Source: http://www.leagle.com/decision/In%20SCO%2020170322F98/ENDREW%20F.%20EX%20REL.%20JOSEPH%20F.%20v.%20DOUGLAS%20COUNTY%20SCHOOL%20DIST.%20RE-1
Timestamp: 2017-04-25 22:15:19
Document Index: 178201751

Matched Legal Cases: ['§1400', '§1412', '§1414', '§1414', '§1415', '§1415', '§1415', '§1412', '§1414', '§1401', '§1401', '§1401', '§1401', '§901']

ENDREW F. EX REL. JOSEPH F. v. DOUGLAS COUNTY SCHOOL DIST. RE-1 | No. 15-827. | Leagle.com
No. 15-827.
ENDREW F., A MINOR, BY AND THROUGH HIS PARENTS AND NEXT FRIENDS, JOSEPH F. AND JENNIFER F., Petitioner,
DOUGLAS COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT RE-1.
Decided March 22, 2017.
Jack D. Robinson , Spies Powers & Robinson, P.C., robinson@sprlaw.net, Attorneys for Petitioner, Endrew F., a Minor, By and Through His Parents and Next Friends, Joseph F. and Jennifer F.
Jeffrey L. Fisher , Stanford Law School, Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, jlfisher@law.stanford.edu, Attorneys for Petitioner, Endrew F., a Minor, By and Through His Parents and Next Friends, Joseph F. and Jennifer F.
Neal Kumar Katyal , Hogan Lovells US LLP, neal.katyal@hoganlovells.com, Attorneys for Respondent, Douglas County School District RE-1.
Robert Sherman Ross Jr. , Douglas County School District, robert.ross@dcsdk12.org, Attorneys for Respondent, Douglas County School District RE-1.
W. Stuart Stuller , Caplan and Earnest LLC, Attorneys for Respondent, Douglas County School District RE-1.
Selene Almazan-Altobelli , Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, selene@copaa.org, for Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, et al.
William P. Bethke , Kutz & Bethke LLC, wpbethke@lawkb.com, for National Center for Special Education in Charter Schools, et al.
John W. Borkowski , Husch Blackwell, LLP, john.borkowski@huschblackwell.com, for The Council of the Great City Schools.
Andrew K. Cuddy , Cuddy Law Firm, P.C., acuddy@cuddylawfirm.com, for The Coalition of Texans with Disabilities, et al.
Patricia Davis , Delaware Department of Justice, PatriciaA.Davis@state.de.us., for Delaware, et al.
Ruthanne M. Deutsch , Deutsch Hunt, PLLC, rdeutsch@deutschhunt.com, for AASA, The School Superintendents Association, et al.
Irv Gornstein , Counselor to the Solicitor General Department of Justice, for United States.
Marc A. Hearron , Morrison & Forester LLP, MHearron@mofo.com, for National Disability Rights Network, et al.
Matthew S. Hellman , Jenner & Block LLP, mhellman@jenner.com, for 118 Members of Congress.
Stephen A. Miller , Cozen O'Connor, samiller@cozen.com, for National Association of State Directors of Special Education, in support of neither party.
Francisco M. Negron Jr. , General Counsel National School Boards Association, fnegron@nsba.org, for National School Boards Association, et al.
Alice M. O'Brien , National Education Association, aobrien@nea.org, for The National Education Association.
Aaron M. Panner , Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans & Figel, P.L.L.C., apanner@kellogghansen.com, for Former Officials of the U.S. Department of Education.
Alan E. Schoenfeld , Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale & Dorr, LLP, alan.schoenfeld@wilmerhale.com, for Advocates for Children of New York, et al.
Jeffrey B. Wall , Acting Solicitor General United States Department of Justice, SupremeCtBriefs@USDOJ.gov, for United States.
Gregory J. Wallance , Kaye Scholer LLP, gregory.wallance@kayescholer.com, for Autism Speaks and The Public Interest Law Center.
Frederick R. Yarger , Solicitor General, fred.yarger@coag.gov, for Colorado State Board of Education and Colorado Department of Education.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA or Act) offers States federal funds to assist in educating children with disabilities. 84 Stat. 175, as amended, 20 U. S. C. §1400 et seq.; see Arlington Central School Dist. Bd. of Ed. v. Murphy, 548 U.S. 291, 295 (2006). In exchange for the funds, a State pledges to comply with a number of statutory conditions. Among them, the State must provide a free appropriate public education—a FAPE, for short—to all eligible children. §1412(a)(1).
The IEP is "the centerpiece of the statute's education delivery system for disabled children." Honig v. Doe, 484 U.S. 305, 311 (1988). A comprehensive plan prepared by a child's "IEP Team" (which includes teachers, school officials, and the child's parents), an IEP must be drafted in compliance with a detailed set of procedures. §1414(d)(1)(B) (internal quotation marks omitted). These procedures emphasize collaboration among parents and educators and require careful consideration of the child's individual circumstances. §1414. The IEP is the means by which special education and related services are "tailored to the unique needs" of a particular child. Rowley, 458 U. S., at 181.
