DBYD attorney Brian Jason Ford represented the North Penn School District in a Due Process Hearing that was brought by the parents of an in-district student. The parents were opposed to the District’s programmatic offering for their child, who has an autism spectrum disorder and speech/language impairment.
The program that the District offered was for the student to attend a morning autistic support class daily followed by a regular afternoon kindergarten class. The district school where this specialized program is offered is not the child’s neighborhood school. The parents wanted their child to attend a half-day kindergarten in his neighborhood school and receive supplemental support via a home-based program.
The parents claimed that the District’s placement of the student in a school other than his neighborhood school amounted to a violation of the Least Restrictive Environment (“LRE”) requirement of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”). Essentially, the LRE requirement instructs schools that students who are eligible for services under the IDEA should, to the maximum extent appropriate, be educated with children who are not disabled.
The Hearing Officer found that the District’s placement was appropriate and did not violate the LRE requirement of the IDEA.
In explaining her decision, the Hearing Officer wrote: “because the District provides only a half day kindergarten program for non-disabled kindergarten students, [Student’s] placement in the special education class will not affect at all the amount of time he is instructed in a regular class. He will actually receive twice as many hours of instruction each week (30) as a typical kindergartener (15). Since [Student] will receive as many hours of instruction in a regular kindergarten class as his non-disabled peers, Parents’ contention that the extra services constitute an LRE violation is unsupportable…” and “[u]nder the circumstances presented by this case, Parents’ LRE claim concerning the District’s proposed special education class could be dismissed solely because attending the special education class does not diminish or interfere in any way with [Student’s] full integration into a regular kindergarten class where he will have ample opportunities to interact with typical peers.”
Click here to view a redacted version of the decision.