next case on the calendar is mr p and mrs pv west hartford board of education my name is courtney spencer and the attorney for the appellants i'd like to reserve one minute for rebuttal your honour's my client is six foot two two hundred fifty pounds he is psychotic he has homicidal and suicidal ideation and fantasies of mas killing as a hearing officer agreed without constant clinical supervision he is in danger of hurting or killing someone at all times additionally he has autism and the rigid thinking and social misperceptions i call on with that diagnosis therefore it is very clear that his program just like any other student with a disability would need to be highly individualized it would need to be tailored towards his unique circumstance so progress would need to be made in light of his circumstances which are unique and complex the programs offered by the board of education did not meet the standard further as andrew states the us supreme court has stated that progress doesn't need to be looked at in light of the student circumstances and it needs to be ambitious and just grades and passing from year to year are not sufficient standards for students who are not in special education and my student my client with regular education my client was never in regular education  three month stint so the concern is that the hearing officer industry part relied on the wrong standard and looked at the grades and passing from year to year and did not look at his unique needs as a score stated in frank g it is not just academic or educational needs that need to be addressed it's also social it's also behavioral management my client regressed over time he certainly did not make progress even more concerning are the multiple severe and gross procedural violations that were brief this case differs from a lot of the i d e a cases in that you you don't say what was missing in the program was  the addition of an additional power to fashion or a different student teacher ratio or a smaller class there seemed to have been agreement that it was ideal for the student to to the extent possible going to the local high school and have a supplemental program and then to transition to to the local high schools so that the student could be integrated with the students peers to the extent possible what  don't see in terms of the denial of the substantive faith is what you are saying that they should have done and they didn't do plainly there were there were mistakes because the student then had to be removed from the high school but what i don't see is   the specifics that should have been offered to the child and were not first and second why the progress in this case was in fact insufficient progress the student did get good grades the student did pass the state test why wasn't that sufficient progress to  further the board listed his specific mental health threatening to blow up and kill people in the school fixation on violence rigid thinking fantasies and paranoid delusions the ip never addressed any of those things we do not believe the program they put him strive program can find him did not provide appropriate academics did not provide appropriate intervention we can see that as they tried for a very short period of time to integrate him for a half day in the mainstream and he couldn't even do that we also think that's in large part to failing to failing to actually tell the staff who was coming and what his needs or but clearly the program to not prepare him for anything as evidenced by what occurred but also that was in place beforehand and then if you look at his senior year and keep in mind the board wanted to graduate him after he peppery failed at hall and confronted the guidance counselor the board's response was ok well you have enough credits to graduate this is a mentally ill young man and his category is emotional disturbance so progress would need to be made in that area of emotional mental health in its twelfth grade year he punched a student so hard he broke his hand on his face the board didn't consider that a significant issue but little by little it  downplayed in their brief and then at the very end of the senior year he was skipping classes getting more depressed as acknowledged by port staff when his mother asked him what's going on he took a knife friend out of his house to kill his former psychiatrist because his what was happening at school was causing such hopelessness in him clearly if you're looking at mental health and emotional disturbance no progress was made further he has one hundred thirty six verbal i q he's in a very segregated program where he's filling out worksheets and he's repeating classes over and over because they don't have enough classes or teachers so looking at his grades i think that's why the supreme court said that the students not in regular ed you can't look to grades as the better because the curriculum is going to be different the in december and admitted to having at one point having to brought a knife to school he then was failing his classes in january he was then he admitted to a psychiatric hospital for threatening to blow up the hospital and kill his psychiatrist so the board was aware in november and december that grades are decreasing the psychiatric issues are increasing they've never referred him for special education my client referred him and the there is an argument about the long period of time  does not apply to evaluation you have to evaluate the minute you have a child who you suspect could be a child with a disability so that was invoked in november and december so my client prefers no evaluation and certainly no help me understand the timeline because he is deemed eligible for special education by june yes we're talking about the period from december to june in the record is is replete with meetings and consultations and discussions during that period what did they not do early and the concern is from november to june and particularly as of january my client missed half a year of school is four years of high school he missed an entire half error was getting a domino homebound addressing that so you can meet with the parents but if you're not providing the clinical support the intervention the goals and objectives there will be no progress so to say he should have sat there for six months getting progressively worse the point where you couldn't attend school and then when the child eligible for special yes your honor but we believe as of march he could have but he would have been found eligible under the statute so from march to june and again but for the parents he would have never been  requested it they were addressing these issues it seems and the psychological evaluation from the board said he should be found eligible and at a subsequent p p t a they still denied him in may so the our own staff is saying this is a me please the court my name is susan friedman and i represent the west hartford connecticut board of education i'm here today to ask this court to look carefully at the record before you as the hearing officer did in as the district court did it's not exactly as it's been pro trade in today and also in the in the parents previous contractor the parents