FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

LAYNA CROFTS,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

and

JEREMY SANDERS,

Plaintiff,

v.

ISSAQUAH SCHOOL DISTRICT 

NO. 411,

Defendant-Appellee,

and

MELISSA MADSEN; RON THIELE,

Defendants.

No. 19-35473

D.C. No.

2:17-cv-01365-

JLR

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Washington

James L. Robart, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted November 19, 2021

Pasadena, California

Filed January 12, 2022
2 CROFTS V. ISSAQUAH SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 411

Before: Marsha S. Berzon and Johnnie B. Rawlinson, 

Circuit Judges, and Jennifer A. Dorsey,* District Judge.

Opinion by Judge Dorsey

SUMMARY**

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act

Affirming the district court’s summary judgment in 

favor of a school district in an action under the Individuals 

with Disabilities Education Act, the panel held that the 

school district properly denied a student’s parent’s request 

for an independent educational evaluation, properly 

evaluated the student for an individualized education plan, 

and did not deny the student a free appropriate public 

education.

Affording deference to a state administrative law judge, 

the panel held that the ALJ properly discounted expert 

witness testimony.

The panel held that the school district satisfied the IDEA 

by evaluating the student for a “specific learning disability,”

and the school district did not violate its obligation to 

evaluate the student in “all areas of suspected disability”

when it did not formally evaluate her for dyslexia. The panel 

* The Honorable Jennifer A. Dorsey, United States District Judge 

for the District of Nevada, sitting by designation.

** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It 

has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
CROFTS V. ISSAQUAH SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 411 3

further held that the school district’s IEPs were reasonably 

calculated to help the student progress, and the school 

district did not deny her a FAPE by failing to use her parents’

preferred teaching method.

COUNSEL

Theresa M. DeMonte (argued), McNaul Ebel Nawrot & 

Helgren PLLC, Seattle, Washington, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Sarah C. Johnson (argued) and Carlos A. Chavez, Pacific 

Law Group LLP, Seattle, Washington, for DefendantAppellee.

Angela M. Shapow, Cedar Law PLLC, Seattle, Washington, 

for Amicus Curiae Washington State Branch of the 

International Dyslexia Association.

OPINION

DORSEY, District Judge:

Plaintiff-appellant Layna Crofts, on behalf of her minor 

daughter A.S., sued defendants-appellees Issaquah School 

District and two school-district administrators for multiple 

violations of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act 

(IDEA) following A.S.’s second- and third-grade school 

years. Crofts requested that the District evaluate A.S. for 

special-education services after she received an outside 

evaluation indicating that A.S. might have dyslexia. The 

District evaluated A.S. under the IDEA’s enumerated 

“specific learning disability” category, which statutorily 

encompasses conditions like dyslexia. It determined that she 
4 CROFTS V. ISSAQUAH SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 411

was eligible for services in reading and writing, so it created 

an individualized education plan (IEP) targeting A.S.’s 

deficiencies in those areas. Crofts contends that the District 

should have evaluated A.S. specifically for dyslexia and 

used her preferred teaching method for dyslexia, and that it 

improperly denied her request for an independent 

educational evaluation (IEE). The District’s actions, she 

claims, procedurally violated the IDEA and denied A.S. a 

free appropriate public education (FAPE).

A Washington State Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) 

found that the District did not violate the IDEA by evaluating 

A.S. under the specific-learning-disability category and not 

specifically for dyslexia. The United States District Court 

for the Western District of Washington affirmed, finding that 

the District properly denied Crofts’s request for an IEE, 

properly evaluated A.S. for an IEP, and did not deny A.S. a 

FAPE.

We conclude that the District correctly evaluated A.S. 

for a specific learning disability—of which dyslexia is one—

and provided an education reasonably calculated to enable 

A.S. to make appropriate progress in light of her disability. 

The District was also not required to use the parents’ 

preferred teaching method to provide A.S. with a FAPE. We 

therefore affirm the district court’s order in its entirety.1

1 Crofts requests that this court take judicial notice of the 

Department of Education’s April 25, 2016, Letter to Kelli Unnerstall, a 

non-binding letter addressing the use of the term “dyslexia” in IDEA 

evaluations. The District does not oppose. We grant Crofts’s request 

because the ALJ referenced the letter, and it is from a source “whose 

accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned.” Fed. R. Evid. 201(b)(2); see 

also Smith v. L.A. Unified Sch. Dist., 830 F.3d 843, 851 n.10 (9th Cir. 
CROFTS V. ISSAQUAH SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 411 5

I. Factual Background

Throughout the relevant time period, A.S. attended an 

elementary school in the Issaquah School District. In the 

summer before A.S.’s second-grade school year, her parents 

requested an IDEA evaluation because they believed she 

might have dyslexia. Before school started, the parents had 

A.S. evaluated by a retired school psychologist. The 

evaluator conducted numerous assessments of A.S.’s 

reading skills and cognitive ability and determined that she 

“demonstrated a pattern of academic and cognitive strengths 

and weaknesses consistent with th[e] classic profile of the 

specific learning disability of dyslexia.”

