Colorado School Removed Her Disability Support Because Her Scores Improved

A Colorado district ended a child’s 504 plan after she improved

In April 2026, Mesa County Valley School District 51 (D51) in Grand Junction, Colorado, terminated the Section 504 plan for a fifth grader at Appleton Elementary School. The student has documented dyslexia and ADHD alongside what the court complaint describes as exceptional cognitive abilities. The district’s stated justification: her disabilities “do not substantially limit her ‘in the classroom,’” and she had not scored below the 12th percentile on any generalized statewide standardized assessment.

The student’s parent filed suit in federal court, alleging the district relied on “an incorrect legal standard, improper reliance on mitigating measures, flawed and incomplete evaluation methods, and a process that failed to meaningfully consider relevant evidence.” The family is asking the court to restore the 504 plan and award compensatory damages. The complaint states that “Section 504 requires consideration of whether a student’s impairments substantially limit major life activities, not whether the student falls below a particular percentile cutoff or performs below grade level.”

Federal law since 2008 says test scores with accommodations cannot end a 504 plan

The district’s logic has a specific legal problem: the supports that helped this child improve are the mitigating measures the law says cannot be used to eliminate eligibility. The Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA) is explicit on this point. When determining whether a disability “substantially limits” a major life activity, schools are legally required to evaluate the child’s impairment without regard to mitigating measures. Mitigating measures include medications, adaptive strategies, and the accommodations themselves. A student with dyslexia who achieves at grade level because her 504 plan provides extended time and a quiet testing environment still has dyslexia. Using those accommodations as evidence that disability no longer limits her is exactly what the ADAAA prohibits.

The district’s 12th percentile threshold is also legally off-target. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act protects students whose disabilities substantially limit major life activities: reading, concentrating, processing information, communicating. A statewide test score is a measurement of output with accommodations in place. It is not an evaluation of the underlying impairment without them. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has stated this distinction repeatedly in guidance following the 2008 amendments. Academic success, the OCR confirms, does not disqualify a student from 504 protections. Dyslexia is a persistent difference in how the brain processes language, not a condition that resolves when a child learns to manage it with tools in place.

The pattern this creates is real and predictable: a 504 plan works, scores rise, and a district concludes the plan is no longer necessary. The legally correct conclusion is the opposite. The plan is working. Improvement caused by a mitigating measure cannot be cited as grounds to remove the measure. Parents need to understand this before their next re-evaluation, not during it.

What this means at your child’s next 504 or IEP meeting

If your child is on a 504 plan or IEP and has been doing better, that is the goal. It does not give a district legal grounds to remove the support. Before any re-evaluation of eligibility, push for answers to three specific questions.

First: is the district evaluating your child’s disability as it exists without the accommodations in place? Under the ADAAA, that is the required approach. A child who reads at grade level with extended time and a low-distraction room available still has a processing barrier. Evaluating her with those tools already in place and citing the output as proof she does not need them inverts the legal standard.

Second: is the district looking at all major life activities, or only in-classroom test performance? Section 504 covers reading, concentrating, processing information, and other activities beyond what shows up on a state test. A child who works twice as hard to achieve the same result as classmates without accommodations is substantially limited, even when the numbers look fine on paper. Third, if your child’s school moves to terminate a 504 or reduce an IEP, you have the right to request an independent educational evaluation, to attend the re-evaluation meeting with your own documentation, and to formally challenge the eligibility determination. You do not have to accept a test-score percentile as the standard. Federal law has been clear about this since 2008. The Colorado case is now a reminder that not every district has read it.