Opinion ID: 4566339
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Evaluations Versus FBAs

Text: What then is an “evaluation” as that term is employed in the IDEA and its implementing regulations? “As with any question of statutory interpretation, we begin with the text of the statute to determine whether the language at issue has a plain and unambiguous meaning.” Louis Vuitton Malletier S.A. v. LY USA, Inc., 676 F.3d 83, 108 (2d Cir. 2012). To determine a statute’s plain meaning, we “look[] to the statutory scheme as a whole and plac[e] the particular provision within the context of that statute.” Id. (citation omitted). The IDEA’s mandatory evaluation process is set forth in Section 1414 of the Act. As explained above, it discusses two types of evaluations: initial evaluations and reevaluations. See 20 U.S.C. § 1414(a)(1)–(2). That the statute does not expressly or impliedly mention a third category of evaluations comprised of limited or targeted assessments suggests that there is none. In fact, the Act’s mandatory initial evaluations and reevaluations are purposefully comprehensive. Each must be “conducted in accordance with” certain procedures outlined in the statute. See id. § 1414(a)(2)(A), (b)–(c). Those 21 procedures prescribe mandatory evaluation conduct, including that the school (1) use “a variety of assessment tools and strategies to gather relevant functional, developmental, and academic information,” id. § 1414(b)(2)(A); (2) “not use any single measure or assessment as the sole criterion for . . . determining an appropriate educational program for the child,” id. § 1414(b)(2)(B); (3) “use technically sound instruments that may assess the relative contribution of cognitive and behavioral factors, in addition to physical or developmental factors,” id. § 1414(b)(2)(C); and (4) “assess[] [the child] in all areas of suspected disability,” id. § 1414(b)(3)(B). The statutory language is clear; an evaluation means a comprehensive assessment of the child that follows the mandatory procedures outlined in Section 1414 of the IDEA, including assessing the child in all areas of their disability. This conclusion is supported by the IDEA’s implementing regulations, which, for these purposes, depend entirely on the meaning of the term “evaluation.” The regulations define an IEE as “an evaluation conducted by a qualified examiner who is not employed by the public agency responsible for the education of the child in question.” 34 C.F.R. § 300.502(a)(3)(i) (emphasis added). The regulations establish that a parent’s right to an IEE at public expense is 22 triggered when the parent “disagrees with an evaluation obtained by the public agency.” Id. § 300.502(b)(1) (emphasis added). And the regulations provide that “[e]valuation means procedures used in accordance with §§ 300.304 through 300.311 to determine whether a child has a disability and the nature and extent of the special education and related services that the child needs.” Id. § 300.15. Sections 300.304 through 300.11 of the regulations, in turn, parrot and expand upon the mandatory evaluation conduct and procedures outlined in Section 1414 of the IDEA. See, e.g., id. § 300.304; see also J.A. 789 (hearing officer’s conclusion of law that “[a]n evaluation under 34 C.F.R. § 300.304 refers to the processes and procedures used to gather relevant functional, developmental, and academic information about the child, including information provided by the parent, that may assist in determining . . . [t]he content of the child’s IEP, which includes the use of technically sound instruments that may assess the relative contribution of cognitive and behavioral factors, in addition to physical or developmental factors” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Thus, both the statutory and regulatory language confirms that an “evaluation” means an “initial evaluation” or a “reevaluation.” 23 An FBA, standing alone, is neither. By title and definition, an FBA is not a comprehensive assessment of a child’s disability. It is a purposefully targeted examination of the child’s behavior. Unlike an initial evaluation or reevaluation, which must “assess[] [the child] in all areas of suspected disability,” 20 U.S.C. § 1414(b)(3)(B), an FBA looks at just one part: the child’s behavior. 8 The parties agree that an FBA is a means of assessing and understanding the root causes and functions of a child’s behavior. See Appellant Br. 37 (“A functional 8 Even assuming that the IDEA’s language is ambiguous, the historical development of the statutory language and the statutory scheme more broadly confirm that an FBA is different from an evaluation. See Louis Vuitton Malletier S.A., 676 F.3d at 108 (“A particular statute’s ‘plain meaning can best be understood by looking to the statutory scheme as a whole and placing the particular provision within the context of that statute.’” (quoting Saks v. Franklin Covey Co., 316 F.3d 337, 345 (2d Cir. 2003)). Public schools have utilized FBAs since at least the 1997 amendments to the IDEA, which included provisions (1) requiring a child’s IEP Team to consider and implement behavioral intervention strategies if the child’s behavior interfered with the child’s learning or that of other children, and (2) requiring schools to conduct FBAs and implement appropriate behavioral intervention plans if a school removed the child from their educational placement for disciplinary reasons. See Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 1997, Pub. L. 105-17 § 101, 111 Stat. 37 (1997). Those provisions, though further amended, remain in effect today and confirm that FBAs are not “evaluations” or “reevaluations” as those terms are defined by the statute and implementing regulations. See 20 U.S.C. § 1414(d)(3)(B)(i); id. § 1415(k)(1)(D)(ii), (k)(1)(F)(i). That the IDEA elsewhere includes the term “functional behavioral assessment” but does not incorporate it as a type of evaluation in Section 1414 further suggests that an FBA is not, standing alone, an evaluation under the Act. So too does the fact that FBAs are specifically guaranteed in the IDEA as a procedural safeguard only where a child’s behavior warrants serious disciplinary measures; the IDEA does not specifically require an IEP Team to conduct an FBA if a child’s classroom behavior generally interferes with learning. 24 behavioral assessment measures target behaviors or areas of concern to understand the function of those behaviors.” (internal quotation marks, alteration, and citation omitted)); Appellee Br. 12 n.7 (“An FBA is a process of gathering and analyzing data in an effort to determine what function an exhibited behavior may be serving for a child.”). The Connecticut Department of Education similarly defines an FBA as “an assessment that looks at why a child behaves the way he or she does, given the nature of the child and what is happening in the environment. It is a process for collecting data to determine the possible causes of problem behaviors and to identify strategies to address the behaviors.” Connecticut State Department of Education, A Parent’s Guide to Special Education in Connecticut, Commonly Used Terms, vi (2007), https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/SDE/SpecialEducation/Parents_Guide_SE.pdf. An FBA seeks to understand to what extent the child’s behavior is a manifestation of their disability and how the child’s behavior impacts their ability to learn. By its nature, it is limited to understanding and improving one aspect of the child’s overall learning experience. Any given FBA might employ different techniques, but those techniques are uniformly aimed at understanding only the child’s behavior. Thus, in stark comparison to the plain text of the IDEA, an FBA 25 is not an “evaluation,” because it is not a comprehensive, multi-focused assessment of all areas of the child’s disability. FBAs often contribute to a child’s initial evaluation or triennial reevaluation; but they are not one and the same. FBAs are generally conducted to inform a child’s behavioral intervention plan (“BIP”), which the Connecticut Department of Education defines as “[a] plan and/or strategies, program or curricular modifications, and supplementary aids and supports developed by a [PPT] to teach a child appropriate behaviors and eliminate behaviors that impede his/her learning or that of others,” which is “positive in nature, not punitive.” Connecticut State Department of Education, A Parent’s Guide to Special Education in Connecticut, Commonly Used Terms, vi (2007), https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/SDE/SpecialEducation/Parents_Guide_SE.pdf. IEP Teams often employ FBAs and BIPs as “positive behavioral interventions and supports” where, as here, the child’s “behavior impedes the child’s learning or that of others.” 20 U.S.C. § 1414(d)(3)(B)(i). But FBAs and BIPs are just examples of the types of tools and strategies that an IEP Team might recommend in a situation where a child’s behavior interferes with classroom learning. Only where a child is seriously disciplined for behavior 26 that is a manifestation of their disability is a school required to conduct an FBA and implement or review the child’s BIP. See id. § 1415(k)(1)(E)–(F). For example, before the hearing officer in this case, D.S.’s parents argued that the March 2017 FBA was not appropriate, in part because the scales that the FBA employed did not fully examine the nature or causes of D.S.’s behavior. The hearing officer agreed and granted D.S.’s parents an independent assessment at public expense called a “Behavior Assessment for Children,” which uses a different rating scale than the March 2017 FBA. The hearing officer felt that this assessment would better account for D.S.’s “undisputed complex profile,” because it would explore whether the cause of D.S.’s dysregulation was antecedent to or temporally related to the problematic behaviors themselves. J.A. 786, 790. Accordingly, an FBA is best considered as an “assessment tool” or “evaluation material” that a school can use in conducting an evaluation. See 20 U.S.C. § 1414(b)(2)(A), (b)(3)(A). Assessment tools are employed in the evaluation process to “yield accurate information on what the child knows and can do academically, developmentally, and functionally.” Id. § 1414(b)(3)(A)(ii). But an assessment tool is not an “evaluation” in its own right —at least not with respect to a parent’s entitlement to an IEE at public expense. 