At the beginning of A.S.’s second-grade year, the 

District agreed to proceed with its own initial evaluation, and

over the next month, it conducted a series of assessments 

designed to gauge A.S.’s eligibility for special-education 

services. The resulting evaluation report cited the outside 

evaluator’s assessments and suggestion that A.S. has 

dyslexia, as well as the District’s own assessments and 

observations. It concluded that A.S. was eligible for services 

under the IDEA’s “specific learning disability” category, 

which statutorily includes conditions like dyslexia. See 

20 U.S.C. § 1401(30).

A.S.’s second-grade IEP provided her with 40 minutes 

of reading and writing instruction per day in a specialeducation classroom, as well as several accommodations for 

her general-education instruction. Her general- and specialeducation teachers used a variety of reading programs when 

instructing A.S., including programs with multi-sensory 

2016) (noting that “courts routinely take judicial notice of letters 

published by the government”).
6 CROFTS V. ISSAQUAH SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 411

approaches designed for students who have difficulty 

reading. In February of that school year, her parents called 

for another IEP meeting, citing their concern that A.S. 

wasn’t making sufficient progress toward her IEP goals. 

They requested numerous additional accommodations, 

including that A.S.’s teachers be trained in and use the 

“Orton-Gillingham Approach,” an instructional method for 

reading that the parents believed would be best for a student 

with dyslexia. The District denied the request, stating that it 

“ha[d] already chosen research and evidence-based 

curriculums and methodologies which are utilized for both 

general education and special education settings.” A.S.’s 

second-grade report card reflected progress in her generaland special-education classes, particularly in reading. But 

while she progressed toward her IEP goals, she fell short of 

meeting them.

At the beginning of A.S.’s third-grade year, the District 

held another IEP meeting with the help of an outside 

facilitator. A.S.’s IEP team then reassessed her academic 

performance and prepared new IEP goals. The team 

increased A.S.’s special-education instructional time from 

40 to 60 minutes per day and revised her general-education 

accommodations. The parents again requested that the 

District teach A.S. using the Orton-Gillingham Approach 

and that A.S.’s disability category be changed from “specific 

learning disability” to “dyslexia.” The District denied both 

requests, stating that, under the applicable law, “specific 

learning disability” serves as the eligibility category for 

dyslexia and that the District does not identify specific 

learning programs in IEPs. A.S. continued to progress in 

reading, and by December of her third-grade year, she’d 

moved up another three levels.
CROFTS V. ISSAQUAH SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 411 7

II. Procedural Background

After A.S.’s third-grade IEP meeting, her parents 

requested an IEE at the District’s expense. The District did 

not agree that an IEE was warranted and filed a request for 

an administrative hearing to show that its internal 

evaluations were appropriate. A.S.’s parents filed their own 

hearing request soon after, alleging that the District denied 

A.S. a FAPE during her second- and third-grade years.

During the 10-day ALJ hearing, Crofts called nine 

witnesses to testify, including Cheryl Anthony, whom she 

refers to as a dyslexia expert. Anthony is a certified teacher, 

was the past president of the Oregon chapter of the 

International Dyslexia Association, and runs a business that 

provides screening for dyslexia and dysgraphia. Anthony 

reviewed A.S.’s IEP and test scores and some of her 

completed work, but she did not meet with or evaluate A.S. 

or speak to any of her teachers.

Anthony recommended the Orton-Gillingham Approach 

for teaching children with dyslexia, explaining that this 

method best addresses the phonological deficits that children 

with dyslexia face. Anthony also testified that the 

educational services the District provided were not 

appropriate for a child with dyslexia. According to Anthony, 

the goals in A.S.’s IEPs were not calculated to help a child 

with dyslexia progress to the level she could potentially 

achieve. She opined that A.S. wasn’t given a FAPE in her 

second- or third-grade years because her IEP wasn’t created 

to address dyslexia.

