Today is the day for oral arguments before the Supreme Court in the Schaffer v. Weast case. The case turns on the question of whether, when a dispute about an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) goes to administrative hearing, parents or schools are responsible for proving that an IEP is appropriate. Here is the situation as I understand it.
When then-7th-grader Brian Schaffer’s private school was not meeting his unique educational needs, his parents asked the Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS; Jerry Weast is superintendent) to provide an IEP. MCPS proposed an IEP in which Brian received support services in general education settings (inclusion). Based on their expert’s opinion that Brian had “central auditory processing disorder” and therefore could not learn successfully in such a situation, the Schaffers disagreed with this IEP, placed him in a private school, and requested a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ).
In the due process hearing, the two sides presented their cases, and the ALJ found that it was a tie. In the case of ties, the outcome depends on which party bears the burden of proof. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) does not specify whether parents or schools bear the burden of proof, so the ALJ chose to put the responsibility for proving the point on the parents. The parents appealed and thus, the Schaffer v. Weast case worked its way through the courts—actaully going up and down— until it got to the Supreme Court.
The legal folks in special education will be watching this one closely, because it could affect many of the thousands of administrative hearings held annually in the US. Furthermore, it could actually influence the development of IEPs!
The Supreme Court will not rule on the merits of the original case, but those merits are interesting to me. I am a bit skeptical about the diagnosis of “central auditory processing disorder,” but I am pretty sure that there are some students with Learning Disabilities whose unique educational needs cannot be met in general education settings. Schools need to recognize this and provide services accordingly.
Links:
- Legal Information Institute’s preview of the case and
- Pete & Pam Wright’s overview article on the case.
Re Schaffer v. Weast:
For what it’s worth, here is my view on the issue in Schaffer v. Weast. Although most cases do not turn on the question of burden of proof because the evidence favors one side more than the other, I believe that schools should bear the burden in cases where the evidence is tied. My reasons are as follows:
1. Schools should be in a better position to access and explain the information and evidence concerning the particular programming that has been designed for a given child and to develop the expertise necessary to satisfy the FAPE requirement;
2. IDEA imposes an affirmative obligation on schools, and schools should be accountable to parents to show that they are using IDEA financial support in the way intended. All LEAs have to do in shouldering the burden is show that they have lived up to the intent of the law in the first place;
3. Allocating the burden to the school system is consistent with the burden given to schools when they do not want to pay for an independent educational evaluation and in correctional situations when the LEA wants to change the child’s placement or programming;
4. Mills v. D.C. Bd. of Education ( a D.C. case vindicating the constitutional right of children with disabilities to have access to a suitable public education) assigned the burden to LEAs;
5. Assigning the burden to parents may create a good deal more distrust of the public school system and may encourage either more parental disengagement from the system or more adversaryness (if there is such a word?);
6. IDEA gives the burden to the SEA to prove that all children have FAPE available before being allowed to use IDEA funds to supplant other income sources. Why shouldn’t the burden be analogous for LEAs?
7. IDEA ‘97 and IDEA ‘04 are more results oriented than their predecessors and stress accountability to parents more. Congress expects LEAs to use empirically validated instructional methods and strategies to improve performance. The concomitant view that the status quo is inadequate in some school districts would seem to support the view that LEAs should assume the burden of proof to demonstrate that what they are offering is appropriate.
8. Schools, not parents, are better able to spread the cost of a wrong decision when the evidence is equivocal. If forced to decide in tied cases, we ought to err on the side of the parent if LEAs can’t meet their burden,
9. Rebutting the 4th Circuit’s argument: The general rule allocating the burden to the party requesting the hearing or initiating the action is already full of exceptions and is ill-suited to special education law, given IDEA’s notable departures from traditional administrative law statutes; and deference under the Supreme Court’s Rowley standard is not owed to school officials but rather “due weight” is owed to the administrative proceedings (hearings).
Whatever the Supreme Court decides, uniformity across the country will be the outcome with respect to who bears the burden at administrative hearings under IDEA. This will be helpful, given the split in the circuits and the varying approaches adopted in different states. Of course, if the Supreme Court gives the burden to parents, Congress could always choose to override the Supreme Court’s decision by legislating that LEAs bear the burden.
By the way, the above views are developed more fully in an upcoming (late October) article in the W. Va. Law Review by Thomas Mayes, Perry Zirkel, and me. Sad to say, our article was submitted about a month too late last spring to make it into publication before the Court heard arguments in Schaffer v. Weast.
Dixie Snow Huefner, J.D.
Professor, Dep’t of Special Education
University of Utah
huefner@ed.utah.edu