Understanding Appeals
If a party is aggrieved with the outcome of an impartial hearing, they have the right to file an appeal to the New York State Education Department; the responsible office is called the Office of State Review. Essentially, its obligation is to review the decision of the Impartial Hearing Officer (IHO), giving discretion to the IHO’s initial findings of fact — but the State Review Officer (SRO) has the authority on matters of law and educational policy, legally speaking. The SRO's job is to look over the impartial hearing officer's decision and determine if that decision is worthy of the seal of the State Education Department of the State of New York. The SRO and the IHO are no better or worse at either of those things than you or I might be, but that's the law of it.
Historically, SROs are very pro-district. Not only because SROs work within the State Education Department, but also because school districts are more likely to settle strong cases in order to avoid creating bad precedent. In contrast, IHOs more often tend to regard themselves as independent agents. Unlike an IHO's decision, the SRO's decisions are publicly available on a website, and can be used as precedent in impartial hearings. For both of those reasons, SROs’ body of work tends to skew in favor of the Department of Education. Indeed, independent analysis has found a statistically significant anomaly in favor of school districts and local educational authorities.
The SRO issues the final decision of the New York State Education Department, which can then be appealed at the federal district court level. That’s because the case would challenge the state education department's interpretation and implementation of a federal statute (specifically the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act).
Unlike a lot of firms, we take particular pride in our appellate practice. We approach every case strategically, putting ourselves in the shoes of the school districts. We are selective in taking cases to appeal, because we know it can create a new law that will be binding on future families.
Clients who file an appeal through our office should know that they are in good hands. We aren't willing to just take any appeal because we want to make sure that everybody with special needs has the most favorable law under which to advance a claim. I've been doing appeals of SROs since I was in law school, back in 2008. Contact me if you’d like to learn more.
Marc Gottlieb
Partner
195 Montague Street
14th Floor
Brooklyn Heights, NY 11201
Marc@GottliebFirm.com
(646) 820-8506