Taylor v. Vermont Dept. of Educ.
| Decision Date | 20 December 2002 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 01-7566. |
| Parties | Pam TAYLOR, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. VERMONT DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, David S. Wolk, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Education, Addison Central Supervisory Union, John Murphy, Addison Central Supervisory Union Support Service Coordinator, Amy Brown, Addison Central Supervisory Union Learning Specialist, Addison Northeast Supervisory Union, Louise Acker, Addison Northeast Supervisory Union Special Education Representative, Weybridge School District, Christina Johnson, Principal, Weybridge Elementary School, Starksboro School District, and Mary Heins, Principal, Robinson Elementary School, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
James M. Dingley, Roesler, Whittlesey, Meekins & Amidon, Burlington, VT, (Marsha S. Meekins, on the brief) for Plaintiff-Appellant.
John Davis Buckley, Theriault & Joslin, P.C., Montpelier, VT, (Laura Q. Pelosi, on the brief) for Defendants-Appellees Addison Northeast Supervisory Union, Starksboro School District, Mary Heins and Louise Acker.
Patti R. Page, Stitzel, Page & Fletcher, P.C., Burlington, VT, for Defendants-Appellees Addison Central Supervisory Union, Weybridge School District, John Murphy, Amy Brown, and Christina Johnson.
Geoffrey A. Yudien, Special Assistant Attorney General, Vermont Department of Education, for William H. Sorrell, Attorney General for the State of Vermont, Montpelier, VT, for Defendants-Appellees Vermont Department of Education and Commissioner David S. Wolk.
Before: POOLER, SOTOMAYOR, Circuit Judges, and KAPLAN, District Judge.*
We are presented with the question of who is entitled to exercise the rights afforded to a "parent" under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ("IDEA"), 20 U.S.C. §§ 1400 et seq., and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act ("FERPA"), 20 U.S.C. § 1232g. Plaintiff-appellant Pam Taylor alleges that the defendants have violated statutory rights she possesses as the natural mother of a child who suffers from a disability. The United States District Court for the District of Vermont (Niedermeier, Mag. J.) granted defendants' motion to dismiss plaintiff's action for failure to state a claim pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), holding that plaintiff, whose legal authority over the child had been curtailed by a state divorce decree, lacked standing to pursue an action under either statute.
On appeal, Taylor argues that a natural mother is entitled to exercise parental rights under the IDEA and FERPA, and that state law cannot abrogate these federal rights. We decline plaintiff's invitation to federalize the law of domestic relations and hold that the IDEA and FERPA leave intact a state's authority to determine who may make educational decisions on behalf of a child, so long as a state does so in a manner consistent with the federal statutes. We therefore affirm the district court's dismissal of the claims related to plaintiff's requests for an Individual Educational Evaluation and amendment of inaccurate information contained in her daughter's academic files. We also affirm the dismissal of plaintiff's 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim based on FERPA, § 1232g(a), under the reasoning of Gonzaga University v. Doe, 536 U.S. 273, 122 S.Ct. 2268, 153 L.Ed.2d 309 (2002). Nevertheless, because plaintiff retains some important rights under the divorce decree — specifically the right to reasonable information regarding her daughter's health and progress in school — we vacate the district court's judgment insofar as it dismissed her IDEA claim that she was denied access to her child's educational records. We further hold that plaintiff was not required to exhaust her administrative remedies against the Addison Northeast Supervisory Union ("ANSU") defendants, because it would have been futile for Taylor to pursue her IDEA administrative remedies against the ANSU defendants and because it is improbable that she could have obtained relief from the administrative proceedings. Finally, we hold that the magistrate judge's decision not to recuse himself sua sponte was not fundamental error.
Plaintiff Appellant Pam Taylor has alleged the following facts. Taylor is the natural mother of L.D., who at the time of the complaint was a student at the Weybridge Elementary School in Vermont. Taylor obtained a divorce from L.D.'s father in February 1992 and moved to the U.S. Virgin Islands. The parents shared custody of L.D. for a two-year period after the divorce, after which time they returned to court, each seeking a greater role in L.D.'s parenting. The Vermont family court ultimately revoked the prior custody arrangement and awarded L.D.'s father full custody. The divorce decree entered by the Addison Family Court on July 26, 1994 provides:
The court allocates all legal rights and physical rights regarding the choice of schooling for the child ... to the father. Such rights shall include the right to choose the school location, and participate in all parent teacher conferences of decision making with full authority on behalf of the child.... [The father] shall have the right to make all decisions regarding the child's health and safety while in his care during the school year.
