Richardson v. Omaha Sch. Dist.
| Decision Date | 15 September 2020 |
| Docket Number | CASE NO. 3:19-CV-03080 |
| Parties | CHAD and TONYA RICHARDSON, Individually and as Parents and Next Friends of L. PLAINTIFFS v. OMAHA SCHOOL DISTRICT DEFENDANT |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Arkansas |
At the Court's direction,1 plaintiffs Chad and Tonya Richardson have filed a Motion in Support of Count I of their Complaint and a Memorandum Brief in Support (Docs. 19 & 20). They appeal the decision of an Arkansas Department of Education ("ADE") Hearing Officer, and they ask the Court to find by a preponderance of the evidence that Defendant Omaha School District (the "District") violated their child's ("L.") rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ("IDEA") during Spring 2017 and the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 school years. The District filed a Response and Plaintiffs replied (Docs. 27 & 32). The entire administrative record has been filed and reviewed by the Court, and the matter is ripe for disposition.
L. is currently a 10th grade student at the District who was diagnosed with autism in elementary school, and he has subsequently been diagnosed with ADHD, Tourette'ssyndrome, and post-traumatic stress syndrome. Under the IDEA, the District must provide L. with a free appropriate public education ("FAPE"), 20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(1), which includes special education and related services in conformity with an individualized education program ("IEP"), id. at § 1401(9)(D). The IDEA sets out a process by which teachers, school officials, and a child's parents should collaborate to draft an IEP that fits the child's unique needs. See id. at § 1414(d)(1)(B).
When a parent disagrees with other members of the IEP team over what the IEP should include, the parties may attempt to resolve the disagreement, either through a "preliminary meeting" or through mediation. Id. at §§ 1415(e), (f)(1)(B)(i). If unsuccessful, then the parent may file a complaint with the Arkansas Department of Education to initiate a "due process hearing." See id. at § 1415(f)(1)(A). Following the Hearing Officer's decision, the losing party may appeal it by filing a lawsuit in federal court. See id. at § 1415(i)(2)(A). And that is what happened here. This case is the latest in a series of lawsuits between the Richardsons, on behalf of their disabled child, L., and the District, where L. is enrolled as a student.
During Fall 2016—L.'s 6th grade year—L. suffered an episode while at school that led his parents to decide to educate him at home. The Richardsons alleged that L.'s episode—which included increased tics, later ascribed to L.'s Tourette's syndrome—was caused by bullying by L.'s peers and teachers. On November 29, 2016, the Richardsons filed a due-process complaint alleging L. was denied a FAPE, and while the Hearing Officer rejected the Richardsons' claims related to bullying, the Hearing Officer did find that the District denied L. a free, appropriate public education ("FAPE") because it failed to reevaluate L. and failed to provide IEPs reasonably calculated to enable L. to makeprogress appropriate in light of his specific circumstances. The Hearing Officer ordered the District to evaluate L. within 30 days to determine his academic, social, and behavioral deficits and then update L.'s IEP accordingly. The Richardsons then appealed to this Court, seeking attorneys' fees and bringing new claims under Section 504 and the ADA. The issues raised in that appeal were ultimately resolved in the District's favor, and the Eighth Circuit affirmed this Court's rulings in that matter. See Richardson v. Omaha Sch. Dist., 957 F.3d 868, 872 (8th Cir. 2020) ("Richardson I").
This case picks up where the first due-process complaint left off. In Fall 2016, L.'s placement was changed to full-time special education, but the Richardsons chose to educate L. at home for the remainder of the 2016-2017 school year. During Spring 2017, the District sent homework to L., but no in-home services were provided to him until May 2017, at which point Jennifer Robinson began to provide him with homebound instruction, at the District's cost. It is undisputed that L. did not take standardized tests during Spring 2017. Then, as a result of the Hearing Officer's decision in Richardson I, the District paid for Dr. Charles Nichols to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of L., although he did not evaluate L. for emotional disturbances, at the direction of the Richardsons.
