One consent date, two clocks and an Administrative Unit: Colorado’s special education laws
The Exceptional Children’s Educational Act and its ECEA Rules, 1 CCR 301-8, sit on IDEA in Colorado, run locally by an Administrative Unit. Colorado departs most on dates: one written consent starts sixty days to evaluate and ninety days to a first IEP. 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.
Colorado’s laws, rule by rule
Administrative Units and eligibility
Rules 2.03, 2.09An Administrative Unit, district, BOCES or the Charter School Institute, serves children three to twenty-one “unable to receive reasonable benefit from general education.”
Address its special education director; a child who needs only related services is not covered.
Written consent, then sixty days
Rule 4.02(3)(c)Sixty calendar days to finish the initial evaluation, counted “from the point of initiation,” the day the AU holds your request and consent.
Nothing counts until you sign, so request the consent form in the letter itself.
Ninety days, then every 365
Rule 4.03(1)(d)(i), 4.03(3)The first IEP “shall be developed within 90 calendar days” of the consent date; each IEP and placement is then reviewed every 365 days.
IDEA counts from the eligibility decision; Colorado counts from consent, so a slow evaluation eats the IEP’s time.
Safeguards Notice, IEE, discipline
Rule 4.02(3)(b)(i), 6.02A school-started referral arrives with prior written notice plus “a copy of the Procedural Safeguards Notice”; the IEE and discipline rules are the federal ones, unchanged.
When an answer came by phone, the Rule 6.02(3) notice is the record to ask for.
A State Complaints Officer decides
Rule 7.06(3), 6.02(7.5)The Department’s decision on a state complaint “shall not be subject to appeal”; due process is filed with the AU’s director and heard by an ALJ.
Free, decided in sixty calendar days, and final; mediation costs nothing and either side may decline it.
Transition at fifteen, adulthood at twenty-one
Rule 4.03(6)(d)(i), 6.02(9)Transition planning begins with the first IEP written at age 15 “but no later than the end of 9th grade,” and rights transfer at 21.
A ninth grader’s IEP here already carries postsecondary goals, and you stay the decision-maker until 21.
What the rule says
The state wrote it this way:
“… the initial evaluation, shall be completed within 60 calendar days from the point of initiation of the special education referral … initiated when … the parent provides written consent to conduct the initial evaluation.”
Rule 4.02(3)(c)
Your consent date is day zero for two Colorado clocks, so photograph the form.
The deadlines Colorado 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 |
|---|---|---|
| The AU finishes evaluating | 60 calendar days | Weekends and breaks sit inside; the count begins when the AU has your written consent.Rule 4.02(3)(c) |
| First IEP developed | 90 calendar days | The same consent date starts this count, and the evaluation’s sixty days run inside it.Rule 4.03(1)(d)(i) |
| Yearly placement meeting | 365 days | Days, not school years, from the last review meeting, so the date cannot slide.Rule 4.03(3) |
| AU convenes the resolution meeting | 15 days | After the AU receives notice of your due process complaint, before any hearing.Rule 6.02(7.5)(d)(i)(A) |
| The SCO’s written finding | 60 calendar days | Runs once the complaint reaches both the SCO and the AU, for violations within the past year.CDE comparison; 34 CFR 300.152 |
How a child gets an IEP in Colorado
Both clocks from a letter
One letter to the AU’s special education director: evaluate my child, and include the consent form.
Consent, dated in your hand
Your signature date is the start of both counts, so keep a copy with the date visible.
Decide eligibility together
A multidisciplinary team that includes you reads the evaluation and decides disability and eligibility.
The evaluation request letter writes step one for you, in the words a district answers.
Exceptional Student Services Unit — The state unit keeps the directory of every AU’s special education director, by name.
If the school says no
A refusal from an AU comes as prior written notice; a letter that drew no consent form started no clock.
- Send the AU the date it received your letter, asking for the consent form or the refusal in writing.
- Then a state complaint to CDE, naming the rule and dates; the SCO reads the AU’s file, not your memory.
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
- The ECEA Rules, 1 CCR 301-8The rule quoted above.
- CDE Exceptional Student Services UnitForms, guidance and the directors list.
- CDE: dispute resolution options comparedThe three complaint routes compared.
- The federal evaluation rule (34 CFR 300.301)The floor every state builds on.