Supreme Court has declined to review suit over autistic child
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to review the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in a case in which Tennessee parents had filed suit saying their autistic child, Zachary Deal, was not receiving proper special education services from the county schools. Hamilton County School Board Chairman Chip Baker expresses disappointment with the Supreme Court's decision, but no surprise, since the Court takes very few cases each year. "The board continues to believe the district complied with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in the Deal case and will do the right thing to ensure all children with special needs have a reasonable and adequate education in our public schools," he says. The case will now move back to Judge R. Allen Edgar's court for review in light of the Sixth Circuit Court's decision in favor of the Deal family. The board plans to meet with its attorney, Charlie Weatherly, to discuss legal options. However, Hamilton County Commissioner Curtis Adams believes it is time to end any further legal maneuvering, because it reflects poor management of the school system. "You've got to know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em," he says. "Register doesn't know when to fold 'em. For the millions of dollars spent by the schools on this lawsuit, we could have built a little school for this kid and hired four teachers for him. Instead, we got ridiculous, outrageous charges from this attorney—$600 a night hotels and flying all around the country."
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Editor's Note: For a summary of the Sixth Circuit decision, see below. The court sided with some other circuit courts in holding that IDEA requires that IEPs provide a "meaningful" educational benefit subject to judicial review and found that the school district violated IDEA by "predetermining" not to provide the "applied behavioral analysis" (ABA) program the parents demanded. NSBA had submitted an amicus
brief, below, urging the Supreme Court to grant review in the case. NSBA argued that the additional "meaningfulness" standard imposed by some courts invites judicial second-guessing of educational decisions and that the "predetermination" ruling creates a disincentive for school personnel to prepare thoroughly for IEP meetings and increases incentives for parents to sue schools to obtain the one and only type of service they demand. The brief notes that the financial stakes for public education are tremendous, given that cases of autism among those aged 6-21 have increased from 5,000 in 1991 to over 140,000 in 2003; that the average annual cost for school districts to serve autistic students is $18,790 and that programs like ABA can cost $40,000; that the federal government still appropriates less than half of the special education funding it committed to provide when it enacted IDEA some 30 years ago; and that there is a "lively debate" among experts about the relative efficacy of treatment methods like ABA and the program recommended by the school district. COSA members Maree Sneed, John Borkowski, and Jason Snyder and their colleagues at Hogan and Hartson LLP donated their time and expertise in authoring the brief.]
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NSBA School Law pages on Hamilton County Dep't of Education v. Deal][NSBA amicus brief]