New Mexico

1. Initial evaluation timeline

60 calendardays from the public agency’s receipt of parental consent - no summer tolling written into the rule, and only the two federal exceptions. 6.31.2.10 NMAC, Subsection F(2): “The initial evaluation and written evaluation report shall be completed within 60 calendar days of receiving parental consent for evaluation.” That tracks the federal default (34 C.F.R. § 300.301(c)) rather than departing from it - New Mexico is a calendar-day state, so unlike Indiana’s instructional-day count or Pennsylvania’s summer carve-out, the clock keeps running through spring break, holidays, and summer vacation. Consent signed in mid-May produces a report due in mid-July.

The only escapes are the two federal ones, restated at 6.31.2.10 NMAC, Subsection F(3): the timeline does not apply where “(a) the parent of a child repeatedly fails or refuses to produce the child for the evaluation; or (b) the child enrolls in a school of another public agency after the 60-day time frame … has begun” (and then only if the new agency is making sufficient progress and the parent and agency agree to a specific completion date). There is no NMAC provision allowing a district to stop the clock for summer, and NMPED treats the 60-day timeline as the SPP/APR Indicator 11 compliance measure - it is reported in STARS from the date of parent consent, and the federal target is 100%. Practical point: the 60 days does not begin until the agency receives the signed consent, so date-stamp the consent and keep proof of delivery.

Response to a parent’s evaluation request: 6.31.2.10 NMAC requires the public agency to respond within 15 school days. If the request is made within 15 school days before a scheduled break of at least 14 calendar days, the response is due within 30 calendar days. The response should obtain consent or give prior written notice refusing the request.

Sources: 6.31.2.10 NMAC (SRCA official text); 6.31.2.10 NMAC (Cornell LII); NMPED - Evaluation Q&A (rev. 9/1/23) (PDF); NMPED - Indicator 11: 60-Day Timeline From Parent Consent to Initial Evaluation, STARS Data Entry (PDF).

2. Eligibility-to-IEP timeline

New Mexico adds a state-specific 15-school-day eligibility deadline that the federal rules do not contain - and it converts to a combined eligibility-plus-IEP deadline when the evaluation lands during a school break. 6.31.2.10 NMAC, Subsection J(1): upon completing the full and individual evaluation, “the public agency shall convene a meeting of the eligibility determination team … within 15 school days to determine whether the child is a child with a disability.“ So the sequence is: 60 calendar days to finish the evaluation report, then 15 school days to meet on eligibility.

The break rule is the one to calendar. Same subsection: “If an individual evaluation is completed during a scheduled period in which student attendance is not required for at least 14 calendar days, the public agency shall convene both a meeting of the eligibility determination team and (if the child is determined eligible) a meeting of the IEP team to develop or revise the child’s IEP no later than 15 school days from the first day when student attendance resumes.“ Net effect of §§ 1-2 together: an evaluation that is finished over the summer (as the 60 calendar days may well require) must produce both the eligibility meeting and the IEP meeting within 15 school days of the first day back - roughly the first three weeks of the school year. A district that comes back in August and schedules the eligibility meeting for October is out of compliance on the face of the rule.

Outside that break scenario, the eligibility meeting must occur within 15 school days after the written evaluation report, and the federal rule then requires the IEP meeting within 30 calendar days of eligibility. The ordinary rule does not require the eligibility and IEP meetings to be the same meeting. Services must begin as soon as possible after the IEP is developed.

Sources: 6.31.2.10 NMAC (SRCA); 6.31.2.10 NMAC (Cornell LII); 6.31.2.11 NMAC - Educational services (Cornell LII); NMPED - Chapter 3, Full and Individual Evaluation (TA manual) (PDF).