Nevada Child Find: How to Get Your Child Evaluated in Clark and Washoe County

Your child is struggling. You've raised concerns with the teacher multiple times. You've been told to wait, to watch, to try some strategies at home. Months later, nothing has changed — and you're starting to wonder if your child qualifies for special education services.

Here's what most Nevada parents don't realize: you don't have to wait for the school to notice. You can formally request an evaluation yourself, and the district is legally required to respond.

That legal obligation is called Child Find.

What Child Find Actually Means

Child Find is a federal mandate under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Every Nevada school district — including Clark County School District (CCSD) and Washoe County School District (WCSD) — is legally required to proactively identify, locate, and evaluate all children with suspected disabilities who reside in their geographic boundaries.

"All children" is broader than most people assume. Child Find covers:

• Students enrolled in public schools
• Students attending private schools within the district's boundaries
• Children who are home-schooled
• Preschool-age children (age 3 through 21)

The obligation doesn't wait for the child to fail. If a disability is suspected — by a parent, a teacher, or any educational professional — the district has a legal duty to act.

How to Request an Evaluation in Nevada

The most important step you can take is submitting a written request. A verbal conversation with a teacher doesn't start any legal clocks. An email or letter does.

Address your written request to the school principal or the site-based special education contact (in CCSD, this is the Special Education Facilitator or SEIF). State clearly:

• You are requesting a comprehensive special education evaluation for your child
• The specific concerns you've observed (academic, behavioral, speech, sensory, or developmental)
• Your child's name, grade, and school

Keep a copy. Note the exact date you sent it.

Once the district receives your written request, they must take one of two actions:

1. Agree to evaluate: They send you a Prior Written Notice (PWN) and a consent form for the evaluation
2. Formally refuse: They send a PWN explaining in specific detail why they are declining, and provide a copy of your procedural safeguards

If they agree, you sign the consent form. The 45-school-day evaluation clock starts from the date you sign — not the date you submitted the request. Districts have an incentive to delay issuing the consent form. Document when you made your request, and follow up in writing if you haven't received a consent form within 10 school days.

Clark County Child Find (CCSD)

CCSD operates a dedicated Child Find Department that covers the entire Las Vegas metropolitan area. For children under age 5, the process may route through CCSD's early childhood programs before a school-based evaluation.

The sheer size of CCSD creates predictable bottlenecks. The district's psychological services department handles evaluations for over 300,000 enrolled students, and parents in the Las Vegas area have consistently reported evaluations that stretch to the full 45-school-day limit. Bilingual evaluations face additional delays due to an acute shortage of bilingual school psychologists — the district uses interpreters to compensate, but the wait times remain longer.

If you're in Clark County and your request is sitting unanswered, escalate in writing. After the principal and SEF, the next level is the Region Support Team assigned to your school's geographic area. These teams have authority to intervene and can compel action at the school level.

Washoe County Child Find (WCSD)

WCSD's Child Find situation has been a documented crisis. Parent accounts in Reno-area community forums have described waitlists stretching up to 18 months for evaluations, with individual school psychologists reportedly covering up to 350 students across multiple campuses.

This is a staffing crisis, not a policy crisis. WCSD acknowledges the shortage — the district's 2025 lawsuit against the Nevada Department of Education over special education funding was partly driven by the inability to adequately staff services for students with the most complex needs.

As a parent, the staffing shortage doesn't change your legal rights. It does mean you need to be more persistent. Submit your request in writing, track the date, and follow up consistently if the consent form doesn't arrive promptly. If you're on a "waitlist," understand that the 45-school-day legal deadline starts from the date you sign — the district has every legal reason to delay your signature.

The 45-School-Day Evaluation Timeline

This is the most important deadline in the Nevada evaluation process. Under NAC Chapter 388, once you sign the evaluation consent form, CCSD or WCSD has 45 school days to:

• Complete all required assessments (cognitive, academic, speech-language, behavioral, occupational — whatever is relevant to your child's suspected disabilities)
• Convene an eligibility team meeting
• Determine whether your child qualifies for special education services

School days means exactly that. Weekends don't count. Winter break doesn't count. Spring break doesn't count. Summer doesn't count. If your child's school year has 180 school days, 45 school days is roughly a quarter of the year — but it stretches across calendar months because of breaks.

Track this deadline yourself. Mark the date you signed the consent form on your calendar and count forward 45 school days. If the deadline passes without a completed evaluation, you have grounds to file a formal state complaint with the Nevada Department of Education.

What They Cannot Do: MTSS Cannot Block an Evaluation

This is one of the most common and damaging misconceptions in Nevada schools.

MTSS (Multi-Tiered System of Supports), sometimes called RTI (Response to Intervention), is an educational framework that provides tiered academic and behavioral interventions within general education. It is a useful tool. It is not a prerequisite for a special education evaluation.

Parents in Nevada are frequently told — sometimes by well-meaning teachers, sometimes by administrators who should know better — that their child must complete one, two, or three tiers of MTSS interventions before the district can evaluate them. This is legally incorrect.

OSEP Memorandum 11-07 from the U.S. Department of Education explicitly prohibits using MTSS to delay or deny a special education evaluation. The Nevada Department of Education's own guidance echoes this. If a parent requests an evaluation, or if staff suspect a disability, the evaluation process must begin. MTSS interventions can continue simultaneously — but they cannot act as a gate.

If you're being told to "wait and see how the interventions work" before an evaluation is possible, put your evaluation request in writing immediately.

After the Evaluation: Eligibility and the IEP Timeline

Once all assessments are complete, an eligibility team — which must include you — meets to review the data. Eligibility in Nevada requires two findings:

1. The student meets the criteria for at least one of Nevada's 13 recognized disability categories (Specific Learning Disability, Autism, Health Impairment for ADHD, Emotional Disturbance, Speech/Language Impairment, and others)
2. Because of that disability, the student requires specially designed instruction

If your child is found eligible, the district has 30 days to develop the IEP.

If your child is not found eligible, you receive a Prior Written Notice explaining the decision and your rights to challenge it. You can request an Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE) at district expense if you disagree with the evaluation's conclusions.

When to Push Back

Most evaluation delays in Nevada aren't malicious — they're the result of genuine staffing shortages and overwhelming caseloads. But your child doesn't get those months back. The law exists precisely because districts without external pressure will prioritize their operational constraints over individual students' needs.

Push back when:

• You've submitted a written request and haven't received a consent form within 10 school days
• The district is telling you MTSS must be completed first
• You've signed the consent form and 45 school days are approaching without a meeting being scheduled
• The eligibility determination doesn't match what private evaluators or doctors have found

The Nevada IEP & 504 Blueprint includes the exact language for a written evaluation demand letter, a timeline tracking worksheet for CCSD and WCSD cases, and the Nevada state law citations that give your written requests legal weight. Private advocates in Nevada charge $300 or more per hour for this same knowledge — the Blueprint puts it in your hands before the first meeting.

The Bottom Line

Child Find is your legal entry point into Nevada's special education system. It exists precisely because the obligation to identify and evaluate children with disabilities cannot be left to the district's convenience. In CCSD and WCSD, where staffing shortages create real-world delays, knowing how to exercise that right in writing — and how to escalate when the district doesn't respond — is the practical difference between getting an evaluation done this school year or watching another year slip by.

Start with a written request. Track every date. Count your 45 school days from the moment you sign.

See more United States guides →