Using a case study design, this research explores how two department chairs, Jan and Tammy, in community colleges implement AB 705, an assessment policy impacting California ESL programs. AB 705 seeks to centralize previous multiple measures legislation in California by requiring the use of high school data in community college course placement. An ecological perspective was adopted to highlight how ideologies at the macro national and meso state level about placement tests and student autonomy trickle down and are interpreted at the micro institutional level, and how challenges and concerns about implementation reflect the micro level affordances or lack thereof for each participant. Through critical language policy (Tollefson as cited in Ricento, 2006), I also posit that as AB 705 changes the assessment landscape in California community colleges, they create power shifts between local actors. Data were collected from a questionnaire, interviews, policy documents and online artifacts. Findings revealed that Jan and Tammy's different ideologies regarding the validity of placement tests lead to different interpretations and implementation of the policy, thus creating different power dynamics for their students. Both also encountered different challenges because of their varied local affordances, highlighting the need for top-down policies to consider implementation in situated contexts.