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Hearing Tool 59: The prehearing conference, stipulations, and narrowing the issues

THE RULE

Before testimony, the impartial hearing officer may schedule a prehearing conference, including by telephone (8 NYCRR § 200.5(j)(3)(xi)). The IHO must place a transcript or written summary in the record. The listed purposes are simplifying or clarifying issues, setting hearing-completion dates, identifying evidence and witnesses, and addressing other administrative matters necessary for a timely hearing.

The issues are set by your complaint. A party may not raise at the hearing an issue that was not raised in the complaint unless the other side agrees (34 C.F.R. § 300.511(d); H-Tool 44). The prehearing conference is where that boundary gets drawn on the record, so it is where a well-drafted complaint pays off and a vague one starts to leak.

A stipulation is an agreement that a fact is true, so no one has to prove it. Stipulate the facts that are not in dispute, the dates, the classification, that a document is what it says it is, and the hearing tries only what is actually contested. A stipulation is not a concession on the ultimate question; it is a way to clear the underbrush so the fight is about the thing that matters.

Section 200.5(j)(3)(xi) authorizes clarification and simplification of issues, not a free-standing merits dismissal standard. Accepted open as of July 25, 2026: the availability and standard for a dispositive ruling at the conference depend on other authority and the IHO’s case-management ruling. Object, request the legal basis, and preserve the issue rather than treating clarification as automatic dismissal.

WHY IT MATTERS

The prehearing conference is where a prepared parent shortens the hearing and a surprised one loses ground. The district's counsel arrives with a proposed issue list. If you do not, theirs becomes the frame, and you spend the hearing arguing inside a boundary someone else drew.

Stipulations are leverage most parents leave on the table. Every fact you and the district agree on is a witness the district does not get to parade and a stretch of the day you do not spend. Stipulating the uncontested facts takes the district's easy proof off the board and pushes the whole hearing toward the gap in the district's case, which in New York is exactly where you want it, because the district carries the burden and you are testing its proof (H-Tool 58).

The danger runs the other way too. Because the district carries the burden, a careless stipulation can hand back proof the statute put on the district. Agreeing that a date is a date is housekeeping. Agreeing that the IEP was appropriate, or that a service was delivered, is surrender dressed as cooperation. Stipulate facts, never conclusions.