Bellflower USD Denied FAPE With Immeasurable IEP Goals in Reading, Writing, and Math

What Happened

Student was an 11-year-old sixth grader with a specific learning disability served by Bellflower Unified School District. He was first found eligible for special education in December 2014 and was placed in general education with Resource Specialist Program (RSP) support. Over the next two years, the district held three IEP team meetings — in March 2015, December 2015, and December 2016 — at each of which the parent raised concerns about her son's academic progress, particularly in reading and writing. Despite the district's use of standardized Kaufman test scores as the baseline for Student's initial goals, the IEP team never updated those goals to include aspirational Kaufman scores or specify the grade level and amount of teacher support Student needed to achieve them. Parent eventually filed a due process complaint in February 2017, alleging that the district's IEP goals were insufficient and unmeasurable, that Student was denied extended school year services, and that the district failed to offer adequate RSP services and counseling.

Parent retained an educational psychologist, Dr. Barbee, who assessed Student in May 2017 and concluded that his IEP goals across all three years lacked the specificity needed to accurately track progress. Notably, Dr. Barbee found Student was reading at a second-grade level in May 2017 — far below the third-to-fourth grade baseline the district had recorded just five months earlier in December 2016. Student's standardized test scores remained in the lowest performance band throughout his fourth and fifth grade years, and his report card grades showed minimal improvement across most subject areas.

What the District Did Wrong

The ALJ found that the district committed procedural violations rising to the level of a FAPE denial at all three IEP meetings by failing to write measurable goals. At the March 2015 IEP, the district re-offered the exact same reading, writing (spelling/phonics), and math goals from the original December 2014 IEP without revision — even though those goals used Kaufman scores as baselines but then measured progress with entirely different tools and descriptors. The ALJ found this made it impossible to compare progress "apples to apples," and that vague progress reports using words like "good" and "great" were meaningless without concrete benchmarks.

At the December 2015 IEP, the reading fluency and writing goals were similarly flawed — neither specified the grade level of text Student was expected to read, nor the level of teacher support required. The writing goal was so vague that Student could have met it by correctly editing just two sentences at any grade level. The ALJ found these omissions prevented the IEP team from accurately monitoring progress and blocked Parent's meaningful participation in developing effective strategies.

At the December 2016 IEP, the district combined reading comprehension and writing into a single goal — despite these being two separate areas of need — and again failed to specify a target grade level. The ALJ found this made the combined goal immeasurable and denied Student a FAPE for yet another year.

On the issues of extended school year, additional RSP services, and counseling, the district prevailed. The ALJ found that while the district had an improper blanket policy of denying ESY to general education students, Student's expert did not provide enough evidence showing Student would regress over the summer or was unable to recoup skills. Without that specific evidence, the procedural violations around ESY did not rise to a FAPE denial.

What Was Ordered

1. Student is awarded 55 hours of one-to-one specialized academic instruction from a non-public agency (NPA) at district expense.
2. Within 5 days of the decision, the district must provide Student with a list of contracted NPAs that offer academic instruction.
3. Within 10 days, Student must select an NPA from that list.
4. Within 20 days, the district must contact and fund the selected NPA for 55 hours of services.
5. All compensatory hours must be used by December 31, 2018, or unused hours are forfeited.
6. All other requests for relief — including counseling services, additional RSP time, and ESY — were denied.

Why This Matters for Parents

1. IEP goals must be measurable — vague language like "good progress" is not enough. This case shows that goals need to specify the grade level of materials, the amount of teacher support required, and a concrete baseline that can be compared to future performance. If a district uses a standardized test score as a baseline, the goal should also reference future scores on that same test.

2. If the district changes how it measures progress, that's a red flag. Here, the district set baselines using Kaufman scores but then measured progress using completely different methods. The ALJ found this made it impossible to know whether Student actually improved. Parents should ask at every IEP meeting: "How does this goal connect to where my child started, and how will we know if they've made real progress?"

3. Blanket ESY policies are illegal — but you still need specific evidence to win. The district had an unlawful policy of never offering summer services to general education students. The ALJ confirmed this was a procedural violation. However, the parent lost on this issue because the expert didn't provide enough detail about regression risk or recoupment capacity. Parents seeking ESY must come prepared with specific data showing their child loses skills over breaks or takes longer than peers to recover them.

4. Document everything, including inconsistencies in what the district reports. The district told the 2015 IEP team that Student read at a fifth-grade level, but told the 2016 IEP team he read at a third-to-fourth grade level. The ALJ used this inconsistency as evidence that the district's progress monitoring was flawed. Keeping your own records of what the school says at each meeting can be powerful evidence later.