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Hearing Letter 28: The Request-for-Review Issue-Preservation Checklist

When to Use It

Use this the day the IHO decision arrives, before you write a word of the appeal. SRO review begins with the certified IHO record under 8 NYCRR § 279.9. An SRO may seek necessary additional evidence or remand for additional evidence under § 279.10(b), (c), but those provisions are not a routine opportunity to repair an incomplete hearing record. An issue not identified with specificity in the review papers can be treated as abandoned. This checklist calendars the Office of State Review Form A deadlines and pins each claimed error to the exact place in the record where it was preserved.

The deadlines are short and unforgiving, and the safest way to meet them is to use the current Office of State Review forms rather than draft your own. Work the Office of State Review Form A workflow: personally serve the opposing party with the notice of intention to seek review and the Case Information Statement within 25 days of the IHO decision; personally serve the notice of request for review and the request for review within 40 days of the IHO decision; and file the required papers together with your proof of service at the Office of State Review within two days after service (Office of State Review, current Form A and Part 279; verified 2026-07-25). Serve the opposing party, not its attorney, unless the rules or an authorization let you serve counsel. Recheck each figure and each form against the live Office of State Review instructions before you rely on it, because these are the numbers most likely to move and most fatal if wrong. One thing this step does not do: it does not get you attorney fees. Fees are awarded by a court, never by the IHO or the SRO (34 C.F.R. § 300.517; 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(3)), and the fee petition is a separate step (H-Tool 73).

Use it with: H-Tool 70 (the appeal to the SRO) and H-Tool 71 (writing the request for review).