Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/700/1058/117163/
Timestamp: 2020-02-26 22:55:26
Document Index: 198251450

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1401', '§ 1412', '§ 1412', '§ 1415', '§ 1415', '§ 1415', '§ 405', '§ 1401', '§ 1401']

Mary Ann Roncker on Behalf of Neill Roncker, Individuallyand on Behalf of All Others Similarly Situated,plaintiff-appellant, v. Franklin B. Walter, et al., Defendants,james N. Jacobs, in His Official Capacity As Superintendentof the Cincinnati City School District and Cincinnati Cityschool District Board of Education; Robert Braddock,herbert Brown, Virginia Griffin, Ann Patty, John Rue, Davidschiering and Mary Schloss, in Their Official Capacities Asthe Members of the Cincinnati City School District Board Ofeducation, Defendants-appellees, 700 F.2d 1058 (6th Cir. 1983) :: Justia
Justia › US Law › Case Law › Federal Courts › Courts of Appeals › Sixth Circuit › 1983 › Mary Ann Roncker on Behalf of Neill Roncker, Individuallyand on Behalf of All Others Similarly Situa...
Mary Ann Roncker on Behalf of Neill Roncker, Individuallyand on Behalf of All Others Similarly Situated,plaintiff-appellant, v. Franklin B. Walter, et al., Defendants,james N. Jacobs, in His Official Capacity As Superintendentof the Cincinnati City School District and Cincinnati Cityschool District Board of Education; Robert Braddock,herbert Brown, Virginia Griffin, Ann Patty, John Rue, Davidschiering and Mary Schloss, in Their Official Capacities Asthe Members of the Cincinnati City School District Board Ofeducation, Defendants-appellees, 700 F.2d 1058 (6th Cir. 1983)
US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit - 700 F.2d 1058 (6th Cir. 1983) Argued May 18, 1982. Decided Feb. 23, 1983
In this appeal, the plaintiff challenges the placement of her retarded son under the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, 20 U.S.C. § 1401 et seq., (the Act).1 As a condition for receiving federal aid, the Act provides that a free appropriate education must be provided to all children. 20 U.S.C. § 1412. It further requires states to establish "procedures to assure that, to the maximum extent appropriate, handicapped children, including children in public or private institutions or other care facilities, are educated with children who are not handicapped and that special classes, separate schooling, or other removal of handicapped children from the regular educational environment occurs only when the nature or severity of the handicap is such that education in regular classes with the use of supplementary aids and services cannot be achieved satisfactorily." 20 U.S.C. § 1412(5) (B).2
The Supreme Court recently decided what "free appropriate education" means in the context of the Act. Bd. of Ed. of the Hendrick Hudson Central School District v. Rowley, --- U.S. ----, 102 S. Ct. 3034, 73 L. Ed. 2d 690 (1982). In this case, we examine the Act's requirement that handicapped children be educated with non-handicapped children to the "maximum extent appropriate."
The Ronckers refused to accept the placement and sought a due process hearing before an impartial hearing officer pursuant to the Act. 20 U.S.C. § 1415(b) (2). The hearing officer found that the school district had not satisfied its burden of proving that its proposed placement afforded the maximum appropriate contact with non-handicapped children. He ordered that Neill "be placed within the appropriate special education class in the regular elementary school setting."
The school district appealed to the Ohio State Board of Education pursuant to 29 U.S.C. § 1415(c). The State Board found that Neill required the educational opportunities provided by the county school. It also found, however, that he needed interaction with non-handicapped children during lunch, recess and transportation to and from school. Accordingly, the State Board held that Neill should be placed in a county school so long as some provision was made for him to receive contact with non-handicapped children. The State Board did not indicate how this split program was to be administered.
The Act provides that a district court "shall receive the records of the [state] administrative proceedings, shall hear additional evidence at the request of a party, and, basing its decision on the preponderance of the evidence, shall grant such relief as the court determines is appropriate." 20 U.S.C. § 1415(e) (2). The school district contends that this provision only gives courts the limited authority to determine if the district has complied with the procedural requirements of the Act. The plaintiff, on the other hand, contends that the Act requires a de novo review not limited to the Act's procedural requirements.
This exact dispute over standard of review was presented and decided in Rowley, --- U.S. ----, 102 S. Ct. 3034, 73 L. Ed. 2d 690. The Supreme Court rejected the notion that courts were strictly limited to reviewing for procedural compliance with the Act. Id. at 3050-51. However, the Court also rejected the argument that the Act gave the courts broad power to review and upset placement decisions, stating that "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." Id. at 3051. The court concluded that the proper balance is to give greater deference to the state's placement decision if the procedural requirements of the Act are met. In this way, the court's encroachment on the basically legislative decisions involving the distribution of educational resources is kept to a minimum.4
Second, in this case, the district court failed to give "due weight" to the state administrative proceedings. Rowley, 102 S. Ct. at 3051. Both the impartial hearing officer and the State Board of Education found that the school district's placement did not satisfy the Act's mainstreaming requirement. Under such circumstances, the district court erred in reviewing the school district's placement under the deferential abuse of discretion standard. Such a standard of review renders the administrative hearings provided for by the Act virtually meaningless. By way of contrast, in Rowley, the administrative hearings unanimously concurred with the original placement but the district court found the placement to be inappropriate.
