Fairfax County School Board v. Knight , 261 F. App'x 606 ( 2008 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 06-2083
FAIRFAX COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
versus
JOYCE KNIGHT,
Defendant - Appellant,
and
J. K., by and through her parents and next
friends,
Claimant - Appellant,
versus
JACK DALE; JOYCE SUYDAM; ELEANOR BARNES; WANDA
TANKS-GREGORY; MARTIN HUMBERTSON, in their
official and individual capacities,
Defendants - Appellees,
and
RALEIGH KNIGHT,
Defendant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of Virginia, at Alexandria. Leonie M. Brinkema, District
Judge. (1:05-cv-01472-LMB)
Submitted: September 20, 2007 Decided: January 16, 2008
Before TRAXLER, Circuit Judge, HAMILTON, Senior Circuit Judge, and
Robert J. CONRAD, Jr., Chief United States District Judge for the
Western District of North Carolina, sitting by designation.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
David C. Frederick, Robert A. Klinck, Kenneth M. Fetterman,
KELLOGG, HUBER, HANSEN, TODD, EVANS & FIGEL, P.L.L.C., Washington,
D.C., for Appellants. John F. Cafferky, Mark A. Towery,
BLANKINGSHIP & KEITH, Fairfax, Virginia, for Appellee Fairfax
County School Board.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:
Joyce and Raleigh Knight (collectively, “the parents”), on
behalf of their daughter J.K., appeal from the district court’s
grant of summary judgment in favor of the Fairfax County School
Board (“FCSB”) on their claims for reimbursement pursuant to the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”). See 20
U.S.C.A. § 1412 (a)(10)(C)(ii) (West 2000 & Supp. 2007). The
district court concluded that FCSB provided J.K. a free appropriate
public education (“FAPE”) and that reimbursement was improper. We
affirm.
I.
Congress enacted the IDEA – in part – “to ensure that all
children with disabilities have available to them a [FAPE] that
emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet
their unique needs and prepare them for further education,
employment, and independent living.” 20 U.S.C.A. § 1400(d)(1)(A)
(West 2000 & Supp. 2007). A FAPE “consists of educational
instruction specially designed to meet the unique needs of the
handicapped child, supported by such services as are necessary to
permit the child to benefit from the instruction.” Bd. of Educ. v.
Rowley ex rel. Rowley, 458 U.S. 176, 188-89 (1982) (internal
quotation marks omitted). However, “[n]oticeably absent from the
language of the [IDEA’s predecessor] is any substantive standard
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prescribing the level of education to be accorded handicapped
children.” Id. at 189.
This Court has determined that the appropriate education
required by the IDEA should not be confused
with the best possible education. . . . And once a FAPE
is offered, the school district need not offer additional
educational services. That is, while a state must
provide specialized instruction and related services
sufficient to confer some educational benefit upon the
handicapped child, the Act does not require the
furnishing of every special service necessary to maximize
each handicapped child’s potential.
MM ex rel. DM v. School Dist., 303 F.3d 523, 526-27 (4th Cir. 2002)
(citations, internal quotation marks and alterations omitted).
Although the IDEA does not require that a state provide the best
education possible, “Congress did not intend that a school system
could discharge its duty under the [Act] by providing a program
that produces some minimal academic advancement, no matter how
trivial.” Hall ex rel. Hall v. Vance County Bd. of Educ., 774 F.2d
629, 636 (4th Cir. 1985). A school provides a FAPE by creating an
“individualized education program” (“IEP”) for each child. See 20
U.S.C.A. § 1414(d)(1)(A) (West 2000 & Supp. 2007). An IEP is
sufficient if it is “reasonably calculated to enable the child to
receive educational benefits.” Rowley, 458 U.S. at 207.
In IDEA cases, the district court is required to review the
administrative proceedings based on a preponderance of the evidence
standard, giving due weight to the hearing officer’s findings. See
Doyle v. Arlington County Sch. Bd., 953 F.2d 100, 103 (4th Cir.
