Court Opinion

ID: 9844981
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:13:03.314443+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:48.883639
License: Public Domain

NEELY, Justice,
dissenting:
This decision sets a terrible precedent. It values the irresponsible demands of parents above the clear interest of their handicapped children. It requires exorbitant expenditures by local school boards in rural counties in what will ultimately amount to utterly futile efforts to offer an approximation of the education available at good, specialized schools for handicapped children. Under the majority’s view, local school boards must divert money from conducting their usual classes — a task they do well — to setting up special local schools for a few handicapped children — a task they cannot do well.
The Romney School for the Deaf and Blind is an excellent school, with long experience in meeting the special needs of its students, and a long record of service to the deaf and blind children of this State. Romney School could not handle the children who are the subject of this proceeding because of their severe emotional handicaps. But this Court expects Lewis County to do so. By what logic? Commanding Lewis County to educate these children does not make it possible for Lewis County to do so. If the world could be made a better place simply by entering an order, *49the Russians would have achieved utopia long ago!
The majority has enshrined an unhealthy fetish for local schooling of handicapped children. In so doing it allows an accident of geography to trump the only legitimate end of these anti-discrimination statutes: the best education for handicapped children.
The majority misconstrues the federal statute’s preference for the “least restrictive environment.” When a handicap is severe enough that education “cannot be achieved satisfactorily” through regular classes, then it is appropriate to remove handicapped children from regular classes. 20 U.S.C. § 1412(5)(B) (1982).
The cases break down into two basic patterns. First, the school system may seek to do slip-shod in-house training, over the parents’ insistence that the system pay to send the child to a specialized boarding school. The courts tend to support the parents. See, e.g.: David D. v. Dartmouth School Committee, 775 F.2d 411 (1st Cir. 1985), cert. denied 475 U.S. 1140, 106 S.Ct. 1790, 90 L.Ed.2d 336 (1986); Doe v. Anrig, 692 F.2d 800 (1st Cir.1982) aff’d in pertinent part sub nom. Burlington School Comm. v. Dept. of Education, 471 U.S. 359, 105 S.Ct. 1996, 85 L.Ed.2d 385 (1985); Geis v. Bd. of Education, 774 F.2d 575 (3d Cir.1985); Kruelle v. New Castle Co. School Dist., 642 F.2d 687 (3d Cir.1981); Christopher T. v. San Francisco Unified School Dist., 553 F.Supp. 1107 (N.D.Cal. 1982); Papacoda v. State, 528 F.Supp. 68 (D.Conn.1981); North v. D.C. Bd. of Education, 471 F.Supp. 136 (D.D.C.1979); Amherst-Pelham Reg. School Comm. v. Dept. of Education, 376 Mass. 480, 381 N.E.2d 922 (1978); In re “A” Family, 184 Mont. 145, 602 P.2d 157 (1979); In re Leitner, 40 App.Div.2d 38, 337 N.Y.S.2d 267 (1972).
The other pattern occurs frequently. As in the case before us, the school system prefers to pay the bill to send a child to boarding school, instead of setting up an expensive, inefficient in-house program for a few children. The courts often support the school system. See, e.g., Pinkerton v. Moye, 509 F.Supp. 107 (W.D.Va.1981); In re Petty, 241 Iowa 506, 41 N.W.2d 672 (1950).
The bottom line of the decisions is that the best interest of the child carries the day. As Judge Turk wrote in Pinkerton v. Moye, supra, “Without question Congress placed at a premium the laudable goal of maximizing the handicapped child’s educational capabilities.” 509 F.Supp. at 112. See generally: Note, “Residential Placement of Handicapped Children: Altering the Scope of a Public Education,” 43 U.Pitt. L.Rev. 789 (1982); Note, “Enforcing the Right to an ‘Appropriate’ Education,” 92 Harv.L.Rev. 1103 (1979).
Certainly there is a loss when children must be removed from regular classes and their home environment. But once that point is passed, the school board must not tarry in finding the best possible education for the child. It should not favor its own school system for the sake of either convenience or economy, when the local schools cannot do the job.
Having a handicapped child is a grievous misfortune for parents, but it is an even greater misfortune for the child. A child who is handicapped must be taught at an early age to compensate to the maximum possible extent. Learning to read Braille, learning Standard American Sign, learning to speak without the benefit of hearing, and learning other compensatory skills at an early age is the difference between a potentially successful life and a mere vegetable existence. Parents, however, must also bear a responsibility for their children; if parents are entirely reluctant to be separated from their children so that they can be educated in good schools, it is appropriate for the state to expect the parents to move to where such good schools are located. Ours is a world of finite resources — a consideration of which courts as well as legislatures and executives should be constantly mindful.
Where a school system is located in a large population center it may be possible to provide high quality compensatory education at the local level. But today’s decision merely requires rural school boards to go through the motions of providing good *50education; without necessary economies of scale, it is not possible to duplicate in Lewis County the facilities of the Romney School or a good out-of-state school.
Because I refuse to believe that the statutes require a result so opposed to the best interests of handicapped children themselves, I must respectfully dissent.