DECISION

Due Process Hearing for RG

Date of Birth: xx/xx/xx

File Number: 7398/06-07 AS

Dates of Hearings: 4-23-2007, 5-21-2007, 6-12-2007, 7-16-2007, 7-26-2007

CLOSED HEARING

Parties:
Mr. and Mrs.

School District of Philadelphia 440 North Broad Street Philadelphia, PA 19130

Representatives:

David Thalheimer, Esq.
1831 Chestnut Street, Suite 300 Philadelphia, PA 19103

Mimi Rose, Esq.
Office of General Counsel
440 North Broad Street, 3rd Floor Philadelphia, PA 19130

Date Transcript/Exhibits Received: 7-31-2007

Date of Decision: 8-7-2007

Hearing Officer: Ronald Fischman, Ed.D.

I. BACKGROUND

Student is a xx and a half year old male resident of Philadelphia who is currently attending grade 3 of the [Private School], a private school for children with learning differences. The student has a lengthy history of a non-verbal learning disability, an attention deficit disorder, inattentive type, impaired non-verbal memory, deficits in communications and in social skills, concrete thinking, and difficulty with comprehension, abstraction, dysgraphia, executive functioning difficulties, and a significant emotional overlay which affects his behaviors. He had an Individual Educational Plan for Early intervention. He is currently receiving psychiatric treatment at parents’ expense for depression and for low self-esteem.

The student has never attended a public school. The Philadelphia School District offered the parents an Individual Educational Program (IEP) in November, 2006 with subsequent revisions at a public school four blocks from the student’s home. The parents do not believe that this IEP provides a free, appropriate public education for their son. The parents assert that the student is making meaningful progress in his current, private school placement, a school for students with reading disabilities, and they are requesting tuition for this private school placement and reimbursement for expenses for related services.

The Philadelphia School District asserts that the student, a third grade student at the time of the initiation of this due process procedure, never attended a public school, and it was never the intention of the parents to allow placement at the neighborhood public school, just four city blocks from the student’s home. Instead, the School District asserts that the intention of the parents is to gain public school funding for the private school placement and related educational services.

IV. ISSUES

  1. Did the District offer the student a free, appropriate public education in a timely manner?
  2. Is the private school, selected by the parents, providing an appropriate educational program?
  3. Did the parents intend to enroll the student in a public school for instruction or to gain public tuition for private school placement?
RG-School-District-of-Philadelphia-ODRNo-7398-06-07-AS

Leave a Reply