B.H.

*504 *567 The essence of this appeal is whether a school district may be permitted to avoid its responsibility to provide special education and related services to an eligible student to fund the placement of a child with severe disabilities in a residential treatment center, where that placement was necessary to enable the child to access a meaningful educational benefit, because the child's adoptive parents happened also to have funding available for that residential placement through a noneducational governmental agency program.

Federal law creates a comprehensive framework for the provision of educational services to children with disabilities, under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ( 20 U.S.C. §§ 1400 et seq. ; IDEA). Within the IDEA's framework in California, local education agencies under the responsibility of the state Department of Education are tasked with furnishing special education services to all eligible children at no cost to their parents or guardians. ( 20 U.S.C §§ 1401(9), (29), 1412(a)(1)(A) ;

*568 Ed. Code, §§ 56000, et. seq., esp. § 56040, subd. (a).) These statutory schemes guarantee a "free appropriate public education," commonly referred…