In the United States Court of Appeals For the Second Circuit ___________

August Term 2023 No. 23-582-cv

JANE DOE, ON BEHALF OF HERSELF AND HER MINOR CHILD SARAH DOE, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

FRANKLIN SQUARE UNION FREE SCHOOL DISTRICT, Defendant-Appellee. * ___________

ARGUED: JANUARY 9, 2024 DECIDED: APRIL 25, 2024 ___________ Before: LYNCH, NARDINI, and KAHN, Circuit Judges. ________________

Plaintiff-Appellant Jane Doe (“Doe”), on behalf of herself and her minor daughter (“Sarah”), appeals from the judgment of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Frederic Block, J.) dismissing her constitutional and statutory claims against Defendant-Appellee Franklin Square Union Free School District (“School District”). On appeal, Doe argues that the district court erred in concluding that the School District did not violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by refusing to grant Sarah an accommodation from a school mask mandate implemented in response to the * The Clerk of Court is respectfully directed to amend the official case caption as set forth above. COVID-19 pandemic. Doe further argues that the district court erred in dismissing her claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) and § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act because she failed to exhaust her administrative remedies under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”). We conclude that the School District did not violate Doe or Sarah’s constitutional rights by denying their request for an accommodation; however, we agree with Doe that she was not required to satisfy the exhaustion requirement of the IDEA and, accordingly, hold that the district court erred in dismissing Doe’s ADA and § 504 claims.

We therefore AFFIRM in part and REVERSE in part the judgment of the district court. We REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. ________________

SUJATA SIDHU GIBSON, Gibson Law Firm, PLLC, Ithaca, NY, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

CHELSEA WEISBORD (Adam I. Kleinberg, on the brief), Sokoloff Stern LLP, Carle Place, NY, for Defendant- Appellee.

________________ MARIA ARAÚJO KAHN, Circuit Judge:

During the COVID-19 pandemic, as schools reopened in the fall of 2020, the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Health (“NYSDOH”) implemented a regulation requiring preschool through 12th grade school students and staff to wear masks. Plaintiff-Appellant Jane Doe (“Doe”) brought this action, on behalf of herself and her minor daughter, Sarah Doe (“Sarah”), against Defendant-Appellee Franklin Square Union Free School District (“School District”), alleging that the School District violated the Due Process Clause of the

2 Fourteenth Amendment, the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), and § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (“§ 504”) by refusing to grant Sarah an accommodation from the school mask mandate for her asthma. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Frederic Block, J.) dismissed Doe’s constitutional claim after concluding that the School District’s conduct survived rational basis review, and her federal statutory claims for failure to exha