Opinion ID: 171080
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Related in Scope

Text: Second, the court also found, assuming arguendo that all the seizures were justified at the inception, that the detentions were nonetheless not reasonably related in scope. A seizure is permissible in its scope when the measures adopted are reasonably related to the objectives of the [seizure] and not excessive[] ... in light of the age and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction. New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 342, 105 S.Ct. 733, 83 L.Ed.2d 720 (1985). Comparing the situation to Edwards v. Rees, 883 F.2d 882 (10th Cir.1989), a case in which the vice principal detained a student for twenty minutes of questioning after the student was accused of making a bomb threat, the district court stated: [I]n contrast, Defendant Brady and her assistants detained [M.C.], a six-year-old child with emotional disabilities, for lengthy periods of time (up to one hour and forty-two minutes, based upon APS's own records, and approximately six hours, according to Plaintiff), in a `closet,' for offenses that were, relatively speaking, significantly less serious than a bomb threat. Indeed, on certain occasions, Brady and her assistants placed M.C. in the timeout room for not following directions, giving angry looks, mimicking his peers, and continuously talking; Brady's assistants extended M.C.'s detention even after M.C. complied with the five-minute rule, for remaining silent after expiration of the five minute rule and refusing to answer a question on one occasion and for trying to force a door open at the expiration of five minutes of silence on another occasion. App. 20-21. Because [t]he nature of these offenses by a six-year-old, first-grade student are not similar in kind to an offense committed by a middle school student involving a bomb threat to a school, the court held the scope of the timeouts was not reasonably related to the necessity of the seizure in the first place. Id. We do not agree with this mode of analysis. Although a bomb threat is more serious misconduct than M.C.'s threats, taunts, and tantrums, the comparison does not make the defendants' use of timeouts unreasonable. The detentions in the two cases had entirely different purposes. In Edwards, the student was detained for the purpose of questioning, and twenty minutes was all that was required. In this case, timeouts were employed as a technique for behavioral modification, and the length of time was determined accordingly. The district court was troubled both by the length of the timeouts and by their continued use even when M.C.'s conduct seemed to deteriorate, rather than improve, while locked in the room. The district court found that M.C.'s detentions lasted up to one hour and forty-two minutes, based upon APS's records (or six hours, based upon Plaintiff's testimony), for conduct as minor as not following direction, even though placement in the timeout room arguably exacerbated [M.C.'s] problematic behavior and his emotional state. Dist. Ct. Op. at 22. [6] M.C. did spend a considerable period locked in the timeout room, and perhaps in retrospect this was not an effective disciplinary technique. But as the district court found, even when M.C. entered the room for a small infraction, M.C. would throw[ ] his body against the walls and door of the timeout room such that the teachers would have to put all [of their] weight against the door to keep it shut. Dist. Ct. Op. at 22. Given conduct like this, it was not unreasonable for the teachers to continue to detain M.C., particularly considering that they had a reasonable fear of violence given his past behavior. The district court found unreasonable what it described as the educators' decision to barricade [M.C.] in a closet-like timeout room for one hour and thirty-five minutes for his original offense of refusing to do his spelling test, throwing his pencil into the back of his desk, and starting to walk forcefully toward the rest of the class.... Dist. Ct. Op. at 24. But this is an incomplete picture of what occurred. The educators did not confine him to the timeout room for these lengthy periods in response to his initial misconduct. The general rule was that he would be confined until he had maintained calm behavior for five minutes. It is undisputed that the further detention was in response to M.C.'s continued misbehavior on the way to the timeout room, or while in it. As the plaintiff acknowledges, on the way to the timeout room after refusing to do his spelling test, M.C. began to kick and spit at the door and scream and curse at the teachers. See Appellee's Br. 9-10. Thus, the reasonableness of the scope of the seizure expanded given M.C.'s conduct. The district court also found it unreasonable to detain[] M.C. in a timeout room for twenty-five minutes, despite the fact that [he] was becoming increasingly distraught. Dist. Ct. Op. at 24. Whether or not it was wise educational policy to keep M.C. in the timeout room when his behavior was not improving may be a difficult question. Perhaps the timeout room exacerbated M.C.'s misbehavior. But whether the timeouts were a good or effective teaching method is not the relevant question: the question is only whether the seizure was unreasonable under the circumstances then existing and apparent. Wallace, 68 F.3d at 1014. The behavioral component of M.C.'s IEP was based on the imposition of clear rules with consistent implementation of consequences, App. 466, including supervised time out, and the teachers may have believed that letting him out of timeout before he had settled down for five minutes would undermine the program. This was primarily a pedagogical judgment for the educators on the spot to make. There is no allegation that the defendants acted maliciously, but only that they misjudged the circumstances. Pedagogical misjudgments (even assuming these were misjudgments, which we cannot say), do not, without more, expose teachers to liability under the Fourth Amendment. Supreme Court opinions reinforce our disinclination to insert ourselves into the evaluation of educational policy and techniques. [T]he education of the Nation's youth is primarily the responsibility of parents, teachers, and state and local school officials, and not of federal judges. Hazelwood Sch. Dist. v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260, 273, 108 S.Ct. 562, 98 L.Ed.2d 592 (1988). [C]ourts should be loathe to intrude very far into interstitial details or to become embroiled in captious disputes as to the precise efficacy