K.O. v. Cold Spring Harbor Cent. Sch. Dist. (In re B.O.), 10–cv–3086 (ADS)(ARL).

275 Ed. Law Rep. 776

807 F.Supp.2d 130

In the matter of B.O. and P.S., parents and natural guardians of their son, K.O., a student with a disability, Plaintiffs,

v.COLD SPRING HARBOR CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT, Defendant.

No. 10–cv–3086 (ADS)(ARL).

United States District Court, E.D. New York.

Sept. 1, 2011.

Law Offices of George Zelma and David Berlin, Esqs., New York, NY, by George Peter Zelma, Esq., of Counsel, for plaintiffs.

Frazer & Feldman, LLP, Garden City, NY, by Laura A. Ferrugiari, Esq., of Counsel, for defendant.

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION AND ORDER

SPATT, District Judge.

In this appeal under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C. § 1401 et seq. (“IDEA”), the plaintiffs B.O. and P.S. seek reimbursement of tuition paid for their son, K.O. to attend a private school for the 2008–09 school year. For the reasons that follow, the Court denies the plaintiffs' appeal.

I. BACKGROUND

The plaintiffs B.O. and P.S. are the parents of K.O., a child born on August 30, 1996. Since the second grade, K.O. has been classified as “Other Health Impaired” by his home school district, the defendant Cold Spring Harbor Central School District (the “School District”). Under the IDEA and New York law, that classification entitles K.O. to the benefits of additional public resources to accommodate his educational needs. This case involves a dispute over those additional benefits.

K.O.'s specific abilities and disabilities have been measured extensively through observations, interviews, and batteries of standardized tests—and unsurprisingly, there is disagreement among professionals as to the contours and seriousness of K.O.'s disabilities and needs. However, there is general consensus that the core of K.O.'s difficulties relate to language decoding and encoding. That is, K.O. struggles to translate written text into understandable language, and conversely, to translate thoughts and spoken words into standardized written text. K.O. also has some difficulty with mathematics, but performs substantially above average on assessments of vocabulary and linguistic comprehension. Emotionally and behaviorally, K.O. is medicated for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and has been diagnosed at times as experiencing depression and anxiety. However, the record below shows that those who interact with K.O. generally describe his personality in glowing terms, and that K.O. has very seldom presented behavioral problems in school.

Based on K.O.'s classification, the School District prepared an Individualized Education Plan (“IEP”) for K.O. prior to each school year, pursuant to the IDEA and New York's implementation of that law. In general, each of K.O.'s IEPs describes his abilities and needs; sets forth what type of classroom he would be placed in for the following year; and also details any additional accommodations and support he was to receive. This case centers on the IEP prepared for K.O. for his seventh grade year.

On May 15, 2008, the School District finalized K.O.'s seventh grade IEP, which outlined K.O.'s accommodations for the 2008–09 school year. That IEP assigned K.O. to a “co-teach” classroom with both mainstream students—that is, students without diagnosed disabilities—and students with classified disabilities. The assigned classroom was to have two teachers, one of whom was to be solely responsible for aiding designated students with disabilities, including K.O. Also, K.O. was assigned a number of additional accommodations and resources, including daily small group and one-on-one instructional periods.

The present lawsuit arose because K.O.'s parents objected to K.O's 2008–09 IEP as insufficient under the IDEA, and instead elected to enroll K.O. at Eagle Hill School in Hardwick, Massachusetts for that year. Eagle Hill is a private school that exclusively serves students with language-related learning disabilities, and provided K.O. with substantially smaller classes that did not include mainstream students. On September 25, 2008, shortly following K.O.'s enrollment in Eagle Hill, K.O.'s parents filed a due process complaint with the School District, seeking reimbursement for K.O.'s 2008–09 Eagle Hill tuition. The school district declined to approve the reimbursement, and the parties proceeded to a hearing before an Impartial Hearing Officer (“IHO”). The hearing took place over the course of twenty-two days, spanning the period from December 9, 2008 to October 27, 2009, and was recorded on 4,391 pages of trial transcript.

