Child Find Under IDEA

by Shannyn Riba, Esq.

School districts have an affirmative duty to identify, locate and evaluate children with disabilities.

This duty, known as “Child Find” applies to children residing within the district who have or are suspected of having disabilities and, therefore, may need special education.

Under the IDEA, districts have an obligation to evaluate all resident children between the ages 3 to 21 who are suspected of having a disability.

Child Find requires districts to seek out all such students, including private and/or religious school students, highly mobile children, migrant children, homeless children, wards of the state and students who are advancing from grade to grade despite potential disabilities.

Due to the affirmative nature of the Child Find obligation, Districts must identify and evaluate children suspected of having special needs regardless of whether the child’s parent requests that the district do so.

Even if the district is unaware of a particular student’s disability, it must satisfy it’s Child Find obligation if it should have suspected that a student might have a disability. If the District fails to meet this obligation, a hearing officer may determine that the District deprived the student of a FAPE.

This type of violation might entitle such a student to compensatory education or tuition reimbursement, which would be calculated from the time the District should have suspected that the student had a disability.

In making Child Find efforts with respect to privately-placed children, including children who reside in the district but attend boarding schools in another state, the district must make similar efforts to those it makes for the district’s public school children, and conduct such efforts within a similar timeframe.

Even if the state where a private school is located has Child Find responsibilities of its own and a student is currently enrolled in school in that state, the district of the child’s residence is not relieved from its obligation to evaluate the student and make a FAPE available.

The cost of conducting Child Find and any related assessments, including any necessary independent assessments, does not excuse the district from conducting appropriate Child Find inquiries.

It is important to note that parental refusal to allow the district to evaluate or to respond to a district’s request to evaluate may excuse the district from its obligation to engage in Child Find.

The district may, but is not required under Child Find, to pursue such an evaluation through legal processes.

Finally, it should be noted that even if a district identifies a child through Child Find as potentially having special needs, the child is not automatically eligible for services, the child is not automatically entitled to special education services.

If the child, after being identified and subsequently assessed, is determined not to have qualifying special needs, the child will not be eligible for services under IDEA.

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