Calculate FIIE and Initial ARD deadlines using your district or charter school's instructional calendar.
Check the dates against your district’s official calendar, and resolve any bad-weather makeup days. Click any date to change how it is classified. Changes are saved in your own browser only and are used by the calculator immediately — they do not affect anyone else.
The rules below are a summary of published Texas Education Agency requirements and 19 Texas Administrative Code §89.1011. Where this summary and the official source differ, the official source governs.
The consent-received date is school day 0. Day 1 is the first instructional day after it. Only days on your district’s instructional calendar count — weekends, holidays, breaks, and staff development days are skipped.
A student is absent if not in attendance at the official attendance-taking time (Student Attendance Accounting Handbook). Weekends, holidays, breaks, and staff development days are never absences.
Different rules apply when consent arrives close to the last instructional day. The calculator works out which one applies — you do not need to identify it yourself. When a count runs into the next school year and no verified calendar exists for it yet, the tool shows the requirement and declines to produce a date.
At least 45 school days before the last instructional day. The ordinary 45th-school-day count applies.
At least 35 but fewer than 45 school days before the last instructional day. The evaluation must be completed and the report provided to the parent no later than June 30 of that year. In this window the initial ARD is not 30 calendar days from completion — it must be held no later than the 15th school day of the following school year. Where at least 30 calendar days remain before the last day of school, TEA advises districts to make efforts to hold the ARD during that time, as that is likely in the student’s best interest.
Fewer than 35 school days before the last instructional day. The ordinary 45th-school-day count applies, carried into the following school year. There is no separate formula.
With 3 or more absences, the count is 45 school days plus the absence days, carried into the following school year.
The completion date is treated as day 0. This is the state and federal requirement: the committee must make its eligibility determination and, if appropriate, IEP and placement decisions within that window.
Some districts set internal targets earlier than the state requires — commonly a 20- or 25-day ARD deadline, or a 40-school-day evaluation target against the state’s 45. Both are selectable in the calculator.
If the 30th calendar day falls during the summer and school is not in session, the ARD committee must meet no later than the 15th school day of the following school year. The first instructional day of that year is counted as day 1.
Extended school year exception. If the FIIE indicates the student would need extended school year services that summer, the committee must meet as expeditiously as possible after the report is completed. That is not a date, so the calculator quotes the requirement rather than calculating one.
Both of these are 5 school days before the initial ARD, counted on the student’s instructional calendar:
Earlier is better — the report should go out as soon as it is complete, not on the last permissible day.
Under 19 TAC §89.1011(i), a school day does not include any day after the last instructional day of one school year and before the first instructional day of the next. The summer gap is not counted, which is how counts carry across the summer into the following year.
Written parent requests start a 15-school-day clock. If a parent submits a written request for an evaluation, the district must, no later than the 15th school day after receiving it, provide prior written notice of its proposal to evaluate plus an opportunity to give written consent — or prior written notice of refusal — along with the Notice of Procedural Safeguards and the Overview of Special Education for Parents.
A verbal request does not start that clock, though all federal prior written notice, Overview, and procedural safeguard requirements still apply. TEA recommends districts adopt operating procedures for handling verbal requests promptly.
A re-referral is an initial evaluation. A student previously found not eligible, or previously dismissed from special education, who is referred again in a later school year is an initial evaluation — these timelines apply.
Sources. TEA Special Education Full and Individual Initial Evaluation (FIIE) Timeline and Special Education Initial Referral Timeline; TEA Frequently Asked Questions on 19 TAC §89.1011 (© 2024).
Some timeline questions are not clearly addressed. Rather than make an assumption without telling you, the calculator flags these situations and explains how the date was calculated.
When determining whether consent was received at least 45 school days before the last instructional day, should the consent date or last instructional day be included in the count? This tool excludes both dates and displays a warning when the calculation falls within two days of the 45- or 35-school-day boundary.
The rule refers to three or more student absences “during that period,” but the endpoint of that period is not clearly defined.
When consent is received within the 35-to-44-school-day window and the student has three or more absences, it is unclear whether June 30 remains the controlling deadline or whether the 45-school-days-plus-absences calculation applies. This tool applies the literal reading of the rule and shows both dates when they differ.
For a child under five who is not enrolled in public school, or who attends a private or home school, it may be unclear which instructional calendar should be used to calculate school-day timelines.
