The federal Office of Special Education Programs (“OSEP”) recently published guidance in Letter to Reilly(114 LRP 49672), indicating that, unlike IDEA matters, neither the school district nor the parents have the burden of proof in state board of education complaints. OSEP noted, “Unlike due process hearings, State complaints are investigative in nature, rather than adversarial, and do not include the same procedural rights accorded to parties in an impartial due process hearing. Therefore, the Department believes that it is not consistent with the IDEA regulation for an SEA to treat a State complaint like a due process complaint and assign the burden of proof to either party.”
November 2014
