Student, F.C. v. Irvine Unified School District

I. BACKGROUND

Student is a seventeen-year-old boy diagnosed with multiple disabilities, who currently attends an online private school. (Complaint (Docket No. 1) ¶5). In 2014, when Student was in the third grade, he was diagnosed with Attention- Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (“ADHD”). (Id. ¶ 7). In 2019, when Student was in the eighth grade, he began experiencing extended periods of disabling illness. (Id.) Student was subsequently diagnosed with a rare medical condition called Kleine-Levin Syndrome (“KLS”) in May 2021 by Dr. Phillip O’Carroll, the Director of Neurology at the Hoag Neuroscience Institute. (Id. ¶ 8). KLS is characterized by recurrent bouts of excessive sleep along with cognitive and behavioral changes. (Id.). Affected individuals can sleep for over 20 hours a day during an episode, with additional symptoms including altered behavior, cognitive impairment, memory loss, confusion, and increased feelings of irritability and depression. (POB at 7). KLS episodes are cyclical, with each episode lasting days, weeks, or months, during which time all normal daily activities stop. (Complaint ¶ 8). In between episodes, however, individuals with KLS can often…