C.D. v. Arlington School Board - IDEA Special Education Dispute

1 UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES CO URT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH C IRCUIT No. 25-1194 C.D., in his own capaci ty; N.D., as attorne y-in-fact, Plaintiffs – Appellants, v. ARLINGTON SCHO OL BOARD, Defendant – Appelle e. ----------------------------- COUNCIL OF PARE NT ATTORNEY S AND ADVOCATES, INC., Amicus S upporting Appella nt. Appeal from the Unit ed States Distri ct Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Alexandria. Leonie M. Brinkema, District Judge. (1:23- cv -01627-LMB- JFA) Argued: January 27, 2026 Decided: March 2, 2026 Before GREGORY, RI CHARDSON, and RU SHING, Circuit J udges. Affirmed by unpublish ed per curiam opini on. ARGUED: Melissa Kaye Waugh, BE LKOWITZ LAW, PL LC, Fairfax, Virginia, for Appellants. John F. Cafferky, BL ANKINGSHIP & KEIT H, PC, Fairfax, Virginia, for Appellee. ON B RIEF: Ian J. McElha ney, BLANKINGSHI P & KEITH, PC, Fair fax,

2 Virginia, for Appellee. Selene Almaz an - Altobelli, COUNCIL OF PARE NT ATTORNEYS AND A DVOCATES, IN C., Towson, Maryland, f or Amicus Curiae Unpublished opinions are not binding prec edent in this circuit.

3 PER CURIAM: N.D. (Parent) disagreed with the special educat ion her child C.D. (Student) received in Arlington Public Schools. After a due process hearing, a state administrativ e hearing officer ruled in favor of the school on all issues but one. Parent and Student sued the Arlington School Boar d under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 84 Stat. 175, as amende d, 20 U. S.C. § 1400 et seq., and the district court agreed with the hearing officer’s conc lusions. We affirm. I. Student is a graduate of Arlington Pu blic Schools. H e was originally determined to be eligible for special e ducation services as a seventh grader in 2018 u nder the Other Health Impairment (OHI) category of disability, due to his attention deficit h yperactivity disorder. Student received a modest amount of special education support, a nd he was educated almost entirely in regul ar curriculum classe s. In April 2021, the spring of Student’s tent h - grade year, his special education eligibility was reevaluated pursuant to the IDE A’s triennial reevaluation requiremen t. A s part of that reevaluat ion, the eligibility team re viewed several sources of information about Student’s disability tes ting, Individualized Ed ucation Program (IEP) progress, and ot her performance indic ators. T he team determined that Student met t he special education eligibility criteria unde r OHI and also under the new designati on of Specific Learnin g Disability. It reached this conclusion while also deciding it was un necessary to conduc t additional testing of Student. Parent agree d with the update to Studen t’s IEP reflecting the team’s eligibility deter mination.

4 M idway through Stu dent’s senior year (the 2022 – 2 023 school y ear), however, Parent expressed conce rn that additional testing had not been performed during the April 2021 evaluation. Parent requeste d an updated evaluation, which the school district denied. Then, in January 2023, Parent’s counsel wrote the school dis trict expressing disagreemen t with the April 2021 evaluation and reque sting an Independent Educational Evalu ation (IEE) at public expense. Although the school district initially denie d th at requ est, it later agreed to authorize p sychoeducational and spe ech - language IEEs. Be fore Student’s IEEs were conducted, Stude nt’s final IEP was developed in March 202 3. On April 7, 2023, Parent requested a d ue pro cess hearing pursuant t o the IDEA ’s dispute resolution proc edures. S he alleged that (1) the April 2021 IEP failed to assess Student in all areas of suspected disability; (2) the school district d enied Student a free appropriate public e ducation (FAPE) during t he 2021 – 2022 and 202 2 – 2023 school years; (3) the school district denied Studen t a FAPE by denying Parent’s De cember 2022 request that Student be reeval uated; and (4) the school district denied S tud ent a FAPE by failing to provide an IEE at publi c expense. The hearing officer con ducted a six - day hearin g in which he heard the testimony of 28 witnesses. In a 49-page decision, he resolv ed all issues relevant to this appeal i n favor of the school district. Regarding the first issu e —whether the April 2 021 IEP failed to assess Student in all areas of suspected disa bility because sch ool officials did not c onduct additional testin g — the hearing officer found that Parent did n ot meet her burden of persuasion. The heari ng officer credited testimony from the sc hool district’s psyc hologist, who opined tha t there

