Opinion ID: 3013869
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: appreciable improvement. After P.S.’s

Text: grades slipped badly, Maple Place P.S. was born in 1986 and attended evaluated him and classified him as public schools in the Oceanport (New eligible for special education and related Jersey) School District from kindergarten services based on perceptual impairment. through eighth grade. In elementary The Oceanport Child Study Team (“CST”) school, P.S. was teased by other children then developed an Individualized who viewed him as “girlish,” but when Education Program (“IEP”) that placed P.S. began to attend the Maple Place P.S. in the “resource room” for math and Middle School in fifth grade, the bullying gave him extra teacher attention to help intensified. In the words of the District with his organizational skills. The CST Court, P.S “was the victim of relentless manager believed that P.S.’s poor physical and verbal harassment as well as academic work was due to the bullying social isolation by his classmates.” App. rather than any cognitive deficiencies. 13. P.S.’s classification remained Most of the harassment of P.S. throughout sixth and seventh grade, and focused on his lack of athleticism, his his IEP was expanded to include a daily physique, and his perceived effeminacy. resource-center literature class and an Bullies constantly called P.S. names such alternative physical education class to help as “faggot,” “gay,” “homo,” “transvestite,” him with his physical skills and to avoid “transsexual,” “slut,” “queer,” “loser,” the locker room changing period, during “big tits,” and “fat ass.” Bullies told new which other children ridiculed his students not to socialize with P.S. physique. The school also permitted P.S. Children threw rocks at P.S., and one to change classes at special times so that student hit him with a padlock in gym he would not encounter other students in class. When P.S. sat down at a cafeteria the hallways and could thus avoid the table, the other students moved. Despite harassment that customarily occurred r e p e a te d c o m pl a i n ts , th e s c h ool there. In eighth grade, the harassment administration failed to remedy the became so intense that P.S. attempted situation. suicide. At the request of his psychiatrist, The constant harassment began to who told the CST manager that P.S.’s life cripple P.S. He became depressed, and his and health were at stake, P.S. received schoolwork suffered. When P.S. was in home schooling for six weeks. In fifth grade , his m oth er, on the February and March of that year, M aple r e c o m m e n d a t i o n o f t h e s c h o ol Place changed P.S.’s classification, finding psychologist, obtained private psychiatric him eligible for special education on the counseling for him. The psychiatrist basis of emotional disturbance. diagnosed P.S. with depression and The public high school serving prescribed medication, but there was no P.S.’s community is Shore Regional High 2 School (“Shore”), but P.S.’s parents had weekly counseling. Based on this begun to look for a different school for program, the Shore authorities concluded their son some years earlier, and they that their school would be the “least eventually became interested in Red Bank restrictive environment” for P.S. See 20 High School (“Red Bank”), the public high U.S.C. § 1412(a)(5) (school must school in a neighboring school district. provide education in least restrictive Red Bank was attractive both because it environment). did not enroll students from Maple Place P.S.’s parents strongly disagreed and because it had a drama program that with Shore’s decision and unilaterally appealed to P.S.’s interests. P.S. placed him in Red Bank for the ninth auditioned for the Red Bank drama grade. Initially, Red Bank did not create program and was accepted. P.S.’s parents an IEP for P.S., but did provide him with a then asked Shore to place him at Red special education class in algebra and Bank, and the Oceanport CST concurred. academic support. While Red Bank did The CST believed that if P.S. attended not schedule weekly counseling sessions, Shore Regional High School he would it made clear to P.S. that counseling was experience the same harassment that had available upon request. Red Bank’s plan occurred at Maple Place because the was to mainstream P.S. for all his classes. bullies who were responsible would also When P.S. was in ninth grade, Red Bank be there. created an IEP for him that maintained his Shore undertook its own evaluation, academic support center class, but relying mostly on the Maple Place IEP and mainstreamed him for all other classes. a surveillance of P.S. in his classes. Like