Delaware

1. Initial evaluation timeline

45 schooldays or 90 calendardays, whichever is less, from the public agency’s receipt of written parental consent - and the eligibility meeting must happen inside the same window. 14 DE Admin. Code § 925-2.3: “Within 45 school days or 90 calendar days, whichever is less, of receiving written parental consent, the initial evaluation shall be conducted; and the child’s eligibility for special education and related services shall be determined at a meeting convened for that purpose.” Delaware is therefore not on the federal 60-calendar-day rule (34 C.F.R. § 300.301(c)), and it packages the evaluation and the eligibility determination into one deadline - unlike states that run a separate eligibility clock.

The “whichever is less” clause is the whole game, and it cuts the opposite way from Pennsylvania and Indiana. The definitions section (14 DE Admin. Code § 922-3.0) defines “Day“ as ”calendar day unless otherwise indicated as business day or school day,“ and ”School day“ as ”any day, including a partial day that children are in attendance at school for instructional purposes.“ A pure school-day count would stall over the summer, as it does in Indiana. Delaware forecloses that: the 90-calendar-day cap is the outer bound, and it keeps running through summer, holidays, and snow days. Practical effect - consent signed in mid-May does not buy the district a fall report; the 90-calendar-day leg expires in mid-August. Conversely, during the school year the 45-school-day leg (roughly nine school weeks) will almost always expire first. Calendar both legs on receipt of consent and diary the earlier one.

Only two exceptions are written into the rule (14 DE Admin. Code § 925-2.4): the parent “repeatedly fails or refuses to produce the child for the evaluation,” or the child enrolls in a school of another public agency after the clock has begun and before the prior agency’s eligibility determination (and then only where the new agency is making sufficient progress and the parent and agency agree to a specific completion date). Note what is absent: no summer-recess tolling provision. The regulation also imposes a freestanding duty to evaluate “in a manner which precludes undue delay.” Written parental consent is what starts the clock - an oral parent request for an evaluation does not.

Sources: 14 Del. Admin. Code § 925-2.0 - Initial Evaluations (Cornell LII); 14 Del. Admin. Code § 925-2.0 (Justia); 14 Del. Admin. Code § 922-3.0 - Definitions (Cornell LII); Delaware Regulations - Title 14, 925.

2. Eligibility-to-IEP timeline

IEP meeting within 30 days of the determination that the child needs special education and related services. 14 DE Admin. Code § 925-10.2: “Each public agency shall ensure that a meeting to develop an IEP for a child is conducted within 30 days of a determination that the child needs special education and related services,” and that “[a]s soon as possible following development of the IEP, special education and related services are made available to the child in accordance with the child’s IEP.” Because § 922-3.0 defines “day” as a calendar day unless the rule says otherwise, this is 30 calendar days - it runs through breaks.

Stacked, the outer bound from consent to IEP meeting is therefore (45 school days or 90 calendar days, whichever is less) + 30 calendar days. Two downstream points worth calendaring:

• Initial services require separate written parental consent (14 DE Admin. Code § 925-1.0; 34 C.F.R. § 300.300(b)) - eligibility plus a signed IEP is not the same as consent to place.

• Transition planning starts early in Delaware. 14 DE Admin. Code § 925-7.0 requires the transition statement “[b]eginning with the earlier of the first IEP to be in effect when the child turns 14 or enters the 8th grade, or younger if determined appropriate by the IEP Team” - two years ahead of the federal age-16 floor (34 C.F.R. § 300.320(b)). A Delaware IEP for an eighth grader with no measurable postsecondary goals is facially deficient.

Delaware sets no separate advance or post-meeting interval for delivering the completed IEP. Section 925.9.7 and 34 C.F.R. § 300.322(f) require a no-cost copy; request it promptly, but do not state a numbered Delaware delivery deadline that the rule does not contain.

Sources: 14 Del. Admin. Code § 925-10.0 - When IEPs Shall be in Effect (Cornell LII); 14 Del. Admin. Code § 925-7.0 - Individualized Education Program (Cornell LII); 14 Del. Admin. Code § 922-3.0 (Cornell LII).