## Facts

- Curtis Cook, an 18-year-old learning-disabled public high school student, experienced significant academic difficulties after transferring schools following a suspension unrelated to his disability.
- The school system and Curtis’s parents participated in multiple multidisciplinary meetings to determine an appropriate special-education placement.
- Curtis’s parents sought placement at a private residential school specializing in learning disabilities; the school system maintained it could meet his needs in a local public high school program.
- After an administrative due-process hearing, the hearing officer ordered residential placement at the private school at public expense, based on Curtis’s need for intensive reading/language therapy, tutoring in study/organizational skills, counseling, and specialized management.
- The administrative record contained no testimony evaluating less restrictive in-district alternatives that would allow greater interaction with non-disabled peers.
- The school system filed suit in federal district court; the court admitted additional evidence about local public-school options and vacated the administrative placement order, finding Curtis could receive an appropriate education in a less restrictive local setting.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court properly admitted additional evidence on placement alternatives not presented at the administrative hearing in an action reviewing a special-education placement decision under 20 U.S.C. § 1415(e)(2).
2. Whether the Act required publicly funded residential placement when the student could receive a free appropriate public education in a less restrictive public-school setting consistent with the least restrictive environment requirement.

## Decision

- The court of appeals affirmed the district court.
- The district court acted within its statutory discretion by receiving additional evidence concerning placement alternatives absent from the administrative record.
- On the supplemented record, the district court properly concluded that a residential placement was not required because the student could receive an appropriate education with needed services in a less restrictive local public-school program.

## Legal Principles

- In reviewing special-education administrative decisions, a district court must consider the administrative record, may hear additional evidence at a party’s request, and decides based on a preponderance of the evidence while giving due weight to the administrative proceedings.
- The statutory authorization to hear “additional evidence” is discretionary and should be used to supplement gaps in the administrative record, not to convert review into an unrestricted trial.
- A free appropriate public education requires an educational program reasonably calculated to provide educational benefit; it does not require the best possible program or maximization of the student’s potential.
- The least restrictive environment requirement favors educating students with disabilities alongside non-disabled peers to the maximum extent appropriate; residential placements are generally disfavored when appropriate services can be delivered in a less restrictive setting.
- Courts should not substitute their own educational policy preferences for those of school authorities, but may reject administrative conclusions when the preponderance of the properly developed record shows statutory requirements are met through less restrictive means.

## Conclusion

The Sixth Circuit held that the district court could admit additional evidence on placement options omitted from the administrative hearing and affirmed the denial of publicly funded residential placement because the student could receive a free appropriate public education in a less restrictive local public-school setting.


Metro. Gov't of Nashville & Davidson Cnty. v. Cook, 915 F.2d 232 (6th Cir. 1990)