Every calendar included in this tool has been manually checked against the district or charter school’s published calendar. Because district calendars may change during the school year, confirm important dates against the district or charter school’s current official calendar.
Corrections, and your answers about bad-weather makeup days, are saved only in your browser. They are not shared with other users and will not appear on another device or another browser. If a date is wrong for everyone rather than just for you, please email hello@spedtimelines.com so it can be fixed at source.
The site records general visit activity and which district is selected, so frequently used calendars can be prioritized for updates. That record does not identify you or any student.
If you buy an Evaluation Tracker, Stripe handles the payment and we never see card details. We keep your email address and the district and school year you bought, only to deliver the file. Nothing about students is involved.
An independent planning tool, not affiliated with or endorsed by the Texas Education Agency, any Education Service Center, district, or charter school. Verify every date against current law, TEA guidance, and your district’s official calendar before relying on it.
Using this tool means you accept these terms.
1. This is a planning tool, not legal advice. This calculator is provided for informational and planning purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice, and it does not create an attorney-client, consultant-client, or professional relationship of any kind between you and Hope Psychoeducational Assessments and Consulting, LLC. It is not a substitute for the judgment of a qualified professional, for your local education agency’s procedures, or for legal counsel.
2. You remain responsible for every deadline. Legal responsibility for meeting special education evaluation and ARD timelines rests with the local education agency and the professionals it employs or contracts with. It does not transfer to this tool or to its author. You are responsible for independently verifying every date against current Texas law, Texas Education Agency guidance, your district or charter school’s official published calendar and procedures, and the individual circumstances of the student.
3. Independent and unofficial. This tool is not affiliated with, endorsed by, approved by, or produced in cooperation with the Texas Education Agency, any Education Service Center, or any school district or charter school. References to those bodies and their published documents are for identification and citation only. The rules summarized here are the author’s plain-language reading of published requirements and are not an official statement of them; where this tool and an official source differ, the official source governs.
4. Calendars are unofficial reproductions. Instructional dates are reproduced from calendars published by each district or charter school. They are checked by hand, but they are not official, not authoritative, and not endorsed by or affiliated with any district, charter school, or the Texas Education Agency. Districts revise calendars during the year. Always confirm against the official published calendar.
5. Some rules are genuinely unsettled. Where the source documents do not clearly resolve a question, this tool says so rather than guessing, and it marks affected results as provisional or requiring manual review. Those designations are meaningful. A result that is not marked final should not be treated as final.
6. No warranty. This tool is provided “as is” and “as available,” without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including any implied warranties of accuracy, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. No guarantee is made that the tool will be error-free, uninterrupted, current, or that any date it produces is correct.
7. Limitation of liability. To the maximum extent permitted by law, neither Hope Psychoeducational Assessments and Consulting, LLC nor its owner shall be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, special, or exemplary damages arising out of or relating to your use of, or inability to use, this tool. This includes, without limitation, missed deadlines, compliance findings, due process proceedings, monitoring outcomes, administrative penalties, loss of data, or loss of professional standing — whether or not the possibility of such damages was known. Your sole and exclusive remedy for any dissatisfaction with this tool is to stop using it.
8. Changes. Legal requirements, TEA guidance, and district calendars all change. The rules and calendars in this tool may become outdated. Check the rule set and calendar information shown on each result and confirm they reflect current requirements before relying on a date.
9. Ownership and permitted use. This calculator, including its interface, its wording, its calculation engine, and the compiled and classified calendar data within it, is the copyrighted work of Hope Psychoeducational Assessments and Consulting, LLC. You are welcome to use it for your professional work, to print or save results, and to share a link to it.
You may not, without prior written permission: copy, extract, scrape, or programmatically harvest the calendar data or source code; reproduce or republish any substantial part of the tool; create a competing or derivative product from it; or remove, obscure, or alter any copyright or attribution notice. Using the tool constitutes agreement to these restrictions.
Individual calendar dates are published by the districts themselves and are facts, freely available from those districts. What is protected here is this tool — its code, its wording, and the particular selection, classification, and verification of those dates that make up this compilation.
10. Governing law. These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas, without regard to conflict-of-law principles.
See something that needs updating?
Texas Special Education Timeline Calculator
© 2026 Hope Psychoeducational Assessments and Consulting, LLC. All rights reserved.
Created by Vanessa Castillo, LSSP, NCSP.
Found an error in a calendar, or have a calendar to add?
hello@spedtimelines.com