Child Find in Kentucky: When Schools Must Evaluate Your Child

Most parents know they can request a special education evaluation. Fewer know that Kentucky school districts are required by law to look for children who may have a disability — even children the district has never heard from, and even children who are doing just fine academically. This requirement is called Child Find, and it is one of the most significant and frequently overlooked obligations in special education law.

If your child is struggling in school and the district hasn't raised the possibility of an evaluation, Child Find may be exactly the pressure point you need to open that conversation — or to document that the district failed its legal duty.

What Child Find Requires

Under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), every state must have a system to identify, locate, and evaluate all children with disabilities who are in need of special education and related services — including those who are enrolled in public schools, private schools, home schools, or not yet in school at all. Kentucky implements this obligation through its state administrative regulations and its broader early intervention framework.

The obligation applies to children from birth through age 21. For school-age children, it means that public school districts cannot wait for parents to come forward. If a teacher notices that a student is significantly struggling with reading despite adequate instruction, if a child is repeatedly sent to the office for behavior that may reflect an underlying disability, or if a student is being served through general education interventions without making expected progress — the district has an affirmative duty to consider whether a special education evaluation is warranted.

Child Find is not optional. It is a legal mandate, and the Kentucky Department of Education tracks districts' compliance with it as part of its annual determinations under IDEA.

Who Child Find Covers

One of the most common misconceptions about Child Find is that it only applies to students who are visibly struggling. In fact, the obligation extends to:

Academically passing students. A child who earns passing grades but relies on substantial compensatory strategies — copying from peers, avoiding written work, memorizing without comprehension — may still have an unidentified disability. The legal standard is whether the child may have a disability, not whether they are failing every class.

Privately placed students. Kentucky districts have Child Find obligations for children whose parents have chosen to enroll them in private schools within the district's geographic boundaries. The scope of services available to privately placed students is more limited than for public school students, but the identification obligation is real.

Home-schooled children. Families who have chosen to homeschool retain the ability to request evaluations through the local school district.

Children not yet in school. Through Kentucky's First Steps program and preschool services, the Child Find obligation reaches children from birth through age five who may have developmental delays or disabilities.

What Triggers the Obligation

Child Find does not require a parent's formal request to begin. Several events should, as a matter of law and good practice, prompt a district to consider referral for evaluation:

• A student's persistent, documented failure to respond to tiered interventions within a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) framework
• Teacher or staff concerns about possible cognitive, sensory, physical, emotional, or behavioral disabilities
• Information from parents about outside medical diagnoses or evaluations
• Disciplinary data showing a pattern of behavior that may reflect an unidentified disability
• Results of universal screenings administered to all students, such as reading fluency assessments or the Kentucky dyslexia screening mandate

When any of these signals are present, the district must consider whether an evaluation is warranted. If it determines that no evaluation is needed, it must document why and provide that documentation to the parent in the form of a Prior Written Notice.

The Difference Between Child Find and RTI

Districts in Kentucky — like districts nationally — often use tiered intervention systems (sometimes called Response to Intervention or MTSS) as a pathway to evaluation. In theory, a student who does not respond to increasingly intensive general education interventions gets referred for special education evaluation. In practice, some districts use the MTSS process as a prolonged delay tactic, keeping children in the intervention pipeline for a year or more without ever triggering a formal evaluation.

IDEA and Kentucky regulations are clear: the MTSS process cannot be used to delay or deny a special education evaluation. If you believe your child may have a disability and you request an evaluation in writing, the district cannot respond that your child must complete another round of interventions first. A written parental request for evaluation triggers the 60-school-day evaluation clock under 707 KAR 1:320, regardless of where the child is in an intervention sequence.

Parents in Eastern Appalachian counties and rural Western Kentucky need to be especially aware of this dynamic. Research on rural Kentucky special education has documented significant gaps in early identification, with rural districts often lacking the screening infrastructure and specialized staff that urban districts use to catch children early. The result is that rural children may reach third or fourth grade with unidentified learning disabilities, processing disorders, or behavioral conditions — not because the district assessed them and found nothing, but because no one looked.

How to Use Child Find as a Parent

If you believe your child may have a disability and the school has not initiated an evaluation process, you have two options: wait and hope, or act.

The more effective path is a written request for an evaluation submitted directly to the Director of Special Education or the building principal. Your letter should state that you suspect your child may have a disability — you do not need to name a specific diagnosis — and request a full and individual evaluation across all areas of suspected disability. Once the district receives this written request and you provide signed consent to evaluate, the 60-school-day clock starts.

If the district has missed clear Child Find signals — such as years of MTSS data showing a child who has never made adequate progress — you can also reference that history in a formal state complaint to the Kentucky Department of Education. The KDE is required to investigate Child Find failures as part of its IDEA monitoring obligations.

The Kentucky IEP & 504 Advocacy Playbook includes letter templates specifically designed to trigger the evaluation process under Kentucky's timelines and document Child Find failures when districts delay.

Get the complete toolkit at specialedstartguide.com/us/kentucky/advocacy/

Child Find and the Evaluation Timeline

Once you submit a written consent to evaluate, the district has 60 school days to complete the evaluation and hold an eligibility meeting. That deadline is firm under 707 KAR 1:320, subject only to a few narrow exceptions (if the parent repeatedly fails to make the child available for the evaluation, for example).

Track the school calendar. Count school days from the date consent was signed. If the 60-day deadline passes without a completed evaluation and an eligibility determination, that is a documented IDEA violation. You can file a state complaint and the district will be required to complete the evaluation immediately and may owe compensatory services for the delay.

Child Find exists because children do not always come with diagnostic labels attached. The law requires schools to look — and when they don't, parents have the tools to make them.

Explore the Kentucky IEP & 504 Advocacy Playbook

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