Yes. If you disagree with a school district’s assessment, you may ask the district to pay for an independent educational evaluation (IEE).^[1] You should make your request in writing to your child’s Program Specialist and send a copy to the district’s Special Education Director. It is important that you state your request as a disagreement with an assessment done by the school district.

When the school district receives your written request for an IEE, the school district has only two options: Fund or File. That is, the district must either pay for the independent evaluation (Fund) or file for due process (File), claiming that the district assessment is “appropriate.” If the district fails to respond by either paying for an IEE or filing for due process, it has failed to comply with the law. 

If the district decides to file for due process and go to a hearing, and the hearing officer determines that the school district’s assessment is appropriate, you still have a right to the independent evaluation, but not at public expense.^[2] When you make your request for an IEE, the district may ask you to identify specific areas of disagreement with its evaluation. You do not have to give the school district an explanation and any request for information by the school district cannot be used to delay the district’s response to your request for an IEE.^[3] The school district does have to give you information about where an IEE can be obtained and any basic agency criteria for an IEE.^[4]

Under federal regulations, the district must respond to your request for an IEE “without unnecessary delay.”^[5] While the federal regulations do not define what constitutes an “unnecessary delay,” the Office of Administrative Hearings did determine in one case that a school district’s delay of more than five months in providing an independent education evaluation at public expense, despite the district’s good faith efforts and ongoing negotiations with a proposed evaluator, violated the “without unnecessary delay” requirement of the federal law.^[6]

One reason a parent/guardian/other education rights holder may disagree with a school district’s initial evaluation or re-evaluation is if the school district failed to fully identify all areas that needed to be evaluated. In such a scenario, the parent/guardian/other education rights holder has a right to ask for an IEE at public expense. This is because the law states a school district must assess a student in all areas related to that child’s suspected disability and the evaluations must be “sufficiently comprehensive to identify all of the child’s special education and related services needs, whether or not commonly linked to the disability category” of the child.^[7] Again, once the parent/guardian/other education rights holder asks for an IEE to assess an area of need not included in the district’s evaluation, the school district must file for due process or fund the IEE. The school district does not have the option at that point of doing their own evaluation first or in place of an IEE.^[8]

You could file a compliance complaint to ask the California Department of Education (CDE) to determine whether the school district should fund an IEE due to the unnecessary delay in responding to a parent’s/guardian’s/other education rights holder’s request or the failure to assess in all areas related to your child’s disability. See Chapter 6, Information on Due Process/Compliance Procedures.

In practice, districts sometimes request that parents/guardians/other education rights holdersengage in due process mediation over a parent’s/guardian’s/other education rights holder’srequest for an IEE. Although a parent/guardian/other education rights holder may choose to voluntarily engage in due process mediation over their IEE request, a district cannot unilaterally demand the parent/guardian/other education rights holder do so. As explained above, the district has only two options for responding to a parent’s/guardian’s/other education rights holder’srequest for an IEE, which is to either file for a due process hearing or agree to fund the IEE. Due process mediation is different from filing for a due process hearing. See Chapter 6, Information on Due Process/Compliance Procedures. Therefore, a parent/guardian/other education rights holderthat does not wish to engage in due process mediation with the district over their IEE request may ask the district, instead, to respond by filing or funding.

1. 34 C.F.R. Sec. 300.502(b); Cal. Ed. Code Sec. 56329(b).[↩]
2. 34 C.F.R. Sec. 300.502(b)(3); Cal. Ed. Code Sec. 56329(c).[↩]
3. 34 C.F.R. Sec. 300.502(b)(4).[↩]
4. 34 C.F.R. Sec. 300.502(a)(2).[↩]
5. 34 C.F.R. Sec. 300.502(b)(2).[↩]
6. Student v. Dixon United Sch. Dist. OAH Case No. 2013090674, 114 LRP 29153 (Apr. 18, 2014).[↩]
7. 34 C.F.R. Sec. 300.304(c)(6); Cal Ed. Code Sec. 56320(f).[↩]
8. Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), Letter to Carroll (Oct. 22, 2016), 68 IDELR 279.[↩]