IDEA Complaint Decision 25-080

On June 3, 2025, the Department of Public Instruction (department) received a complaint under state and federal special education law from #### (parent) against #### (district). This is the department’s decision regarding that complaint. The issues are described below, and pertain to the time period beginning June 3, 2024.

 

Whether the district properly responded to the request of a parent of a student with a disability for an Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE).

 

Parents of students with disabilities have the right to share information with school district staff obtained from privately funded assessments or evaluations conducted by examiners outside of the school. Under federal and state special education law, parents are entitled to a publicly funded IEE conducted by a qualified examiner who is not an employee of the school district if the parent disagrees with the district's special education evaluation. Upon receiving a request for an IEE, a school district must inform parents about where they may obtain an IEE and provide the school district’s IEE criteria. The district must respond to the request for an IEE in a reasonable amount of time by either providing the IEE at public expense or requesting a due process hearing to show that its evaluation is appropriate. 34 CFR § 300.502.

 

In January 2025, the student’s parent requested an IEE from the district. The parent disagreed with the evaluation completed by the district on January 25, 2024, in which the student’s Individualized Education Program (IEP) team found that although the student continued to have a disability, they did not meet the eligibility criteria for the area of intellectual disability. On January 30, 2025, the district sent the parent a letter explaining its IEE criteria and providing a list of qualified evaluators who would be available to conduct the evaluation. The district asked the parent to select one of the evaluators and return a form consenting to the release of the student’s records to the selected evaluator. The parent rejected the district’s list of proposed evaluators and asserted that only a neuropsychologist was qualified to conduct the IEE given the genetic basis for the student’s disability. The parent’s preferred neuropsychologist practices in a clinical setting located 275 miles from the district. The district informed the parent that the district would not pay for the evaluation as qualified psychologists were available in closer proximity to the district.

 

Parents generally have the option to select their own independent examiner as long as the qualifications of the parents’ selection are reasonably consistent with the qualifications of examiners the district uses in its own evaluations. Districts should offer parents an opportunity to demonstrate that extraordinary circumstances make the selection of a particular examiner necessary, and districts should not reject a qualified examiner merely because the examiner is located outside of the district’s geographic area (though a district may not need to pay for travel expenses associated with such evaluations). In this complaint, the district promptly made the IEE available to the parent by offering to pay for the services of a qualified examiner located within a reasonable distance of the district. There is no provision in state or federal special education law requiring a neuropsychologist to conduct an educational evaluation of a student with a potential intellectual disability regardless of the root cause of the student’s delays, and it was reasonable for the district to conclude that the parent did not demonstrate extraordinary circumstances to justify their choice of examiner. However, given the district did not intend to pay for the examiner of the parent’s choice to provide the IEE, it should have requested a due process hearing to show that its evaluation was appropriate without delay. The district did not properly respond to the parent’s request for an IEE. Within 30 days of this decision, the district is directed to review, and if necessary, revise its policies and procedures around responding to a parent’s request for an IEE. Based upon the review, the district will develop a corrective action plan to submit to the department for approval to ensure staff who respond to parent requests for IEEs are familiar with proper procedures.

 

Since the parent’s IEE request, the district has conducted another evaluation of its own and determined that the student meets disability criteria for the area of intellectual disability. The parent participated in this evaluation and eligibility determination. As such, no student specific corrective action is required.

 

Properly responded to the parent’s request for a meeting of the student’s IEP team meeting.

 

A parent may request an IEP team meeting at any time, and the district should grant any reasonable request for an IEP team meeting. If the district denies the parent's request for an IEP team meeting, the district must provide the parent with a notice of refusal in writing and include an explanation of why the district refuses to grant the request. 34 CFR § 300.503.

 

On March 18, 2025, the parent requested an IEP team meeting to discuss the progress of her IEE request. On March 20, 2025, the district provided the parent with written notice that they believed the parent’s request for an IEP team meeting was unreasonable and reiterated the district’s reasons for denying the parent’s identified examiner. The district offered to conduct an IEP team meeting if the parent wished to discuss other matters related to the student’s IEP. As IEP teams are not responsible for responding to a parent’s IEE request, the district properly responded to the parent’s request for an IEP team meeting.

 

This concludes our review of this complaint. This decision is final for the IDEA State Complaint process. These issues may be addressed through other dispute resolutions, including mediation and due process hearings. For more information, visit the department’s website at http://dpi.wi.gov/sped/dispute-resolution or contact the special education team at (608) 266-1781.