Bellflower USD Failed 11th Grader with Autism Through Bad Assessments and COVID Service Cuts

A parent sued Bellflower Unified School District on behalf of her 17-year-old son with autism, specific learning disability, and speech-language impairment after the district conducted flawed triennial assessments and slashed his IEP services during the COVID-19 pandemic without parental consent. The ALJ found the district's 2020 speech, language, and psychoeducational assessments were legally deficient due to improper test administration and missing teacher input. The student was also denied specialized academic instruction, aide services, speech therapy, counseling, and transition services for over a year. Remedies included publicly funded independent assessments in three areas and enrollment at the Stowell Learning Center for 179 hours of compensatory education.

What Happened

The student was a 17-year-old 11th grader at Mayfair High School in Bellflower Unified School District, eligible for special education under three categories: autism, specific learning disability, and speech-language impairment. He had been enrolled in Bellflower since sixth grade and had well-documented needs in auditory processing, working memory, reading comprehension, communication, social skills, and executive functioning. Despite years of IEP services — including a full-time instructional aide, co-taught academic classes, speech therapy, counseling, and transition planning — the student's grades dropped significantly in high school, his reading comprehension remained near third-grade level despite average cognitive potential, and he continued to struggle with independence and social communication.

In April 2021, the parent filed a due process complaint covering two years of alleged FAPE denials. The complaint challenged the adequacy of the district's November 2020 triennial assessments, the district's unilateral reduction of all IEP services during distance learning beginning March 2020, and multiple procedural violations including failure to provide proper written notice, failure to seek parental consent before conducting a transition assessment, and failure to timely review that assessment. The hearing spanned nine days and resulted in the student prevailing on the majority of issues.

What the District Did Wrong

Flawed Speech and Language Assessment (Issue 2A — Student Prevailed): The contracted speech-language pathologist administered the Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language-2 (CASL-2) in violation of the test's own protocols. She allowed multiple repetitions of questions when the protocol permitted only one, failed to mark score sheets using the required standardized system (using unexplained slashes and circles instead), and administered sentence-level items intended for 11–14-year-olds to a 16-year-old student. The assessor who presented results at the IEP meeting was a different person than the one who administered the tests, leaving no one who could adequately explain the results. Additionally, the classroom observation used to draw conclusions about the student's communication was conducted remotely and the observer admitted she could not see clearly whether the student was receiving aide prompting — yet she still reported him as "highly engaged" and responding independently. These failures rendered the assessment unreliable and denied the parent meaningful information needed to participate in IEP development.
Flawed Psychoeducational Assessment (Issue 2B — Student Prevailed): The district used an abbreviated version of the Wechsler intelligence test rather than the full battery, missing critical subtests for working memory and processing speed. The student's scores showed a 34-point gap between perceptual and verbal reasoning — a profile seen in fewer than 2% of the population — that was never explained or explored. Reading comprehension scores at the 2nd percentile were not connected to processing deficits. The Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC) and the Gilliam Autism Rating Scale were completed only by the parent; no teacher was asked to provide ratings, which the district's own school psychologist later acknowledged was an error. Parent ratings indicating clinically significant problems in adaptability, daily living skills, and communication were not followed up with additional assessment. An independent neuropsychologist, Dr. Carlos Flores, provided detailed and credible testimony establishing the scope of these gaps, which went uncontested by the district.
Failure to Implement IEP Services During Distance Learning (Issue 4 — Student Substantially Prevailed): Beginning March 30, 2020, the district unilaterally reduced the school day from 408 to 240 minutes without convening an IEP meeting or obtaining parental consent. Across the period from March 30, 2020 through April 1, 2021, the student received only a fraction of his required services:
- Specialized Academic Instruction (SAI): No SAI was provided in math. In English, small groups were offered only occasionally, were open to general education students, and did not address the student's IEP goals. The district pointed to optional "office hours" as a substitute, but these were not equivalent — they were held simultaneously across all subjects, required the student to self-initiate (a known weakness), and included all students regardless of disability status.
- Instructional Aide: The student was entitled to 408 minutes per day of aide support. The district initially cut this to 200 minutes, then 300 minutes. Aides from the contracted non-public agency were chronically unreliable — logging hours they didn't work, arriving late, leaving early, and lacking the skills to assist with Algebra II or Chemistry. The student had no aide at all from February 17 to April 1, 2021.
- Speech Therapy: The 2020–2021 school year speech services did not begin until September 29, 2020 — six weeks late. During the spring of 2020, the student was sent age-inappropriate worksheets instead of receiving actual speech sessions.
- Counseling: Four group and individual speech sessions missed in summer 2020 were never made up.
- Transition Services: The student's monthly college awareness and career awareness group sessions were never provided during his Junior year — a critical period for post-secondary planning.
Deficient Prior Written Notice (Issue 5A — Student Prevailed): In response to a detailed October 2020 parent letter raising multiple concerns about service delivery, the district sent a November 16, 2020 letter that recharacterized the parent's concerns in vague terms, failed to identify which records supported its conclusions, and did not address the substance of what the parent had raised. This deprived the parent of the information she needed to prepare for and meaningfully participate in the November 19, 2020 IEP meeting.
Unauthorized Transition Assessment (Issues 5B and 5C — Student Prevailed): The district conducted a transition assessment on January 8, 2020 without providing the parent an assessment plan and without obtaining her informed consent beforehand — both clear procedural requirements under the IDEA and California law.
Failure to Review Transition Assessment Timely (Issue 5D — Student Prevailed): The district failed to present the November 2020 transition assessment at an IEP team meeting within the legally required 60-day window after receiving parental consent.
District Prevailed on One Issue: The parent did not establish that a functional behavior assessment (FBA) was required. No expert recommended an FBA, the bathroom incident relied on was double hearsay, and the district's Board Certified Behavior Analyst credibly explained that an FBA would not be warranted for the victim of an altercation. The district also prevailed on the adequacy of the November 2020 transition assessment report itself, and on the narrow period of March 16–29, 2020, when schools were fully closed due to COVID-19.

