Opinion ID: 2683890
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: PVUSD’s Initial Assessment of E.M.

Text: E.M. enrolled in PVUSD as a kindergarten student in 1999. Plaintiffs assert that E.M. struggled at school and that PVUSD should have referred him for a special education assessment as early as December 2002, pursuant to its “child find” obligation. This provision of the IDEA requires school districts to identify children with disabilities and to ensure 1 Both the federal and state regulations have been subsequently amended. 6 E.M. V. PAJARO VALLEY USD that each child is evaluated and provided appropriate special education services.2 In the summer of 2004, before E.M. entered the fifth grade, Plaintiffs had E.M. tested by psychologist Dr. Roz Wright, who administered the Weschsler Intelligence Scale for Children (3d ed.) and the Woodcock Johnson Tests of Achievement-III (“WISC”). Dr. Wright estimated E.M.’s intelligence quotient (“IQ”) to be 104, based on the test. Plaintiffs then requested that PVUSD evaluate E.M. and submitted Dr. Wright’s assessment. In October 2004, PVUSD convened a meeting of E.M.’s Individualized Education Program (“IEP”) team. In addition to Dr. Wright’s assessment, the IEP team considered the results of additional tests administered by Leslie Viall, PVUSD’s psychologist. Ms. Viall, who had more than fifteen years of experience administering educational assessments of children, testified that she thought the WISC score of 104 was a valid measure of E.M.’s intellectual ability. She stated that in October 2004, 2 20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(3)(A) states: All children with disabilities residing in the State, including children with disabilities who are homeless children or are wards of the State and children with disabilities attending private schools, regardless of the severity of their disabilities, and who are in need of special education and related services, are identified, located, and evaluated and a practical method is developed and implemented to determine which children with disabilities are currently receiving needed special education and related services. E.M. V. PAJARO VALLEY USD 7 she had given E.M. the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children test (“K-ABC” test) and that E.M. had obtained a higher score of 111. Ms. Viall explained that she administered the K-ABC test because the parents’ assessor, Dr. Wright, had recently administered the WISC test and that re-administering the same test less than four months later would have produced an invalid score. When the K-ABC test produced a significantly higher score, Ms. Viall administered a third intelligence test, the Test of Nonverbal Intelligence (“TONI”), on which E.M. scored a 98. Because E.M.’s TONI score was consistent with his performance on the WISC, rather than the higher score on the K-ABC, Ms. Viall determined that 104 was the most reliable measure of E.M.’s intellectual ability. In 2005, to qualify for special education under the “specific learning disability” (sometimes referred to as “SLD”) category in California, a child had to meet three requirements: (1) “there must be a severe discrepancy between intellectual ability and achievement in oral expression, listening comprehension, written expression, basic reading skills, reading comprehension, mathematics calculation, or mathematical reasoning”; (2) “the severe discrepancy must be due to a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes and must not be primarily the result of an environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage”; and (3) “the discrepancy cannot be ameliorated through other regular or categorical services offered within the regular education program.” Cal. Educ. Code § 56337 (2005). PVUSD determined that E.M. had not demonstrated the requisite “severe discrepancy between intellectual ability and achievement.” The applicable California regulations defined 8 E.M. V. PAJARO VALLEY USD a severe discrepancy as a difference of at least 22.5 points, adjusted by 4 points, between a child’s ability and performance. Faced with three scores, 111 on the K-ABC, 104 on the WISC, and 98 on the TONI, PVUSD opted to use the middle score, 104 on the WISC. E.M.’s lowest standard score in any academic area was 87 on listening comprehension. The discrepancy between 87 and 104 was only 17 points, not sufficient to constitute a severe discrepancy.