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1991). The parents bear the burden of proving that an IEP was
substantively deficient. See Spielberg ex rel. Spielberg v.
Henrico County Pub. Schs., 853 F.2d 256, 258 n.2 (4th Cir. 1988)
(assigning burden to party challenging the hearing officer’s
decision); cf. Schaffer ex rel. Schaffer v. Weast, 546 U.S. 49, 51
(2005) (holding that party challenging IEP in due process hearing
bears burden of proof). Since the district court made factual
findings as to the sufficiency of an IEP, we review for clear
error. See County Sch. Bd. v. Z.P., 399 F.3d 298, 309 & n.7 (4th
Cir. 2005).
II.
J.K. is a young girl with above-average intelligence but has
trouble reading due to dyslexia and other learning disabilities.
J.K. started in FCSB schools in kindergarten and during first grade
qualified for special education services. In her seventh-grade
year, J.K. attended Luther Jackson Middle School and enrolled in
self-contained special education classes for Math, English, and
History, as well as a special education reading class. Concerned
that J.K. was not progressing to a level commensurate with her
abilities at Luther Jackson, the parents removed her from public
school and enrolled her in the Lindamood-Bell program and then in
various private schools.
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A.
During the spring of 2002, FCSB formulated an IEP for J.K.’s
eighth-grade year. The parents expressed their dissatisfaction
with J.K.’s progress in reading and insisted that private placement
was the best way for J.K. to learn to read properly. After
evaluating J.K.’s progress, J.K.’s IEP team met, rejected the
parents’ position, and concluded that J.K. would receive a FAPE if
she remained at Luther Jackson in a program similar to her seventh-
grade year. The parents believed she needed private instruction
for reading and informed FCSB that they intended to place J.K. in
a program at FCSB’s expense. The parents removed J.K. from Luther
Jackson, and she was tutored for the remainder of her seventh-grade
year.
In the fall of 2002, the parents sent J.K. to Lindamood-Bell,
a center that provides one-on-one instruction to students who have
been diagnosed with learning disabilities and are struggling in
reading and math. J.K. remained in the Lindamood-Bell program
until criminal truancy proceedings were initiated against the
parents. The parents removed J.K. from Lindamood-Bell and placed
her in a private school, where after a few months she withdrew and
was tutored for the remainder of the year. J.K. began ninth grade
at The Kildonan School, a boarding school in New York, but she was
removed in February and placed at a different private school for
the remainder of the year. The parents assert that J.K.’s test
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results demonstrate that the progress she made at FCSB schools was
trivial compared to the progress she made once removed. They seek
reimbursement for J.K.’s time at Lindamood-Bell and The Kildonan
School.
B.
In May of 2004 during J.K.’s ninth-grade year, the parents
requested a due process hearing. Taking this as a request for
services, FCSB met and proposed a new IEP for J.K.’s tenth-grade
year. The parents again rejected the IEP and unilaterally placed
J.K. in another private school. In December of 2004, a due process
hearing was held to determine whether FCSB had failed to provide
J.K. with a FAPE. The hearing included testimony from eighteen
witnesses and over three hundred pages of documents.
In February of 2005, the hearing officer issued a short,
three-page opinion in which he concluded that J.K. was provided a
FAPE during her years at FCSB, but that J.K. would benefit from an
intensive reading program such as that offered by Lindamood-Bell.
The hearing officer held that the tenth-grade IEP met J.K.’s
special education needs, but he did not expressly conclude that the
IEP offered a FAPE. The hearing officer ordered that J.K. return
to FCSB for full-time classes and that she enroll in intensive
reading class at FCSB’s expense on a part-time basis.
FCSB filed a complaint in the district court seeking reversal
of the hearing officer’s ruling that J.K. be permitted to attend
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Lindamood-Bell at FCSB’s expense. The district court remanded the
litigation to the hearing officer to clarify whether FCSB had
provided J.K. a FAPE because the court found the hearing officer’s
conclusions inconsistent.