of different instructional programs. Roland M. v. Concord School Comm., 910 F.2d 983, 992 (1st Cir. 1990). Indeed, it is safe to assume that specially-trained and experienced teachers will know far more than we do about techniques best designed to improve a child's behavior. Here, Ms. Brady had several years of special education experience, during which she served as the educational director for day treatment at a children's center, and as a behavior manager for another student. She was also licensed by the Public Education Department as a special education teacher. Just as we often defer to the expertise of police officers when they determine that there is reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct, see United States v. Hauk, 412 F.3d 1179, 1187-88 (10th Cir.2005), so do we defer to a teacher's expertise about how to manage disciplinary problems or inculcate appropriate behavioral skills in his or her class. See Wofford v. Evans, 390 F.3d 318, 323 (4th Cir.2004) (Wilkinson, J.) ([L]eeway is particularly necessary when school discipline is involved.... The Supreme Court has long recognized that educators are best situated to identify those needs and optimize their implementation.); see also Wallace, 68 F.3d at 1014 (We do not narrow the acceptable range of action for dealing with disruptive students.). Unless the teacher's chosen method is patently unreasonable or blatantly not tailored to meeting the child's needs, we respect the teacher's choice. See Wallace, 68 F.3d at 1014 (Depending on the circumstances, reasonable action may certainly include the seizure of a student in the face of provocative or disruptive behavior.). Additionally, while with the benefit of hindsight we know that the timeouts may have been ineffective, the period in which the educators implemented this strategy lasted only from October 28, 2002, until January 9, 2003just over two months. It was not unreasonable to believe that the technique might become effective over time if consistently implemented. Two months of mixed results is not such a long period that a reasonable teacher would necessarily have abandoned this option, particularly given that the technique was mandated by the IEP. The district court also found that the timeouts were unreasonable because they occurred in a `closet'-like timeout room, with nothing in it, no exterior window, dim light, and black construction paper over the window. Dist. Ct. Op. at 23. The district court noted that the New Mexico Department of Education and the Arizona Public School have issued standards directing that timeout rooms must remain unlocked and free and clear of obstructions, and be clean, well lit, ventilated and free of all objects. App. 627, 639. While we accept the district court's finding that the timeout room did not precisely meet these standards, the Supreme Court has made clear that officials do not lose their qualified immunity merely because their conduct violates some statutory or administrative provision. Davis v. Scherer, 468 U.S. 183, 194, 104 S.Ct. 3012, 82 L.Ed.2d 139 (1984); see also Tanberg v. Sholtis, 401 F.3d 1151, 1159-60 (10th Cir. 2005); Smith v. Freland, 954 F.2d 343, 347 (6th Cir.1992) (The issue is whether [the officer] violated the Constitution, not whether he should be disciplined by the local police force.). The Constitution establishes certain minimum thresholds for official conduct. It is to be expectedand hopedthat states, school boards, police departments, and other agencies will go beyond constitutional minima in determining the standards and policies to which their employees must conform. If federal courts were to regard such standards as setting the boundaries for reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment and thus for purposes of imposing monetary liability on local officials and agencies, it would create a disincentive for the promulgation of rigorous standards, and would place interpretation and enforcement of those standards into the hands of federal judges. See Davis, 468 U.S. at 195, 104 S.Ct. 3012; Herring v. Keenan, 218 F.3d 1171, 1180 (10th Cir.2000). Aside from any deviation from state or local standards, and accepting the district court's judgment that the conditions in the timeout room were less than ideal, we do not believe that they were unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. The room may have been small, but it was unlocked and ordinarily well lit. The teachers' decision to forcibly restrain[] the door, Dist. Ct. Op. at 23, was a reasonable response to a child who was scratching and kicking at the door while shouting curse words and death threats. Likewise, the black construction paper was placed on the window to prevent M.C. from looking out of the room and making faces at the other students in the class. Finally, the district court was troubled by the plaintiff's assertion that the teachers kept M.C. in the timeout room despite the fact that [M.C.] repeatedly begged Brady to release him from the room to go to the bathroom. Dist. Ct. Op. at 22. The court found that M.C. did ... urinate on himself while in the timeout room, and that he threw up and/or appeared to throw up in the timeout room. Id. at 22-23. We agree that these facts, if true, are disturbing. But the teachers were unfortunately faced with a boy who cried wolf situation. M.C. consistently tried to escape from the room rather than calm down and follow directions, offering a plethora of excuses. The teachers' beliefs that his request to go to the bathroom, delivered among screams and threats, was a similar attempt at release, was not unreasonable. In retrospect, the teachers may not have used the most effective technique for teaching M.C. good behavior. The district court stated that it appears that on most occasions [M.C.] had greater control of himself prior to being placed in the timeout room than after being placed in the timeout room. Dist. Ct. Op. at 23. But whether the teachers picked the best strategy is not the question before us. The question is whether the teachers' conduct was constitutionally unreasonable. M.C.'s emotional problems posed an extremely difficult challenge. We refuse to say that given this situation, these diligent and well-trained teachers acted unreasonably in continuing to use timeouts, as prescribed by M.C.'s IEP. Teachers have a challenging job as is. We need not make it harder by imposing personal liability when their attempts do not succeed. We therefore find that there was no Fourth Amendment violation here, and that the three individual defendants are entitled to qualified immunity on this claim.