A.H. v. Nampa School District No. 131, et al.

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF IDAHO
A.H., a minor child, by and through
their parent and legal guardian, D.H.,
Plaintiff,
v.
NAMPA SCHOOL DISTRICT NO.
131; IDAHO DEPARTMENT OF
HEALTH AND WELFARE; IDAHO
STATE DEPARTMENT OF
EDUCATION; and DOES I-V,
Defendants.
Case No. 1:25-cv-00489-BLW
MEMORANDUM DECISION
AND ORDER
INTRODUCTION
Before the Court are Defendants the Idaho State Department of Education’s
and the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare’s motions to dismiss. See Dkts. 5,
7. For the reasons explained below, the Court will grant the motions.
BACKGROUND
Plaintiff A.H. is a minor, teenaged child1 with multiple disabilities and
medical conditions, including autism spectrum disorder, Tourette’s syndrome,
1 As of August 2025, A.H. was either 15 or 16. See Comp. ¶ 1 (alleging that A.H. is 15);
id. ¶ 12 (alleging that A.H. is 16).
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attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and Type I diabetes. He has been eligible
for special education services under the federal Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act since kindergarten.
In June 2024, A.H. became a resident of the Southwest Idaho Treatment
Center (SWITC), a residential treatment facility owned and operated by the Idaho
Department of Health and Welfare. “SWITC is a treatment center for individuals
with developmental disabilities who cannot be served effectively in the community
and all other placement options have been exhausted.” Comp. ¶ 73, Dkt. 1. SWITC
does not provide direct educational instruction. Accordingly, shortly after A.H.
was placed at SWITC, staff members contacted Nampa School District No. 131.
The school district then allegedly made unilateral decisions about A.H.’s
educational placement for the 2024-2025 school year, including placing him in a
homebound educational setting.
Plaintiff alleges that, among other things, the school district failed to timely
convene a meeting of the IEP team, failed to adopt or develop an appropriate IEP
at the start of the 2024-2025 school year, and failed to provide a full school day of
instruction. Plaintiff further alleges that the school district failed to educate A.H. in
the least restrictive educational environment and instead steered him into more
restrictive and segregated settings, including a separate school program referred to
as “Gateways,” without adequately considering whether he could be educated in a
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less restrictive setting with appropriate supports and services.
On February 24, 2025, Plaintiff filed a request for a due-process hearing.
The request named Nampa School District No. 131, the Idaho Department of
Education, and the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare as respondents. The
hearing officer dismissed the Idaho Department of Education and the Idaho
Department of Health and Welfare from the proceeding. As for the merits, the
hearing officer concluded that plaintiff failed to establish that the Nampa School
District denied A.H. a free and appropriate public education.
In August 2025, Plaintiff filed this civil action seeking judicial review of the
administrative decision. Plaintiff challenges both (1) the hearing officer’s
determination on the merits as to the Nampa School District and (2) the dismissal
of the Idaho Department of Education and the Idaho Department of Health and
Welfare. The Nampa School District filed an answer. The Idaho Department of
Education and the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare moved to dismiss.
LEGAL STANDARD
Plaintiff brings this action under the Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act, 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(2)(A), which authorizes a party aggrieved by the findings
and decision resulting from an impartial due process hearing to bring a civil action
in federal district court. Under the Act, a due process complaint is adjudicated
through a hearing conducted pursuant to § 1415(f), and the resulting findings and
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decision are subject to administrative appeal under § 1415(g) and judicial review
under § 1415(i).
Where, as here, a party seeks review of a hearing officer’s dismissal of a
respondent on statutory or jurisdictional grounds, the motions to dismiss brought
under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and (6) function as the procedural
vehicle by which the Court is asked to resolve a legal question arising from the
administrative proceedings. The Court therefore reviews de novo the hearing
officer’s legal conclusions, including whether an entity was a proper respondent in
the due process proceedings. See generally J.W. ex rel. J.E.W. v. Fresno Unified
Sch. Dist., 626 F.3d 431, 438 (9th Cir. 2010); Capistrano Unified Sch. Dist. v.
Wartenberg, 59 F.3d 884, 891 (9th Cir. 1995).
ANALYSIS
Before turning to the parties’ arguments, the Court will provide a brief
overview of the relevant statutory framework. This overview is replete with
acronyms, a practice the Court ordinarily avoids. The Court departs from that
practice here, however, because the parties and courts across the country routinely
rely on a familiar set of acronyms, including IDEA, FAPE, IEP, LEA, and SEA.
These acronyms are so entrenched that they have become part of the lexicon in
these cases. As the Supreme Court aptly observed: “Welcome to—and apologies
for—the acronymic world of federal legislation.” Fry v. Napoleon Cmty. Schs., 580
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U.S. 154, 158 (2017).
