Brookhart v. Illinois State Bd. of Ed., 81-3089.

• Decision Date: 23 March 1982
• Docket Number: No. 81-3089.,81-3089.
• Parties: Deborah BROOKHART, Jenny Buckley, a minor, by Dolores Buckley, her mother and next friend, James Granderson, Jeffrey McNabb, Judy Sleeth, Ellen Ioerger, Kenneth Gallagher, Douglas Westhoff, Michael Livingston, Cindy Phillips, Michael Mudd, a minor, by Sandra Mudd, his mother and next friend, Donald Shea, and Scott Ridge, Plaintiffs, v. ILLINOIS STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION, Donald Gill, State Superintendent of Education, Board of Education, Peoria School District # 150, Peoria County, Illinois, Harry Whitaker, individually and as Superintendent of Peoria School District # 150, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Central District of Illinois

534 F. Supp. 725

Deborah BROOKHART, Jenny Buckley, a minor, by Dolores Buckley, her mother and next friend, James Granderson, Jeffrey McNabb, Judy Sleeth, Ellen Ioerger, Kenneth Gallagher, Douglas Westhoff, Michael Livingston, Cindy Phillips, Michael Mudd, a minor, by Sandra Mudd, his mother and next friend, Donald Shea, and Scott Ridge, Plaintiffs, v. ILLINOIS STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION, Donald Gill, State Superintendent of Education, Board of Education, Peoria School District # 150, Peoria County, Illinois, Harry Whitaker, individually and as Superintendent of Peoria School District # 150, Defendants.

No. 81-3089.

United States District Court, C. D. Illinois.

March 23, 1982.

Gary E. Kerr and Marilyn F. Longwell, Linda Ganski, Guardianship & Advocacy Commission, Springfield, Ill., for plaintiffs.

Robert S. Bell, Jr. and Jane Lynk, Asst. Attys. Gen., Springfield, Ill., for Illinois State Board of Education and Donald Gill.

Julian E. Cannell, Peoria, Ill., for Board of Education, Peoria School District # 150, and Harry Whitaker.

DECISION AND ORDER

ROBERT D. MORGAN, Chief Judge.

This case is proceeding¹ as a judicial review under § 1415(e)(2) of Title 20, United States Code, of an Administrative Order² issued May 8, 1981, over the signature of Donald G. Gill, State Superintendent of Education of Illinois. It involves the propriety of denial of high school diplomas to certain plaintiffs, all of whom were exceptional students in the special curriculum on individual educational plans, because of individual learning disabilities and/or other handicaps. Such denial of diplomas by Peoria School District # 150 to eleven plaintiffs was because, though meeting other requirements for graduation, they failed to pass a Minimal Competency Test (M.C.T.). They were each tendered, instead, a Certificate of Program Completion.³

The material facts are not in dispute. Development of the Peoria M.C.T. program began in the spring of 1974, and was developed in the ensuing years, through 1977. In February of 1978, the District # 150 School Board formally adopted a policy requiring all students to pass examinations in "minimal" reading, language arts, and mathematics, as a graduation requirement. This testing program was first implemented with the graduating class of 1980, and the first qualifying M.C.T. was given in the spring of 1979, when the 1980 graduates were juniors. Under the M.C.T. program, high school students have five opportunities to pass the three-part test before their scheduled graduation.

The test is given each semester. Once a part of the test is passed, that part need not be retaken. Any student who does not achieve a score of 70% on any of the three parts fails that part, but is eligible to retake that part of the test each time it is given, until he or she passes or becomes 21 years of age. Refresher materials and course work are made available to all students who need them, following each administration of the test. The teachers of the refresher courses receive a detailed result sheet for each student, showing the areas of study needed by that student. Students who don't pass, but otherwise qualify for graduation, may receive a Certificate of Program Completion at graduation time, but may also continue taking the M.C.T. until age 21, and can also receive the standard diploma if and when the final remaining part of the M.C.T. is passed. Severely mentally retarded and some autistic students may be exempted from taking the M.C.T., upon parental request; but they do not receive diplomas, and the parent is so notified when exemption is sought.

