The CCSD special education lawsuit is a federal class action filed in September 2024 that accuses the Clark County School District and the Nevada Department of Education of systematically failing more than 40,000 Las Vegas–area students with disabilities. Twelve families and a national disability-rights group are asking a federal court to force structural reform of how CCSD identifies, evaluates, and serves students with Individualized Education Programs. In September 2025, a federal judge rejected both agencies’ attempts to dismiss the case, and it is now moving through discovery toward trial.
Who Filed the Case and Who Is Being Sued
The complaint, C.W. v. Nevada Department of Education, was filed on September 25, 2024, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada as case number 2:24-cv-01800. The twelve plaintiff families represent children identified by their initials only. An amended complaint filed on December 10, 2024, added the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, a national nonprofit focused on the civil rights of students with disabilities, as a plaintiff.
The named defendants are the Clark County School District, the Nevada Department of Education, and Jhone Ebert, Nevada’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, sued in her official capacity. CCSD Interim Superintendent Dr. Brenda Larsen-Mitchell was briefly named but was voluntarily dismissed from the case in November 2024.
The case brings claims under three federal laws: the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Together these statutes require public school districts to find students with disabilities, evaluate them, and provide a free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment.
What the Lawsuit Alleges CCSD Is Doing
The complaint focuses on five district-wide policies that plaintiffs say create systemic barriers for students with disabilities:
- CCSD allegedly prohibits general education teachers from referring students for special education evaluations, and from telling parents they have the right to request one.
- Teachers are allegedly barred from identifying dyslexia as a disability on a student’s IEP because the district lacks services to address it.
- The district allegedly uses its Response to Intervention (RTI) process as a gatekeeping tool to delay or deny special education evaluations, rather than as a supplemental support.
- CCSD allegedly fails to provide district-wide training on research-based interventions.
- The district allegedly allows insufficiently trained staff to deliver instruction, provide related services, and conduct student assessments.
Beyond those policies, the complaint alleges that CCSD over-relies on physical restraint and seclusion, fails to educate students in the least restrictive environment, and suspends students with disabilities at disproportionately high rates. Black and African American students with IEPs face especially high rates of exclusionary discipline, according to the complaint.
The plaintiffs rely heavily on a 2019 review that CCSD itself commissioned from the Council of Great City Schools. That review found only 54% of CCSD students with IEPs spent at least 80% of their time in general education classrooms, compared to 72% nationally. Nine percent of students with disabilities spent more than 60% of their time outside general education, nearly double the 5% national rate. Specific learning disabilities, primarily dyslexia, accounted for more than half of all CCSD students with disabilities, yet the district’s literacy plans did not reference state dyslexia guidance. Roughly 1,500 students hospitalized annually in mental health facilities had an IEP, about 26% of the hospitalized student population.
State data cited in the complaint shows CCSD reported 361 instances of physical restraint on students with disabilities during the 2020–2021 school year, along with 9 instances of non-permissible physical restraint.
Parent plaintiffs describe what the alleged failures look like at home. Iva Lewis said of her autistic son, “Nothing was being done.” Caitlin Werlinger said she had to pay out of pocket for a dyslexia evaluation after the district would not provide one. Melissa Rose said her son developed depression after repeated incidents at school. Anna Binder said the lack of adequate school support forces many parents to stay unemployed so they can respond to emergency calls from school.
One case in the complaint shows why the families say the regular complaint process is not enough. The mother of six-year-old H.P. filed a state complaint during the 2023–24 school year, and an investigation found CCSD had committed “numerous procedural and substantive violations of IDEA.” The complaint alleges the district kept committing the same violations afterward because the problems are structural rather than isolated.
What the Plaintiffs Are Asking For
The families and COPAA are not seeking money damages. They are asking the court for structural reform, most prominently the appointment of a federal monitor to oversee a restructuring of CCSD’s special education system. They also want orders compelling the Nevada Department of Education to build real oversight procedures and compelling CCSD to identify and evaluate all children with or at risk of disabilities, deliver services consistent with IEPs, educate students in the least restrictive environment, eliminate physical restraints and seclusion, and ensure staff are properly trained and credentialed.
The September 2025 Ruling That Let the Case Proceed
CCSD and the Nevada Department of Education both moved to dismiss the case and to strike the class action allegations. On September 18, 2025, U.S. District Judge Gloria M. Navarro denied all of those motions.
Judge Navarro found the amended complaint contained “sufficient factual matter” to state plausible claims under IDEA, the ADA, and Section 504. She pointed to the 2019 Council of Great City Schools review, the specific district-wide policies alleged around dyslexia, autism, and behavioral needs, and the alleged failure to implement IEPs. On the motion to strike the class allegations, Navarro called the request premature, writing that such motions are “generally disfavored” and that class certification is better addressed after the parties develop a factual record. CCSD, she wrote, had failed to show that it was “evident from the FAC that a class action cannot be maintained.” She also denied CCSD’s motion for a more definite statement, finding the allegations were not “so vague or ambiguous” that the district could not prepare a defense.
Where the Case Stands Now
The case remains before Judge Navarro, with Magistrate Judge Daniel J. Albregts handling discovery matters. A scheduling order entered in March 2025 set a discovery deadline of September 15, 2025, motions due by October 15, 2025, and a proposed pretrial order due by November 14, 2025.
Discovery has been contested. In March 2025, Magistrate Judge Albregts denied the defendants’ motion to stay discovery and also denied the plaintiffs’ proposed discovery plan. By June 2025, the plaintiffs had filed motions to compel and for sanctions. Plaintiffs’ attorneys have said publicly that they intend to push toward trial as quickly as possible. CCSD and the Nevada Department of Education have declined to comment on the pending litigation.
The Larger Pattern Behind the Case
Roughly 14% of CCSD students have an IEP, and the district has struggled for years to staff those classrooms. At the start of the 2025 school year, 163 of the district’s 320 classroom vacancies were in special education, according to News 3 Las Vegas. The Clark County Education Association reported more than 300 special education vacancies entering the 2023–24 school year, a figure that was reduced by 84% by 2025.
Nevada lawmakers have tried to narrow the staffing gap. The legislature approved $45 million annually for two years to compensate hard-to-fill positions including special education, and legislation passed in June 2025 added $5,000 to base pay for special education teachers, building on incentives from the 2023 session.
Due process complaints filed by parents against CCSD rose from 78 during the 2022–23 school year to 124 during 2024–25, with due process hearings rising from 6 to 9. CCSD told reporters there is “no policy or guidance to determine which due process complaints go to a hearing.” As of January 2025, the federal Office for Civil Rights had at least six open investigations into CCSD involving the denial of a free appropriate public education, along with two retaliation investigations and one involving a service animal.
CCSD has also paid substantial settlements in individual cases involving students with disabilities. In 2024, a federal court approved a $9.95 million settlement in a case brought by the family of J.W., a nonverbal autistic student at Harley Harmon Elementary School, whose teacher was alleged to have struck him repeatedly with a wooden pointer until it broke. That settlement was the largest payout in CCSD history for a case involving a single student. In 2017, CCSD paid $900,000 to settle a case in which hidden cameras installed by CCSD police captured a teacher’s aide dragging and pinning a non-combative autistic student at the Variety School, with deposition testimony indicating the student was restrained “multiple times a day.”
Those earlier cases involved individual students and individual payouts. The class action asks the court to change the system itself.