How to Request a Special Education Evaluation in Michigan: Triggering the 30-Day Clock

You've watched your child struggle. You've asked the teacher. You've attended general education intervention meetings. Now you want the school to formally evaluate your child for special education. The request itself — how you make it and what you put in writing — determines whether the 30-day Michigan evaluation clock starts ticking or whether the district can delay indefinitely.

Why Michigan's Timeline Is Faster Than Federal Law

Under federal IDEA, school districts have 60 calendar days from parental consent to complete an initial evaluation. Michigan's MARSE sets a stricter standard: 30 school days from the date of parental consent.

Within those 30 school days, the district must:

1. Complete a comprehensive evaluation through the Multidisciplinary Evaluation Team (MET)
2. Convene the IEPC (IEP team) to review the evaluation results
3. Issue an offer of FAPE if the student is found eligible

Once the IEPC makes its first IEP offer and the parent consents to services, the district has a maximum of 15 school days to begin implementing services.

These timelines are enforceable. If a district violates them, you have the basis for a complaint to MDE's Office of Special Education. But none of this applies until you have submitted a written evaluation request and the district has received written parental consent.

Why Verbal Requests Don't Work

Many parents ask for an evaluation verbally — in a conversation with a teacher, at a parent-teacher conference, or during an informal school meeting. Verbal requests hold no procedural weight in Michigan unless the district documents them in writing. Some districts do this; most don't.

If there is no written record of a request, there is no compliance clock. The district's 30 school days never starts. The protection MARSE provides evaporates.

Write the request. Keep a copy. Document how it was delivered.

What to Include in the Evaluation Request Letter

The evaluation request does not need to be long. It does need to contain specific language. Address it to the building principal and the special education director, sent simultaneously by email (request a read receipt) or delivered by hand with a signed receipt.

Include:

• Your child's full name, date of birth, grade, and school building
• A clear statement that you are requesting a comprehensive special education evaluation under IDEA and MARSE Rule R 340.1721
• A brief description of your concerns — not a diagnosis, but observable behaviors, academic difficulties, or functional impacts you've witnessed
• A statement that you understand the district will need your written consent before the evaluation begins, and that you intend to provide it promptly
• The date of the letter

Citing MARSE R 340.1721 explicitly signals to the special education department that you know the 30-school-day clock exists. Districts respond differently to parents who demonstrate procedural literacy.

After You Submit: The REED and Consent Process

After receiving your request, the district should initiate a Review of Existing Evaluative Data (REED). The REED is a review of all existing data — classroom observations, prior assessments, teacher reports, records from previous schools — to determine what additional assessments are needed to make an eligibility determination.

The district must provide you with written consent documents identifying the areas it proposes to evaluate and the assessments it will conduct. Read the consent form carefully before signing. The areas listed on the consent form define the scope of the evaluation the district is committing to conduct. If you believe additional areas should be assessed, write them into the consent document or attach a written request identifying those areas.

The 30-school-day clock for evaluation starts on the date of your written consent — not the date of your initial request.

Who Conducts the Evaluation and What It Must Include

The evaluation is conducted by the Multidisciplinary Evaluation Team (MET). MARSE specifies the required composition of the MET depending on the suspected disability category:

• Cognitive Impairment evaluations require a school psychologist
• Emotional Impairment evaluations require a school psychologist or psychiatrist and a school social worker
• Specific Learning Disability evaluations require a process based on the student's response to scientific, research-based interventions (RTI)
• Autism Spectrum Disorder evaluations have their own required components under MARSE R 340.1715

If the MET is not constituted correctly for the suspected disability, the evaluation can be challenged. This is one reason IEEs are requested — the school assessed the wrong things, with the wrong professionals, and missed the actual disability.

The evaluation must be comprehensive: it cannot be limited to a single test or a single domain. If your written request mentioned concerns about both academic achievement and social-emotional functioning, the evaluation should address both.

If the District Refuses to Evaluate

Districts sometimes decline to conduct the evaluation, claiming the student's needs are being met through general education interventions (RTI tiers), or that a 504 plan is sufficient, or that they don't believe a disability is present. Under MARSE and IDEA, the district can decline to evaluate — but it must provide you with Prior Written Notice of that refusal. The PWN must explain why the district is refusing, what data it relied on to make that determination, and what alternatives it considered.

If the district refuses verbally without providing PWN, demand the PWN in writing. If the refusal seems unjustified — the student is failing, showing clear disability characteristics, or has external clinical diagnoses that the school has been ignoring — the next step is an MDE state complaint for failure to meet its Child Find obligation under MARSE.

After the Evaluation: What Happens at the IEPC

If the MET finds the student eligible, the IEPC must convene and develop an IEP. The IEP must include PLAAFP (Present Levels of Academic Achievement and Functional Performance), measurable annual goals directly tied to the documented deficits, and a specific matrix of special education and related services.

If the MET finds the student ineligible, you have the right to request an IEE at public expense under MARSE R 340.1723c if you disagree with the findings. The district has seven calendar days to respond by agreeing to fund the IEE or initiating due process to defend its evaluation.

The evaluation request process — from the written letter through consent through the eligibility meeting — is documented in detail, with specific MARSE citations and a template request letter, in the Michigan IEP & 504 Advocacy Playbook.

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