Parents of Kids With Special Needs: Your 10-Day Notice Might Be Due Soon
In a typical year, parents will be thinking about school supplies, school clothes, and what reading their child will need to do in advance of the school year. This year is different, in large part because there are so many unknowns.
Will my child’s schools be open by the coming school year? If it’s a private school, will the first day of school be different from the public schools’ opening day? If schools remain closed, what will my child’s education look like?
That said, I'm writing this post to remind parents that there is another thing that should be on their checklist that they might be forgetting: a 10-Day Notice. If you're a parent of a kid with special needs — and you're sending them to a private school and suing for tuition reimbursement — there is one thing you must do under the law to even be eligible for tuition reimbursement: Give the local school district a 10-Day Notice. That is something every parent has to do, every year.
The 10-Day Notice serves several functions. The main one is to give the local school district notice that there is a problem — and the (admittedly theoretical) opportunity to fix it. Whether the school district has the power to address the issues a parent raises with the public program depends a lot on the district in question. For many of our clients, the failures of the local educational agencies are so great that they simply can’t be fixed. There may not be the money, the staff, or the facilities available through the public system to give some children what they need, and are entitled to, under the law.
Nevertheless, whether or not the 10-Day Notice serves its intended purpose, each parent has an obligation to provide that notice 10 days before the beginning of the school year. For our clients, we keep track of their first day of school for every school year and make sure to send out those notices in a timely fashion — because not doing so can jeopardize an entire claim for tuition.
Parents who are considering pursuing a tuition reimbursement claim: Now is a crucial time of year in your case. Any slip-up here can have big repercussions later on. I encourage anybody who's thinking about suing for tuition for the 2020-2021 school year to reach out as soon as possible.
Jonathan Gottlieb
Partner
195 Montague Street
14th Floor
Brooklyn Heights, NY 11201
Jonathan@GottliebFirm.com
(646) 820-8506