Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_05-cv-04124/USCOURTS-cand-3_05-cv-04124-4/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 20:1400 Civil Rights of Handicapped Child

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

G.W., et al.,

Plaintiff(s),

v.

New Haven Unified School

District, et al.,

Defendant(s).

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No. C05-04124 BZ

ORDER GRANTING JUDGMENT FOR

DEFENDANT NEW HAVEN UNIFIED

SCHOOL DISTRICT

On October 12, 2005, plaintiffs filed a complaint under

the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”), 20

U.S.C. § 1401, et seq., challenging the August 1, 2005,

decision of the McGeorge School of Law Special Education

Hearing Office. Plaintiffs assert that defendants denied the

minor plaintiff G.W. a Free Appropriate Public Education

(“FAPE”) in the Least Restrictive Environment (“LRE”) and that

the Hearing Officer erred in finding otherwise. Plaintiffs

seek a reversal of the Hearing Officer's decision, along with

damages and reasonable attorneys' fees and costs. This matter

was heard on August 2, 2006.

In an IDEA action, the party challenging the Hearing

Officer's decision bears the burden of persuasion. Clyde K.

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v. Puyallup School District, No. 3, 35 F.3d 1396, 1399 (9th

Cir. 1994), superseded by statute on other grounds. The court

shall receive the records of the administrative proceedings;

shall hear additional evidence at the request of a party; and

basing its decision on the preponderance of the evidence,

shall grant appropriate relief. 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(2)(C). 

Although judicial review of state administrative proceedings

under the IDEA is less deferential than review of other agency

actions, Ojai Unified Sch. Dist. v. Jackson, 4 F.3d 1467, 1471

(9th Cir. 1993), “the provision that a reviewing court base

its decision on the ‘preponderance of the evidence’ is by no

means an invitation to the courts to substitute their own

notions of sound educational policy for those of the school

authorities which they review.” Bd. of Educ. of Hendrick

Hudson Central Sch. Dist., Westchester County v. Rowley, 458

U.S. 176, 206 (1982). “The amount of deference accorded the

hearing officer's findings increases where they are thorough

and careful.” Capistrano Unified Sch. Dist. v. Wartenberg, 59

F.3d 884, 891 (9th Cir. 1995). After considering the Hearing

Officer's findings carefully and her resolution of each

material issue, the court is “free to accept or reject the

findings in part or in whole.” Capistrano Unified, 59 F.3d at

891 (quoting Gregory K. v. Longview Sch. Dist., 811 F.2d 1307,

1311 (9th Cir. 1987))(internal quotation marks omitted). 

“When the court has before it all the evidence regarding the

disputed issues, it may make a final judgment in what ‘is not

a true summary judgment procedure [but] a bench trial based on

a stipulated record.’” Miller ex rel. Miller v. San MateoCase 3:05-cv-04124-BZ Document 62 Filed 08/04/06 Page 2 of 13
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Foster City Unified Sch. Dist., 318 F.Supp.2d 851, 859 (N.D.

Cal. 2004)(quoting Ojai, 4 F.3d at 1472).

Having reviewed the record, I find the following: G.W.

was born in March 1998. At the age of two he began receiving

specialized educational services from the Emeryville Child

Development Center and the East Bay Agency for Children

Therapeutic Nursery School. He was evaluated in July 2002 by

the Regional Center of the East Bay and diagnosed with a

Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified.

In September 2002, G.W. moved to Union City with his

family and began attending the Alvarado Elementary School in

the New Haven Unified School District (the “District”). He

was originally placed in a Special Day Class (“SDC”) at the

school. The class was small, with a low student to teacher

ratio, and he received weekly speech sessions. Because there

were significant delays in his communication and social

skills, the District placed G.W. in a program with intensive

instruction and focus on developing his language and learning

skills by trained professionals. However, because of his

severe behavioral problems – including frequently kicking,

biting and throwing objects at staff and other students – it

was eventually decided that he would receive intensive home

instruction, along with services from the Stepping Stones

Center for Autistic Spectrum Disorders (“Stepping Stones”).

G.W.'s mother removed him from the Stepping Stones

program in June 2003. An Individualized Education Program

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1 An Individualized Education Program is tailored to

the unique needs of the disabled child. 20 U.S.C. §

1412(a)(4). An IEP is a written document prepared annually

that outlines the educational plan for the student. 

4

(“IEP”)1 meeting was held in August 2003 to determine the

child's future schooling. This eventually led to a new

assessment by the Diagnostic Center, Northern California, in

January 2004, which found that G.W. was mentally retarded. 

