Val Verde District's Flawed Autism Assessment Earns Student Right to Independent Evaluation

Val Verde Unified School District filed for due process to defend its 2007 triennial psychoeducational evaluation of a student with ADHD and a suspected autism spectrum disorder. The ALJ found the district's assessment was flawed in multiple ways — including failure to obtain prior school records, skipping an occupational therapy evaluation, and improperly administering the GARS-2 autism rating scale. The student prevailed on all issues and was awarded independent educational evaluations in both psychoeducation and occupational therapy at public expense.

What Happened

Student is a boy who, at the time of the hearing, was 12 years old and attending fourth grade at his neighborhood elementary school in Val Verde Unified School District. He had a long and complex history: diagnosed with ADHD at age three, later diagnosed with PDD-NOS (a form of autism spectrum disorder) by his private psychologist, and also carrying diagnoses of Cyclothymic Disorder and an Auditory Processing Disorder. He had received services from multiple districts and private agencies, including intensive behavioral support from an autism services organization. When he enrolled in Val Verde, the district found him eligible for special education under the category of "Other Health Impairment" (OHI) based on his ADHD, and placed him in a general education classroom with resource specialist and speech-language support.

In fall 2007, the district conducted a triennial (three-year) psychoeducational assessment. Because Parent was concerned that Student's behaviors were rooted in autism rather than other causes, the district used an autism consultant as the lead assessor and administered a battery of autism-specific tools, including the ADOS, GARS-2, and CARS. The assessment concluded that Student did not demonstrate autistic-like behaviors warranting a change in eligibility. Parent disagreed and requested an independent educational evaluation (IEE) at public expense. The district refused and filed for due process, asking the ALJ to rule that its assessment was appropriate. Student fought back, arguing the assessment was flawed in several key ways. The ALJ sided with Student on every issue.

What the District Did Wrong

The ALJ identified five separate problems with the district's assessment:

Failure to obtain prior school records. The district enrolled Student without requesting his records from his previous school district, and still had not obtained them by the time the triennial assessment was complete. Federal and California law require assessors to review all existing evaluation data. Student had a rich prior history — prior assessments, behavioral records, OT services — that could have shaped the entire assessment. The district accepted Parent's statement that the records were sealed by a court without making any independent effort to verify or obtain them.
No occupational therapy assessment. Student had documented sensory sensitivities (to noise, touch, and crowds), very low scores on the visual-motor integration test, barely legible handwriting, and a history of prior OT services. All of these are red flags that an OT assessment is needed. The district never assessed Student in OT, and offered to do so only after the triennial was already finished. The ALJ ruled that offering an OT assessment plan after the fact does not fix the original failure, especially when the missing OT data could have changed the entire analysis of whether Student had autism-related needs.
Improper administration of the GARS-2. The autism rating scale (GARS-2) requires all raters to know the student well and have had regular contact with him for at least two weeks. The district had the speech-language pathologist — who had only brief, sporadic contact with Student — rate the entire Communication subscale. She gave Student a score of zero on every communication item. The classroom teacher, who did know Student well, would have scored him higher. The ALJ found this error was not trivial: Student came within two points of the "Possibly Autistic" threshold, and a properly administered GARS-2 likely would have pushed him over that line.
Incomplete analysis of behavior rating scales. The district's report glossed over significant findings on the BASC-2 behavior rating scales. Both Parent and the classroom teacher rated Student in the "Clinically Significant" range on multiple dimensions — including Functional Communication and Social Skills — but the assessment report barely mentioned these findings and drew no meaningful conclusions from them.
Legal errors in the conclusions. The district's assessor applied the wrong legal standard when evaluating Student for autism eligibility, using the "marked degree" threshold that applies to Emotional Disturbance — not to autism. The report also inaccurately summarized the speech-language pathologist's own findings, omitting one of the three areas of pragmatic language weakness she had identified.

What Was Ordered

The district's request for relief was denied in full.
Student is entitled to an independent psychoeducational evaluation (IEE) at public expense.
Student is entitled to an independent occupational therapy evaluation (IEE) at public expense.

