North Carolina

The published process

Placement during a dispute

"Except as provided below under the heading PROCEDURES WHEN DISCIPLINING CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES, once a due process complaint is sent to the other party, during the resolution process time period, and while waiting for the decision of any impartial due process hearing or court proceeding, unless you and the State or public school unit agree otherwise, your child must remain in his or her current educational placement." (Notice, 34 CFR §300.518) On initial admission: "If the due process complaint 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." In discipline cases the notice states the child must "remain in the interim alternative educational setting pending the decision of the administrative law judge, or until the expiration of the time period of removal as provided for and described under the heading Authority of School Personnel, whichever occurs first", unless the parent and the State Educational Agency or public school unit agree otherwise.

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 public school unit, subject to the following conditions:" (Notice, 34 CFR §300.502) The first stated condition: "If you request an independent educational evaluation of your child at public expense, your public school unit must, without unnecessary delay, either: (a) File a due process complaint to request a hearing to show that its evaluation of your child is appropriate; or (b) Provide an independent educational evaluation at public expense, unless the public school unit demonstrates in a hearing that the evaluation of your child that you obtained did not meet the public school unit’s criteria." Also stated: "You are entitled to only one independent educational evaluation of your child at public expense each time your public school unit conducts an evaluation of your child with which you disagree."

Who may be present, and what record is made

"You have the right to represent yourself at a due process hearing." At a hearing, any party has the right to "Be accompanied and advised by an attorney and/or persons with special knowledge or training regarding the problems of children with disabilities" and to "Be represented at the due process hearing by an attorney". Parents must be given the right to "Have your child present at the hearing", to "Open the hearing to the public", and to "Have the record of the hearing, the findings of fact and decisions provided to you at no cost." At the resolution meeting, the notice states the meeting "Must include a representative of the public school unit who has decision-making authority on behalf of the public school unit" and "May not include an attorney of the public school unit unless you are accompanied by an attorney." Recording of IEP Team meetings, as distinct from hearings: not stated in the sources reviewed (the July 2026 notice, the DPI Dispute Resolution page and the Resources for Families and Students page were searched); district or public school unit policies may address it.

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 (July 2026) except where noted.

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." The DPI Dispute Resolution page: "How far back can it go? Up to 1 calendar year from the date the written complaint is received."

On investigating a state complaint: "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 the steps the notice then lists, ending with a written decision that "addresses each allegation in the complaint". Extension is permitted "only if: (a) exceptional circumstances exist with respect to a particular State complaint; or (b) you and the public school unit 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."

On the difference in clocks: "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 administrative law judge must hear a due process complaint (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".

On filing a due process complaint: "The due process complaint must allege a violation that happened not more than one year before you or the public school unit knew or should have known about the alleged action that forms the basis of the due process complaint." And: "You or the public school unit must request an impartial hearing on a due process complaint within one year of the date you or the public school unit knew or should have known about the issue addressed in the complaint."

On sufficiency of the complaint: "The due process complaint will be considered sufficient (to have met the content requirements above) unless the party receiving the due process complaint (you or the public school unit) notifies the administrative law judge and the other party in writing, within 15 calendar days of receiving the complaint, that the receiving party believes that the due process complaint does not meet the requirements listed above." Then: "Within five calendar days of receiving the notification that the receiving party (you or the public school unit) considers a due process complaint insufficient; the administrative law judge must decide if the due process complaint meets the requirements listed above and notify you and the public school unit in writing immediately."

On responses: where no prior written notice was given on the subject, "the public school unit must, within 10 calendar days of receiving the due process complaint, send to you a response that includes:" the four items the notice lists. Otherwise, "the party receiving a due process complaint must, within 10 calendar days of receiving the complaint, send the other party a response that specifically addresses the issues in the complaint."

On the resolution meeting: "Within 15 calendar days of receiving notice of your due process complaint, and before the due process hearing begins, the public school unit 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 complaint."

On the resolution period and the hearing decision: "If the public school unit has not resolved the due process complaint to your satisfaction within 30 calendar days of the receipt of the due process complaint (during the time period for the resolution process), the due process hearing may occur." And: "The 45-calendar-day timeline for issuing a final due process hearing decision, as described under the heading, Hearing Decisions, 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." A resolution agreement may be voided: "either party (you or the public school unit) may void the agreement within 3 business days of the time that both you and the public school unit signed the agreement."

On expedited (discipline) hearings: "The State Educational Agency or public school unit must arrange for an expedited due process hearing, which must occur within 20 school days of the date the hearing is requested and must result in a determination within 10 school days after the hearing." And: "a resolution meeting must occur within seven calendar days of receiving notice of the due process complaint."