What Was Ordered

Stowell Learning Center — Compensatory Education: Bellflower must directly contract with the Stowell Learning Center (a California non-public agency specializing in auditory processing, executive functioning, and academic remediation) to provide the student with 96 hours of Step One programming (auditory processing and comprehension) and 83 hours of Step Two programming (processing speed, timing, and memory), totaling 179 hours. This includes tuition, start-up fees, and the cost of any required equipment or books.
Mileage Reimbursement: The district must reimburse the parent for one round-trip per day of attendance at Stowell Learning Center at the current IRS mileage rate, beginning at registration and continuing through program completion.
Publicly Funded Independent Psychoeducational Evaluation (IEE): The parent may choose her own psychoeducational assessor; the district must fund the evaluation in compliance with SELPA fee guidelines and must contract with the assessor within 15 days of the parent identifying them in writing. The district must also pay for the assessor to attend an IEP team meeting to present results.
Publicly Funded Independent Speech and Language Evaluation (IEE): Same process and funding requirements as the psychoeducational IEE above.
Publicly Funded Independent Transition Assessment: Same process and funding requirements. The assessment must specifically explore the student's communication and executive functioning supports needed for career or post-secondary education, as well as his aptitudes and career preferences.
IEP Meeting: The district must convene an IEP team meeting within 15 calendar days of receiving the last of the three independent assessment reports.
Staff Training: Bellflower must arrange a 90-minute training for all Mayfair High School special education staff who prepare assessment plans or prior written notices. The training must cover legal requirements for prior written notices, assessment plans, informed parental consent, and transition assessments. The trainer must be someone not employed by Bellflower, and the training must be completed no later than December 31, 2021.