27 We note that the district court did not reach a different legal conclusion; instead, the district court assumed that the March 2017 FBA constituted an evaluation that would trigger D.S.’s parents’ right to an IEE at public expense, because it found that the Board waived any argument to the contrary. See S.A. 10 n.1. Indeed, the district court suggested that it did not think an FBA is an evaluation for these purposes. See id. (citing In re Butte Sch. Dist. No. 1, No. CV 1460, 2019 WL 343149, at –9 (D. Mont. Jan. 28, 2019) in support). Following its assumption, the district court reasoned that if a parent disagrees with a limited assessment like an FBA, there must be a connection between the assessment with which a parent disagrees and the IEE that they seek. See id. at 13. Although we need not address this subsequent finding for the purpose of our decision, we nevertheless discuss it briefly, because this scope finding was the focus of the district court’s opinion and the parties’ appellate briefs, and the flaw in the district court’s reasoning on this point also supports our holding that an FBA is not an evaluation for the purpose of triggering a parent’s IEE right. If a parent disagrees with an evaluation and requests an IEE at public expense, the regulations do not circumscribe the scope of that IEE. See 34 C.F.R. § 300.502(b)(1). Nothing in the statute or regulations suggests that a parent cannot 28 challenge an evaluation on the ground that it was too limited. To the contrary, because the IDEA requires an evaluation to be comprehensive, one would expect that a parent is free to disagree with an evaluation based on its deficient scope. There is no basis for the district court’s bifurcation of how a parent may disagree. Rather, this scope-of-disagreement restriction that the hearing officer and district court created seems to be a workaround for the unintended effect of their conclusion that limited assessments like FBAs are evaluations. By mischaracterizing FBAs as evaluations, the Board unwittingly opened the door for parents who disagreed with a limited assessment to demand a comprehensive IEE at public expense before the school had the chance to conduct its own comprehensive evaluation—precisely what D.S.’s parents tried to do in this case. As the district court recognized, that would be contrary to the overall evaluation process established in the IDEA, as well as the purpose of the IEE right itself. A school has the right in the first instance to obtain a comprehensive evaluation upon which to structure a student’s IEP, and only if the child’s parents believe that the evaluation is insufficient can they seek an IEE at public expense for the school’s additional consideration. The publicly funded IEE protects parents’ ability to contribute and have their voices heard; but this right arises in 29 response to school action, it does not preempt it. Nor does it give parents the first and final word. The school, as a beneficiary of federal funds, has the right and obligation to conduct an evaluation in the first instance and to prove that its evaluation was appropriate. Only when those established procedures fall short does a parent get an IEE at public expense. See Schaffer, 546 U.S. at 60–61. We agree with the district court that parents should not be able to use limited assessments as a hook to obtain publicly funded comprehensive independent evaluations before the school can conduct its own. But we cannot write into the IDEA or its implementing regulations a restriction on a parent’s right to disagree with an evaluation, just to avoid the absurd results that flow from the decision to treat FBAs as evaluations in the first place. See Kidd v. Thomson Reuters Corp., 925 F.3d 99, 106 n.9 (2d Cir. 2019) (“[T]he statute does not include this language, and we may not ‘add words to the law to produce what is thought to be a desirable result.’” (quoting E.E.O.C. v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc., 135 S. Ct. 2028, 2033 (2015))). Thus, our conclusion that limited assessments like FBAs are not evaluations aligns with both the statutory language and the purpose of the publicly funded IEE right. 