Jacquie Albright, As Parent and Next Best Friend of Child Doe Plaintiff - Appellant
v.
Mountain Home School District; Debbie Atkinson, Director of Special Education; Susanne Belk, BCBA Consultant Defendants - Appellees
Submitted: December 13, 2018
Appeal
from United States District Court for the Western District of
Arkansas - Harrison
Before
SMITH, Chief Judge, WOLLMAN and GRASZ, Circuit Judges.
WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge.
Jacquie
Albright alleges that her daughter Child Doe, a young student
with autism and significant intellectual deficits, was not
provided a free appropriate public education (FAPE) by
Mountain Home School District (the District), as required by
the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA or
Act), 20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq. When her
administrative challenge was rejected, Albright appealed that
decision in federal district court and brought additional
claims for constitutional violations under 42 U.S.C. §
1983, disability discrimination and retaliation under §
504 of the Rehabilitation Act, disability discrimination
under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA),
and violations of Arkansas law. The district
court[1] affirmed the administrative decision,
granted summary judgment to the District on the remaining
federal claims, and then declined to exercise supplemental
jurisdiction over Albright's state law claims. We affirm.
Child
Doe has been educated within the District from kindergarten
to the present in accordance with an Individualized Education
Plan (IEP) formulated pursuant to the IDEA. The IEP sets
forth the educational accommodations approved for Child Doe,
as well as a behavior intervention plan (BIP) to address any
problematic behaviors. An IEP team periodically discusses and
revises Child Doe's IEP as needed. Albright and appellee
Susanne Belk, a Board Certified Behavior Analyst employed as
a consultant by the District during the relevant period, are
members of Child Doe's IEP team. The highly contentious
relationship between Albright and the District, complicated
further by Albright's employment with the District, has
made it difficult for Albright and the remainder of the IEP
team to agree on many aspects of Child Doe's IEP.
Albright
has filed four due process complaints against the District
challenging Child Doe's education. The first two
complaints were resolved by settlement agreements in August
2012 and March 2014. On October 20, 2014, early in Child
Doe's fourth-grade year, Albright filed the due process
complaint at issue, alleging that the District had denied
Child Doe a FAPE between November 15, 2013, and October 17,
2014. Events after October 17, 2014, are the subject of a
separate due process complaint.
After
Albright filed the third due process complaint, the parties
proceeded to an eleven-day hearing held between March and
September of 2015. A hearing officer employed by the Arkansas
Department of Education presided and heard testimony from
witnesses, including Albright, Belk, and an expert hired by
Albright. The hearing officer thereafter issued a forty-page
decision setting forth findings of fact and conclusions of
law. Relevant here, the hearing officer addressed whether
Albright was denied the opportunity to participate in
developing the IEP, whether Child Doe benefitted academically
from the IEP, and whether the BIP adequately addressed Child
Doe's behaviors or exacerbated them by permitting the use
of sensory integration techniques.
The
hearing officer found that Albright had not been denied the
opportunity to participate in the IEP process, citing the
following facts: During the period in question, Albright
attended all IEP conferences until September 2014, when she
chose not to attend a meeting, and there was no evidence to
substantiate Albright's claims that other IEP conferences
were held in her absence. Although the District did not agree
to or satisfy all of Albright's requests regarding Child
Doe's education, there was no evidence indicating that
the District had hampered Albright's active participation
in developing Child Doe's IEP. Hundreds of pages of
emails and transcripts of IEP meetings demonstrate that
Albright actively participated in the IEP process.
The
hearing officer also found that the IEP itself was working.
More specifically, he found that in light of Child Doe's
significant disabilities, the evidence showed that the IEP
did provide her with educational benefits. The hearing
officer also found, however, that Albright believed that
Child Doe was capable of greater academic achievements than
indicated by the assessments. Nevertheless, he credited
Belk's testimony that Child Doe had shown academic
improvement during the relevant period.
To
complicate matters, Child Doe's disability was originally
identified as intellectual deficits, but was changed to
autism during the period in question. Despite the changed
diagnosis, the hearing officer found that the BIP in place at
the time addressed the same maladaptive behaviors identified
by the psychologist who had diagnosed Child Doe with autism.
Albright's expert testified that the BIP was inadequate,
but the hearing officer found that his testimony was refuted
by the District's behavior data and Belk's testimony
regarding her understanding of Child Doe's behaviors.
In sum,
the hearing officer determined that after "reviewing the
elicited testimony and the evidence in this case it is clear
that the District attempted to focus on what they believed to
be the unique needs of [Child Doe] even prior to changing the
primary handicapping condition from intellectual deficits to
autism." The hearing officer concluded that the District
"recognized and accepted the additional challenge of
addressing the maladaptive behaviors [Child Doe] exhibited as
a consequence, more likely than not of her autism, as well as
her intellectual deficits and the challenges that she
presented to the educators," and it thus did not deny
Child Doe a FAPE.
Albright
appealed the hearing officer's decision in federal
district court (Count I) and brought several related claims
under federal and state law (Counts II-VI), which were
subsequently bifurcated. In her IDEA appeal, Albright
specifically contested three of the hearing officer's
conclusions: that she had participated meaningfully in the
IEP process, that it had been unnecessary to develop a new
BIP for Child Doe, and that the District had used
evidence-based practices in Child Doe's IEP. The district
court decided the appeal on the briefs, affirming the hearing
officer's decision on each issue, and
"wholeheartedly agree[ing]" with the hearing
officer's determination that Albright had participated
meaningfully in the IEP process. D. Ct. Order of July 5,
2017, at 6 [hereinafter July 5 Order]. The court also found
that "the BIP that was already in place was working
well." Id. Finally, the court determined that
it "ha[d] not found any evidence in the record that
sensory integration treatment is not based on peer-reviewed
research, nor . . . that the District's use of sensory
integration treatment somehow prevented the District from
utilizing services that are based on peer-reviewed
research." Id. at 8.
Albright
moved to alter or amend the judgment, asserting that the
district court had made manifest errors of law or fact. The
court denied Albright's motion, concluding that any
errors it had made did not affect its disposition and that
Albright's ...