Title: Natrona County School Dist. No. 1 v. McKnight
Citation: 1988 WY 140, 764 P.2d 1039
Docket Number: 
State: Wyoming
Issuer: Wyoming Supreme Court
Date: November 15, 1988

Natrona County School Dist. No. 1 v. McKnight Annotate this Case Natrona County School Dist. No. 1 v. McKnight 1988 WY 140 764 P.2d 1039 Case Number: 88-75, 88-76 Decided: 11/15/1988 Supreme Court of Wyoming NATRONA COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1, PETITIONER, v. ARTHUR D. McKNIGHT AND CAROLE LEE McKNIGHT, PARENTS AND NEXT FRIENDS OF DAVID McKNIGHT, A MINOR; DAVID McKNIGHT; AND THE WYOMING STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, RESPONDENTS. WYOMING STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, PETITIONER, v. ARTHUR D. McKNIGHT AND CAROLE LEE McKNIGHT, PARENTS AND NEXT FRIENDS OF DAVID McKNIGHT, A MINOR; AND DAVID McKNIGHT, RESPONDENTS. Nos. 88-75, 88-76 Appeal from the District Court, NatronaCounty, Daniel R. Spangler, J. Robert H. McCrary of Schwartz, Bon, McCrary & Walker, Casper, for petitioner Natrona County School Dist. No. 1 in No. 88-75. Donald J. Sullivan of Sullivan and Zunker, Cheyenne, for respondents McKnight in Nos. 88-75 and 88-76. Joseph B. Meyer, Atty. Gen. and Rowena L. Heckert, Sr. Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent Wyoming State Dept. of Educ. in No. 88-75 and for petitioner in No. 88-76. Before CARDINE, C.J., and THOMAS, URBIGKIT, MACY and GOLDEN, JJ. URBIGKIT, Justice. [¶1.] This appeal, third in sequence, considers the hearing officer determination that the local school district must provide compensatory education to a handicapped student for thirty-seven months beyond attained age of twenty-one years at an anticipated minimum cost of $113,208 per year, $9,434 per month or $310 per day for a total of $349,058 to be added to the previous tuition expenditure of $539,841, in addition to other amounts spent for the student's "regular" educational assistance by the Natrona County School District during his eleventh through twenty-first years. The child, born in 1966, was twenty-one on November 8, 1987 and has continued to receive the educational assistance and habilitation maintenance since that date, leaving about twenty-six months of compensatory education not yet provided for prospective costs in continuing controversy which will additionally total a cost to the state's educational system of not less than $245,284, plus the significant associated monitoring and supervisory expenses. [¶2.] This court will follow Natrona County School District No. 1 v. Ryan, 764 P.2d 1019 (Wyo. 1988) and Wyoming State Board of Education v. Cochran, 764 P.2d 1037 (Wyo. 1988) in determining that entitlement to education ends at the twenty-first birthday, and reverse the bad faith decision of the hearing officer and award of compensatory education past the twenty-first birthday as a service that the Wyoming educational institutions lack constitutional and statutory authority to provide. Monahan v. School Dist. No. 1 of DouglasCounty, 229 Neb. 139, 425 N.W.2d 624 (1988). Nor are we unmindful in application of this case to the statutes and constitution of the State of Wyoming of what was said by the United States Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, 349 U.S. 294 , 299, 75 S. Ct. 753, 756, 99 L. Ed. 1083 (1955) (Brown II) - "School authorities have the primary responsibility for education * * *." Upon reflection of this axiom, we apply the educational standard without inappropriate favor or discrimination in assessing and providing education for the handicapped as equally required for the non-discriminatory education for the unimpaired. Levine v. State Dept. of Institutions and Agencies, 84 N.J. 234, 418 A.2d 229 (1980). [¶3.] Within this complex of mixed issues of fact and law is the requirement to reconcile satisfactorily the "need for a free appropriate public education [for the student] with the need for the State to allocate scarce funds among as many handicapped children as possible," while at the same time maintaining the constitutional responsibility for a proper education for the 90% of the students who are not handicapped and the 89% of the handicapped students who are actually educable within their achievable capacity to become fully self-sustaining and participating adults. Age v. Bullitt County Public Schools, 673 F.2d 141, 145 (6th Cir. 1982).1 Our standard of philosophical review is the issue of appropriateness as addressed in majority opinion by now Chief Justice Rehnquist in Board of Educ. of Hendrick Hudson Central School Dist. Bd. of Ed., Westchester County v. Rowley, 458 U.S. 176 , 102 S. Ct. 3034, 73 L. Ed. 2d 690 (1982). We will also recognize in historical perspective the constitutional, ethical and proportionality issues which presented the endowment for congressional passage of the 1975 Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA). Comment, The Handicapped Child Has a Right to an Appropriate Education, 55 Neb.L.Rev. 637 (1976); Comment, Toward a Legal Theory of the Right to Education of the Mentally Retarded, 34 Ohio St.L.J. 554 (1973). I. ISSUES [¶4.] Issues enunciated for appeal by petitioner, Natrona County School District No. 1 (School District), include as dispositive subjects2 the contentions that the hearing officer erred: [I]n granting DM compensatory education beyond the age of twenty-one (21) years because no child in Wyoming can be educated at public expense beyond the age of twenty-one (21). [I]n determining that the prior administrative hearing regarding an appropriate educational placement and discussing the issues of due process violations, which was not appealed from by any party, did not create an estoppel nor was the same res judicata with respect to the present request for hearing involving educational deprivation, the claim for which arose out of the same issues determined in the prior administrative hearing. [¶5.] Respondents, Arthur and Carole McKnight, father and stepmother (parents), of the involved child (DM), differently phrase these subjects as whether: [I]n an appellate review of an agency hearing determination in which Petitioners offer no showing of lack of substantial evidence supporting the findings of fact about which they appeal, any consideration should or may be given to any other matter asserted by Petitioners. [A] party who successfully urges a rule of law upon a tribunal, so that it becomes the law of the case, may subsequently appeal