District officials testified that they do not evaluate for or 

diagnose dyslexia but instead evaluate students for a specific 

learning disability, which they understood to be the umbrella 

term that encompasses dyslexia. A.S.’s teachers also 
8 CROFTS V. ISSAQUAH SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 411

testified that, while the District did not give them dyslexiaspecific training, the training they did receive was sufficient 

to teach A.S.

The ALJ found that the District’s evaluation was 

appropriate and that the IEP it crafted for A.S. did not deny 

her a FAPE. The ALJ gave Anthony’s testimony little 

weight because she “d[id] not have education, training, and 

experience in special education, ha[d] little experience 

writing IEP goals, ha[d] not met [A.S.] or talked to her 

teachers, and ha[d] only reviewed samples of [A.S.’s] work 

provided by the [p]arents without an understanding of what 

the samples represented.” The ALJ concluded that the 

District was not required to specifically assess A.S. for 

dyslexia because it identified A.S. as having a specific 

learning disability, that dyslexia is but “one example of a 

larger group of specific learning disabilities,” and that 

testing in dyslexia was not necessary to determine this 

student’s educational needs.

A.S.’s parents then filed a complaint in the United States 

District Court for the Western District of Washington. 

Following cross-motions for summary judgment, the district 

court granted summary judgment in the District’s favor and 

upheld the ALJ’s order. Crofts appeals.

III. Standard of Review

The question of whether a school district’s IEP provided 

a FAPE is reviewed de novo. N.B. v. Hellgate Elementary 

Sch. Dist., 541 F.3d 1202, 1207 (9th Cir. 2008). In IDEA 

cases, the district court’s findings of fact are reviewed for 

clear error, even when they are based on the administrative 

record. J.G. v. Douglas Cnty. Sch. Dist., 552 F.3d 786, 793 

(9th Cir. 2008). Unlike other cases reviewing administrative 

action, in IDEA cases, the Ninth Circuit “do[es] not employ 
CROFTS V. ISSAQUAH SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 411 9

a highly deferential standard of review”; rather, it gives 

“‘due weight’ to the state administrative proceedings.” Id. 

(quoting Van Duyn v. Baker Sch. Dist. 5J, 502 F.3d 811, 817 

(9th Cir. 2007)). And it gives “particular deference to 

‘thorough and careful’ administrative findings.” Id. (quoting 

R.B. ex rel. F.B. v. Napa Valley Unified Sch. Dist., 496 F.3d 

932, 937 (9th Cir. 2007)). As the party seeking relief, the 

appellant bears the burden of demonstrating that the ALJ’s 

decision was incorrect. J.W. ex rel. J.E.W. v. Fresno Unified 

Sch. Dist., 626 F.3d 431, 438 (9th Cir. 2010).

IV. Discussion

A. The ALJ gave adequate weight to Crofts’s expert 

witness.

As a preliminary matter, we afford deference to the 

ALJ’s decision to discount A.S.’s expert witness testimony. 

Anthony did not evaluate A.S. or speak to her teachers, 

rendering her opinions about whether this student received a 

FAPE less weighty than the opinions of A.S.’s teachers and 

district administrators who evaluated and observed her. See 

Hellgate, 541 F.3d at 1212 (holding it was “reasonable for 

the hearing officer to rely on the testimony of [the school’s] 

witnesses because they had observed [the student’s] school 

performance” in contrast to parents’ expert witnesses who 

“based their opinions predominantly upon file reviews”). 

Crofts’s contention that Anthony did not need to meet A.S. 

to provide competent testimony on the unique needs of 

students with dyslexia generally is also unconvincing. 

Anthony’s categorical opinions about the proper teaching 

method for all children with dyslexia were properly 

discounted based on her lack of special-education 

credentials and inexperience writing IEPs. The ALJ 

thoroughly and carefully evaluated Anthony’s testimony 

against those of teachers and administrators who worked 
10 CROFTS V. ISSAQUAH SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 411

with A.S., and we give deference to her determination that 

Anthony’s testimony deserved little weight.

B. The District did not violate the IDEA.

“The IDEA is a comprehensive educational scheme, 

conferring on disabled students a substantive right to public 

education.” Fresno Unified, 626 F.3d at 432 (quoting Hoeft 

v. Tucson Unified Sch. Dist., 967 F.2d 1298, 1300 (9th Cir. 

