How to Request a Special Education Evaluation in South Dakota

Your child has been struggling for months. You have talked to the teacher at conferences, you have tried tutoring, you have adjusted the homework routine. Nothing is working. You are starting to wonder if there is something more going on — a learning disability, ADHD, a processing issue, something the classroom is not equipped to address without additional support.

The next step is a special education evaluation. But many South Dakota parents do not know how to formally request one, what the school is legally required to do once they ask, or what to do when the district pushes back.

This is the process, step by step.

Start With a Written Request

The most important thing to know about requesting a special education evaluation in South Dakota is this: it must be in writing.

An oral request — a conversation with the teacher, a mention at a parent-teacher conference, a phone call to the principal — does not trigger the district's legal obligations. The formal timeline that the district must comply with begins when they receive a written request. Without a written record, the district can claim no formal request was made, and the evaluation timeline has not started.

Your request does not need to use legal language or cite administrative rules. It needs to include:

• Your child's full name, grade, and school
• A description of the specific concerns — academic struggles, behavioral challenges, sensory issues, language delays, anything that is affecting your child's ability to access education
• A clear statement that you are requesting a comprehensive evaluation for special education eligibility in all areas of suspected disability
• Your name, contact information, and the date

Send the request in a way you can document. Email works — screenshot the sent message and note the date. If you send a physical letter, deliver it by certified mail or hand-deliver it and ask for a date-stamped copy. When you have written proof of the date your request was received, you have the starting point for the evaluation timeline.

The South Dakota Parent Connection has a sample letter requesting an evaluation on their website at sdparent.org that you can adapt.

What Happens After You Submit the Request

Once the district receives your written evaluation request, it must issue you a Parental Prior Written Notice (PPWN) describing what it proposes to do and why. If the district agrees that evaluation is appropriate, the PPWN will outline the proposed evaluation plan — what areas will be assessed, what tools will be used.

Then the district needs your informed written consent to proceed. You will receive an evaluation consent form that describes the specific assessments the district plans to conduct. Read this carefully. If you believe additional areas should be evaluated — for example, the school plans to assess reading achievement but you are also concerned about attention regulation and social-emotional development — you can request those be added before you sign.

Once you sign the consent form, the 25-school-day clock starts.

The 25-School-Day Evaluation Timeline

Under ARSD 24:05:25:03, South Dakota gives school districts exactly 25 school days from parental consent to complete the full individual evaluation. This is a strict legal deadline, not a target or a guideline.

The use of "school days" rather than "calendar days" is deliberate, and it matters more in South Dakota than in most other states.

The Four-Day School Week Complication

A growing number of South Dakota's rural and frontier school districts have adopted four-day school weeks — typically Monday through Thursday — to address teacher recruitment challenges, reduce operating costs, and manage transportation across vast distances. As of the 2024-2025 school year, this schedule is common across many western and central South Dakota districts.

When your district is on a four-day week, 25 school days takes substantially longer in calendar terms:

• A five-day-week district completes 25 school days in exactly 5 calendar weeks (excluding holidays)
• A four-day-week district needs at least 6.25 calendar weeks to accumulate 25 school days — and typically more when you account for any school holidays that fall on scheduled days

This is not a loophole. It is simply how "school days" works mathematically. If you are calculating when the evaluation should be completed, you need to know your specific district's schedule and count only the days school is actually in session.

If you are unsure whether your district operates a four-day week, the district's website or main office will confirm it. Then count forward 25 school days from your signed consent date to determine the legal deadline.

What a Comprehensive Evaluation Includes

"Evaluation" in the special education context does not mean one test. South Dakota regulations and IDEA require a comprehensive, individualized evaluation that uses multiple sources of data and assesses the child in all areas of suspected disability.

A full evaluation typically includes:

Cognitive assessment: A standardized measure of intellectual functioning administered by the school psychologist. This helps the team understand processing strengths and weaknesses.

Academic achievement testing: Standardized assessments of reading, writing, and math skills compared to grade-level norms. This identifies discrepancies between a child's potential and their actual academic performance.

Language and communication assessment: If speech, language, or communication is an area of concern, a speech-language pathologist assesses expressive and receptive language, articulation, fluency, and pragmatic skills.

Behavioral and emotional assessment: Rating scales, observations, and sometimes structured interviews if emotional regulation, attention, or behavior is a concern.

Adaptive behavior assessment: Measures how the child functions in everyday life — self-care, social skills, community participation — relative to same-age peers.

Motor assessment: If gross or fine motor concerns are present, occupational or physical therapy assessments are included.

Health and developmental history: A review of medical history, developmental milestones, and existing evaluations or diagnoses. This is typically gathered through parent interview and review of existing records.

Classroom observation: At least one direct observation of the child in their current educational setting by a member of the evaluation team.

The key legal standard is that no single measure or test score can be the sole basis for determining eligibility. The team must consider multiple data points, including parent input, teacher observation, and formal assessment results.

