Kings Local School Dist., Bd. of Educ. v. Zelazny, 01-3841.

• Citation: 325 F.3d 724
• Decision Date: 07 April 2003
• Docket Number: No. 01-3841.,01-3841.
• Parties: KINGS LOCAL SCHOOL DISTRICT, BOARD OF EDUCATION, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Isaac ZELAZNY and Cindy Zelazny, individually and as the parents and natural guardians of Ariel Zelazny, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (6th Circuit)

325 F.3d 724

KINGS LOCAL SCHOOL DISTRICT, BOARD OF EDUCATION, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Isaac ZELAZNY and Cindy Zelazny, individually and as the parents and natural guardians of Ariel Zelazny, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 01-3841.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: March 11, 2003.

Decided and Filed: April 7, 2003.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

J. Michael Fischer (argued and briefed), Ennis, Roberts & Fischer, Cincinnati, Ohio, for Appellee.

Thomas W. Jacobs (argued and briefed), Lisa Barbara Avirov (briefed), Lutz, Cornett & Albrinck, Cincinnati, Ohio, Gregory Adam Napolitano (briefed), Lutz, Boster & Cornetet, Cincinnati, Ohio, for Appellants.

Before: MARTIN, Chief Circuit Judge; ROGERS, Circuit Judge; EDMUNDS, District Judge.^*

OPINION

BOYCE F. MARTIN, JR., Chief Circuit Judge.

This appeal arises from a decision of the district court finding that Kings Local School District was inappropriately ordered to pay for a private school for Ariel Zelazny, pursuant to proceedings under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C. §§ 1400, et seq. Ariel's parents, Cindy and Isaac Zelazny, appeal the district court's finding that the individualized educational program provided Ariel a free appropriate public education as required by the Act.

At the time of the issues in question, Ariel was a ninth-grader at Kings High School in Ohio. Ariel is a child with a qualified disability under the definition of the Act, because he has a potent combination of three disorders. He has obsessive compulsive disorder, Tourette Syndrome, and Asperger's Syndrome. Any one of these disorders would make life more difficult for a child, but the coincidence of all three disorders is very complex.

Ariel enrolled in Kings in the fall of 1996, and immediately Kings conducted a multi-factored evaluation of him, in order to fashion an individualized education program. An individualized education program was devised for Ariel for the seventh and then for the eighth grades. Ariel had successful years both years, by all accounts. He received passing grades in all his classes, and he began to make progress in his socialization skills.

In the early fall of 1998, Cindy Zelazny and teachers from the high school formulated Ariel's program. The individualized education program they developed for Ariel's freshman year of high school did not differ tremendously from that of his eighth grade year. Academically, and in terms of Ariel's behavior, performance, and progress, the programs were virtually the same.

Kings held three meetings following submission of the consultant's report. At the first two meetings, Ariel's parents were invited to attend, and the group discussed Ariel's education program and the results of the evaluation. The third meeting, Kings maintains, was designed as an in-service for teachers, conducted by the consultants, in order to educate the staff at Kings on the kinds of problems Ariel faced. The Zelaznys maintain this was another individualized education program meeting specifically about Ariel and that their exclusion from it violated their rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The Zelaznys requested a due process hearing under the Act to address this grievance. They asserted that Kings could not provide Ariel an appropriate education, under the meaning of the Act, and they asked that the school district pay for Ariel to attend the Pathway School, in Pennsylvania. They enrolled Ariel for the fall.

While at Kings, Ariel continued to receive good grades and to earn credit toward graduation, and Kings insists that he was making progress throughout the year. He was participating effectively in small group settings in both his resource room and mainstreamed classes. Ariel also had an after-school job in the school library where he performed his assigned duties with little supervision. He occasionally assisted other students in using the computers in the library.

Nevertheless, the impartial hearing officer, upon conducting the due process hearing in August and September of 1999, held that Kings violated both its procedural and substantive obligations to the Zelaznys under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Ariel was deprived a free appropriate public education as required by statute. Kings requested state level review of the impartial hearing officer's decision. The first due process hearing produced about 1,500 pages of testimony and about seven hundred pages of exhibits. The state level review officer denied Kings the right to present more evidence, and on June 5, 2000, the state-level officer affirmed the impartial hearing officer's original decision. The district court overturned this decision.

