Opinion ID: 1161742
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: adverse finding of fact

Text: Inquiry will not end at this juncture where our review is presented with a finding of the administrative hearing officer now to be considered in first judicial analysis that educational deprivation was the result of willful bad faith. That deprivation was found in cause and result by the 1979 removal from BRI for enrollment in Devereux Foundation, which as compensable deprivation continued until return to BRI since placement in other institutions was not thereafter mutually acceptable. We reverse the decision of the hearing officer as factually unsupported by the entire record that the educational efforts of the School District demonstrated willful bad faith. [12] This complex, convoluted and confused record [13] reflects disagreement on many technical and practical questions, extreme personality reactivity of some of the participants, distinguishable concerns in allocation of financing and system responsibility for each and also all students in public education, but in no regard bad faith on the part of the school board members, Robert G. Jorgenson, Joanne Christensen, Jonnie Burton, Mary Helen Hendry, Bill Hollingsworth, George Tenant, Joanne L. Street, Joan Sutherland or J. Scott Hocker or School District employees, including school superintendent, Dr. Jacob Dailey, and legal counsel whose pathway is well-documented. Nothing in the record relates to intimated or asserted bad faith of the State Department of Education. With tuition expenditures by the School District now substantially exceeding $600,000 for DM, this record is noteworthy not only in demonstrated time, difficulty and expense for all participants, but also in highlighting the broad conceptual issues of public education. Issues, questions, contentions and philosophy are specifically marshalled under this dual hearing record (1981 and 1987) as including the diverse concepts of trainable versus educable responsibilities of public education, cost benefit criteria as a system responsibility to the exceptional student, maintenance and personal care of training as a responsibility of education, and limitations of educational capabilities as a factor of responsibility. Also intertwined are points of damage to the operational system from behaviorally uncontrolled participants, responsibility for education of twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year for maintenance of some students, use of designated milieu therapy in a twenty-four hour environment as an educational and training quotient, and levels of appropriate aversive techniques available to school systems in living skill training programs as otherwise constituting physical abuse to the recipients. Additionally involved are interests of transitional training responsibilities as the end of educational age responsibility is approaching, system responsibilities of state social services and the Wyoming State Training School for the maintenance quotient of the handicapped student's life program during the ages of five to twenty-one, extreme behavior modification (or modification of extreme behavior or modification of behavior by extreme methodology), and twenty-four hour a day structured individual care as educational component. Moreover, this context encompasses substance of twenty-four hour a day personal supervision, and more specifically appropriate here, basis of regulation of behavior involving the educational habilitation care provider of the excess use of physical aversives and misuse of food contingencies, and federal statutory preference for mainstreaming. Of course, the backdrop of variant and other variable issues which dynamically invade the responsibilities of school trustees to educate all of the students for constructing a basic foundation to maintain a democratic society is also present. [14] Intrinsic to the subject is the philosophic inquiry, which is the responsibility of the elected school trustees, to allocate resources for 13,000 students within a defined budget as questioning the degree that they can afford to spend $113,208 per year for one student. Academically involved is the individualized character of the institution desired by the parents, which was exceptional not only in distance and cost, [15] but in its administrative agency regulatory problems. Closer to home, educational system management and good faith exercised discretion cannot be disregarded in this review adjudication of asserted bad faith. The record in striking detail establishes factually the evidentiary basis for the hearing officer's finding incorporated in numbers 20, 21, 22 and 23. 20. Petitioner's IQ found to be less than 35, mental age of 2 years and adaptive behavior level of one year, eight months as a result of testing done at BRI in September, 1985. The results of a test of adaptive behavior in November, 1986, indicate an adaptive behavior level of one year, seven months. 21. Study of data provided by BRI indicates that Petitioner's progress over time has been very slow. Testimony predicted that Petitioner will at best function in a highly supervised, sheltered workshop or more likely in a work activity center. 