This is a redacted version of the original decision. Select details have been removed
from the decision to preserve anonymity of the student. The redactions do not affect the
substance of the document.

Pennsylvania
Special Education Hearing Officer

DECISION

Child’s Name: C.C.

Date of Birth: [redacted]

Dates of Hearing:

September 11, 2013
November 5, 2013

CLOSED HEARING

ODR Case #13439-1213AS

Parties to the Hearing:

Parent[s]

Armstrong School District West Hills Intermediate School 175 Heritage Park Drive Kittanning, PA 16201

Representative:

Charles Steele, Esquire
428 Forbes Avenue / Suite 700 Pittsburgh, PA 15219

Patricia Andrews, Esquire 1500 Ardmore Boulevard Suite 506
Pittsburgh, PA 15221

Date Record Closed: November 27, 2013

Date of Decision: December 17, 2013

Hearing Officer: Jake McElligott, Esquire

INTRODUCTION AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Student) is a pre-teen-age student residing in the Armstrong School District (“District”). The student qualifies under the terms of the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Improvement Act of 2004 (“IDEA”)1 for specially designed instruction/related services as a student with an intellectual disability and a speech/language impairment.2

Parent asserts a number of claims related to the student’s past educational programming that, in parent’s view, denied the student a free appropriate public education (“FAPE”) for the student. Parent asserts that the student’s individualized education plans (“IEPs”) over the 2010- 2011, 2011-2012, and 2012-2013 school years were not reasonably calculated to yield meaningful education benefit and, when implemented, the student failed to make educational progress.

As a result of these claims, parent claims that compensatory education should be awarded for a period beginning in January 2011 (two years prior to the filing of the complaint in January 2013) through May 2013 (when the parties agreed to a revised IEP which parent agrees ended the denial-of-FAPE claims).3 The District counters that, at all times, it met its obligations under the IDEA and provided the student with FAPE.

For the reasons set forth below, I find in favor of parent.

ISSUES

Was the student provided with FAPE
over the relevant time periods
in the 2010-2011, 2011-2012, and 2012-2013 school years?

If the answer to this question is in the affirmative, what remedy is available to the student?

 

C-C-Armstrong-School-ODRNo-13439-1213AS

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