The standard of review for cases under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is distinctive. As this court said in Thomas v. Cincinnati Board of Education, 918 F.2d 618, 624 (6th Cir. 1990), the seminal Supreme Court case, Board of Education v. Rowley, 458 U.S. 176, 102 S.Ct. 3034, 73 L.Ed.2d 690 (1982), established that

[w]hen reviewing cases brought under the Act, courts must determine whether the state has complied with the Act's procedural requirements, and whether the IEP [individualized education program] is reasonably calculated to enable the child to receive educational benefits. While the focus of the inquiry is clear, the appropriate standard of review is more elusive.

Shortly after the program was finalized and adopted, the Zelaznys felt Ariel began having trouble at school. His parents reported that he was repeatedly victimized at school and became the object of teasing by several classmates. His behavior at home deteriorated, and the physical manifestations of his disorders increased. His parents were worried about him, and they contacted the high school to request an emergency individualized education program meeting. On November 12, 1998, the school district and Cindy Zelazny met to discuss Ariel's program. The school district agreed, at Cindy Zelazny's request, to hire a consultant to evaluate Ariel, his needs, and the program. Autism Consultation and Training was hired in January of 1999, and it submitted its report to the school and Ariel's parents in March.

We went on to say that cases under this Act require a de novo review of the due process hearing but that the findings of the state administrative proceedings should be given due weight. Thomas, 918 F.2d at 624. This standard of review is known as "modified de novo" review. Cleveland Heights-University Heights City Sch. Dist. v. Boss, 144 F.3d 391, 397 (6th Cir.1998). As this court concluded in Thomas, "Although the procedural posture of this case requires us to review the district court's decision de novo, we do so cognizant of the fact that we may not substitute our notion of sound educational policy for that of the school authorities and are required, instead, to give due weight" to the decision of the state level review officer. Thomas, 918 F.2d at 624. As we said in a recent case, McLaughlin v. Holt Public Schools Board of Education, 320 F.3d 663, 669 (6th Cir.2003),

The amount of weight due to administrative findings depends on whether the finding is based on educational expertise. Less weight is due to an agency's determinations on matters for which educational expertise is not relevant because a federal court is just as well suited to evaluate the situation. More weight is due to an agency's determinations on matters for which educational expertise is relevant.

While this appears to be a complex standard, we have articulated how to implement it. We said, "[A] district court is required to make findings of fact based on a preponderance of the evidence contained in the complete record, while giving some deference to the fact findings of the administrative proceedings." Knable v. Bexley City Sch. Dist., 238 F.3d 755, 764 (6th Cir.2001). This court went on to say, we "appl[y] a clearly erroneous standard of review to the district court's findings of fact, and a de novo standard of review to its conclusions of law." Id.

The Supreme Court in Rowley said that in passing the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, "Congress sought primarily to make public education available to handicapped children. But in seeking to provide such access to public education, Congress did not impose upon the States any greater substantive educational standard than would be necessary to make such access meaningful." 458 U.S. at 192, 102 S.Ct. 3034. The Court went on to say, "[T]he intent of the Act was more to open the door of public education to handicapped children on appropriate terms than to guarantee any particular level of education once inside." Id. For our purposes in this case, the Act's intent mandates answering two questions: "First, has the State complied with the procedures set forth in the Act? And second, is the individualized educational program developed through the Act's procedures reasonably calculated to enable the child to receive educational benefits?" Id. at 206-07, 102 S.Ct. 3034; see also McLaughlin, 320 F.3d at 669. As the Supreme Court concluded in Rowley, "If these requirements are met, the State has complied with the obligations imposed by Congress and the courts can require no more." 458 U.S. at 207, 102 S.Ct. 3034. Specifically, this means "[t]he statute may not require public schools to maximize the potential of disabled students commensurate with the opportunities provided to other children." Renner v. Board of Educ. of Public Schools of City of Ann Arbor, 185 F.3d 635, 644 (6th Cir.1999).

The statute, at 20 U.S.C. § 1414(d)(1)(A), requires that an individualized education program include, among other things,

(i) a statement of the child's present levels of educational performance ...; (ii) a statement of measurable annual goals, including benchmarks or short-term objectives ...; (iii) a statement of the special education and related services and...