Several Bayfield School District families have come forward with complaints alleging bullying and inadequate special education programming.
District spokesperson Bob Bonnar said the district cannot comment on specific students, staff members or private educational matters because of confidentiality laws.
“We take every concern raised by students and families seriously,” he said. “Our schools are committed to providing safe, supportive learning environments where all students can succeed. We also recognize that families may experience frustration when they disagree with school decisions or feel their concerns have not been fully resolved.”
Bayfield resident Anna Stephenson has a seventh grade son enrolled in the district, whose name she requested not be shared. Her son has ADHD, autism and dyslexia, and is allotted 420 Individualized Education Program – or IEP – minutes. She said the district announced in March an intention to cut those minutes in half, saying he was making significant progress.
Stephenson – and recent grade data for her son – says otherwise.
The district supplied a graph used to justify cutting contact hours that showed consistent improvement, she said.
Doubting the graph, Stephenson and advocates Jessica Diamond, an independent IEP advocate who has worked with the family for the past three years, and Tom Ahlborg, co-founder, director of advocacy and anti-bullying advocate at the Denver-based Bullying Recovery Resource Center, requested the raw data, which showed discrepancies.
“(The district) did supply us with some quizzes … which do not match the graph,” Diamond said. “They ranged from 0% accuracy to (around) 66% accuracy at the highest, and that is not what the graph showed.”
She said it is rare to see a graph that appears to show “perfect” progress.
“The times that I have ever seen a perfect graph and trajectory of progress has been zero,” she said. “You just never see a graph that is just like this perfect, ‘Oh, he was at 50% and then 60% and then 70% then 80%,’ and that’s exactly what all of the graphs look like.
“(It’s) fabricating or manipulating data that is used to determine a student’s level of need,” she said. “… I think that that’s an ethical issue … and I also think that it is denying the parent (the opportunity to) meaningfully participate, which is also required under IDEA.”
IDEA, or the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, is a law passed Nov. 29, 1975, that ensures access to free, appropriate public education and accommodations to eligible students with disabilities.
Bonnar said the district “strongly reject(s) any suggestion that district staff fabricate or manipulate student data.”
The family is in the process of escalating the situation to the Colorado Department of Education, Stephenson said.
She and the advocates said a special education staff member at the school described IEP minutes being cut across the board for students during a recent meeting with the family. That statement was corrected at the meeting by a San Juan BOCES employee, Stephenson said – but she left feeling uncertain.
Bonnar told The Durango Herald there is no districtwide initiative to reduce IEP service minutes.
Stephenson said only dyslexia is listed in her son’s IEP despite multiple medical provider letters confirming attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and autism diagnoses.
“A medical diagnosis alone does not automatically determine special education eligibility or specific school services,” Bonnar said. “Schools must evaluate how a disability impacts educational access and performance under IDEA or Section 504 standards. Those determinations are made through formal processes involving qualified professionals and parent participation.”
Stephenson said several incidents have arisen in which her son’s blunt or direct reactions, which she attributes to his autism diagnosis, were misunderstood by teachers as disrespect, and at times ended in disciplinary action she felt was not justified.
“I’ve had to realize that that is part of his autism,” she said. “He doesn’t have the emotional facial reactions that you expect him to. … (If that was included), when his teachers see his IEP they would understand, ‘Hey, he may not have the same reaction as (this other student) over here. He may be more matter of fact, when he shows emotion. … That’s the only reason I ask for it to be in there.”
Stephenson said her son has experienced bullying, including being called slurs, and she feels the district has not adequately responded.
“(The district is) big on, ‘It’s not bullying, it’s conflict resolution,’” she said. “Well, it’s genuinely bullying when they call somebody (a slur) or, ‘idiot,’ or things of that nature.”
Stephenson’s other son, Peyton, said he has also experienced extensive bullying, including being physically beat up by other students and allegedly being called a homophobic slur by an athletic coach. The district did not respond to the allegation.
Bonnar said that not every disagreement between students meets the legal or policy definition of bullying.
“Bullying typically involves repeated, targeted behavior with a power imbalance. Some incidents are more accurately classified as peer conflict, mutual misconduct, or isolated misconduct,” he said. “Regardless of terminology, inappropriate behavior is addressed and student safety remains the priority.”
Stephenson plans to pull her children out of the district and enroll them in Durango School District schools next year, she said. She’s not the only one.
Two other parents have already, or plan to, pull their children out of the district for similar reasons.
A Bayfield School District parent who requested she and her children remain anonymous said she plans to leave the district after this year as a result of inadequate special education programming and what she views as mistreatment from administration.
She has two elementary school-aged children enrolled in the district, one of whom has an IEP and one who has a 504 plan – another type of accommodation given to students with disabilities.
“I’ve noted failures all year with inadequate para support, and them trying to diminish my daughter’s para support,” she said.
The district has also allegedly denied her other child an evaluation for more specialized support.
“They’ve had him on a safety plan and an MTSS plan over the last three years, instead of doing proper evaluation, even though I had formal, proper paperwork from Children’s Hospital documenting his disabilities – they completely ignored that,” she said.
She said she appreciates the work of her children’s teachers, and that her frustrations are administration-based.
“(My kids’) teachers are wonderful. They’re wonderful people,” she said. “… It’s administration (that’s the problem). It’s constant administration issues that we are faced with day-after-day.”
She plans to move both of her children to Durango schools for the 2026-27 school year.
Aaron Vanriper pulled his son, who has autism, out of the district last year in response to inadequate special education programming and alleged bullying.
“He had a lot of problems with bullying (at Bayfield) – like a lot of problems, more than I can count,” he said. “In middle school, he was beat to the point of being unconscious and got put in the hospital by a couple of kids. … The problem was how everybody handled it.”
District administrators would not refer to incidents as “bullying,” and would instead dub them “peer-to-peer conflict,” Vanriper said.
Bonnar said the district recorded four formal bullying reports in the 2024-25 school year, and six for 2025-26 as of mid-April.
Ahlborg said reluctance to label incidents as bullying is common across districts.
“If they say your child’s being bullied, (they’re saying), ‘I’m recognizing they’re in peril, essentially,’ and they don’t want to do that in writing,” he said. “So, they really don’t like recognizing it. Everything is ‘student conflict.’”
Ahlborg said he sees a high volume of bullying cases and IEP concerns coming out of Bayfield relative to its size.
“I have lots of these kinds of issues with Bayfield, and it’s for such a small school district,” he said. “I find it amazing that I have this many bullies from one location, and then this many IEP issues for special needs kids. … A lot of parents have left the schools there because of this.”
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