COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS
DIVISION OF ADMINISTRATIVE LAW APPEALS
BUREAU OF SPECIAL EDUCATION APPEALS
In Re: Student and Mystic Valley Regional Charter School
BSEA # 26-01269
RULING ON CHALLENGE TO SUFFICIENCY OF HEARING REQUEST
This matter comes before the Hearing Officer on Mystic Valley Regional Charter School’s (Mystic Valley’s) August 12, 2025 Sufficiency Challenge to a Hearing Request filed by the Parent on July 28, 2025. Mystic Valley asserts that the Hearing Request fails to comply with the requirements of “BSEA Rule IB.8”[1]. Mystic Valley contends that the single paged Hearing Request consisted essentially of a “broad allegation that Mystic Valley ‘was not appropriately supporting [Student] by meeting her needs or adequately following the IEP’ without articulating any facts related to this contention”[2].
For the reasons articulated below, the Sufficiency Challenge is DENIED.
LEGAL STANDARD
Both the IDEA and the BSEA Hearing Rules specify that hearing requests must include the name and address of the student, the name of the school the child is attending (and information regarding homeless youth, if applicable)[3]. Hearing requests must also include a description of the nature of the problem, including facts relating to such dispute, and a proposed resolution of the problem “to the extent known and available to the party at the time”[4]. Further, according to BSEA Hearing Rule I(B), while not mandated by the IDEA, designated additional information may be included as ” it will enable the BSEA and opposing party to more effectively and efficiently communicate and respond to the Hearing Request”[5].
Both the IDEA and BSEA Hearing Rule I(E) provide any party against whom a hearing requestis filedwith an opportunity to make a written challenge to the sufficiency of the hearing request within 15 days of receipt, if the party believes that the hearing request does not contain all required elements[6]. Upon receipt of such a challenge, a Hearing Officer must, in writing, within 5 days “… make a determination on the face of the notice” if the hearing requestcontains all the statutory requirements (emphasis added)[7]. If a hearing request is found insufficient, it must be amended, thereby resulting in new timelines, but if it is deemed sufficient, the original timelines remain[8].
DISCUSSION
Here, after reviewing the Hearing Request on its face, as I am required to do, I do not find it insufficient. As with the federal rules of civil procedure, the purpose of the pleading rules under the IDEA is to provide fair notice to the opposing party. The United States Supreme Court has explained:
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not require a claimant to set out in detail the facts upon which he bases his claim. To the contrary, all the Rules require is ‘a short and plain statement of the claim’ that will give the defendant fair notice of what the plaintiff’s claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.[9]
With this guidance in mind, I find that the Hearing Request is sufficient to provide fair notice to Mystic Valley as to what Parent is seeking; that is, compensatory services for a period of time prior to Student’s recent receipt of “appropriate services” that were implemented only after Student underwent a “battery of evaluations” Parent secured. The premise of Parent’s contention is that during the disputed time, Student had “fallen significantly behind her peers and where she should be” and did not “have access to FAPE”[10]. Such statements provide the necessary level of detail contemplated by the IDEA and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The fact that the Hearing Request is not lengthy (consisting of only one page) does not render it insufficient. As I find all elements to be not only contained within the Hearing Request, as required, but also properly pled, the Hearing Request is deemed sufficient.
CONCLUSION AND ORDER:
Mystic Valley’s Sufficiency Challenge is DENIED. The timeline for the Hearing shall proceed in accordance with the July 29, 2025, Notice of Hearing issued in this matter[11].
So Ordered by the Hearing Officer
/s/ Marguerite M. Mitchell
Marguerite M. Mitchell
Dated: August 13, 2025
[1] It appears Mystic Valley is relying on an outdated version of the BSEA’s Hearing Rules for Special Education Appeals (Hearing Rules). The Hearing Rules were revised in July 2024 and no longer contain a Rule I(B)(8), which in the prior version had required a Hearing Request to contain information about “the nature of the disagreement, including facts relating to such disagreement”. The current version of the Hearing Rules comports with the requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and provides a similar requirement under Hearing Rule I(B)5) of “a description of the nature of the problem of the child relating to the proposed or refused initiation or change, including facts relating the problem”.
[2] Mystic Valley also claims that there may be a yet to be filed Amended Hearing Request which also contains only “broad conclusory statements without articulating facts to support the requested relief of compensatory services” indicating, by way of example, that it asserts Mystic Valley was “not ‘adequately following the IEP’ or otherwise ‘implementing [the IEP] appropriately’ [but] there is no statement about which parts of the IEP Mystic Valley allegedly was not implementing …”.
[3] 20 USC 1415 (b)(7)(A)(ii); 34 CFR 300.508(b); BSEA Hearing Rule I(B).
[4] Id.
[5] BSEA Hearing Rule I(B) at footnote 3. Said information comprises the name, address and phone number of the person requesting the hearing, and the parent/legal guardian/court-appointed educational decision-maker/educational surrogate parent/person who the child lives with and is acting in the place of the parent; the relationship to student of the person requesting the hearing; the name of the responsible school district(s) or state educational or other agency; the name, address, phone and fax number of any attorneys or advocates; and the primary language of the home, if not English, and whether interpretation and/or translation will be needed.
[6] 20 USC 1415 (c)(2)(A) and (C); 34 CFR 300.508(d)(1). A challenge to the sufficiency of a hearing request is separate and distinct from a motion. No hearing on the sufficiency challenge is available, as the analysis is limited to reviewing the face of the hearing request only, and the timeframe for ruling is accordingly expedited. No additional information can or should be considered.
[7] 20 USC 1415 (c)(2)(D); 34 CFR 300.508(d)(2); BSEA Hearing Rule I(E).
[8] 20 USC 1415 (c)(2)(E); 34 CFR 300.508(d)(4); BSEA Hearing Rule I(E) (to the extent that an amendment clarifies issues raised in the initial hearing request, rather than raising new issues, the date of the initial hearing request shall remain controlling for statute of limitations purposes upon the filing of an amendment).
[9] Leatherman v. Tarrant County NICU, 507 U.S. 163, 168 (1993).
[10] The Hearing Request also seeks an award of legal fees although the BSEA does not have jurisdiction to award legal fees. Pursuant to the IDEA, such relief may be awarded, in certain circumstances, to “prevailing parties” pursuant to a claim brought in the district court after the administrative proceedings have concluded (20 USC 1415(i)(3)(B)), such a claim is an “independent suit” and the “‘… only means by which a party may recover attorney’s fees for administrative proceedings, … because the IDEA only authorizes the courts, and not the administrative hearing officer to award the attorney’s fees’”. In Re: Student & Arlington Pub. Schs. BSEA #250354330 MSER 310 (2024)(quoting Zipperer v. Sch. Bd. of Seminole Cnty., Fla., 891 F. Supp. 583, 586 (M.D. Fla. 1995), vacated sub nom. Zipperer v. Sch. Bd. of Seminole Cnty., Fla., 111 F.3d 847 (11th Cir. 1997) [additional internal citations omitted] and Bd. of Educ. of Oak Park v. Nathan R., 199 F.3d 377, 381 & n.10 (7th Cir. 2000) [additional internal citations and quotations omitted]).
[11] This timeline is subject to revision based upon the Parties’ pending request for postponement filed on August 8, 2025, to be discussed at the upcoming Conference Call scheduled for August 18, 2025, by separate Order.