from the application of the very rule of law which it had urged. [¶6.] Creating a collateral issue, the State Department of Education (State Board) appeared both as a captioned party and by appellate brief after filing a separate petition for review as now combined in this appeal. At issue was whether the Department or Board was a proper litigant or even properly before the hearing officer because of the parents' contention of pleading default. Our present disposition will not require any separate controversy resolution between state educational agencies and DM. Initial litigants are the School District and DM who properly and adequately present the issues to be decided. The relationships between the Wyoming state educational agencies and the controlling features of state constitution and statute as related to the federal statutes were comprehensively considered in Ryan, 764 P.2d at 1027 and will not be further discussed. Compensatory education after the termination of the statutory age eligibility period is this case for present appeal. II. FACTS [¶7.] Extended review of this educational effort of the School District will be addressed, since the present compensatory education claim relates to contended denial of the required free appropriate public education in a confined period between 1979 and 1982 of thirty-seven months. At age twenty-one, DM was considered by expert testimony to have attained something less than a chronological two year old academic development as the result of fifteen years of education and habilitation efforts of the School District. The problems of this young man are sufficiently severe so that different experts did not even agree on a diagnosis of autism, mental retardation or a combination of both. [¶8.] DM moved to Casper with his family in 1973 at the age of seven. He was placed in the A.J. Woods school as specially structured by the School District to be a high effort, heavily staffed facility for educable or trainable handicapped children, including both educable mentally retarded and trainable mentally retarded students, although primarily the latter, within the Casper school system's 13,000 students. The Woods school in Casper like Miller in Cheyenne was in the forefront of handicapped education for Wyoming public education as an advanced educational system which, commencing in the mid-1960's, undertook responsibility for trainable as well as educable students with either or both physical and mental impairment. [¶9.] Despite all staff efforts within the special education environment at Woods, with apparent instigation of the parents, by 1977, factors of low attainment, advancing chronological age, and severity of problems induced the School District to place the child, then ten years old, in the Behavior Research Institute in Providence, Rhode Island (BRI), a high tuition private handicapped facility. About two years later with concern about cost, distance, and ultimate post-education transition, DM was moved from BRI and enrolled for maintenance-educational assistance in the Devereux Foundation, another private institution located in Scottsdale, Arizona. [¶10.] It is out of this move from BRI to the Devereux Foundation that principal controversy has subsequently been generated through two separate administrative hearings, one in 1981 and this present proceeding now on appeal. After eighteen months, the Devereux Foundation, by maximum age limitation and disinclination to retain DM because of his condition, denied continued care. In November 1980, DM was returned to Casper for anticipated re-entry into Woods. This change was not acceptable to the parents who contended that residential placement was required. Evaluation for care, maintenance and education by the WyomingStateTraining School, a state institution for handicapped, was made at the request of the School District resulting in the facility's conclusion that it was not organized to provide adequate education for an individual of the status of DM. From a course of disagreements between the parents and the School District regarding standard of care, including desired domiciliary arrangements, a hearing was convened by parental request in 1981.3 [¶11.] The hearing officer found generally for the parents and DM, in determining that the School District sponsored special school was not an appropriate placement to meet DM's educational needs to provide the needed twenty-four hour supervision and educational services. Neither party appealed for judicial review. [¶12.] The IHO with this decision is not recommending placement in any particular facility but rather admonishing the district to locate suitable placement. Said placement should provide for twenty-four hour, year around program designed to meet D's needs which are not confined to a school day but rather are pervasive. The programs provided by such a facility are professionally described as "precision teaching" and require consistent implementation not only during instruction periods but during D's waking hours. Since D in the past has been managed without the use of drugs, a facility in which only scrupulously, prudent use of this form of "therapy" should be considered. Further, since the use of aversive reinforcers or punishment, although appropriate under certain circumstances, is often questioned in the management of children like D, the district should chose a facility for placement which has clear ethical procedures for approval of the use thereof and maintains appropriate communication to district personnel and the parents of the intent to use and nature of said techniques. It is apparent from the report of the hearing officer that education, training, maintenance, and parental respite were intermixed in concern to be addressed in the placement. [¶13.] To meet the decision requirements, and find an area of agreement with the parents, the School District hired an independent specialist, Dr. Allen Huang of Greeley, Colorado, for placement direction. Dr. Huang first considered placement in another Arizona institution called the Valley of the Sun which, with several other facilities, was visited. Finally, finding nothing that was acceptable to the family, he recommended re-enrollment in BRI, where DM has remained. [¶14.] BRI is a well-publicized non-profit corporation devoted to the development of behavioral technology. The facility combines residential units in Massachusetts and adjacent educational facilities in Rhode