Kansas Child Find Obligations: When the School Must Identify Your Child

Special education does not begin when a parent suspects a disability and requests an evaluation. It actually begins — legally — the moment a district has reason to suspect a child may have a disability that is affecting their educational performance. That proactive obligation is called Child Find, and it places an affirmative duty on Kansas school districts to identify children who may need services, whether or not anyone has asked.

What Child Find Requires

Under IDEA and Kansas law, every school district has an ongoing obligation to identify, locate, and evaluate all children within its jurisdiction who may have a disability and need special education services. This includes:

• Children enrolled in public schools
• Children enrolled in private schools
• Homeschooled children
• Children who are homeless or in the foster care system
• Children who have not yet reached school age but live within the district's boundaries

The obligation is not passive. A district cannot simply wait for parents to come forward. If teachers or other school staff have reason to suspect a child has a disability — based on observations, academic performance, behavioral patterns, or health information — the district has a legal obligation to act on that information.

Child Find in Kansas: The 60-School-Day Requirement

Once a district determines that a Child Find evaluation is warranted and obtains parental consent, the same 60-instructional-school-day evaluation timeline applies that governs all Kansas special education evaluations under K.A.R. 91-40-8. The clock starts from the date of written parental consent.

KSDE tracks Child Find compliance as a state performance indicator (Indicator 11). Districts that repeatedly miss the 60-school-day timeline face monitoring and corrective action requirements from the state.

When Child Find Has Been Violated

Child Find violations typically fall into two categories:

The district knew and did nothing. A teacher documented behavioral concerns in student records for two years. A school counselor flagged academic difficulties. Referral to special education was never made. If documented evidence exists that school staff had reason to suspect a disability but failed to act, that is a Child Find violation.

The district delayed evaluation after receiving a parent request. While parents requesting evaluations have their own procedural pathway, Child Find operates as a separate obligation. If a district sits on a referral — even from its own staff — without proceeding to evaluation, it may be violating its Child Find duty.

The district failed to identify a child on a 504 Plan as potentially needing an IEP. A 504 Plan can be appropriate for some students. But if a child is placed on a 504 and continues to struggle significantly despite accommodations, and no one evaluates whether the child also needs special education services, that can reflect a Child Find failure. The existence of a 504 does not discharge Child Find obligations if IEP eligibility has not been evaluated.

Child Find for Private School and Homeschooled Children

Kansas school districts have Child Find obligations that extend beyond their enrolled public school population. If you homeschool your child or send them to private school, the local public school district is still required to have a system for identifying children who may need special education services.

However, the services available to private school children under IDEA are different from what public school children receive. Private school students found eligible for special education are entitled to "equitable participation" in special education services, not the full FAPE entitlement that applies to public school students. Kansas goes further than federal law in one respect: state law extends FAPE obligations to exceptional children voluntarily enrolled in private nonprofit schools, provided parents request those services.

If you homeschool your child and suspect a disability, you can request that the public school district conduct an evaluation. The evaluation is free, and the district's Child Find obligation extends to your child regardless of where they are educated.

How to Use Child Find as a Parent

Parents can invoke Child Find in several ways:

Request an evaluation in writing. Even if you are not certain your child qualifies, a written request triggers the district's obligation to respond — either by agreeing to evaluate or by providing Prior Written Notice explaining why it is refusing and what evidence it relied on. Simply asking verbally does not create an enforceable record.

Document school staff concerns. If teachers have been raising concerns at parent-teacher conferences, request that those concerns be put in writing. A teacher's written observation that a child is significantly below grade level, has difficulty attending, or has behavioral challenges that interfere with learning is evidence that Child Find obligations may be triggered.

File a formal KSDE state complaint if evaluation is refused. If you believe your child meets Child Find criteria — the school has reason to suspect a disability — and the district has refused to evaluate or has not acted on referrals from its own staff, a formal state complaint with KSDE's ECSETS team is your enforcement mechanism. KSDE tracks Child Find as a compliance indicator and takes complaints about evaluation refusals seriously.

Child Find and the General Education Intervention Requirement

Kansas requires districts to implement general education interventions (GEI/MTSS) before referring a child for evaluation — with an exception when the interventions are deemed inadequate or when the parent and district agree immediate evaluation is appropriate. This can create friction with Child Find.

A district that has been aware of a child's significant learning difficulties for two years, has implemented multiple MTSS cycles without success, and has still not referred the child for evaluation is almost certainly in violation of its Child Find obligations. The MTSS requirement is not an unlimited delay mechanism. If interventions are not working, the district's obligation to identify children who need special education accelerates — it does not recede.

If your child has been in an MTSS process for an extended period without meaningful progress and without an evaluation referral, document the intervention history and send a written request for evaluation invoking both your parental request rights and the district's Child Find obligation.

The Kansas IEP & 504 Advocacy Playbook includes an evaluation request letter with citations to Kansas's Child Find requirements and the 60-school-day timeline — written to make the district's obligation clear from the first sentence.

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