The Instructional Methods Blues

This week a parent called me to ask if it is true that the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq.), does not require schools to provide instruction that is better suited to addressing their child’s learning needs because schools are only obligated to provide instruction is reasonably calculated to provide their child an educational benefit in light of the child's circumstances. 

The parent explained that he and a university reading expert had just attended his son's IEP meeting. They had presented a report of testing which documented that if the reading program currently used for his son’s specially designed instruction (SDI) were changed to a different reading program, this would more rapidly close the discrepancy between his son’s reading rate and comprehension skills and those of his non-disabled peers. Reading from his meeting notes, the parent said that after their presentation, the other IEP team members were silent and looked toward the AEA consultant who was chairing the meeting. The consultant replied that although the child would probably learn to read faster with better comprehension if the school changed to the recommended reading program, the school didn’t need to make the change because the child’s reading goal aim line is trending upward (albeit very slowly) and this means the child is already receiving “some benefit.” When the parent and university reading expert responded that changing reading programs would allow the child to meet his goal faster, the AEA consultant said: This doesn't matter. All the school district is required to do is provide him with 'some benefit.' This was proven last year in the Kass case.

I moaned inwardly and began explaining the “Kass case.”

On August 21, 2020, Charles and Lisa Kass, filed a due process complaint with the Iowa Department of Education. They claimed, among other things, that the school district and AEA had denied their son, BK, a free appropriate education (FAPE) because the method of reading instruction used was not reasonably calculated to enable him to learn to read. See 30 D.o.E. App. 032. At the due process hearing, the parents and their expert witness made the case that two other reading programs would have been a better choice for BK. Id.

After the due process hearing, Administrative Law Judge David Lindgren of the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals issued his decision finding against the parents. Among other things, he wrote that the issue was not whether there were better methods of reading instruction for BK, but whether the school district's choice of methods was reasonably calculated to provide him with a FAPE under the circumstances. Id. He wrote that a school district may use any educational methodology that enables a student with a disability to make progress appropriate in light of the child's circumstances. Id. The ALJ further stated that the IDEA does not require a school district to provide a special education student with the best education or services available and wrote that: "[n]either the parents' preference for a different methodology nor evidence that the student would make greater progress with a different technique will make the District's program inadequate." Id.

The parents appealed ALJ Lindgren’s decision to the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, which upheld the ALJ’s decision. See Kass ex rel. Kass v. Western Dubuque Community School District. 

The parents appealed the federal district court's decision to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals on December 5, 2022, and it was argued last week. The case number and title are #22-3506, Charles Kass  v.  W. Dubuque Comm. School Dist. When the court’s decision is published, we will learn whether the Eighth Circuit thinks “we don’t have to” is a good enough reason under the facts of this case for refusing to change a child’s reading program to one that would more effectively enable the child to master the skills needed to meet his reading goal.

Weeping, the parent told me that he couldn’t understand why the special and general education teachers weren’t interested in being more successful with his child. He noted: "If someone told me a simple way to do my job faster and more successfully, I’d be excited." I told him that as a former teacher, I didn't understand it either. I thought the best thing about teaching was finding an effective way to reach a student whose progress was delayed by disability challenges. I recalled that each time a new approach “worked” and a child made a leap of progress, I felt “over the moon.”

I explained that at the take-home message from the “Kass case” should be that it does NOT prove that the IDEA requires school districts and AEAs to limit their instruction to the type or amount that allows a child to make just enough progress to escape a legal finding that they denied the child a FAPE.  Moreover, I explained that although neither state or federal laws require school districts and AEAs to employ the “best” instructional methods for children with disabilities, there is nothing in the IDEA that requires school districts and AEAs to limit the methodologies they use for specially designed instruction to those that will prevent children from making progress beyond what they are currently achieving.