Why This Matters for Parents

A district cannot skip part of an assessment and then offer to fill in the gap later. When the district proposed an OT assessment plan after the triennial was already done, the ALJ refused to let that cure the original violation. If your child has known sensory, motor, or behavioral concerns, those areas must be assessed as part of the original evaluation — not as an afterthought.
Rating scale results are only valid if the right people fill them out. The GARS-2 requires raters who truly know your child. If a therapist or specialist with only limited contact with your child is rating behavioral checklists, you can challenge those results. Ask who completed each rating form and how well they knew your child.
Missing school records can invalidate an entire assessment. Districts are legally required to obtain a student's records from previous schools before assessing. If your child has a long history with other districts or agencies, make sure the district has those records in hand before the assessment begins — not after.
When a district applies the wrong legal standard, the whole conclusion can unravel. Here, the assessor used a legal test from the wrong eligibility category. Parents should know that autism eligibility in California (called "autistic-like behaviors") has different criteria than Emotional Disturbance. If your district seems to be mixing up the standards, that is grounds to challenge the assessment.

What Happened

What the District Did Wrong

The ALJ identified five separate problems with the district's assessment:

Failure to obtain prior school records. The district enrolled Student without requesting his records from his previous school district, and still had not obtained them by the time the triennial assessment was complete. Federal and California law require assessors to review all existing evaluation data. Student had a rich prior history — prior assessments, behavioral records, OT services — that could have shaped the entire assessment. The district accepted Parent's statement that the records were sealed by a court without making any independent effort to verify or obtain them.
No occupational therapy assessment. Student had documented sensory sensitivities (to noise, touch, and crowds), very low scores on the visual-motor integration test, barely legible handwriting, and a history of prior OT services. All of these are red flags that an OT assessment is needed. The district never assessed Student in OT, and offered to do so only after the triennial was already finished. The ALJ ruled that offering an OT assessment plan after the fact does not fix the original failure, especially when the missing OT data could have changed the entire analysis of whether Student had autism-related needs.
Improper administration of the GARS-2. The autism rating scale (GARS-2) requires all raters to know the student well and have had regular contact with him for at least two weeks. The district had the speech-language pathologist — who had only brief, sporadic contact with Student — rate the entire Communication subscale. She gave Student a score of zero on every communication item. The classroom teacher, who did know Student well, would have scored him higher. The ALJ found this error was not trivial: Student came within two points of the "Possibly Autistic" threshold, and a properly administered GARS-2 likely would have pushed him over that line.
Incomplete analysis of behavior rating scales. The district's report glossed over significant findings on the BASC-2 behavior rating scales. Both Parent and the classroom teacher rated Student in the "Clinically Significant" range on multiple dimensions — including Functional Communication and Social Skills — but the assessment report barely mentioned these findings and drew no meaningful conclusions from them.
Legal errors in the conclusions. The district's assessor applied the wrong legal standard when evaluating Student for autism eligibility, using the "marked degree" threshold that applies to Emotional Disturbance — not to autism. The report also inaccurately summarized the speech-language pathologist's own findings, omitting one of the three areas of pragmatic language weakness she had identified.

What Was Ordered

The district's request for relief was denied in full.
Student is entitled to an independent psychoeducational evaluation (IEE) at public expense.
Student is entitled to an independent occupational therapy evaluation (IEE) at public expense.

Why This Matters for Parents

A district cannot skip part of an assessment and then offer to fill in the gap later. When the district proposed an OT assessment plan after the triennial was already done, the ALJ refused to let that cure the original violation. If your child has known sensory, motor, or behavioral concerns, those areas must be assessed as part of the original evaluation — not as an afterthought.
Rating scale results are only valid if the right people fill them out. The GARS-2 requires raters who truly know your child. If a therapist or specialist with only limited contact with your child is rating behavioral checklists, you can challenge those results. Ask who completed each rating form and how well they knew your child.
Missing school records can invalidate an entire assessment. Districts are legally required to obtain a student's records from previous schools before assessing. If your child has a long history with other districts or agencies, make sure the district has those records in hand before the assessment begins — not after.
When a district applies the wrong legal standard, the whole conclusion can unravel. Here, the assessor used a legal test from the wrong eligibility category. Parents should know that autism eligibility in California (called "autistic-like behaviors") has different criteria than Emotional Disturbance. If your district seems to be mixing up the standards, that is grounds to challenge the assessment.