Rule 160-4-7 and the SST: Georgia’s special education laws, read beside IDEA
State Board Rule 160-4-7 is Georgia’s layer on IDEA, and the Georgia Department of Education enforces it. The thing Georgia most changes is who may refer: a parent’s letter counts beside the Student Support Team’s, and 60 calendar days run from consent. 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.
Georgia’s laws, rule by rule
Twelve eligibility areas, one Team
160-4-7-.05(1), (2)(a), (3)Twelve eligibility areas for a child “from 3 through 21 years of age,” decided by qualified professionals and the parents as the Eligibility Team.
The eligibility report states each component, explains a no, and your copy costs nothing.
The SST and the bypass
160-4-2-.32(2)(d), (3)(a)A general education rule runs the SST; parents “shall be invited to participate in all meetings,” and staff and parents may find reasonable cause to bypass it.
IDEA has no pre-referral team; a bypass must be justified in the record.
Whose referral starts the count
160-4-7-.04(1)(b)Your referral and the SST’s share one line in the evaluation rule; 60 calendar days then run from consent, minus closures of “five consecutive school days.”
Nothing federal says who may refer; a stretched count needs a documented extenuating circumstance.
What Georgia owes in writing
160-4-7-.09(5)(a), (4)(a)Written notice arrives “a reasonable time before the LEA proposes” a change and when it refuses one; disagree with its evaluation and the LEA funds another.
A spoken no is not notice; the Parent Rights booklet lists the rest.
The ten-day discipline line
160-4-7-.10(2)(d), (3)(a)A removal beyond ten consecutive school days changes placement; the file review, “including the child’s IEP,” then happens with you inside ten school days.
Bring the services log; an unimplemented IEP is a manifestation by rule.
GaDOE, mediation and the hearing
160-4-7-.12(1)(a), (c); (2)(f); (3)(a)Sixty calendar days from GaDOE’s receipt to act on a complaint about the past year; “the State shall bear the cost” of mediating; a due process request covers two years.
The rule sends your complaint copy to the district and to GaDOE together.
What the rule says
The state wrote it this way:
“Once a child is referred for an evaluation by a parent or Student Support Team (SST) … the initial evaluation … must be completed within 60 calendar days of receiving parental consent for evaluation.”
160-4-7-.04(1)(b)
Your referral counts on its own here; nobody has to sponsor it before the clock starts.
The deadlines Georgia 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Consent to the eligibility decision | 60 calendar days | The LEA’s date stamp on your consent opens it; the disability finding sits inside.160-4-7-.04(1)(b) |
| Closures that pause it | 5 school days or more | A shutdown that long drops out with its touching weekends; so does off-contract summer.160-4-7-.04(1)(b)1.(i) and (ii) |
| Spring consent, no summer pause | 30 days before year end | Consent inside the window before the last school day keeps the sixty running.160-4-7-.04(1)(b)1.(ii)I. |
| The IEP that follows a yes | 30 days | The Eligibility Team’s yes starts it, and can fall later than the report.160-4-7-.06(13)(a) |
| District answers the state | 10 business days | Georgia’s division asks the district in writing; the count runs from that request.160-4-7-.12(1)(g)4. |
| GaDOE’s written findings | 60 calendar days | Counted from GaDOE’s own receipt; a district’s late answer does not move the date.160-4-7-.12(1)(c) |
How a child gets an IEP in Georgia
Email the director
One dated email to the special education director, copied to the principal, is the referral.
Ask which team has it
Ask in writing whether your referral went to the SST or straight to evaluation.
Consent, and the calendar
The LEA’s logged date on your consent form opens the count; ask which date it recorded.
The evaluation request letter writes step one for you, in the words a district answers.
Division for Special Education Services and Supports — Its director receives Georgia’s signed complaints, at the mailing address the dispute rule prints.
If the school says no
Two things look like a refusal here: a report that says no, and a referral that draws interventions instead of consent.
- When only interventions came back, ask for the SST documentation the rule lists: dates, plan, results.
- If the sixty ran out, ask the LEA for the documented extenuating circumstance its rule allows.
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.
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Where this comes from
- 160-4-7-.04, evaluations and reevaluationsSets the sixty.
- 160-4-2-.32, the Student Support TeamThe SST rule.
- GaDOE dispute resolution, complaints and mediationWhere complaints go.
- The federal evaluation rule (34 CFR 300.301)The floor every state builds on.