⚖ Oral Arguments, with Context

The Second Circuit hears a special-education dispute concerning N.B., a young child with autism. His parents believed he needed intensive applied behavior analysis, or ABA, to make progress. ABA uses observation and structured behavioral interventions to teach skills and address behavior. The city offered a specialized public-school program, related therapies, and one-to-one classroom assistance, without expressly requiring ABA in the written plan. The parents enrolled him in private school and sought tuition reimbursement for the twenty-twenty-three to twenty-twenty-four school year. Administrative officers rejected their claim; the district court agreed that the public offer was adequate. An IEP is an individualized education program, the written plan of services. FAPE means a free appropriate public education. De minimis means trivial; the legal benchmark is progress appropriate to this particular child's circumstances. The dispute concerns what the written plan had to promise and how much weight courts should give the education officers' judgment. Caroline Heller, of Greenberg Traurig, represents the parents.

A.H. v. New York City Department of Education (No. 25-2727) — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, argued October 26, 2026.