you can proceed they please the court my name is gary mayor's and i represent d b throughout the proceedings starting with the trial level and we continue to do so there are two sticks significant events that occurred since we've brief this case that i need to bring to this court's attention  one is the obvious one of which is the supreme court's eight zero unanimous decision in n g o s which i'll be talking about in a moment but the other one just happened last night and i've shared this with council the state  york state department of education came out with an eight page policy memorandum on the issue of transition which is the core issue in our case not only telling all the school districts how incredibly important transition is but explaining what all the districts have to do in order to comply with the federal and state requirements it basically mirrors everything we say in our brief and i would like to see this submitted to the court now or or perhaps in and just a letter provided to the court and submit it attached to idea statute as a quote blizzard of words there could be you could not be more apt i mean this every case this court gets has nine million acronyms that have to be waded through and i hope to be able to wade through and cut through the blizzard to shed some light on this issue p the student at issue is diagnosed with autism but he's been verbal and conversational and is able to answer questions he has the ability to weigh in with his own interest in his own desires and as this court is aware two school years were to shoot thirteen fourteen and fourteen fifteen and when he turned fifteen this is the trigger point and which distinguishes this from prior years he was entitled to a number of things which have to do with the all important issue of transition that is preparing children with disabilities in this case autism for the fateful day when they will leave the educational system and enter into society when they will transition into society and when he turned fifteen which is during the two thousand and thirteen two thousand and fourteen school year there were four things that should have happened that did not happen in this case the statute talks about the requirement of providing age appropriate transition evaluations age appropriate that require that and then you can yes surely do tells us that other than the general well if you look at all the statutory requirements and not only the one about doing the evaluation but the next one developing developed goals and objectives this is based on the age appropriate that evaluations of me is sume that you were right that either the federal workers state which is broader requires a new person evaluation a procedural violation here invent the should have had an impersonal that is not ultimately determined that is what is ultimately determined that is if there was well let me list before i talk about the impede argument which is very so very important to you you will learn just to first there was a failure to do the age appropriate assessment which is a vocational assessment that's the foundation of the house that's the beginning of everything else that was to follow secondly they failed to develop goals and objectives that were based on the age appropriate assessments and that is also a requirement of the federal law and three they failed prove to develop services again that were based on the age appropriate assessments in the lead to the statute talks about that so that's three things so what do they do think there's a little section in the in the ip where they talk about the goals and objectives they do they're not measurable goals and objectives they do this checklist approach which is exactly the approach that the n g o s court said you should not do this is not a checklist this is a very careful procedure that really applies to the child's individual needs now i'm going to ad your question judge the statute talks about if the student's ability to get a faith is impeded and the very next sentence talks about or if the parent's right to the ip process is substantially impeded what does that tell us that the impeded requirement is a lesser standard even than the substantially the substantially impeded requirement so than in other words is it just means some restriction some hindrance it is not yes and i think that what would you call very carefully constructed argument by the s r o both yes or oh and the district court of page ten of the district court's decision i think makes clear that the district court embraced the very standard that the end of court has now rejected as too low so the district court said cited the case of talked about just barely more than de minimus or so words to that effect that's exactly what the entry of court said in the supreme court that is not permissible anymore now i'm not we would ask that it be reprimanded with instructions to consider not only the impact of n g o s but also the impact of the state's april whatever yesterday's date was a policy memorandum on transition because  it's really it to the extent that the district court said we have to bridge that let the language that the district or uses that under the states have an affirmative obligation to provide an education likely to produce progress and more robust standard that's much more style centered that is based on assessments when you look through the entry of decision it's it's just there's just discussing or if references to quote a focus on the particular child is at the core of the idea how do you do that without assessing the child's transition you doing an assessment of the child themself the eyepiece the center piece it must be drafted in compliance with the details that are procedures these procedural rules we're not asking you to come up with a rule w subsequent what exactly is the deficiency well if you look at i think it's page ten or eleven of our main brief it says it shows what the level one level to level three assessments look like and they can choose depending on the child's functioning level which assessment to employ so when when they're talking about age appropriate but they're really saying is developmentally functionally appropriate for the child so if you have a child that's very verbal what what should they have done that they did well they should have done an assessment where they actually took the child the same way they would do a speech in language assessment or an occupational therapy assessment and they somebody who has the ability to act to the point that they didn't do an in person a s well they didn't ask them any questions or didn't ask them to respond to say they not invite him to come onto the to the media very very important point assessments never happen at the ip me we've been doing this for twenty years assessments do not happen  ip meeting but if they do if they ever do is because someone requested it and said we want to assess your child at the meeting please give us