San Diego Unified Must Fund Independent Psych and Speech Evals After Flawed Reevaluation

What Happened

Student is an 11-year-old with a specific learning disability who was first identified as eligible for special education at age three due to significant delays in receptive and expressive language. He was later exited from speech and language services in 2018 after showing improvement, but continued receiving private speech services paid for by Parent's insurance. In 2019, he was re-found eligible for special education under the category of specific learning disability based on a phonological processing deficit. After struggling academically through fourth grade, Parent unilaterally enrolled Student in a private school called New Bridge beginning in fifth grade for the 2022-2023 school year.

In August and September 2022, Parent requested both an independent speech and a neuropsychological evaluation, which led to a settlement agreement requiring the district to conduct a comprehensive reevaluation. The district completed a May 2023 psychoeducational and academic reevaluation but did not include any speech and language assessment. In January 2024, Parent requested publicly funded independent evaluations in both psychoeducation and speech and language, disagreeing with the May 2023 reevaluation. The district refused to fund the independent evaluations and instead filed for due process to defend its assessment. Student also filed, arguing the district violated its "fund or file" obligation by not funding the speech and language independent evaluation. Both cases were consolidated and heard together.

What the District Did Wrong

The ALJ found the May 2023 reevaluation legally inadequate on multiple grounds. First, the district failed to properly gather input from Parent. The school psychologist's outreach to Parent consisted of a single email — the contents of which she could not reliably recall at hearing — and a behavior rating scale. The psychologist never spoke to Parent, did not ask whether Student was taking medication for anxiety, and was unaware Student had been seeing a therapist and psychiatrist. Had she known, she admitted she might have done additional testing. The May 2023 report contained only three lines of parent input, which the ALJ found was perfunctory and inadequate.

Second, the district failed to properly seek input from Student's teachers at New Bridge. The psychologist sent an unspecified list of questions to the school director but never spoke with any teacher and sent no follow-up questions. The resulting report contained no information about Student's expressive or receptive language, social-emotional functioning, motor skills, or adaptive skills. The district's own due process complaint admitted that Parent's January 2024 request for a speech and language evaluation put it on notice that speech was a suspected area of disability — an admission the ALJ treated as binding. Because Parent had raised speech and language concerns as far back as August 2022, and the district had agreed in the settlement to assess in all areas of suspected disability, the failure to include a speech and language component in the May 2023 reevaluation was a significant flaw.

Third, the evaluation report itself was deficient: recommendations appeared generic and cut-and-pasted from websites (including suggestions like LeapFrog DVDs and Dr. Seuss books for a child about to enter sixth grade), academic test score tables lacked legends or explanations, and phonological processing subtest scores — the very basis of Student's eligibility — were not clearly reported.

What Was Ordered

1. San Diego Unified shall fund an independent psychoeducational evaluation, including an academic assessment component, by an assessor of Parent's choice who meets district or SELPA guidelines.
2. San Diego Unified shall fund an independent speech and language evaluation by an assessor of Parent's choice who meets district or SELPA guidelines.
3. The independent evaluations may not be conducted by the two expert witnesses who testified for Student at hearing, or anyone affiliated with them, as the ALJ found they were not sufficiently neutral.
4. Parent has 90 calendar days from the date of the decision to provide the district with the names of qualified evaluators.
5. Within 15 business days of receiving Parent's selections, the district must contract with those evaluators to conduct the independent evaluations.

Why This Matters for Parents

1. Put your concerns in writing — even informally. Parent's August and September 2022 emails requesting a speech and language evaluation became critical evidence that the district was on notice speech was a suspected area of disability. Even an email to a teacher or administrator can create a legal record that obligates the district to assess in that area.

2. A settlement agreement to do a "comprehensive" reevaluation means all areas of suspected disability must be covered. The district argued the signed assessment plan limited the scope of the reevaluation. The ALJ rejected that argument, finding the district cannot shift its legal duty onto parents to specify what assessments are needed — that burden belongs to the district.

3. A district's own words can be used against it. The district's due process complaint acknowledged that Parent's speech and language IEE request put it on notice that speech was a suspected disability. The ALJ treated this as a binding admission and used it against the district. What a district writes in legal filings matters.

4. Informal observations by staff are not a substitute for formal assessment. The district argued its psychologist and education specialist observed no speech or language issues during a 20-minute classroom observation. The ALJ rejected this, citing case law that school districts cannot avoid their assessment obligations through informal observation or staff opinion when parents have reported specific concerns.