process complaint by 3:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 31, 2018.
Student’s request to schedule a telephonic hearing to determine the adequacy of Oakland’s response is denied as premature.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
DATE: May 29, 2018
TIFFANY GILMARTIN
Administrative Law Judge Office of Administrative Hearings