your consent they never asked for consent to do an assessment of the meeting and this parent class where the  not be a problem that has taken into account now you're saying it's a separate thing we should have asked to see the child individually and probably i think judge that to give them the speculative advantage and say they could have done  assessment there was no notice of an assessment to be done there so that you i don't think you can give the district credit on that one if they wanted to do an assessment of their ip meaning we would have consented had they just given us notice the said bring your child we wish to do an assessment but there was really know problem with the following that is the district wants to do an assessment asked to do it in person assessment of the child and for legitimate reasons the parents say now and then what's the what's the upshot school district to do it in person assessment of the school district it would be can it could be considered under problem three equitable circumstance as to the extent and under the burley to carter test for reimbursement as to whether the parents invasion in equitable or in agreeable conduct but but of course that never happened here because no consent was ever requested in open set was ever refused it was simply come to an ip meeting you have some time for a bottle thank good morning your honor julie steiner for the department of education the only procedural violation that is alleged by the plaintiffs is that the child was not interviewed in person the ultimate issues were the four things that plaintiffs are allegedly alleging ultimately all boil down to my child was not interviewed and that one singular violation does not amount to a denial of faith even under the engine standard that the united states supreme court just articulated andrew f specifically requires that the ip be reasonably reasonably calculated to enable a child to make proper skews make progress appropriate in light of the child circumstances and the i p s both of them the thirteen fourteen and fourteen fifteen in this case were specific and individualized for this child it was approved a both were really ambitious to take into account the child's interests likes dislikes and violation occurred it says shall receive an assessment that includes school records a review of school records that was clearly done here teacher assessments absolutely in fact this child attended the rebecca school since two thousand and nine two thousand  from exactly from the teachers that know him arguably extremely well parent interviews yes that took place here twice and yes it does stay student interviews to the extent that this means in person interview as this court is questioning it's not clear but it soon mean that it did say in person interview no that was not done but in its place the child the parent who admitted my child was sixteen i've lived with him for sixteen years i know him intimately well who the parent who has attended monthly meetings with the school and has spoken weekly with these providers knows her child intimately well she is an more than appropriate resource to articulate what her child needs wants doesn't like x x cetera so when you take a look at everything in its entirety what was done here did not result in a denial of a faith there  was a procedural issue to the the extent we were required under the state regs to interview the child yes there was a procedural violation this court has has held that but as your honor has has articulated this singular procedural violation standing alone when viewed in in context of what else transpired here and what else the community on special education had regarding this child no fate occurred that her original does turn it in fact in andrew and if the court specifically looking at the exact language the court specifically held that you must defer to the the administrative officers and articulate and reasonable explanation when you compare the two the i h o in the us or on this particular case and as your honor has already articulated the answer was unusually careful in this case the answer i went through every speech bit of information evidence and spelled it out pretty much in comparison to the eye and show who did not and when you is the s r o to whom deference in this particular case is afforded when you consider where is here the issue is a question of law the interpretation or enforcement of a federal statute no deference as as is owed to the us or of any kind this court is held before held that before and that's exactly the situation we have here violations failure to do the age appropriate assessments failure to develop any goals whatsoever based on are they not all based on the failure to interview the child they're based on it but it's almost like you're building a house the age appropriate assessments the foundation of the house without that fender's been foundation the house collapses it's not reasonably calculated this court has held time and again that the ip has to be reasonably calculated that's what andrew have talks about how can it be reasonably calculated it's so crazy everything else falls and if you're saying that doesn't that run against our cases that say that these fundamental procedural violations knew or we still have to look the answer is because transition is so incredibly important it is the main event once the trial turns fifteen because they're done with the educational system at either eighteen or twenty one and whatever they've learned or not learned to depends whether they're going to be contributing members of society just the supreme court sent a message judge and enjoy f eight zero and the state has just sent its policy member a runner last night which is also sending a message so the question is what message will be put the question  else would fall i would just like it and i know that you were on the t k case judge and the t k case different facts a different scenario the issue of the gravel many of the wrong was the fact that the parents were excluded from the ip process they were not allowed to talk about certainly a bully was the issue right and in this case it's the student himself who's being excluded from the ip process they think they're looking everywhere else but the student  taking the position that we're is here transition is the main event and where the statute is very clear and says there must be age appropriate assessments and goals and objectives based on those age appropriate assessments that the failure to do that is so fundamental a failure that it amounts to a faith deprivation certainly in impeding i'm sorry just restated that what we have are that be sown for a younger child you are saying that we are issues age a transition venue that violation is so fundamental that nothing else can stand corrected your say yes judge because of the younger ages there is still more time to deal with mistakes that could happen but it was fun to get yes