The mother shall have a right to reasonable information regarding the child's progress in school and her health and safety.
. . . . The Court places the parental rights and responsibilities for the child ... both legal and physical fully with the defendant-father....
This ruling was affirmed by the Vermont Supreme Court.
From the fall of 1994 until June 1998, L.D. attended the Robinson Elementary School ("Robinson") in Starksboro, Vermont. Robinson is part of the Starksboro School District ("SSD") and the Addison Northeast Supervisory Union ("ANSU"). From February 1996 until June 1998, officials at Robinson assessed L.D. in connection with a suspected disability. In January 1998, the ANSU Evaluation and Planning Team determined that L.D. was not eligible for special education under the IDEA, but that she did have Attention Deficit Disorder. ANSU evaluated L.D. to determine what accommodations would be appropriate under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Plaintiff Taylor was not notified of any of the meetings or evaluations that were conducted as part of this assessment, nor was she informed that the school suspected that L.D. suffered from a disability. Moreover, although Taylor requested L.D.'s school records in June 1998, Robinson did not provide Taylor with L.D.'s special education records. Taylor eventually received the special education records from the Weybridge School District in 1999.
L.D. and her father moved to Weybridge, Vermont in the summer of 1998. That September, L.D. commenced fourth grade at the Weybridge Elementary School, which is part of the Addison Central Supervisory Union ("ACSU"). The Weybridge School District formed an Education Support Team to evaluate L.D. for disabilities. In October and November 1998, Taylor traveled to Weybridge to attend what she believed were parent-teacher conferences to discuss L.D.'s academic and social difficulties. She was not informed that, in fact, these meetings were being conducted in order to complete L.D.'s preliminary disability evaluation. Throughout the remainder of the academic year, meetings and assessments of L.D. continued and a "Notice and Consent for Special Education Evaluation" was issued by the Weybridge School District, without any notice to the plaintiff.
In May 1999, in response to letters Taylor had sent to both the ANSU and ACSU, the Weybridge Elementary School finally sent her complete copies of L.D.'s educational records. It was after reviewing these records that Taylor first realized that the school district suspected that L.D. suffered from a disability.
During that same month, Weybridge psychologist Patricia Messerle began her disability evaluation. Messerle contacted the plaintiff, explaining that she had been hired by ACSU to help L.D. become more successful in school, and that she needed information on L.D.'s "actual temperament from birth." Messerle issued her completed report on July 2, 1999, in which she concluded that L.D. qualified for special education due to her emotional-behavioral problems. Taylor received a copy of Messerle's evaluation on July 19, 1999. On August 25, 1999, she wrote to Weybridge with concerns regarding the accuracy of the report and asked for certain factual corrections. Some, but not all, of the requested changes were made.
On July 9, 1999, an Individualized Education Program ("IEP") team consisting of L.D.'s father, stepmother, Messerle, Weybridge Elementary School principal Christina Johnson, ACSU Learning Specialist Amy Brown, and L.D.'s fourth grade teacher determined that L.D. suffered from an emotional-behavioral disability under Vermont Department of Education Regulation 2362.1(h). On August 30, 1999, the IEP team met to create L.D.'s first IEP, and on September 7, they sent L.D. for a neuropsychological evaluation at the Dartmouth Medical School. Although Taylor was later sent copies of the minutes from the August 30 meeting and the report issued by the Dartmouth Medical School, she was not informed in advance that any of these meetings or evaluations were to take place.
On September 3, 1999, Taylor wrote to James Lombardo, an ACSU official, alleging forty-five violations of her rights under federal and state law. Taylor asked to be included as a member of L.D.'s IEP team, for access to L.D.'s educational records, and to be allowed input into the content of those records. She sent a courtesy copy of this letter to the Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Education ("VDOE"), the federal Department of Education, and various ANSU and ACSU officials. On September 10, 1999, Taylor sent a follow-up letter to ACSU, which ...
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