Shore, Red Bank offered a program Despite the recommendation from the to combat bullying that included discipline CST, Shore rejected P.S.’s request to and diversity seminars. As the District attend Red Bank and concluded that he Court not ed, P .S. “thrived both should attend Shore for ninth grade. Shore academically and socially at Red Bank.” apparently believed that if it granted P.S.’s App. 23. request, it would have to grant the request After Shore rejected P.S.’s request of non-disabled students who wished to to attend Red Bank, P.S.’s father filed a attend Red Bank. Shore’s affirmative mediation request with the New Jersey action officer, Dr. Barbara Chas, Department of Education. Mediation contended that Shore could contain the proved unsuccessful, and the action was bullying by disciplining bullies and by transferred to the New Jersey Office of utilizing peer and social worker mediation. Administrative Law for a “due process Shore also proposed an IEP in which P.S. hearing.” Before the hearing, both sides would attend the resource room for math agreed to an independent evaluation by the and would have a supplemental course in Institute for Child Development at the learning skills, adaptive gym classes, and Hackensack University Medical Center 3 (“Hackensack”). Hackensack as the defendant, and P.S.’s father filed a recommended that P.S. attend a school counterclaim for attorneys’ fees. Relying such as Red Bank. on the administrative record, the District Court reversed the ALJ’s decision. At the due process hearing, the ALJ Crediting Dr. Chas’s testimony, the heard testimony from several witnesses, District Court found that Shore offered including P.S., his mother, Dr. Chas, Dr. P.S. a free appropriate public education. Mina Corbin-Fliger (a member of the The Court wrote: Oceanport CST), and Dr. Carol Friedman (a psychologist at Hackensack). All of the The inability of the Maple witnesses agreed that P.S. had been Place administration to subjected to unusual levels of harassment. successfully discipline its While Dr. Chas testified that she believed students does not make that Shore could control the bullying, P.S., Shore an inappropriate his mother, Dr. Corbin-Fliger, and Dr. placement. No school can Friedman all disagreed. The ALJ also ever guarantee that a student reviewed several documents relating to will not be harassed by other P.S.’s case, including his IEPs and students. . . . However, we recommendations regarding placement. find that, in light of the s t r u ct u r e d disciplin ary The ALJ concluded that Shore mechanism in place at Shore could not provide P.S. with a “free and Chas’s op inion appropriate public education,” as required regarding the supportive by the IDEA, see 20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(1), nature of students involved because of the “legitimate and real fear in drama there, the risk that that the same harassers who had followed the harassment wou ld P.S. through elementary and middle school continue was not so great as would continue [to bully him.]” App. 41. to render Shore The ALJ was particularly concerned that inappropriate. the bullies from P.S.’s area would harass him during largely unsupervised school App. 31-32 (emphasis in original). bus rides to Shore and that Shore would be The District Court did not accept unable to provide for P.S.’s emotional the testimony of Dr. Corbin-Fliger and Dr. needs within its very large student body. Friedman, stating that they had “focused App. 42, 47. The ALJ ordered Shore to on the failure of the Maple Place reimburse P.S. for the out-of-district administration to discip line [th e] tuition and related costs, including P.S.’s tormenters; they did not address whether reasonable attorneys’ fees. the Shore administration would have been Shore then commenced this action able to address the problem.” App. 23. in the District Court, naming P.S.’s father The Court also implicitly faulted Dr. 4 Friedman on the ground that she had 20 U.S.C. §1401(8). “never visited Shore to investigate their States provide a FAPE through an disciplinary measures or the type of individualized education program (“IEP”). environment supplied by its drama See 20 U.S.C. 1414(d). The IEP must be program.” Id. at 30 n. 21. In addition, the “reasonably calculated” to enable the child District Court concluded that “Shore was to receive “meaningful educational the least restrictive environment for P.S. benefits” in light of the student’s because it was his local public high school, “intellectual potential.” Polk v. Cent where he would have been educated with Susquehanna Interm. Unit 16, 853 F.2d other nondisabled children.” Id. at 33. 171, 181 (3d Cir. 1988).