Parents and educators often agree about what a child's IEP should contain. But not always. When disagreement arises, parents may turn to dispute resolution procedures established by the IDEA. The parties may resolve their differences informally, through a "[p]reliminary meeting," or, somewhat more formally, through mediation. §§1415(e), (f )(1)(B)(i). If these measures fail to produce accord, the parties may proceed to what the Act calls a "due process hearing" before a state or local educational agency. §§1415(f )(1)(A), (g). And at the conclusion of the administrative process, the losing party may seek redress in state or federal court. §1415(i)(2)(A).
The District Court agreed that Amy had been denied a FAPE. The court acknowledged that Amy was making excellent progress in school: She was "perform[ing] better than the average child in her class" and "advancing easily from grade to grade." Id., at 185 (internal quotation marks omitted). At the same time, Amy "under[stood] considerably less of what goes on in class than she could if she were not deaf." Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). Concluding that "it has been left entirely to the courts and the hearings officers to give content to the requirement of an `appropriate education,'" 483 F.Supp. 528, 533 (SDNY 1980), the District Court ruled that Amy's education was not "appropriate" unless it provided her "an opportunity to achieve [her] full potential commensurate with the opportunity provided to other children." Rowley, 458 U. S., at 185-186 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Second Circuit agreed with this analysis and affirmed.
Neither position carried the day. On the one hand, this Court rejected the view that the IDEA gives "courts carte blanche to impose upon the States whatever burden their various judgments indicate should be imposed." Rowley, 458 U. S., at 190, n. 11. After all, the statutory phrase "free appropriate public education" was expressly defined in the Act, even if the definition "tend[ed] toward the cryptic rather than the comprehensive." Id., at 188. This Court went on to reject the "equal opportunity" standard adopted by the lower courts, concluding that "free appropriate public education" was a phrase "too complex to be captured by the word `equal' whether one is speaking of opportunities or services." Id., at 199. The Court also viewed the standard as "entirely unworkable," apt to require "impossible measurements and comparisons" that courts were ill suited to make. Id., at 198.
Endrew attended school in respondent Douglas County School District from preschool through fourth grade. Each year, his IEP Team drafted an IEP addressed to his educational and functional needs. By Endrew's fourth grade year, however, his parents had become dissatisfied with his progress. Although Endrew displayed a number of strengths—his teachers described him as a humorous child with a "sweet disposition" who "show[ed] concern[ ] for friends"—he still "exhibited multiple behaviors that inhibited his ability to access learning in the classroom." Supp. App. 182a; 798 F.3d 1329, 1336 (CA10 2015). Endrew would scream in class, climb over furniture and other students, and occasionally run away from school. Id., at 1336. He was afflicted by severe fears of common-place things like flies, spills, and public restrooms. As Endrew's parents saw it, his academic and functional progress had essentially stalled: Endrew's IEPs largely carried over the same basic goals and objectives from one year to the next, indicating that he was failing to make meaningful progress toward his aims. His parents believed that only a thorough overhaul of the school district's approach to Endrew's behavioral problems could reverse the trend. But in April 2010, the school district presented Endrew's parents with a proposed fifth grade IEP that was, in their view, pretty much the same as his past ones. So his parents removed Endrew from public school and enrolled him at Firefly Autism House, a private school that specializes in educating children with autism.
In February 2012, Endrew's parents filed a complaint with the Colorado Department of Education seeking reimbursement for Endrew's tuition at Firefly. To qualify for such relief, they were required to show that the school district had not provided Endrew a FAPE in a timely manner prior to his enrollment at the private school. See §1412(a)(10)(C)(ii). Endrew's parents contended that the final IEP proposed by the school district was not "reasonably calculated to enable [Endrew] to receive educational benefits" and that Endrew had therefore been denied a FAPE. Rowley, 458 U. S., at 207. An Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) disagreed and denied relief.
The Court in Rowley declined "to establish any one test for determining the adequacy of educational benefits conferred upon all children covered by the Act." 458 U. S., at 202. The school district, however, contends that Rowley nonetheless established that "an IEP need not promise any particular level of benefit," so long as it is "`reasonably calculated' to provide some benefit, as opposed to none." Brief for Respondent 15.
These statements in isolation do support the school district's argument. But the district makes too much of them. Our statement that the face of the IDEA imposed no explicit substantive standard must be evaluated alongside our statement that a substantive standard was "implicit in the Act." Rowley, 458 U. S., at 193, n. 15. Similarly, we find little significance in the Court's language concerning the requirement that States provide instruction calculated to "confer some educational benefit." Id., at 200. The Court had no need to say anything more particular, since the case before it involved a child whose progress plainly demonstrated that her IEP was designed to deliver more than adequate educational benefits. See id., at 202, 209-210. The Court's principal concern was to correct what it viewed as the surprising rulings below: that the IDEA effectively empowers judges to elaborate a federal common law of public education, and that a child performing better than most in her class had been denied a FAPE. The Court was not concerned with precisely articulating a governing standard for closer cases. See id., at 202. And the statement that the Act did not "guarantee any particular level of education" simply reflects the unobjectionable proposition that the IDEA cannot and does not promise "any particular [educational] outcome." Id., at 192 (internal quotation marks omitted). No law could do that—for any child.
