IEP Re-Evaluations | What Parents Need to Know | Timelines

IEP Re-evaluations

Ok, so here we go. I used to have IEP re-evaluation information in my post about IEP evaluations. But, I’ve since decided that IEP re-evals are worthy of their own post. Initial evals are sort of their own beast, since that is what gets the IEP process started.

But, with re-evaluations, parents have some perspective under their belt. You’ve been able to assess and try a few things over the course of a few years. Unless you had phenomenal initial IEP evaluations, your re-evaluation period is your chance to do much better for your child.

You can find more posts about IEP evaluations here:

• IEE Independent Education Evaluations
• IEP Re-Evaluations
• How to Request IEP Evaluations
• How to Understand your Child’s IEP Assessments
• IEE Independent Evals
• Can the school deny IEP evaluations?

When does a child get re-evaluated for their IEP?

After the initial evaluation, your child should be re-evaluated every 3 years. PA says every 2 years for students with an intellectual disability. Other states may have different guidelines but generally, expect every 3 years.

IDEA does not define a timeline for re-evaluations. It is assumed that it will be done prior to a renewed IEP. If you are nearing that 3-year mark and your IEP meeting should be held in 90-120 days, I’d start asking about it. No harm in sending an email with your re-evaluation concerns.

Can I request more/different IEP evaluations before the reevaluation period?

You can request IEP evals any time, but the school can say no. Some reasons for requesting evaluations outside of the standard time frame are:

• period of extreme growth or regression, plateauing
• change in behaviors
• medical status changed
• whenever parent/teacher feels there is an area of need that is not being addressed or incorrectly addressed
• any time parent/teacher reviews the Present Levels section and realizes that is no longer accurate for this student

Can I refuse the IEP re-evaluation?

I’m finding more parents lately who want to refuse the re-evaluations. Their fear is that the team will find the child ineligible to continue an IEP. I understand the concern, but this is the wrong way to approach this. And, the school can just pursue something called “consent override” in which they can do the evals without your consent. If the child has an existing IEP in place, the school has a very good case to do the re-evaluations.

The better option is to participate in the process. Add your IEP Parent Concerns, areas of need that you see that are not previously identified and so on.

From IDEA:

(c) Parental consent for reevaluations.

(1) Subject to paragraph (c)(2) of this section, each public agency—

(i) Must obtain informed parental consent, in accordance with §300.300(a)(1), prior to conducting any reevaluation of a child with a disability.

(ii) If the parent refuses to consent to the reevaluation, the public agency may, but is not required to, pursue the reevaluation by using the consent override procedures described in paragraph (a)(3) of this section.

(iii) The public agency does not violate its obligation under §300.111 and §§300.301 through 300.311 if it declines to pursue the evaluation or reevaluation.

What happens during IEP re-evals?

First, you should receive another Permission to Evaluate form, so that the school can begin evaluating. You should be keeping your own notes and data so that the child is evaluated in all areas of suspected disability.

Almost 3 years have passed since the last evals, so you want to make this set of evals as meaningful as possible. Chances are, academic and social demands have changed. That can mean that new issues rise to the surface.

Here is a checklist to use as a guide as to what to ask for.

Once the school receives that form, they will begin evaluating your child.

You want to make sure that you have the baseline data from the original evaluations. You want to be able to compare apples to apples.

Review of Existing Data

Sometimes schools want to do a “review of existing data” to compile the report. I would never agree to this as the only portion of the re-evaluation. All this does is look at evals that have already been done and put them in a new report. It is not a new eval, and three years is a long time for kids.

Meeting to Discuss the RR results.

The initial IEP evaluations are compiled into a report called the ER or Evaluation Report. Every report thereafter is called RR.

You likely will not have a separate meeting. It will be rolled into the IEP meeting, as this is what IDEA suggests.

From IDEA:

(5) Consolidation of IEP Team meetings. To the extent possible, the public agency must encourage the consolidation of reevaluation meetings for the child and other IEP Team meetings for the child.

How to Make the Most of IEP Re-Evaluations