Opinion ID: 590921
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Power of the Magistrate to Issue the Order

Text: 44 The stay-put provision of EAHCA, 20 U.S.C. § 1415(e)(3), does not tie the hands of the courts. 21 In Honig v. Doe, the Supreme Court explained that § 1415(e)(3) was designed as a remedy against the unilateral exclusion of disabled children by schools, not courts.... The stay-put provision in no way purports to limit or preempt the authority conferred on courts by § 1415(e)(2) ...; indeed, it says nothing whatever about judicial power. 484 U.S. 305, 327, 108 S.Ct. 592, 606, 98 L.Ed.2d 686 (1988) (emphasis in original; citation omitted). See also Burlington School Comm. v. Massachusetts Dep't of Educ., 471 U.S. 359, 373, 105 S.Ct. 1996, 2004, 85 L.Ed.2d 385 (1985) (the stay-put provision's purposes include prevent[ing] school officials from removing a child from the regular public school classroom over the parents' objection pending completion of the review proceedings); Andersen by Andersen v. District of Columbia, 877 F.2d 1018 (D.C.Cir.1989) (rejecting claim that the stay-put provision ties the hands of courts and schools alike until all administrative or judicial review is completed, and noting that once a district court has rendered its decision approving change in placement, that change is no longer the consequence of a unilateral decision by school authorities ... once a district court has resolved the issue of appropriate placement, the child is entitled to an injunction only outside the stay-put provision, i.e., by establishing the usual grounds for such relief). 45 Even if the stay-put provision did apply to the district courts, however, it is not implicated here, because it is designed to prevent alteration of a child's educational placement during the pendency of a dispute under EAHCA, not alteration of a child's residence. In ordering Sherri transferred from the School for the Blind, the magistrate judge did not alter Sherri's individualized educational program (IEP); merely the location in which her IEP is to be implemented. 22 The magistrate judge specifically noted in his January 13, 1992 Order that he did not contemplate a change in Sherri's IEP, merely a change in her housing. 46 An educational placement, for the purposes of EAHCA, is not changed unless a fundamental change in, or elimination of, a basic element of the educational program has occurred. See, e.g., Lunceford v. District of Columbia Bd. of Educ., 745 F.2d 1577 (D.C.Cir.1984). Thus, the February Order, by directing that Sherri be moved during the pendency of the action, but that she continue to receive appropriate educational services, did not violate EAHCA and was well within the powers of the magistrate judge.