On January 18, 2010, the IHO rendered a decision and order that determined that K.O.'s IEP for the seventh grade satisfied the relevant provisions of the IDEA. The IHO thus ruled in favor of the School District and denied the plaintiffs' request for reimbursement. K.O.'s parents then appealed to the New York State Department of Education, and on April 7, 2010, a State Review Officer (“SRO”) affirmed the IHO's denial of reimbursement. On July 6, 2010, the plaintiffs commenced the present action to appeal from the SRO's decision of April 7, 2010. On February 24, 2011, the parties each made the present motions for summary judgment with regard to the plaintiffs' appeal. The plaintiffs assert that the State's decision below was both procedurally and substantively improper. The defendant contends that the State's decision was correct and should be affirmed.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Relevant Legal Standards

Although the motions before the Court are made pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 56, the Second Circuit has observed that a summary judgment motion in the IDEA context is more accurately described as “a ‘pragmatic procedural mechanism’ for reviewing a state's compliance with the procedures set forth in IDEA and determining whether the challenged IEP is reasonably calculated to enable the child to receive educational benefits.” Lillbask ex rel. Mauclaire v. State of Conn. Dept. of Educ., 397 F.3d 77, 83 n. 3 (2d Cir.2005) (quoting, respectively, Warton v. New Fairfield Board of Educ., 217 F.Supp.2d 261, 270 (D.Conn.2002)). In reviewing a State's decision under the IDEA, the Court considers the record below, but also may consider any additional evidence submitted by the parties. See 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(2)(C). The Court's decision is based on a preponderance of the evidence, id., but the Court “must give ‘due weight’ to the administrative proceedings, ‘mindful that the judiciary generally lacks the specialized knowledge and experience necessary to resolve persistent and difficult questions of educational policy.’ ” Grim v. Rhinebeck Central School Dist., 346 F.3d 377, 381 (2d Cir.2003) (quoting Walczak v. Florida Union Free School District, 142 F.3d 119, 122 (2d Cir.1998) and Board of Education v. Rowley, 458 U.S. 176, 208, 102 S.Ct. 3034, 73 L.Ed.2d 690 (1982)). Thus, the Court's role in reviewing a state's educational decision is “strictly limit [ed]”. Grim, 346 F.3d at 381.

When a State's decision under the IDEA is challenged in federal court, a court conducts a review of both the procedural and substantive adequacy of the underlying decision. The procedural review requires a court to consider, simply, whether “the State complied with the procedures set forth in the [IDEA]”. Rowley, 458 U.S. at 206, 102 S.Ct. 3034 (footnote omitted). These procedures include, among other things, (1) protections for parents' participation in planning for their child's education, and (2) rules for the State's review of a school's educational decisions. See Sections 1415(f)(3)(E); 1415(h).

As for the substantive review of a State's decision under the IDEA, a court's analysis focuses on whether “the individualized educational program developed through the Act's procedures [is] reasonably calculated to enable the child to receive educational benefits.” Rowley, 458 U.S. at 207, 102 S.Ct. 3034. By way of background, the IDEA requires states such as New York that accept certain federal funding to “develop educational plans that are ‘reasonably calculated’ to ensure that all children with disabilities receive a ‘free appropriate public education.’ ” D.F. ex rel. N.F. v. Ramapo Cent. School Dist., 430 F.3d 595, 598 (2d Cir.2005) (quoting 20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(1)). To meet this requirement, a state need not “maximize the potential of handicapped children”, Rowley, 458 U.S. at 206, 102 S.Ct. 3034, or “secure the best education money can buy.” Lunceford v. District of Columbia Bd. of Educ., 745 F.2d 1577, 1583 (D.C.Cir.1984) (Ruth Bader Ginsburg, J.) (cited favorably in Walczak v. Florida Union Free School Dist., 142 F.3d 119, 130 (2d Cir.1998)). Rather, the IDEA requires a state to develop a plan for a disabled student that is “likely to produce progress, not regression”, and further, that is likely to produce more than “trivial advancement, such that the door of public education is opened for a disabled child in a meaningful way.” Ramapo Cent. School Dist., 430 F.3d at 598 (internal quotations and citations omitted). In addition, the plan should aim to achieve these goals in the “least restrictive environment”—that is, in a setting that isolates the child from mainstream students as little as possible. 20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(5)(A).

A state's primary tool in implementing the IDEA's requirements is the “individualized education plan”, or “IEP”, which the IDEA requires a school district to prepare for each student with a disability. A student's IEP must be developed with the input of his parents, and must set forth, among other things, the specific educational accommodations that will be provided to the child to meet the IDEA's substantive educational requirements. 20 U.S.C. § 1414(d). In New York, the primary author of a child's IEP is a school district's committee (or sub-committee) on special education (“CSE”), which generally includes the student's parents and teachers, as well as various administrative and support personnel from the child's school. See N.Y. Education Law § 4402.

Parents who object to their child's IEP...