Opinion ID: 437224
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Parents' Transfer of John to the Carroll School

Text: 92 The Town argues that we should affirm the district court's ruling in its favor on the basis of the parents' conduct in September 1979. Specifically, it urges that because John's parents enrolled him in the private Carroll School prior to the conclusion of the state administrative proceedings, they violated Sec. 1415(e)(3), and are therefore barred from any reimbursement relief. That section provides in pertinent part: 93 During the pendency of any proceedings conducted pursuant to this section, unless the State or local educational agency and the parents or guardian otherwise agree, the child shall remain in the then current educational placement of such child, ... until all such proceedings have been completed. 94 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1415(e)(3). In support of its position, the Town cites two Fourth Circuit cases, Rowe v. Henry County School Board, 718 F.2d 115 (4th Cir.1983); Stemple v. Board of Education, 623 F.2d 893 (4th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 911, 101 S.Ct. 1348, 67 L.Ed.2d 334 (1981), and one Eighth Circuit case, Monahan v. Nebraska, 645 F.2d 592, 598 (8th Cir.1980). 31 The State and Does argue that the child had no current educational placement and that the State and parents had otherwise agree[d]. 95 We have already departed from Stemple and joined the Seventh Circuit in ruling that Sec. 1415(e)(3) establishes a strong preference, but not a statutory duty, for maintenance of the status quo. Doe v. Brookline, 722 F.2d at 918. We expressly reserved opinion on whether parental self-help constitutes a bar to a reimbursement remedy at final judgment. That question is now squarely before us, and we respectfully decline to follow the Fourth Circuit. 96 The rule the Fourth Circuit adumbrated in Stemple and Rowe was an interpretation of Sec. 1415(e)(3) in opinions which did not rely on either the Act's legislative history or the structure and purposes of the Act as a whole. In Stemple, the court held that a statutory duty for the parents not to alter the child's educational placement arose as soon as school authorities make identification, evaluation, and placement of a handicapped child and continues until a decision not to contest it is reached or, if a contest ensues, until that contest is finally determined. 623 F.2d at 898. In Brookline we quoted the only legislative history directed to (e)(3), wherein a Conference Committee Senator explained that the Committee felt that a placement or change of placement should not be unnecessarily delayed while long and tedious administrative appeals were being exhausted. Thus the conference adopted a flexible approach. 121 Cong.Rec. 37412 (Nov. 19, 1975). Accordingly, we concluded 97 [w]e do not believe that Congress intended to freeze an arguably inappropriate program for the three to five years of review proceedings. To construe (e)(3) in this manner would thwart the express central goal of the Act: provision of a free appropriate education to disabled children. Sec. 1412(1) (emphasis added). 98 Brookline at 918. 99 A number of cases have indicated Congress' prescience regarding the need for flexibility in applying the Act. Sometimes cases are brought because the parents expect too much from the school system, and the parents deem even extraordinary efforts on the part of the system insufficient for the child. See, e.g., Rettig v. Kent City School District, 539 F.Supp. 768 (N.D.Ohio 1981), aff'd in pertinent part, vacated in part, 720 F.2d 463 (6th Cir.1983). By all reports, the child is in an appropriate, and indeed, an excellent placement, and there is no reason for the child to be moved during the pendency of review, or even after review. At the other extreme, as we observed in Brookline, there are cases in which the school system is plainly not handling the child's special education in an appropriate manner. These cases might involve a school system which refuses to complete the diagnostic and placement process authorized by the Act, see, e.g., Quackenbush v. Johnson City School District, 716 F.2d 141 (2d Cir.1983), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 104 S.Ct. 1426, 79 L.Ed.2d 750 (1984); Williams v. Overture, No. 83-C-897-S (W.D.Wisc. Feb. 24, 1984); Blazejewski v. Board of Education of Allegany, 560 F.Supp. 701 (W.D.N.Y.1983), or which declines to provide an appropriate private placement where a public placement is plainly lacking, see, e.g., Parks v. Pavkovic, 536 F.Supp. 296 (N.D.Ill.1982). In Brookline, we implicitly recognized in these circumstances the validity of parents making a unilateral move to fund private educational services pending review and of the parents' right to receive reimbursement at final judgment if they are held to have acted appropriately. See Brookline at 916; cf. Blomstrom v. Massachusetts Department of Education, 532 F.Supp. at 713-14 (parents to be reimbursed only for the appropriate educational services they enlisted after rejection of an inadequate IEP). 100 We believe this approach is authorized by the Act. The Congress repeatedly enunciated as its primary goal a free appropriate public education for disabled children, see, e.g., 20 U.S.C. Secs. 1412(1), 1412(2)(B), 1415(a), 1415(b)(1)(A). We have found that Sec. 1415(e)(3) is directory rather than mandatory, see Brookline at 918, and thus where there is an irreconcilable conflict between achieving the Act's primary goal and maintaining the current educational placement, the appropriate education goal must prevail. We believe the Fourth Circuit's rule exalts form over substance because parents are barred from reimbursement if they change the child's placement at all prior to the termination of all proceedings, regardless of whether they rely on expert advice or a state agency decision in their favor, and even though the school system is held not to have proposed an appropriate education for the child. In Rowe v. Henry