California

The published process

Placement during a dispute

"The child involved in any administrative or judicial proceeding must remain in the current educational placement unless you and the school district agree on another arrangement." — Notice of Procedural Safeguards, citing 20 USC Section 1415[j]; 34 CFR Section 300.518; EC Section 56505[d]; Revised March 2024, retrieved Aug 23, 2026.

Independent evaluation at public expense

"If you disagree with the results of the assessment conducted by the school district, you have the right to ask for and obtain an independent educational assessment for your child from a person qualified to conduct the assessment at public expense." "The parent is entitled to only one independent educational evaluation at public expense each time the public agency conducts an evaluation with which the parent disagrees." "The school district must respond to your request for an independent educational assessment and provide you information about where to obtain an independent educational assessment." — Notice of Procedural Safeguards, citing 20 USC sections 1415[b][1] and [d][2][A]; 34 CFR Section 300.502; EC Section 56329[b] and [c]; Revised March 2024, retrieved Aug 23, 2026.

Who may be present, and what record is made

At a due process hearing, "You have a right to:" "Have a fair and impartial administrative hearing at the state level before a person who is knowledgeable of the laws governing special education and administrative hearings", to "Be accompanied and advised by an attorney and/or individuals who have knowledge about children with disabilities", to "Present evidence, written arguments, and oral arguments", to "Confront, cross-examine, and require witnesses to be present", to "Receive a written or, at the option of the parent, an electronic verbatim record of the hearing, including findings of fact and decisions", to "Have your child present at the hearing", and to "Have the hearing be open or closed to the public". — Notice of Procedural Safeguards, Due Process Rights; Revised March 2024, retrieved Aug 23, 2026. Recording of IEP team meetings, as distinct from hearings, is addressed separately: "The parent or guardian, and the local educational agency (LEA), has the right to participate in the development of the IEP and to initiate their intent to electronically audiotape the proceedings of the IEP team meetings. At least 24 hours prior to the meeting, the parent or guardian shall notify the members of the IEP team of their intent to record a meeting." (Notice of Procedural Safeguards)

The three rows above answer the questions an experienced adviser raises first, from the state's own published documents, or record that a question is not answered in them.

Timelines, as stated in the sources

All quoted; none calculated. From the Notice of Procedural Safeguards (Revised March 2024) and the CDE Dispute Resolution overview, except where marked.

On requesting a due process hearing: "You have the right to request an impartial due process hearing regarding the identification, assessment, and educational placement of your child or the provision of FAPE. The request for a due process hearing must be filed within two years from the date you knew or should have known about the alleged action that forms the basis of the due process complaint." (Notice of Procedural Safeguards)

On state complaints: "Complaints must allege a violation that occurred not more than one year prior to the date that the complaint is received." (CDE Dispute Resolution overview) Investigations "are completed within 60 days of receipt in the Complaint Resolution Unit (CRU). The 60-day time limit may be extended if exceptional circumstances exist with respect to a particular complaint." (Complaint Process page)

On reconsideration of a state complaint decision: "Send your reconsideration request no later than 30 days from the date appearing on the investigation report". The CDE will then, "Within 60 days, either modify the report or deny the request". (Complaint Process page)

On the prehearing mediation conference: "The prehearing mediation conference shall be scheduled within 15 days of receipt by the Superintendent of the OAH of the request for mediation and shall be completed within 30 days after receipt of the request for mediation unless both parties agree to extend the time." (Notice of Procedural Safeguards, citing EC sections 56500.3 and 56503)

On the resolution session and resolution period: "All LEAs or other public agencies must convene a resolution session within 15 days of receiving a parents’ complaint unless the meeting is waived by both parties or the parent and the LEA or public agency agree to mediation [34 CFR Section 300.510(a)(3)(i-ii)]." "During the period of time between the date of filing of the request for a due process hearing and the commencement of the hearing, the IDEA provides a 30-day resolution period as an opportunity to resolve the dispute as early as possible at the local level and to avoid the need for a more costly, adversarial, and time-consuming due process proceeding". "At the conclusion of the 30-day resolution period, the 45-day timeline for issuing a final decision addressing the due process complaint begins, unless adjustments to the resolution period have been made [34 CFR Section 300.510(b)(2) and 34 CFR 300.515]." (CDE Dispute Resolution overview)

On appeal: "The hearing decision is final and binding on both parties. Either party may appeal the hearing decision by filing a civil action in state or federal court within 90 days of the final decision." (Notice of Procedural Safeguards, citing 20 USC sections 1415[i][2] and [3][A], and 1415[l]; 34 CFR Section 300.516; EC Section 56505[h] and [k], EC Section 56043[w])

On expedited hearings in discipline matters: "If you disagree with the IEP team’s decision, you may request an expedited due process hearing, which must occur within 20 school days of the date on which you requested the hearing." (Notice of Procedural Safeguards, citing 20 USC Section 1415[k][2]; 34 CFR Section 300.531[c])

What any of this means for a particular situation is for the agencies and their processes to determine.

Change log

Aug 23, 2026 · Page created. Built from the captured source packet: the CDE Dispute Resolution overview (HTML), the full text of the Notice of Procedural Safeguards (Revised March 2024, extracted from the state's DOCX file, including its own Family Empowerment Center contact table), the Complaint Process page, the DGS Office of Administrative Hearings Special Education Division landing page, the Parents' Rights summary, the Family Involvement & Partnerships page, and the California Parent Organizations directory (Family Empowerment Centers, Parent Training and Information Centers, and Community Parent Resource Centers, captured in full), all retrieved Aug 23, 2026. Findings recorded rather than smoothed: (1) the CDE's own pages disagree on when this material was last reviewed — the Dispute Resolution overview states "Last Reviewed: Wednesday, August 06, 2025" while the Complaint Process, Parents' Rights, Family Involvement, and California Parent Organizations pages all state "Last Reviewed: Friday, July 17, 2026"; (2) the Complaint Resolution Unit's Sacramento address is given both with and without a "-5901" ZIP+4 suffix across CDE pages; (3) the OAH Special Education Division's Sacramento address is given both with and without a "-4231" ZIP+4 suffix; (4) the Family Involvement & Partnerships page's own contact byline lists 916-445-4613 for the Constituent Support Services Unit, while every other source page listing that unit gives 800-926-0648; none of these discrepancies is reconciled, both forms are reproduced; (5) the DGS, OAH Special Education Division landing page carries no content-review date, only a general site copyright footer, which is not treated as a review date; (6) an older PDF URL for the Notice of Procedural Safeguards, surfaced only in general web search results and not linked from any CDE page reviewed, returned empty content on three separate fetch attempts and was not used — the current DOCX at cde.ca.gov/sp/se/documents/pseng.docx was used instead; (7) the CDE's own overview page states, of IEP facilitation, "California currently does not offer IEP facilitation services at a statewide level, although some LEAs and specific regions within the state have developed local practices" — recorded as the state's own statement, not smoothed into either a presence or an absence finding. Capture pending: the Notice's non-English translations, the Spanish Parents' Rights page, the Quality Assurance Process hub (content overlaps sources already captured), the mediation and complaint model forms, the Dispute Resolution Manual (which the CDE's own pages mark "Coming Soon" and has not yet been published), and the OAH Forms, Self-Help, and Decisions and Orders pages. Internet Archive captures: to be added. Reviewer: Carrie Schluter, reviewed 2026-08-23. Corrections on the record in this log: hello@fieldassembly.net.