Opinion ID: 147102
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Failure to Develop an IEP as of the First Day of Classes

Text: There is no dispute that the District failed to have an IEP in place on the first day of the 2006-2007 school year. This is a violation of the plain mandate of the IDEA that a District should have an IEP in place [a]t the beginning of each school year. 20 U.S.C. § 1414(d)(2)(A). Thus, acknowledging that a procedural violation has occurred, we must determine whether, under the circumstances, this violation can meaningfully be said to have [i]mpeded the child's right to a FAPE or caused a deprivation of [an] educational benefit. Id. § 300.513(a)(2)(i), (iii). The Fourth Circuit considered this question under similar circumstances in MM v. School District of Greenville County, 303 F.3d 523 (4th Cir.2002). In Greenville, a four year-old child (MM) suffered from a form of dystrophy and mild autism and was enrolled in a public preschool program, receiving special services under the IDEA. Id. at 528. Her parents also participated in a private in-home program for autism when MM was not in preschool. Id. For the 1995-1996 school year, MM had an IEP in place that the parents had approved. Id. In May of 1996, the IEP team convened to reassess MM's progress and proposed an IEP that did not include extended school year services to cover a summer educational program for MM. Id. at 528-29. The parents objected and the IEP was not agreed to for the 1996-1997 school year. Id. at 529. A subsequent meeting on August 8 was similarly unsuccessful, in large part because the parents insisted that the in-home autism treatment should be part of the IEP. Id. A third meeting was scheduled for August 22, but the parents cancelled the meeting. Id. The parents then unilaterally decided to enroll MM in a private kindergarten program, and she never attended classes in the public school district for the 1996-1997 school year. Id. In assessing the parents' claim for reimbursement of MM's private tuition costs, the court considered whether the school district's failure to have an IEP in place before the start of classes resulted in the loss of an educational opportunity for the disabled child, or whether ... it was a mere technical contravention of the IDEA. Id. at 533. Under the facts of that case, the court reasoned that the District was willing to offer MM a FAPE, and that it had attempted to do so[,] and that her parents had a full opportunity to participate in the development of the Proposed 1996-97 IEP. Id. at 534. Additionally, there was no evidence that MM suffered any educational loss because her parents would [not] have accepted any FAPE offered by the District that did not included reimbursement for the [in-home autism] program and MM suffered no prejudice from the District's failure to agree to her parents' demands. Id. at 535. The court ultimately concluded that [b]ecause this procedural defect did not result in any lost educational opportunity for MM, the reimbursement claim failed. Id. The court further admonished, it would be improper to hold [the] School District liable for the procedural violation of failing to have the IEP completed and signed, when that failure was the result of [the parents'] lack of cooperation. Id. at 534 (quoting district court slip op. at 15). On the other hand, we note the Sixth Circuit, in Knable v. Bexley City School District, 238 F.3d 755, 766-67 (6th Cir. 2001), held that a draft IEP did not satisfy the IDEA and that the school district's failure to formulate a final IEP prior to the start of the school year resulted in a denial of FAPE. However, central to the Sixth Circuit's analysis was the fact that the school district there never convened an IEP meeting, either before or after the start of the school year, and that the disabled student enrolled in the district for the school year and never received an IEP. Thus, the court reasoned, the absence of an IEP at any time during [the child's] sixth-grade year caused [him] to lose educational opportunity. Id. at 766. Reconciling these approaches, we find the Fourth Circuit's reasoning in Greenville highly persuasive in our present analysis. The District here demonstrated consistent willingness to evaluate C.H. and to develop an IEP for the 2006-2007 school year. Despite some initial delays in finalizing the authorization, C.H. was evaluated by a District psychologist a month before the start of school and an IEP team convened shortly thereafter to develop his educational program. Although the IEP was not completed in the first meeting, it was the Parents and not the District who delayed the continuation of that meeting until after the start of classes, and ultimately terminated the process by filing a due process request. Like the court in Greenville, we decline to hold that a school district is liable for procedural violations that are thrust upon it by uncooperative parents. Additionally, we lack the essential element in the Sixth Circuit's analysis in Knable: the ability to determine whether the failure to develop an IEP on the first day of classes would have resulted in a lost educational benefit for the disabled child. C.H. never attended a single class in the District in the 2006-2007 school year. The Parents enrolled C.H. in Gow on the presumption that the District's failure to have the IEP in place on the first day would deprive C.H. of an educational benefit. Neither the Hearing Panel nor the District Court credited this presumption as fact. Rather, the Hearing Panel reasoned that an IEP could have been developed for C.H. within a week of the start of the school year, had C.H. remained in the District and had the Parents continued to cooperate. We will not disrupt that determination in the face of mere supposition. Absent any evidence that C.H. would have suffered an educational loss, we are left only to determine whether the failure to have an IEP in place on the first day of school is, itself, the loss of an educational benefit. While we do not sanction a school district's failure to provide an IEP for even a de minimis period, we decline to hold as a matter of law that any specific period of time without an IEP is a denial of a FAPE in the absence of specific evidence of an educational deprivation. As the Supreme Court has cautioned, parents who unilaterally change their child's placement during the pendency of review proceedings, without the consent of state or local school officials, do so at their own financial risk. Florence County Sch. Dist. Four v. Carter, 510 U.S. 7, 15, 114 S.Ct. 361, 126 L.Ed.2d 284 (1993). Accordingly, the District's failure to have an IEP in place on the first day of classes did not deprive C.H. of a FAPE, and reimbursement on that basis was properly denied.