description of the student he is without doubt a very bright and capable student who has social and emotional problems he i believe council misspoke when she said that he had been in special he had never been in regular education because he was a regular education student from first screen through ninth grade receiving regular grades without any kind of specialized services it was not until ninth grade that he began to exhibit difficulties in school and that was when he was in the hall high school the regular high school in west hartford the record also demonstrates that the as as your honor note it that the statue of limitations begins in march of two thousand and twelve however that was not the first time the board was involved in trying to work with the student and the parent and terms of providing services for the work by the same token  criticize your opponent for stressing some things in the record but i think i read your brief and don't don't forget any references to homicidal and suicidal ideation i don't find any reference to the incident of running out of the house with the knife you know we do supposed to ignore do you think it would have been better to attempt to put information but the reality of this was that each of the hospitalizations for the student were at home none of them were from the school we were we met with the parents when we had the first hospitalization when we got the notice of that we met with the parents in a student child study program which is the first regular at intervention that schools under the i d e a are supposed to attend regular adventured first before jumping to finding a student eligible under a very difficult and somewhat threatening or compromising eligibility of education of emotional disturbance we did not have those events within the school setting other than one isolated incident where there was a fight and that was the only incident of any kind of aggression that we had in the school setting now that doesn't mean that we don't take  and we have to consider that when we are determining whether it was provided to the child absolutely your honor and what we did with that was that when we heard that the child had been hospitalized we immediately asked for the discharge summary from the hospital we had meeting we had a meeting in the school we've got the district seventy which said that the student was safe to return to the high school program that was the hospitalisation discharge summary the only other information that we had was the parent said that her child had been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder so at the time that the school met at a five o four  the section by before they be able to act and found the student eligible we were finding him eligible under the only diagnosis that had been given at that time and with a statement from his psychiatrist that he should be placed on a home asked for the parents asked for us to diagnose him at that time to evaluate and find him eligible immediately as emotionally disturbed at that moment in time the parents indicated that his medication he was responding well to his medication and that he was he was having more on more success with his tutoring so that sister district again increased his tutoring and said that at this point in time we are not going to evalu for eligibility under special education but we are going to have another meeting in april so that we can be sure that to see how he is doing and to monitor his progress it was not just that we were waiting and sitting on our hands because you don't want to find a student eligible as emotionally disturbed on under a short period of time the guidelines of connecticut the state of connecticut and the guidelines and the definition of the motional of disturbance requires that a student has an emotional disturbance that disrupts his ability to access education educational progress social and emotional progress over a long period of time in fact the recommendation under connecticut the connecticut standard is six months we then in april made that determination and that we would evaluate a psychiatrist did a consultation including the parents the students the people that were not the people that knew him from school we did a psychological evaluation also the parents were filled out waiting for him as the people that were working with him filled out waiting for him so we asked a wide variety of standards and evaluations in order to determine did amounts of time where we were considering all the information that we were given and we also only did find him eligible within the sixty day period that the i d e a require the student every day was there was an approach to the behaviors did he was able to meet the standards of being in a small it was still a public high school but it was a small setting and was he able to complete his academic work during that program during his junior year and most of his senior year he was participating in spiel trips with that group he was participating in and community and activities with the group he was a participant in the wrestling team of the high school because this program is located closely there without a one to one paraprofessional without any b do a separate psychological we met as a p p t the parent agreed that he that he she felt that he was ready to try a half day at the high school and have a half day back at the start of program where he had social workers he had consular and he had been very successful all of us the entire team nobody disagreed because we were trying to give him the opportunity to go to school in the least restrictive substantive program under a standard of whether the i e affords the student with an opportunity greater than mere trivial advancement and that's consistent with some of the cases from th isn't that standard outdated now under andrew isn't more than mere trivial advancement the same as more than a de minimus advancement i believe your honor that the second circuit has always had a standard that requires far more than a diminished standard it goes back as far as one thousand ninety seven witnesses and my only question was the standard expressed by the district court which appears to be consistent with this court is afford the student with an opportunity greater than mere trivial advancement isn't greater than mere trivial advancement the same as standard that was applied by the hearing officer was that the district that the student had to make we had to have offered up that allowed the student to make that was really calculated to allow the student to make progress in light of his the enduro the understanding is in light of his unique circumstances the second circuit standard was in light of the child's needs in other words it was always more then simply diminish us and certainly the facts in this record show and demonstrate clearly that this student was a very successful student he went into that story of program he was able to academically complete all the credits that he required to graduate from high school he was able to pass a statewide standardized test that is required of all high school students with the only accommodation being that he was able to take it in a separate room