Island. The usual type of person accepted for placement involves severe behavioral problems. The regimen for control and instruction involves extensive use of negative aversives as well as affirmative food rewards as a very structured process. It was in the use of physical aversives that controversy developed; as for example, the delayed re-enrollment of DM in the institution in 1982 resulted from differences between Dr. Huang and BRI about limitations on use of certain aversive procedures for DM. [¶15.] As evidenced in the record through one of DM's individualized educational programs, the aversives included were: The aversives which may be used are to be administered in a hierarchical fashion so as to ensure that at all times the student is receiving the least restrictive procedure that is effective in dealing with the behavior or treatment problem in question. Aversives for inappropriate behaviors are always to be used in paired combination with rewards for the opposite, desired behaviors. Aversives are to be employed within various constraints established by, among others, licensing and funding authorities, BRI's Human Rights and Peer Review Committees, and the Institute's own policies and procedures. Consultation from medical and psychiatric experts shall be used, when required, and the students are regularly examined by a nurse and by BRI staff with respect to the effects of aversives. Decisions concerning employment of, and change of, aversives are governed by data taken daily. The aversives which may be used singly, in specified multiples, or in combination, and within the foregoing restraints and safeguards, include the following (which are not necessarily listed in the particular hierarchical order in which they might be used in a particular case): ignoring, no, token fine, water spray, vapor spray, vision-occluding, and sound-masking helmet, ammonia, taste aversive, cool shower, muscle squeeze, spank, pinch, time-out helmet with safety tube and optional automatic vapor spray, contingent physical exercise, and hand squeeze. It is understood that the number to be used cannot be limited in advance because it depends largely upon the number of times the inappropriate behavior occurs. Permission forms describing these procedures in detail are to be signed by the parents and renewed periodically. The requirement for placement by Dr. Huang included: After carefully reviewing your letter, the data you sent to me, and the materials in my office, I feel that my recommendation for [DM] to attend BRI or any other agency with the condition to exclude a "cold shower" and a "time-out with physical restraint in the barrel" from his treatment program should not be changed. It is not my intent to debate "the issue" related to aversive treatment at this time. I recognize, however, that some aversive procedures in conjunction with positive reinforcement may be needed to assist [DM's] total growth including social, psychological, and physical. Based upon the findings from my review, research, and observation, I have recommended your program with the best interests of [DM] in mind. I do believe that you and your staff could use many alternative techniques to work with [DM] and accomplish the objectives set for him.[4] [¶16.] In considerable detail, the entire hearing record demonstrates professional differences in acceptance of the BRI system, both as a matter of philosophy regarding corporal punishment and retained permanency of achieved behavioral modification after discontinuance. The latter concern is reflected in asserted refusal of some institutions to accept students who have previously attended BRI. More substantive in the unresolved inquiry is the retentive factor in adulthood of the "prompt proneness" in the system as a character retention factor upon the individual's movement to a less structured environment, such as a sheltered workshop; in short, does the rigidly controlled and augmented system lapse for behavioral control when discontinued. [¶17.] As clearly established by this record, BRI accomplished a life skill improvement of real credibility and a decreased destructive character of behavior for DM which had not been achieved by any other education or training system or institution. The unresolved doubt within the education fraternity was the application of the improvement to transition him to other environments, and whether near maximum results from that environment had been achieved first in 1979 or later by 1985-1986 so that the program thereafter was essentially maintenance and minimally directed education or training. Unquestionably, actual attainment age of approximately two years did not change for a period of eight to ten years of chronological time for the individual. Consequently, the philosophic subject of scope of responsibility of public education for twenty-four hour maintenance and habilitation5 was directly presented. [¶18.] In 1987, the School District was officially advised by the State Department of Education, that the State would not fund post-twenty-first birthday continued education for any handicapped student. The parents of DM were advised of the School District discontinuance of educational service which provided the domiciliary care at BRI. Another hearing was then requested by the parents under the procedures of federal statutes and state rules to contest this placement change. With a new hearing officer named by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, primary issues developed were eligibility for additional education for the year past twenty-first birthday and compensatory education for the period between 1979 and 1982 when DM was not in BRI.6 [¶19.] The hearing officer made three broad decisions; two legal and one factual. In legal decision, he determined, as had the hearing officer in Cochran, 764 P.2d 1037 (Wyo. 1988), that public educational eligibility in Wyoming ended at the twenty-first birthday. With this conclusion, we concur as established by our decisions in Ryan, 764 P.2d 1019 (Wyo. 1988) and implicit in Cochran, 764 P.2d 1037 (Wyo. 1988). A second legal conclusion was then made by him in contradiction of the first decision, that he could require compensatory education beyond age twenty-one if, in his analysis, any period of adequate free appropriate public education had been denied during any time of the School District's responsibility of 1973 through DM's twenty-first birthday in 1987. [¶20.] The third