Rowley

In this panel, we begin our discussion of important Court cases interpreting the rights of handicapped children.

Rowley:  HENDRICK HUDSON DIST. BD. OF ED. v. ROWLEY, 458 U.S. 176 (1982) arose in connection with the education of Amy Rowley, a deaf student at the Furnace Woods School in the Hendrick Hudson Central School District, Peekskill, N. Y.  The decision involved an attempt by the Court to determine what weight should be given to local decision making when reviewed by federal courts.

Amy Rowley had minimal residual hearing, but was an excellent lip-reader. An IEP was prepared for Amy during the fall of her first-grade year. The IEP provided that Amy should be educated in a regular classroom at Furnace Woods using an FM hearing aid (which received amplified sound from a microphone on her teacher), and should receive tutorial instruction. The Rowleys agreed with parts of the IEP but insisted that Amy also be provided a qualified sign-language interpreter in all her academic classes in lieu of the assistance proposed in other parts of the IEP. Although Amy performed at an above average level, she missed some of the classroom activities not picked up by the FM hearing aid. When their request for an interpreter was denied, the Rowleys demanded and received a hearing before an independent examiner. After receiving evidence from both sides, the examiner agreed with the administrators' determination that an interpreter was not necessary because "Amy was achieving educationally, academically, and socially" without such assistance.

But the District Court disagreed.  First, the District Court found essentially that it could make its own decision anew as to what educational services were required.  And, significantly, it found that the school erred when it focussed upon whether Amy was functioning adequately, as opposed to Amy's potential were she not handicapped.  Amy's case presented two issues, one substantive and one procedural.  The substantive issue involved what minimum level of services Congress required for "a handicapped child who is receiving substantial specialized instruction and related services, and who is performing above average in the regular classrooms of a public school system, we confine our analysis to that situation."  The procedural issue involved the standard of review to be applied by the courts.  Usually, governmental action carries with it a presumption of validity, and thus courts defer to the decisions of school districts.  Did Congress intend such deference when Courts reviewed administrative IEP decisions.

The Supreme Court's Rowley decision first struggles with what minimum floor on services to the disabled Congress intended to set.

• According to the definitions contained in the Act, a "free appropriate public education" consists of educational instruction specially designed to meet the unique needs of the handicapped child, supported by such services as are necessary to permit the child "to benefit" from the instruction. .... [i]f personalized instruction is being provided with sufficient supportive services to permit the child to benefit from the instruction, and the other items on the definitional checklist are satisfied, the child is receiving a "free appropriate public education" as defined by the Act.....the face of the statute evinces a congressional intent to bring previously excluded handicapped children into the public education systems of the States and to require the States to adopt procedures which would result in individualized consideration of and instruction for each child.

The District Court and the Court of Appeals thus erred, the Supreme Court held,

• when they held that the Act requires New York to maximize the potential of each handicapped child commensurate with the opportunity provided non handicapped children. Desirable though that goal might be, it is not the standard that Congress imposed upon States which receive funding under the Act. Rather, Congress sought primarily to identify and evaluate handicapped children, and to provide them with access to a free public education..... We therefore conclude that the "basic floor of opportunity" provided by the Act consists of access to specialized instruction and related services which are individually designed to provide educational benefit to the handicapped child.

The Court's decision seemed to focus heavily on whether local administrators followed appropriate procedures in compliance with the goals and policies of the Act:

• Insofar as a State is required to provide a handicapped child with a "free appropriate public education," we hold that it satisfies this requirement by providing personalized instruction with sufficient support services to permit the child to benefit educationally from that instruction. Such instruction and services must be provided at public expense, must meet the State's educational standards, must approximate the grade levels used in the State's regular education, and must comport with the child's IEP. In addition, the IEP, and therefore the personalized instruction, should be formulated in accordance with the requirements of  the Act and, if the child is being educated in the regular classrooms of the public education system, should be reasonably calculated to enable the child to achieve passing marks and advance from grade to grade.

The District Court erred in substituting its own judgment regarding educational benefit for that of the School District, the Court ruled. Congress placed its emphasis on the IEP and administrative procedural protections to set the standard:

• Thus the provision that a reviewing court base its decision on the "preponderance of the evidence" is by no means an invitation to the courts to substitute their own notions of sound educational policy for those of the school authorities which they review. The very importance which Congress has attached to compliance with certain procedures in the preparation of an IEP would be frustrated if a court were permitted simply to set state decisions at nought. The fact that 1415(e) requires that the reviewing court "receive the records of the [state] administrative proceedings" carries with it the implied requirement that due weight shall be given to these proceedings. And we find nothing in the Act to suggest that merely because Congress was rather sketchy in establishing substantive requirements, as opposed to procedural requirements for the preparation of an IEP, it intended that reviewing courts should have a free hand to impose substantive standards of review which cannot be derived from the Act itself. ... Therefore, a court's inquiry in suits brought under 1415(e)(2) is twofold. First, has the State complied with the procedures set forth in the Act? And second, is the individualized educational program developed through the Act's procedures reasonably calculated to enable the child to receive educational benefits? If these requirements are met, the State has complied with the obligations imposed by Congress and the courts can require no more.

Reviewing Courts therefor must defer to local decision making:

In assuring that the requirements of the Act have been met, courts must be careful to avoid imposing their view of preferable educational methods upon the States.  The primary responsibility for formulating the education to be accorded a handicapped child, and for choosing the educational method most suitable to the child's needs, was left by the Act to state and local educational agencies in cooperation with the parents or guardian of the child.

Accordingly, the Supreme Court reversed the lower Courts' decision.

Tatro:  IRVING INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DIST. v. TATRO, 468 U.S. 883 (1984)  dealt with the definition of required "related services" under the Education of Handicapped Act.  Beyond the specific holding, its current significance perhaps rests in the deference shown by the Court to Department of Education interpretive regulations.   In the Tatro case an 8-year-old girl  had a congenital  spina bifida. As a result she suffered from orthopedic and speech impairments and a neurogenic bladder, which prevented her from emptying her bladder voluntarily.  She needed clean intermittent catheterization (CIC) administered every three or four hours to avoid injury to her kidneys. CIC  is a simple procedure that can be performed in a few minutes by a layperson with less than an hour's training.   Tatro's parents asked the school to provide CIC, contending that they constituted "related services" under the Act.  The definition of related services included "supportive services (including . . . medical . . . services, except that such medical services shall be for diagnostic and evaluation purposes only) as may be required to assist a handicapped child to benefit from special education."   The Court's decision pointed out that a service that enables a handicapped child to remain at school during the day is an important means of providing the child with the meaningful access to education that Congress envisioned.

The School District had argued that catheterization was not a related educational service, but rather essentially a medical service, excluded from coverage under the Act. The Department of Education regulations, however, indicated that nursing services did not constitute excluded medical care, and the Court deferred to that interpretation.