Maine

1. Initial evaluation timeline

45 schooldays from the SAU’s receipt of written parental consent - and the eligibility determination has to happen inside that same window. Maine Unified Special Education Regulation (MUSER), 05-071 C.M.R. ch. 101, § V.1.A(3)(a)(i): “The initial evaluation must be conducted within 60 calendar days of receiving parental consent for the evaluation for children in the Child Development Services System, or within 45 school days of receiving parental consent for the evaluation for children 5-22 years of age under the responsibility of the public school system.“ And § V.1.A(3)(a)(ii): ”Following the completion of the initial evaluation, and within the above timeframe, the agency or SAU shall proceed to determine if the child is a child with a disability“ - i.e., the IEP Team eligibility meeting is inside the 45, not after it.

This is not the federal 60-calendar-day rule (34 C.F.R. § 300.301(c)), and the unit of measure is the whole ballgame. MUSER § II defines the terms: “School day means any day, including a partial day that children are in attendance at school for instructional purposes“; ”Day means calendar day unless otherwise indicated as business day or school day“; ”Business day means Monday through Friday, except for Federal and State holidays.“ Because only attendance days count, summer vacation, February and April breaks, holidays, snow days, and in-service days do not run the clock. Consent signed in late April will not produce an eligibility meeting 60 calendar days later - it can lawfully land in the following school year. Note the split system: a child in the Child Development Services (CDS) system (the state intermediate educational unit serving the under-5 population) gets 60 calendardays, so the same family can experience two different clocks on either side of the CDS-to-school transition.

Exceptions (§ V.1.A(3)(b)): (i) the child enrolls in a new SAU mid-evaluation and “the subsequent SAU is making sufficient progress to ensure a prompt completion of the evaluation, and the parent and subsequent SAU agree to a specific time”; and (ii) “the parent of a child repeatedly fails or refuses to produce the child for the evaluation.”

Front-end trap. A parent “may refer at any time” (§ IV.2.E(3)), but the referral must be in writing to the special education director or superintendent - “An oral referral shall be reduced to writing by designated school personnel” (§ IV.2.E(1)). Then: “the SAU must send a consent to evaluate form within 15 school days of the receipt of referral“ (§ IV.2.E). The 45-school-day clock does not start until that signed consent comes back, so a referral made in May can sit behind two separate school-day clocks.

Sources: 05-071 C.M.R. ch. 101, § V (Cornell LII); § II - Definitions (Cornell LII); § IV - Child find/referral (Cornell LII); MUSER emergency rule effective June 12, 2026 (Maine DOE PDF). Maine’s emergency rule is time-sensitive; check the rule-change page for a successor rule.

2. Eligibility-to-IEP timeline

30 calendar days from the determination of eligibility - but in Maine the two usually happen at one meeting. MUSER § IX (Individualized Plans): “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“ (tracking 34 C.F.R. § 300.323(c)(1)). Because MUSER § II makes ”day“ mean calendar day unless otherwise stated, this 30 is calendar - summer does not toll it, unlike the 45-school-day evaluation clock ahead of it. § IX also requires implementation “as soon as possible following the IEP Meeting.”

Two adjacent deadlines that matter more in practice than the 30 days:

• Evaluation report to the parent at least 3 days before the IEP Team meeting at which it will be discussed. MUSER § VI.2.A (same rule at § VI.1.A for IFSP meetings). Three calendar days, per the § II default - a Friday-afternoon email before a Monday meeting is a compliance question worth pressing.

• Transition planning starts early. The IEP Team must adopt a transition plan “during the child’s 9th grade school year, or the year in which the child turns 16 years of age (whichever comes first),“ updated annually - earlier than the federal age-16 floor (34 C.F.R. § 300.320(b)). MUSER § IX.

Sources: 05-071 C.M.R. ch. 101, § IX (Cornell LII); § VI (Cornell LII); § II - Definitions (Cornell LII).