Amit P. Mehta, United States District Judge.
In this action brought under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ("IDEA"), 20 U.S.C. §§ 1400 et seq., Plaintiff Theresa Hart advances two claims. In Count I of her Complaint, she asserts that the hearing officer "failed to consider expert testimony that a comprehensive psychological assessment was warranted for [her son] S.H. since February 2015." Compl., ECF No. 1, at 7-8. In Count II, Plaintiff contends that "Defendant's failure to conduct a full triennial evaluation of S.H. for nearly three years was a substantive denial" of a "free appropriate public education," or "FAPE." Id. at 9. Before the court are the parties' cross-motions for summary judgment. See Pl.'s Mot. for Summ. J., ECF No. 9 [hereinafter Pl.'s Mot.]; Def.'s Opp'n to Pl.'s Mot. & Cross-Mot. for Summ. J., ECF No. 10 [hereinafter Def.'s Cross-Mot.]. After a thorough review of the record, and applying the controlling standard of review, see Z.B. v. District of Columbia, 888 F.3d 515, 523 (D.C. Cir. 2018), the court affirms the decision of the hearing officer. Accordingly, the court denies Plaintiff's Motion for Summary Judgment and grants Defendant's Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment.
Plaintiff frames her first claim in largely procedural terms. She asks the court to "(1) rule that the hearing officer erred in dismissing Dr. Nelson's expert testimony without any reason and (2) find that a comprehensive psychological assessment was warranted for S.H. since February 2015 because of his excessive absenteeism." Pl.'s Mot., Mem. of P. & A. in Supp. of Mot. for Summ. J. [hereinafter Pl.'s Mem.], at 8. The court agrees with Plaintiff that the hearing officer appears not to have considered Dr. Nelson's expert opinion that S.H. should have received a new psychological evaluation as part of his triennial reevaluation in February 2015. Compare Administrative R., ECF No. 8 [hereinafter AR], at 14-15 (hearing officer's finding), with AR 414-15, 416, 447 (testimony of Dr. Nelson). Although Defendant argues that the hearing officer considered and rejected Dr. Nelson's opinion, see Def.'s Cross-Mot., Mem. of P. & A. in Supp. of Def.'s Cross-Mot., ECF No. 10-1 [hereinafter Def.'s Opp'n], at 11-13, nothing on the face of the Hearing Officer Determination ("HOD") supports that conclusion. The hearing officer ought to have acknowledged Dr. Nelson's testimony and factored it into his decision-making. See McLean v. District of Columbia, 264 F.Supp.3d 180, 185-86 (D.D.C. 2017) (finding error in hearing officer's failure to "give any consideration to [the plaintiff's experts'] professional opinions regarding [the child's] eligibility and need for special education").
That gap in reasoning does not, however, compel the factual finding that Plaintiff seeks: that a comprehensive psychological examination was warranted as part of
The court declines, however, to order a remand because to do so would be futile. Even if the hearing officer were to find that S.H. should have received a new comprehensive psychological examination, the record does not support a finding that such an error constituted denial of a FAPE. The failure to conduct additional testing is considered a procedural violation under the IDEA. See Z.B., 888 F.3d at 524 ("[T]he failure to conduct an adequate functional behavioral assessment is a procedural violation that can have substantive effects...." (citing R.E. v. NYC Dep't of Educ., 694 F.3d 167, 190 (2d Cir. 2012) (emphasis added)). A procedural violation "will constitute a denial of a [FAPE] only if it `results in loss of educational opportunity' for the student." Leggett v. District of Columbia, 793 F.3d 59, 67 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (alteration omitted) (quoting Lesesne ex rel. B.F. v. District of Columbia, 447 F.3d 828, 834 (D.C. Cir. 2006)). A procedural violation gives rise to a substantive violation of the IDEA only if the procedural
Here, Plaintiff makes no serious attempt to show how the absence of a comprehensive psychological examination resulted in a "loss of educational opportunity" for S.H. See Pl.'s Mem. at 8-12. Notably, Plaintiff does not challenge the IEP developed for S.H. in February 2015, or later IEPs, as deficient in any particular way. See Lesesne, 447 F.3d at 834 (concluding that the plaintiff-parent's "claims [fell] short on the merits" because plaintiff "made no effort to demonstrate" that the child's education was affected by any procedural violations the school might have committed). The closest Plaintiff comes to doing so is by pointing out Dr. Nelson's testimony that a new assessment would have shown "the stressors that are impacting [S.H.] and his ability to get to school," thereby allowing school authorities to "devise interventions that are going to be helpful to the young person in getting him to school." Pl.'s Mem. at 5 (quoting AR 416). But that testimony is simply too generic to be of much probative value in determining whether a new evaluation would have translated into actual educational opportunities for S.H. Plaintiff's counsel appeared to concede as much at the hearing. When directly asked how new psychological testing would have made a difference for S.H., counsel responded: "[W]e're not exactly sure what would have been done in 2014 because absent having a time machine no one could know what would have been needed in 2014." AR 615-16. That answer is telling. Neither before the hearing officer nor this court has Plaintiff articulated any connection between the lack of a new psychological evaluation and any purported deficiencies in the February 2015 IEP developed for S.H.
