IEP and 504 guidance for parents, in plain language and cited to the source

Special education law is written for lawyers and administrators. Your child's rights should not depend on your ability to read a regulation. Here they are in plain words, with the citation attached so you can check every claim.

Every page on this site follows the same rule: if we tell you a deadline, a right, or a requirement, we name the statute or regulation it comes from and link to it where the text is publicly available. No paraphrased advice with nothing behind it. You should be able to take what you read here and put it in an email to your district.

Start here: how long does the school have to evaluate?

This is the question that brings most parents to a site like this one, and it is the one with the most misinformation around it. The federal floor is 60 calendar days from the district receiving your signed consent — but most states have set their own clock instead, and those clocks differ enormously. Michigan gives districts 30 school days. New Jersey gives 90 calendar days, but that window has to include actually starting services. Massachusetts counts in "school working days," a day type almost nobody outside Massachusetts has heard of.

Our main body of work is a state-by-state breakdown of those deadlines: the number, the day type, when the clock starts, what the deadline actually covers, and what to do the week it passes.

See IEP evaluation deadlines by state →

Twelve states are live now, with the remaining 39 jurisdictions in progress. The free cheat sheet below already covers all 51.

Printable toolkits

Everything you need to understand and enforce an evaluation deadline is on this site, free. If you would also like the letters and trackers in printable form — request letters, follow-up templates, complaint drafts — there are paid toolkits at theieptoolkit.gumroad.com. They are a convenience, not a prerequisite.