Opinion ID: 524050
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: All Handicapped Children are Entitled to a Public Education

Text: 91 Subsequent to the enactment of the Act, the courts have continued to embrace the principle that all handicapped children are entitled to a public education, and have consistently interpreted the Act as embodying this principle. In Kruelle v. New Castle County School District, 642 F.2d 687 (3d Cir.1981), the court declared that [t]he Education Act embodies a strong federal policy to provide an appropriate education for every handicapped child, id. at 690, that there was an unequivocal congressional directive to provide an appropriate education for all children regardless of the severity of the handicap, 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1412(2)(C), id. at 695, and that [t]he language and the legislative history of the Act simply do not entertain the possibility that some children may be untrainable. Id. at 695 (emphasis added). In Gladys J. v. Pearland Independent School District, 520 F.Supp. 869, 879 (S.D.Tex.1981), it was held that the school district must provide a residential educational placement for a severely retarded, multiply handicapped, schizophrenic child who had extremely guarded prospects, because [t]he language and legislative history of [the] Act simply do not admit of the possibility that some children may be beyond the reach of our educational expertise. In Garrity v. Gallen, 522 F.Supp. 171, 215 (D.N.H.1981), aff'd, 697 F.2d 452 (1st Cir.1983), a class action suit brought by residents of the Laconia State School against the state, to ensure that profoundly retarded and multiply physically handicapped students receive educational services under the Act, the district court stated: plaintiffs succeeded in proving at trial not only that certain categories of individuals such as the profoundly retarded have, as a group, been discriminated against in the past, but that certain assumptions about their inability to learn and develop are inaccurate.... [And] although at one time [they] were cast aside as 'untrainable,' [many] have through habilitation learned to care for themselves.... The court concluded that profoundly retarded residents must be afforded education and training services to the same extent as mildly retarded residents, even though the teaching methods might be different. Id. at 217. In its Order for Implementation, the court stated No member of the aforesaid subclass shall be denied special education and related services based on the severity of his/her handicap.... (emphasis added). And in Battle v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 629 F.2d 269 (3d Cir.1980), cert. denied, 452 U.S. 968, 101 S.Ct. 3123, 69 L.Ed.2d 981 (1981), rather than the court ruling that a severely and profoundly handicapped child's seemingly insurmountable handicaps should preclude him from a public education, the court ordered the school to provide him an additional summer program because of the severity of his disability. 92 The district court's reliance on Matthews v. Campbell, 3 EHLR 551:264 (E.D.Va.1979), is misfounded. In ordering the school district to provide a residential placement for a profoundly mentally retarded child, the Matthews' court speculated as to what it might do if the child proved uneducable even in that setting, but commented that [n]either the language of the Act nor the legislative history appears to contemplate the possibility that certain children may simply be untrainable. Id. at 266. The district court's reliance on Parks v. Pavkovic, 753 F.2d 1397 (7th Cir.1985), is also misplaced. In Parks, the court speculated that in the hypothetical case of a child in a coma, the state might not have to pay for the living expenses of such a child placed in an institution since such a child would be uneducable and therefore his living expenses would not be related to education. Id. at 1405. This dictum is irrelevant to the instant case. Timothy W. lives at home, is seeking only educational services, not institutional placement, is not in a coma, and does respond to stimuli and his environment. Moreover, the actual issue in the Parks case directly dealt with the question of uneducability for severely handicapped and retarded children (as opposed to a hypothetical child in a coma): 93 With persons as severely retarded as [plaintiff], the scope for education is extremely limited, but we do not understand the state to be arguing that [plaintiff] or the other members of the class are uneducable. Nor would such an argument be likely to succeed (see, e.g., Abrahamson v. Hershman, 701 F.2d at 228). 94 Id. at 1406 (emphasis added).