Please note that I don’t give give legal advice on my blog. No attorney-client relationship is created by our exchange of questions and answers. (That should make my insurance company happy). We are just a couple of folks interested in guns and gun laws. I remember the first ban in 1994. I was finally able to sell my lousy Tec-9, for twice what I paid for it. Now there was a useless piece of pot-iron junk. Totally unbalanced. If you hit what you were aiming at, it was a matter of sheer luck. Glad to be rid of it.

The Hi-Point 45 ACP carbine semi auto rifle looks very nice:

1. Susan N. v. Wilson School Dist., 70 F.3d 751, 761-62 (3d Cir. 1995)

“[E]vidence of a student’s later educational progress may only be considered in determining whether the original IEP was reasonably calculated to afford some educational benefit … Our recent holding in Carlisle, 62 F.3d at 534, is not inconsistent with these conclusions, for in that case we merely emphasized the prospective nature of judging the appropriateness of a particular IEP, and cited Fuhrmann for the prospect that a student’s subsequent failure to make progress in school does not retrospectively render an IEP per se inappropriate. In Carlisle, we did not address specifically the issue of how to use after-acquired evidence in assessing the reasonableness of an IEP-a judicial process that, by the very nature of judicial review, must occur after the formulation of the educational program.”

2. Ridgewood Bd. of Educ. v. N.E. ex rel. M.E., 172 F.3d 238, 249-53 (3d Cir. 1999)

“[I]n M.C. v. Central Regional School District, we ‘flesh[ed] out the standard left sparse by Carlisle’… Applied narrowly, M.C.’s ‘inappropriate IEP’ requirement might prohibit the award of compensatory education for years in which a disabled student received an inappropriate education via means other than an IEP. But we do not think the M.C. court intended such an application because it held the denial of an appropriate education-and not merely the denial of an appropriate IEP-creates the right to compensatory education. See M.C., 81 F.3d at 391-92 … IDEA’s central goal is that disabled students receive an appropriate education, not merely an appropriate IEP.”

“The District Court rejected M.E.’s request for compensatory education and reimbursement for tutoring because it believed those remedies were available only when an IEP was inappropriate… Because the District Court discussed only the 1996-97 school year, it would appear that the grant of summary judgment on M.E.’s IDEA claims was based solely on a finding that the 1996-97 IEP was appropriate. Because a satisfactory 1996-97 IEP has no bearing on whether Ridgewood complied with IDEA before the 1996 school year, we will vacate the grant of summary judgment on M.E.’s IDEA claims.”
…

“Because the District Court discussed only the 1996-97 school year, it would appear that the grant of summary judgment on M.E.’s IDEA claims was based solely on a finding that the 1996-97 IEP was appropriate. Because a satisfactory 1996-97 IEP has no bearing on whether Ridgewood complied with IDEA before the 1996 school year, we will vacate the grant of summary judgment on M.E.’s IDEA claims.”

3. P.P. ex rel. Michael P. v. West Chester Area School Dist., 585 F.3d 727, 739 (3d Cir. 2009)

“[T]he plaintiffs seek compensatory education based on events from the 2002–2003 school year through the 2004–2005 school year…The right to compensatory education arises not from the denial of an appropriate IEP, but from the denial of appropriate education.”

4. D.S. v. Bayonne Bd. of Educ., 602 F.3d 553, 564-68 (3d Cir. 2010)

“It certainly was reasonable for the [District] Court to consider D.S.’s academic progress in evaluating the appropriateness of the IEP for ‘evidence of a student’s later educational progress may [ ] be considered in determining whether the original IEP was reasonably calculated to afford some educational benefit.’”

The Third Circuit hears many non-reimbursement cases and has tackled issues that, in my humble opinion, require a far greater understanding of the law than has been required of the Second Circuit, which hears tuition cases almost exclusively. Anyways, I find it difficult to believe that the Second Circuit, when presented with a non-reimbursement case, would be so narrow minded to hold that a district has met it’s burden to provide FAPE merely by offering an appropriate program and disregard whether an appropriate program was actually provided. That seems (to me) like a huge divergence from Rowley, where the SCOTUS focused (almost exclusively) on the educational benefit the child received from the services, as opposed to merely looking at what was offered in the IEPs. Anyways, I thought you might be interested in my thoughts.

Keep the posts impending. I enjoyed it!