Following the Hearing Officer's decision in Richardson I, the District and the parents collaborated to generate a new IEP for L. In May 2017, the IEP committee created an IEP which stated that L.'s autism "has an adverse [e]ffect on his involvement and progress in the general education," and it notes that he "is functioning below grade level in the areas of math, basic reading, reading comprehension, written expression, and adaptive behavior . . . ." (Doc. 17-3, p. 185). The IEP memorialized that L.'s "most recent STAR assessment show[s] his reading to be a grade of 2.3 and his math level to be 3.1 .. . ." Id. at p. 185. Additionally, it was agreed that the District would provide L. with 90 hours of compensatory education and that L. would also receive 28 hours of occupational therapy compensatory education. The May 2017 IEP notes that (Doc. 17-3, p. 187). Another note clarified that the above hours were "proposed by the district" and would be "provided to student as he can tolerate . . . ." Id. at p. 191.
Following Dr. Nichols' evaluation, L.'s IEP was revised in July 2017. Dr. Nichols found that L. had "severe disparities in reading fluency, math calculations, math reasoning, and spelling," and he also found that L. had an IQ score of 84 (Doc. 17-4, p. 27). The revised IEP repeated that the District would provide services to L. to the extent L. could tolerate instruction, but it added that "[p]arents and staff will work on increasing exposure to campus to assist with future transition." Id. at p. 28. Going forward, the IEP stated that the District would offer L. five educational hours per week, 30 hours of occupational therapy a per week, 30 minutes of speech therapy a week, and one hour of cognitive behavioral therapy per week, all in the homebound setting. Id. at p. 31. Furthermore, consistent with the May 2017 iteration of the IEP, Ms. Robinson provided L. with homebound compensatory education during the summer months of 2017. L.'s seventh grade year started in August 2017, and he continued to receive homebound instruction from Ms. Robinson (Doc. 18-1, p. 232).
Consistent with the operative IEP, L. began to see psychologist Dr. Ann Colvin in July 2017. Her notes from July 27, 2017, state that the plan was to provide L. with onehour of instruction per day during the summer and that she was "in agreement with a slow process." (Doc. 17-4, p. 49). In October, the IEP committee met to discuss transitioning L. back into the classroom and to increase his speech and occupational therapy, but the committee concluded that those changes would not be successful at that time (Doc. 17-4, p. 67). A letter from Dr. Colvin dated November 13, 2017, states that "we determined to slow down the pace to [sic] reintegrating him into a traditional school environment." (Doc. 17-4, p. 103). She noted that she referred him to Jennifer Savage for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing ("EMDR") and that he had seen "positive progress" with this treatment. Id. Medical notes from L.'s meetings with Ms. Savage in November 2017 indicate that L.'s tics had increased but that he expressed a desire to return to school (Doc. 17-4, pp. 83-84).
Dr. Colvin agreed that L. should be reintegrated into the school environment, and she met with Mr. Richardson to plan for L.'s to return to school. Id. at p. 93. Dr. Colvin's recommended plan was to ease L. back into the classroom environment by exposing him to the school campus after hours, giving him assignments that more closely resembled school work, and helping Ms. Robinson in her on-campus classroom. Id. Dr. Colvin's notes from November 27, 2017, state that she and Ms. Savage agreed that reintegration was a "much needed step of [L.'s] treatment plan." Id. at p. 121. On December 22, 2017, Dr. Colvin wrote a letter requesting that L.'s homebound services be continued until June 6, 2018, but also "recommend[ing] efforts to begin to re-enter [L.] into the school environment." Id. at p. 131.
On March 27, 2018, the IEP committee met to discuss L.'s progress and review the need for further homebound services. The notes from that meeting state that L. hadmastered "2 out of 4 objectives" relating to his social communication skills, mastery of one occupational therapy goal, and ongoing progress towards three other occupational therapy goals (Doc. 17-5, p. 58). The notes also state that L. made "progress on all academic goals" and on "adaptive behavior goals." Id. Ms. Robinson and Mr. Richardson agreed that L. showed "more independence in the last quarter." Id. The committee agreed that homebound services were still needed, but they also recommended that L. come to the school after hours to reintegrate. Id.
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