Sacramento City Unified School Dist., Bd. of Educ. v. Rachel H. By and Through Holland

• Decision Date: 24 January 1994
• Docket Number: No. 92-15608,92-15608
• Parties: 89 Ed. Law Rep. 57, 4 A.D.D. 75 SACRAMENTO CITY UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT, BOARD OF EDUCATION, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. RACHEL H., By and Through her guardian ad litem, Robert HOLLAND; William Honig, California State Superintendent of Public Instruction; California State Department of Education Hearing Office, McGeorge School of Law; and Mary Cote, Hearing Officer, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 1398

14 F.3d 1398

89 Ed. Law Rep. 57, 4 A.D.D. 75

SACRAMENTO CITY UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT, BOARD OF EDUCATION, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. RACHEL H., By and Through her guardian ad litem, Robert

HOLLAND; William Honig, California State Superintendent of

Public Instruction; California State Department of

Education Hearing Office, McGeorge School of Law; and Mary

Cote, Hearing Officer, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 92-15608.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted Aug. 12, 1993.

Decided Jan. 24, 1994.

Jane E. Slenkovich, Phoebe G. Graubard, Saratoga, CA, for plaintiff-appellant.

Diane J. Lipton and Arlene B. Mayerson, Kathryn E. Dobel, Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, Inc., Berkeley, for defendants-appellee Rachel Holland.

Joseph R. Symkowick, Barry A. Zolotar, Joyce O. Eackrem, California Dept. of Educ., Sacramento, CA for defendants-appellees William Honig, CA State Superintendent of Public Instruction, California State Dept. of Educ. Hearing Office, McGeorge School of Law and Mary Cote, Hearing Officer.

Michael Jay Singer, Jeffrica Jenkins Lee, Attys., Appellate Staff, Civ. Div., Dept. of Justice, Washington, DC, for amicus.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California.

Before: SNEED, POOLE, and TROTT, Circuit Judges.

SNEED, Circuit Judge:

The Sacramento Unified School District ("the District") timely appeals the district court's judgment in favor of Rachel Holland ("Rachel") and the California State Department of Education. The court found that the appropriate placement for Rachel under the Individuals with Disabilities Act ("IDEA") was full-time in a regular second grade classroom with some supplemental services. The District contends that the appropriate placement for Rachel is half-time in special education

classes and half-time in a regular class. We affirm the judgment of the district court.

I. FACTS AND PRIOR PROCEEDINGS ¹

Rachel Holland is now 11 years old and is mentally retarded. She was tested with an I.Q. of 44. She attended a variety of special education programs in the District from 1985-89. Her parents sought to increase the time Rachel spent in a regular classroom, and in the fall of 1989, they requested that Rachel be placed full-time in a regular classroom for the 1989-90 school year. The District rejected their request and proposed a placement that would have divided Rachel's time between a special education class for academic subjects and a regular class for non-academic activities such as art, music, lunch, and recess. The district court found that this plan would have required moving Rachel at least six times each day between the two classrooms. Holland, 786 F.Supp. at 876. The Hollands instead enrolled Rachel in a regular kindergarten class at the Shalom School, a private school. Rachel remained at the Shalom School in regular classes and at the time the district court rendered its opinion was in the second grade.

The Hollands and the District were able to agree on an Individualized Education Program ("IEP") ² for Rachel. Although the IEP is required to be reviewed annually, see 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1401a(20)(B), because of the dispute between the parties, Rachel's IEP has not been reviewed since January 1990. ³

The Hollands appealed the District's placement decision to a state hearing officer pursuant to 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1415(b)(2). They maintained that Rachel best learned social and academic skills in a regular classroom and would not benefit from being in a special education class. The District contended Rachel was too severely disabled to benefit from full-time placement in a regular class. The hearing officer concluded that the District had failed to make an adequate effort to educate Rachel in a regular class pursuant to the IDEA. The officer found that (1) Rachel had benefitted from her regular kindergarten class--that she was motivated to learn and learned by imitation and modeling; (2) Rachel was not disruptive in a regular classroom; and (3) the District had overstated the cost of putting Rachel in regular education--that the cost would not be so great that it weighed against placing her in a regular classroom. The hearing officer ordered the District to place Rachel in a regular classroom with support services, including a special education consultant and a part-time aide.

