School support: evaluations, ARD meetings and shadowing.
Texas runs special education on a strict clock, and the clock only starts when you put something in writing. Here is how the process works, what the deadlines actually are, and where our school shadowing service fits alongside it.
School eligibility and a medical diagnosis are two different things.
A school district decides whether your child qualifies for special education services under an educational disability category. A doctor or psychologist decides whether your child meets the medical criteria for autism. They use different standards, they are made by different people, and one does not automatically produce the other.
This trips families up constantly. A district can find your child eligible for services without a medical diagnosis, and your child can have a medical diagnosis and still be told they do not qualify for an IEP. Insurers, meanwhile, generally want the medical one before they will fund therapy. If you can, run both tracks at the same time.
15 school days, 45 school days, 30 calendar days.
Once you make a written request for an evaluation, your district is on a deadline. Note which ones are school days, holidays and summer change the arithmetic considerably.
You make a written request
Email or hand-deliver a dated, signed request for a full individual evaluation to the campus principal and the district's special education director. Keep a copy. A conversation at pickup does not start any clock; a dated document does.
The district responds
They must give you written notice saying whether they will evaluate. If yes, you get a consent form: sign and return it promptly, because the next clock starts on the day they receive it, not the day you got the form. If they refuse, that notice must explain why, and you have the right to challenge it.
The evaluation is completed
The district completes the Full Individual and Initial Evaluation and produces a written report. The deadline can extend if your child is absent three or more school days during the period, and there are separate end-of-year rules if consent lands close to the last instructional day.
The ARD meeting
Texas calls the IEP team the ARD committee, Admission, Review and Dismissal. This meeting decides whether your child is eligible and, if so, writes the IEP. You are a full member of that committee, not an observer.
The IEP starts
Services generally begin five school days after the ARD meeting, unless you agree to start sooner.
What to put in the written request.
It does not need to be long or legalistic. It needs to be dated, specific, and sent to the right people.
Date: [today's date] To: [Principal], [Campus] and [District Special Education Director] Re: Written request for a full individual and initial evaluation Student: [child's full name], DOB [date], Grade [x], ID [if known] I am requesting a full individual and initial evaluation of my child for special education eligibility and services, in all areas of suspected disability. My specific concerns are: [be concrete, "does not respond when the teacher calls his name", "leaves the classroom without permission two or three times a week", "reads fluently but cannot answer questions about what he read", "melts down at every transition after lunch"]. [If applicable:] My child has a medical diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder from [provider] dated [date]; a copy is attached. Please send me the consent form and written notice of the district's decision. I understand the district must respond within 15 school days of receiving this request. I can be reached at [phone] and [email]. Sincerely, [your name], parent/guardian of [child]
Send it by email so you have a timestamp, and ask for confirmation of receipt.
Going into the meeting with your ground prepared.
Ask for the draft in advance
Request the draft IEP and the evaluation report several days before the meeting. Reading a twenty-page document while eight professionals wait for you is not meaningful participation.
Bring someone
You are allowed to. A partner, a friend who takes notes, or an advocate. Being outnumbered changes how a meeting feels even when everyone in it means well.
Bring outside data
Your child's therapy progress reports, the diagnostic report, a video of a behavior the school has not seen. Independent data is persuasive in a way that a parent's description is not always allowed to be.
Ask for goals with numbers in them
“Will improve social skills” cannot be measured or disputed. “Will initiate a greeting with a peer in 4 of 5 opportunities” can. Push for the second kind.
You can pause the meeting
If you are not ready to agree, you can ask to recess and reconvene rather than signing under pressure. That is a normal and accepted request.
Know the alternative
If your child does not qualify for an IEP, ask about a Section 504 plan, a different route to accommodations for a child whose disability substantially limits a major life activity.
School shadowing.
For children placed in a mainstream classroom who are not yet managing there, one of our technicians can work alongside your child during the school day, supporting them, prompting the skills from their therapy plan in the setting where they matter most, and collecting data on what is actually happening in the room.
It is as much help for the teacher as for your child. A teacher with twenty-two other children cannot stop a lesson to give one child the extra prompt they need, however much they want to; a shadow can, without the lesson pausing and without anyone else noticing.
Two things worth being straight about. It is done discreetly: the aim is a child who fits in better, not one made more conspicuous by having an adult attached. And it needs the district's cooperation, which takes time to arrange, so raise it early rather than in the week you reach breaking point.
Shadowing is not a substitute for an IEP, and it is not us arguing with the school on your behalf. It sits alongside whatever the district provides. More on how ABA settings work →
Therapy hours and school hours.
Families of school-age children usually end up choosing between a full-day center program and school with therapy around the edges. There is no universally right answer, it depends on how much your child is currently getting out of a classroom, how intensive their goals are, and what your insurance has authorized.
What we can do is model it honestly with you: what a school day plus after-school in-home sessions looks like, what a center-based program with a planned transition into school looks like, and what each would mean for your child's goals. Ask us to walk through both.
15 school days
from your written request to the district's written response
45 school days
from your signed consent to a completed evaluation report
30 calendar days
from that report to the ARD meeting
5 school days
from the ARD meeting to services starting
Shadowing enquiries
Tell us the district, the campus and what is going wrong in class. School arrangements take lead time, so earlier is better.
Ask about shadowing
