Maine

The published process

Placement during a dispute

The notice’s own section heading is “The Child’s Placement Status During Pendency of Appeals (“Stay Put”)”. Its text states: "during the pendency of a mediation or State complaint investigation request, or once a due process hearing request is sent to the other party, , and while waiting for the decision of any impartial due process hearing or court proceeding, your child must remain in his or her current educational placement unless you and the State or SAU agree otherwise," (the doubled comma after "other party" reproduces the source PDF’s own text). "If the due process hearing request involves an application for initial admission to public school, your child, with your consent, must be placed in the regular public school program until the completion of all such proceedings." — Notice of Procedural Safeguards, The Child’s Placement Status During Pendency of Appeals.

Independent evaluation at public expense

"You have the right to an independent educational evaluation of your child at public expense if you disagree with an evaluation of your child obtained by your SAU, subject to the following conditions:" "If you request an independent educational evaluation of your child at public expense when you disagree with a school evaluation of your child, your SAU must, within 30 days, either: (a) File a due process hearing request to request a hearing to show that its evaluation of your child is appropriate; or (b) Ensure that an independent educational evaluation is provided at public expense, unless the SAU demonstrates in a hearing that the evaluation of your child that you obtained did not meet the SAU’s criteria." The notice adds that "You are entitled to only one independent educational evaluation of your child at public expense" each time the SAU conducts an evaluation with which the parent disagrees. (Notice of Procedural Safeguards, Independent Educational Evaluation) The 30-day response window is longer than the federal model form’s usual 10-day window, consistent with the notice’s own statement that italicized text in the original marks Maine-specific state requirements.

Who may be present, and what record is made

Any party to a due process hearing "has the right to:" "Be accompanied and advised by a lawyer and/or persons with special knowledge or training regarding the problems of children with disabilities;" "Present evidence and confront, cross-examine, and require the attendance of witnesses;" "Obtain a written, or, at your option, electronic, word-for-word record of the hearing; and" "Obtain written, or, at your option, electronic findings of fact and decisions." As a parent, you "must be given the right to:" "Have your child present;" "Open the hearing to the public; and" "Have the record of the hearing, the findings of fact and decisions provided to you at no cost." (Notice of Procedural Safeguards, Hearing Rights / Parental rights at hearings) Recording of IEP meetings, as distinct from due process hearings, is not stated in the sources reviewed; the notice was searched throughout for "record," "tape," and "audio," and none of its IEP-related sections address parent recording of a meeting.

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 except where noted.

On the difference in timelines, stated together. "While staff of the State Educational Agency generally must resolve a State complaint within a 60-calendar-day timeline, unless the timeline is properly extended, an impartial due process hearing officer must" (the sentence is interrupted mid-word by a running page header in the source PDF) "hear a due process hearing request (if not resolved through a resolution meeting or through mediation) and issue a written decision within 45-calendar-days after the end of the resolution period, as described in this document under the heading Resolution Process, unless the hearing officer grants a specific extension of the timeline at your request or the SAU's request." (Notice, Difference between Due Process Hearing and State Complaint Procedures)

On filing a State complaint. "The complaint must allege a violation that occurred not more than one year prior to the date that the complaint is received as described under the heading Adoption of State Complaint Procedures, unless a longer period is reasonable because the complainant is requesting compensatory services for a violation that allegedly occurred not more than two years prior to the date that the written complaint is received by the Department of Education." (Notice, Filing a Complaint)

On the State complaint timeline. "Each State Educational Agency must include in its State complaint procedures a time limit of 60 calendar days after a complaint is filed to:" carry out an investigation if necessary, give the complainant an opportunity to respond, provide the SAU an opportunity to respond, review all information, and "Issue a written decision to the complainant that addresses each allegation in the complaint" and contains findings and reasons. Extension is permitted only "if: (a) exceptional circumstances exist with respect to a particular State complaint; or (b) the parent and the SAU or other public agency involved voluntarily agree to extend the time to resolve the matter through mediation or alternative means of dispute resolution, if available in the State." (Notice, Minimum State Complaint Procedures)

On filing a due process hearing request. "The due process hearing request must allege a violation that happened not more than two years before you or the SAU knew or should have known about the alleged action that forms the basis of the due process hearing request." Separately, in the Timeline for requesting a hearing section: "You or the SAU must request an impartial hearing on a due process hearing request within two years of the date you or the SAU knew or should have known about the issue addressed in the hearing request." (Notice, Filing a Due Process Hearing Request / Timeline for requesting a hearing)

On the resolution meeting and period. "Within 15 calendar days of receiving notice of your due process hearing request, and before the due process hearing begins, the SAU must convene a meeting with you and the relevant member or members of the individualized education program (IEP) Team who have specific knowledge of the facts identified in your due process hearing request." "If the SAU has not resolved the due process hearing request to your satisfaction within 30 calendar days of the receipt of the hearing request (during the time period for the resolution process), the due process hearing may occur." "The 45-calendar-day timeline for issuing a final decision begins at the expiration of the 30- calendar-day resolution period, with certain exceptions for adjustments made to the 30-calendar- day resolution period, as described below." (the source PDF hyphenates "30-calendar-day" across a line break in two places; both reproduced verbatim.) (Notice, Resolution Process)

On the written settlement agreement. "If you and the SAU enter into an agreement as a result of a resolution meeting, either party (you or the SAU) may void the agreement within 3 business days of the time that both you and the SAU signed the agreement." (Notice, Agreement review period)

On additional disclosure of information. "At least five business days prior to a due process hearing, you and the SAU must disclose to each other all evaluations completed by that date and recommendations based on those evaluations that you or the SAU intend to use at the hearing." (Notice, Additional disclosure of information)

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

Change log

Aug 25, 2026 · Page created. Captured first-party: the Maine DOE Effective Dispute Resolution overview page (HTML, fetched directly, no date published on the page itself) and the Notice of Procedural Safeguards, Appendix 1 to 05-071 Chapter 101 of the Maine Unified Special Education Regulation, English version (PDF filename dated 7.26.2024, text extracted in full with pdftotext). Findings recorded rather than smoothed: (1) the notice’s own "Child’s Placement Status During Pendency of Appeals" sentence contains a doubled comma in the source PDF ("once a due process hearing request is sent to the other party, , and while waiting"), reproduced verbatim; (2) a running page header interrupts the "Difference between Due Process Hearing and State Complaint Procedures" sentence mid-word in the source PDF, so the quotation is split at that break rather than bridged; (3) the notice states a 30-day (not the federal model form’s usual 10-day) SAU response window for an independent educational evaluation request, consistent with the notice’s own note that italicized text (not preserved in this plain-text capture) marks Maine-specific state requirements; (4) recording of IEP meetings, as distinct from due process hearings, is not addressed anywhere in the notice, searched specifically for this; (5) the overview page names three Office of Special Services staff by role, phone, and email, and lists four advocacy organizations under "Advocacy Groups & Resources" with an explicit disclaimer that the links "do not imply endorsement by the Maine Department of Education"; the notice separately lists the Maine Parent Federation and Southern Maine Parent Awareness with toll-free numbers as resources named in its prior-written-notice section, giving this page two independent, only partly overlapping parent-resource listings, both reproduced. Capture pending: the IEP Facilitation Handbook and FAQ, the Mediation Handbook, all request-form PDFs, the hearing-preparation and virtual-hearing guidance documents, and the notice’s non-English translations. Internet Archive captures: to be added. Reviewer: Carrie Schluter, reviewed 2026-08-25. Corrections on the record in this log: hello@fieldassembly.net.