How to request an IEP evaluation in California

Take a breath. You are not behind, and you are not overstepping. Asking the school to look closely at your child is the single most ordinary thing a parent can do in this system — it is the step every IEP in California begins with, and the law is written to make it easy.

This page is the process: who can ask, what the district owes you and when, how to read the assessment plan before you sign it, and what to do if the district goes quiet. The letter itself is already written for you at Request an IEP evaluation — copy it, fill in the blanks, send it, then come back here for what happens next.

Who can ask for an evaluation — and do I need a diagnosis?

That duty has a name: child find. California requires that all children with disabilities residing in the state be identified, located, and assessed Ed Code §56301. So when you send your request, you are not asking a district to do you a favor or to make an exception in your child’s case. You are asking it to do something it is already obligated to do, on a schedule someone else already set.

A few things parents are told that are not the law:

• “You need a diagnosis first.” No. The school’s own evaluation is what determines eligibility, and it works from a two-part test — a disability in one of the categories federal law names, and a resulting need for special education 34 CFR §300.8. A private diagnosis is useful evidence. It is not a prerequisite.
• “Let’s try interventions for a few more months first.” Support strategies and an evaluation can run at the same time. A request to evaluate does not have to wait behind a tiering process.
• “Just come to a meeting and we’ll talk about it.” A meeting is fine. It is not a substitute for a written request, because only the written request starts a clock.

How do I actually send it?

The letter does this work for you — it is deliberately warm, short, and collaborative, because the first ask should always be an ask. Get it at Request an IEP evaluation.

Three practical notes the letter cannot carry for you:

1. Send it to two people. A request that lands only in a teacher’s inbox can sit there. The principal and the special education director are the two addresses that reliably move it.
2. Write down what you see, not what you think it is. “He is not reading words his classmates read, and he cries before school three days a week” is more useful to an evaluator than a diagnosis you are guessing at. Your observations set the scope; their tests fill it in.
3. Keep everything in one place from today: the sent email, the assessment plan, every report, and every note. You are starting a file you will use for years.

What happens next, and by when?

The two exceptions worth knowing before you hit send. If your request arrives 10 days or fewer before the regular school year ends, the assessment plan is not due until 10 days after the next school year starts Ed Code §56321. And if the referral comes 30 days or fewer before the year ends, the IEP is due within 30 days after the next school year begins Ed Code §56344. A request sent the first week of May and one sent the last week of May can land a whole summer apart — so if you are near the end of the year, send it now rather than after the break.

The breaks pause the clock, but only the long ones. Neither the 15-day nor the 60-day count includes days between regular school sessions or terms, or school vacations longer than five schooldays; when the break ends, the clock picks back up on the day regular schooldays reconvene Ed Code §56321 Ed Code §56344. Winter break pauses your clock. A three-day weekend does not.

The only lawful way to extend the 15 days is your written agreement Ed Code §56321. If someone asks you for more time, that is a request you may grant — in writing, with a new date attached — not an announcement.

The assessment plan arrived. Should I just sign it?

This is the highest-leverage five minutes in the whole process, and it is the one most parents skip. What is not on the assessment plan does not get tested. What does not get tested does not appear in the eligibility decision or the IEP. A plan that covers academics but not the behavior you described, or speech but not sensory or motor needs, quietly narrows everything downstream.

So: put your original letter beside the plan and check them line by line. If something is missing, reply in writing — plainly, and without drama — naming the concern and asking that it be added to the plan. Then sign the corrected version.

Two more rights that live in the same statute. No single test can decide it: no one measure or assessment may be used as the sole criterion for eligibility or for determining your child’s program Ed Code §56320. And testing has to be fair: assessments must be given in the language and form most likely to yield accurate information about what your child knows and can do, must not be racially, culturally, or sexually discriminatory, and must be administered by trained personnel Ed Code §56320. If your child’s home language is not English, say so in writing now, not after the scores come back.

Then sign promptly. Nothing is tested until you do — no IEP results from the assessment without your consent Ed Code §56321 — and the 60-day clock does not begin until the district has your signature. Every day the plan sits unsigned is a day nobody is evaluating your child.

What actually happens during the assessment?

Your job during these weeks is smaller than it feels, and it matters more than it looks:

• Write down the hard days. A two-week log — what happened, when, how long it took to recover — gives an evaluator the pattern you live and they cannot see in a testing room.
• Share what you already have. Outside evaluations, therapy reports, doctor’s notes, old report cards. Send them in and ask that they be considered.
• Ask for your child’s records. You are entitled to inspect them, and the district owes them within five business days of your request Ed Code §56043. Read the file before the meeting, not during it.
• Ask for the reports in advance. There is no rule that hands them to you before the meeting, so ask — politely, in writing, about a week out. Reading 40 pages of scores cold, in a room of strangers, is not a fair way to make decisions about your child.

What if the district stalls, or says no?

Work it in this order. Each rung costs more than the last, and most requests never get past the first two.

1. Day 16 — a written follow-up. Short and factual: the date of your original request, the fact that no assessment plan has arrived, and the 15-calendar-day rule Ed Code §56321. Copy the special education director. Most silences end here, because the deadline is real and staff know it.
2. Ask for the refusal in writing. If someone tells you no — in a meeting, on the phone, in a hallway — that has no legal weight and starts no clock. Say: “Please send me prior written notice of that decision.” The notice must describe the refusal, explain the reasoning, list every record or report relied on, and name the other options the team considered and why they were rejected Ed Code §56500.4. That document is what converts a shrug into something reviewable.
3. Day 61 with no IEP meeting. Follow up the same way, naming your consent date and the 60-day rule Ed Code §56344. Ask for a scheduled date in the reply.
4. Escalate. If writing does not move it, the ladder continues: a state compliance complaint about a missed timeline, mediation, or a due process filing. Which one fits depends on whether your problem is a broken deadline or a disagreement about substance — that choice is the whole subject of disagreeing with the school.

One more card in your hand for later: if the assessments come back and you disagree with them, you may ask for an independent educational assessment at public expense, and the district must either pay for it or file for a due process hearing to show its own assessment was appropriate Ed Code §56329. Keep that one in your pocket until you have read the reports.

Start the Regional Center clock at the same time

Nothing about starting one weakens the other. The school evaluates for educational eligibility; the Regional Center evaluates for Lanterman Act eligibility, and funds a completely different set of services. Families who run both from day one are typically a year ahead of families who run them in sequence. The Regional Center guide has the intake script and the clocks, and the Regional Center finder tells you which of the 21 centers serves your address.