Court Sets Precedent: Accommodations are Not Substitutions for Remediation
A high school student graduated with a 3.4 GPA, even though he couldn't read. He advanced from grade to grade using speech-to-text, ChatGPT, Grammarly, and other AT accommodations.
February 3, 2025, a federal appeals court judge set precedent when he affirmed a district court’s decision in the case of William A. v. Clarksville-Montgomery County School System.
The story behind this case is all too common. Students who have Dyslexia too often travel the following path:
Student has Dyslexia
Student develops compensatory skills that mask his struggles.
Student relies on accommodations to access and complete assignments and tests.
Student’s heavy reliance on accommodations like text-to-speech, ChatGPT, and Grammarly mask his struggle to read and write.
School tracks grades and advancement from grade to grade.
School place heavier weight on grades, on work student submits after using assistive technology and other accommodations, and on advancement from grade to grade, than on normed evaluations indicating student is well below grade level.
School continues to propose accommodations it believes provide access to curriculum, and ability to participate.
If school proposes specialized instruction, it 1) proposes what it believes student needs, based on grades, advancement from grade to grade, and teacher reports, without focusing on and/or appropriately interpreting normed evaluation data; and 2) proposes programming for which it already has a large number of licenses and or trained staff, rather than proposing instruction that fully addresses the unique need of the student.
School takes one of student’s electives and puts student in a reading elective.
Student regresses during year-long reading elective and/or fails to make significant progress.
School proposes taking another full-year elective from student the following year, and proposes enrolling student in another year-long reading elective.
Student loses electives that could lead to certificate programs and careers after high school.
Student drops out of high school or student graduates. In both cases, student leaves high school without the reading and writing skills needed for life, in a world in which he might not always have access to accommodations.
Case Background
William A. is a student who has Dyslexia. He graduated high school with a below-grade-level reading fluency despite having a 3.4 grade point average. Although the school district had years of data indicating he was below grade level, the school district failed to appropriately address his unique needs. His reliance on accommodations helped him complete assignments but did not address his underlying challenges.
The parents prevailed in a due process hearing, which resulted in an order that the school provide William with 888 hours of Dyslexia tutoring. The parents later filed in federal court, seeking an order that William’s private tutor be the one to provide the Dyslexia tutoring. Although the court reached the same conclusions as the ALJ, and ordered the same relief of 888 hours of tutoring, it denied the request that the tutoring be provided by William’s private tutor. The parents appealed the decision.
Circuit Judge Raymond Kethledge affirmed the circuit court’s decision and stated the following in his Opinion:
“Each year, the school and William's parents reviewed his IEP and made adjustments to it; but throughout middle school his educational plan remained largely the same. So did William's reading skills: in all three years of middle school, as to reading fluency, he tested below the tenth percentile, and he met none of his IEP's fluency goals.
“When William reached high school, a special-education teacher expressed concern that his IEP was not helping him to make progress. The teacher emailed school administrators and said, "This kid can't read." William sometimes performed well in school anyway, earning As on some assessments, along with some Fs. But he made no progress toward his IEP's fluency goals. His IEP soon began to include additional accommodations, including the use of technology programs that read aloud printed text and helped him to write. Finally, in eleventh grade, a teacher suggested to William's mother that he might have dyslexia. His mother asked the school to evaluate him, and a school psychologist concluded that William indeed had dyslexia. . . .
“The school challenges the district court's determination that it failed to provide William with the "free appropriate public education" that the IDEA requires. We review the district court's factual findings for clear error and its legal conclusions de novo. Knox County v. M.Q., 62 F.4th 978, 990 (6th Cir. 2023).
“Under the IDEA, a participating school must provide "specially designed instruction, at no cost to parents, to meet the unique needs of a child with a disability." 20 U.S.C. § 1401(29). That means the school must offer an individualized education plan "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 County School Dist. RE-1, 580 U.S. 386, 399 (2017).
“Here, as described above, the ALJ and the district court alike found that William's IEPs were not tailored to his circumstances—because those plans focused on fluency, while bypassing more foundational skills necessary for him to read. The school does not contest that point directly. Instead, it argues that—because William "was educated in the general classroom" and "maintained over a 3.0 grade point average . . . while advancing from grade to grade"—that William in fact received the "free and appropriate public education" to which he was entitled under the IDEA. But the Supreme Court has never held that "every handicapped child who is advancing from grade to grade" necessarily receives the free and appropriate education mandated by the IDEA. Endrew F., 580 U.S. at 402 n.2.
“William did not receive that education here. Apart from his dyslexia itself, William's most salient "circumstance" for our purposes was that—with proper instruction—he can learn to read. See L.H., 900 F.3d at 795-96. The school has not even tried to prove that finding wrong; yet William graduated from high school without being able to read or even to spell his own name. That was because, per the terms of his IEPs, he relied on a host of accommodations that masked his inability to read. To write a paper, for example—as the ALJ described—William would first dictate his topic into a document using speech-to-text software. He then would paste the written words into an AI software like ChatGPT. Next, the AI software would generate a paper on that topic, which William would paste back into his own document. Finally, William would run that paper through another software program like Grammarly, so that it reflected an appropriate writing style. Not all these workarounds were specifically listed in his IEP, but all were enabled by an accommodation that was: 24 extra hours to complete all assignments, which allowed William to complete his assignments at home, using whatever technology tools he could find.
“Thus—unlike in math, where William's accommodations helped him learn the regular curriculum—William's workarounds in reading simply did the work for him. Yet the point of a "free and appropriate education" under the IDEA is not simply to complete assignments. The school is right to point out that the IDEA does not guarantee any particular outcome, such as learning to read. Endrew F., 580 U.S. at 398. But when a child is capable of learning to read, and his IEP does not aim to help him overcome his particular obstacles to doing so, that IEP does not provide him the "free appropriate public education" to which he is entitled. See id. at 399. Such was the case here.”
Importance of William A. v. Clarksville-Montgomery County School System
The case affirms the importance of:
1) comprehensive evaluations;
2) addressing the unique needs of students;
3) placing weight on a student’s abilities rather than a student’s abilities to use accommodations; and
4) monitoring and adjusting accommodations.
Accommodations like read-aloud or speech-to-text don’t replace the need for foundational skills like reading and writing.
Monitoring the use of accommodations can provide data points on:
whether the accommodations are masking struggles;
whether the accommodations need adjusting or to be replaced with different accommodations;
whether self-advocacy or something else is blocking the student from using the accommodations;
whether the student requires training to access and use the accommodations; and/or
whether parents and/or staff require training to support a student’s use of accommodations.