In Rural South Dakota: Who Actually Conducts the Evaluation

In most rural South Dakota school districts, the evaluation is not conducted by a district employee. It is conducted by specialists from the regional special education cooperative that your district belongs to.

South Dakota has 13 state-approved cooperatives, including the Black Hills Special Services Cooperative (BHSSC) in the west, the North Central Special Education Cooperative (NCSEC) in the northeast, and the Northeast Educational Services Cooperative (NESC) in the northeastern corner. These cooperatives provide itinerant specialists — school psychologists, speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists — who travel among member districts and share their time across many schools simultaneously.

This is why evaluation scheduling can be particularly complicated in rural areas. If the cooperative's school psychologist serves 15 districts and is booked two weeks out, your district may face real scheduling pressure to complete the evaluation within the 25-school-day window. This is the district's problem to solve — not yours. The 25-school-day obligation falls on the Local Educational Agency (the LEA, your school district), regardless of the cooperative's schedule.

If the evaluation is going to run late because of cooperative staffing issues, the district must reach out to you proactively and request an agreed written extension. You are not obligated to agree to an extension, and the district cannot unilaterally extend the timeline.

The Eligibility Meeting

After the evaluation is complete, the district convenes an eligibility meeting — typically within the same 25-school-day window, though the IEP meeting to develop services can occur within 30 days after eligibility is determined.

The eligibility meeting includes you, the school psychologist or evaluator, and other relevant professionals. The team reviews all assessment results and makes two determinations:

1. Does the child meet criteria for one or more of the 13 disability categories under ARSD 24:05:24.01?
2. Does the disability cause the child to require specialized instruction (not just accommodation) to make progress in the general curriculum?

Both must be true for the child to be found eligible for special education and an IEP.

If eligibility is confirmed, the team moves toward developing the IEP. If eligibility is denied, you receive a written notice explaining why and a description of your procedural rights.

What If the School Refuses to Evaluate?

If the district receives your written request and declines to evaluate, it must provide you with a PPWN explaining the refusal — including what data the decision is based on and what other options were considered. This is a legally required document, not an informal conversation.

A refusal to evaluate is not the end of the road. You have several options:

Request an explanation in writing. If the district declines verbally, follow up with an email asking them to provide the Prior Written Notice required by law. A district that refuses to evaluate without issuing a PPWN is itself in violation.

Request an Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE) at public expense. If the district has conducted some evaluation but you disagree with its conclusions — including a conclusion that no evaluation is warranted — you can request an IEE. The district must either fund the independent evaluation or immediately file for due process.

File a state complaint. If the district is refusing to evaluate a child who, based on available data, reasonably appears to have a disability, you can file a formal state complaint with the SD DOE Office of Special Education Programs. The SD DOE will investigate and must issue a resolution within 60 days. This complaint is free to file and does not require an attorney.

Contact South Dakota Parent Connection or Disability Rights South Dakota. SDPC (sdparent.org) can help you understand the process and prepare written communications. DRSD (drsdlaw.org) provides free legal assistance for eligible families and can assess whether the refusal to evaluate constitutes a violation of your child's rights.

It is worth noting that districts cannot use resource constraints as a justification for refusing evaluation. A school that says "we don't have the staff to evaluate right now" or "evaluations are only done in the fall" is not offering legally valid reasons. The obligation exists regardless of staffing or scheduling preferences.

Disagreeing With the Evaluation Results

You do not have to accept the district's evaluation as accurate or complete. If you believe the evaluation missed important areas, used inappropriate assessment tools, or produced results that do not reflect your child's actual functioning, you can:

Request an IEE at public expense. As described above, the district must either fund an outside evaluation from a qualified independent examiner or file for due process to prove its evaluation was appropriate.

Submit your own information. You can provide the team with private evaluations, medical records, therapy assessments, or any other documentation you have obtained independently. The team must consider this information.

Write a dissenting statement. If you believe eligibility was incorrectly denied, document your disagreement in writing at the eligibility meeting and request that it become part of the record.

Pursue mediation or due process. If the evaluation dispute is part of a broader disagreement about your child's program, South Dakota's dispute resolution pathways — including free mediation through SD DOE — are available.

After Eligibility Is Confirmed: What Comes Next

If your child is found eligible, the IEP team must meet to develop the initial IEP. In South Dakota, this meeting should happen promptly after the eligibility determination — typically within 30 days. At the IEP meeting, the team will review present levels of performance, set annual goals, determine services, and place your child in the least restrictive appropriate educational environment.

You are a full member of that team. You have the right to see the draft IEP before the meeting, to bring a support person or advocate, to ask questions until you understand what is being proposed, and to take time before signing.

Navigating the evaluation process in South Dakota requires knowing not just the federal rules but how they interact with the state's four-day-week districts, cooperative delivery structure, and rural service gaps. The South Dakota IEP & 504 Blueprint provides a step-by-step walkthrough of the full process, including what to put in your written evaluation request, how to calculate the 25-school-day deadline for your specific district, and what to do when the school's timeline slips.

The evaluation is the gateway to every service your child is entitled to. Getting it right from the start matters.

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