30 The Board explained that it conceded otherwise because, in its opinion, enough cases have concluded that an FBA is an evaluation giving rise to a parent’s publicly funded IEE right under the IDEA. But the Board only relies on two outof-circuit district court cases, neither of which persuades us to reach a different conclusion. In the first, Harris v. District of Columbia, 561 F. Supp. 2d 63, 68 (D.D.C. 2008), the district court concluded that an FBA is an evaluation because of “[t]he FBA’s fundamental connection to the quality of a disabled child’s education.” We agree that an FBA has a fundamental connection to a child’s IEP; for many students it is a critical assessment tool in their evaluation process. But for the reasons just discussed, that the FBA is a fundamental part of an evaluation does not transform it into an “evaluation” itself. We therefore decline to adopt the reasoning in Harris. As for the second case relied on by the Board—H.D. ex rel. A.S. v. Central Bucks School District, 902 F. Supp. 2d 614, 627 (E.D. Pa. 2012), in which the district court rejected the parents’ IEE request for an independent FBA, because nothing in the record suggested that the contested FBA was flawed—the court in that case 31 never addressed the question of whether the FBA was a “evaluation” for such purposes. Consequently, we do not find this case persuasive either. 9 Although not relied upon by the Board, the U.S. Department of Education has issued two policy letters in which it too endorses the conclusion that FBAs are the equivalent of evaluations for purposes of triggering the right to an IEE. For example, in its February 9, 2007 “Letter to Christiansen,” the Department of Education opined that “[i]f [an] FBA is conducted for individual evaluative purposes to develop or modify a behavioral intervention plan for a particular child, under 34 CFR § 300.502, a parent who disagrees with the child’s FBA would have the right to request an IEE at public expense.” Letter to Christiansen, U.S. Dep’t of Educ. Office of Spec. Ed. and Rehab. Servs., 2 (Feb. 9, 2007), https://www2.ed.gov/policy/speced/guid/idea/letters/2007-1/christiansen020907d iscipline1q2007.pdf. This reiterated the Department of Education’s opinion from its June 7, 2000 “Letter to Scheinz,” in which it opined that a parent would be entitled to an IEE at public expense where, as here, they disagreed with an FBA 9In his post-argument letter of May 4, 2020, D.S. cites to three additional out-of-circuit district court cases concluding that an FBA is an evaluation under the IDEA. But those cases—each of which relies on Harris—fail to convince us otherwise for the same reason that Harris comes up short. 32 that was conducted at the direction of an IEP Team but not as a part of a child’s initial evaluation or triennial reevaluation. See Letter to Scheinz, U.S. Dep’t of Educ. Office of Spec. Ed. and Rehab. Servs., 1–2 (June 7, 2000), https://www2.ed.gov/policy/speced/guid/idea/letters/2000-2/scheinz060700evals2 q2000.pdf. Letter to Scheinz explained that an FBA constitutes a reevaluation under the IDEA because “the assessment . . . was conducted for the purpose of developing an appropriate IEP for the child,” and as a result, the regulatory provisions applied. Id.; see also U.S. Dep’t of Educ. Office of Spec. Ed. and Rehab. Servs., Questions and Answers on Discipline Procedures 15–16 (2009), https://www2.ed.gov/policy/speced/guid/idea/discipline-q-a.pdf. For the reasons stated above, we disagree. The Department of Education’s interpretation ignores the plain text of the statute and regulations, and therefore we owe it no deference. See Taylor v. Vt. Dep’t of Educ., 313 F.3d 768, 779–80 & n.7 (2d Cir. 2002) (“To the extent that there is ambiguity [in a federal regulation], we may look to how the federal Department of Education has construed its own regulation. An agency’s consistent interpretation of its regulations is to be given controlling weight unless plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation.”); see also Christensen v. Harris Cnty., 529 U.S. 576, 588 (2000) (“[A]n agency’s 33 interpretation of its own regulation is entitled to deference . . . when the language of the regulation is ambiguous. The regulation in this case, however, is not ambiguous . . . . To defer to the agency’s position [articulated in an opinion letter] would be to permit the agency, under the guise of interpreting a regulation, to create de facto a new regulation.”). Because the March 2017 FBA was not an evaluation as that term is employed in the IDEA, D.S.’s parents did not have a right to an IEE at public expense based on their disagreement with that assessment. Rather than demand a comprehensive IEE at public expense in response to this targeted assessment of D.S.’s behavior, the parents could have requested that the school conduct another reevaluation of D.S.