The rights booklet CCSD hands out at IEP meetings is a Nevada document, last revised June 2023. Here is what its consent, records, discipline, and private school sections mean, and one place where the CCSD manual is stricter.

The packet a Clark County School District team slides across the table at an IEP meeting is not a district handout. It is the Nevada Department of Education's Special Education Rights of Parents and Children, a 24 page booklet with a June 2023 footer, linked in English and Spanish from the Student Services Division site at ssd.ccsd.net. CCSD's own Special Education Procedures Manual (October 2026) says "NDE is the owner" of it and lists versions in English, Spanish, Tagalog, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Amharic. Both were checked Tuesday, October 13, 2026, and the booklet was reread Saturday, October 17.

When the school has to give it to you

The CCSD manual says the booklet must be handed over in hard copy and reviewed out loud, in the family's native language when feasible. The list of required moments includes the first referral or a parent's request for evaluation, at least once a year, when an evaluation is started or denied, before a manifestation determination review, when a parent disagrees with any part of an IEP, the first state complaint or due process request in a school year, and any time a parent asks.

So if you said you disagree and nobody walked you through the booklet, the school skipped a step in its own manual.

Prior Written Notice: the paper that explains a no

The booklet requires written notice any time the district proposes, or refuses, to start or change your child's identification, evaluation, placement, or services. A refusal counts. If you asked for testing and the school said no, you are owed this notice.

It has to describe the action and explain why, list each evaluation, assessment, record, or report the district relied on, describe the other options the IEP team considered and why it rejected them, and point you to help understanding your rights. It must be written in language the general public can understand and given in your native language unless that is clearly not feasible. If your language is not written, the district has to translate it orally.

Read it for the "options considered" part. It is often the only written record of what the team turned down.

Consent

Consent in the booklet means you were fully informed in your language, you agreed in writing, and you understand it is voluntary and can be withdrawn. Three practical points follow.

Agreeing to an evaluation is not agreeing to services. Those are separate signatures.

If you refuse consent for services the first time, the district cannot use mediation or a hearing to override you. It also is not required to write an IEP.

You can revoke consent in writing later. The district must send Prior Written Notice and then stop services, and the booklet says it does not have to remove past special education references from the records.

The CCSD manual is firmer than the booklet in one place. It says partial consent for evaluation "is not acceptable under District procedures," that consent for first time services "must apply to any and all special education services," and that a parent "cannot revoke one or more services and maintain other services." If you object to one service, the manual's answer is to use your dispute rights, not to sign for part of the IEP. Ask the team to explain this before you sign anything.

Records and privacy

You can look at every education record the district keeps on your child. The booklet says the district must comply without unnecessary delay, before any IEP meeting or hearing, and never later than 45 calendar days after you ask. You can bring a representative and ask staff to explain what you are reading. The CCSD manual adds that the district may charge for copies.

The district generally needs your written permission before releasing personally identifiable information to people not otherwise entitled to see it, and it has to keep a log of who accessed the records and why.

The booklet also says that if your district offers email delivery, you can choose to get Prior Written Notice, the rights notice, and due process notices by email.

What happens if my child is suspended?

This is the section families tend to need fastest. Under the booklet, a school can remove a student with a disability for up to 10 school days in a row, the same way it would any student. After 10 total school days of removal in a year, services have to continue during further removals.

A removal of more than 10 school days in a row is a change of placement. So is a series of shorter removals that adds up to more than 10 school days in a year and forms a pattern, judged case by case.

Within 10 school days of deciding on a disciplinary change of placement, the school, the parent, and relevant IEP team members hold a manifestation determination. The question is whether the behavior was caused by, or had a direct and substantial relationship to, the disability, or whether it was the direct result of the district failing to carry out the IEP. If either is true, the team must do a functional behavioral assessment and a behavior plan, or revise the existing plan. A parent who disagrees with the result can file for due process.

Weapons, drugs, and serious injury

Three situations let the school move a student to an interim alternative setting for up to 45 school days whether or not the behavior is linked to the disability, the booklet says: bringing or having a weapon at school or a school function, knowingly having or using illegal drugs or selling a controlled substance there, or seriously injuring another person there. The IEP team picks the setting.

If your child doesn't have an IEP yet

The protections can still apply. The booklet says the district is treated as knowing a child has a disability if, before the incident, a parent expressed concern in writing to a teacher or administrator that the child needs special education, a parent requested an evaluation, or a teacher or other staff raised specific concerns about a pattern of behavior to special education leadership. The exception: a parent who refused an evaluation or services, or a child already found not eligible.

If you request an evaluation while discipline is under way, the booklet says it must be done in an expedited manner. That is one more reason to put a request for testing in writing, dated, the moment you suspect a disability.

Private school and reimbursement

If CCSD offered an appropriate program and you choose private school anyway, the district does not have to pay for it. A hearing officer or court can order reimbursement only if the district had not made an appropriate program available in time and the private placement is appropriate.

The detail that sinks claims: the booklet says reimbursement can be cut or denied if you did not tell the IEP team at the last meeting that you were rejecting its placement and planned a private school at public expense, or did not give written notice at least 10 business days before pulling your child out. Put it in writing.

Where the rest lives

The dispute sections, including mediation, state complaints, due process timelines, stay put, and independent evaluations, are walked through in our companion piece, I disagree with the IEP. The first steps of getting a child tested are in how to request an IEP evaluation.

Nevada Department of Education, Office of Comprehensive Student Services: 775 687 9171, or toll free 1 800 992 0900, extension 79171.

CCSD Office of Compliance and Monitoring: 702 799 1020 (4170 McLeod Drive, Las Vegas).