The assessment concluded he could return to a classroom

setting if he were given appropriate support, such as a

consistent routine and highly structured environment. Other

recommendations included engaging G.W. in preferred

activities, allowing frequent breaks and reinforcing positive

behavior and teaching alternatives to negative behavior. In

the first week of March 2004, G.W. returned to Alvarado

Elementary School. He was in a SDC, with a limited number of

students, a familiar and fixed routine and structured

environment. His teachers allowed him to engage in his

preferred activities, and a behavior intervention plan was

implemented, including setting up a second classroom for

G.W.'s individual use as a safe and separate place if his

behavior warranted removal.

G.W. continued to exhibit extreme and often violent

behavior. Despite his having two adults with him at all times

and being allowed to take frequent breaks, his teachers

complained that he was still kicking, biting, hitting and

screaming. The staff were concerned that G.W. was a danger to

himself and others and that he exhibited some of the worst

behavioral problems in their experience. Because G.W.'s

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placement at Alvarado Elementary School was not working, the

District suggested moving G.W. to the Spectrum satellite

program (“Spectrum”) at Bernard White Middle School. The

mother agreed. On April 20, 2004, G.W. started attending

Spectrum. 

On June 8, 2004, the IEP team convened for G.W.'s annual

assessment. By this time, G.W. had been attending Spectrum

for a few months. The team recommended his continued

placement there with additional speech and language therapy

sessions lasting 30 minutes twice a week. G.W. was also

eligible for extended school year services. Based on the

Spectrum education coordinator's recommendations, the IEP team

also adopted a behavior intervention plan calling for

antecedent behavior, replacement behavior, reinforcement

strategies and emergency procedures to address G.W.'s

aggression. Spectrum staff observed some improvement during

his time at Spectrum. His violent outbursts and tantrums

seemed to be decreasing, and he seemed to be increasing from

40% to 85%-90% accuracy in completing tasks. 

On September 27, 2004, G.W.'s mother removed him from

Spectrum because she felt that Spectrum was inappropriately

disciplining her son. In response, the District convened an

IEP meeting in October 2004, at which it was agreed that the

District would fund a new private assessment of G.W., to be

conducted by Dr. Wolk. The assessment took place between

November 2004 and January 2005. Dr. Wolk diagnosed G.W. with

mild to moderate mental retardation. She found that G.W.

suffered from impaired social, emotional, language, and

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2 Plaintiffs have cited no authority for their claim

that their procedural due process rights were violated because

Dr. Wolk did not meet with the entire IEP team. The February

2005 meeting was not a typical IEP meeting, unlike the IEPs in

June 2004, October 2004 and May 2005, but was focused on

discussing Dr. Wolk's report.

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cognitive skills, but concluded that G.W. could interact

socially and, with appropriate school and home programming,

could improve his skills. She made numerous recommendations,

including that G.W. start out at home with an aide, who would

help him gradually transition to a school setting with a

limited class size and trained professionals. She also

recommended that G.W. be acclimated to the classroom,

encouraged and positively reinforced to communicate by using

language and sign language and exposed to a fixed routine with

little variability. G.W. would benefit from communication

involving short, simple statements with pictures and other

sensory input and regular interaction with another child of

similar language ability. 

Members of the IEP team and G.W.'s mother met with Dr.

Wolk to discuss her report in February 2002.2 The District

reiterated its offer of placing G.W. in Spectrum. Plaintiffs

rejected this, and on May 6, 2005, G.W.'s attorney filed a due

process hearing request. The District convened another IEP

meeting on May 16, 2005, where it continued to offer placement

in Spectrum with supplemental speech and language therapy

services. Plaintiffs wanted to implement Dr. Wolk's

recommendations in a public school setting, but the District

refused to give G.W. the option of moving back into a public

elementary school. Other potential non public school programs

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were either unacceptable to plaintiffs or would not accept

G.W. Plaintiffs did not accept continued placement in

Spectrum, so the due process hearing went forward. The

Hearing Officer heard testimony from May 31, 2005 to June 8,

2005, and issued a decision on August 1, 2005.

