Sacramento City Unified School District v. Rachel H.

Rachel Holland (plaintiff), an 11-year-old with an IQ of 44, attended various special-education programs in the Sacramento Unified School District (the district) (defendant) for several years before her parents requested full-time placement in a regular kindergarten classroom. The district instead proposed splitting her day between special- and regular-education classrooms, requiring six daily transitions; her parents appealed and enrolled her in a private school, where she thrived in a full-time regular classroom without disrupting the class or needing excessive teacher attention. A state hearing officer and then the district court both ruled Rachel should be placed full-time in a regular classroom, crediting testimony that she was progressing on her individualized education plan (IEP) goals there, and the district appealed to the Ninth Circuit.