## Facts

- Shannon Carter, a ninth-grade student in a South Carolina public school district, was classified as learning disabled.
- The school district proposed an Individualized Education Program (IEP) keeping her in regular classes with three periods of individualized instruction per week and annual goals reflecting only four months’ progress in reading and math.
- Her parents challenged the IEP through administrative proceedings and, while that challenge was pending, enrolled her in Trident Academy, a private school serving students with disabilities.
- Administrative hearing officers upheld the district’s IEP as adequate.
- The parents sued in federal court under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), seeking reimbursement for Trident tuition and related costs, alleging the district failed to provide a free appropriate public education (FAPE).
- After a bench trial, the district court found the IEP “wholly inadequate,” found Trident provided an appropriate education in substantial compliance with IDEA’s substantive requirements despite some procedural differences, and ordered reimbursement.

## Issues

1. Whether IDEA authorizes reimbursement when parents unilaterally place a child in private school after the public school fails to provide FAPE, even though the private school is not state-approved and does not meet all statutory elements of FAPE in 20 U.S.C. § 1401(a)(18).

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment ordering reimbursement.
- Reimbursement is available if the public placement denied FAPE and the parents’ private placement is otherwise appropriate under IDEA.
- A private school’s lack of state approval or failure to satisfy all formal components of the statutory FAPE definition does not, by itself, bar reimbursement.

## Legal Principles

- Courts have equitable authority under IDEA to award reimbursement for unilateral private placement when the public IEP is inappropriate and the private placement is proper.
- The statutory requirements defining FAPE (including public supervision and an IEP designed and reviewed by the local educational agency) do not operate as conditions that must be met by parental private placements to permit reimbursement.
- The reimbursement inquiry focuses on substantive educational appropriateness of the private placement, not full procedural or structural compliance applicable to public agencies.

## Conclusion

IDEA allows tuition reimbursement when a school district fails to provide FAPE and the parents’ unilateral private placement provides an appropriate education under IDEA, even if the private school is not state-approved and does not satisfy every formal element of the statutory FAPE definition.


Florence Cnty. Sch. Dist. Four v. Carter, 510 U.S. 7 (1993)