Why This Matters for Parents

Test protocols are not optional — and you can challenge violations. Federal and California law require that assessment tools be administered exactly as the manufacturer instructs. If a tester skips steps, uses wrong age norms, or doesn't mark score sheets correctly, the assessment may be legally invalid. Ask for a copy of all standardized score sheets and compare them to the published protocols. If something looks off, it may be grounds for a publicly funded independent evaluation.
Your district cannot cut IEP services during distance learning without your consent. When COVID-19 forced schools online, many districts unilaterally reduced services. This case confirms that those reductions — without an IEP meeting, without parental consent, and without a proper IEP amendment — are unlawful. If your child's services were cut during the pandemic and never restored or compensated, you may still be entitled to make-up services.
"Office hours" and general supports are not a substitute for specialized academic instruction. A district cannot point to optional, drop-in resources available to all students as a replacement for individualized special education services. If your child's IEP calls for co-taught classes, resource support, or pull-out instruction, that is what must be delivered — not generic resources that require your child to self-initiate, which may itself be a documented area of need.
Missing teacher input on rating scales can invalidate the entire assessment. When a district administers behavioral or social-emotional rating instruments like the BASC or Gilliam Autism Rating Scale only to parents and skips teacher respondents, the assessment is incomplete and potentially invalid. Always ask who completed rating forms during your child's evaluation and whether all required respondents were included.
Prior written notice must actually answer your questions — not restate them. When you raise concerns in writing, the district's response must clearly identify what action it is proposing or refusing, why, and what information it relied on. A vague response that sidesteps your concerns is not legally sufficient and can be challenged as a procedural violation that impaired your ability to participate in your child's IEP — which is itself a denial of FAPE.

What Happened

What the District Did Wrong

Flawed Speech and Language Assessment (Issue 2A — Student Prevailed): The contracted speech-language pathologist administered the Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language-2 (CASL-2) in violation of the test's own protocols. She allowed multiple repetitions of questions when the protocol permitted only one, failed to mark score sheets using the required standardized system (using unexplained slashes and circles instead), and administered sentence-level items intended for 11–14-year-olds to a 16-year-old student. The assessor who presented results at the IEP meeting was a different person than the one who administered the tests, leaving no one who could adequately explain the results. Additionally, the classroom observation used to draw conclusions about the student's communication was conducted remotely and the observer admitted she could not see clearly whether the student was receiving aide prompting — yet she still reported him as "highly engaged" and responding independently. These failures rendered the assessment unreliable and denied the parent meaningful information needed to participate in IEP development.
Flawed Psychoeducational Assessment (Issue 2B — Student Prevailed): The district used an abbreviated version of the Wechsler intelligence test rather than the full battery, missing critical subtests for working memory and processing speed. The student's scores showed a 34-point gap between perceptual and verbal reasoning — a profile seen in fewer than 2% of the population — that was never explained or explored. Reading comprehension scores at the 2nd percentile were not connected to processing deficits. The Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC) and the Gilliam Autism Rating Scale were completed only by the parent; no teacher was asked to provide ratings, which the district's own school psychologist later acknowledged was an error. Parent ratings indicating clinically significant problems in adaptability, daily living skills, and communication were not followed up with additional assessment. An independent neuropsychologist, Dr. Carlos Flores, provided detailed and credible testimony establishing the scope of these gaps, which went uncontested by the district.
Failure to Implement IEP Services During Distance Learning (Issue 4 — Student Substantially Prevailed): Beginning March 30, 2020, the district unilaterally reduced the school day from 408 to 240 minutes without convening an IEP meeting or obtaining parental consent. Across the period from March 30, 2020 through April 1, 2021, the student received only a fraction of his required services:
- Specialized Academic Instruction (SAI): No SAI was provided in math. In English, small groups were offered only occasionally, were open to general education students, and did not address the student's IEP goals. The district pointed to optional "office hours" as a substitute, but these were not equivalent — they were held simultaneously across all subjects, required the student to self-initiate (a known weakness), and included all students regardless of disability status.
- Instructional Aide: The student was entitled to 408 minutes per day of aide support. The district initially cut this to 200 minutes, then 300 minutes. Aides from the contracted non-public agency were chronically unreliable — logging hours they didn't work, arriving late, leaving early, and lacking the skills to assist with Algebra II or Chemistry. The student had no aide at all from February 17 to April 1, 2021.
- Speech Therapy: The 2020–2021 school year speech services did not begin until September 29, 2020 — six weeks late. During the spring of 2020, the student was sent age-inappropriate worksheets instead of receiving actual speech sessions.
- Counseling: Four group and individual speech sessions missed in summer 2020 were never made up.
- Transition Services: The student's monthly college awareness and career awareness group sessions were never provided during his Junior year — a critical period for post-secondary planning.
Deficient Prior Written Notice (Issue 5A — Student Prevailed): In response to a detailed October 2020 parent letter raising multiple concerns about service delivery, the district sent a November 16, 2020 letter that recharacterized the parent's concerns in vague terms, failed to identify which records supported its conclusions, and did not address the substance of what the parent had raised. This deprived the parent of the information she needed to prepare for and meaningfully participate in the November 19, 2020 IEP meeting.
Unauthorized Transition Assessment (Issues 5B and 5C — Student Prevailed): The district conducted a transition assessment on January 8, 2020 without providing the parent an assessment plan and without obtaining her informed consent beforehand — both clear procedural requirements under the IDEA and California law.
Failure to Review Transition Assessment Timely (Issue 5D — Student Prevailed): The district failed to present the November 2020 transition assessment at an IEP team meeting within the legally required 60-day window after receiving parental consent.
District Prevailed on One Issue: The parent did not establish that a functional behavior assessment (FBA) was required. No expert recommended an FBA, the bathroom incident relied on was double hearsay, and the district's Board Certified Behavior Analyst credibly explained that an FBA would not be warranted for the victim of an altercation. The district also prevailed on the adequacy of the November 2020 transition assessment report itself, and on the narrow period of March 16–29, 2020, when schools were fully closed due to COVID-19.

