Indiana IEP requirements: Article 7’s 50-day clock, the CCC, and transition at grade 9

Indiana’s special education rules — known universally as Article 7 (511 IAC 7) — come with their own vocabulary and their own arithmetic. The IEP team is the case conference committee (CCC), IEP meetings are case conferences, and nearly every deadline is counted in instructional days rather than calendar days, so breaks pause the clock instead of burning it. The timelines below are cited to the Indiana Department of Education’s official Article 7 guide, Navigating the Course (August 2025). Three things stand out: a 50-instructional-day window that includes the eligibility meeting, not just testing; a transition IEP required at grade 9 or age 14, whichever comes first; and an 11th-instructional-day implementation rule that replaces parent signatures after the first IEP.

Every Indiana deadline in one table

Source: Indiana Department of Education, Navigating the Course: Finding Your Way Through Indiana’s Special Education Rules (August 2025), which restates and cites Article 7 (511 IAC 7) section by section.

The 50-day clock includes the meeting, not just the testing

Under Article 7, the evaluation must be completed and the CCC convened within 50 instructional days of the date written parental consent is received. That second clause is the one that catches teams: in many states the evaluation clock ends when the report is written, and the eligibility meeting gets scheduled afterward. In Indiana, an evaluation finished on day 48 with a case conference on day 55 is a timeline violation. Build the CCC meeting into the calendar the day consent comes in. The guide lists three exceptions: students transitioning from First Steps (early intervention) must have services available by their third birthday; students who move mid-evaluation get a “prompt” completion on a schedule agreed with the parent; and students referred while suspended, expelled, or in an interim alternative setting get a shorter clock — 20 instructional days. Before any of that, the referral itself has its own deadline: once a parent asks licensed personnel for an evaluation, the school owes written notice — agreeing or refusing, with a copy of the procedural safeguards — within 10 instructional days.

Transition at grade 9 or 14 — whichever hits first

511 IAC 7-43-4 requires a transition IEP to be in effect as soon as the student enters grade nine or turns 14, or earlier if the CCC determines the need. The grade-nine trigger matters for students who turn 14 late in eighth grade or start high school at 13 — the transition IEP can’t wait for the birthday. Federal law’s floor is the IEP in effect at age 16, so Indiana runs roughly two years ahead of it. The student must be invited to every transition case conference, and if they don’t attend, the school must still ensure their interests and preferences are considered — which in practice means age-appropriate transition assessments, analyzed before the meeting, not a checkbox. Our transition goals guide covers measurable postsecondary goals, and the vocational goals guide maps to the education, training, and employment domains the assessments feed.

The 11th-day rule: signatures end after the first IEP

Indiana handles IEP implementation differently from most states. The initial IEP works the way you’d expect — the parent’s signature is the written consent that lets services start. Every IEP after that runs on notice instead of signature: the school provides the parent written notice (most schools use the IEP document itself), and the new IEP goes into effect on the 11th instructional day after notice — no signature required. The 10-instructional-day gap is the parent’s challenge window: request a meeting, initiate mediation, or file for due process before day 11 and the proposed IEP waits. A parent who agrees can sign for early implementation and skip the wait. For case managers, the practical rule is to date-stamp when notice went home — the effective date of every annual review derives from it. The notice itself carries the same content burden as prior written notice anywhere: what’s proposed or refused, and why.

The CCC convenes more often than you’d think

Beyond the annual review, the guide lists hard triggers that force a case conference: within 10 instructional days when a student with a disability enrolls from another district or state (the CCC either adopts the incoming IEP or writes a new one, with comparable services in the interim — see our transfer students guide); within 10 instructional days of a disciplinary change of placement; whenever a parent or the school believes a required component of the IEP needs to change; and every 60 instructional days for as long as a student sits on full-time homebound or another out-of-school placement — a cadence that makes “temporary” placements genuinely temporary.

How Indiana compares

Indiana’s instructional-day arithmetic makes direct comparison tricky: 50 instructional days is usually longer on the wall calendar than the federal 60 calendar days that states like Arizona follow — but Indiana’s window swallows the eligibility meeting too, where most calendar-day states stop at the evaluation. Next-door Missouri is the closest structural cousin: its 60 calendar days also include the eligibility meeting. On school-day counting Indiana resembles Texas’s 45-school-day clock, and its early-transition stance puts it in the age-14 club with Tennessee — except Indiana’s grade-nine trigger can fire even earlier. The vocabulary is the last adjustment for teachers arriving from out of state: the CCC is the IEP team, the case conference is the IEP meeting, and Article 7 is where every state-specific answer lives.

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