Danielle Howard Martinez, et al. v. Gavin Newsom, Governor of California, et al.

Congress enacted the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”) to ensure students with disabilities like Petitioners are not excluded from public education. 20 U.S.C. § 1400(d). The IDEA makes state educational agencies (“SEAs”) like the California Department of Education (“CDE”) responsible for general supervision of local educational agencies (“LEAs”) to ensure students with disabilities receive a free appropriate public education (“FAPE”). After the Governor of California closed schools in response to the outbreak of COVID-19, the CDE instructed LEAs that they were not required to reassess student’s preexisting accommodations in the new remote learning context. It then decided not to correct for ongoing FAPE deprivations across the state. In its decision below, the Ninth Circuit affirmed dismissal of Petitioners’ requests for declaratory and injunctive relief against the CDE and that agency’s executive officer, holding that the eventual return to in-person instruction mooted those claims. That decision contravenes this Court’s settled precedent that intervening events will not moot a case so long as “the parties have a concrete interest, however small, in the outcome of the litigation.” Chafin v. Chafin, 568 U.S. 165, 172 (2013). And “a meritorious claim will not be rejected for want of a prayer for appropriate relief.” Holt Civic Club v. City of Tuscaloosa, 439 U.S. 60, 66 (1978). The questions presented in this petition are: 1. Whether Petitioners’ claims that the CDE Defendants violated federal law by (i)