Parent and Educator Resource Guide to Section 504 in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools
Grievance Procedures.
School districts are required to establish grievance procedures for resolving complaints related to those cases where the complainants allege that employees, other students, or third parties engaged in discriminatory behavior.138 The grievance procedures must ensure that complaints are resolved in a prompt and equitable manner. In evaluating whether a school district’s grievance procedures are prompt and equitable, OCR will examine, for example, the extent to which notice of the procedures has been provided to students, parents, and employees of the school; whether the procedures afford an opportunity for an adequate, reliable, and impartial investigation; whether reasonably prompt timeframes have been established for the various stages of the complaint process; whether notice of the outcomes of the complaint has been provided to the parties; and whether there is an assurance that any violations will be addressed, and steps will be taken to prevent a recurrence.139
138 34 C.F.R. § 104.7(b) (applicable to school districts that employ 15 or more employees; Section 504 does not require grievance procedures for complaints from applicants for employment or from applicants for admission to postsecondary educational institutions).
139 Id. See OCR, Revised Sexual Harassment Guidance: Harassment of Students by School Employees, Other Students, or Third Parties, at 19-21 (Jan. 2001), www.ed.gov/ocr/docs/shguide.pdf, for an explanation of prompt and equitable in the Title IX context.
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