1992)). Schools that accept IDEA funds must maintain 

“policies and procedures ensuring that a ‘free appropriate 

public education’ is available to all children with disabilities 

between the ages of three and twenty-one.” Timothy O. v. 

Paso Robles Unified Sch. Dist., 822 F.3d 1105, 1110 (9th 

Cir. 2016) (quoting 20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(1)(A)). To provide 

a FAPE to all children with disabilities, states must “first 

identify those children and evaluate their disabling 

conditions.” Id. Once identified, “those children must be 

evaluated and assessed for all suspected disabilities so that 

the school district can begin the process of determining what 

special education and related services will address the 

child’s individual needs.” Id. (citing 20 U.S.C. 

§§ 1412(a)(7), 1414(a)–(c)). For the child to be deemed 

eligible for services, the team of school officials evaluating 

her must conclude that the child has at least one of the 

qualifying disabilities enumerated in the IDEA and defined 

by federal regulations. 20 U.S.C. § 1401(3)(A); 34 C.F.R. 

§ 300.8; see also Wash. Admin. Code § 392-172A01035(1)(a).

If the district determines that the child is eligible to 

receive special-education services, a team consisting of the 

child’s parents, teachers, evaluators, and administrators 

creates “a written document that states the child’s present 

levels of academic achievement and functional performance, 

creates measurable annual goals for the child, describes the 
CROFTS V. ISSAQUAH SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 411 11

child’s progress toward meeting the annual goals, and 

explains the services that will be provided to the child to help 

[her] advance toward attaining [her] particular goals.” 

Timothy O., 822 F.3d at 1111 (citing 20 U.S.C. 

§ 1414(d)(1)(A)). This document is known as the IEP.

“[A] state must comply both procedurally and 

substantively with the IDEA.” M.L. v. Fed. Way Sch. Dist., 

394 F.3d 634, 644 (9th Cir. 2005). The court engages in a 

two-step inquiry to determine whether a child has received a 

FAPE. Amanda J. ex rel. Annette J. v. Clark Cnty. Sch. Dist., 

267 F.3d 877, 890 (9th Cir. 2001). It determines first 

whether the IDEA’s procedures were complied with and 

second whether the district met its substantive obligation to 

provide a FAPE. Id. “While some procedural violations can 

be harmless, procedural violations that substantially 

interfere with the parents’ opportunity to participate in the 

IEP formulation process, result in the loss of educational 

opportunity, or actually cause a deprivation of educational 

benefits ‘clearly result in the denial of a [FAPE].’” Timothy 

O., 822 F.3d at 1118 (quoting Amanda J., 267 F.3d at 892). 

To meet its substantive obligation under the IDEA, a school 

must offer an IEP “reasonably calculated to enable a child to 

make progress appropriate in light of the child’s 

circumstances.” Endrew F. ex rel. Joseph F. v. Douglas 

Cnty. Sch. Dist., 137 S. Ct. 988, 1001 (2017).

1. The District satisfied the IDEA by evaluating the 

student for a “specific learning disability.”

Crofts’s core contention is that the District should have 

formally evaluated A.S. for dyslexia instead of evaluating 

her for a specific learning disability and that its failure to do 

so violated the District’s obligation to evaluate her in “all 

areas of suspected disability.” 20 U.S.C. § 1414(b)(3)(B). 

“Specific learning disability” is one of the enumerated 
12 CROFTS V. ISSAQUAH SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 411

disability-eligibility categories in the IDEA and is defined as 

“a disorder in 1 or more of the basic psychological processes 

involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or 

written, which disorder may manifest itself in the imperfect 

ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or do 

mathematical calculations.” Id. § 1401(30)(A). The 

category includes “such conditions as perceptual disabilities, 

brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and

developmental aphasia.” Id. § 1401(30)(B) (emphasis 

added).2 The District’s evaluation report for A.S. quoted the 

outside evaluator’s definition of dyslexia as a “languagebased learning disability” that “refers to a cluster of 

symptoms, which result in people having difficulties with 

specific language skills, particularly reading.”