During the 1978/79 and the 1979/80 school terms, eleven of the twelve petitioners in the State administrative proceeding, who anticipated graduation in 1980, had taken the M.C.T. one or more times. Several passed one or more parts, but none passed all three parts. Consequently, none was awarded a diploma. Several received "Certificates" and some are continuing efforts to acquire sufficient knowledge to pass the M.C.T. before reaching age 21. As noted above, the areas of knowledge tested are basic mathematics skills, elementary grammar and language arts, and functional reading.

School District # 150, when the M.C.T. policy was adopted in the spring of 1978, and thereafter, undertook to notify all students of the additional graduation requirement. Circulars were distributed in the schools, mailings were made to parents, and repeated announcements were made through all of the mass news media. While Superintendent Gill found that "the record does clearly establish how well these efforts succeeded," there is neither evidence nor contention that any plaintiff here did not know of the graduation requirement of passing the M.C.T. more than a year before his or her scheduled graduation.

The State Superintendent's order decided (1) that the State Board of Education had jurisdiction of the matter; (2) that the Peoria Board had the right to impose reasonable additional standards for graduation from high school with a regular diploma; (3) that neither the federal Education for All Handicapped Children Act (20 U.S.C. § 1401 ff.) nor § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (29 U.S.C. § 794) prohibits local school districts from requiring that exceptional students meet all otherwise reasonable standards for graduation, including, on its face, the M.C.T.; (4) that federal law requires that school districts make reasonable modifications to tests such as the M.C.T., in order to minimize the effect of an individual student's handicapping condition; and (5) that Peoria District # 150 violated the "due process" rights of the plaintiff students, who anticipated graduation in 1980, by failing to give them adequate and timely notice that the M.C.T. would be a prerequisite to receipt of a diploma. It ordered issuance of "regular high school diplomas," in a manner consistent with the opinion and the individual orders attached thereto. Eleven of the individual orders directed that Peoria School District # 150 award the individual student involved "a diploma as a certificate of graduation, which diploma shall be identical in all respects to those awarded to students who have satisfactorily completed all of the requirements in the standard educational program, including the satisfactory completion of the Minimal Competency Test."

The jurisdiction in this court derives from the Education of All Handicapped Children Act (20 U.S.C. § 1401 ff.), and § 1415(e)(2) thereof provides that the court "shall receive the records of the administrative proceedings, shall hear additional evidence at the request of a party, and, basing its decision on the preponderance of the evidence, shall grant such relief as the court considers appropriate."⁴

Plaintiffs ask the court to sustain that part of the Administrative Order directing the issuance of diplomas to certain plaintiffs and requiring appropriate modification of the M.C.T. for handicapped students, but also to direct School District # 150 to cease using the M.C.T. unless it is modified for specific handicapping conditions of handicapped students, and to direct the State Board of Education and Superintendent Gill to modify the Administrative Order to find the Peoria M.C.T. invalid, and to "promulgate guidelines to ensure appropriate validation and modification of minimal competency tests."

The State Board of Education and Superintendent Gill ask that the Administrative Order be upheld and that Peoria School District # 150 and its Superintendent Whitaker be directed to implement it.

The Board of Education of School District # 150 and Superintendent Whitaker ask that the court affirm the decision of the State Board (Superintendent) upholding the validity of the M.C.T. program as such; that an opportunity be given to two named students to retake the M.C.T. test, with the modifications which were requested; and that it reverse the order for issuance of diplomas to certain plaintiffs; or, in the alternative, if the court agrees that insufficient notice was given, that it order further opportunities for remediation programs and further opportunities for retaking the M.C.T.

The court is satisfied that local boards of education and their staffs have the right, if not a positive duty, to develop reasonable means to determine the effectiveness of their educational programs with respect to all individual students to whom they issue diplomas, and that the M.C.T. program here is a reasonable means. Nothing in federal or state law stands in the way. The court finds Superintendent Gill's discussion and analysis on this score to be sound, and affirms Divisions I, II and III of his Opinion. Plaintiff's arguments that statutes are violated here is not supported by the cases cited, and the argument that the Peoria M.C.T. is scientifically invalid is simply not persuasive. Perhaps no test of human beings by human beings can always be scientifically exact, but that is not the measure. It is a reasonable test of the accomplishment of...