The District appealed this determination to the district court. Pursuant to 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1415(e)(2), the parties presented additional evidence at an evidentiary hearing. The court affirmed the decision of the hearing officer that Rachel should be placed full-time in a regular classroom.

In considering whether the District proposed an appropriate placement for Rachel, the district court examined the following factors: (1) the educational benefits available to Rachel in a regular classroom, supplemented with appropriate aids and services, as compared with the educational benefits of a special education classroom; (2) the non-academic benefits of interaction with children who were not disabled; (3) the effect of Rachel's presence on the teacher and other children in the classroom; and (4) the cost of

mainstreaming Rachel in a regular classroom.

1. Educational Benefits

The district court found the first factor, educational benefits to Rachel, weighed in favor of placing her in a regular classroom. Each side presented expert testimony which is summarized in the margin. ⁴ The court noted that the District's evidence focused on Rachel's limitations but did not establish that the educational opportunities available through special education were better or equal to those available in a regular classroom. Moreover, the court found that the testimony of the Hollands' experts was more credible because they had more background in evaluating children with disabilities placed in regular classrooms and that they had a greater opportunity to observe Rachel over an extended period of time in normal circumstances. The district court also gave great weight to the testimony of Rachel's current teacher, Nina Crone, whom the court found to be an experienced, skillful teacher. Ms. Crone stated that Rachel was a full member of the class and participated in all activities. Ms. Crone testified that Rachel was making progress on her IEP goals: She was learning one-to-one correspondence in counting, was able to recite the English and Hebrew alphabets, and was improving her communication abilities and sentence lengths.

The district court found that Rachel received substantial benefits in regular education and that all of her IEP goals could be implemented in a regular classroom with some modification to the curriculum and with the assistance of a part-time aide.

2. Non-academic Benefits

The district court next found that the second factor, non-academic benefits to Rachel, also weighed in favor of placing her in a regular classroom. The court noted that the Hollands' evidence indicated that Rachel had developed her social and communications skills as well as her self-confidence from placement in a regular class, while the District's evidence tended to show that Rachel was not learning from exposure to other children and that she was isolated from her classmates. The court concluded that the differing evaluations in large part reflected the predisposition of the evaluators. The court found the testimony of Rachel's mother and her current teacher to be the most credible. These witnesses testified regarding Rachel's excitement about school, learning, and her new friendships and Rachel's improved self-confidence.

3. Effect on the Teacher and Children in the Regular Class

The district court next addressed the issue of whether Rachel had a detrimental effect on others in her regular classroom. The court looked at two aspects: (1) whether there was detriment because the child was disruptive, distracting or unruly, and (2) whether the child would take up so much of the teacher's time that the other students would suffer from lack of attention. The witnesses of both parties agreed that Rachel followed directions and was well-behaved and not a distraction in class. The court found the most germane evidence on the second aspect came from Rachel's second grade teacher, Nina Crone, who testified that Rachel did not interfere with her ability to teach the other children and in the future would require only a part-time aide. Accordingly, the district court determined that the third factor, the effect of Rachel's presence on the teacher and other children in the classroom weighed in favor of placing her in a regular classroom.

4. Cost

Finally, the district court found that the District had not offered any persuasive or credible evidence to support its claim that educating Rachel in a regular classroom with The District contended that it would cost $109,000 to educate Rachel full-time in a regular classroom. This figure was based on the cost of providing a full-time aide for Rachel plus an estimated $80,000 for school-wide sensitivity training. The court found that the District did not establish that such training was necessary. Further, the court noted that even if such training were necessary, there was evidence from the California Department of Education that the training could be had at no cost. Moreover, the court found it would be inappropriate to assign the total cost of the training to Rachel when other children with disabilities would benefit. In addition, the court concluded that the evidence did not suggest that Rachel required a full-time aide.

appropriate services would be significantly more expensive than educating her in the District's proposed setting.

In addition, the court found that the District should have compared the cost of placing Rachel in a special class of approximately 12 students with a full-time special education teacher and two full-time aides and the cost of placing her in a regular class with a part-time aide. The...