The Hearing Officer decided that the District was not

denying G.W. a FAPE in the LRE. She concluded that G.W. had

special needs due to his behavioral and language difficulties,

as borne out by numerous IEPs and assessments of several

specialists and teachers, and that he required specialized

instruction and one-on-one support with a highly structured

environment, a consistent routine, several breaks and behavior

intervention. The Hearing Officer additionally concluded that

the District recognized G.W.'s needs in the June 2004, October

2004 and May 2005 IEPs and that placement in Spectrum with

supplemental services addressed these needs. Spectrum serves

children with autism, developmental delays and Down's

Syndrome. There are three classes, ranging in size from three

to ten students, with a staff of teachers, aides and several

specialists, including speech and language therapists. During

his time at Spectrum, G.W. was in a class of four students,

ranging in age from six to ten years. He had a 1:1 aide, and

there was a plan in place to address G.W.'s language needs and

behavioral problems. Because of this, the Hearing Officer

concluded that the District offered a FAPE. She further found

that the District's offer of placement in Spectrum was

reasonably calculated to provide G.W. an educational benefit

since it was meant to allow G.W. to improve his behavior and

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succeed in school and there was some evidence that it was

working. She also concluded that the District's offer

comported with G.W.'s IEPs. After considering the testimony

of plaintiffs' witnesses and plaintiffs' contention that G.W.

would benefit from attending a public school by interacting

with typically developing children, the Hearing Officer

concluded that because placement in a SDC in a public school

had been unsuccessful in 2003 and 2004, Spectrum was the LRE

for G.W. The Hearing Officer also found that while the

testimony that G.W.'s behavior had improved while at home was

not contradicted, that testimony did not address G.W.'s

behavior in a school setting and that his needs and behavior

had not changed significantly to warrant removal from

Spectrum. 

Plaintiffs timely challenged the Hearing Officer's

decision. As noted above, under the IDEA, the district court

must give “due weight” to the Hearing Officer's factual

determinations. Rowley, 458 U.S. at 206. In this case, the

Hearing Officer's determinations are thorough and careful, and

I accord them great weight. Her decision spans 26 singlespaced pages, and covers in detail all of the issues raised

during the six-day hearing. She discussed the expertise and

credibility of witnesses that came before her at the hearing

and carefully and methodically evaluated their testimony. She

considered all assessments and IEPs, including the Diagnostic

Center's report of January 2004 and Dr. Wolk's report of

January 2005. She examined and addressed all issues relevant

to the question of whether the New Haven Unified School

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District offered G.W. a FAPE in the LRE. 

Having reviewed the record, I agree with the Hearing

Officer that the services provided by the District pursuant to

the 2004 IEPs and offered pursuant to the May 2005 IEP

constituted a FAPE. They were reasonably calculated to, and

did, confer a meaningful educational benefit to G.W. See

Adams v. State of Oregon, 195 F.3d 1141, 1149 (9th Cir.

1999)(“Instead of asking whether the [District's offer] was

adequate in light of the [student's] progress, the district

court should have asked the more pertinent question of whether

[it] was appropriately designed and implemented so as to

convey [the student] with a meaningful benefit.”). At the

hearing on August 2, 2006, plaintiffs' counsel essentially

conceded that had the District offered these services at a

public school, plaintiffs would have accepted them.

The real dispute is whether placement at Spectrum

constituted the LRE. States must ensure that a disabled child

has access to education in the LRE, which means that a

disabled child should be educated with non-disabled children,

or “mainstreamed,” to the maximum extent appropriate. 20

U.S.C. § 1412(a)(5)(A). Poolaw v. Bishop, 67 F.3d 830, 835

(9th Cir. 1995). However, “mainstreaming” is not an “absolute

commandment.” Poolaw, 67 F.3d at 836. 

Plaintiffs' claim rests largely on their interpretation

of Dr. Wolk's report. First, they interpret Dr. Wolk's

recommendation that G.W. needed a special day class setting to

mean that he had to be placed in public school. 

Unfortunately, Dr. Wolk did not recommend a specific placement

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3 Based on their reading of Dr. Wolk's report,

plaintiffs also claim that the District violated plaintiffs'

right to have G.W.'s parents involved in the development of

G.W.'s IEP by failing to follow Dr. Wolk's recommendations

which plaintiffs contend required G.W. be placed in public

school. Parents do have a right to participate in the

development of their child's IEP. Amanda J. v. Clark Co.

School District, 267 F.3d 877, 882 (9th Cir. 2001). However, 

G.W.'s mother was present at all IEP meetings and the meeting

with Dr. Wolk. Additionally, as discussed above, Dr. Wolk did

not specifically address whether G.W. should be placed in a

public school. 

