An assessment plan, the SELPA and a recorded meeting: California’s special education laws in Part 30
California’s layer over IDEA is Part 30 of the Education Code, sections 56000 to 56865, worked locally by each SELPA under the Special Education Division. A written assessment plan before any testing is the change a parent feels first, and the count to the IEP team meeting starts on your signature. 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.
California’s laws, rule by rule
SELPAs under Part 30
EC 56000(a), 56195Part 30 opens on a right: “all individuals with exceptional needs have a right to participate in free appropriate public education,” administered locally through each SELPA.
The SELPA director is who you write to when your district stalls.
Individuals with exceptional needs
EC 56026(a), (b), (e)The IEP team identifies the child under the federal categories, with an impairment needing services that “cannot be provided with modification of the regular school program.”
Two findings, and limited English or missed reading instruction alone makes neither.
The assessment plan, before testing
EC 56321(a)–(d)A proposed assessment plan reaches you within 15 days of the referral, in your language, with at least 15 days to answer.
Signing the plan is not consent to placement or services; that is asked for separately at the IEP.
Notice on paper, meetings on tape
EC 56500.4(a), 56504, 56341.1(g)A proposal or refusal comes on paper “a reasonable time before” it takes effect; records within five business days; audio recording of an IEP meeting on 24 hours’ notice.
The recording rule is California’s own: tell the team a day ahead and the meeting is on tape.
Discipline by federal reference
EC 48915.5(a)Expulsion or suspension of an individual with exceptional needs happens only “in accordance with” the federal discipline sections, 34 CFR 300.530 to 300.537.
The manifestation determination here is IDEA’s meeting, unchanged, its questions and its count.
Three routes to a decision
EC 56043(p)–(s), 56500.3The department decides a complaint within 60 calendar days; a prehearing mediation conference comes within 15 calendar days, attorneys excluded, at state cost.
Hearings run through the Office of Administrative Hearings, outside the district, and mediation costs a parent nothing.
What the rule says
The state wrote it this way:
“Once a child has been referred for an initial assessment … these determinations shall be made, and an individualized education program team meeting shall occur, within 60 days of receiving parental consent for the assessment …”
EC 56043(c)
The sixty days end at the meeting, so a finished report with no meeting date is still late.
The deadlines California 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Proposed assessment plan | 15 calendar days | The clock opens when the district receives your referral, and breaks longer than five schooldays pause it.EC 56043(a), 56321(a) |
| Sixty-day count from consent | 60 days | Your signed plan reaching the district is day one; vacations over five schooldays do not count.EC 56043(c), (f)(1) |
| Review of a current IEP | 30 calendar days | From receipt of your letter, again leaving out vacations longer than five schooldays.EC 56043(l) |
| Copies of school records | 5 business days | After an oral or written request, and in every case before an IEP meeting or hearing.EC 56043(n), 56504 |
| The division’s written findings | 60 calendar days | Day one is when Sacramento gets the complaint; what it alleges must fall inside the prior year.EC 56043(p), (x) |
How a child gets an IEP in California
Mail the assessment request
Put the assessment request to the principal in writing; that is the referral, so keep its date.
Your signature on the plan
The plan names each test by type; sign it and the sixty days to the meeting begin.
Get the reports early
Ask for every assessment report before the meeting, under the five-business-day records rule.
The evaluation request letter writes step one for you, in the words a district answers.
Special Education Division, California Department of Education — The division in Sacramento oversees every SELPA, investigates complaints and lists each SELPA’s contact.
If the school says no
Fifteen days gone with no assessment plan is a California refusal that arrives without any notice; the referral date is what you quote.
- Write to the SELPA director with the referral date and ask which section the district is counting under.
- The Dispute Resolution Services Unit takes a written complaint naming the section and the missed date.
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
- Education Code section 56043: the primary timelinesThe section quoted above.
- CDE Special Education DivisionThe state office and its SELPA list.
- Dispute Resolution, Special Education (CDE)Complaints, mediation and OAH hearings.
- The federal evaluation rule (34 CFR 300.301)The floor every state builds on.