Written consent, then sixty school days: Kansas’s rules for exceptional children
Two Kansas texts sit on IDEA: the Special Education for Exceptional Children Act and the state board’s regulations, article 91-40. The word is exceptional: gifted children share the act, and sixty school days after written consent end at services. 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.
Kansas’s laws, rule by rule
Exceptional children, dyslexia named
K.S.A. 72-3404(g), (h), (z)“Exceptional children” are children with disabilities or gifted children of school age, and the disability list names dyslexia beside specific learning disabilities.
A gifted child gets an IEP under the same act once need is shown.
Past GEI with one letter
K.A.R. 91-40-7(c)(1)–(3)A board refers once general education interventions prove inadequate, or when a parent “requests and gives written consent for” an evaluation it finds appropriate.
Your written request is its own path past GEI; KSDE reads fifteen school days as reasonable.
Consent starts three jobs
K.A.R. 91-40-8(f), (h); 91-40-16(b)(2)Sixty school days from written consent cover the evaluation, the eligibility and IEP meeting, and implementation; the IEP itself is due thirty days after eligibility.
Services you consent to start within ten school days; date any IEP that has not.
Ten days before every IEP meeting
K.A.R. 91-40-17(a)(1), (2), (b)(1)Each IEP meeting is set at a “mutually agreed-upon time and place,” with written notice ten days ahead that lists the agency’s attendees by title.
Ask about any agency title missing from the notice before the meeting.
Long-term removal and the review
K.S.A. 72-3433(d)(2); K.A.R. 91-40-33(a)(1)Suspension or expulsion beyond ten consecutive school days counts as a new placement; the agency then asks “within 10 school days” whether the disability drove the behavior.
You and the agency choose the IEP members present; the behavior plan may be written there too.
Formal complaints, thirty days
K.A.R. 91-40-51(a), (b)(1), (c)(3)Anyone may file a signed formal complaint with the commissioner about the past year; the findings report is “sent to the parties within 30 days.”
Half the federal sixty days; the state pays for mediation, and hearing officers are licensed attorneys.
What the rule says
The state wrote it this way:
“the agency shall complete the following activities within 60 school days of the date the agency receives written parental consent for evaluation of a child: (1) Conduct the evaluation of the child; … and (3) implement the child’s IEP”
K.A.R. 91-40-8(f)
One deadline covers three jobs: the evaluation, the meeting and the first day of services.
The deadlines Kansas 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 |
|---|---|---|
| KSDE’s reasonable time to reply | 15 school days | KSDE’s memo counts from the day you asked, spoken or written, to notice.KSDE Process Handbook, chapter 1 |
| Consent to a working IEP | 60 school days | In school days from the agency’s receipt of your written consent; an extension needs your signature.K.A.R. 91-40-8(f) |
| Need found, IEP developed | 30 days | From the date the child is found to need special education, inside the sixty.K.A.R. 91-40-8(h) |
| Consented services begin | 10 school days | After you sign consent for services, unless the agency shows reasonable justification.K.A.R. 91-40-16(b)(2) |
| Disability and conduct reviewed | 10 school days | Starts at the decision to impose long-term suspension or expulsion, which waits for the review.K.S.A. 72-3433(d)(2) |
| Formal complaint report issued | 30 days | From KSDE’s receipt of the signed complaint; agreeing to mediate pauses it.K.A.R. 91-40-51(c)(3) |
How a child gets an IEP in Kansas
Consent in your letter
Send the district’s special education director a letter that requests an evaluation and grants written consent.
Expect two papers
Prior written notice arrives inside fifteen school days, proposing the evaluation or refusing it with reasons.
Watch the sixtieth school day
Evaluation, eligibility meeting and a working IEP land inside that count unless you signed extra time.
The evaluation request letter writes step one for you, in the words a district answers.
Special Education and Title Services, KSDE — The Topeka office takes formal complaints for the commissioner and pays the mediator once both sides agree.
If the school says no
Prior written notice with reasons is the Kansas no; a request that drew only more GEI is the other case.
- If day fifteen passed in silence, write the director again with the date you first asked.
- The commissioner’s formal complaint form asks for the regulation and the date; its report takes thirty days.
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.
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Where this comes from
- Kansas Special Education Process HandbookThe regulations, reprinted by KSDE.
- K.S.A. 72-3404, the act’s definitionsExceptional children, defined.
- KSDE dispute resolution formsMediation and formal complaints.
- The federal evaluation rule (34 CFR 300.301)The floor every state builds on.