Ava is six years old. On good days she can sit for a short stretch of time with a favorite book or a quiet activity, her small hands moving carefully, her focus intact for a few precious minutes. On harder days the world itself feels too loud, too bright, too unpredictable. Fluorescent lights hum. Classroom chatter becomes a roar. The press of bodies in a hallway or the unexpected sound of a chair scraping across the floor can send her nervous system into full alarm. Her body responds with nosebleeds. Her anxiety spikes. Sometimes she simply cannot stay.
She has been diagnosed with autistic disorder, prominent sensory processing differences, and anxiety. She also lives with chronic anemia. Independent evaluators have described a nervous system locked for long stretches in a chronic fight-or-flight state. Even in a private preschool classroom limited to ten children, Ava often could not tolerate more than an hour before sensory overwhelm and emotional exhaustion forced her out. She is bright. She is capable of learning. But the environments meant to teach her have repeatedly become places her body and mind cannot safely inhabit.
Names in this account have been changed to protect the identity of the minor involved.
Ava’s story is one more chapter in a growing record of Virginia families of children with disabilities who say the system designed to protect their educational rights is failing them. All Virginia News has documented a steady stream of parent testimony at school board meetings across Northern Virginia. In Arlington, mothers have stood up to say that functional behavioral assessments and behavior intervention plans exist largely “in name only,” leaving children cycling through repeated behavioral episodes and classroom removals. In Prince William County, speakers have described a predictable institutional response when concerns are raised: denial, minimization, deflection, and the subtle shifting of blame back onto the family. Dozens of families, one commenter reported, had shared the same experience. These are not isolated complaints. They form a pattern.
If Virginia’s government continues to treat these warnings as background noise rather than urgent signals, the consequences will compound. Independent state reports have already flagged parental distrust of the special education due process system, citing perceptions of hearing-officer bias and infrequent rulings in favor of families. Continued inaction risks more federal lawsuits, deeper educational harm to children, and further erosion of public confidence in the state’s ability to uphold the rights of its most vulnerable students.
It is against this backdrop that Ava’s mother filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
A Federal Challenge to Both a Local Decision and a State System
On February 13, 2026, Brittany Robinson, proceeding as next friend for her minor daughter, filed a First Amended Complaint under Case No. 1:25-cv-2142. The lawsuit names the Prince William County School Board, Hearing Officer Ternon Galloway-Lee, former Assistant Executive Secretary Ron Regnery of the Office of the Executive Secretary of the Supreme Court of Virginia, Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Lisa Coons, and the Virginia Department of Education. It seeks review of due process decisions issued in draft form on August 23, 2025, and in amended form on September 7, 2025.
The complaint alleges that Prince William County Public Schools denied Ava a free appropriate public education across the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 school years and that the administrative hearing that reviewed those claims was itself so procedurally flawed and biased that it violated her constitutional right to due process.
From Child Find to Crisis
Ava’s mother first requested an eligibility evaluation under Child Find on January 11, 2023. By May of that year Ava had been found eligible under the category of Developmental Delay. When a public special education placement was not immediately available, the family enrolled her in a half-day private preschool. Even there, sensory overload and limited emotional regulation made full participation difficult.
As kindergarten approached in 2024, the mother submitted documentation from Ava’s developmental pediatrician recommending a half-day schedule that could increase only as the child tolerated it, along with occupational therapy. She also provided a letter from the preschool describing Ava’s struggles to complete a full day. The school division proposed a full-day program at Montclair Elementary, asserting that Ava could build stamina for typical classroom noise and stimulation. The mother warned that the large setting, inconsistent one-to-one support, and sensory demands would block meaningful access to learning.
An administrative transfer request—made because the same school had already been found to have denied a free appropriate public education to Ava’s two older siblings—was denied.
Once school began, special education transportation became a critical failure point. Although the IEP contemplated a short ride, records later showed trips frequently lasting 45 minutes to an hour. The extended duration contributed to medical complications and a period of medical homebound. Homebound services were approved for portions of the year, yet the complaint alleges that not all ordered hours were delivered.
