Snyder & Shaw Obtains Important Order on Structured Literacy

In the consolidated matter of Student v. South Sutter Charter School (OAH Case Nos. 2023100030 and 2023100175), Snyder & Shaw attorneys Colleen A. Snyder and Melissa Cummins obtained a wonderful student victory involving a child’s right to structured literacy.

In part, the Office of Administrative Hearings found:

A specific learning disability is a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processing involved in understanding or using language. (34 C.F.R. § 300.8(c)(10); Ed. Code, § 56337, subd. (a); Cal. Code Regs., tit. 5. § 3030(b)(10).) The basic psychological processes include attention, visual processing, auditory processing, sensory-motor skills, and cognitive abilities including association, conceptualization, and expression. (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 5. § 3030.) The specific learning disability category includes “such conditions as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia.” (20 U.S.C. § 1401(30)(B).) A student who is assessed as being dyslexic and meets eligibility criteria under the category of specific learning disabilities is entitled to special education and related services. (Ed. Code, § 56337.5, subd. (a).)

California has outlined specific guidelines for providing educational services for students with dyslexia. Educational services for students with dyslexia means an evidence-based, multisensory, direct, explicit, structured, and sequential approach to instruction. (Ed. Code, § 56335, subd. (a).) In the context of educating students with dyslexia, each of these terms has a specific meaning and together constitute approaches called “Structured Literacy.” (California Dyslexia Guidelines, supra, at p. 64.) There are many methods with different names that fall under the umbrella of Structured Literacy, all of which have common content, or what is taught, and principles of instruction, or how to teach. (Id. at p. 65.)

Education Code section 56335 required the Superintendent of Public Instruction to develop program guidelines for identifying, assessing, and educating students with dyslexia, including strategies for remediating dyslexia characteristics, by the start of the 2017-2018 school year. (Ed. Code, § 56335, subds. (a), (b), and (d).) This provision does not require any additional information to be included in the IEP of a student with dyslexia, and nothing in the law requires a school district to follow these guidelines. However, the intent of the Legislature was for school districts to develop program guidelines for students with specific learning disabilities, including dyslexia, and other related disorders, for use by teachers and parents to have knowledge of the strategies that can be utilized with students for the remediation of the various types of specific learning disabilities. (Ed. Code, § 56337.5, subd. (c).)

Student proved by a preponderance of the evidence that South Sutter failed to offer adequate and appropriate specialized academic instruction in the May 10, 2022, IEP. The information available to the May 10, 2022, IEP team established Student required evidence-based, multisensory, direct, explicit, structured, and sequential instruction because of his dyslexia.

To learn more about the California Department of Education’s Dyslexia Guidelines click here.