Opinion ID: 203107
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Substantive Adequacy.

Text: The parents' challenge to the lower court's decision has a further dimension. They assert that the IEP process, whether or not still ongoing, had effectively reached a dead end: in their view, the partially completed IEP includes so many wrong choices that a finding of inadequacy would have been inevitable (and so, completing the IEP process would have been an exercise in futility). The force of this assertion hinges on the parents' insistence that the School District arbitrarily ruled out a residential placement even though such a placement was the only feasible way to provide A.S. with a FAPE. This insistence flies in the teeth of the School District's evidence and the independent evaluator's recommendations. After canvassing the record, we conclude that the need for a residential placement was fairly debatable. Crediting the independent evaluator's views and the School District's testimony, the district courtlike the hearing officerfound that the least restrictive educational environment would have been in a public non-residential placement. Five Town, 2007 WL 494994, at . Given the truism that courts should recognize the expertise of educators with respect to the efficacy of educational programs, Rowley, 458 U.S. at 207-08, 102 S.Ct. 3034, we see no clear error in this finding (and, thus, no basis for setting aside the district court's decision). The parents' remaining arguments on this issue need not occupy us for long. The few themes that they spin either mischaracterize the IEP's provisions or seek to have us undertake a de novo balancing of the facts. We are not swayed by the former, nor are we permitted to indulge the latter. In all events, the best that can be said for the parents' position is that the evidence may support competing viewpoints. That circumstance dooms their challenge: we are not at liberty to reject the district court's plausible interpretation of the facts simply because the record also might sustain a conflicting interpretation. See Anderson v. Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 574, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985) (Where there are two permissible views of the evidence, the factfinder's choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous.). Nor may we reject an adequate public school placement for an optimal private placement. See Rowley, 458 U.S. at 200, 102 S.Ct. 3034; see also Lenn, 998 F.2d at 1086 (explaining that federal law requires school districts to provide a reasonable level of educational benefit to disabled children, not an optimal level).