Arizona schools have 60 calendar days, as opposed to 60 school days, to complete a special education evaluation. That count starts on the day the district receives your signed consent form, not the day you first asked for testing. Weekends count. Winter break counts. If you sign consent in May, summer break counts too. Arizona Department of Education's FAQs on Timelines state this directly, and it lines up with the evaluation rules in Arizona Administrative Code R7-2-401.
There is one way that window gets longer, and it is narrower than most parents assume. The district can add 30 days to the 60, but only when two things are both true: the extra time serves your child, not the school's staffing or testing backlog, and you agree to the extension in writing. A phone call saying "we're a little behind" is not an extension. A letter that just informs you the district needs more time is not one either, because notice is not agreement. If nobody asked you to sign off on additional time and you never did, the district is not operating inside a lawful extension. It is late, and the 60 day clock still governs.
Most of the confusion I see comes from parents starting the count on the wrong date, because there are actually two separate clocks and they do not run together. Once you submit a written request for an evaluation, the district has up to 15 school days to respond, either by starting a review of existing records or by sending you a Prior Written Notice explaining why it is declining to evaluate. That 15 school day window is the district deciding whether to evaluate at all. It is not the 60 day evaluation clock, and it runs on school days, not calendar days.
The 60 calendar day clock starts only once the district has your signed consent form in hand. If you sign on a Monday but mail the form back and the school does not log it as received until Friday, your 60 days start Friday, not Monday. Ask the special education coordinator or front office to confirm, in writing, the exact date they received your signed consent. Keep your own dated copy of the form. That single date is the one number a district cannot argue with later.
If a district passes day 60 (minus any lawful, written extension) without a Multidisciplinary Evaluation Team meeting to determine eligibility, you have a real avenue: a state complaint filed with the Arizona Department of Education's (ADE) Office of Dispute Resolution. The complaint has to describe a violation from within the past year. ADE then has 60 calendar days to investigate and issue a written decision, though that timeline can be extended for exceptional circumstances or if you and the district agree in writing to try mediation first. The complaint form and process are posted on azed.gov's Dispute Resolution site. If ADE finds the district out of compliance, the remedy can include compensatory services, meaning additional time or services to make up for what the delay cost your child.
Initial evaluations and reevaluations run on the same 60 calendar day clock once consent is signed. Where they differ is frequency and consent itself. A reevaluation has to happen at least once every three years, and cannot happen more than once a year unless you and the district agree otherwise, according to azed.gov's FAQs on Consent. A reevaluation also does not always require a new signed consent form to begin with. If the team proposes reviewing only existing records and data, no new testing, no new consent is required, and because there is no new consent, no new 60 day clock starts either. Parents often assume the three year review meeting is automatically its own evaluation with its own deadline. It only works that way when the team is administering new testing and you signed a new consent form authorizing it.
When going through the MET process, keep track of dates and timelines to help you plan and be prepared for the meetings. Ask for clarification and ask questions during the meeting as much as you need to so that you are an informed and equal participant in the meeting.
Sources
- https://www.azed.gov/specialeducation/timelines
- https://www.azed.gov/specialeducation/evaluation-reevaluation
- https://www.azed.gov/specialeducation/consent
- https://www.azed.gov/disputeresolution/state-admincomplaintsystem
- https://www.azed.gov/disputeresolution/faq-state-complaints-and-corrective-action
- https://azsbe.az.gov/resources/rules
- https://disabilityrightsaz.org