Opinion ID: 437224
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Hearing Officer's Findings

Text: 37 The cooperative federalism that has been identified as a central hallmark of the Act, Georgia Association of Retarded Citizens v. McDaniel, 716 F.2d 1565, 1569 (11th Cir.1983); Battle v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 629 F.2d 269, 278 (3d Cir.1980), cert. denied, 452 U.S. 968, 101 S.Ct. 3123, 69 L.Ed.2d 981 (1981); see also King v. Smith, 392 U.S. 309, 316, 88 S.Ct. 2128, 2133, 20 L.Ed.2d 1118 (1968); Abrahamson v. Hershman, 701 F.2d 223, 231 (1st Cir.1983), is specifically reflected in 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1415(a). That section, as already noted, indicates that the procedures governing the impartial due process hearing[s], including the procedures due parties, are to be determined on the basis of state law unless more stringent federal provisions control. Here, in order to determine whether the state hearing officer was permitted to consider the Town's alleged violations of state special education regulations, we must decide whether the federal Act requires any differentiation in the choice of substantive law to be applied in state administrative hearings. 38 Under the federal Act, a state is free to accept or reject the participation of the federal government in its educational programs for the disabled. See Doe v. Brookline, 722 F.2d at 916 n. 4. For states that contract for inclusion, the Act expressly authorizes and requires a state and local administrative apparatus to effectuate both its substantive and procedural guarantees in the first instance. See, e.g., 20 U.S.C. Secs. 1412-1415; 34 C.F.R. Secs. 300.122, 300.128-.130, 300.220-.227, 300.300, 300.304. While compliance with the minimum standards set out by the federal Act is mandatory for the receipt of federal financial assistance, Smith v. Cumberland, 703 F.2d 4, 7 (1st Cir.1983), cert. granted, --- U.S. ----, 104 S.Ct. 334, 78 L.Ed.2d 304 (1983), the Act does not presume to impose nationally a uniform approach to the education of children with any given disability; it requires only that a free appropriate ... education, 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1412(1), in conformity with the state's educational standards, 20 U.S.C. Secs. 1401(18) 5 , 1412(6) 6 , be provided to each disabled child upon individualized evaluation and planning. See 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1401(18)-(19) and Rowley 458 U.S. at 200-04, 102 S.Ct. at 3047-50. Cooperative federalism in this context, then, allows some substantive differentiation among the states in the determination of which educational theories, practices, and approaches will be utilized for educating disabled children with a given impairment. Rowley at 207-08, 102 S.Ct. at 3051-52. 7 This approach also permits substantive variations in the level of remedial educational services states provide, once the federal minimum standard of a free appropriate public education is met. See 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1412(6). We find no indication in either the statutory language or the legislative history of the Act that Congress intended to create either a substantive or procedural ceiling regarding the rights of the disabled child. Thus, under our reading of the Act, states are free to elaborate procedural and substantive protections for the disabled child that are more stringent than those contained in the Act. Accord Eberle v. The Board of Public Education of the School District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 444 F.Supp. 41, 43 (W.D.Pa.1977). 39 We believe that under the cooperative federalism approach the proper construction of Sec. 1415 is that state substantive law supplements the federal Act in prescribing the determinations to be made at the due process hearing. It seems plain that the Congress drew the procedural and substantive contours of education for disabled children, but left the shading and tinting of the details largely to the states. States are responsible for filling in the numerous interstices within the federal Act through their own statutes and regulations. Congress provided for federal executive oversight through states' annual plans to assure basic compliance with the federal minimum standards but the states supply the machinery necessary to effectuate the guarantees provided by the federal Act on a daily basis. 8 40 Given the crucial role Congress has assigned to the states in effectuating a free appropriate public education for all disabled children, we hold that states have the right to enforce their own laws and regulations at the due process hearings authorized by Sec. 1415, 9 and not merely those skeletal federal provisions designed as minimum standards. 10 Any other construction would render the states powerless to effectuate the federal Act fully or to provide greater protection and services for disabled children than the Act requires. We find no support in the legislative history of a congressional intention to supplant the states' historic direction of education within their boundaries. 11 41 We now evaluate the Town's claim that the hearing officer deviated from the only question properly before her and allowed extraneous considerations to taint her decision that the Town's IEP was inadequate for John's needs. The hearing officer framed the issues at the outset of her opinion: 42 1. Whether the educational plan and placement proposed by Burlington ... a 502.4 prototype, 12 is adequate and appropriate to meet [John's] special needs. 43 2. Whether the Burlington Public Schools have violated the procedural requirements of Chapter 766 in significant and prejudicial ways. 44 3. Whether, in the alternative, the Carroll School, a 766 approved private day school is the least restrictive, adequate program and placement which meets [John's] special educational needs.4. Whether Burlington Public Schools is responsible for payment of certain evaluations. 45 The Town does not object to issue one, nor to the correlative inquiry contained in issue three; it concentrates its attack on issue two. 13 The hearing officer's inquiry, however, is mandated by the crucial role of state regulations in effectuating the guarantees of the federal Act. Further, the officer did not merely enumerate the state and federal regulations she found the Town to have violated, but discussed how many of those illegalities seriously compromised John's right to an appropriate education. 46 Since there is no claim of federal preemption here, the only question remaining is whether the hearing officer properly applied state substantive law. In Isgur v. School Committee of Newton, 9 Mass.App. 290, 400 N.E.2d 1292 at 1292 (1980), the court posed the pertinent question: [D]oes the failure to comply with the regulation[§ identified] go to the essence of rights granted by c. 766 [and the federal Act]? 14 We have no difficulty in finding that the hearing officer properly answered this question affirmatively. Accordingly, we hold that the hearing officer did not err in linking the Town's violations of John's essential rights to the conclusion that the Town lacked the capacity to implement the IEP as written.