decision by the hearing officer was factual in determination that the School District acted in bad faith both substantively and procedurally in interruption of placement at BRI in 1979 as considered in the 1981 hearing. As a result of the factual decision and in accord with the second legal conclusion, he ordered thirty-seven months of post-twenty-one age compensatory education to apparently be provided in BRI. [¶21.] In application of both federal and state law, we separately consider these three substantive topics after first resolving the standard for review to be applied by this court. III. STANDARD FOR REVIEW BY THIS COURT [¶22.] In Ryan, we casually considered the standard of review by the judicial tribunal to consider a petition for review from an administrative agency decision. This case in present juncture is somewhat novel for a number of reasons, including initially the uncustomary process provided in Wyoming law of the direct certification from district court to the Supreme Court when a petition for review is presented by an administrative agency under the purview of W.R.A.P. 12.09.7 Consequently, for present disposition, the decision of this court apprehends unusual characteristics of fact finding and appellate adjudication. Additionally, we are not presented with a typically reviewed decision from an administrative agency. The hearing officer in this case was not professionally trained in educational matters, since designated by application and status as a practicing attorney. His evidentiary decision was not evaluated by the professional agency implicit in the normal administrative proceedings. This would normally put the trial court, and in certification situation, this court in the express posture of re-analyzing the basic evidence used for decision since the technical expertise is not a factor presented. Additionally, we are presented with the peculiarities of the federal statutes which provide concurrent jurisdiction to either the federal or state courts and specifically apply a standard of review which is different from the normal process of federal administrative law or this state. Title 20 U.S.C. § 1415(e)(2) (1982 ed. & Supp. IV 1986) states: Any party aggrieved by the findings and decision made under subsection (b) [hearing process in local or state venue] who does not have the right to an appeal under subsection (c) of this section, [review of local decision by state superintending authority] and any party aggrieved by the findings and decision under subsection (c) of this section, shall have the right to bring a civil action with respect to the complaint presented pursuant to this section, which action may be brought in any State court of competent jurisdiction or in a district court of the United States without regard to the amount in controversy. In any action brought under this paragraph 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 such relief as the court determines is appropriate. [Emphasis added.] This standard of review is simply not compatible with Wyoming administrative review standards of W.R.A.P. 12.09 and W.S. 16-3-114(c), which are comparable to present standards of the federal courts and most states. [¶23.] A fairly detailed consideration of the extensive number of EHA cases demonstrated that the normal administrative review standard is not preclusive. Beasley v. School Bd. of CampbellCounty, 6 Va. App. 206, 367 S.E.2d 738 (1988). Although this result is largely derived from the text of the federal statute itself as considered in general terms by the United States Supreme Court in Board of Education v. Rowley, 458 U.S. 176 , 102 S. Ct. 3034, 73 L. Ed. 2d 690, (1982) there has developed a fairly specified set of special EHA review rules as similar in both state and federal courts. [¶24.] First applied is the concept that the review analysis when considering the hearing officer's decision encompasses mixed questions of law and fact with the effective fact finding function finitely transferred to the judiciary by 20 U.S.C. § 1415(e)(2) (1982 ed. & Supp. IV 1986). Rowley, 458 U.S. 176 , 102 S. Ct. 3034, 73 L. Ed. 2d 690; Doe v. Anrig, 692 F.2d 800 (1982), overruled on other grounds, 722 F.2d 910 (1st Cir. 1983). The decisional process requires that "a district court must make an independent determination based on a preponderance of the evidence, giving due weight to the state administrative proceedings." Geis v. Board of Educ. of Parsippany-Troy Hills, MorrisCounty, 774 F.2d 575, 583 (3rd Cir. 1985) (emphasis added). In Geis, the appellate court perceived that "the district court did exactly that, specifically citing the evidence in its record and the administrative record that supported its conclusion, as well as discussing the conflicting evidence." Id. at 583. See Board of Trustees of Pascagoula Mun. Separate School Dist. v. Doe, 508 So. 2d 1081 (Miss. 1987). See also David D. v. Dartmouth School Committee, 775 F.2d 411 (1st Cir. 1985), cert. denied 475 U.S. 1140, 106 S. Ct. 1790, 90 L. Ed. 2d 336 (1986) and Roncker on Behalf of Roncker v. Walter, 700 F.2d 1058 (6th Cir.), cert. denied 464 U.S. 864, 104 S. Ct. 196, 78 L. Ed. 2d 171 (1983).8 [¶25.] The appellate consideration standard (as in the future to be first applied in this state by the district court) is that review is conducted de novo with issues presented encompassing mixed questions of fact and law, Wexler v. Westfield Bd. of Educ., 784 F.2d 176 (3rd Cir.), cert. denied 479 U.S. 825, 107 S. Ct. 99, 93 L. Ed. 2d 49 (1986), from which an independent determination will be made by a preponderance of the evidence with due deference given to professional expertise and decisional appropriateness as documented by the administrative hearing. The burden of proving that the hearing officer erred is on the appealing party. Pascagoula, 508 So. 2d 1081 . [¶26.] The difficulty in decision is noted as an example in discussion of Martin v. School Bd. of Prince George County, 3 Va. App. 197, 348 S.E.2d 857, 864 (1986): As the circuit court suggested, the School Board is not responsible primarily for treatment of David's emotional disability. Nevertheless, the School Board was required to offer a residential placement in which David would receive both educational instruction and intensive professional attention for his learning disability, if a free appropriate public education could not be provided by a less restrictive placement. This determination is not a simple task