Violation of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act by Not Providing Parents With Educational Data
In M.M. v. Lafayette School District, 767 F.3d 842 (9th Cir. 2014), the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held that the school district's failure to provide a child's parents with data from the child's participation in a preliminary general-education intervention program procedurally violated the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and denied the child a free appropriate public education (FAPE).
Facts of the Case
C.M. attended kindergarten in the 2005–2006 school year, the same year the Lafayette School District (the District) implemented a response-to-intervention (RTI) approach to assist struggling general-education students before referral for special education. In kindergarten, C.M. was identified as needing reading intervention and began to receive additional instruction. That year, he scored at benchmark in one aspect of a literacy test (The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills; DIBELS) and below benchmark in others.
In October of C.M.'s first-grade year, his parents requested that the District evaluate him for learning disabilities. The District held two Student Study Team meetings with the parents. The graphs of C.M.'s RTI data were not reviewed during these meetings. In April, his individualized education program (IEP) team (which included the parents) met and determined that he was eligible for special education due to a phonological processing disorder. He began participating in the school's instructional support program.
In a private evaluation in November of C.M.'s second-grade year, a doctor of audiology, Dimitra Loomos, determined that C.M. had a central auditory processing disorder (CAPD). C.M. “showed ‘a deficit for integrating auditory information within the central auditory nervous system … [and] in the ability to perform binaural separation of auditory signals.’” (M.M., p. 849). Dr. Loomos recommended environmental modifications, direct interventions, and compensatory strategies. C.M.'s parents provided copies of this evaluation to school personnel.
The IEP resulting from C.M.'s first annual IEP review meeting was identical to the previous IEP and did not reference his CAPD. His parents obtained another private evaluation from a speech and language pathologist, who found that he “‘experiences a range from average ability to significant difficulty with specific skills of auditory-based language processing’” (M.M., p. 849). His parents paid for him to attend sound-based therapy, but by the end of that year, he scored below benchmark in Oral Reading Fluency on the DIBELS and below basic level in language arts on a state test.
In C.M.'s third-grade year, at an interim IEP team meeting held at their request, his parents expressed disagreement with the 2007 assessment results and requested an independent educational evaluation (IEE) at the District's expense. They also obtained a private evaluation by a licensed psychologist, Tina Guterman, who found that C.M. had weaknesses in auditory processing and severe dyslexia. Dr. Guterman opined that C.M.'s IEP services were insufficient to meet his needs, and his parents withdrew him from the District's instructional support program and enrolled him in a private program.
Ultimately, the parents filed a complaint with the California Department of Education, stating that the District failed to comply with IDEA procedures in response to their request for an IEE; two due process complaints against the District with the Office of Administrative Hearings; and three lawsuits in federal district court. In February 2012, the district court found in favor of the District on all but one claim. The parents appealed.
Ruling and Reasoning
The Ninth Circuit concluded that the District, by failing to provide the parents with the RTI data, violated the IDEA's procedural requirements and denied C.M. a FAPE. These procedural requirements included providing the entire IEP team with the RTI data. Thus, although the District had properly used the RTI data and other factors in assessing C.M.'s educational disability and needs, its failure to provide his parents with the RTI data on which that determination was made denied them a genuine opportunity to give informed consent as required by the federal statute.
The District argued that the IDEA requires only a statement, not documentation; that the requirement was applicable only if the RTI was used to determine C.M.'s eligibility for special education services; and that neither of his formal evaluations relied on RTI data. The Ninth Circuit ruled, however, that the statement given did not include the required information and that the District failed to cite any authority for the inapplicability of the provision. A procedurally valid eligibility determination could be made only after receipt by the entire IEP team of all relevant information, including the RTI data, not merely the report's conclusions.
The Ninth Circuit observed that the federal statute assumes the parents are in the best position to know their child's needs. The IDEA, as described in 20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq. (2004), requires informed parental consent before conducting an initial evaluation and before providing special education services. In addition, the District must establish procedural safeguards that provide an opportunity for the parents of a student with a disability to examine all records relating to the child. The court cited other cases in which it held that examination of such records by parents is critical to the development of an IEP.
Without C.M.'s complete RTI data, his parents were unable to give informed consent for the initial evaluation and the special education services he received. It was immaterial that his parents did not request the RTI data until the middle of his third-grade year, because the District had a procedural duty to provide the IEP team with the RTI data when making the eligibility determination. The District therefore violated the procedural safeguards of the IDEA by not providing the parents with an opportunity to examine all records relating to C.M.
The Ninth Circuit noted that not all procedural violations of the IDEA deny a child a FAPE, but held that the District's violation denied C.M. a FAPE by preventing the parents from meaningfully participating in the IEP formulation process. Without the RTI data, the parents lacked access to information about his lack of educational progress and discrepancies between his diagnosed processing disorder and his performance on relevant measures. His parents were thus deprived of the opportunity to advocate properly for changes to his IEP.
The dissenting opinion notes that the RTI assessments were given to all students and not used to identify or assess for eligibility for special education, and thus it was not mandatory that the data be provided to the parents.
Discussion
The Ninth Circuit's opinion in M.M. focuses on the procedural requirements of the IDEA and underscores the importance of providing the parents of a child with disabilities with data regarding assessments of the child's academic performance. The Ninth Circuit held that without the complete data, the parents could not provide informed consent for the evaluation of their child or for the provision of special education services. Furthermore, the parents could not advocate for changes to their child's special education program that could clarify his specific deficits and address his lack of academic progress without being permitted to review the data that illustrated these problems. The IDEA emphasizes the integral role of the parents in the planning and implementation of special education services and presumes that the parents are in the best position to know the child's needs.
Certainly, in general, parents support the best interests of their children. However, whether parents are in the best position to know the specific educational interventions that will best serve the child's needs or whether parents should hold the primary responsibility for advocating for specific educational services that meet these needs are questions the Ninth Circuit does not address. If, as the Ninth Circuit noted, reviewing the RTI data would have demonstrated to the parents C.M.'s insufficient academic progress and the discrepancy between C.M.'s diagnosed disability and the deficits shown on assessments, the question remains why the school personnel on the IEP team, who did review these data, did not appear to be alarmed by the same problems. The education professionals on the team would likely have been in a better position than the parents to propose specific reassessment procedures to clarify the diagnosis or programmatic changes to better promote academic gains. Although the IDEA's emphasis on parental involvement necessitates parents' having the opportunity to advocate for changes to the services that their children receive, relying substantially on parental advocacy to ensure that the educational needs of children with disabilities are met is inconsistent with the IDEA's “great emphasis on procedural safeguards to ‘ensure that the rights of children with disabilities and parents of such children are protected’” (M.M., p. 851, quoting 20 U.S.C. § 1400(d)(1)(B) (2004)).
When called on to perform evaluations of students who may be eligible for special education services, forensic psychiatrists can play an important role in balancing the sometimes competing interests of, and alleviating the tension between, parents and educators on the IEP team. Providing clear, specific diagnostic impressions and recommendations presented in a manner accessible to team members with various educational and professional backgrounds can facilitate understanding of and communication about the student's needs and guide the formulation of appropriate interventions. Psychiatrists can also help schools interpret assessment data and evaluate the student's response (or lack thereof) to special education services. In addition, psychiatrists can contribute a strong voice in advocating for the needs of their patients to be addressed by appropriate interventions.
Footnotes
Disclosures of financial or other potential conflicts of interest: None.
- © 2015 American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law