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On March
28, 2005 the federal district court of Connecticut handed down a
ruling in favor of the Plainville Board of Education (the "Board"),
rejecting a claim asserted by parents of R.L., a 12-year-old girl
with Sanfillipo syndrome (a severe degenerative disease that results
in delayed development, hyperactivity, sleep disorders, hearing
impairment, and degenerative loss of speech). The parents claimed
that the Individualized Education Program ("IEP") developed for
their daughter violated the Individuals with Disabilities Education
Improvement Act of 2004 ("IDEA") on several grounds. The proposed
IEP developed at one of the Planning and Placement Team ("PPT")
meetings was not satisfactory to R.L.’s resulting in an equally
unsatisfactory administrative appeal. R.L.’s parents appealed the
outcome of that hearing to the federal court.
The
court found no violation of IDEA. The parents contended that the
administrative hearing officer inappropriately focused her review
on a modified version of the IEP, rather than the plan that was
proposed to them, and on which they based their complaint. The court
agreed with the Board that the modifications were only technical,
not substantive. Because these revisions were minor and could be
reasonably anticipated as follow up to the agreed upon plan, they
did not constitute the creation of a new IEP that would have required
approval by the PPT. The court rejected the parents’ claim because
the type of modifications made did not result in the loss of an
education opportunity for R.L., nor did they seriously impair the
parents’ ability to participate in the formulation of the IEP.
In addition,
the parents urged that the hearing officer improperly applied the
procedural requirements of IDEA when she found that the child had
been appropriately "mainstreamed" and failed to consider evidence
that supplementary aids and services could increase the extent to
which R.L. would be able to be in a mainstream class setting. The
court agreed with the Board that R.L.’s IEP met the standard set
forth in IDEA that the child be provided the maximum extent of mainstream
time possible. The Board’s position was that R.L. also needed individual
time to focus on skill acquisition, including a communication system,
in order to better prepare her for more time spent in the mainstream
educational environment. The court found that the administrative
hearing officer appropriately considered whether, and to what extent,
supplementary aids and services could increase the time the child
spends in a mainstream educational setting, contrary to the parents’
assertion. The court also pointed to the fact that the IEP did include
audiological services and an assistive technology plan as support
for its decision, and did not find the parents’ argument that with
additional aids and services, R.L. might be able to spend more time
in a mainstream setting to be persuasive.
R.L.’s
parents also asserted that the Board should be required to pay for
an independent educational evaluation that they obtained to supplement
and potentially enhance R.L.’s IEP. The court narrowly defined the
legal standard in finding that since the parents had the independent
evaluation done to provide them with additional input on their child’s
educational plan, not because they disagreed with the Program for
Evaluation of Development and Learning ("PEDAL evaluation") that
had been conducted at the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center
at the request of the school, they were not entitled to have the
Board pay for that independent evaluation.
Further,
the parents contended that R.L’s early dismissal from school one
day a week violated her rights under state and federal law because
non-disabled children were not subject to the same dismissal schedule
and state regulations require that the minimum school day and year
for children requiring special education be the same as for children
in the regular education program. The court found that since the
early release was designed to allow teachers time to review individual
programs for the students and the effectiveness of the special education
program in general, it was not a violation of IDEA. The court did
not find a violation of state law because even with the early dismissal,
R.L.’s total educational time exceeded the state minimum requirements,
i.e. at least 900 hours of instruction time and at least 180 days
per school year.
The
final part of R.L.’s parents’ claim involved their request for an
independent outside expert to coordinate the special education services
for R.L. The court found that the Board had not violated IDEA in
denying the parents’ request. Because the court agreed with the
Board’s position that there is no requirement that the Board hire
consultants selected by the parents, rather the expert provided
by the school adequately fulfilled the same role that the outside
consultant would play, there was therefore no need for an additional
consultant. The court found that the Board complied with IDEA’s
requirement that the program provided to the child be "reasonably
calculated" to ensure appropriate education benefits. The court
also acknowledged the Board’s argument that there was a genuine
concern about the adverse effects of having too many consultants
involved as legitimate.
This
court reinforced the position expressed in Tucker v. Bay Shore
Union Free Sch Dist., 873 F.2d 563, at 567 (2d Cir. 1989), that
IDEA’s requirement that disabled children receive a free and adequate
public education does not mean that schools must provide "everything
that might be thought desirable by loving parents."
This
case may be accessed by going to the U.S. District Court website
at www.ctd.uscourts.gov/Opinions/032805.CFD.Mr.L.pdf
Sarah
Peterson, Legal Intern
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