Opinion ID: 732384
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: DOE Responses to Screening Committee Referrals

Text: 42 In addition to arguing that procedural protections should attach to the non-Chapter 36 test, Parents and Students appear to advance the much broader proposition that when a school screening committee requests that a student be evaluated, the DOE must comply. This contention must fail, as neither the IDEA nor § 504 require that educational agencies test all children for whom evaluations are requested. Nonetheless, because we hold that the procedural safeguards applicable to Chapter 36 evaluations also apply to non-Chapter 36 tests, parents have the right to be notified of and to contest all pertinent decisions relating to the Chapter 36 or non-Chapter 36 evaluation of the child. Since our holding provides only that parents may follow up on their own suspicions of disability by challenging DOE inaction, a parent who wishes to contest the DOE's refusal to evaluate must initiate his or her own request for testing, which will then be subject to the IDEA's protections. 43