Stefan Jaynes v. Newport News Public School District
Summary
The case involves the provision of special education where Stefan Jaynes, the plaintiff, was after his second birthday diagnosed with autism. His parents were busy looking for a school within their residence that would amicably provide special education to Stefan. Newport News School, the defendant, was the district school they found, which was only planning to provide an individualized education programme (IEP) for Stefan. However, they didn’t involve the parents in the process as they even delayed the implementation of the same, which in turn had detrimental effects on Stefan. The school placed him in an ordinary classroom with other children, which made him experience a hard time since of his autistic condition, which led to his attendance regression. Stefan’s parents withdrew him from the school and decided to home-school him by getting trained tutors who would work one on one with him several hours a day.
However, they sued the school on the grounds of acts of omissions and mishandling of Stefan’s case. In the due process hearing court, the ruling was on Stefan’s favour, and the parents were awarded 117,979.78 dollars as reimbursement for the cost of home-schooling. The State Review officer affirmed the due process hearing court’s decision but reduced the compensation by half on the fact that the school had tried to cater to Stefan. The school, however, disregarding the previous rulings, appealed to the U.S district court where justice Henry Coke Morgan junior issued a favourable decision and warded his parents 103,000 dollars. The school still appealed to the United States Fourth Circuit, which upheld the ruling of the District court.
My opinion is that from the onset, the school was negligent on the whole issue since they knew that they didn’t offer specialized education to children with special needs, and they didn’t even inform Stefan’s parents. The fact that they were planning to start on an individualized education programme for Stefan was a great idea. However, their timing was barred since Stefan had already contracted autism, needed immediate attention, and from trained tutors who specialized in children with special needs. My ruling would also be in favour of Stefan, awarding him special and general damages, firstly for the time consumed in the many appeals launched by the school and for the unwarranted negligence, respectively.