Court Opinion

ID: 9493719
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:17:03.24201+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:59.816142
License: Public Domain

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
While chiding the district court (unfairly in my view) for not having given sufficient deference to the superficial analysis of the Level II hearing examiner, the majority fails itself to give adequate deference of a far more fundamental character — deference to the manifest will of the Congress that the District must provide support services that are necessary for the meaningful delivery of educational services. By holding that, as a matter of law, the residential program at Elan does not come within the ambit of the Act, the majority not only dooms Dale M.’s case but also sets this circuit on a course different from that of all the courts that have interpreted this provision.
Recognizing that the nature of support services necessarily will be varied and, in the ease of some children, broad, every circuit that has addressed the question has held that the Congressional mandate requires the provision of a support service that is “a necessary predicate for learning,” Kruelle v. New Castle County Sch. Dist., 642 F.2d 687, 693 (3d Cir.1981), and not “segregable from the learning process,” id. See Tennessee Dep’t of Mental Health & Mental Retardation v. Paul B., 88 F.3d 1466, 1471 (6th Cir.1996) (stating that districts are not responsible for residential placement “separable from the learning process” and citing Kruelle); Burke County Bd. of Educ. v. Denton, 895 F.2d 973, 980 (4th Cir.1990) (“Where medical, social or emotional problems are intertwined with educational problems, courts recognize that the local education agency must fund residential programs ....”) (citing Kruelle); McKenzie v. Smith, 771 F.2d 1527, 1533 (D.C.Cir.1985) (quoting Kruelle standard). Today, this circuit substitutes for that test a very different formulation: Costs are to be disallowed if the support services are not aimed at a problem that is “primarily educational.” Maj. op. at 817. That the difference between the panel majority’s formulation and that of our sister circuits is not just one of semantics but a chasm of substance is made starkly clear by the analysis of the Third Circuit in Kruelle. There, it noted that “basic self-help and social skills such as training, dressing, feeding and communication” can be part of the necessary process of education. Kruelle, 642 F.2d at 693 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).
Dale M.’s truancy is no doubt complex in its causation and therefore in the degree of its interrelatedness with his capacity to cope with the usual demands of education. We lack the institutional capacity to conduct an independent analysis of Dale M.’s educational needs. Indeed, we previously *819have been “cautioned that courts lack the specialized knowledge and experience necessary to resolve persistent and difficult questions of educational policy.” Board of Educ. v. Rowley, 458 U.S. 176, 205, 102 S.Ct. 3034, 73 L.Ed.2d 690 (1982) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Notably, here the District itself considered Dale M.’s truancy to be related to his educational progress until the need for a residential placement, and the attendant expense, became an issue. It was only at that point that the District took the position that such a program was beyond it obligations under the Act.
In determining that the Elan program goes “too far” to be within the coverage of the Act, the majority takes issue with the characterization of Dale M. reached by the professional educators and, indeed, by the administrative tribunals and the district court. In the majority’s view, he is a delinquent deserving of punishment, not education. The majority is entitled to its view; in deciding this case, however, it must stay within the record, a record that includes the conclusions of professional educators who viewed his situation in a very different light. For instance, in evaluating the program at Elan, the majority characterizes the program as one that simply provides “confinement.” Slip op. at 816. Yet, the record makes'clear that the program at Elan involves three separate components, life skills, counseling and class work. Reasonable people can disagree about the effectiveness of providing a structured environment that demands contributing labor to a communal living environment; however, none of us who wear black robes are in an institutional position to second guess the Illinois Department of Education that approved the program as a permissible placement for Illinois school children. See Butler v. Evans, 225 F.3d 887, 894 (noting that residential treatment at a psychiatric hospital could not be com-pensable as an educational placement because it was not an accredited educational institution); Seattle Sch. Dist., No. 1 v. B.S., 82 F.3d 1493, 1502 (9th Cir.1996) (rejecting school district’s argument that it should not be responsible for residential placement in part because residential facility was “an accredited educational institution under state law”); Clovis Unified Sch. Dist. v. California Office of Admin. Hearings, 903 F.2d 635, 646 (finding that school district was not financially responsible for placement because the facility was “not included as [an] educational placement option[ ] for handicapped pupils in that state”).
In sum, I must conclude that the court has improvidently and erroneously parted company with the other circuits that have defined when a residential placement is permissible. In doing so, it has set the courts of this circuit on a course at odds with the course set throughout the United States for the provision of support services under the Act. It has compounded that error by substituting its own view for that of professional educators as to the needs of Dale M. and the merits of the Elan program. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.