On appeal: "A decision made in a due process hearing (including a hearing relating to disciplinary procedures) is final, except that any party involved in the hearing (you or the public school unit) may appeal the decision by bringing a civil action". On the time to do so: "The party (you or the public school unit) bringing the action shall have 30 calendar days from the date of the decision of the administrative law judge to file a civil action in State court or 90 calendar days to file a civil action in federal court." The July 2026 notice describes no state-level review; see the change log.

On evidence disclosure: a party may "Prohibit the introduction of any evidence at the hearing that has not been disclosed to that party at least five business days before the hearing", as the notice states.

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. Built from tools/packets/north-carolina-packet.txt: the full text layer of Parent Rights & Responsibilities in Special Education: NC Notice of Procedural Safeguards (July 2016), appended mechanically, and the NC DPI Exceptional Children Dispute Resolution page (no date published), transcribed from the rendered page, both captured Aug 25, 2026. Findings recorded rather than smoothed: (1) the July 2016 notice gives the EC Division's address as 6356 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-6356 with a phone number of its own [number withheld 2026-09-25: no current source publishes it, and it remains in the retained capture of the July 2016 edition; see the entry of that date], while the current DPI page publishes 6301 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-6301 with phone 984-236-2100 — both reproduced, neither reconciled; (2) the notice's state-complaint filing window runs from "the alleged violation" while the DPI page states it as running from the date the written complaint "is received" — both reproduced as published; (3) due process is the one route not run by the state education agency: petitions are filed with the Office of Administrative Hearings, with a copy to the EC Division; (4) the notice lists parent centers and low-cost legal services by name, so the parent-center row is filled from the state's own document; (5) recording of IEP Team meetings is not addressed in the sources reviewed, and that absence is recorded rather than filled; (6) the anchor source is nearly ten years old and its embedded ec.ncpublicschools.gov links are reproduced only as quoted text, not as live links; (7) both DPI pages captured carry a standing notice that "some resources from this page have been temporarily removed until an accessible copy can be posted", so the published document set is smaller at capture than the pages' own listings. Capture pending: NC Policies Governing Services for Children with Disabilities (March 2021), the Quick Guide, the state complaint and mediation and due process forms, the OAH decisions page, and the Spanish-language notice. Internet Archive captures: to be added. Reviewer: Carrie Schluter, reviewed 2026-08-25. Corrections on the record in this log: hello@fieldassembly.net.

Aug 26, 2026 · Languages row added. A *Languages in these sources* row was added to the docket, generated from a 51-jurisdiction survey of what each state publishes in languages other than English (research/languages.json; method and findings in research/languages-report.md). The state's own pages were re-fetched for this survey on 2026-08-26; no URL is recorded that was not observed in fetched page content or confirmed by fetching it directly. The Spanish notice is dated Julio de 2016 and the English July 2016 — the difference is recorded as a finding, not reconciled. Reviewer: Carrie Schluter, reviewed 2026-08-26. Corrections on the record in this log: hello@fieldassembly.net.

Sep 3, 2026 · Three published contacts recovered from the capture; no fact on this page changed. Since the recipe was written, three facts this page states had failed every fidelity check: the two named consultants' addresses (Sara.Self-Maddox@dpi.nc.gov, johanna.lynch@dpi.nc.gov) and the hostname www.oah.nc.gov. All three are stated by DPI only as links inside table cells — the consultants as mailto addresses on cells whose visible text is the person's name, the OAH hostname as an href on a resources row whose visible text is the document's title — and the capture tool flattened every table row to plain cell text before its link-reading pass could see the anchor, so the addresses never entered the packet. The recipe's own notes had recorded this as a known gap not fixable from a recipe, which was correct: the fix was in the tool. Table cells now emit their own link targets, and an anchor that already prints its own address is left alone, which is what previously made the option unusable here (turning it on inserted a second copy of mediation@dpi.nc.gov between the address and the period of a quoted sentence, breaking a working quotation to add a fact already present). One of the three, Sara Self-Maddox's address, had been read in a prior review pass as having been removed from the live page; it had not. It is published today, in the same table cell as before, and remains on this page. Both pages now check at 0 failures. No source text changed, no contact changed, and nothing on this page was added, removed or reworded — what changed is that the packet now holds the evidence for what the page already said. Reviewer: owner-directed working session, 2026-09-03. Corrections on the record in this log: hello@fieldassembly.net.