for the professional educators who were directly involved in preparing an IEP for David. It is no less difficult for a court presented with the issue of residential placement to separate medical, social and educational problems. Since we establish a preponderance test for the district court and a plainly wrong test for appellate review, the arbitrary and capricious and not supported by substantial evidence standard normally employed for administrative agency review is inapposite. [¶27.] Furthermore, as an appellate tribunal, we will not ignore precedent of the United States Supreme Court decisions in application of federalism principles which are determinative on matters of constitutional application through legislation of the United States Congress. Rowley, 458 U.S. 176 , 102 S. Ct. 3034, 73 L. Ed. 2d 690, affords us no pause since we had previously held that a Wyoming standard is constitutionally emplaced for equal education and is, at least if not more, demanding than criteria resulting from the EHA. Ryan, 764 P.2d 1019 (Wyo. 1988). The substantive thesis remaining is whether School Committee of Town of Burlington, Mass. v. Department of Educ. of Mass., 471 U.S. 359 , 105 S. Ct. 1996, 85 L. Ed. 2d 385 (1985) supersedes Wyoming's statutes and constitution in requiring an ongoing educational expenditure for thirty-seven months for a person not otherwise eligible as a replacement for claimed ineffective educational assistance some six to eight years earlier. Cf. Honig v. Doe, ___ U.S. ___, 108 S. Ct. 592, 98 L. Ed. 2d 686 (1988). IV. TERMINATION OF EDUCATIONAL ELIGIBILITY AT AGE TWENTY-ONE [¶28.] This subject is settled by this court's decision in Ryan, 764 P.2d 1019 (Wyo. 1988). School District conduct and funding of post-twenty-first birthday education can be undertaken by neither the School District nor the state educational agencies as a public educational responsibility under present statutes or constitutional criteria. We have clearly defined and delineated the public educational function by age limitation as may be differentiated from higher education, vocational rehabilitation, maintenance, or medical care responsibility for the individual which would come within social services or other governmental agency responsibility. Neither the judiciary can nor the legislature has expanded public education past the intrinsic responsibility in age for what was adopted in the state constitution. The present finite limitation of public education ends with the twenty-first birthday. Adams Central School Dist. No. 090, AdamsCounty v. Deist, 214 Neb. 307, 334 N.W.2d 775 , opinion supplemented by 215 Neb. 284, 338 N.W.2d 591 (Neb.), cert. denied 464 U.S. 893, 104 S. Ct. 239, 78 L. Ed. 2d 230 (1983). Cf. Helms v. Independent School Dist. No. 3 of Broken Arrow, Tulsa County, Okla., 750 F.2d 820 (10th Cir. 1984), cert. denied 471 U.S. 1018, 105 S. Ct. 2024, 85 L. Ed. 2d 305 (1985), required equivalent years of educational opportunity. V. POST-TWENTY-ONE COMPENSATORY EDUCATION WHEN SUFFICIENCY OF THE PRIOR EDUCATION IS CONTESTED [¶29.] Intrinsic to the decision that educational responsibilities end at age twenty-one is the correlative inquiry whether, despite statute and constitution, continued eligibility can be obtained as compensatory to pre-age twenty-one challenged level of attainment. This is generically designated as the right to post-period compensatory education. As essentially resolved by Ryan, it is our conclusion that the State Board of Education lacked authority by statute or constitution which would authorize acceptance by negotiation for a residual liability against the School District to require it to violate statute and to extend the constitution in order to provide for educational services past age twenty-one. We recognize the stated argument that the federal statutory system could include a condition precedent for benefits which might invoke a compensatory contingent post-age twenty-one obligation. However, we find that no authority now exists for Wyoming to enter into this contractual requirement or any as might evolve from the federal programs by either implied agreement or adopted regulation. The hearing officer, likewise, as Monahan and Deist would teach, had no authority to order compensatory education, since the School District has no authority to provide the service. [¶30.] We are also concerned since if Wyoming, by policy, embarks upon theories of educational malpractice, which buttress claims for compensatory educational services, that it, under equal protection and due process, can properly confine relief to a subcategory of the handicapped. The system, consequently, would be faced with failed expectation complaints applicable to all "graduating" students or at least for those students who do not become Rhodes Scholars. This court is not presently willing to embrace a general theory of educational malpractice which would serve as a foundational premise from which compensatory education for those who have not reached desired limits of achievement by age twenty-one might opportunistically continue in the public educational system, and particularly so, if the predicate functions of special training or habilitation might be added. Comment, Educational Malpractice - Does the Cause of Action Exist?, 49 Mont. L.Rev. 140 (1988); Comment, Education Malpractice: A Cause of Action that Failed to Pass the Test, 90 W.Va.L.Rev. 499 (1987); Note, Educational Malpractice: A Cause of Action in Need of a Call for Action, 22 Val.U.L.Rev. 427 (1988). [¶31.] Premised on constitutional definition and defined by statutory limitations, we will not extend educational responsibility by whatever theory beyond age twenty-one at least in the absence of peculiar circumstances that are not considered here as factually established whether characterized as egregious and unremitted bad faith or otherwise. Cf. Comment, Compensatory Educational Services and the Education For All Handicapped Children Act, 1984 Wis. L.Rev. 1469 (1984). Normalized public education in Wyoming ends about age eighteen or nineteen and the additional two years generally available as compensatory to the underachiever or the handicapped should be sufficient. Obligation of general public education must end at some point and other state responsibilities of higher education, vocational rehabilitation or habilitation should commence as the succeeding state responsibility to be conceptually provided in conjunction