In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

No. 98-2276

Linda W., et al.,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

Indiana Department of Education, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Indiana, South Bend Division.

No. 3:94-CV-268RM--Robert L. Miller, Jr., Judge.

Argued October 27, 1999--Decided December 22, 1999

 Before Bauer, Coffey, and Easterbrook, Circuit Judges.

 Easterbrook, Circuit Judge. Ryan Van Damme, who

is dyslexic, received an individually tailored

educational program at the public schools of

Mishawaka, Indiana. Near the end of Ryan’s

seventh-grade year (in spring 1993), his parents

objected to the school district’s plan for the

next year. During summer 1993 Ryan attended

Landmark School in Massachusetts, and toward the

end of that summer his parents requested a

hearing on the adequacy of the district’s plan.

A hearing officer concluded that the district

must provide Ryan with help from specialists

(three 45-minute sessions per week with remedial

reading instructors, two per week on

"accommodation strategies") and afford

compensatory education during the summers of 1994

and 1995 to make up for its late start in

supplying this assistance. The hearing officer

concluded, however, that Ryan was not entitled to

summer education as a norm and should receive

most of his instruction via "mainstreaming" in

the public schools. Shortly after receiving this

decision, Ryan’s parents removed him from the

Mishawaka schools and sent him to Landmark School

full time. They initiated this litigation seeking

to compel Mishawaka to pay for Ryan’s education

at Landmark.

 After concluding that Mishawaka is responsible

for Ryan’s education, see 927 F. Supp. 303 (N.D.

Ind. 1996), the district court concluded that the
final decision of the administrative process was

reasonable and should be enforced in the main.

Local and state educational bodies provided Ryan

with multiple hearings under the Individuals with

Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C. sec.sec.

1400-87, but it is not necessary to recount all

the details. What matters now is that at the end

of the administrative process, state officials

concluded that education in the public schools,

plus five special sessions per week, plus

supplemental education during the summers of 1994

and 1995, would provide Ryan with a free

appropriate public education. With this

conclusion the district court agreed in a

thoughtful opinion. The district court accorded

suitable deference to the hearing officers’

conclusions. Given the deference we owe to the

district judge’s assessment of the personspecific factors that these situations entail,

the decision cannot be upset on appeal. Morton

Community Unit School District No. 709 v. J.M.,

152 F.3d 583, 587-88 (7th Cir. 1998), explains

why appellate review is deferential in a case of

this nature even though the district court

granted summary judgment; no more need be said

about the standard of review or the merits of the

hearing officers’ educational plan for Ryan.

 Nonetheless, Ryan’s parents contend, they are

entitled to reimbursement for the placement at

Landmark because at the time they transferred

Ryan from public to private school, Mishawaka was

not providing him with an adequate education.

Under the stay-put provision of the Act, 20

U.S.C. sec.1415(e)(3) (1992 ed.), the parents’

objection to the proposed 1993 plan locked in

place the 1992 plan--a plan that, the hearing

officers determined, had flaws similar to those

of the 1993 plan. (Amendments made to the Act in

1997 alter the stay-put rules, see sec.1415(j),

(k)(7); we need not explore the differences.)

When Ryan was transferred to Landmark in January

1994, the school district was still using the

1992 plan, because both sides had filed

administrative appeals from the initial hearing

officer’s decision. Ryan’s parents invoke

Burlington School Committee v. Massachusetts

Department of Education, 471 U.S. 359, 369-71

(1985), for the proposition that parents who

remove their child from a deficient educational

environment are entitled to compensation for the

replacement education. Parents who act on a

belief that the public education is inadequate

take a risk, for, if the school’s program is

upheld in the end, the parents are out of pocket;

but Ryan’s parents contend that the vindication

of their view means that they must be reimbursed.

Like the district court, we think that this

overreads Burlington.
 What the Court held in Burlington is that a

district judge has the discretion "to order

school authorities to reimburse parents for their

expenditures on private special education for a

child if the court ultimately determines that

such placement, rather than a proposed IEP

[individualized education program], is proper

under the Act." 471 U.S. at 369. Parents thus

must establish more than that the school

district’s original plan is deficient. If that

were enough, then the costs to school districts

of administering the Act would skyrocket, for

educational professionals frequently disagree

among themselves how best to cope with a pupil’s

learning problems. One set of educators proposed

a plan for Ryan; the first hearing officer

modified the plan; the state’s Board of Special

Education Appeals modified the hearing officer’s

modifications. All three participants--the school

district, the hearing officer, and the Board--

believed that Mishawaka’s public schools could

provide Ryan with an appropriate education once

suitable adjustments had been made to the

program. This is a frequent sequence, and if it

were enough by itself to justify moving the child

to a private school (with compulsory

reimbursement), then there would be an exodus

from the public schools. That is not what

Burlington contemplates. Parents not only must

show that placement in a private school is

"proper under the Act" but also must persuade a

district court to exercise its discretion to

provide reimbursement. The Court emphasized that

discretion, which means that reimbursement is not

a matter of entitlement. "The statute directs the

court to ’grant such relief as [it] determines is

appropriate’ [when the school district’s plan is

inadequate]. The ordinary meaning of these words

confers broad discretion on the court." 471 U.S.

at 369 (quoting from 20 U.S.C. sec.1415(e)(2),

which has since been moved to

sec.1415(i)(2)(B)(iii)).

 In this case the district court concluded that

reimbursement for private education is not

"appropriate", because the hearing officers and

the judge believed that with extra sessions five

times a week, education in the Mishawaka schools

would satisfy the Act’s requirements--would

indeed be preferable to education at Landmark

School, for the Act prefers a "mainstreaming"

approach while Landmark’s program separates its

pupils from their non-disabled peers. The hearing

officers recognized that the Mishawaka schools

had fallen behind in providing extra services to

Ryan and that compensatory enrichment was called

for; but the hearing officers and the district

court also concluded that Ryan did not need

placement in Landmark either for summer sessions

or for a full program. Given the discretion to

which the Supreme Court referred, this reasoned
(and reasonable) conclusion cannot be upset now.

 One final issue remains: attorneys’ fees. Ryan’s

parents contend that they have "prevailed" in

this case and therefore are entitled to an award

of fees despite the district court’s

unwillingness to upset the hearing officers’

principal decisions. Plaintiffs recovered about

$1,000 as compensation for private tutoring for

Ryan in January and February 1994. On all other

issues they lost, and $1,000 is paltry compared

with the relief they were seeking. That implies,

as the district court held, that plaintiffs did

not prevail in the litigation. See Fletcher v.

Ft. Wayne, 162 F.3d 975 (7th Cir. 1998); Hunger

v. Leininger, 15 F.3d 664, 670 (7th Cir. 1994).

Plaintiffs reply that they won a procedural

victory (the district court’s decision that

Mishawaka is responsible for Ryan’s education)

and that the hearing officers found the

district’s plan wanting. True enough, but to

prevail in litigation one must win on the merits,

and not just score tactical victories in

interlocutory skirmishes. Hanrahan v. Hampton,

446 U.S. 754 (1980). Plaintiffs did not need to

file suit to enjoy the value of their success in

the administrative process. Even the decisions of

the hearing officers did Ryan no good in the end,

because his parents removed him from the public

schools before those decisions took effect. The

district court did not abuse its discretion in

holding that defendants are the prevailing

parties in this litigation.

Affirmed