What Was Ordered

Stowell Learning Center — Compensatory Education: Bellflower must directly contract with the Stowell Learning Center (a California non-public agency specializing in auditory processing, executive functioning, and academic remediation) to provide the student with 96 hours of Step One programming (auditory processing and comprehension) and 83 hours of Step Two programming (processing speed, timing, and memory), totaling 179 hours. This includes tuition, start-up fees, and the cost of any required equipment or books.
Mileage Reimbursement: The district must reimburse the parent for one round-trip per day of attendance at Stowell Learning Center at the current IRS mileage rate, beginning at registration and continuing through program completion.
Publicly Funded Independent Psychoeducational Evaluation (IEE): The parent may choose her own psychoeducational assessor; the district must fund the evaluation in compliance with SELPA fee guidelines and must contract with the assessor within 15 days of the parent identifying them in writing. The district must also pay for the assessor to attend an IEP team meeting to present results.
Publicly Funded Independent Speech and Language Evaluation (IEE): Same process and funding requirements as the psychoeducational IEE above.
Publicly Funded Independent Transition Assessment: Same process and funding requirements. The assessment must specifically explore the student's communication and executive functioning supports needed for career or post-secondary education, as well as his aptitudes and career preferences.
IEP Meeting: The district must convene an IEP team meeting within 15 calendar days of receiving the last of the three independent assessment reports.
Staff Training: Bellflower must arrange a 90-minute training for all Mayfair High School special education staff who prepare assessment plans or prior written notices. The training must cover legal requirements for prior written notices, assessment plans, informed parental consent, and transition assessments. The trainer must be someone not employed by Bellflower, and the training must be completed no later than December 31, 2021.

Why This Matters for Parents

Test protocols are not optional — and you can challenge violations. Federal and California law require that assessment tools be administered exactly as the manufacturer instructs. If a tester skips steps, uses wrong age norms, or doesn't mark score sheets correctly, the assessment may be legally invalid. Ask for a copy of all standardized score sheets and compare them to the published protocols. If something looks off, it may be grounds for a publicly funded independent evaluation.
Your district cannot cut IEP services during distance learning without your consent. When COVID-19 forced schools online, many districts unilaterally reduced services. This case confirms that those reductions — without an IEP meeting, without parental consent, and without a proper IEP amendment — are unlawful. If your child's services were cut during the pandemic and never restored or compensated, you may still be entitled to make-up services.
"Office hours" and general supports are not a substitute for specialized academic instruction. A district cannot point to optional, drop-in resources available to all students as a replacement for individualized special education services. If your child's IEP calls for co-taught classes, resource support, or pull-out instruction, that is what must be delivered — not generic resources that require your child to self-initiate, which may itself be a documented area of need.
Missing teacher input on rating scales can invalidate the entire assessment. When a district administers behavioral or social-emotional rating instruments like the BASC or Gilliam Autism Rating Scale only to parents and skips teacher respondents, the assessment is incomplete and potentially invalid. Always ask who completed rating forms during your child's evaluation and whether all required respondents were included.
Prior written notice must actually answer your questions — not restate them. When you raise concerns in writing, the district's response must clearly identify what action it is proposing or refusing, why, and what information it relied on. A vague response that sidesteps your concerns is not legally sufficient and can be challenged as a procedural violation that impaired your ability to participate in your child's IEP — which is itself a denial of FAPE.