Parent Demanded Orton-Gillingham but District's Eclectic Approach Was Adequate

What Happened

A 10-year-old fifth grader with severe dyslexia had been receiving special education services from Los Alamitos USD since first grade. The student was eligible under specific learning disability and speech and language impairment, and also met criteria for other health impairment based on attention deficits. By the time of the hearing, the student was reading well below grade level despite years of specialized instruction.

The student attended Los Alamitos Elementary through third grade, then transferred to The Prentice School, a California-certified nonpublic school, for fourth grade in 2021-2022. The parent filed for due process in June 2022, claiming that Los Alamitos' May 2022 IEP denied FAPE because it failed to offer structured literacy instruction and evidence-based practices for dyslexia -- specifically, Orton-Gillingham or a comparable named methodology.

Los Alamitos' May 2022 IEP offered 375 minutes per week of specialized academic instruction, which was 75 minutes more than the student's last implemented program. In July 2022, the district's governing board adopted the Sonday System -- itself an Orton-Gillingham approach -- as its structured literacy program for special education students. All education specialists at Los Alamitos Elementary were trained on Sonday.

What the Parent Argued

The parent argued that the May 2022 IEP was deficient because it failed to name a specific structured literacy methodology such as Orton-Gillingham. The parent relied primarily on the testimony of Richard Wiest, an educational evaluator who had assessed the student in February 2021 and recommended 60 minutes per day of remedial instruction to re-learn the alphabet and reading code. Wiest criticized Los Alamitos' literacy program as a "potpourri" cobbled together from different approaches that did not follow the research.

The parent also argued that the student's continued below-grade-level reading proved the district's program had been ineffective and that more of the same approach could not constitute FAPE.

Why the District Won

The IDEA Does Not Mandate a Specific Methodology

The ALJ ruled that nothing in the IDEA requires a district to specify a particular reading methodology in the IEP. Citing Crofts v. Issaquah School District, the ALJ found that the student "did not meet her burden of proving the May 2022 IEP denied her a FAPE by failing to offer a specific evidence-based structured literacy method, such as Orton-Gillingham."

The Eclectic Approach Was Evidence-Based

The district's education specialist, Chavarin, testified credibly about how she implemented evidence-based methods with fidelity while maintaining flexibility. As the ALJ explained: "Chavarin would select and implement one method while teaching a particular literacy component. If the student was unable to master the content to the level of automaticity with the chosen method, Chavarin would select a different approach." The ALJ found that "requiring a particular method would limit this autonomy and flexibility in tailoring instruction to Student's needs."

The Parent's Expert Was Outdated and Biased

Wiest had not seen the student since February 2021 -- over a year before the May 2022 IEP. He had "no information on her current levels of performance, Los Alamitos' IEP offer for the 2022-2023 school year, or its structured literacy program." The ALJ also found that Wiest "evinced a bias against public schooling," speculating that public school teachers "would not be capable of providing, or motivated to provide, the intense remediation Student required." The ALJ concluded: "For all of these reasons, Wiest's critique of Los Alamitos' ability to meet Student's dyslexia needs was not afforded any weight."

The Private School Did Not Produce Better Results

In a devastating finding, the ALJ noted that after nearly a year at Prentice -- the Orton-Gillingham-model private school the parent selected -- "Student did little more than recoup some basic skills lost during distance learning." The student's reading level in May 2022 was "the same as when she left Los Alamitos' programming in June 2021, despite nearly one year of Orton-Gillingham instruction." This undercut the parent's central claim that OG was superior to the district's approach.

COVID-19 Was a Confounding Variable

The ALJ credited testimony from Grace Delk, Los Alamitos' Director of Special Education, that many students regressed during the pandemic, and found that "Student's regression could not fairly be attributed solely to Los Alamitos' structured literacy approach in the 2020-2021 school year."

What Relief Was Denied

All relief was denied. The student was not entitled to any remedy because the ALJ found the May 2022 IEP offered a FAPE. Los Alamitos prevailed on the sole issue.

Why This Matters for Parents

This case is a cautionary example of how methodology demands fail at due process, even when a child is clearly struggling.

Your expert must know the current program. The parent's evaluator had not seen the student in over a year, did not know what the district was currently offering, and had never observed the student's specialized instruction or interviewed her teachers. An ALJ will give zero weight to an expert who criticizes a program they have never seen. If you are going to due process, your expert must conduct a current evaluation and observe the district's actual instruction before testifying.

Insisting on a specific brand name is a losing strategy. Under Rowley and Crofts, the choice of methodology belongs to the district. Instead of demanding "Orton-Gillingham," parents should focus on whether the district's program includes the essential elements of structured literacy -- systematic, explicit, sequential, multisensory instruction -- and whether it is producing measurable progress. Attack the results and the implementation, not the label.

If you've placed your child in a private school, document the results carefully. The ALJ will compare outcomes between the district and the private placement. In this case, the student made no measurable progress at Prentice's OG-model program either — and the ALJ used that fact to undercut the parent's argument. If you are seeking reimbursement, make sure the alternative placement is demonstrably producing better outcomes than the district's program.

Account for COVID-19 and other intervening variables. The parent's expert blamed everything on the district and failed to acknowledge the documented impact of distance learning on the student's skills. ALJs are looking for balanced, credible testimony. An expert who refuses to acknowledge obvious confounding factors will be seen as biased and will lose credibility with the judge.

Progress does not have to mean grade-level performance. The IDEA does not require districts to close the gap with typically developing peers. It requires "appropriate progress in light of the child's circumstances." Parents who frame their case around the student not being at grade level are fighting on legal terrain where they will lose.