Crofts’s insistence that the District should have 

evaluated A.S. for dyslexia rather than recognizing her 

difficulties with reading, writing, and spelling under the 

broader “specific learning disability” category is based on a 

distinction without a difference. Medical and psychiatric 

dictionaries describe dyslexia as “a general term for primary 

reading disorder.” The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and 

2 The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical 

Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) contains a definition for the 

diagnosis of a “specific learning disorder” but does not recognize 

dyslexia as a separate disorder or diagnosis. Within the specificlearning-disorder listing, the DSM-5 contains a diagnostic code for a 

specific learning disorder “[w]ith an impairment in reading,” 

characterized by problems with word reading accuracy, reading rate or 

fluency, and reading comprehension. Am. Psychiatric Ass’n, Diagnostic 

and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) 67 (5th ed. 2013)

(diagnostic code F81.0). Within that category of specific learning 

disorder, the DSM-5 notes that dyslexia is “an alternative term used to 

refer to a pattern of learning difficulties characterized by problems with 

accurate or fluent word recognition, poor decoding, and poor spelling 

abilities.” Id.
CROFTS V. ISSAQUAH SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 411 13

Therapy 3042 (19th ed. 2011); see also Robert J. Campbell, 

Campbell’s Psychiatric Dictionary 310–12 (9th ed. 2009) 

(defining dyslexia as a “reading disorder; usually grouped 

within the learning disorders or academic skills disorders 

when it occurs as a developmental disability”); Narriman C. 

Shahrokh, Robert E. Hales, Katharine A. Phillips, & Stuart 

C. Yudofsky, The Language of Mental Health: A Glossary 

of Psychiatric Terms 90 (1st ed. 2011) (defining dyslexia as 

“[i]nability to read or difficulty in reading, including word 

blindness and a tendency to reverse letters and words in 

reading and writing”). The District conducted a battery of 

assessments to evaluate A.S.’s reading and writing skills—

areas that dyslexia can impact—and determined that she 

needed special-education services to address deficiencies in 

those areas. It also considered and incorporated the outside 

evaluator’s assessments that tested for difficulties with 

A.S.’s phonological processing, which is a particular area 

often included within the term dyslexia. Crofts fails to point 

to any other assessment or evaluation that the District could 

have administered to demonstrate that A.S. had dyslexia. 

Nor does Crofts demonstrate that the educational difficulties 

A.S. faced because of her language-related specific learning 

disability were so different from those faced by children with 

other reading- and writing-related specific learning 

disabilities that the District was required to make different 

findings, denominated by the term “dyslexia,” in order to 

comprehensively evaluate her needs.3

3 Crofts cites two Department of Education resources—an October 

23, 2015, Dear Colleague Letter addressing dyslexia and the Letter to

Unnerstall, see supra n.1—to argue that the District should have 

evaluated A.S. for dyslexia. Both letters merely explain that the IDEA 

does not prohibit the use of terms like dyslexia in evaluation reports. See 

Dep’t of Educ., Off. of Special Educ. and Rehab. Servs., Dear Colleague 

Letter: Dyslexia Guidance 2 (Oct. 23, 2015); Dep’t of Educ. Off. of 
14 CROFTS V. ISSAQUAH SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 411

Crofts invokes three of our previous cases, Amanda J. ex 

rel. Annette J. v. Clark Cnty. Sch. Dist., 267 F.3d 877 (9th 

Cir. 2001), N.B. v. Hellgate Elementary Sch. Dist., 541 F.3d 

1202 (9th Cir. 2008), and Timothy O. v. Paso Robles Unified

Sch. Dist., 822 F.3d 1105 (9th Cir. 2016), to support her 

argument that the District failed to evaluate A.S. for 

suspected dyslexia in violation of 20 U.S.C. 1414(b)(3)(B). 

In all three cases, the defendant school districts failed to 

evaluate students for suspected autism. In Amanda J., the 

district had information in its records indicating that the 

student may have had autism, but it did not assess her for the 

same and failed to disclose those records to her parents. 

Amanda J., 267 F.3d at 893–95. In Timothy O, the district 

was on notice that the student “displayed symptoms” of 

autism but did not evaluate him for it. Timothy O., 822 F.3d 

at 1118–20. And in Hellgate, the district was on notice that 

the student “likely suffered from some form of autism” but 

failed to obtain its own evaluation and instead referred the 

student’s parents to an outside organization for testing. 

