DECISION
Due Process Hearing for GD
ODR File No. 7250/06-07 KE
Date of Birth: xx/xx/xx
Dates of Hearing: February 19 and February 23, 2007 – Closed Hearing
Parties to the Hearing:
Pocono Mountain School District P.O. Box 200
Swiftwater, PA 18370
Representative:
None
Brian Ford, Esq.
King, Spry, Herman, Freund
& Faul, LLC
One Bethlehem Plaza, Suite 700 Bensalem, PA 18018-5756
Hearing Officer: Debra K. Wallet, Esq.
Record Closed: March 5, 2007
Date of Decision: March 20, 2007
BACKGROUND:
Student is a xx-year-old (date of birth xx/xx/xx) ninth-grade student of the Pocono Mountain School District [hereinafter School District] with a specific learning disability in reading. His Parents contend that the School District’s August 29, 2006 IEP has not been properly implemented and that he has been denied a free appropriate public education [hereinafter FAPE] during the ninth grade year.
Parents previously challenged the appropriateness of the August 29, 2006 IEP. In a November 14, 2006 Decision and Order, a Due Process Hearing Officer determined that the IEP was appropriate, that the School District had complied with its pendency obligations, and that no compensatory education was owed for an alleged denial of FAPE during the seventh grade school year. (Exhibit HO-2).
By way of relief in this case, Parents seek compensatory education for the first semester of the 2006-2007 school year, request that a private clinical psychologist selected by them become part of Student’s IEP team, and ask that progress monitoring be strengthened by way of a report submitted to the Parents bi-monthly.
The School District contends that it provided FAPE, that many of the Parents’ concerns about the August 29, 2006 IEP have already been resolved in the prior Due Process Hearing, and that none of the requested relief is appropriate.
ISSUES:
1. Did the School District provide FAPE during the first semester of the 2006- 2007 school year?
2. Are Parents entitled to relief for the School District’s failure to provide FAPE?
GD-Pocono-Mountain-ODRNo-7250-06-07-KE