Sep 25, 2026 · Rebuilt against the July 2026 notice; the July 2016 edition is withdrawn. NCDPI no longer publishes the July 2016 Parent Rights & Responsibilities in Special Education: NC Notice of Procedural Safeguards this page was built on. Its address, www.dpi.nc.gov/parent-rights-handbook/download, returned HTTP 404 on 2026-09-25 over HTTP/2 and HTTP/1.1, as did the Spanish edition's, www.dpi.nc.gov/parent-rights-handbook-spanish/open. In their place NCDPI publishes catalog item EC145, Notice of Procedural Safeguards: Parent Rights and Responsibilities in Special Education, whose cover reads Updated July 2026, and its Spanish counterpart EC145S. This is a new edition, not the old file at a new address: it follows the federal model notice section by section, says public school unit for the local school system and State Educational Agency for NCDPI, and no longer carries the 2016 edition's plain-language summary, its glossary, or its lists of parent and legal resources. Every quotation on this page drawn from the notice was re-cut from the July 2026 text. The Dispute Resolution page was re-captured the same day; every passage this page quotes from it is unchanged. The recipe (digest 92f70a9f3acb) now also reads NCDPI's Resources for Families and Students page. Per the owner's instruction for this rebuild, the page publishes the current wording and the July 2016 wording that moved is kept here, on the record. (1) Filing for due process. The 2016 notice defined a "Due process petition – A form that is filed with the Office of Administrative Hearings and the Superintendent or EC Director of the local LEA." and stated "Parents must file the petition with the Superintendent or the EC Director of their school district and the Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH)." The 2026 notice has a due process complaint submitted to the other party, with a copy to the State Educational Agency, and says state law delegates the hearings to the Office of Administrative Hearings; it names no filing office, address or phone. The 2016 lines "Note: In NC, the hearing officer is an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ)." and "A due process petition triggers a formal legal proceeding in front of an administrative law judge." have no counterpart; the 2026 text calls the hearing officer an administrative law judge throughout. (2) Appeal. The 2016 notice stated "If you or the LEA disagree with the judge’s decision in a due process hearing, you may appeal it to an impartial review officer with DPI within 30 days of receiving the decision." The 2026 notice describes no review within DPI: a hearing decision is final unless a party brings a civil action, in State court or federal court, on the clocks quoted under Timelines. This is the largest substantive change on the page. (3) Mediation. The 2016 notice described mediation as "Mediation is an informal meeting of the parent and the school led by a neutral third party, the mediator. Mediation is a voluntary process, which the parties themselves control." and stated "The EC Division of NCDPI makes mediation available to allow you and the LEA to resolve disagreements involving any matter under IDEA, including matters arising prior to the filing of a due process petition." and "The EC Division is responsible for the costs of the mediation process, including the costs of meetings." The 2026 notice assigns mediation procedures to the public school unit and the cost to the State. (4) State complaint. The 2016 notice defined the complaint as "a signed written statement that alleges a school or local educational agency is not following special education law and regulations found in IDEA, Article 9 of Section 115C in the NC General Statutes." and stated "A state complaint must be filed within one calendar year of the alleged violation." The 2026 notice counts the year back from the date the complaint is received, as the Dispute Resolution page does, so the discrepancy recorded as finding (2) when this page was created no longer exists. The 2016 sentence "The NCDPI must include in its State complaint procedures a time limit of 60 calendar days after a complaint is filed to:" now names the State Educational Agency; the 60 days did not move, and the extension clause now ends "if available in the State." (5) Hearing rights. The 2016 right to "Be accompanied and advised by an attorney and/or persons with special knowledge or training about the problems of children with disabilities (NC law does not recognize a non-attorney representing a party at a due process hearing)" now reads without the parenthetical on non-attorney representation; the 2026 notice adds the right to represent yourself and to be represented by an attorney. The evidence right "Prohibit the introduction of any evidence at the hearing that has not been shared with the other party at least five (5) business days" now speaks of evidence not disclosed to that party. (6) Due process filing window. The 2016 notice stated "A due process petition must be filed within one calendar year of the alleged violation unless the LEA stated it had resolved the issue or it withheld required information from you." The 2026 notice counts one year from when a party knew or should have known of the alleged action, with the same two exceptions. (7) Expedited hearings. The 2016 notice stated "The Office of Administrative Hearings must arrange for an expedited due process hearing, which must occur within 20 school days of the date the hearing is requested and must result in a determination within 10 school days after the hearing"; the 2026 notice gives the same 20 and 10 school days, arranged by the State Educational Agency or public school unit, and adds a seven-day resolution meeting. (8) Wording only. The remaining quotations (placement during a dispute, the independent evaluation, the resolution meeting and its composition, sufficiency, responses, the 30-day resolution period and the 45-day decision) moved in the same way and no further: petition became complaint, school district and LEA became public school unit, the EC Division and NCDPI became the State Educational Agency, and hearing officer became administrative law judge. No stated number of days changed in any of them. The July 2016 wording of each is held in the retained capture of that edition (tools/packets/history/north-carolina/2026-09-03-b.txt). (9) Contacts no longer published in the notice. The 2016 notice's "Resources for Parents" and "Organizations that Provide Low-Cost Legal Services" named "Exceptional Children’s Assistance Center (ECAC)", "Family Support Network of North Carolina", "Disability Rights North Carolina" and "Legal Aid of North Carolina", with telephone numbers for each and an email address for one; of ECAC it said "ECAC is home to NC's Parent Training and Information Center (PTI) and provides a variety of free services to parents of children with disabilities including: individual assistance with educational issues, workshops, lending library, newsletters, statewide toll-free Parent Info Line and more." Its due process section gave mailing addresses and telephone numbers for the "Chief Hearings Clerk" of the Office of Administrative Hearings and for the NCDPI "Consultant for Due Process". None of these appears in the July 2026 notice. ECAC stays on this page because NCDPI's Resources for Families and Students page still names and describes it; that page gives ECAC's website but no phone number, so this page no longer carries one. Family Support Network of North Carolina, Disability Rights North Carolina and Legal Aid of North Carolina appear in none of the current NCDPI sources reviewed and have been removed from the docket. The numbers, the email address and the two mailing addresses those 2016 lists printed are not reprinted here, because this page states no contact detail that no current source publishes; they remain in the retained capture of the July 2016 edition. In their place the docket names the Dispute Resolution page's own consultant for facilitation, mediation and due process. (10) New findings. The Dispute Resolution page says a formal complaint on the same issue as a due process petition "will not be investigated", while the 2026 notice says that part of the complaint is set aside until the hearing is over; both are reproduced in section 01, neither reconciled. The Resources for Families and Students page links the notice as Google Docs documents rather than the EC145 file, and still describes it as having "a new section in more user-friendly language" with resources "found in the appendices", which the July 2026 edition does not contain. That is recorded, not reconciled. Finding (1) at creation, the 2016 notice's EC Division address differing from the DPI page's, no longer arises: the 2026 notice prints no NCDPI address. That entry printed the 2016 phone number for the EC Division; the number is withheld there by a bracketed note dated today, for the same reason as the contacts in (9). Nothing else in the earlier entries was changed. Capture pending: NC Policies Governing Services for Children with Disabilities (March 2021), the Quick Guide, the state complaint, mediation and due process forms, the OAH decisions page, and the Spanish-language notice (EC145S). Internet Archive captures: to be added. Reviewer: Carrie Schluter, reviewed 2026-09-25. Corrections on the record in this log: hello@fieldassembly.net.

