Virginia starts the IEP clock at the referral, not at consent
Anyone can refer a child in Virginia, and the referral has to land with the school division’s special education administrator. From the day that administrator has it, the division has 65 business days to finish testing and decide eligibility. 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.
How a child gets an IEP in Virginia
One desk starts the count
Put that administrator’s name on the letter and use the word referral. Virginia counts an oral one, but a dated email fixes the day.
The administrator’s first move
Within three business days that administrator opens the evaluation, sends it to a school-based team, or denies it.
The clock is already running
Your consent still gates the testing, so return it fast; every day it sits comes out of the division’s 65 business days.
Two days before the meeting
The evaluation report is yours two business days before the eligibility group meets, so ask for it once a date exists.
The evaluation request letter writes step one for you, in the words a district answers.
Parent Ombudsman for Special Education — The Virginia Department of Education keeps a neutral ombudsman for parents, and reaching one takes no form and no complaint.
What qualifies a child in Virginia
Virginia hands the call to an eligibility group that includes you, and it writes down what its decision rested on.
- Autism, a specific learning disability, or the health impairment category that names attention deficit disorder.
- A documented effect on educational performance, drawn from more than one source of data.
- Needing only a related service leaves a child ineligible, unless Virginia calls it special education.
What the rule says
The state wrote it this way:
“Ensure that all evaluations are completed and that decisions about eligibility are made within 65 business days of the receipt of the referral by the special education administrator or designee …”
8VAC20-81-60 B 1 g
A finished set of assessments does not close this count; the eligibility decision belongs inside it too.
The deadlines Virginia 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Administrator acts on a referral | 3 business days | The administrator’s own receipt starts them, and a denial arrives as prior written notice.8VAC20-81-50 D 3 b |
| School-based team meets | 10 business days | Counted from the team’s own receipt, and a referral left at the school reaches the administrator after this meeting.8VAC20-81-50 D 5 a |
| Evaluations done, eligibility decided | 65 business days | The same receipt starts it, and a school-based team review runs inside it, not beside it.8VAC20-81-60 B 1 g |
| Evaluation report in your hands | 2 business days before | The eligibility meeting date is what it counts back from, so business days push it into the previous week.8VAC20-81-70, subsection D |
| Eligibility to a written IEP | 30 calendar days | These calendar days start at the eligibility finding, and implementation waits on your signed consent.8VAC20-81-110 B 2 b |
| Draft IEP sent ahead | 2 business days ahead | The IEP meeting date sets it, and only when the division brings a draft at all.8VAC20-81-110 E 8 |
| Complaint answered by the state | 60 calendar days | Virginia counts from its receipt of a valid complaint about an action inside the past year.8VAC20-81-200 D 4 c and B 6 |
What Virginia adds to the federal floor
IDEA is the floor, not the ceiling. What a state adds on top is what you can ask for by name.
- Special education from age two
- IDEA guarantees a free appropriate public education at age three. Virginia’s 8VAC20-81-60 reaches children from two, so a preschool referral counts.
- Interventions cannot stall it
- Federal law lets a division try interventions first. Virginia adds that they shall not needlessly delay an evaluation while the 65 runs.
- A draft before the meeting
- No federal rule promises a parent the draft. Virginia requires it two business days ahead whenever the division brings one.
If the school says no
Silence is measurable in Virginia, because the administrator owed you one of three answers inside three business days.
- Ask which of the three moves the administrator made, and what date the referral was received.
- If the date has passed, ask which exception or written extension the division is counting on.
- Virginia’s department investigates a written complaint about these dates, and you attach the letter and the notices.
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.
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Where this comes from
- Virginia regulation 8VAC20-81-60, referral for initial evaluationThe sentence quoted here.
- Virginia regulation 8VAC20-81-110, the IEP and its meetingsWhere the draft rule sits.
- Virginia Department of Education: special education programsThe office and its forms.
- The federal evaluation rule (34 CFR 300.301)The floor every state builds on.