rather than in a large  he clearly was able to go on field trips become part of the wrestling team a member of the wrestling team he was successful in and he displayed one behavioral issue during that whole period of time and immediately after the punch he immediately listened to what the school staff asked him to do he had to be disciplined because you know one would allow that to occur without discipline he was able to return to the strive program and then again achieve the highest level of behavioral actions and social and emotional actions within this program from the district's perspective i'm sorry can i continue from the district's perspective we saw him and i believe even the parent admit it on the record that he didn't make educational social and academic progress in the strive program what this is all about is a difference of opinion between the district and the parent about what transition program he should attend that's what this is about i ask and we've tried over this ground a little bit so i'll just ask briefly but  referring again back to the beginning period i am troubled and i realize there's a statute of limitations as a problem but during this period from december to june  the school may not happen at school but the school is aware that his grades are plummeting that they are difficult problems a pattern of disengagement and i'm wondering why is that a child find obligation when a kick in to say we need to have some sort of psychological evaluation giving some indications of behavioral problems earlier than happened and i understand your concern it needs to be a long period of time longer period of time we don't want to rush this process but what in the record assures me that the process was done with reasonable dispatch when you had the parents apparently pushing for more during this period hearing officer took note of the fact that information about testimony about the earlier that earlier period would be permitted in the hearing and was permitted in the hearing in order to give some background to the child fin issue but it's not correct that the board did not take any action first of all we did not have notice in november of any kind of there was there was prior to any hospitalization and prior to any any  opportunity for the board to see that this was a serious issue other than a then a student you know not not doing well a grade in terms of his grades but there was no there were no adverse issues within the school setting no  o aggression nothing like that december when the when the when the parents notified the school that this student had been hospitalized was the first notice that the district thought and we met in january what is the normal process would be a child find meeting which is an informal meeting with the teachers with the counselors in the school setting and the parents to you know and the parents are part of you know part not nestle part of that or part of the process and that was at the point where we were looking for information from what the hospital was saying and giving him the opportunity to be cut back on his class on his workload you know that that's the normal process that a high school would use or any school would use to try to ease up on what was happening and try to understand where we were going with that and then we received a discharge summary which said that he could was was able to return safely could return to the school but we didn't just leave it there we met again at a section five zero four meeting which has the you know legal ramifications involves the parent set up an accommodation plan where we were giving tutoring to the student we were monitoring him closely and then in march during that period his tutoring was increased because there was you know and i have to say there was a problem with the tutor in the sense of and his ability and his timeframe and there was that we were not getting as much tutoring as we could so we made that up with compensatory tutoring throughout the rest of the year and over the summer in order to allow him to complete his his credits for that year which he did successfully so then we went to the march p p t where the parents asked us to find him eligible to do  chanson at that point he was showing success on the lesser of these accommodations he was showing success on his medication he was cooperating with a tutor he was academically being able to complete his work so you don't you know a school doesn't want to take you to jump to an emotional to decide that a student is someone who is socially seriously emotionally disturbed is the name of the eligibility and congress has told us not to use the name seriously when we're describing it as a student we call them the students because they were concerned about the the impact of calling someone seriously emotionally disturbed we have students many times that have a hospitalisation have a period of time where they're having a difficult time in school and then are able to work out you know to be to handle it and to do what they needed to do without us having to find edi in this case the next people say we're going to meet again in the next p p t was the p p t we determine eligibility so i believe and i think the district court made the statement that we were not ignoring the student we were not just you know putting aside the parents concerns we were beating regularly through that whole period of time and in contact with that student through the whole period time and the recommendation of strife it's a program designed for students who are academically capable students for that for social emotional reasons can't handle a large high school program thank you thank you just to clarify attorney freeman is correct i was referencing the statutory period when he was not in regular education the period in front of this court just quickly the jew night from two thousand and twelve noted the school was aware as of november of that year that he was experiencing psychiatric difficulties impairing his ability to attend school in december the parent disclosed to the school district that he had been suicidal in taking a knife to school to protect himself the school is fully aware of all of this information i get that the district court standard of monitoring and having meetings is not the child find child find is not carved out an exception for filing for and it does not state your your position that the district court applied the wrong standard yes your brief was submitted before  advancement is nothing you know basically yes you can get a's and b s you show up for school the supreme court's very clear that was never what they intended to set forth that certainly that has to be ambitious and progress must be made in light of the child circumstances clearly i do yeah it's not just an act of futility it should have teeth and meaning in the supreme court's very clear they expect children to make progress for all children of disability and that would include mental health i believe so your honor i have to be honest i'm not sure ok i do think in the other point in this case as opposed to the facts are not in dispute so it's not you know you're challenging their factual finding i think they were minimized but