County School Board, No. 80-0149(D), slip op. (W.D.Va. July 15, 1982), aff'd in pertinent part, vacated in part, 718 F.2d 115, the school system had not proposed an Individualized Educational Program for a child with severe learning disabilities and offered only vague generalizations regarding the education of disabled children. The district court found that the school system had wholly failed to demonstrate that it can provide an appropriate free education to the child, id. at 4, and pointed out that the county's five high schools were serviced by only one certified learning disability instructor. The court concluded that the child did not have a few years to wait for the learning disability program the system hoped to develop. Id. at 6. Although the Rowe parents had obtained specialized learning disability instruction for the child in the face of plainly inadequate services offered by the school system, the Fourth Circuit barred them from any reimbursement relief. See Rowe v. Henry County, 718 F.2d at 116. 101 The effect of such a rule is that a child must remain in an arguably inappropriate placement until a district court properly has jurisdiction and can issue a preliminary injunction. 32 Not only is this rule contrary to the explicit legislative history of the (e)(3) provision, but treats these special needs children as though they were nonperishable commodities able to be warehoused until the termination of in rem proceedings. Current research indicates that full development of reading and other skills will more likely occur with learning disabled children, like the child at issue here, if adequate remedial services are provided in the early primary grades. Later intervention generally appears to require special services over a longer period of time to achieve a similar rate of remediation. Some skills must be learned early in the brain's maturation process for them to be learned well, or in some cases, at all. Delay in remedial teaching is therefore likely to be highly injurious to such children. See 121 Cong.Rec. 37412, 37416 (Nov. 19, 1975). In Brookline we concluded that 102 permitting reimbursement promotes the purpose and policy of the Act. If the parents are incorrect in their claim that the IEP provides an inappropriate education for their child, they, like any other parents, should bear the financial burden of giving their child a private education. If the school committee's proposed public placement is held inappropriate, then through reimbursement all parties are restored to the position the Act sought to achieve. In turn, [f]or the successful parent to be left with what should have been the town's bill ab initio does not seem a municipal protection Congress would have intended, however great the shortage of funds. 103 Brookline at 921 (footnote and citation omitted). Permitting reimbursement allows the child to receive the education thought to be appropriate by his or her parents, the party normally vested with the power to make such decisions. Barring reimbursement or forbidding transfer would compromise this parental right, a right sought to be encouraged by the Act. But, as we held in Brookline, reimbursement will not be available to parents if it turns out that the school system had proposed and had the capacity to implement an appropriate IEP. This financial risk is a sufficient deterrent to a hasty or ill-considered transfer; a complete bar to reimbursement should not be imposed on the parents for acting unilaterally. 104 Some courts have made a distinction between a unilateral parental transfer made after consultation with the school system, yet still an action without the system's agreement, and transfers made truly unilaterally, bereft of any attempt to achieve a negotiated compromise and agreement on a private placement. See, e.g., Blomstrom v. Massachusetts Department of Education, 532 F.Supp. at 713. We believe this to be a reasonable distinction, one which may be taken into account in a district court's computation of an award of equitable reimbursement. The Act envisions a cooperative IEP process and prefers a change in placement of a child to occur as a result of agreements between parties. See Sec. 1415(e)(3). 105 The Does and the State also argue that they otherwise agree[d] within the meaning of the statute, Sec. 1415(e)(3), and their agreement retroactively cured any taint of a unilateral parental transfer. The agreement the defendants point to is the BSEA decision in accord with the parents' choice of the Carroll School. We need not rule on this claim, however, because we do not find either a statutory duty for the child to remain in one placement for the pendency of all proceedings, or that a parental move after an attempted negotiated settlement with the school system constitutes unclean hands. 106 Even were we to utilize the parties' approach that the child was moved from the current placement per Sec. 1415(e)(3), we could not reach the Town's conclusion that such action contravened the Act. The Town and parents agreed that the current placement was inappropriate; they only disagreed as to which school and program the child should be moved. We cannot in good faith condemn the parents for moving the child from the current placement all parties had agreed to be insufficient. As we have emphasized, Congress valued consistency in a disabled child's education, but not foolish consistency. 33 107 To summarize, we do not agree that a unilateral parental move constitutes a bar to reimbursement of the parents if their actions are held to be appropriate at final judgment. Reimbursement must be denied to the parents if the school system proposed and had the capacity to implement an appropriate IEP. Because the Act envisions cooperatively discussed and negotiated IEPs and placements, whether parents made a specific proposal for a private placement and attempted in good faith to gain an agreement with the school system before moving the child may be taken into account as a factor in determining the amount of reimbursement. 108