5 was no need for additional data for the April 2 021 triennial reevaluation. S pe cifically, the hearing officer found the testimony of the school psychologist more persuasive than contrary testimony fr om Parent’s pri vate psychologist because (1) unlike the private psychologist, the sc hool psych ologist had part icipated in th ousands of meetin gs to assess special education eligibility and whethe r additional testing wa s necessary, and (2) unl ike the private psychologist, the school psychologist attended the Apr il 2021 reevaluation planning meeting for Student and h e a rd first - hand from Student’s teachers. The hearing officer also noted tha t P arent did not request additional testing at the time of t he April 2021 IEP. 1 As for the second issue — whether the school d istrict denied Student a FAPE during the 2021 – 2022 and 20 22 – 2023 school years — the hearing officer found that P arent lar gely failed to meet her bur den of persuasio n. Rejecting Parent’s p rocedural arguments, the hearing officer found th at the IEP teams did not rely on outda ted assess ments and S tudent’ s IEPs were sufficient ly c lear. The hearing off icer also found P arent failed to prove the IE Ps were substantively in appropriate because she d id not present an expert to count er the school district ’s expert on thi s point a nd because Stu dent achieved passing grades in all but one high school course, most of his grades were As and Bs, he advanced from grade to gra de with his classmate s, and he graduated on sc hedule with a standar d diploma. 2 1 The hearing officer also found, in the alterna tive, that Parent was estopped from challenging the April 2 021 reevaluation. 2 The hearing officer found in Parent’s favor o n one claim, specifically that Studen t was shorted about 35 hours of promised servi ces during the 2021 – 20 22 school year. The parties settled this clai m, so it is not bef ore us on appeal.

6 The hearing officer also found for the sch ool district on the thir d issue — whether the school district denied Student a FAPE by de nying Parent’s De cember 2022 request that Student be reevaluated. He found that the scho ol district’s initial re fusal of Parent’s request for a reevaluation amounted to a procedura l violation of the IDEA. But that violation did not cause a s ubstantive denial of a FAPE be cause even if the evaluat ion had been done in the normal course, it would have bee n completed with onl y a few weeks remaining befor e Student graduated. Finally, the hearing officer found that Parent’s fourth issue— wheth er the school district denied S tudent a FAPE by failing to provide an IEE at public expense — was moot b ecause Student was a ssessed by indep endent evaluators at pu blic expense in May and June 2023. Following the hearing officer’s decisio n, Parent and Student filed a complaint in federal district court seeking review of the h earing officer’s decisio n. The parties each moved for judgment on the administ rative re cord, and the district court ruled in favor of the school district. II. W e conduct a modified de novo review in IDEA cases, applying the s ame standards as the district cour t and affordi ng “due weig ht” to the state administrative proceedin gs. MM ex rel. DM v. Sch. Dist. of Green ville Cnty., 303 F.3d 523, 530 – 531 (4th Cir. 2002) (internal quotation mar ks omitted). “To affo rd ‘ due weight, ’ we treat the state hearing officer’ s factual findings and credibi lity determinations a s ‘ prima facie correct, akin to the traditional sense of permitting a result to be based on s uch fact -finding,’ so long as t he

7 findings were ‘ regularly made. ’” G.M. ex rel. E.P. v. Barnes, 114 F.4th 323, 334 (4 th Cir. 2024) (quoting Doyle v. Arlington Cnty. Sch. Bd., 953 F.2d 100, 105 (4th Cir. 1991)). Findings are regularly made if the heari ng officer “conducted a proper hearing, allowing the parents and the School Boa rd to present eviden ce and make arguments, and the hearing officer by all indications resolve d the factual questions in the normal way, without flipping a coin, throwing a dart, o r otherwise abdicating his res ponsibility to decide the case.” J.P. ex rel. Peterson v. Cnty. Sch. Bd. of Hanover Cnty., 516 F.3d 254, 2 59 (4th Cir. 2008). Unless the hearing officer employs a process that is “far from the accepted norm of a fact - finding process,” id. (internal qu otation marks omitted), we can rely on those findings when ma king our independent decision based on a “ preponderance of the evidence,” 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(2)(C)(iii). T he burden of proof by a pre ponderance of t he evidence is on the party seeking relief. G.M., 114 F.4th at 33 4. Whe n assessing w hether that burd en has been met, we remain mindful that we are not entitl ed to “substitute [our] o wn notions of sound educational policy f or those of loc al school authorities.” Hartm ann ex rel. Hartmann v. Loudoun Cnty. Bd. of E duc., 118 F.3d 99 6, 999 (4th Cir. 1997). After careful review of the record and the parties’ briefs, and after co nducting oral argument in this case, we are satisfied that the hearing offic er’s factual findings were regularly made and thus prima faci e correct. Relying on those factual findings, w e

8 conclude that Parent has failed to prove the school district denied Student a FAPE in any respect before us on ap peal. 3 Accordingly, the district cour t’s judgme nt is AFFIRMED. 3 Unlike the district court and the hearing off icer, our decisi on does not rel y on equitable estoppel.