A. 	The Statutory Framework
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) guarantees a “free
appropriate public education” (FAPE) to every child with a disability. See 20
U.S.C. § 1412(a)(1)(A). A FAPE is defined as “special education and related
services that,” among other things (1) “meet the standards of the State educational
agency” and (2) “have been provided at public expense, under public supervision
and direction, and without charge.” § 1401(9)(A), (B). The central mechanism for
providing a FAPE is the Individualized Education Program (IEP). §§ 1412(a)(4),
1414(d). The IEP is a written statement that includes the child’s present
performance levels, services that will be provided, annual goals, and criteria for
evaluating progress toward those goals. § 1414(d)(1)(A).
To ensure that a FAPE is provided to all children with disabilities, the IDEA
provides that federal funding be distributed to state educational agencies (SEAs),
which, in turn, allocate those funds to local educational agencies (LEAs). See §
1411. LEAs are charged with directly providing or arranging for third-party
provision of a FAPE, see, e.g., § 1414; however, SEAs “retain[] primary
responsibility for ensuring compliance with the IDEA and for administering
educational programs for disabled children,” M.A. ex rel. E.S. v. State-Operated
Sch. Dist. of Newark, 344 F.3d 335, 340 (3d Cir. 2003); see also § 1412(a)(11)(A)
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(holding the SEA “responsible for ensuring that ... the requirements of [the IDEA]
are met” and “all educational programs ... meet the educational standards of the
[SEA]”). When an LEA “is unable to establish and maintain programs of free
appropriate public education that meet the requirements of [the IDEA],” the SEA is
required to “use the payments that would otherwise have been available to a local
educational agency or to a State agency to provide special education and related
services directly to children with disabilities.” § 1413(g)(1).
Anticipating that disagreements will sometimes arise between parents or
guardians of children with disabilities and their LEAs, the IDEA requires that
SEAs establish specific procedural safeguards to facilitate resolution. See generally
§ 1415. For example, SEAs must afford parents and guardians the opportunity to
file a due process complaint, § 1415(b)(7), and, where such a complaint is filed,
provide an impartial due process hearing before a hearing officer, § 1415(f)(1)(A).
Judicial review of the hearing officer’s decision is governed by 20 U.S.C.
§ 1415(i), which authorizes a civil action by “[a]ny party aggrieved by the findings
and decision made in the due process hearing.” As will be discussed next, the party
wishing to seek judicial review must file a civil action within 90 days of the
hearing officer’s decision.
With this statutory framework in mind, the Court turns to the pending
motions to dismiss, beginning with the Idaho Department of Education’s motion.
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B. 	The Idaho Department of Education’s Motion to Dismiss
1. 	Timeliness
The Idaho Department of Education argues that A.H.’s lawsuit is untimely
because he did not sue within 90 days of the hearing officer’s order dismissing it
from the administrative proceeding. The Court disagrees.
The hearing officer dismissed the Idaho Department of Education from the
due process proceeding on May 15, 2025, but the administrative case continued
against the remaining respondents. The due process proceeding concluded on July
16, 2025, when the hearing officer issued a decision resolving the matter in its
entirety. Plaintiff filed this action on August 26, 2025—well within 90 days of the
July 16, 2025 decision.
Under 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(2)(B), plaintiffs are obligated to file their action
within 90 days “from the date of the decision”—singular—“of the hearing officer,”
unless state law provides otherwise. Elsewhere, the statute refers to a single due
process hearing conducted by “a hearing officer” and resulting in a single decision.
See 20 U.S.C. §§ 1415(f)(1)(A), 1415(f)(3)(A), 1415(f)(3)(E), 1415(g),
1415(i)(1)(A). As such, the statute does not contemplate interlocutory rulings
triggering separate appeal periods.
The Court is not persuaded that § 1415(i)(2)(B) requires a party to file a civil
action within 90 days of an interlocutory order dismissing a particular respondent
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while the due process proceedings continue. Read as a whole, § 1415 establishes a
unitary administrative process culminating in a single decision subject to judicial
review. Interpreting the statute to require or permit multiple, piecemeal civil
actions arising from a single due-process complaint would fracture the review
scheme Congress enacted and is not supported by the statutory text.
The Idaho Department of Education cites district court decisions in support
of its argument, including Paul G. v. Monterey Peninsula Unified School District,
256 F. Supp. 3d 1064, 1073 (N.D. Cal. 2017) and B.B. v. Tacoma School District,
No. C08-5414RBL, 2009 WL 159204, at *3 (W.D. Wash. Jan. 22, 2009). To the
extent those cases can be read to endorse multiple appeals from a single due
process proceeding, the Court finds them unpersuasive. As already noted, the
statutory scheme consistently refers to a single hearing and a single decision, and
the Court declines to read into it a requirement for staggered judicial review.
