The CCSD special education lawsuit is a federal class action, C.W. v. Nevada Department of Education, filed on September 25, 2024, that accuses the Clark County School District and the Nevada Department of Education of systematically denying more than 40,000 Las Vegas-area students with disabilities their legal right to a free appropriate public education. Twelve families and the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates are asking a federal judge to order a court-supervised restructuring of CCSD’s special education system. On September 18, 2025, Judge Gloria M. Navarro denied every attempt by the defendants to dismiss the case or strike its class allegations, and the case is now in discovery.
What the Lawsuit Alleges
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada as case number 2:24-cv-01800, brings claims under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Together, those laws require public school districts to find students with disabilities, evaluate them, and provide individualized services in the least restrictive environment possible.
Plaintiffs say CCSD has five district-wide policies that block that from happening:
- General education teachers are prohibited from referring students for special education evaluations or telling parents they can request one.
- Teachers are barred from identifying dyslexia as a disability on a student’s Individualized Education Program because the district lacks services to address it.
- The district’s Response to Intervention process is used to delay or deny special education evaluations rather than as supplemental support.
- CCSD does not provide district-wide training on research-based interventions.
- Insufficiently trained staff are allowed to deliver instruction, provide related services, and conduct assessments.
Beyond those policies, the complaint alleges CCSD over-relies on physical restraints and seclusion, fails to educate students in the least restrictive environment, and disciplines students with disabilities at disproportionately high rates. Black and African American students with IEPs face especially high rates of exclusionary discipline, the complaint says.
The named defendants are CCSD, the Nevada Department of Education, and Jhone Ebert, Nevada’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, sued in her official capacity as the person responsible for overseeing public school instruction statewide. An amended complaint filed December 10, 2024, added COPAA as a plaintiff. Claims against CCSD Interim Superintendent Dr. Brenda Larsen-Mitchell were voluntarily dismissed in November 2024.
Evidence the Plaintiffs Cite
The complaint relies heavily on a 2019 review by the Council of Great City Schools that CCSD itself commissioned. That review found only 54% of CCSD students with IEPs spent at least 80% of their time in general education classrooms, compared with 72% nationally. Nine percent were educated outside general education more than 60% of the time, nearly double the national rate of 5%. Specific learning disabilities, primarily dyslexia, accounted for more than half of CCSD students with disabilities, yet the district’s literacy plans did not reference state dyslexia guidance. Roughly 1,500 students hospitalized in mental health facilities each year had an IEP, about 26% of the hospitalized student population.
State reporting adds more. During the 2020–2021 school year, CCSD reported 361 instances of physical restraint on students with disabilities and 9 instances of non-permissible physical restraint, according to a Nevada Department of Education report.
One plaintiff’s experience captures why the families say the ordinary complaint process isn’t enough. The mother of six-year-old H.P. filed a state complaint during the 2023–24 school year, and investigators found CCSD had committed “numerous procedural and substantive violations of IDEA.” The complaint alleges the district kept committing the same violations because the problems are structural.
Parent plaintiffs have described the toll in blunt terms. Iva Lewis said of her autistic son, “Nothing was being done.” Caitlin Werlinger said she paid out of pocket for a dyslexia evaluation because 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 their children’s schools.
What the Families Are Asking For
The plaintiffs are not seeking money. They want the court to appoint a federal monitor to oversee a restructuring of CCSD’s special education system, and to order the Nevada Department of Education to develop real oversight procedures. They also want CCSD ordered 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
CCSD and the Nevada Department of Education both moved to dismiss the case and to strike the class allegations. Judge Navarro denied every motion on September 18, 2025.
Navarro found the amended complaint contained “sufficient factual matter” to state plausible claims under IDEA, the ADA, and Section 504. She cited the specific allegations of systemic deficiencies backed by the 2019 Council of Great City Schools review, the district-wide policies concerning students with dyslexia, autism, and behavioral needs, and the alleged failure to implement IEPs. On the motion to strike class allegations, she called it premature, noting such motions are “generally disfavored” and that class certification is better addressed once the factual record is developed. CCSD, she wrote, 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
The case is before Judge Navarro, with Magistrate Judge Daniel J. Albregts handling discovery. A discovery plan 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 contentious. In March 2025, Magistrate Judge Albregts denied both the defendants’ motion to stay discovery and the plaintiffs’ proposed discovery plan. By June 2025, the plaintiffs had filed motions to compel and for sanctions, which were still being briefed. Plaintiff attorneys have said publicly that they intend to push the case toward trial as quickly as possible. Both CCSD and the Nevada Department of Education have declined to comment on the pending litigation.
The Wider Picture at CCSD
About 14% of CCSD students have an IEP, and staffing those classrooms has been a chronic problem. At the start of the 2025 school year, 163 of the district’s 320 classroom vacancies were in special education, according to reporting by News 3 Las Vegas. The Clark County Education Association reported that the 2023–24 school year began with more than 300 special education vacancies, a figure reduced by 84% by 2025. Nevada lawmakers approved $45 million annually for two years to compensate hard-to-fill positions including special education, and legislation passed in June 2025 gave special education teachers an additional $5,000 in base pay.
Due process complaints against CCSD have climbed from 78 during 2022–23 to 124 during 2024–25, with due process hearings rising from 6 to 9. The district told reporters it has “no policy or guidance to determine which due process complaints go to a hearing.”
The federal Office for Civil Rights has multiple open investigations involving CCSD students with disabilities. As of January 2025, at least six were pending over the denial of a free appropriate public education, along with two retaliation investigations and one involving a service animal. OCR had not publicly announced findings in any of them.
Earlier Settlements
CCSD has paid substantial sums in individual cases involving students with disabilities. In 2024, a federal court approved a $9.95 million settlement for the family of J.W., a nonverbal autistic student at Harley Harmon Elementary School between 2016 and 2018. The suit alleged teacher Melody Carter physically and verbally abused the child, including striking him repeatedly with a wooden pointer until it broke, and that the district concealed a witness report from the family for years. Carter was arrested for felony child abuse in 2018; the charge was later dismissed after she completed anger management classes, and she resigned in August 2018. The 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 involving an autistic student at the Variety School who was repeatedly restrained during the 2011–12 school year. Hidden cameras installed by CCSD police captured a teacher’s aide dragging the student to the ground and pinning him while he was non-combative. Classroom teachers testified in depositions that the student was restrained “multiple times a day” and that incidents were “not fully documented.”