Chapter 290-8-9, eight weeks and sixty days: Alabama’s special education laws
Alabama layers Chapter 290-8-9 of its Administrative Code on IDEA, enforced by the state department’s Special Education Services section. The gate in front of the clock is what Alabama most changes: eight weeks of Problem Solving Team intervention, waivable by the IEP Team when a parent referred. Start with the dates in your file: the day the school received your written request, the day you signed consent, and the date on the district’s latest notice.
Alabama’s laws, rule by rule
Thirteen areas and three findings
290-8-9-.03; .04(1), (2)(a)Thirteen disability areas with set evaluative components; with only a related service needed, a child “is not considered to be a child with a disability.”
The Eligibility Committee includes you, and each member certifies the report in writing.
Eight weeks at the PST
290-8-9-.01(4), (6)The PST monitors eight weeks of intervention “before a child is referred” or during the evaluation, waivable for a parent’s referral.
The IEP Team decides the waiver; no district may cap referrals by season.
Montgomery’s three remedies
290-8-9-.08(9)Findings on a signed complaint come in sixty calendar days, reaching one year back; the Department “will bear the cost of the mediation process”; hearings reach back two years.
Send it to the state superintendent, with a copy to your district the same day.
Twenty records per teacher
290-8-9-.11(1), (2)A teacher manages at most 20 records, a speech-language pathologist 30, and that count “does not represent the number of students that a teacher will serve.”
IDEA has no caseload rule; name it as records managed, not a class size.
Notice, then majority at nineteen
290-8-9-.08(4)(b), (8)Alabama gives written notice a reasonable time ahead of anything it proposes or refuses; at nineteen “all other rights accorded to parents transfer to the student.”
IDEA leaves the age to the state; at eighteen an Alabama parent still signs.
When a removal changes placement
290-8-9-.09(2)(c)Ten school days follow a placement-changing removal, in which you and the IEP Team ask whether the LEA’s “failure to implement the IEP” drove the conduct.
A failure to implement obliges the LEA to fix it at once.
What the rule says
The state wrote it this way:
“The public agency has sixty (60) calendar days from the date [it] receives a parent’s signed consent for initial evaluation to conduct and complete an initial evaluation. The public agency has thirty (30) calendar days from the completion of the evaluation to determine initial eligibility.”
290-8-9-.02(1)(b)
The clock does not stop at the last test; it stops when the committee has ruled.
The deadlines Alabama sets
School days and calendar days count differently, so read the unit in every row.
| What is being counted | By when | How it is counted |
|---|---|---|
| PST monitoring before or during | 8 weeks, at minimum | Monitored before a referral or during the evaluation; the strategies must be judged unsuccessful.290-8-9-.01(4) |
| Evaluation, consent to report | 60 calendar days | It starts when the district receives your signed form, counting through spring break and summer.290-8-9-.02(1)(b) |
| Eligibility Committee decides | 30 calendar days | Counted from the day the evaluation is complete, rarely the day you hear about it.290-8-9-.04(1) |
| Team meets to write it | 30 calendar days | From the day the committee says yes; a summer meeting delays only the services.290-8-9-.05(2)(b) |
| A meeting you ask for | 30 calendar days | Once your child has an IEP, a request to revise it starts the count.290-8-9-.05(11)3. |
| Findings letter from the state | 60 calendar days | Your signed complaint opens it; only the past year is inside the state’s reach.290-8-9-.08(9)(a) |
How a child gets an IEP in Alabama
One page, two desks
Write your principal and the district special education coordinator; the school must take an oral referral down.
Date your own copy
Nothing times the gap between your letter and the consent form; your dated copy proves the wait.
Sign and count sixty
Return the consent form fast; the district’s receipt of it starts the sixty calendar days.
The evaluation request letter writes step one for you, in the words a district answers.
Special Education Services — One section of Alabama’s state department runs special education; your district fills in its forms.
If the school says no
A refusal here is the IEP Team’s call, and Alabama then sends the child back to the building team.
- When nothing arrives, resend your referral date and ask for the intervention documentation the Team reviewed.
- The rights booklet owed at referral sets out the independent evaluation you can ask for.
A refusal arrives in writing under 34 CFR 300.503, naming what was refused and the data behind it.
This page organizes the state’s own words: it does not replace the current rule text, or advice from someone qualified in your state.
Have the pages in your child’s file read back to you, free.
The review reads every page you upload and returns each finding in plain English, with one question for the team and the page it came from.
Review my IEP — freeFree, no card. It reads your pages and contacts no one.
Where this comes from
- Alabama’s evaluation rule, 290-8-9-.02Both clocks quoted.
- Mastering the Maze, Alabama’s special education processThe state’s step list.
- Alabama’s Procedural Safeguards, Special Education RightsThe rights booklet.
- The federal evaluation rule (34 CFR 300.301)The floor every state builds on.