Plaintiff’s action was thus timely, so the Court will proceed to the merits.
2. 	The Merits
On the merits, Plaintiff argues that the Idaho Department of Education was a
proper respondent in the due process proceeding based on the Department’s
general supervisory authority and its ultimate responsibility to ensure compliance
with the IDEA. The Court is not persuaded.
The Court begins by observing that 20 U.S.C. § 1415(b)(6)(A), the provision
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governing due-process complaints, does not limit who may be named as a
respondent in a due-process proceeding. That section speaks only to the
permissible subject matter of due-process complaints, providing that parties must
be allowed to “present a complaint . . . with respect to any matter relating to the
identification, evaluation, or educational placement of the child, or the provision of
a free appropriate public education to such child . . . .” § 1415(b)(6)(A). Certainly,
there is nothing in the statutory language categorically prohibiting naming an SEA
in a due-process complaint. Accord R.V. v. Rivera, 220 F. Supp. 3d 588, 594 (E.D.
Pa. 2016) (concluding that the language of § 1415(b)(6)(A) does not preclude
bringing a due-process complaint against a SEA).
But that observation does not end the inquiry. The question here is whether
the Idaho Department of Education was properly included as a respondent on the
specific facts alleged here—where plaintiff challenges the provision of services to
a single student, the SEA did not directly provide those services to the student, the
plaintiff seeks a remedy from the LEA, and there is no allegation that the LEA
would be unable to provide the requested remedy.
The Ninth Circuit has not squarely addressed this question. Courts that have
considered it, however, generally hold that an SEA is not a proper respondent in a
due-process hearing absent allegations that it directly provided the educational
services or was required to assume responsibility because the LEA was unable to
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provide a FAPE to the student. See, e.g., Chavez v. N.M. Pub. Educ. Dep’t, 621
F.3d 1275, 1283 (10th Cir. 2010) (holding that the state educational agency was
properly excluded from the administrative process where it was not involved in
providing the student’s educational program); M.K. by & through Barlowe K. v.
Prestige Acad. Charter Sch., 302 F. Supp. 3d 626, 630 (D. Del. 2018) (observing
that “[o]rdinarily, disputes regarding a FAPE denial are between parents and
LEAs”); Rivera, 220 F. Supp. at 594 (observing that “[w]here there is an existing
LEA that could be held responsible for alleged FAPE violations, then it, and not
the SEA, would be the proper party in a due process hearing”).
The Court finds these cases persuasive and, based on the facts alleged here,
concludes that the Idaho Department of Education should be dismissed as a
defendant. Plaintiff alleges that A.H. was educated by the Nampa School District
No. 131 and that the alleged denial of a FAPE arose from the school district’s
decisions regarding placement, individualized education programming, and least
restrictive environment. Plaintiff does not allege that the Idaho Department of
Education provided A.H. with direct educational services or that it directed or
approved the challenged placement decisions. Nor does Plaintiff allege that the
Nampa School District is unable to provide a FAPE such that the Idaho
Department of Education’s direct-services obligation under § 1413(g) would be
triggered. Further, plaintiff’s prayer for relief demonstrates that he seeks a remedy
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from the Nampa School District alone. See Comp., Dkt. 1, at 22. He asks this Court
to compel the school district to provide him with (1) “an appropriate educational
program in the least restrictive environment to meet his needs” and (2)
“compensatory educational services” for the 2024/2025 academic school year. Id.
Finally, Plaintiff does not allege a systemic deficiency in statewide policies
that caused the alleged denial; the allegations target the actions of a single school
district in educating a single child. Plaintiff does generally allege that the school
district maintains a district-wide policy of not allowing students with disabilities to
attend its campus. That allegation does not alter the analysis. Plaintiff does not
allege that the Idaho Department of Education adopted, approved, or enforced such
a policy, or that the Department failed to act in the face of circumstances requiring
it to assume direct responsibility for services. This Court concludes that a district-
wide policy, without allegations of state involvement or statewide enforcement
failure, remains a dispute between the parents and the LEA.
For that reason, plaintiff’s reliance on Emma C. v. Eastin, No. C96-4179-
THE, 2007 WL 4554321 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 20, 2007) is misplaced. Emma C. arose
from a California school district’s continued failure to implement IEPs for more
than half of students with disabilities within its borders, and the parties to that
litigation entered into a consent decree requiring the California Department of
Education to implement an effective monitoring system. Significantly, the Emma
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C. order did not squarely address an individualized due process hearing
challenging the provision of a FAPE to a single student, nor did it hold that a state
educational agency must be named as a respondent in such proceedings based
solely on its general supervisory authority. The allegations here—focused on the
educational decisions of a single local school district and unaccompanied by claims
of state- level involvement—are distinguishable from those in Emma C.
