Opinion ID: 2973923
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Validity of David’s IEPs

Text: Next, Nack claims that Orange procedurally violated the IDEA since the various IEPs created for David did not conform to the requirements of 20 U.S.C. § 1414(d)(1)(A). The SLRO found that there were no procedural violations in the fifth-grade or seventh-grade IEPs. As for the sixth-grade IEP, the SLRO, like the IHO, ruled that procedural errors were committed, including “that either sufficient present levels of educational performance were not provided or were not provided to the extent necessary to implement goals and objectives,” and that Orange had “fail[ed] to provide weekly assignment sheets.” However, the SLRO ruled that there was no substantive violation in that “these errors in the IEP [neither] resulted in a loss of educational opportunity for the Student or infringed upon Parent’s opportunity to participate in the IEP process.” On review, the district court noted that Orange did not dispute that the IEPs were incomplete, but the court ultimately found that “there [was] no evidence that David or Mrs. Nack suffered any substantive harm as a result of the omission of such data, and thus nothing to connect the procedural shortcomings to actual denial of educational opportunities for David.” Looking first to the fifth- and seventh-grade IEPs, Nack asserts that these IEPs failed to conform to the requirements of § 1414(d)(1)(A), but points to no particular portions of the IEPs that are flawed and instead chooses to simply state that the IEPs failed to conform to many of the IDEA’s requirements. Nevertheless, a review of the fifth-grade IEP shows that it fully complies with the requirements of § 1414(d)(1)(A)(I) and 34 C.F.R. § 300.347 in that it contains all of the required information and there are no allegations that Orange erred in its implementation. Similarly, the seventh-grade IEP contains the required information and Nack again fails to point to any specific No. 05-3256 Nack v. Orange City School District Page 6 problems.2 Given both the apparent completeness of each IEP and that Nack points to no particular deficiencies with the creation or implementation of the IEPs, the fifth- and seventh-grade IEPs satisfy the procedural requirements of the IDEA. See 20 U.S.C. § 1414(d)(1)(A)(I); 34 C.F.R. § 300.347(a). As for the sixth-grade IEP, Orange concedes that it failed to appeal to the SLRO the IHO’s decision that David’s sixth-grade IEP did not conform with the requirements of 20 U.S.C. § 1414(d)(1)(A). Therefore, we assume that David’s sixth-grade IEP was procedurally flawed. Nonetheless, “[a] procedural violation of the IDEA is not a per se denial of a FAPE; rather, a school district’s failure to comply with the procedural requirements of the Act will constitute a denial of a FAPE only if such violation causes substantive harm to the child or his parents.” Knable ex rel. Knable v. Bexley City Sch. Dist., 238 F.3d 755, 765 (6th Cir. 2001) (citations omitted). Substantive harm occurs when the procedural violations in question either “seriously infringe upon the parents’ opportunity to participate in the IEP process” or “deprive an eligible student of an individualized education program or result in the loss of educational opportunity.” Id. at 765-66 (citations omitted). Mrs. Nack does not allege that her opportunity to participate in the IEP process was seriously infringed upon by these procedural violations. Instead, relying heavily upon the Sixth Circuit decision in Boss, 144 F.3d 391, Nack argues that David was substantively harmed by the failure of the IEP to provide a baseline to measure David’s future progress. In Boss, the IEP did not include “appropriate objective criteria for measuring [the child’s] progress,” 144 F.3d at 398, and instead contained only “vague and general statements,” id. at 394 n.1. Since the required components of an IEP are how “the adequacy of an IEP is to be judged,” we held that this violation was “far from technical” and not harmless since the “omission went to the heart of the substance of the plan.” Id. at 398-99. We distinguished a prior case, Doe ex rel. Doe v. Defendant I, 898 F.2d 1186 (6th Cir. 1990), by noting that the ruling in that case “relied upon the undisputed fact that ‘the information absent from the IEP was known to all parties.’” Id. at 399. Defendant I held that invalidating an IEP for minor technical violations would “exalt form over substance” given the Supreme Court’s concern with “[a]dequate parental involvement and participation in formulating an IEP, not adherence to the laundry list of items” now in § 1414(d)(1)(A)(i). 898 F.2d at 1191. This case appears closer to Defendant I than Boss. The primary shortcoming of the sixthgrade IEP was its failure to provide a baseline by which to measure David’s future progress. However, as the IHO noted, David’s test results, which he scored at or above proficiency standard in all categories, along with Maxine Rosenbaum’s probes showing David’s progress, demonstrated that he derived educational benefits from the sixth-grade IEP as implemented. Moreover, as the IHO noted, the short-term objectives in the IEP are capable of measurement and are not as vague and 2 Mrs. Nack does claim that Orange “did not assess David in all areas related to all his disabilities” in his seventh-grade IEP and that this also constituted a procedural violation of the IDEA under 20 U.S.C. § 1414(b)(3). She argues that Dr. Anders’s uncontradicted testimony proves this, but the IHO unreasonably refused to consider it. Despite these claims, there is ample evidence in the record to support Orange’s assertion that it was unaware of Anders’s assessment of David at the time it completed the seventh-grade IEP. As the IHO noted, “it was not appropriate for the parent to expressly withhold this information from team participants at these meetings and now to raise the need for an occupational therapy evaluation as an issue in due process.” Due to Orange’s lack of knowledge of Anders’s occupational evaluation and the fact that Mrs. Nack had previously forbade the school system from proceeding with “general intelligence, achievement, or communicative status direct assessments of David,” Mrs. Nack cannot claim that the school system erred by not having information that she withheld from them. See Cleveland Heights-Univ. Heights City Sch. Dist. v. Boss ex rel. Boss, 144 F.3d 391, 398 (6th Cir. 1998). No. 05-3256 Nack v. Orange City School District Page 7 generalized as in Boss. In the end, the minor procedural violations of the sixth-grade IEP cannot be said to have caused David any substantive harm.3