In a dispute with your child's school?
An evaluation refused, a placement changed, services that stopped matching the IEP — federal law requires your state to publish its special education dispute procedures. A suspension letter home or an expulsion hearing on days' notice runs on a different track: your state's own statutes and regulations set that process, and publish it too. Rules & Record puts both on one page per state, quoted word for word from the official sources, dated, and linked to the originals — plus a way to keep your own record straight.
No school district, state agency, advocacy organization, or law firm is behind this site, and it determines nothing about any case — it points to the sources and keeps the record of what they said, and when.
Two indexes, then the records
Special education. One page per state, quoting its published special education dispute sources — the procedural safeguards notice, the state complaint procedure, the mediation and due-process systems, the offices and their published contacts, and the parent centers the state itself lists — with retrieval dates, direct links, and a change log. These are potentially relevant official sources, not a determination of which governs any situation; confirm applicability with the agencies themselves. All fifty states and the District of Columbia are published — the index.
School discipline. A second index, built the same way, on K-12 school discipline for every student — not only students in special education: the notice and hearing a state requires before a suspension or expulsion, what continues during a removal, the appeal routes, access to discipline records, and a map of the questions each state assigns to district policy. Quoted from statute and regulation, never from case law. All fifty states and the District of Columbia are published — the discipline index.
The records. Special education disputes are decided on records: what was asked for, what was refused, what notice was given, and when. A free checklist covers keeping what you receive — notices, evaluations, correspondence — dated and in order. A free organizer assembles your own files into a chronology and exhibit format a meeting or hearing can follow; it selects nothing and pre-fills nothing based on anyone's state or circumstances, and it runs entirely on your own computer. Nothing about you or your child ever reaches this site.
If an outcome could affect your child's placement, services, or eligibility, consider obtaining qualified assistance — a parent center listed on your state's page, an advocate, or an attorney — before responding.
The provisions parents find last
Every state page opens its procedure section with the same three rows, because they are the questions an experienced advocate raises in the first fifteen minutes and a parent almost never finds alone. What happens to your child's placement while a dispute is pending — the provision the notices call stay-put or pendency. What the notice says about an independent educational evaluation at public expense when you disagree with the school's evaluation. And who may be present at a hearing, and what record is made of it. Each row quotes the state's own published documents, word for word, with the source linked beside the quotation — and where a state publishes nothing on a question, the row says so plainly, because an absence you know about is worth more than a guess.
Every date on every page is quoted from the sources, not a deadline calculation performed for you. The pages determine nothing and advise nothing. They make the state's own statements findable at the moment you discover you need them.
Four ways states resolve these disputes
State documents describe up to four formal routes, and each state page quotes how that state runs each one — who may file, where it goes, and the windows the state itself states. In broad terms, as the states describe them:
| Route | Who decides | As the states describe it |
|---|---|---|
| State complaint | The state education agency | A signed written complaint alleging a violation; the agency investigates and issues a written decision |
| Mediation | You and the school, together | Voluntary and free to families in the states published so far; a trained mediator; any agreement is written and signed |
| Due process hearing | An impartial hearing officer | A formal proceeding with evidence and witnesses, ending in a written, legally binding decision |
| Facilitated IEP meeting | The IEP team, with a neutral facilitator | Offered by some states as a voluntary option before disputes harden |
Which routes exist, what they are called, who runs them, and what clocks attach differ by state — Pennsylvania splits them across two offices; Texas runs all four through its education agency. That variation is the reason this site is organized one page per state, in each state's own words.
Who keeps this kind of record
Parents and guardians at the moment the letter arrives: a refused evaluation, a NOREP or prior written notice, a placement change, a disciplinary removal. Families weighing whether to file anything at all, who want to read the actual rules before deciding. And the people who help them — parent-center staff, special education advocates, education attorneys — for whom a current, quoted, comparable set of state procedures shortens every case.
The instrument is old and simple: a dated record of what the institution itself has published, kept beside a dated record of your own correspondence. Districts maintain both as a matter of routine. This site exists so that families can too.
Jump straight to your state's page
51 state pages published — the full index.