Finally, Plaintiff accuses the Idaho Department of Education of misleading
the Court by failing to cite or discuss controlling Ninth Circuit authority. Motion
Mem., Dkt. 8, at 2. This argument is without merit. First, the “controlling
authority” plaintiff points to is J.N. v. Oregon Dep’t of Ed., No. 24-2080 (9th Cir.
July 7, 2025) (unpublished)—an unpublished opinion that may not be regarded as
precedent. See 9th Cir. R. 36-3(b). Second, J.N. addressed a mootness argument; it
did not directly address the issue before this Court. Third, even if J.N. had squarely
addressed whether SEAs may be named in administrative proceedings, the facts
are distinguishable. J.N. was a class-action lawsuit, where the plaintiffs sought
relief for alleged systemic deficiencies. Here, a single individual alleges failure at
the LEA-level, and he seeks a remedy solely for himself.
In sum, given the specific allegations in this case, the hearing officer
correctly dismissed the Idaho Department of Education from the administrative
case. The Court will therefore grant its motion to dismiss.
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C. 	The Idaho Department of Health & Welfare’s Motion to Dismiss
The Court will also grant the Idaho Department of Health & Welfare’s
(IDHW) motion to dismiss. Plaintiff’s theory for keeping IDHW in this case is that
because A.H. resided at SWITC, IDHW acted in place of a parent and therefore
had a duty to ensure A.H. was enrolled in school and receiving a FAPE, including
by forming an interagency agreement or providing education itself. Plaintiff also
relies on federal regulations stating that IDEA applies broadly to state and local
agencies involved in educating children with disabilities, including “other State
agencies and schools (such as Departments of Mental Health and Welfare).” See
Response, Dkt. 9, at 7-8.
This theory runs headlong into Plaintiff’s own allegations and the nature of
the administrative proceeding being reviewed. Plaintiff alleges that SWITC “does
not provide direct educational services,” and that its staff instead contacted the
Nampa School District to enroll A.H. See Comp. ¶¶ 75-80, Dkt. 1. Plaintiff further
alleges that Nampa School District employees were the “teachers coming to work
with” A.H. in the homebound placement and that Nampa School District made the
key placement decisions that form the basis of the alleged denial of a free
appropriate public education. Id. ¶¶ 75-83. Indeed, in describing the due process
proceeding, Plaintiff identifies the “main issue” as whether the Nampa School
District denied A.H. a FAPE, and he acknowledges that the due-process request
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sought determinations about the Nampa School District’s placement and
individualized education program decisions, while only generally asserting that the
Department of Health and Welfare “failed to ensure” A.H. received a free
appropriate public education while in its custody. Id. ¶¶ 15, 35, 138.
Given these allegations, the hearing officer appropriately dismissed IDHW.
IDHW did not provide direct educational services to A.H. nor did it have an
obligation to do so where the Nampa School District was the entity responsible for
providing those services. IDHW’s motion correctly frames the point: absent facts
connecting IDHW to the provision of special education services at issue, the
dispute belongs (as Plaintiff’s allegations reflect) between the parent and the local
school district that developed and implemented A.H.’s program. See generally
Barlowe K., 302 F. Supp. 3d at 630 (“Ordinarily, disputes regarding a FAPE denial
are between parents and LEAs.”)
And while Plaintiff is correct that IDEA and its regulations can bind “other
State agencies” in appropriate circumstances, that does not mean every state
agency with custodial or collaborative duties becomes a proper respondent in a
special-education due process proceeding when the pleaded facts show the local
school district was the direct educational provider.
For all these reasons, the Court will affirm the dismissal of IDHW from the
due-process proceeding and grant IDHW’s motion to dismiss.
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D. 	Dismissal Without Leave to Amend
Typically, the Court would grant plaintiff leave to amend—even though he
did not request it. But in this instance, the Court finds it appropriate to dismiss both
the Idaho Department of Education and IDHW without leave to amend. Dismissal
of both moving defendants rests on legal conclusions regarding whether they were
proper respondents in the underlying IDEA due-process proceeding, not on
pleading deficiencies that could be cured through amendment. Plaintiff’s
allegations affirmatively establish that the challenged educational decisions and
services were provided by the Nampa School District. Under these circumstances,
the Court concludes that amendment would be futile, and dismissal without leave
to amend is appropriate as to both IDHW and the Idaho Department of Education.
ORDER
IT IS ORDERED that:
1. 	Defendant The Idaho State Department of Education’s Motion to
Dismiss (Dkt. 5) is GRANTED.
2. 	Defendant The Idaho Department of Health & Welfare’s Motion to
Dismiss (Dkt. 7) is GRANTED.
DATED: January 30, 2026
_________________________
B. Lynn Winmill
U.S. District Court Judge
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