The Hamilton County Department of Education has to pay a family roughly $103,000 in a landmark student disability rights case, per a federal judge’s order Tuesday.
U.S. District Court Judge Curtis Collier ruled the department needs to reimburse Luka Hyde’s family $103,274 for five years of private education costs, including a tutor, putting a near-finish to the heavily litigated 2014 case. Though Collier has yet to rule on a request asking the department cover another $385,000 in attorneys’ fees, the window to appeal other issues to the U.S. Supreme Court has closed.
Luka Hyde reacts with joy as his mother, Deborah Rausch, talks about special education and the school he now attends from the couch in their sitting room at home in Chattanooga on Friday.“It is official,” his father, Greg Hyde, said in a statement. “Our case has now become the law of the Sixth Circuit-Tennessee, Ohio, Michigan and Kentucky.”
Department attorney Scott Bennett said he believes the district’s insurance carrier will cover the reimbursement. He referred a reporter to Superintendent Bryan Johnson for further comment but he could not be reached Friday through his spokesman.
Over the last five years, Hyde’s case has passed through an administrative court, Chattanooga’s federal court and the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals as attorneys argued whether Hamilton County Schools violated a federal guideline that protects students with disabilities when it sent then-second-grader Hyde to a Red Bank Elementary program in 2013 because of his Down syndrome.