with whatever federal programs might, by authorization of the state legislature, be available. [¶32.] It is unquestioned that since 1975, the EHA has transferred the personal responsibility of exceptional school age individuals from social services and state domiciliary facilities to the financing obligation of public education. What may have been the unmet responsibility in prior times is not ignored.9 The specific subject of compensatory education to be provided past the public education age limitation authorized in statutes and constitution has developed a checkered pathway as in part inflicted by consideration of the United States Supreme Court discussion in Burlington, 471 U.S. 359 , 105 S. Ct. 1996 and last raised by reference in majority opinion in Honig, 108 S. Ct. 592. Intertwined in application of this aspect of the individual's education is the applicability of statutes of limitation, since otherwise, a potential exposure would continue during the nineteen years when the student might be exposed to public education as finitely and finally reassessed at the limitation age which, in Wyoming, is the twenty-first birthday.10 This court will follow that application of the Wyoming Constitution and statutes for denial of compensatory education past the foreclosing age which is buttressed by well-reasoned and persuasive consideration of the Nebraska Supreme Court. See Monahan, 425 N.W.2d 624 and Deist, 334 N.W.2d 775 . See also on state law application, although not specifically addressing upper age limitations, Levine, 418 A.2d 229 . [¶33.] The Nebraska Supreme Court in last reference in Monahan, 425 N.W.2d at 628 (quoting Deist, 334 N.W.2d at 786), stated: "Turning to the issue of compensatory education, we find no support for the findings of the hearing officer in the relevant law. The [Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, 20 U.S.C. § 1401 et seq. (1976)], by its clear and unambiguous language, limits eligibility to children ages 3 to 21. § 1412(2)(B). There is no authority under this statutory scheme by which the hearing officer could grant free appropriate public educational benefits to David beyond his 21st birthday." [¶34.] We do not interpret Honig, 108 S. Ct. 592 and Burlington, 471 U.S. 359 , 105 S. Ct. 1996 to require contrary results when the application would require this court to use an administrative agreement to vitiate state statute and constitution. This posture is supported in comment by majority opinion of now Chief Justice Rehnquist in Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U.S. 1 , 25, 101 S. Ct. 1531, 1544, 67 L. Ed. 2d 694 (1981), where in considering the accepted facets of federal fund receipt by the state, he surmised in another context: [I]t is unlikely that a State would have accepted federal funds had it known it would be bound to provide such treatment. The crucial inquiry, however, is not whether a State would knowingly undertake that obligation, but whether Congress spoke so clearly that we can fairly say that the State could make an informed choice. Without legislative approval, it is apparent that the state did not intend to assume conjecturally an indefinite educational responsibility beyond the statutorily established and constitutionally defined age of twenty-one. We would note that singular discussion and significant dispute in precedent is available. White v. State, 195 Cal. App. 3d 452 , 240 Cal. Rptr. 732 , 736-37 (1987), where the court additionally found systemic exclusion from the EHA while resident in a state hospital as the "systemic denial of a free appropriate public education * * * caused by the illegal allocation of EHA funds;" Stock v. Massachusetts Hosp. School, 392 Mass. 205, 467 N.E.2d 448 (1984), cert. denied 474 U.S. 844, 106 S. Ct. 132, 88 L. Ed. 2d 109 (1985), where supporting state law to afford continued educational eligibility was found. The variant results achieved with diversified factual situations when the federal court forum was chosen does not alter our application of controlling principles for Wyoming law.11 [¶35.] This decision does not leave the student and parents without remedy. The handicapped educational system by federal persuasion and state regulation contemplates a bilateral right for discussion and an empirical right to hearing and judicial review in case of the absence of mutual agreement or acceptability as to the level of education being provided. Essentially, this is what occurred in this case as resulting in the 1981 hearing and subsequent decision, which was accepted by all parties. Whatever rights for corrective opportunity may exist under the Wyoming Constitution and public education statutes, compensatory education past age twenty-one is not included in substance, text or by construction of what the legislative branch of state government has authorized or what the judicial branch of this state may provide. VI. ADVERSE FINDING OF FACT [¶36.] Inquiry will not end at this juncture where our review is presented with a finding of the administrative hearing officer now to be considered in first judicial analysis that educational "deprivation" was the result of willful bad faith. That deprivation was found in cause and result by the 1979 removal from BRI for enrollment in Devereux Foundation, which as compensable deprivation continued until return to BRI since placement in other institutions was not thereafter mutually acceptable. We reverse the decision of the hearing officer as factually unsupported by the entire record that the educational efforts of the School District demonstrated "willful bad faith."12 This complex, convoluted and confused record13 reflects disagreement on many technical and practical questions, extreme personality reactivity of some of the participants, distinguishable concerns in allocation of financing and system responsibility for each and also all students in public education, but in no regard bad faith on the part of the school board members, Robert G. Jorgenson, Joanne Christensen, Jonnie Burton, Mary Helen Hendry, Bill Hollingsworth, George Tenant, Joanne L. Street, Joan Sutherland or J. Scott Hocker or School District employees, including school superintendent, Dr. Jacob Dailey, and legal counsel whose pathway is well-documented. Nothing in the record relates to intimated or asserted bad faith of the State Department of Education. [¶37.] With tuition expenditures by the School District now substantially exceeding $600,000 