John M. v. Board of Educ. Evanston Tp. High Sch.
| Decision Date | 17 September 2007 |
| Docket Number | No. 06-3274.,No. 06-3738.,06-3274.,06-3738. |
| Citation | 502 F.3d 708 |
| Parties | JOHN M., by his parents and next friends, Christine M., and Michael M., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF EVANSTON TOWNSHIP HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 202, Evanston Township High School District 202, and Allan Alson, Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Erin M. Maus, Baker & McKenzie, Chicago, IL, for Parent Advocates & Attorneys Inc., Nat. Disability Rights Newtwork, Center for Law & Educ., Equip for Equality, TASH, Nat. Down Syndrome Congress, and Nat. Down Syndrome Soc., Amicus Curiae.
Before RIPPLE, MANION and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.
John M. ("John"), by and through his parents and next friends, Christine M. and Michael M., filed this action seeking relief under the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act ("IDEA"), as amended by the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Improvement Act ("IDEIA"). He alleged that Evanston Township High School District 202, its Board of Education and its Superintendent (collectively "the School District") had denied John a free, appropriate public education ("FAPE") as required by the legislation. In response to John's motion for enforcement of the statute's "stay-put" provision, which requires generally that a child remain in the same educational placement pending any proceedings, see 20 U.S.C. § 1415(j), the district court entered a preliminary injunction.
For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we have concluded that the injunction cannot stand in its present form because it addresses matters beyond the stay-put provision and does not apply the correct standards when it does address the stay-put provision. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the district court and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.1
John is a 16 year-old sophomore in high school who has Down's Syndrome. He is enrolled in the School District as a student at Evanston Township High School ("ETHS"), a public school that receives federal funding and that is subject, therefore, to the requirements of the IDEA and the IDEIA. Before beginning his high school career at ETHS, John had attended Haven Middle School, District 65 ("Haven"). Students from Haven normally transition to ETHS to continue their education.
While John was a student at Haven, he pursued his middle school education under the terms of an Individualized Education Program ("IEP"). This plan, often referred to in this opinion as the "May 2004 IEP," had been formulated in May 2004. While at Haven, John had received a service that the parties refer to as "co-teaching." The phrase "co-teaching" did not appear in the May 2004 IEP.
In Spring 2005, John's parents and representatives of ETHS met to formulate an IEP for John's coming freshman year at ETHS.2 Representatives from Haven also attended the first two sessions of these meetings. During this process, ETHS stated that it would not be able to provide the same sort of co-teaching services that Haven had provided to John during his middle school education. Instead, ETHS proposed to afford John 215 minutes per week of special education services. The proposed ETHS IEP also provided that John's special education teacher would observe him in his general education classes of English, History, Algebra and Biology for 43 to 86 additional minutes per week. ETHS' IEP also provided for various speech therapy services, social work services, physical therapy and occupational therapy. It did not provide, however, for a "Circle of Friends" type social and speech therapy that John had received at Haven and that his parents believed was very beneficial to him during his time there.
Because John's parents did not believe that the proposed IEP fulfilled the School District's statutory responsibility to their son, they requested an administrative hearing. The hearing officer determined that the IEP complied with statutory requirements. He also concluded that ETHS had complied fully with the requirements of the stay-put placement.3
John then filed an action in the district court seeking review of the hearing officer's determination. While this action was pending, John filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to enforce the stay-put placement and a motion to supplement the administrative record and present additional evidence.4
In his motion for a preliminary injunction, John sought to maintain the status quo, the May 2004 middle school IEP, while the litigation over the proposed high school IEP was under consideration by the district court.
Although ostensibly ruling on the stay-put request, the district court addressed extensively the merits of the proposed high school IEP and determined that the School District, as a practical matter, offered only two options to John: (1) a mainstream class without a co-teacher or (2) placement in a separate special education classroom. The district court then concluded that the School District essentially had defaulted John into the special education class because his disability prevented him from participating in the mainstream classes. The district court held that this situation was a violation of the statute because it denied John an individual assessment. The district court, therefore, vacated the hearing officer's decision to the extent that it was inconsistent with the district court's determination that the proposed high school IEP did not offer John a FAPE. The district court then entered a preliminary injunction that required the School District to provide John with an education based on its proposed high school IEP with additional features specified by the court.5
The School District then filed a motion to stay the district court's judgment pending appeal. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 62(c). The district court granted the motion in part and denied it in part. The district court agreed with the School District that the part of its order that required the plaintiffs and defendants to work together to create a new IEP crossed the line from enforcement of the stay-put placement to a merits-based preliminary injunction. It therefore stayed subsection 3 of its order, but denied the stay with respect to the remainder of the order.
John first submits that the district court erred when, while ruling on his motion for a preliminary injunction to enforce the statute's stay-put provision, it vacated, sua sponte, the hearing officer's decision on the merits.
After John appealed the merits of the hearing officer's decision to the district court, he filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to enforce the stay-put provision of the statute. In ruling on John's motion for preliminary injunction on the stay-put placement, the district court, sua sponte, vacated the decision of the hearing officer and ordered the implementation of a regimen that employed the proposed high school IEP as its base and added other requirements, including a co-teaching services component. The School District submits that the district court exceeded the bounds of the motion and, by addressing the underlying merits, deprived the School District of the right to be heard.
The School District is correct. The motion for a preliminary injunction to enforce the stay-put provision had not placed the merits of the hearing officer's decision before the district court. In asking for preliminary injunctive relief, John sought to enforce only the stay-put placement provision of the statute while he litigated, in the district court, the correctness of the hearing officer's decision. Upon the filing of the motion for a preliminary injunction, the School District simply was not on notice that the district court planned to address, in its consideration of that motion, the underlying merits. Consequently, the School District did not have an adequate opportunity to submit evidence with respect to the appropriateness of the proposed high school IEP. The School District simply was not given an adequate opportunity to defend itself on the merits. Accordingly, we must conclude that it was error for the district court to amend sua sponte the IEP and to vacate the hearing officer's decision.
Our determination is simply an application of the general rule that sua sponte judgments are generally disfavored. See Southern Illinois Riverboat Casino Cruises, Inc. v. Triangle Insulation & Sheet Metal Co., 302 F.3d 667, 677-78 (7th Cir.2002). At a minimum, sua sponte judgments are proper only when the litigants have proper notice that the district court is contemplating entering such a judgment and have a fair opportunity to submit evidence prior to the entry of such a judgment. Sims-Madison v. Inland Paperboard & Packaging, Inc., 379 F.3d 445, 449 (7th Cir.2004).
We now must examine whether the district court erred when it held that co-teaching was required as part of John's stay-put placement.
In enacting the stay-put provision, Congress intended "to strip schools of the unilateral authority they had traditionally employed to exclude disabled students . . . from school." Honig v. Doe, 484 U.S. 305, 323, 108 S.Ct. 592, 98 L.Ed.2d 686 (1988) (emphasis in original). The statute's stay-put provision requires that a child remain in "the same educational placement pending the outcome of any proceedings brought pursuant to section 1415, unless the parents and the school district otherwise agree." Bd. of Educ. of Cmty. High Sch. Dist. No. 218 v. Illinois State Bd. of Educ., 103 F.3d 545, 548 (7th Cir.1996). The term "`educational placement' is not statutorily defined, so that...
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