In William A. v. Clarksville-Montgomery County School System, 127 F.4th 656, 125 LRP 3627 (6th Cir. Feb. 3, 2025), the Sixth Circuit affirmed a determination that a school district denied a student a free appropriate public education (FAPE) under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) by failing to provide instruction aimed at remediating the student’s dyslexia, despite years of academic advancement and strong grades.
The case involved a student with dyslexia who was served by the district beginning in fifth grade and graduated from high school with a 3.4 grade-point average. Despite his academic record, the student could not read and could not spell his own name. His individualized education programs (IEPs) remained largely unchanged over time, even as he failed to meet reading fluency goals and a high school special education teacher expressed concern that the student could not read.
In the student’s eleventh-grade year, the parent requested an evaluation for dyslexia, which the district conducted and confirmed. The parents then hired a private tutor who provided dyslexia-specific instruction. The district declined to incorporate that instruction into the student’s IEP. Following a due process hearing, an administrative law judge (ALJ) found that the district denied FAPE and ordered 888 hours of compensatory tutoring. The district court affirmed the denial-of-FAPE finding and the compensatory education award, but declined to order that the tutoring be delivered by the student’s existing private tutor.
On appeal, the Sixth Circuit affirmed. The court agreed that the district’s programming failed to address the student’s core disability.
The court emphasized that the student’s IEPs relied on accommodations that masked his inability to read rather than instruction designed to remediate it. As described by the ALJ, the student completed written assignments by dictating content using speech-to-text software, generating text through artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT, and refining the output using additional software. Although not all of these tools were expressly listed in the IEP, they were enabled by extended time accommodations that allowed the student to complete assignments at home using whatever technology he could access. The court concluded that these accommodations created the appearance of academic success without ensuring that the student acquired basic reading skills.
Rejecting the district’s reliance on grades and promotion, the court held that academic advancement alone does not establish that a student received FAPE. Where a child is capable of learning to read, an IEP that does not aim to help the child overcome specific reading obstacles fails to satisfy IDEA’s requirements.
The decision reflects that accommodations which allow a student to bypass foundational skill deficits do not substitute for instruction targeting those deficits, and that apparent academic success does not foreclose a finding of FAPE denial where the record shows the student failed to acquire essential skills.