DS vs. Council Rock School District

Date Record Closed: April 22, 2006

Date of Decision: April 22, 2006

Hearing Officer: William Culleton, Jr., Esquire

INTRODUCTION

Student (Student) is a xx year old eligible child who is currently attending fourth grade at the private Cambridge School. (NT 10-19 to 25.) He is a resident of the Council Rock School District (District). He is identified as having a specific learning disability in reading. In September, 2005, when he was about to begin fourth grade, his Parents withdrew him from the District’s Elementary School and enrolled him in a private school, [Redacted] School.

The Parents contend that the District failed in its Child Find obligation to identify the Student in a timely fashion as in need of specially designed instruction. They assert that the District should have identified the Student while he was still in first grade, during the 2002-2003 school year. Instead, the District did not refer the Student for evaluation until May, 2004, the end of his second grade year. The Parents also contend that the District’s resulting IEP, as revised in 2005 and 2006, failed to set forth measurable goals and benchmarks, and offered specially designed instruction in vague terms that failed to address the Student’s needs adequately, so that the IEP failed to offer FAPE. They seek compensatory education from the beginning of the Student’s first grade year until he enrolled in the private school; tuition reimbursement for the Student’s fourth grade year at the private school; in the alternative, compensatory education for the Student’s fourth grade year; reimbursement for an independent evaluation; and reimbursement for private tutor services that the Parents unilaterally provided from the beginning of the Student’s first grade school year to the present date.

The District contends that it provided an appropriate screening and instructional support program for the Student during the Student’s first and second grade years, during which he made substantial academic progress. It also contends that its IEPs were appropriate and offered FAPE. Finally it argues that there is no basis for ordering either tuition reimbursement for the private school placement, or reimbursement for the costs of tutoring. In addition to asserting that its programs and services were appropriate, the District contends that the Parents have failed to prove that the private school program provides any services that are appropriate. The District contests reimbursement for the costs of the IEE, on grounds that it did not provide the District with any new information and that the District did not rely upon that IEE. Finally, it argues that the Parents have failed to present any evidence that they paid any tuition or tutoring costs.