When Ava’s treating therapist reported that the child was in a mental health crisis and recommended home-based services, the IEP team refused. A school social worker who had never met or evaluated Ava stated she “ethically” disagreed with the therapist. Homebound paperwork from the developmental pediatrician was initially rejected. An independent neuropsychological evaluation concluded that Ava’s nervous system rendered her psychologically unavailable for learning in a traditional classroom and that returning to Montclair would likely cause further harm. The team rejected that conclusion as well.
On March 24, 2025, the mother issued a ten-day notice of unilateral placement at The Linder Academy.
The Hearing That Became the Second Front
A due process complaint was filed in June 2025. Hearing Officer Ternon Galloway-Lee was appointed. She promptly severed and dismissed claims against the Virginia Department of Education with prejudice. Motions seeking her disqualification—citing perceived partiality, unequal procedural burdens, and failures to include the parent on correspondence—were denied.
During the multi-day hearing that followed, the complaint alleges that the hearing officer repeatedly ruled on objections without allowing the parent’s counsel a chance to respond, blocked key parent witnesses, went on the record without counsel present and threatened to dismiss counsel when that practice was challenged, and experienced email delivery problems that appeared to affect only the parent’s side. The resulting decisions found no free appropriate public education violation for 2023-2024 and only a limited denial for 2024-2025 based on incomplete homebound services. The ordered remedy was 150 hours of compensatory education, with the IEP team left to decide allocation. The school board was declared the prevailing party on nearly every issue. Neither decision, the complaint states, was mailed to the parent.
Claims That Reach Beyond One Child
The lawsuit asserts seven counts. Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act it seeks full reversal of the hearing officer’s decisions, a declaration that the school board denied a free appropriate public education, a finding that The Linder Academy is the appropriate placement, direct payment of tuition and related costs, transportation reimbursement, 200 hours of compensatory education, and an order placing Ava at the private school through her IEP.
Separate claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 allege that the hearing officer violated Ava’s Fourteenth Amendment right to an impartial process, that the former assistant executive secretary failed in his supervisory duty to disqualify a biased officer, and that the Virginia Department of Education and its superintendent have maintained a system that systematically fails to guarantee knowledgeable and impartial decision-makers. Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act claims assert both retaliation against the mother for her prior successful advocacy on behalf of Ava’s siblings and disparate treatment arising from special-education transportation that routinely shortened Ava’s instructional day compared with nondisabled peers. Section 504 claims allege deliberate indifference to medical recommendations and exclusion from educational benefits on the basis of disability.
The Cost of Continued Inaction
Ava’s case does not exist in isolation. It sits inside the same landscape of parent testimony that All Virginia News has been recording: unimplemented behavior plans, institutional deflection, transportation barriers that steal instructional time, and a due process system many families no longer trust. Independent reports commissioned by the state itself have already documented the perception of hearing-officer bias and recommended structural reform.
If Virginia’s government continues to treat these converging signals as routine friction rather than evidence of systemic failure, the bill will come due in multiple currencies. More families will be driven into federal court. More children will lose months or years of accessible education. Public confidence in the state’s special education infrastructure will continue to erode. And the children themselves—bright, complex, sensory-sensitive six-year-olds like Ava—will pay the highest price in the only currency that cannot be reimbursed: time they will never get back.
Ava still has the capacity to learn. The question her mother’s lawsuit places before a federal court, and before the Commonwealth, is whether the adults charged with protecting that capacity are willing to confront the systems that keep failing her and so many others.
Email the School Board at:
Babur B. Lateef, M.D. (Chairman At-Large) blateef@pwcs.edu,
Richard M. Jessie (Vice Chairman, Occoquan District) rjessie@pwcs.edu,
Erica C. Tredinnick (Brentsville District) etredinnick@pwcs.edu,
Lisa A. Zargarpur (Coles District) lzargarpur@pwcs.edu,
Jennifer T. Wall (Gainesville District) jwall@pwcs.edu,
Tracy L. Blake (Neabsco District) tblake@pwcs.edu,
Justin David Wilk (Potomac District) jwilk@pwcs.edu,
Loree Y. Williams (Woodbridge District) lwilliams@pwcs.edu,