22. Petitioner will not be able to progress to a point of living independently. He will always be in a supervised environment. No such facilities exist in the State of Wyoming which can provide an appropriate work situation for Petitioner. Other states do provide such facilities. 23. There is nothing in Petitioner's reports, evaluations, or observations of him to indicate that he will demonstrate growth in mental age or adaptive behavior in the ensuing three years. Conversely, there is absolutely no evidence which is not advocacy or conclusionary statements sufficient to sustain finding number 12. [16] 12. Petitioner will be trained to a level of independence which will allow him to function in a sheltered workshop environment if his training continues at BRI for approximately three more years. In this total record, there is a plethora of detail about DM's life skill adaptability and improvement during the School District's involvement of about fifteen years. Regardless of the challenge to techniques used by BRI, it is informative to analyze the comparable changes of recent time. This is possible, since BRI, as a very structured institution, operates with a very clear system and explicit record keeping for progress measurement. One of the goals reflected for DM upon return to BRI in 1982 was to learn to take a shower. At the hearing in December 1987, the school director provided the annual individualized educational program as invoked by stay put to be in effect for the year commencing December 1987 to December 1988, which is now in progress. The showering sequence of using soap, wash cloth and towel involved nineteen recognized actions or responses to the direction to take a shower. The training system as a graduated guidance process contemplated zero to five separate prompts to complete the activity for each of the sequences, for a total maximum prompts in taking a shower of ninety-five. In an April 1986 assessment, it was reflected that DM should shower with a prompt total of twenty-four of ninety-five, 100% of the time, a six month objective reflected a prompt total of fifteen or less and a one year objective of seven prompts or less. This is only the very normal daily shower. In June 1987, the status was eighteen prompts, the six month objection of fifteen prompts, and the annual goal to be seven prompts. The hearing date December 1987 report reflected the present status at that time: PRESENT STATUS OF SKILL 1. [DM] showers with a prompt total of 23 (of 95), 100% of the time. SIX MONTH OBJECTIVE 1. [DM] will shower with a prompt total of 18 or less, 100% of the time. ANNUAL GOALS 1. [DM] will shower with a prompt total of 12 or less, 100% of the time. [Emphasis added.] The 1986 goal had not been achieved and a 1987 regression had occurred. A further review of activity comparisons between April 1986 and December 1987 similarly reveal a personal case plateau of improvements for explicit tasks of washing hands and combing hair, and no notable improvement or regression in washing face and shaving. Nothing in the sequenced documentation as found in this comprehensive record reveals a general level of current improvement in living skills. More striking, however, is the documentation which reflects an allocation of individualized instructional time of 5% to academics in 1987 as compared to 20% of four years earlier in 1983, or a decrease of 15%. The comparisons of the earlier to current times are self-care, 25% versus 20%; individual living 20% versus 20%; free vocational 5% versus 30%; language 20% versus 10%; academics 20% versus 5%; social skills 5% versus 10%; and physical education 5% versus 5%. What this factually demonstrates in the recent period of education and training in BRI was that language and academics dropped from 40% to 15% as the student went from age eighteen to twenty-one. See Matthews By Matthews v. Davis, 742 F.2d 825 (4th Cir.1984), where the rented apartment and employed attendant reached the limit of achieved benefit. To be perceived from this broadly venturing record encompassing a multitude of educational inquiries is the recognition of a required exercise of discretion by the management of a school district and the countervailing objection of a student to the conclusions made and actions taken. Unless this court embarks on a program of embargoing responsible citizen community participation in elected office public responsibilities, a deference is required to elected officials who make contested decisions upon exercised discretion, Board of Educ. v. Wieder, 72 N.Y.2d 174, 531 N.Y.S.2d 889, 527 N.E.2d 767 (1988), as different from egregious bad faith. In recognizing the tenant of public service to be of the essence in a democratic society, we determine that such a difference must be demonstrated by evidence which is clear, specific and persuasive. That test is not met in this record, and consequently such further findings as may have been factually made by the hearing officer to justify the compensatory educational program at a time now more than five years later than the challenged period are also factually and legally unsupported. After analysis of all of the evidence in this extensive record, this court both finds and determines that the School District has satisfied its educational obligation under EHA and Wyoming statutes to DM. A.C.B. By Pearlman v. Denver Dept. of Social Services, 725 P.2d 94 (Colo. App. 1986).