for DM, this record is noteworthy not only in demonstrated time, difficulty and expense for all participants, but also in highlighting the broad conceptual issues of public education. [¶38.] Issues, questions, contentions and philosophy are specifically marshalled under this dual hearing record (1981 and 1987) as including the diverse concepts of trainable versus educable responsibilities of public education, cost benefit criteria as a system responsibility to the exceptional student, maintenance and personal care of training as a responsibility of education, and limitations of educational capabilities as a factor of responsibility. Also intertwined are points of damage to the operational system from behaviorally uncontrolled participants, responsibility for education of twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year for maintenance of some students, use of designated milieu therapy in a twenty-four hour environment as an educational and training quotient, and levels of appropriate aversive techniques available to school systems in living skill training programs as otherwise constituting physical abuse to the recipients. Additionally involved are interests of transitional training responsibilities as the end of educational age responsibility is approaching, system responsibilities of state social services and the Wyoming State Training School for the maintenance quotient of the handicapped student's life program during the ages of five to twenty-one, extreme behavior modification (or modification of extreme behavior or modification of behavior by extreme methodology), and twenty-four hour a day structured individual care as educational component. Moreover, this context encompasses substance of twenty-four hour a day personal supervision, and more specifically appropriate here, basis of regulation of behavior involving the educational habilitation care provider of the excess use of physical aversives and misuse of food contingencies, and federal statutory preference for mainstreaming. Of course, the backdrop of variant and other variable issues which dynamically invade the responsibilities of school trustees to educate all of the students for constructing a basic foundation to maintain a democratic society is also present.14 Intrinsic to the subject is the philosophic inquiry, which is the responsibility of the elected school trustees, to allocate resources for 13,000 students within a defined budget as questioning the degree that they can afford to spend $113,208 per year for one student. Academically involved is the individualized character of the institution desired by the parents, which was exceptional not only in distance and cost,15 but in its administrative agency regulatory problems. Closer to home, educational system management and good faith exercised discretion cannot be disregarded in this review adjudication of asserted bad faith. [¶39.] The record in striking detail establishes factually the evidentiary basis for the hearing officer's finding incorporated in numbers 20, 21, 22 and 23. 20. Petitioner's IQ found to be less than 35, mental age of 2 years and adaptive behavior level of one year, eight months as a result of testing done at BRI in September, 1985. The results of a test of adaptive behavior in November, 1986, indicate an adaptive behavior level of one year, seven months. 21. Study of data provided by BRI indicates that Petitioner's progress over time has been very slow. Testimony predicted that Petitioner will "at best" function in a highly supervised, sheltered workshop or "more likely" in a work activity center. 22. Petitioner will not be able to progress to a point of living independently. He will always be in a supervised environment. No such facilities exist in the State of Wyoming which can provide an appropriate work situation for Petitioner. Other states do provide such facilities. 23. There is nothing in Petitioner's reports, evaluations, or observations of him to indicate that he will demonstrate growth in mental age or adaptive behavior in the ensuing three years. Conversely, there is absolutely no evidence which is not advocacy or conclusionary statements sufficient to sustain finding number 12.16 12. Petitioner will be trained to a level of independence which will allow him to function in a sheltered workshop environment if his training continues at BRI for approximately three more years. [¶40.] In this total record, there is a plethora of detail about DM's life skill adaptability and improvement during the School District's involvement of about fifteen years. Regardless of the challenge to techniques used by BRI, it is informative to analyze the comparable changes of recent time. This is possible, since BRI, as a very structured institution, operates with a very clear system and explicit record keeping for progress measurement. One of the goals reflected for DM upon return to BRI in 1982 was to learn to take a shower. At the hearing in December 1987, the school director provided the annual individualized educational program as invoked by "stay put" to be in effect for the year commencing December 1987 to December 1988, which is now in progress. The showering sequence of using soap, wash cloth and towel involved nineteen recognized actions or responses to the direction to "take a shower." The training system as a graduated guidance process contemplated zero to five separate "prompts" to complete the activity for each of the sequences, for a total maximum prompts in taking a shower of ninety-five. [¶41.] In an April 1986 assessment, it was reflected that DM should shower with a prompt total of twenty-four of ninety-five, 100% of the time, a six month objective reflected a prompt total of fifteen or less and a one year objective of seven prompts or less. This is only the very normal daily shower. In June 1987, the status was eighteen prompts, the six month objection of fifteen prompts, and the annual goal to be seven prompts. The hearing date December 1987 report reflected the present status at that time: PRESENT STATUS OF SKILL 1. [DM] showers with a prompt total of 23 (of 95), 100% of the time. SIX MONTH OBJECTIVE 1. [DM] will shower with a prompt total of 18 or less, 100% of the time. ANNUAL GOALS 1. [DM] will shower with a prompt total of 12 or less, 100% of the time. [Emphasis added.] The 1986 goal had not been achieved and a 1987 regression had occurred. A further review of activity comparisons between April 