Furthermore, other record evidence strongly suggests that a new comprehensive psychological examination would not have supplied material information that S.H.'s evaluators already did not possess. See Z.B., 888 F.3d at 525 (finding error in the district court's failure to "address what DCPS would have known had it met its own obligation to evaluate" the student and noting that "it is not clear from the proceedings below whether DCPS would have learned anything more or different"). Based on the evaluation she conducted in August 2017, which Defendant had authorized the prior month, AR 259-60, Dr. Nelson diagnosed S.H. as suffering from ADHD and "emotional disturbance," which she described to be an "impulsivity disorder," AR 418; see also AR 268 (specifying DSM-V diagnosis as "Unspecified Disruptive, Impulse Control Disorder" and "Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder"). She testified that S.H. is "a young person who is not in class to make progress because of his emotional disability and because of his ADHD." AR 422. But S.H.'s prior psychological assessment in 2011 had recognized S.H. as having ADHD, and S.H.'s triennial evaluators understood that condition, AR 48, 82, 85.
In sum, even if Defendant did commit a procedural violation by not ordering a new comprehensive psychological examination, Plaintiff has offered no reason to believe that such an error abridged S.H.'s substantive rights under the IDEA. A remand therefore is unwarranted, and the court will grant judgment on Count I in favor of Defendant.
Plaintiff's second claim is a variant on her first. As noted, Defendant authorized a private psychological assessment of S.H. in July 2017, which Dr. Nelson completed in early August 2017. Plaintiff contends that Defendant's "failure to reevaluate for over two years is a substantive denial of FAPE because that delay denies parents their substantive right to monitor a child's progress on an IEP through continual evaluations." Compl. ¶ 54. In other words, Plaintiff argues that the continued failure to psychologically reassess S.H. in the years after the triennial assessment constitutes a separate, actionable denial of a FAPE. See Mem. of P. & A. in Supp. of Pl.'s Opp'n to Def.'s Cross-Mot. for Summ. J. & Reply to Def.'s Opp'n, ECF No. 13, at 9 ("To be clear ..., this claim originates from DCPS's action and inaction in conducting a triennial evaluation for S.H. in February 2015.... Ms. Hart's claim, however, does not end at that time. Each day that DCPS failed to perform a necessary component of S.H.'s triennial evaluation, DCPS continued its ongoing violation of the IDEA.").
Plaintiff's claim is an odd one. If the court had found, as to Count I, that the failure to test S.H. anew in February 2015 constituted a substantive violation of the IDEA, then that finding would hold true not just for the February 2015 IEP, but in all likelihood for the following years, too, because S.H.'s future IEPs also would not have been informed by a current psychological evaluation. But, in that event, a separate claim for a "continuing violation" under Count II would be duplicative of Count I.
But given the court's ruling on Count I that Defendant did not violate the IDEA in February 2015 by not administering a new psychological assessment, that ruling also
Therefore, the court will enter judgment in favor of Defendant on Count II.
For the foregoing reasons, the court grants Defendant's Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment and denies Plaintiff's Motion for Summary Judgment. A separate final, appealable Order accompanies this Memorandum Opinion.
Second, the IDEA provides that, if the IEP team and others decide that additional testing is not necessary to develop an IEP, the administering agency is required to notify the child's parents of that decision and explain "the reasons for the determination." 20 U.S.C. § 1414(c)(4)(A)(i); 34 C.F.R. § 300.305(d)(1)(i). In her Complaint, Plaintiff alleges that "Defendant failed to notify [her] of her right to overrule the school's decision not to conduct a comprehensive psychological assessment for S.H. at the February 2015, January 2016, or November 2016 IEP meetings." Compl. ¶ 57. Plaintiff does not, however, press this contention at summary judgment. That may be because she did not raise the issue during the administrative process. As a result, the court need not discuss this argument.