System appeals ruling on disability rights
Facing a potential bill for $108,612 of education expenses, Hamilton County Schools attorneys on Friday asked a federal appeals court that ruled against them in a student disability rights case to reconsider its decision.
Attorney Scott Bennett said he’s asking the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to clarify two things in the case of Luka Hyde, a 15-year-old Chattanoogan who was moved out of a classroom in 2013 because of his Down syndrome and sent to Red Bank Elementary, where he would spend half his days segregated from general education students. Hyde, then a second-grader, now attends The Montessori School.
“First, under what circumstance is it appropriate for teachers to consider a more restrictive placement for a child when he or she is getting only a marginal benefit from the regular education classroom?” Bennett wrote in an emailed statement. “Certainly, teachers have a duty to educate a child in the least restrictive setting, but they also have a duty to provide the child with a meaningful education. What happens when these two duties are in conflict?
“Second, if a teacher makes a good faith error in judgment regarding where a child should be educated, is that mistake the legal equivalent of discrimination?” he said.
The odds of Bennett’s 13-page petition swaying the appeals courts aren’t incredibly high: Earlier this month, the court affirmed a local judge’s ruling that Hamilton County Schools violated federal civil rights laws prohibiting discrimination against disabilities when it moved Hyde. Plus, it doesn’t usually accept petitions calling for a rehearing or clarification on an issue.
Hyde’s case reached a similar conclusion in Chattanooga’s U.S. District Court, where his family filed suit in 2014. Here, U.S. District Court Judge Curtis Collier ruled against Hamilton County Schools but said Hyde’s family couldn’t be reimbursed for the alternative, private education they sought. Because the appeals court disagreed and ruled Hyde’s family actually
should be compensated for that education, Collier will preside over whatever agreement attorneys reach in the matter.
Between five years of education and a personal assistant, Hyde’s family says the bill is $108,612, according to an affidavit filed Friday in Chattanooga by their lawyer, Justin Gilbert. It’s unclear to date if the school
district’s insurance policy will cover that claim.
Federal law requires schools to educate students with disabilities alongside those without them to the maximum extent appropriate. The concept is referred to as mainstreaming, and teachers, parents and experts come up with individualized plans for each student to fit their needs.
In his 13-page motion Friday to the appeals court, attorney Bennett said teachers acted in good faith and tried to do what they viewed was best for Hyde. Bennett wrote that Collier acknowledged this, too, in previous hearings. Previous cases have set different standards for teachers to follow, he said, and the appeals court, which determines legal precedent for Tennessee, Michigan, Kentucky and Ohio, should clarify for future cases.
Furthermore, Bennett argued, a violation of the federal laws shouldn’t be equivalent to discrimination if the teacher acts in good faith.
“HCDE appealed [Collier’s] decision [in December 2017] on the basis that [the federal law] is fundamentally about the education of students with disabilities; it does not address the intentional discrimination of individuals with disabilities,” Bennett wrote in his motion. “Accordingly, an error in placement that violates the [federal law’s] mainstreaming requirement ought not to constitute a per se violation … where that error is made in good faith.”
Recently, the district and partner organizations have developed a plan that calls for the end of comprehensive development classrooms, allowing students to attend their zoned schools or schools of choice, as well as improving communication among the district, families and caregivers of students with disabilities.
But Hyde’s attorney, Gilbert, has previously said his client doesn’t get to enjoy this change in policy, and that Hamilton County has continued to downplay Hyde’s capabilties.
“Four federal judges and two experts in Down syndrome have informed Hamilton County that [Hyde’s] abilities are far greater than it is willing to admit,” he said. “The necessary shift involves asking what a child can do, not pitying what one thinks he cannot. In our view, that change involves the head and heart, not more legal appeals.”