1986 and December 1987 similarly reveal a personal case plateau of improvements for explicit tasks of washing hands and combing hair, and no notable improvement or regression in washing face and shaving. Nothing in the sequenced documentation as found in this comprehensive record reveals a general level of current improvement in living skills. More striking, however, is the documentation which reflects an allocation of individualized instructional time of 5% to academics in 1987 as compared to 20% of four years earlier in 1983, or a decrease of 15%. The comparisons of the earlier to current times are self-care, 25% versus 20%; individual living 20% versus 20%; free vocational 5% versus 30%; language 20% versus 10%; academics 20% versus 5%; social skills 5% versus 10%; and physical education 5% versus 5%. What this factually demonstrates in the recent period of "education" and "training" in BRI was that language and academics dropped from 40% to 15% as the student went from age eighteen to twenty-one. See Matthews By Matthews v. Davis, 742 F.2d 825 (4th Cir. 1984), where the rented apartment and employed attendant reached the limit of achieved benefit. [¶42.] To be perceived from this broadly venturing record encompassing a multitude of educational inquiries is the recognition of a required exercise of discretion by the management of a school district and the countervailing objection of a student to the conclusions made and actions taken. Unless this court embarks on a program of embargoing responsible citizen community participation in elected office public responsibilities, a deference is required to elected officials who make contested decisions upon exercised discretion, Board of Educ. v. Wieder, 72 N.Y.2d 174 , 531 N.Y.S.2d 889, 527 N.E.2d 767 (1988), as different from egregious bad faith. In recognizing the tenant of public service to be of the essence in a democratic society, we determine that such a difference must be demonstrated by evidence which is clear, specific and persuasive. That test is not met in this record, and consequently such further findings as may have been factually made by the hearing officer to justify the compensatory educational program at a time now more than five years later than the challenged period are also factually and legally unsupported. After analysis of all of the evidence in this extensive record, this court both finds and determines that the School District has satisfied its educational obligation under EHA and Wyoming statutes to DM. A.C.B. By Pearlman v. Denver Dept. of Social Services, 725 P.2d 94 (Colo. App. 1986). VII. COLLATERAL ESTOPPEL AND STARE DECISIS [¶43.] The School District argues that the first hearing was determinative as to the relief to be granted, and that in compliance therewith, the School District was not further subject to additional penalization for compensatory education during the contested period as an issue neither raised nor determined at that time. The kinds of educational decisions and budgetary priority allocations which are encompassed within the subject, caution this court to avoid invitation to discuss this difficult subject which is not separately determinative for this decision. VIII. OTHER ISSUES [¶44.] Two other broad issues were comprehensively briefed and assiduously argued in oral presentation before this court. The first was an argument presented by the School District of the undisclosed bias of the hearing officer. We simply note in rejection of consideration that documentation is lacking to afford a factual basis for analysis of the acidity of the argument presented. [¶45.] The second argument of singularly greater validity also will not be addressed by virtue of the decision which we make. This is the quandary of the applicable statute of limitations for student compensatory rights derived from contended improper School District conduct in the period 1979 to 1982. Adler By Adler v. Education Dept. of State of N.Y., 760 F.2d 454 (2d Cir. 1985). This subject directly raises the applicability and validity of the Wyoming statute of limitations for rights derived from federal statutes, W.S. 1-3-115. Although the consideration of this statute by the very recent Tenth Circuit Court of Appeal case, Trustees of Wyoming Laborers Health and Welfare Plan v. Morgen & Oswood Const. Co., Inc. of Wyoming, 850 F.2d 613 (10th Cir. 1988), deserves immediate attention by the Wyoming legislature, we decline present comment on the validity of that statute or other limitation statutes. Cf. Spiegel v. School Dist. No. 1, LaramieCounty, 600 F.2d 264 (10th Cir. 1979). Spielberg By Spielberg v. Henrico County Public Schools, 853 F.2d 256 (4th Cir. 1988); Adler, 760 F.2d 454; Flavin v. ConnecticutState Bd. of Educ., 553 F. Supp. 827 (D.Conn. 1982); and Note, Limitations Period for Actions Brought Under § 1415 of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, LVI Fordham L.Rev. 725 (1988). IX. REMEDIATION [¶46.] This is the third case currently considered in which the litigative process has effectively required a school district and the State of Wyoming to pay for extra-statutory and unjustified educational services based on the student's contention of the School District's extended responsibility past the twenty-first birthday. Since the hearing officer lacked jurisdiction to grant educational services which extend beyond Wyoming's constitutional and statutory authorizations, we find no basis for payment by application of either the "stay put" provisions of federal law, 20 U.S.C. § 1415(e)(3) (1982 ed. & Supp. IV 1986), or SBE Rule, § 84, "Status of Child During Hearings," beyond the date of the issuance of our mandate. Janzen v. KnoxCountyBd. of Educ., 790 F.2d 484 (6th Cir. 1986). Consequently, since DM is now beyond the age of twenty-one years, further obligation for the maintenance of educational benefits will be continued for DM only to the date when our mandate issues in this case. After that time, neither the School District nor the State Board of Education is afforded the obligation or opportunity to continue to expend these funds as if the individual has not yet achieved the age of twenty-one years. Ryan, 764 P.2d 1019 (Wyo. 1988). "Stay put" and SBE Rule, § 84 end at age twenty-one unless this decision is reversed with supersession of the Wyoming statutes and constitution by federal authority. [¶47.] Reversed and remanded to the district court to enter an order in conformity herewith. FOOT