District Must Fund IEE After Failing to File Due Process to Defend Its Speech Assessment

A 19-year-old student with autism received a mixed ruling in a due process hearing against Los Angeles Unified School District. The district was ordered to fund an independent speech and language evaluation because it failed to either provide the evaluation or file for due process within a reasonable time after the parent requested one. The parent's other claims — for continued private behavior services, private speech therapy, and additional campus supervision — were denied.

What Happened

Student is a 19-year-old young man with autism enrolled in a special day program at a Los Angeles Unified high school. He had significant receptive and expressive language deficits, communicating primarily in two-to-five word utterances, often omitting key parts of sentences. He had a history of self-injurious behaviors at home, though teachers consistently reported no such behaviors at school. He had been receiving private (NPA) speech therapy and in-home behavior intervention services funded by the district for several years.

At the April 2012 annual IEP meeting, the district proposed dropping Student's private one-on-one speech therapy in favor of school-based group speech, and terminating his in-home behavior intervention services entirely. The parent disagreed with the district's speech assessment and, at a follow-up meeting in August 2012, formally requested an independent educational evaluation (IEE) of Student's speech and language needs at public expense. She also filed for due process, challenging the adequacy of the district's IEP offer in four areas: the speech assessment, termination of private speech services, termination of in-home behavior services, and lack of supervision during school transitions and mealtimes.

What the District Did Wrong

The district failed to respond properly to the parent's IEE request. Under federal and California law, when a parent requests an IEE at public expense, a school district must do one of two things without unnecessary delay: either pay for the IEE, or file its own due process complaint to defend the adequacy of its assessment. The district did neither. The parent formally requested the IEE on August 20, 2012. The hearing took place 70 days later, and the district never filed for due process to defend its speech assessment during that entire period. Instead, it essentially did nothing and then argued at hearing that it didn't have to respond because the parent filed first.

The ALJ rejected that argument outright. The law does not allow a district to shift the burden back onto a parent simply because the parent exercised her right to file for due process. The district's 70-day silence — with no explanation offered — was an unnecessary delay that waived its right to contest the IEE request. The ALJ ordered the district to fund a bilingual independent speech and language evaluation at public expense.

What Was Ordered

The district must fund an independent speech and language evaluation (IEE) for Student at public expense.
The district must provide the parent with a list of bilingual independent speech-language assessors and the agency's criteria for qualifying assessors.
The district must pay the independent assessor directly within 30 days of receiving the assessor's bill, and must also pay for the assessor to attend the IEP meeting to review the IEE results.
The district must schedule an IEP team meeting within 30 days of receiving the IEE report, using best efforts to accommodate the assessor's schedule.
All other requests for relief — continued private speech therapy, continued in-home behavior services, and additional campus supervision — were denied.

Why This Matters for Parents

When you request an IEE, the district must act — not ignore you. Once you formally request an IEE at public expense in writing, the district has a legal obligation to either agree to fund it or file for due process to defend its own assessment. If the district does neither within a reasonable time, it may lose the right to challenge your IEE request entirely — as happened here.
A casual comment is not a formal IEE request. The ALJ found that the parent's comment at the April IEP meeting — that it "would be good to get another opinion" — was not a formal IEE request, because she said she was deferring her response until she spoke with a lawyer. Your IEE request should be clear, specific, and in writing to start the clock on the district's obligation.
The district's failure to file for due process, not the quality of its assessment, determined the outcome here. The ALJ did not need to decide whether the district's speech evaluation was actually appropriate — because the district never properly challenged the IEE request, it lost regardless. Procedural compliance matters as much as substantive correctness.
To win on service termination, parents need more than parental observations. The ALJ denied the parent's claims about in-home behavior services and school supervision because the only evidence of ongoing problems came from the parent herself, while every other source — the NPA provider, teachers, and the FBA — showed no concerning behaviors at school or in public. If you believe your child needs services, gather documentation from multiple independent sources before the IEP meeting.

What Happened

What the District Did Wrong

What Was Ordered

The district must fund an independent speech and language evaluation (IEE) for Student at public expense.
The district must provide the parent with a list of bilingual independent speech-language assessors and the agency's criteria for qualifying assessors.
The district must pay the independent assessor directly within 30 days of receiving the assessor's bill, and must also pay for the assessor to attend the IEP meeting to review the IEE results.
The district must schedule an IEP team meeting within 30 days of receiving the IEE report, using best efforts to accommodate the assessor's schedule.
All other requests for relief — continued private speech therapy, continued in-home behavior services, and additional campus supervision — were denied.

Why This Matters for Parents

When you request an IEE, the district must act — not ignore you. Once you formally request an IEE at public expense in writing, the district has a legal obligation to either agree to fund it or file for due process to defend its own assessment. If the district does neither within a reasonable time, it may lose the right to challenge your IEE request entirely — as happened here.
A casual comment is not a formal IEE request. The ALJ found that the parent's comment at the April IEP meeting — that it "would be good to get another opinion" — was not a formal IEE request, because she said she was deferring her response until she spoke with a lawyer. Your IEE request should be clear, specific, and in writing to start the clock on the district's obligation.
The district's failure to file for due process, not the quality of its assessment, determined the outcome here. The ALJ did not need to decide whether the district's speech evaluation was actually appropriate — because the district never properly challenged the IEE request, it lost regardless. Procedural compliance matters as much as substantive correctness.
To win on service termination, parents need more than parental observations. The ALJ denied the parent's claims about in-home behavior services and school supervision because the only evidence of ongoing problems came from the parent herself, while every other source — the NPA provider, teachers, and the FBA — showed no concerning behaviors at school or in public. If you believe your child needs services, gather documentation from multiple independent sources before the IEP meeting.