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IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
_____________________
No. 95-31045
_____________________
CHARLES TONY CEFALU, JR., Behalf of
his minor son rpi Charles Tony Cefalu, III,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH SCHOOL BOARD;
STATE OF LOUISIANA, Through the
Department of Education,
Defendants-Appellants.
_________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Middle District of Louisiana, Baton Rouge
_________________________________________________________________
July 3, 1997
ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
Before POLITZ, Chief Judge, and JOLLY and BARKSDALE, Circuit
Judges.
E. GRADY JOLLY, Circuit Judge:
The petitions for panel rehearing are granted.
On January 3, 1997, the opinion in this case issued, vacating
the judgment of the district court in favor of the plaintiff and
remanding the case for further consideration in the light of our
opinion. 103 F.3d 393 (5th Cir. 1997). All parties filed
petitions for rehearing. We then asked the United States
Department of Education, the agency in charge of administering the

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ("IDEA"), to submit an
amicus curiae brief to assist us in interpreting this vague and
difficult statute as it applies to the obligation of the school
district to provide the plaintiff with an on-site sign language
interpreter at a parochial school in which he was voluntarily
enrolled by his parents.
The Department of Education took the position that the statute
imposed no obligation on the school district to provide the
services on-site so long as an appropriate free public education
had been made available to the student. The Department noted that
only a small percentage of the cost of the special education
services was derived from the federal grants under IDEA and that
the remainder of the costs were paid through the use of local and
state funds. Under the Department's interpretation, the IDEA does
not require a school district to expend its non-federal funds for
the provision of special education services to students voluntarily
enrolled in private schools. Instead, the agency must make a free
appropriate public education available to all disabled students and
shall provide a proportionate share of federal funds to students
voluntarily enrolled in private schools. In short, the Department
concluded that the result reached in the dissenting opinion was
correct.
Furthermore, after we issued our opinion, Congress recognized
the difficulty arising from judicial efforts to interpret the IDEA
and enacted clarifying amendments in order to "resolve . . . the
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subject of an increasing amount of litigation in the last few
years." S. Rep. No. 17, 105th Cong., 1st Sess. 13 (1997). These
amendments specifically state that an agency is required only to
provide students voluntarily enrolled in private schools with a
proportionate share of federal funds under the IDEA and is not
required to pay for the cost of the special education services.
See IDEA Amendments Act of 1997, Pub. L. No. 105-17, 111 Stat. 37
(June 4, 1997), at � 612(a)(10).1
In the light of this background, on rehearing, we withdraw our
earlier opinion. As we noted in our opinion, "[t]he single
question presented by this appeal is whether, under the Individuals
with Disabilities Education Act ("IDEA"), 20 U.S.C. � 1400 et seq.,
a school board is legally obligated to provide a sign language
interpreter to a disabled student voluntarily enrolled in private
school." Cefalu, 103 F.3d at 394-95. We now bow to the view of
Congress, the Department of Education and the dissenting opinion of
Judge Barksdale. We therefore hold unambiguously that the
defendants were not legally obligated to provide an on-site sign
language interpreter to the plaintiff at the private school. The
plaintiff was offered an individualized education program ("IEP")
1The amendments "specify that the total amount of money that
must be spent to provide special education and related services to
children in the state with disabilities who have been place[d] by
their parents in private schools is limited to a proportional
amount (that is, the amount consistent with the number and location
of private school children with disabilities in the State) of the
Federal funds available under part B." S. Rep. No. 17, 105th
Cong., 1st Sess. 13 (1997).
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at the public schools, which all parties agreed was appropriate
until the plaintiff transferred from the public school where the
services were to be provided to the private school he now attends.
Having offered to the plaintiff a free appropriate public
education, the local educational agency was not required to provide
the on-site interpreter to the plaintiff. We therefore reverse the
district court and render judgment for the defendants.
Further, in view of the recognized vagueness of this statute
and the numerous conflicting decisions interpreting its provisions,
each party shall bear its own costs.
REVERSED and RENDERED.
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