NEW ORLEANS – The mother of a 10-year-old autistic boy, in a federal lawsuit filed last month, claims the St. Tammany Parish School Board discriminated against her son by “significantly reducing” his access to instruction and peers.
Plaintiff A.A., by and through his mother, P.A., filed a lawsuit January 28 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
P.A. alleges the St. Tammany Parish School Board, or STPSB, and Superintendent Frank Jabbia have discriminated against her son based on his disability, in violation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA.
IDEA is a federal law, originally passed in 1975, that guarantees a free appropriate public education, or FAPE, tailored to the individual needs of children with disabilities.
“Rather than maintaining a continuum of placements for students with disabilities as required under federal law, Defendants routinely use shortened-day schedules for students with disabilities who require additional supports and services,” the 59-complaint states.
In her filing, the plaintiff seeks a reversal of an Oct. 30, 2025 administration decision by a Louisiana Administrative Law Judge, or ALJ, which she argues denied them the relief they were entitled to under the IDEA.
At issue, according to the lawsuit, is the school district’s decision to reduce a child’s access to instruction and peers rather than provide the services necessary for him to access a full school day in violation of well-established federal disability laws.
P.A. alleges that in September 2024 the defendants placed her autistic son, then nine years old, on a two-hour instructional day, isolated in a behavior education classroom with no access to his non-disabled peers.
For the remainder of each school day, her son, A.A., sat at home without instruction, services, or access to peers, she alleges.
“Over the course of the year, Defendants excluded A.A. from approximately 20,737 minutes of school, meaning he spent more time out of school than he spent receiving instruction,” the complaint states. “During his time out of school, A.A. received no instruction, no behavioral services, and no opportunity to practice the very academic, social, and behavioral skills Defendants claimed he lacked – opportunities that cannot be recovered.
“Rather than providing the supports and services that had previously allowed A.A. to make meaningful educational progress in prior school placements, Defendants decided to systematically exclude A.A. from school.”
She alleges that A.A. regressed academically, socially, and behaviorally.
“Rather than responding to his regression with additional supports and services, Defendants relied on A.A.’s regression to justify maintaining a severely abbreviated day for the entirety of the 2024-2025 school year,” the complaint states.
“The IDEA was enacted to prevent precisely this kind of exclusion – children with disabilities pushed out of classrooms, isolated from peers, and denied a meaningful opportunity to learn.”
P.A. argues placement that sends a child home for most of the school day, without first providing appropriate supplementary aids and services in a general education setting, is incompatible with the law’s guarantee of a free and appropriate public education.
“The Plaintiffs have reason to believe, based upon evidence produced during the underlying due process hearing, that A.A. is one of several children with disabilities who have been placed on an amended day schedule in the St. Tammany Parish Public School System,” the filing states.
The plaintiff seeks a reversal of the ALJ’s decision and declaratory relief. She asks the federal court to declare STPSB violated IDEA by denying her son a FAPE, and that the defendants violated the ADA and Section 504 by denying him access to education and discriminating against him on the basis of disability.
She also seeks injunctive relief, ordering the defendants to provide and fund all services needed to meet her son’s educational needs and to permanently enjoin the defendants from violating her son’s rights under the ADA and Section 504.
P.A. also wants to be awarded compensatory education and services for her son, provided outside of the school day, to make up for the time he was excluded from school during the 2024-2025 school year.
She also seeks compensatory and nominal damages, and attorneys’ fees.
The plaintiffs are represented by New Orleans-based Southern Poverty Law Center and the Stuart H. Smith Law Clinic at Loyola University New Orleans’ College of Law.
