Judge rules Bedford Co. School Board didn't meet student's needs

BEDFORD CO. - A judge has ruled that the Bedford County School Board did not meet the needs of a former student with learning disabilities in requirement with federal law.

U.S. District Court Judge Norman Moon ruled in an April 23 opinion that the board failed to provide the student, now 11 years old, a “free and appropriate education” as required by the Individuals with Disabilities Act.

Moon’s ruling in Lynchburg overturns a decision by an officer appointed by the state Supreme Court to preside over a formal proceeding in 2008 regarding the matter. That proceeding, called a due process hearing, was the first involving the Bedford County school division in 10 years. The child’s mother, a Forest resident, had appealed that decision to federal district court; Moon’s ruling is the result of that action.

An attorney who represents the school division and a school board member said on Monday that an appeal is planned.

The student, referred to in the lawsuit as “D.B.”, attended Thomas Jefferson Elementary School from 2004 to 2008. He now attends New Vistas School in Lynchburg.

The child’s mother is seeking $93,000 in attorney fees, two years of private school tuition and related travel expenses, according to her attorney, Hank Bostwick, with the Legal Aid Society of Roanoke Valley.

Bostwick said on Monday that they are “extremely pleased” with the new ruling.

“We also believe it’s a shame to have waited so long for D.B. to get the education he was entitled to years ago and the schools shouldn’t have been fighting this at public expense in hard economic times,” he said. “The cost of litigation is going to far exceed costs of education for this child.”

D.B., who was 9 years old when the litigation started, suffers from attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and other disabilities, said Bostwick. He said the ruling marks the first time in decades that a special-needs student has won a case of this type in the Western District of Virginia.

Kathleen Mehfoud, a Richmond attorney representing the Bedford County school division, said the appeal would be filed within the next few weeks. She called the ruling a “surprise.”

The school board and the school division “still believe they offered the student an appropriate education,” Mehfoud said.

Gary Hostutler, the school board member who represents Forest, said the ruling following the 2008 due process hearing shows that the division gave the child a proper education.

“We continue to believe that,” he said.

Ryan Edwards, a spokesman for the division, declined to comment.

In a 42-page opinion, Moon ruled that the hearing officer in 2008 erred in determining the school division properly evaluated D.B. as a child with a disability. The opinion states the officer observed the child was promoted a grade every year, but failed to comprehend that the “token advancement” was “at best, a sad case of social promotion.”

Bostwick said that means the student was promoted a grade level each year and after four years still could not read above a pre-kindergarten level.

“He never met a reading benchmark for any of those years,” Bostwick said. “He remained in an inclusion classroom for all four years and his educational placement was never changed.”

According to the opinion, the school board believes it properly evaluated D.B. for all suspected disabilities, reasonably calculated an “individual educational plan” and the 2008 decision was correct.

The school board asked the court to deny tuition reimbursement because it claims the mother did not give proper notice before enrolling D.B. in private school, according to the opinion. Moon turned back that reasoning, though, noting that the student’s mother had repeatedly requested placement for her son at New Vistas, and “common sense indicates that she would not have repeatedly requested that Defendant place her son at (New Vistas School) had she not been seeking such placement at public expense.”

Debbie Hoback, the school board chair, did not return a phone call seeking comment Monday.

According to meeting minutes, the board voted in June 2009 to transfer $70,000 from its 2008-09 operating budget to cover litigation costs.