Timelines as they are written now are too long and even going with 60 business days that is a very long time for a child to go without receiving appropriate help.  But either way what one does not seem to consider in these time lines are that schools sometimes tend to wait until the day before the deadline to even try to set up the evaluation and then of course whoever is evaluating has to work it into their schedule which can be anywhere from several weeks to several months or more and then of course there is the waiting period of actually receiving a report back which again can take anywhere from a few weeks to a month or sometimes even longer so by the time your 60 or 65 business days are completed with all the delays you could be looking at least 9 months or over a year so basically a whole school year without services. What I would like to see is stronger penalties on the schools for not having the evaluations COMPLETED and completed means, setting up the evaluation, having the evaluation done and receving the report back within the 60 business days time line with the understanding that the school could request up to an additional 10 business days for receiving the reports from the evaluator should that be necessary if both the school and parents agree to the extension.  So the sooner the schools set up the evaluation the sooner the reports would all come back and the sooner the child would receive the benefits.

Carol Villars - Parent