Opinion ID: 590921
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Review of Applicable Law

Text: 47 Under EAHCA, the principle of mainstreaming disabled individuals with able-bodied individuals is well established. See, e.g., Board of Educ. of Hendrick Hudson Cent. School Dist., Westchester County v. Rowley, 458 U.S. 176, 202-03, 102 S.Ct. 3034, 3049 (1982). Even in cases in which mainstreaming is not a feasible alternative, there is a statutory preference for serving disabled individuals in the setting which is least restrictive of their liberty and which is near the community in which their families live. See, e.g., Burlington School Comm., 471 U.S. at 373, 105 S.Ct. at 2004; Kerkam v. Superintendent, D.C. Public Schools, 931 F.2d 84, 87 (D.C.Cir.1991). The decisions of both the special education hearing officer and the magistrate judge appear to have been based upon this understanding of EAHCA and relevant Texas regulations. 48 While the School for the Blind might be capable of providing services from which Sherri may obtain educational benefit (the standard for appropriateness of free public education under Rowley ), the School for the Blind is not the least restrictive environment in which Sherri may receive appropriate educational services. The capacity of the School for the Blind to provide educational services to Sherri may in some respects far exceed what EAHCA requires. However, EAHCA does not mandate that every child with a disability receive optimal services. Lunceford, 745 F.2d at 1583 (The EAHCA does not secure the best education money can buy; it calls upon government, more modestly, to provide an appropriate education for each child); Rowley, 458 U.S. at 198201, 102 S.Ct. at 3046-3048; Knight v. District of Columbia, 877 F.2d 1025, 1028-30 (D.C.Cir.1989); Kerkam, 931 F.2d at 87. Instead, EAHCA requires that appropriate educational services be delivered in the least restrictive environment available, with a preference for mainstreaming when possible. 23 The concern for enhancing the disabled child's ability to obtain educational benefit must be balanced with concerns about limited public resources, the need to provide basic educational opportunities to disabled and able-bodied children alike, and the concern to serve the disabled child in the environment which is least restrictive of the child's liberty. 49 In directing Sherri's transfer to a community residence, and requiring appropriate educational programming to be delivered to Sherri by her home school district, the February Order tracks the purposes of EAHCA: to provide a free, appropriate education in the least restrictive environment. Read in light of the applicable law, the February Order would mandate transfer of Sherri A.D. from the School for the Blind to a community placement not immediately, but as soon as housing can be located and appropriate educational services developed in the local public school system. The requirement that Sherri be moved no later than January 1, 1992 was a reasonable limit on the amount of time it should take to obtain such housing and educational services for Sherri. 24 All that was required of the local public school system was to obtain the services of a vocational education teacher and to acquire simple facilities for training Sherri in self-care and simple tasks that might one day be useful to Sherri in supported employment (e.g., folding laundry).