Opinion ID: 590921
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the february 5, 1991 placement order

Text: 43
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.
47 Under EAHCA, the principle of mainstreaming disabled individuals with able-bodied individuals is well established. See, e.g., Board of Educ. of Hendrick Hudson Cent. School Dist., Westchester County v. Rowley, 458 U.S. 176, 202-03, 102 S.Ct. 3034, 3049 (1982). Even in cases in which mainstreaming is not a feasible alternative, there is a statutory preference for serving disabled individuals in the setting which is least restrictive of their liberty and which is near the community in which their families live. See, e.g., Burlington School Comm., 471 U.S. at 373, 105 S.Ct. at 2004; Kerkam v. Superintendent, D.C. Public Schools, 931 F.2d 84, 87 (D.C.Cir.1991). The decisions of both the special education hearing officer and the magistrate judge appear to have been based upon this understanding of EAHCA and relevant Texas regulations. 48 While the School for the Blind might be capable of providing services from which Sherri may obtain educational benefit (the standard for appropriateness of free public education under Rowley ), the School for the Blind is not the least restrictive environment in which Sherri may receive appropriate educational services. The capacity of the School for the Blind to provide educational services to Sherri may in some respects far exceed what EAHCA requires. However, EAHCA does not mandate that every child with a disability receive optimal services. Lunceford, 745 F.2d at 1583 (The EAHCA does not secure the best education money can buy; it calls upon government, more modestly, to provide an appropriate education for each child); Rowley, 458 U.S. at 198201, 102 S.Ct. at 3046-3048; Knight v. District of Columbia, 877 F.2d 1025, 1028-30 (D.C.Cir.1989); Kerkam, 931 F.2d at 87. Instead, EAHCA requires that appropriate educational services be delivered in the least restrictive environment available, with a preference for mainstreaming when possible. 23 The concern for enhancing the disabled child's ability to obtain educational benefit must be balanced with concerns about limited public resources, the need to provide basic educational opportunities to disabled and able-bodied children alike, and the concern to serve the disabled child in the environment which is least restrictive of the child's liberty. 49 In directing Sherri's transfer to a community residence, and requiring appropriate educational programming to be delivered to Sherri by her home school district, the February Order tracks the purposes of EAHCA: to provide a free, appropriate education in the least restrictive environment. Read in light of the applicable law, the February Order would mandate transfer of Sherri A.D. from the School for the Blind to a community placement not immediately, but as soon as housing can be located and appropriate educational services developed in the local public school system. The requirement that Sherri be moved no later than January 1, 1992 was a reasonable limit on the amount of time it should take to obtain such housing and educational services for Sherri. 24 All that was required of the local public school system was to obtain the services of a vocational education teacher and to acquire simple facilities for training Sherri in self-care and simple tasks that might one day be useful to Sherri in supported employment (e.g., folding laundry).
50 Having concluded that the magistrate judge applied the relevant law, all that stands between us and affirmance is to ascertain whether the magistrate judge's application of the law to the facts of this case was clearly erroneous. 25 Reviewing the record before us on appeal, we cannot say that the record contains insufficient support for the magistrate judge's factual findings. 51 There is evidence that Sherri can be appropriately served in the community. A special education hearing officer and an expert from Sherri's School District agree that Sherri can obtain educational services in the School District from which she will be able to obtain educational benefit. The fact that her ability to obtain benefit from community-based services cannot be known for certain until Sherri has been given the opportunity is no argument against giving her that opportunity. 52 Sherri is twenty now. When she turns twenty-two, her eligibility for education and residence at the School for the Blind will terminate. The parties do not contemplate that she would require institutionalization at some other facility thereafter. All parties concede, and the special education hearing officer specifically found, that if Sherri were to remain at the School for the Blind, her progress over the course of the next two years would not be significant. As plaintiff herself points out, Sherri has only made a few months' worth of progress in cognitive age since she entered the School for the Blind fourteen years ago. If she would be able to work in a sheltered workshop and live in a community residence after receiving two more years of free, appropriate education under her IEP at the School for the Blind, as plaintiff claims, surely she will be able to do the same with the education she will receive under the same IEP implemented in her local school district. Plaintiff agrees that Sherri can and should eventually live in the community. It would seem that the time is now. 53 The magistrate judge's frustration with the parties' delay in formulating and implementing a transition plan for Sherri is evident in many of the orders subsequent to February 1991. We share that frustration. The magistrate judge did not designate any particular placement for Sherri, but directed the parties to find appropriate housing and arrange for appropriate educational services in a community setting. In allowing the parties some flexibility to develop a transition plan, the magistrate judge did not intend to provide the parties with unlimited time in which to effect that plan.