N.D. v. Reykdal — federal court approves settlement on OSPI's IDEA age-out violations; compensatory education for class

A federal court approved a class-action settlement in November 2024 finding that the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction violated federal special-education law by directing school districts to “age out” students from special education before their 22nd birthday — one year earlier than the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires.

What happened

In November 2022, class representatives N.D. and E.A. — disabled students who had been exited from Washington special-education programs before turning 22 — filed a class-action complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington against OSPI and Superintendent Chris Reykdal. Case No. 2:22-cv-01621-LK.

The complaint alleged that Washington’s state law (RCW 28A.155.020) and implementing regulation (WAC 392.172A.02000(2)(c)) directed school districts to exit students from special education at the end of the school year in which they turn 21 — one year earlier than the IDEA’s standard. Because Washington offers adult-education programs and waives the $25 tuition fee for students who cannot pay, the Ninth Circuit concluded in May 2024 that the state triggers an IDEA obligation to provide free special education through age 22.

The district court initially denied the preliminary injunction; the Ninth Circuit vacated that denial and remanded. After the Ninth Circuit ruling, the parties agreed “that the Ninth Circuit’s opinion effectively resolves the merits of the case in favor of Plaintiffs.” OSPI began acting as if a final order had been entered and announced it would not seek further appeal.

The parties reached a settlement after mediation. After two earlier preliminary-approval motions were denied for technical deficiencies, the court granted preliminary approval of the third amended settlement agreement on November 22, 2024.

Key settlement terms

Per the court’s November 22, 2024 order and the Washington Autism Alliance summary:

• Class definition: All students exited from special education based on age before their 22nd birthday between November 11, 2020 and the date of settlement.
• Class-wide relief: OSPI must direct all school districts to (1) extend special-education age eligibility to each student’s 22nd birthday going forward; (2) immediately resume services under the last IEP for students who aged out during the lawsuit and have not yet turned 22; (3) convene IEP teams to determine whether compensatory education is owed to class members.
• Compensatory education: Determined by individual IEP teams; may take the form of direct services, monetary compensation in lieu of services, or reimbursement for privately obtained services. No fixed ceiling.
• Named plaintiff awards: N.D.’s guardians: up to $150,000 in documented educational expenses over five years. E.A.’s guardians: up to $60,000 in documented expenses.
• Attorneys’ fees: OSPI agreed to pay all of plaintiffs’ reasonable fees and costs; plaintiffs estimated approximately $440,000 as of October 2024.
• Declaratory relief: The court issued a declaratory judgment that Washington’s age-out law violates the IDEA.

The Final Approval Hearing was scheduled for June 17, 2025.

Why it’s in the registry

The case documents a systemic statutory compliance failure at OSPI. The legal conflict between state law and the IDEA was not obscure: the Ninth Circuit’s analysis turned on Washington’s own adult-education tuition-waiver policy, a feature of state law OSPI administered. The failure to proactively reconcile state age-eligibility rules against federal IDEA requirements — and to update state law before litigation — is a structural governance gap. OSPI’s post-ruling statement that it “remains in support of this policy change” makes clear the agency accepted the legal conclusion; the question is why it took litigation to produce correction.

Reform implication

Two reforms apply. First, special-education compliance: OSPI’s supervisory role over LEAs requires active monitoring of state law for conflicts with federal IDEA requirements, not reactive correction after federal litigation. The class-wide compensatory education obligation now falls on individual school districts with no fixed ceiling, meaning districts bear the downstream cost of OSPI’s policy error. Second, statutory compliance monitoring: Washington lacks a routine mechanism for reconciling state education statutes against federal law updates; the IDEA age-eligibility issue went unresolved for years despite clear federal circuit precedent. See [reform: special_education_compliance], [reform: statutory_compliance_monitoring].

Relationship to other cases

• JLARC’s ongoing work on special-education delivery in Washington is relevant context: the age-eligibility violation documented here reflects a failure of the state supervisory agency (OSPI) to ensure local districts are operating within federal law — a theme that runs through JLARC’s special-ed findings.
• The cost of class-wide compensatory education flows to local education agencies, creating fiscal exposure that individual districts had no mechanism to anticipate or budget for — a pattern similar to undisclosed tort liability in the aggregate-payout case (WA-2025-TORT-AGGREGATE).

Open follow-ups

• Final Approval Hearing outcome (June 17, 2025) not yet recorded in this file.
• Total class size not published; number of class members who filed for compensatory education is not publicly available.
• Aggregate compensatory education cost to school districts across the state has not been quantified.