—as is their right, and as the school had already scheduled to take place in a few months. See 20 U.S.C. § 1414(a)(2)(A) (“A local educational agency shall ensure that a reevaluation of each child with a disability is conducted . . . if the child’s parents . . . request[] a reevaluation.”). Had the parents sought such relief, the alleged harm could have been promptly redressed. And if the new evaluation and its suggestions came up short, then D.S.’s parents could have voiced their disagreement and obtained the publicly funded comprehensive evaluation they seek in this case. 34 They did not. Instead, D.S.’s parents attempted to use a challenge to a single assessment tool as a means to bypass the entire evaluation process prescribed by the IDEA. That maneuver would effectively put the cart before the horse, upending carefully considered procedures for how evaluations are obtained, conducted, and reviewed. See T.P. ex rel. T.P. v. Bryan Cnty. Sch. Dist., 792 F.3d 1284, 1293 (11th Cir. 2015) (“The parental right to an IEE is not an end in itself; rather, it serves the purpose of furnishing parents with the independent expertise and information they need to confirm or disagree with an extant, school-districtconducted evaluation.”). II. The IDEA’s Two-Year Statute Of Limitations For Filing Due Process Complaints Does Not Apply To IEE Requests. As an alternative basis for asserting their right to a comprehensive IEE at public expense, D.S.’s parents also claim to disagree with the October 2014 Triennial Reevaluation. In rejecting this claim, the district court found that, though “[t]here is little doubt that a triennial evaluation of the type that was conducted for D.S. in October 2014 would qualify as an ‘evaluation’ under the IDEA,” this challenge was untimely under the IDEA’s established dispute resolution procedures. S.A. 16–18. We agree with the district court’s conclusion that the October 2014 Triennial Reevaluation is an evaluation that triggers a 35 parent’s right to an IEE at public expense, but disagree with the district court’s subsequent conclusion that the IDEA’s two-year statute of limitations for formal dispute resolution applies to that right. Generally, “[w]hen disagreement arises [with respect to a child’s FAPE], parents may turn to dispute resolution procedures established by the IDEA.” Endrew F., 137 S. Ct. at 994. “The parties may resolve their differences informally,” or if informal measures fail, the parties may proceed to a formal due process hearing. Id. The IDEA contains a two-year statute of limitations for “any party to present a complaint . . . with respect to any matter relating to the identification, evaluation, or educational placement of the child, or the provision of a free appropriate public education to such child,” which runs from the date on which the party knew or should have known of the alleged violation. 20 U.S.C. § 1415(b)(6)(A)–(B). The district court determined that, if D.S.’s parents “disagreed with the [October 2014 Triennial Reevaluation], they should have timely stated any such disagreement and pursued any due process hearing for any denial of an IEE at public expense within two years of the triennial evaluation.” S.A. 18. Thus, according to the district court, D.S.’s parents needed to express their disagreement 36 with the October 2014 Triennial Reevaluation by October 2016, but because they waited until May 2017 to present their draft complaint to the Board, any disagreement with evaluations of D.S. that were conducted before May 2015 was untimely. This misconstrues the process by which a parent receives an IEE at public expense. All a parent must do is “disagree[] with an evaluation obtained by the public agency.” 34 C.F.R. § 300.502(b)(1). Once the parent has disagreed, the burden automatically shifts to the school either to “[f]ile a due process complaint to request a hearing to show that its evaluation is appropriate,” or “[e]nsure that an [IEE] is provided at public expense.” Id. § 300.502(b)(2)(i)–(ii). “If a parent requests an [IEE at public expense], the public agency may ask for the parent’s reason why he or she objects to the public evaluation,” but “the public agency may not require the parent to provide an explanation and may not unreasonably delay either providing the [IEE] at public expense or filing a due process complaint to request a due process hearing to defend the public evaluation.” Id. § 300.502(b)(4). 37 At no point does a parent need to file a due process complaint to obtain an IEE at public expense. 10 The only hypothetical scenario in which a parent might need to file a due process complaint for a hearing to seek an IEE at public expense is if the school unnecessarily withheld a requested IEE or failed to file its own due process complaint to defend its challenged evaluation as appropriate. In other words, a parent would only need to seek formal redress if the school ignored its express obligations under the IDEA. But the two-year statute of limitations for filing that due process complaint would run from the date of the statutory violation, not the date on which the contested evaluation was conducted. See 20 U.S.C. § 1415(b)(6) (a due process complaint should “set[] forth an alleged violation that occurred not 10 Although a parent’s disagreement with an evaluation could be construed as a “complaint” about an evaluation, see 20 U.S.C. § 1415(b)(6), the word “complaint” in the statute refers to a formal due process complaint, not any freestanding objection as that word is generally employed in common parlance. Thus, although Section 1415(b)(6)— which sets forth the general two-year statute of limitations at issue here—uses the word “complaint,” Section 1415(b)(7)—which discusses the requisite notice for a complaint as a procedural safeguard under the Act—uses the more precise phrase “due process complaint.” Section 1415(b)(7)(A)(i) makes clear that the “due process complaint notice” for which it provides must be included “in the complaint filed under [Section 1415(b)(6)].” This confirms that the “complaint” referenced in Section 1415(b)(6) means a formal due process complaint. 