More important, the school district's reading of these isolated statements runs headlong into several points on which Rowley is crystal clear. For instance—just after saying that the Act requires instruction that is "sufficient to confer some educational benefit"—we noted that "[t]he determination of when handicapped children are receiving sufficient educational benefits . . . presents a . . . difficult problem." Id., at 200, 202 (emphasis added). And then we expressly declined "to establish any one test for determining the adequacy of educational benefits" under the Act. Id., at 202 (emphasis added). It would not have been "difficult" for us to say when educational benefits are sufficient if we had just said that any educational benefit was enough. And it would have been strange to refuse to set out a test for the adequacy of educational benefits if we had just done exactly that. We cannot accept the school district's reading of Rowley.
The IEP must aim to enable the child to make progress. After all, the essential function of an IEP is to set out a plan for pursuing academic and functional advancement. See §§1414(d)(1)(A)(i)(I)-(IV). This reflects the broad purpose of the IDEA, an "ambitious" piece of legislation enacted "in response to Congress' perception that a majority of handicapped children in the United States `were either totally excluded from schools or [were] sitting idly in regular classrooms awaiting the time when they were old enough to "drop out."'" Rowley, 458 U. S., at 179 (quoting H. R. Rep. No. 94-332, p. 2 (1975)). A substantive standard not focused on student progress would do little to remedy the pervasive and tragic academic stagnation that prompted Congress to act.
This guidance is grounded in the statutory definition of a FAPE. One of the components of a FAPE is "special education," defined as "specially designed instruction . . . to meet the unique needs of a child with a disability." §§1401(9), (29). In determining what it means to "meet the unique needs" of a child with a disability, the provisions governing the IEP development process are a natural source of guidance: It is through the IEP that "[t]he `free appropriate public education' required by the Act is tailored to the unique needs of" a particular child. Id., at 181.
The school district protests that these provisions impose only procedural requirements—a checklist of items the IEP must address—not a substantive standard enforceable in court. Tr. of Oral Arg. 50-51. But the procedures are there for a reason, and their focus provides insight into what it means, for purposes of the FAPE definition, to "meet the unique needs" of a child with a disability. §§1401(9), (29). When a child is fully integrated in the regular classroom, as the Act prefers, what that typically means is providing a level of instruction reasonably calculated to permit advancement through the general curriculum.2
Rowley had no need to provide concrete guidance with respect to a child who is not fully integrated in the regular classroom and not able to achieve on grade level. That case concerned a young girl who was progressing smoothly through the regular curriculum. If that is not a reasonable prospect for a child, his IEP need not aim for gradelevel advancement. But his educational program must be appropriately ambitious in light of his circumstances, just as advancement from grade to grade is appropriately ambitious for most children in the regular classroom. The goals may differ, but every child should have the chance to meet challenging objectives.
When all is said and done, a student offered an educational program providing "merely more than de minimis" progress from year to year can hardly be said to have been offered an education at all. For children with disabilities, receiving instruction that aims so low would be tantamount to "sitting idly . . . awaiting the time when they were old enough to `drop out.'" Rowley, 458 U. S., at 179 (some internal quotation marks omitted). The IDEA demands more. It requires an educational program reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress appropriate in light of the child's circumstances.
This standard is strikingly similar to the one the lower courts adopted in Rowley, and it is virtually identical to the formulation advanced by Justice Blackmun in his separate writing in that case. See 458 U. S., at 185-186; id., at 211 (opinion concurring in judgment) ("[T]he question is whether Amy's program . . . offered her an opportunity to understand and participate in the classroom that was substantially equal to that given her non-handicapped classmates"). But the majority rejected any such standard in clear terms. Id., at 198 ("The requirement that States provide `equal' educational opportunities would . . . seem to present an entirely unworkable standard requiring impossible measurements and comparisons"). Mindful that Congress (despite several intervening amendments to the IDEA) has not materially changed the statutory definition of a FAPE since Rowley was decided, we decline to interpret the FAPE provision in a manner so plainly at odds with the Court's analysis in that case. Compare §1401(18) (1976 ed.) with §1401(9) (2012 ed.).
FootNotes 1. The requirement was initially set out in the Education of the Handicapped Act, which was later amended and renamed the IDEA. See Pub. L. 101-476, §901(a), 104 Stat. 1141. For simplicity's sake—and to avoid "acronym overload"—we use the latter title throughout this opinion. Fry v. Napoleon Community Schools, 580 U. S. ___, ___, n. 1 (2017) (slip op., at 4, n. 1).
2. This guidance should not be interpreted as an inflexible rule. We declined to hold in Rowley, and do not hold today, that "every handicapped child who is advancing from grade to grade . . . is automatically receiving a [FAPE]." Board of Ed. of Hendrick Hudson Central School Dist., Westchester Cty. v. Rowley, 458 U.S. 176, 203, n. 25 (1982).