Opinion ID: 508134
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The District's Violations of the EHA

Text: 18 The EHA and accompanying regulations require that each state, along with the District of Columbia, ensure that a free appropriate public education is available to all handicapped children. 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1412(1), (2)(B); 34 C.F.R. Sec. 300.300 (1987). As a means to this end, the parent or guardian of a child covered by the EHA must be given written prior notice whenever an educational agency proposes to change the educational placement of the child or the provision of a free appropriate public education to the child. 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1415(b)(1)(C); 34 C.F.R. Sec. 300.504. 3 The required notice must contain, inter alia, a complete description of the procedural safeguards available to the parent or guardian, an official explanation for the proposed change, and reasons why other options were rejected. 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1415(b)(1)(D); 34 C.F.R. Sec. 300.505. Although a parent or guardian's consent need not be obtained before the educational benefits a child is receiving are changed once the child has begun receiving benefits, 34 C.F.R. Sec. 300.504(b), notification of proposed changes is nevertheless important, because the parent or guardian retains the right to demand a hearing with respect to changes of which the parent or guardian disapproves. 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1415(b)(1)(E) to (d); 34 C.F.R. Sec. 300.506-.510. 19 In the instant case, there is no question that the District failed to comply with these statutory provisions during September and October 1985. For most of this period, Abney was neither bussed to HSC nor provided with substitute instruction at Forest Haven. Moreover, Kantor was not informed until well after the fact that Abney's educational program had been seriously curtailed. Thus, the District's actions during this time clearly violated the EHA. The term free appropriate public education is defined, at 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1401(a)(18), to include special education and related services which ... are provided in conformity with the individualized education program required under section 1414(a)(5) of this title. Hence, in completely failing to implement Abney's IEP during his confinement at Forest Haven, the District necessarily also failed to provide the free appropriate public education to which Abney was entitled under the EHA; this failure triggered the statutory notice requirement. 20 In defense of its conduct, the District notes first that it was responsible for Abney's physical well-being because he was a ward of the District, and argues that it was therefore justified in not bussing him to HSC when his primary care physician believed that doing so would imperil his health. Just as a parent may keep a sick child home from school, the District says, it acted properly in not sending Abney to HSC when his medical condition rendered travel inadvisable. See Brief for the District of Columbia at 15. 21 This argument misses the point. The District had a statutory duty to provide Abney with an appropriate public education. Yet, Abney was bussed to HSC on only eleven days in September and October 1985. In addition, there is no evidence suggesting that he was incapable of receiving alternative instruction at Forest Haven. Indeed, his primary care physician later recommended precisely that course. Tr. at 73-74 (Godel testimony). Under the circumstances, the District was obliged to arrange substitute programming for Abney at Forest Haven if he could not travel to HSC. At the very least, District officials should have notified his surrogate parent in writing that he was temporarily being deprived of his educational benefits. The fact that Abney could not safely be bussed does not excuse the District's dereliction of its statutory duty. 22 The District's second justification is utterly specious. Although the District concedes that Abney was not provided with instruction in accordance with his IEP during much of September and October 1985, see Brief for the District of Columbia at 5, as well as between November 1985 and February 1986, see id. at 19-20, it seeks to excuse this omission by noting that, because Abney was still placed officially at HSC, federal funding could not be obtained to pay for substitute instruction at Forest Haven. Id. at 20. Hence, the argument goes, Abney had to do without instruction for several months, until funding for his education could be transferred. 23 This argument is completely devoid of statutory foundation. The EHA requires the District to provide handicapped children such as Abney with an appropriate education. As the District's counsel frankly conceded at oral argument in this case, the EHA contains no exceptions for situations where federal reimbursement is temporarily unavailable. It also seems rather obvious that it was no consolation to Abney that the District paid to preserve his place at HSC while he languished at Forest Haven. The District's plain breach of federal law cost Abney instruction to which he was entitled. 24 On November 4, 1985, Kantor was told of Abney's spotty attendance at HSC over the previous two months. Although she then had notice of the District's past failures to provide Abney with educational instruction in accordance with his IEP, she was not told that this deprivation would continue. So far as she knew, Abney's foot ulcer was almost cured and bussing would soon resume--which it did. Shortly thereafter, when Abney's transportation to HSC was suspended indefinitely, Kantor apparently was not informed, despite the fact that no interim alternative instruction had been arranged for Abney at Forest Haven. From mid-November through the date in December when Kantor was finally notified of the decision to stop bussing Abney to HSC, the District again violated the EHA by disregarding its notice requirements and by denying Abney an appropriate education. 25 Sometime in December, however, though no later than the meeting at HSC on December 19, 1985, Kantor was told that Abney had not been bussed to HSC since the middle of November. Although she was not supplied with written notice, she was informed that Abney was not receiving instruction in accordance with his IEP. 4 Significantly, she did not request a hearing then or later, or invoke any other administrative safeguards available to her. As a result, Abney may not obtain relief for any deprivations he suffered after that date. 5 26 Even if Kantor had not been provided with notice in December 1985, she would have no basis for claiming that Abney's instruction at Forest Haven beginning in February 1986 contravened the EHA. At the meeting on February 5, 1986, Kantor was apprised that Abney's circulatory problems prevented his transportation to HSC for a least several months. Although she expressed doubts about his doctor's decision to forbid bussing indefinitely, she agreed to a program of instruction at Forest Haven pending a reassessment of Abney's condition no later than May 1986. Kantor therefore had sufficient notice at that time of the District's plans with regard to Abney. Her assent to the proposed program, moreover, vitiates any objection that Abney's instruction at Forest Haven between February and May was inadequate. Her agreement to a modified course of instruction at Forest Haven at a meeting on May 20, 1986, and her evident satisfaction with Forest Haven's implementation of Abney's IEP since that time, further preclude relief for any shortcomings subsequent to May 1986. 27 In sum, the District violated the EHA from September 1985 to sometime in December of that year by depriving Abney of an appropriate education and by failing to notify Abney's surrogate parent that he was being denied the educational benefits to which he was entitled. Abney is thus entitled to a declaration that the District violated the EHA at that time, and we remand to the District Court for that purpose. Although Abney's deprivation apparently continued until February 1986, his surrogate parent's failure to pursue available administrative remedies after she received notice in December 1985 bars any claim for relief for this later period. 6