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Tool 2: The “Let’s Try RTI First” Stall - and the Sentence that Ends It

THE RULE

RTI - response to intervention - is extra help delivered in tiers in the general classroom, with regular progress checks. Some districts call it MTSS, a multi-tiered system of supports. It is real instruction, and often good instruction. It is also, in some buildings, the polite way to shelve an evaluation request: “Let’s try RTI first and see how she responds.”

Here is what the law actually says. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) lets states use an RTI process as part of identifying a specific learning disability (34 C.F.R. § 300.307(a)(2)). Nothing in the IDEA lets a district use RTI to postpone or refuse an initial evaluation a parent has requested. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) told every state director of special education exactly that, in a memorandum whose title is the holding: A Response to Intervention (RTI) Process Cannot Be Used to Delay-Deny an Evaluation for Eligibility under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (OSEP Memorandum 11-07 (Jan. 21, 2011)).

Your right to request the evaluation stands at every point during RTI (34 C.F.R. § 300.301(b)). The district’s child find duty keeps running during RTI too (34 C.F.R. § 300.111). And the learning-disability rules carry their own hurry-up clause: the district must promptly request parental consent to evaluate if a child has not made adequate progress after an appropriate period of intervention, and whenever a child is referred for an evaluation (34 C.F.R. § 300.309(c)(1)-(2)).

So “RTI first, evaluation later” is not a legal category. If the district evaluates, RTI can continue alongside the testing. If the district will not evaluate, that is a refusal to initiate an evaluation, and a refusal requires prior written notice - a written statement of the decision and the reasons for it (34 C.F.R. § 300.503(a)(2), (b)(1)-(2)).

WHY IT MATTERS

The stall sounds like patience, and that is what makes it work. Each intervention tier runs for weeks. When one tier ends, there is another tier. A parent who agrees to “wait and see” in September can look up in March and find no evaluation, no consent form, and no deadline attached to anything - because the 60-day clock never starts until the district receives signed consent (34 C.F.R. § 300.301(c)), and consent is never requested while the request sits in the parking lot.

The choice being offered is false. RTI and an evaluation are not either-or. The interventions can continue on Monday while the school psychologist tests on Tuesday. Agreeing to RTI costs your child nothing. Agreeing to wait for RTI can cost a school year.