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Many students in the Detroit school district are not receiving special education evaluations within the time frame required by state and federal law, according to data shared last week with the school board.
Of the 1,680 evaluation referrals the Detroit Public Schools Community District received from the start of the school year through March, 72 were not completed on time and 728 are still in process, the data shows.
The numbers, which were given to board members during a study session, underscore what advocates and parents have said for years: that some students in DPSCD and other districts across the state are missing out on crucial services due to delays in the process.
Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said the district has improved its number of on-time evaluations, but it needs to continue to establish a “no-excuse culture” around evaluation times.
“The standard is 100% ,” he said of the requirements of the law.
District officials pointed to some circumstances beyond their control to explain the numbers. Lohren Nzoma, assistant superintendent of the Division of Exceptional Student Education, said some of the delays are due to conflicting parent schedules, difficulty getting in touch with families, and students moving schools or homes frequently.
LaTrice McClendon, the board’s chair, asked district administrators for a breakdown of how many students with pending evaluations are moving frequently and how many cases are delayed because parents can’t be reached.
“How many are in school, and also, how long have they been in process?” she said, asking if students are waiting for “six months, a year, two years” to receive an individualized education program, or IEP, which maps out the educational needs, goals, programs, and services schools will provide students with disabilities.
District administrators did not have the information available at the meeting, but told board members they would follow up to provide it. If evaluations are not completed on time due to situations out of the district’s control, Vitti said those reasons need to be better documented at the school-level.
An initial evaluation is a comprehensive assessment conducted by a multidisciplinary team to determine whether a child is eligible for an IEP.
Initial evaluations may be requested by parents, school staff, or public agencies when a child displays signs of having a disability. If a district requests the evaluation, a parent must provide consent for it to move forward, according to the Michigan Department of Education. Districts must complete evaluations within 30 school days.
The law allows the timeline to extend beyond 30 days when parents agree in writing before the initial deadline.
As the number of students diagnosed with disabilities has increased in DPSCD and across the state, districts have struggled to hire enough staff to keep up with demand for evaluations. National staffing shortages and inadequate state funding for special education compound the problem, Vitti said.
“The fact is, in the state of Michigan, we are not appropriately funding [special education],” he said.
The district estimates that its special education costs this school year will total more than $214 million. Local, state, and federal grants will bring in around $179 million for special education. The district will have to use more than $34.9 million from its general funds to fill the gap.
Vitti attributed some of the district’s improvements to hiring more school psychologists and speech language pathologists earlier this school year.
Corletta Vaughn, vice chair of the board, said she hears from parents that the district does not follow up about pending evaluations for long periods of time.
“People are saying that, and what’s going to happen is we’re going to do better at communicating with our families,” Nzoma said.
Here is a breakdown of the district’s data on evaluations:
- Administrators said they expect about 65% of the 728 pending initial evaluations to be done on time, while some others will get extensions.
- Of the 811 complete initial evaluations this year, 637 were done on time and 102 were given permissible extensions.
- Around 1,095 students who have already been identified as needing an IEP were not reevaluated on time this school year through March, up 16% from the same time in 2024.
- There was a 48% decrease in the number of late annual IEP evaluations through March this year compared to the same time in 2024. Still, 249 were not completed on time.
- Nearly 18% of the complaints parents filed against the district with the state stem from delayed responses to requests for initial evaluations. Another 7% of the complaints are from parents who say their children’s reevaluations were not done on time.
Changes to DPSCD’s special education system
This school year, the district revamped special education with centralized hubs at neighborhood schools. The change increased the number of self-contained classrooms from 174 to 185. Students with disabilities receive instruction and services in self-contained classrooms while they attend general education schools.
According to the district, the change streamlined administrative processes and led to stronger compliance in evaluations.
The district has reduced vacancies for special education staff from more than 100 in 2018 to as few as four at the start of the 2025-26 school year, according to DPSCD.
Recruitment and retention efforts, such as a $15,000 incentive to keep special education staff in the district, as well as programs for current staff to earn new certifications, have driven the change, Vitti said.
The main area the district still needs to improve, said Vitti, is customer service.
“We have to treat all parents better, but we have to be particularly more empathetic with our [special education] parents,” he said. “They are struggling more than the general ed students. They have more questions, they have more issues, they have more concerns.”
Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.