Forty-five school days and a PPT: Connecticut’s special education laws explained
Connecticut’s rule set is IDEA plus sections 10-76a to 10-76h of the General Statutes and the regulations under them. The unit is what Connecticut most changes: forty-five school days from your referral letter to the day services begin. 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.
Connecticut’s laws, rule by rule
Eligibility under 10-76a
Conn. Gen. Stat. 10-76a(2), (5)A “child requiring special education” is an exceptional child meeting IDEA’s criteria, showing extraordinary learning ability, or aged three to five with developmental delay.
Eligibility lasts through the school year a student turns twenty-two; IDEA stops at twenty-one.
Your letter is the referral
CSDE manual, chapter 2The district “shall accept as a referral a concern expressed in writing from the parent,” and a referral means a PPT meets to consider evaluating.
IDEA names no referral form; the PPT then weighs disability, effect and need.
The two clocks from referral
Conn. Agencies Regs. 10-76d-13(a)(1), (a)(2)Forty-five school days run from referral to an implemented IEP, sixty for an out-of-district placement; the wait for your consent counts in neither.
Past sixty days the district owes the state board written proof of effort.
Notice, advisors and results
Conn. Gen. Stat. 10-76d(a)(10)Notice comes five school days before the board proposes or refuses a change; “advisors of such person’s own choosing” may sit at every PPT.
Results arrive three school days before the PPT that discusses them, if asked in writing.
Discipline before the PPT
CSDE manual, chapter 10Ten school days after a conduct placement change, the PPT decides if the disability drove the behavior; ten suspensions or fifty school days need a hearing.
It also rules on whether the IEP had been implemented; get both answers in writing.
Two years to request a hearing
Conn. Gen. Stat. 10-76h(a)(4), (b), (f)A party has “two years to request a hearing,” decided within forty-five days of its start; mediation runs through the Mediation Services Coordinator.
With no safeguards notice, the two years start when it arrives; complaints go to the Bureau.
What the rule says
The state wrote it this way:
“In the case of a referral made during the academic year … The individualized education program shall be implemented within forty-five days of referral or notice, exclusive of the time required to obtain parental consent.”
Conn. Agencies Regs. 10-76d-13(a)(1)
CSDE’s manual counts those in school days, so a spring referral can run into fall.
The deadlines Connecticut 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Referral to services in place | 45 school days | A finished evaluation report does not end this count, so watch the date the program actually starts.CSDE manual, chapter 4 |
| Consent returned to the district | 10 days | Your window to return the signed form; the regulation keeps this stretch out of the 45.Conn. Agencies Regs. 10-76d-13(a)(4) |
| Notice of a PPT meeting | 5 school days | Counted back from the meeting date, unless you waive the notice to get a PPT sooner.Conn. Gen. Stat. 10-76d(a)(10)(C) |
| Evaluation results, on request | 3 school days | Before the first PPT where those results are discussed, so you read them ahead of the room.Conn. Gen. Stat. 10-76d(a)(10)(G) |
| Full copy of the IEP | 5 days after the PPT | The PPT starts these five days, and only when no copy went home from the meeting.Conn. Agencies Regs. 10-76d-13(a)(6) |
| Out-of-district placement in place | 60 days | Counted from the same referral date, for a program the PPT places outside your district.Conn. Agencies Regs. 10-76d-13(a)(2) |
How a child gets an IEP in Connecticut
Write the principal
Date it, name your child and say what worries you; no district form is needed.
Expect a PPT
The district convenes a Planning and Placement Team, which decides whether to evaluate.
Return your signature
Sign consent inside ten days; the count pauses while it sits with you.
The evaluation request letter writes step one for you, in the words a district answers.
Bureau of Special Education — Written complaints against a Connecticut district land here, and the bureau answers timeline questions.
If the school says no
Connecticut’s PPT delivers a no as a team decision, with a paper trail behind it.
- The PPT’s decision goes in the meeting summary; ask for that page first.
- Ask which date counted as the referral, since a summer letter carries the next school year’s first day.
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
- Regulation 10-76d-13: special education timelinesThe rule quoted here.
- CSDE Procedures and Practices ManualHow the count runs.
- Connecticut General Statutes, chapter 164Section 10-76d in full.
- The federal evaluation rule (34 CFR 300.301)The floor every state builds on.