The Act does not require mainstreaming in every case but its requirement that mainstreaming be provided to the maximum extent appropriate indicates a very strong congressional preference.6 The proper inquiry is whether a proposed placement is appropriate under the Act. In some cases, a placement which may be considered better for academic reasons may not be appropriate because of the failure to provide for mainstreaming. The perception that a segregated institution is academically superior for a handicapped child may reflect no more than a basic disagreement with the mainstreaming concept. Such a disagreement is not, of course, any basis for not following the Act's mandate. Campbell v. Talladega City Bd. of Education, 518 F. Supp. 47, 55 (N.D. Ala. 1981). In a case where the segregated facility is considered superior, the court should determine whether the services which make that placement superior could be feasibly provided in a non-segregated setting. If they can, the placement in the segregated school would be inappropriate under the Act. Framing the issue in this manner accords the proper respect for the strong preference in favor of mainstreaming while still realizing the possibility that some handicapped children simply must be educated in segregated facilities either because the handicapped child would not benefit from mainstreaming, because any marginal benefits received from mainstreaming are far outweighed by the benefits gained from services which could not feasibly be provided in the non-segregated setting, or because the handicapped child is a disruptive force in the non-segregated setting. Cost is a proper factor to consider since excessive spending on one handicapped child deprives other handicapped children. See Age v. Bullitt County Schools, 673 F.2d 141, 145 (6th Cir. 1982). Cost is no defense, however, if the school district has failed to use its funds to provide a proper continuum of alternative placements for handicapped children. The provision of such alternative placements benefits all handicapped children.
We find no bar to class actions in the Act. Several courts have certified class actions where the requirements of Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were met. See, e.g., Battle v. Commonwealth of Pa., 629 F.2d 269 (3d Cir. 1980), cert. denied, 452 U.S. 968, 101 S. Ct. 3123, 69 L. Ed. 2d 981 (1981); Garrity v. Gallen, 522 F. Supp. 171 (D.N.H. 1981); Green v. Johnson, 513 F. Supp. 965 (D. Mass. 1981). That the Act requires individual placement decisions does not of itself bar all class actions. See Califano v. Yamasaki, 442 U.S. 682, 698-701, 99 S. Ct. 2545, 2556-2557 61 L. Ed. 2d 176 (1979) (finding no bar to class actions under the Social Security Act despite that Act's provision that actions may be brought by "any individual." 42 U.S.C. § 405(g)).
Although we agree with the district court's statement that the Act requires individual determinations as to placement, one of the plaintiff's claims is that the school district automatically sends students classified as Trainable Mentally Retarded to the county schools. Such an allegation, if proven, would show a violation of the Act for the very reason that placements were not individually made. Furthermore, if children are labeled as TMR solely on the basis of IQ scores, the placements would violate Sec. 1412(5) (C) which provides in part that "no single procedure shall be the sole criteria for determining an appropriate educational program for a child." The plaintiff should be given an opportunity to argue that there is sufficient evidence to justify class certification, at least as to certain issues.
In this language Congress has expressed a clear preference for educating handicapped children in the regular classrooms of the public schools. Handicapped children should be removed from regular classes only when their education cannot be achieved satisfactorily with the use of supplementary aids and services. Despite this preference for "mainstreaming," however, the statute clearly contemplates that there will be some separate schools and schooling. Rowley, --- U.S. ----, ---- n. 4, 102 S. Ct. 3034, 3038 n. 4, 73 L. Ed. 2d 690 (1982). Section 1412(5) does not require that classrooms for the severely mentally retarded, such as Neill Roncker, whose only interaction with non-handicapped children is to observe them, be located in the regular elementary school. Rather, this section is directed to the handicapped child who can spend some time in the regular classroom if given special aids or assistance.1
Rowley, --- U.S. at ----, 102 S. Ct. at 3052. When Congress imposes a requirement in legislation enacted pursuant to the spending power, it must do so unambiguously. Rowley --- U.S. at ----, 102 S. Ct. at 3049-3050 n. 26; Pennhurst State School v. Halderman, 451 U.S. 1, 17, 101 S. Ct. 1531, 1539, 67 L. Ed. 2d 694 (1981). Section 1412(5), far from unambiguously requiring that school districts place severely handicapped children in the regular school environment even if they cannot be satisfactorily educated in that environment, requires only that handicapped children be "mainstreamed" to the maximum extent appropriate. For those more severely retarded children, such as Neill Roncker, who are unable to be satisfactorily educated in any respect in a regular classroom, the statute does not prohibit the school district from making the judgment as to where their classrooms should be located.2
Neither appellant nor appellees are satisfied with this split attendance solution. " [C]ounsel for both the Ronckers and the school district expressed their opposition to the referee's proposed split attendance scheme as being inappropriate for Neil [sic] ...." App. 15. More importantly, although a number of experts testified, no witness endorsed split placement. Under these circumstances, where no expert witness approved or endorsed split placement, I do not believe we should suggest it as an appropriate placement.
For extensive discussions as to the legislative history and background of the Act, see Bd. of Education of the Hendrick Hudson Central School District v. Rowley, --- U.S. ----, 102 S. Ct. 3034, 73 L. Ed. 2d 690 (1982); Note, Enforcing the Right to an "Appropriate" Education: The Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, 92 Harv. L. Rev. 1103 (1979)
20 U.S.C. § 1401(19) provides:
This does not mean that the District Court does not review a placement to determine whether a child is receiving an appropriate education as defined in 20 U.S.C. § 1401(18)