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or address whether the placement should be in a public

school.3 Nor did Dr. Wolk testify. Both sides had an

opportunity to call her at the hearing below and to supplement

the record before me with her testimony. Neither side chose

to do so. Nevertheless, there was substantial testimony on

this issue, from which I conclude that a special day class

describes an environment and not a location. All of

defendants' witnesses so testified as did plaintiffs' expert,

Dr. Weiss. Ms. Smith, plaintiffs' educational advocate,

testified that in her experience a special day class had to be

in a public school setting. But I give less weight to her

testimony since she was plaintiffs' advocate. Based on this

record, I conclude that placement in Spectrum could be a

special day class and that the environment Spectrum provided

is consistent with what all the education professionals who

testified believe is required in a special day class. To the

extent educators may disagree on this issue, I am mindful of

the admonition that cour3ts should not “substitute their own

notions of sound educational policy for those of the school

authorities which they review.” Rowley, 458 U.S. at 206. 

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Plaintiffs next argue that Dr. Wolk's references to the

child's need to associate with “developmentally appropriate”

peers means that he must be placed in a setting in which he is

exposed to children who do not have developmental

disabilities, which cannot happen at Spectrum. Plaintiffs go

on to argue that one of the reasons G.W. misbehaved or

otherwise had difficulty learning is that he mimicked the

behavior of other disabled children when he was at Spectrum. 

The District contends that Dr. Wolk's references to G.W. being

with developmentally appropriate children are made in the

context of getting him out of his home, where his mother has

kept him, so he can interact with his peers. The District

contends that developmentally appropriate peers are those with

which he can readily interact and that placing him in a

setting with non-disabled children has proven more restrictive

for him since he has even greater difficulty functioning and

spends more time with staff than with his peers. Once again,

Dr. Wolk did not define this term, and there is no evidence in

the record of what the term “developmentally appropriate”

means in the field of child education. Whatever the precise

meaning of the term, the court agrees with the Hearing Officer

that in the fall of 2004 and the first half of 2005, Spectrum

was the LRE in which G.W. could be placed. Prior efforts to

place him at Alvarado Elementary School, a public school, had

been unsuccessful because of his behavioral problems. At

Spectrum, his behavior and his educational development seemed

to be slowly but surely improving. Nor is there any evidence

that his problems resulted from mimicking the behavior of the

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4 I offer no view on whether the IEPs which are

considered in this order are currently appropriate.

5 Although the District did not move for summary

judgment, the court may grant judgment in its favor in an IDEA

proceeding. See Kassbaum v. Steppenwolf Productions, Inc., 236

F.3d 487, 494 (9th Cir. 2000); Hunger v. Leininger, 15 F.3d

664, 669 (7th Cir. 1994).

6 After the case management conference, I set a

schedule for the parties to supplement the administrative

record if they wished to do so. Plaintiffs did not timely move

to supplement the administrative record. Their subsequent

request that Dr. Wolk testify is untimely. For similar

reasons, I have not considered plaintiffs' declarations of

Valerie Hodges and Jean Murrell Adams. 

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other disabled students at Spectrum. To the contrary, the

evidence was that he was far more misbehaved than his peers. 

Clyde K., 35 F.3d at 1402 (“Disruptive behavior that

significantly impairs the education of other students strongly

suggests a mainstream placement is no longer appropriate” and

school officials “are not required to sit on their hands when

a disabled student's behavioral problems prevent both him and

those around him from learning.”). I therefore conclude that

the IEPs offered by the District in 2004 and 2005 provided, or

would have provided, if accepted, the child with a FAPE in the

LRE.4

Therefore, IT IS ORDERED that plaintiffs' motion for

summary judgment is DENIED. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that

judgment shall be entered in favor of the District.5 

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the parties' evidentiary

objections are OVERRULED. I have not considered plaintiffs'

supplemental declarations, nor have I allowed Dr. Wolk to

testify.6 [docket ## 53, 59] As to plaintiffs' objections on

grounds of relevance, defendants' attempts to procure the

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record are relevant to plaintiffs' argument that the failure

to provide them with the record violated their procedural

rights. [docket ## 36, 51, 55] As to defendants' objections

to the filing of the mediation agreement, I asked that it be

filed for the limited purpose of determining whether the

parties had agreed to be bound by Dr. Wolk's recommendations,

not for the purpose of “prov[ing] liability for or invalidity

of the claim or its amount.” FRE 408. Since the mediation

agreement did not speak to the issue, it is irrelevant. 

[docket # 49] To the extent that any of the parties'

objections are valid, they go to the weight of the evidence. 

The District's request for judicial notice is GRANTED. 

[docket # 44]

Dated: August 4, 2006

 Bernard Zimmerman 

 United States Magistrate Judge

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