Hellgate, 541 F.3d at 1209. None of these scenarios is 

analogous to the District’s evaluation here because the 

District did evaluate A.S. for suspected impairments in 

reading and writing and considered the outside evaluator’s 

findings implicating dyslexia. The District’s evaluation is 

not deficient merely because it did not use the term 

“dyslexia” in the manner Crofts would have preferred. We 

therefore conclude that the District did not procedurally 

Special Educ. and Rehab. Servs., Letter to Kelli Unnerstall 1–2 (Apr. 25, 

2016). Neither suggests that districts must evaluate for “dyslexia” rather 

than for a language-related specific learning disability. Indeed, the 

Letter to Unnerstall highlights that the IDEA does not require districts to 

affix any particular label or diagnosis to a student’s evaluation “so long 

as the child is regarded as having a disability and receives needed 

special[-]education and related services.” Letter to Unnerstall at 1 (citing 

34 C.F.R. § 300.111(d)).
CROFTS V. ISSAQUAH SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 411 15

violate the IDEA when it found A.S. eligible for languagerelated services under the “specific learning disabilities” 

category rather than using the term “dyslexia.”

2. The District’s IEPs were reasonably calculated to 

help A.S. progress without using the parents’ 

preferred teaching method.

Crofts also contends that the District’s IEP denied A.S. a 

FAPE because she would have progressed more had she 

been taught using the Orton-Gillingham Approach. But a 

district is not required to use the methodology a parent 

prefers when providing special-education services for a 

child. School districts are “entitled to deference in deciding 

what programming is appropriate as a matter of educational 

policy.” J.L. v. Mercer Island Sch. Dist., 592 F.3d 938, 945 

n.5 (9th Cir. 2010); see also Board of Educ. of Hendrick 

Hudson Central Sch. Dist. v. Rowley, 458 U.S. 176, 208 

(1982) (“[O]nce a court determines that the requirements of 

the [IDEA] have been met, questions of methodology are for 

resolution by the States.”); R.P. ex rel. C.P. v. Prescott 

Unified Sch. Dist., 631 F.3d 1117, 1122 (9th Cir. 2011) 

(“The IDEA accords educators discretion to select from 

various methods for meeting the individualized needs of a 

student, provided those practices are reasonably calculated 

to provide him with educational benefit.”). Districts need 

not specify an instructional method unless that method is 

necessary to enable a student to receive a FAPE. Mercer 

Island, 592 F.3d at 952. Rather, to meet its substantive 

obligations, a district must merely provide an IEP that is 

“reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress 

appropriate in light of the child’s circumstances.” Endrew 

F., 137 S. Ct. at 1001.

Crofts has not demonstrated that the Orton-Gillingham 

Approach, in particular, was necessary for A.S. to receive 
16 CROFTS V. ISSAQUAH SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 411

appropriate, individualized instruction. The record shows 

that A.S.’s IEPs were reasonably calculated to enable her to 

make progress in light of her disability without that 

methodology. They set goals that measured her ability to 

“apply phonetic princip[les] to read,” improve readingfluency skills, improve “sight word vocabulary,” improve 

reading-comprehension skills, “write grade appropriate 

sentences,” and use correct punctuation when writing. These 

goals were based on numerous reading and writing 

assessments conducted by the District and the parents’ 

outside evaluator, and they were reasonably calculated to 

target the specific areas in which A.S. struggled. In addition 

to providing A.S. other accommodations, her teachers used 

reading programs designed to improve her reading 

comprehension and fluency, including multi-sensory, 

kinesthetic reading programs adapted from the principles of 

the Orton-Gillingham Approach and similar to the 

instructional method recommended by Crofts’s expert.

The record also reflects that A.S. made appropriate 

educational progress without the Orton-Gillingham 

Approach. Under her 2015 IEP, A.S. began progressing 

quickly in her special-education instruction and in the 

general-education classroom. She progressed multiple 

levels in the school’s reading-assessment program. While 

she did not meet all of her IEP goals, she made meaningful 

progress toward them. That she did not meet all grade-level 

expectations is not determinative. The IDEA does not 

require that students with special-education services perform 

on par with students receiving general-education instruction. 

Endrew F., 137 S. Ct. at 1001 (reiterating that the IDEA does 

not require that states provide children with disabilities 

“opportunities to achieve academic success, attain selfsufficiency, and contribute to society that are substantially 

equal to the opportunities afforded children without 
CROFTS V. ISSAQUAH SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 411 17

disabilities” (citation omitted)). Instead, it requires that an 

IEP be tailored to a student’s circumstances and reasonably 

calculated to help that student progress in light of those 

circumstances. The District met that standard here.

V. Conclusion

The District correctly evaluated A.S. for a specific 

learning disability and therefore was not required to provide 

an IEE at the public’s expense. It also met its substantive 

obligation to provide A.S. with a FAPE during her secondand third-grade years. The district court’s order granting 

summary judgment in favor of the District, therefore, is 

AFFIRMED.