On remand, the hearing officer held three additional days of
hearings and thereafter issued a nine-page opinion. The hearing
officer specifically found that FCSB had provided J.K. a FAPE. He
opined that the testimony of FCSB’s experts was more credible and
convincing than the parents’ experts. He found that the private
school placements were not appropriate for J.K. but continued to
order that FCSB pay for certain of the Lindamood-Bell expenses.
FCSB filed another complaint seeking reversal of the hearing
officer’s award of expenses for the Lindamood-Bell program. The
parents filed counterclaims seeking reversal of the hearing
officer’s order finding that FCSB provided J.K. a FAPE.
On cross-motions for summary judgment, the district court
considered whether the parents proved by a preponderance of the
evidence that the eighth-grade and tenth-grade IEPs were not
reasonably calculated to provide J.K. with non-trivial educational
benefits. The parents argued that J.K.’s test results demonstrate
that she made great progress once she was removed from FCSB schools
and those results prove that her progress at FCSB schools was
trivial. FCSB asserts that the test results as interpreted by the
parents’ experts fail to take into consideration any progress J.K.
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made during her seventh-grade year and any evidence to the contrary
would be mere speculation. FCSB argues that the eighth- and tenth-
grade IEPs were specifically designed to help J.K.’s reading issues
and provided J.K. a FAPE.
On review, the district court found that the hearing officer’s
findings were regularly made and then conducted its own highly
detailed examination of the record. The district court also noted
that the parents had the burden to prove that the challenged IEPs
did not provide J.K. with a FAPE. FCSB’s experts all had extensive
special education experience and post-baccalaureate degrees in
special education and related fields. The parents’ experts had
extensive practical experience in the area of reading and reading
difficulties but did not have any degrees in education, reading, or
special education. The district court afforded the hearing
officer’s conclusions due weight and determined that the FCSB
experts were more credible and the parents’ experts’ opinions were
unpersuasive.
While not opining upon the relative merits of educational
theories and methodologies, see Rowley, 458 U.S. at 206, the
district court found that the educational approach proposed in the
eighth- and tenth-grade IEPs was appropriate and would provide an
appropriate curriculum for J.K. The district court found that the
parents’ testing evidence and expert witnesses were not persuasive
and did not establish by a preponderance of the evidence that J.K.
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made only trivial progress at FCSB. The court concluded that FCSB
had provided J.K. with a FAPE for her eighth- and tenth-grade years
and that reimbursement for other private programs would be
inappropriate.
III.
On appeal, the parents contend that the district court erred
in granting summary judgment against them to FCSB. They argue that
FCSB failed to provide J.K. with a FAPE because her test scores
showed remarkable progress once she was removed from FCSB schools.
The parents assert that the later test scores prove that J.K.’s
progress in FCSB schools was trivial and FCSB failed to provide
J.K. a FAPE. They further challenge the district court’s
determination that FCSB’s proposed IEP for J.K.’s eighth- and
tenth-grade years satisfied the IDEA’s substantive requirements.
After careful review of the record, the parties’ written
arguments, and the governing legal principles, we conclude that the
parents cannot overcome their burden of showing that the state
hearing officer’s factual findings were erroneous and that the
district court correctly decided the legal issues before it.*
*
Since we have concluded that FCSB provided J.K. a FAPE for her
eighth- and tenth-grade years, we need not reach the issue of
whether the district court erred in alternatively ruling that the
expenses for Lindamood-Bell and the Kildonan school were not
eligible for reimbursement because those programs did not
constitute appropriate placements.
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Accordingly, we affirm on the reasoning of the district court. See
Fairfax County Sch. Bd. v. Knight ex rel. Knight, No. 05-1472 (E.D.
Va. Aug. 23, 2006).
AFFIRMED
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