Oct 27, 2026 · Internet Archive captures recorded. Captures requested this date by an automated capture pass; no human review is claimed for this entry. No quotation, date, finding or link above was changed by it. Each capture below was requested through Save Page Now and then confirmed to play back. Captures added: dpi.nc.gov → https://web.archive.org/web/20261027044245/https://www.dpi.nc.gov/districts-schools/classroom-resources/exceptional-children/dispute-resolution; dpi.nc.gov → https://web.archive.org/web/20261027044359/https://www.dpi.nc.gov/districts-schools/classroom-resources/exceptional-children/resources-for-families-students; dpi.nc.gov → https://web.archive.org/web/20261027044426/https://www.dpi.nc.gov/documents/ec/formal-state-complaint-form-r-july-2025/download?attachment; dpi.nc.gov → https://web.archive.org/web/20261027044446/https://www.dpi.nc.gov/documents/publications/catalog/ec145-parent-rights-responsibilities-procedural-safeguards-english/open; dpi.nc.gov → https://web.archive.org/web/20261027044606/https://www.dpi.nc.gov/documents/publications/catalog/ec145s-parent-rights-responsibilities-procedural-safeguards-spanish/open. Corrections on the record in this log: hello@fieldassembly.net.

Oct 28, 2026 · Internet Archive captures recorded. Captures requested this date by an automated capture pass; no human review is claimed for this entry. No quotation, date, finding or link above was changed by it. Each capture below was requested through Save Page Now and then confirmed to play back. Captures added: dpi.nc.gov → https://web.archive.org/web/20261028045742/https://www.dpi.nc.gov/quick-guide-special-education-dispute-resolution-processes-parentsguardians/open; oah.nc.gov → https://web.archive.org/web/20261028045814/https://www.oah.nc.gov/administrative-law-judge-alj-redacted-special-education-decisions. Corrections on the record in this log: hello@fieldassembly.net.