UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT ____________

No. 20-3391 ______ J.M., individually and o/b/o C.M.; E.M., individually and o/b/o C.M., Appellants

v.

SUMMIT CITY BOARD OF EDUCATION ____________ On Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey (D.C. No. 2-19-cv-00159) District Judge: Honorable Kevin McNulty ____________ Argued: October 26, 2021

Before: GREENAWAY, JR., PHIPPS, and COWEN, * Circuit Judges.

(Filed: July 1, 2022) ____________

* The Honorable Robert E. Cowen participated in oral argument, retired, and resumed active status for the disposition of this case. Thomas J. O’Leary [ARGUED] Walsh Pizzi O’Reilly & Falanga Three Gateway Center 100 Mulberry Street, 15th Floor Newark, NJ 07102

Counsel for Appellants Jennifer N. Rosen Valverde [ARGUED] Rutgers University School of Law Special Education Clinic 123 Washington Street Newark, NJ 07102

Counsel for Amici/Appellants John B. Comegno II [ARGUED] Anne R. Myers Comegno Law Group 521 Pleasant Valley Avenue Moorestown, NJ 08057

Counsel for Appellee __________ PHIPPS, Circuit Judge.

This is a dispute about the timing of a school district’s provision of special education and related services to a child with autism. Although the school district provided those services to the child after he was diagnosed with autism in April 2017, it had denied the child those services fourteen months earlier. At that time, in February 2016, the child was six years old and in first grade, and the school district determined that he was ineligible for those services because he was not disabled and did not need them.

2 The child’s parents disagreed with that ineligibility determination and sought redress under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (the ‘IDEA’) and § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. In the administrative grievance that they filed against the school district, they asserted that the school district violated its statutory obligation to identify, locate, and evaluate children with disabilities. On the premise that the school district did not fulfill that duty, the parents claimed that the school district denied their child his statutory right to a free appropriate public education (a ‘FAPE’).

The parents’ claims did not succeed at the administrative level or in the District Court. After holding an evidentiary hearing, a hearing officer denied the parents’ administrative grievance. To dispute that outcome along with the hearing officer’s evidentiary rulings, the parents filed a complaint in federal court. But the District Court upheld the hearing officer’s determination and entered summary judgment in the school district’s favor.

The parents have now appealed the District Court’s ruling. Reviewing the District Court’s legal conclusions de novo, its factual findings for clear error, and its evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion, see Munir v. Pottsville Area Sch. Dist., 723 F.3d 423, 430 (3d Cir. 2013); Susan N. v. Wilson Sch. Dist., 70 F.3d 751, 760 (3d Cir. 1995), we will affirm the judgment for the reasons below.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

A. The Four Months Before C.M. Enrolled in First Grade in the Summit Public School District

From his infancy through kindergarten, C.M. attended day care full-time. He met his developmental milestones, and the day care described his participation and adjustment to kindergarten as good and his behavior as fairly typical. But toward the end of kindergarten, in May 201