Downey USD Ordered to Fund Independent Assessments After Years of Delay

What Happened

This case involves a student with other health impairment (ADHD) and speech-language delays who attended Downey Unified School District beginning around age three. His mother had significant concerns over the years about possible autism, sensory sensitivities, unusual gait and coordination problems, hearing sensitivity, and behavioral difficulties. Starting in 2010, Downey held IEP meetings and offered the student a special day class placement, revised speech-language services, and instructional goals — but when his mother (through her attorney) consented to portions of the IEP in writing rather than by signing the IEP document itself, the district refused to implement anything, claiming it lacked valid consent. Similarly, Downey agreed in writing to conduct assessments in six areas — including functional behavior, autistic-like behaviors, audiology, and motor development — but never performed them, even after an ALJ and later a federal district court confirmed the mother had consented through her attorney's letters.

The case went through an initial OAH hearing in 2011, then federal district court appeal, and was remanded back to OAH in 2015 specifically to determine whether the mother's attorney-letter consent was valid and what remedy was owed. By the time of the remand hearing, the student was in fifth grade. Downey had still never administered four of the six agreed-upon assessments, even though it had obtained a prior OAH order allowing it to assess without signed consent and the federal court had confirmed consent existed. The remand hearing addressed whether the district's failures amounted to a denial of FAPE and what remedy the student deserved.

What the ALJ Found

The outcome was mixed — the student prevailed on one of four issues and the district prevailed on three.

Issue 1 — Failure to implement IEP goals (District prevailed): The mother consented to instructional goals, but she refused the special day class placement those goals required. The ALJ found the district could not have implemented the goals in a general education classroom, where teachers lacked the training, time, and structure to deliver individualized special education instruction to a class of 25–30 students. Because the mother declined the special day class, Downey was not responsible for failing to implement the goals.

Issue 2 — Delay in psycho-educational and speech-language assessments (District prevailed): Downey eventually administered these assessments in early 2013 as part of a triennial evaluation. The ALJ found the student had not proven he suffered any loss of educational benefit from the delay. The 2013 results showed significant academic progress; the student had even reached grade level in reading and was discharged from speech therapy. The mother's participation in IEP decisions was not shown to have been significantly impeded by the delay.

Issue 3 — Failure to ever assess in four areas (Student prevailed): Downey never administered assessments in functional behavior, autistic-like behaviors, audiology, or motor development/physical fitness — despite promising to do so in three separate assessment plans over multiple years, obtaining a prior court order permitting it to assess without signed consent, and having the federal court confirm consent existed. The ALJ found this constituted a procedural FAPE denial because it significantly impeded the mother's ability to participate in IEP planning: she was never given information about whether her son had unique needs in these areas or what supports might address them. The student showed enough evidence of potential needs in each area (sensory sensitivities, unusual gait, behavioral difficulties, possible autistic-like features) to establish that assessments were warranted.

Issue 4 — Whether district could implement IEPs given limited consent scope (District prevailed): Downey demonstrated it could not have implemented the full IEP package when the mother refused the special day class, making the goals effectively impossible to deliver in the general education setting.

On compensatory education requests: The student requested 92 hours of tutoring, 92 hours of counseling, 92.5 hours of adaptive physical education, and 8.5 hours of speech-language services. All compensatory education requests were denied because the student failed to present sufficient evidence of actual educational harm or any expert testimony supporting the specific amounts requested.

What Was Ordered

1. Downey Unified School District must fund independent educational evaluations (IEEs) for the student in four areas: autistic-like behaviors, audiology, functional behavior, and motor development/physical fitness.
2. The student's family may choose their own assessors, provided the assessors meet Downey's or its Special Education Local Plan Area's (SELPA's) stated criteria for independent assessors, including fee limits.
3. The district must contract with the chosen assessors within 30 days of receiving the assessor's name, contact information, fees, and qualifications in writing.
4. The district must convene an IEP team meeting to review each assessment within 30 days of receiving the assessment report.
5. The district must pay each assessor for up to two hours of their normal hourly rate to attend or participate telephonically in the IEP team meeting (travel time included in the two hours).
6. The district is not required to fund additional IEEs in these four areas if the family disagrees with the results of the ordered assessments.
7. All other relief requested by the student — including all compensatory education — was denied.

Why This Matters for Parents

1. Attorney letters can constitute valid consent. If you communicate consent to an IEP or assessment plan through your attorney in clear, unambiguous writing, that may be legally effective even if you never sign the district's form. Districts cannot refuse to act simply because a signature box was left blank when a letter expressly accepted the offer.

2. Agreeing to assess and then not assessing is a serious violation. When a district promises in writing to conduct assessments in specific areas and then never follows through — even for years — this can be found to significantly impede a parent's ability to participate in IEP planning and may result in the district being ordered to fund independent evaluations at its own expense.

3. Partial consent to an IEP has limits. If you consent to goals but reject the placement those goals were designed for, the district may successfully argue it could not implement the goals in your child's current setting. Think carefully about the relationship between goals and placement before consenting selectively.

4. To win compensatory education, you need more than a parent's testimony. Parents who want compensatory services must present concrete evidence — ideally expert testimony — showing the specific educational harm their child suffered and the specific amount of services needed to remedy it. A general claim that the child was harmed, without quantified expert support, is unlikely to succeed.

5. Repeated procedural failures can lead to loss of control over who assesses your child. Because Downey failed to conduct the agreed assessments through multiple opportunities spanning years, the ALJ ordered independent evaluations with assessors of the family's choosing — a stronger remedy than simply ordering the district to conduct its own assessments. Documenting a district's repeated broken promises about assessments strengthens the case for IEEs.