38 more than 2 years before the date the parent or public agency knew or should have known about the alleged action that forms the basis of the complaint”). 11 The IDEA does not provide a statute of limitations for a parent’s right to disagree with an evaluation for the purpose of obtaining an IEE at public expense. But that does not mean that a parent will be able to abuse the process to obtain a publicly funded IEE based on their disagreement with an old evaluation. See Appellee Br. 7 (highlighting the Board’s fears that a parent might request an IEE “even 100 years after the underlying evaluation” is conducted). As a practical matter, a parent’s right to disagree with an evaluation and obtain an IEE at public expense is tethered to the frequency with which the child is evaluated. And the 11In this case D.S.’s parents first expressed their disagreement with the “evaluations” of D.S. by presenting the Board with a draft due process complaint and then by filing a formal due process complaint shortly thereafter. That D.S.’s parents chose a more formal route to disagree, however, does not mean they had to employ such means. Indeed, as at least one district court has noted, the IDEA does not prescribe any formal way in which a parent must disagree with an evaluation, which suggests that there is none. See Genn v. New Haven Bd. of Educ., 219 F. Supp. 3d 296, 317 (D. Conn. 2016). We doubt that the IDEA would promote form over substance in this regard, but we need not resolve that issue here. What’s operative for our purposes is that once a parent disagrees with an evaluation—however that disagreement is expressed—the school bears the immediate and automatic burden to respond accordingly. Here, the Board filed its own due process complaint, and the two complaints—raising identical issues—were ultimately consolidated and resolved together, rendering harmless any departure from the standard administrative procedures required by the IDEA. 39 IDEA establishes a logical timeframe in which a parent’s right to request an IEE is actionable. “A parent is entitled to only one [IEE] at public expense each time the public agency conducts an evaluation with which the parent disagrees.” 34 C.F.R. § 300.502(b)(5). Because the only evaluations that trigger a parent’s right to an IEE at public expense are the initial evaluation and triennial reevaluations discussed in Section 1414 of the Act, a parent’s right to an IEE at public expense ripens each time a new evaluation is conducted. The time within which a parent must express their disagreement with an evaluation and request an IEE depends on how frequently the child is evaluated. By default, triennial reevaluations must occur at least once every three years. 20 U.S.C. § 1414(a)(2)(B)(ii). Where, as here, a child is evaluated according to the default evaluation timeline, the parent must disagree with an evaluation within that three-year timeframe. By contrast, should a parent and school agree that the child be evaluated on a more frequent basis, see id. § 1414(a)(2)(A), (a)(2)(B)(i), the parent must disagree with any given evaluation before the child’s next regularly scheduled evaluation occurs. For example, if a child is reevaluated each year, the logical time frame within which to contest the evaluation is one year. 40 Otherwise, the parent’s disagreement will be rendered irrelevant by the subsequent evaluation. The timeframe within which a parent can disagree must be adjustable because the evaluation that a parent may contest is a moving target. The IDEA fosters collaboration, discussion, and flexibility among a child’s IEP Team, which ensures that a child’s educational experience is unique and tailored to their individual needs. See Endrew F., 137 S. Ct. at 994. Separating the IEE process from the formal dispute resolution process serves to reinforce the focus on collaboration and communication among an IEP Team. It provides an additional opportunity for discussion and cooperation between parent and school before the parties feel that they need to resort to formal procedures. As explained above, the IEE process secures a parent’s right to be heard in response to the school’s position: it allows a dialogue. How that coordination is accomplished will be unique to each child. Accordingly, as applied to this case, D.S.’s parents’ disagreement with the October 2014 Triennial Reevaluation was not untimely, as they asserted their general disagreement with all evaluations of D.S. conducted to date before his next 41 reevaluation occurred in October 2017. 12 That does not imply that D.S.’s parents were entitled to a comprehensive IEE at public expense, however. The Board still has the right to demonstrate that the evaluation it obtained was appropriate. 34