Saugus Union Failed Autistic Student With Inadequate COVID-Era IEP Goals and Missing Instruction Hours

What Happened

The student was eight years old at the time of the hearing and had completed second grade during the 2020–2021 school year. He was eligible for special education under the primary category of autism and the secondary category of intellectual disability. He was nonverbal, used an augmentative communication device, needed adult facilitation and prompting throughout the school day, and had significant delays in fine motor skills and attention. Before the COVID-19 school closure in March 2020, he attended a special day class in Saugus Union's regional autism program at Mountainview Elementary School, where he was receiving specialized academic instruction, speech and language services, and the support of a one-to-one aide under an April 2019 IEP.

When Governor Newsom's executive orders closed California school campuses in March 2020, Saugus Union shifted to distance learning. The district held the student's annual IEP meeting on May 4, 2020, but the parent did not consent to that IEP until January 17, 2021. The parent filed a due process complaint in April 2021 raising a wide range of claims: that the district should have provided services in person during the closure, that the May 2020 IEP was procedurally and substantively deficient, that the district failed to address the student's regression, and that the district never fully implemented the speech and language and specialized academic instruction minutes his IEP required.

What the ALJ Found

The case was mixed: the parent prevailed on four issues and the district prevailed on the remainder. Here is what the ALJ decided on each side:

Where the district prevailed:

1. No requirement for in-person services during COVID closures. The district was not required to deliver IEP services in person between March 16, 2020 and the end of the school year. State and federal guidance during the pandemic authorized distance learning as an alternative delivery method, and the student's IEP did not expressly require face-to-face services. The parent did not demonstrate that the student's mental or physical health required an individual exception to the systemwide closure.

2. No FAPE violation for failing to assess before the May 2020 IEP. The district was not required to conduct formal assessments before the May 4, 2020 IEP meeting. The IEP team gathered available information from teachers and service providers and reviewed the student's progress.

3. No obligation to offer a one-to-one aide during distance learning. The evidence showed the aide had originally been offered primarily for safety concerns (elopement risk, seizure-like episodes) that were not applicable during remote instruction. The district was not required to provide a virtual aide.

4. No proven regression that Saugus Union failed to address. The parent's expert witness was not persuasive — she had rarely observed the student, had no baseline data from the school year, and never raised regression concerns at the IEP meetings she attended. The district offered extended school year services specifically to prevent regression, and later IEP data showed the student met six of his eleven goals.

5. Speech services were substantially implemented. Although the district did not always deliver individual speech in the exact session format required (three 20-minute sessions rather than two 30-minute sessions), the student received more total individual speech minutes than the IEP required. Six absences accounted for the missed group sessions. The deviation was not material.

Where the student prevailed:

1. The May 2020 IEP goals were inadequate and not distance-learning appropriate (Issues 1c(ii), 3b, 3e). The district failed to update the student's present levels of performance across all areas of need at the May 2020 IEP. It also failed to develop goals that were measurable, tied to current baselines, and capable of being implemented in a remote learning environment. Goals were written in ways that could not be meaningfully tracked or reported on during distance learning.

2. The district materially failed to implement specialized academic instruction (Issue 5). After the parent signed the May 2020 IEP on January 17, 2021, the IEP required 1,450 minutes of specialized academic instruction per week. The district provided only 1,150 minutes per week — 230 minutes per day across five days. The district incorrectly argued that the state's minimum instructional day floor of 230 minutes relieved it of the obligation to deliver the full IEP-required minutes. The shortfall was approximately 300 minutes (five hours) per week for 13 weeks, totaling roughly 65 hours of missing instruction. This was a material implementation failure.

What Was Ordered

1. 65 hours of compensatory specialized academic instruction funded by Saugus Union, to be provided by a certified nonpublic agency of the parent's choice. The district must establish direct payment to the selected agency. All hours must be used by June 1, 2023.

2. Four hours of special education training for Saugus Union's special education administrative staff, teaching staff, and service providers. The training must cover the required contents of an IEP, how to write appropriate present levels of performance, how to write measurable goals, and how to accurately report progress on goals and communicate that progress to parents. Training must be completed before the end of the 2021–2022 regular school year.

3. Reimbursement requests were denied. The parent sought reimbursement for private behavior and speech services obtained during the pandemic, but the ALJ found these services were already in place before the school closure and were funded through insurance or the regional center. The parent did not establish a causal connection to the FAPE violations found, nor did she provide sufficient evidence of out-of-pocket costs.

4. Requests for a new academic assessment, a one-to-one aide order, and mandated goal rewrites were denied. Because the district had already held a new annual IEP in June 2021 with updated goals and present levels, ordering new assessments or goal development was not an appropriate remedy for the past violations.

Why This Matters for Parents

1. The minimum school day floor is not your child's IEP. During COVID-19 and beyond, districts sometimes argued that meeting the state's minimum instructional minutes (230 minutes per day for grades 1–3) satisfied their obligations. This ALJ rejected that argument clearly: if your child's IEP requires more service minutes than the legal minimum, the district must provide those IEP minutes. Always check whether the minutes on your child's schedule match the minutes written in the IEP.

2. IEP goals must be written so they can actually be measured and taught in the current environment. When the student's learning setting changes — whether due to a pandemic, a school transfer, or a new program — the IEP team must revisit whether existing goals still have meaningful baselines and can be tracked. Vague or carry-over goals that cannot be implemented in the current setting are a FAPE violation, even if the setting change was beyond the district's control.

3. "Distance learning happened to everyone" is not a complete defense. The district won most of the COVID-related in-person claims, but the ALJ still held it accountable for the quality and quantity of services it did deliver. A systemwide closure may excuse the format of services, but it does not excuse the district from providing the number of service minutes required by the IEP or from writing goals appropriate for whatever format instruction actually takes.

4. Document everything when you seek additional private services. The parent lost her reimbursement claims largely because she could not show that the extra private services were caused by the district's violations rather than pre-existing arrangements or personal circumstances (a new baby, a spouse returning to work). If you are obtaining private services to fill a gap created by the district, keep records connecting the need directly to what the district failed to provide — and tell the district in writing what you are doing and why.

5. Raise regression concerns in writing at the IEP meeting, and ask the team to document them. The regression claim failed in part because the parent's own expert never mentioned it at the IEP meetings she attended. If you believe your child has regressed, say so clearly at the meeting, ask the team to write it in the notes, and request that the IEP address it specifically. Concerns raised only in litigation, without contemporaneous documentation, are much harder to prove.