If the school district has already served you with a Notice of Intention to Seek Review and/or served you with a Request for Review, you are the Respondent.  Respondents may, but do not have to, respond to the Request for Review.  If you won at the impartial hearing, or you won on some matters but not others, you can respond to the district's Request for Review in one of two ways.  One way to respond is to file a response (Answer) that indicates you accept the IHO's decision, and identifies the reasons that you believe the district's request should be denied and the IHO's decision should be upheld.

However, you may not agree with all of the IHO's decision. If you have won on some issues, but disagree with other portions of the IHO's decision, the second way to respond is to file an "Answer with Cross-Appeal".  If this is the case, you may cross-appeal those parts of the IHO's decision with which you disagree, but ask the State Review Officer to uphold the portions of the IHO's decision that you agree with.  In most instances, a State Review Officer can only address an issues that at least one of the parties has either appealed or cross-appealed.  

The instructions for preparing an Answer are discussed in detail below.   If you wish to file an Answer and Cross-Appeal, please see  follow the instructions in Section III of this Parent Guide.

The guidance provided in this section presumes that the parent is the Respondent who already received a Request for Review and intends to respond in an Answer. In this case, the district is the Petitioner in the appeal to the State Review Officer.  However, if those roles are reversed, a Respondent school district would follow the same rules in a similar manner in order to serve and file an Verified Answer upon a parent Petitioner.

1. Timeline 

A school district's Request for Review is usually served on a parent by hand-delivery.  After the school district serves you with the Request for Review, you may prepare an Answer.  You must serve the school district with the Answer within 5 business days after the District serves you with the Request for Review.  You may request an extension of this deadline from the State Review Officer.

2. Answer

After reading the Request for Review, decide whether you disagree with any of the District's statements in the Request for Review.  In your Answer, you should respond to each issue identified by the District in the Request for Review.  If the IHO did not rule on issues that were written in the due process complaint notice that you want a State Review Officer to review, identify them in your Answer.

a. The Answer should be typewritten using standard double-spacing, in 12-point Times New Roman font, on standard 8 1/2 by 11 inch white paper, and no longer than 10 pages.  Margins should be no smaller than 1 inch.

b. A caption or heading should appear in the upper left hand corner of the first page of the Answer, listing the same parental and school district parties that appear on the school district's Notice of Intention to Seek Review and its Notice of Request for Review.

c. Begin the Answer by identifying yourself as the parent or person in parental relationship to the child.

d. With the IHO's decision and the school district's Request for Review in mind, explain to the State Review Officer whether you agree or disagree with each of the school district's challenges to the IHO's decision.  Briefly explain to the State Review Officer the reasons why you believe that the decision of the hearing officer should not be changed. If possible, you should refer to the evidence in the record, such as the page numbers from the written transcript of the hearing or written documents which were presented at the hearing, to support your argument.  For example, "Tr. pp. 365-70" means that the State Review Officer should focus on or be convinced of your point that you are writing about by looking at pages 365 through 370 of the hearing transcript, and  "Parent Ex. Q at p. 8" means that the State Review Officer should focus on or be convinced by the information on page 8 of Parent's documentary exhibit Q.

e. Part 279 requires that an Answer be signed by the party (i.e., the parent), unless the parent is represented by an attorney, in which case the Answer must be signed by the party's attorney. The Answer must be dated.

f. You may also submit written argument in the form of a Memorandum of Law with your Answer.  The Memorandum of Law in support of an Answer must not exceed 30 pages in length.

Please Note: To facilitate processing, the Office of State Review encourages parties to use regular staples only to fasten pages together and discourages parties from using binding systems for papers submitted to the Office of State Review (i.e. comb binding, velobinding, tape binding, etc.)

g. If you have prepared the Answer but find you are

• in disagreement with some parts of the IHO's decision,
• asking the State Review Officer to change the IHO's decision, or
• asking the State Review Officer to go beyond the matters that were ruled on in your favor in the IHO's decision

then you should consider filing a Verified Answer with Cross-Appeal which, will allow you to respond to districts appeal and challenge those parts of the IHO's decision that you believe should be changed.  The instructions for filing an Verified Answer and Cross Appeal are contained in Section III of this Parent Guide.

3. Affidavit of Verification (Form D / Form D)

A verification is a document prepared after the Answer has been completed, signed, and dated. In the Affidavit of Verification, you make an oath in front of any person authorized to administer oaths in New York State (such as a Notary Public or Commissioner of Deeds) that the statements in the signed and dated Answer are true to the best of your knowledge.  You will usually find a Notary Public or a Commissioner of Deeds in a government office, a bank, or by searching the internet for a notary in your area. Affirmations, if used, must be sworn under penalties of perjury. 

1. Service of the Answer

After you have prepared the Answer and Affidavit of Verification and any optional Memorandum of Law, make two copies.  One copy of the Verified Answer must be served (i.e. delivered) upon the school district either by personal delivery, U.S. mail, or overnight delivery service (i.e. UPS or FedEx) to the school district or the school district's attorney(s) who signed the Request for Review.   If you do not serve the Verified Answer on the school district's attorney, service must be made upon the school district clerk, any trustee or member of the Board of Education, to the superintendent of schools, or to a person in the superintendent's office who has been designated by the Board to accept service. Service of the Verified Answer must occur within the timeline unless a State Review Officer has granted your request for an extension of the timeline.

2. Affidavit of Service

a. An Affidavit of Service is a written form that states how the papers were served.  The Affidavit of Service must be signed by the person who served the school district with the documents in front of a notary public.  You should make a copy of the Affidavit of Service for your records.

b. You may hand-deliver a Verified Answer, but hand-delivery is not required (see below for mailing instructions).   If the Verified Answer is hand-delivered to the school district, the person who delivered the Verified Answer must sign an Affidavit of Personal Service (Form E / Form E).  The Affidavit of Personal Service must include:

• What papers were delivered
• Who delivered the papers
• Where the papers were delivered
• The date and time the papers were delivered, and
• A description of the person to whom the papers were given

c. If your Verified Answer is served by mail or overnight delivery service, the person who mailed the Verified Answer must sign an Affidavit of Service by Mail (Form F / Form F). 

d.The forms provided on the web site of the Office of State Review are for service in accordance with State regulations only.  The Office of State Review does not provide other forms for use in conjunction with alternative methods of service of a Verified Answer as agreed to by parties.

3. Filing with the Office of State Review

The following items must be filed within 2 calendar days of the date that the Verified Answer was served on the school district:  

1. the Answer
2. the Affidavit of Verification
3. a Memorandum of Law (optional), and
4. the Affidavit of Service

As of March 2023, you are strongly encouraged to electronically file the documents listed above using the secure, encrypted e-File System instead of mailing them to the Office of State Review. The e-File System features on-screen and e-mail messages to the address you provide and confirms successful transmission of your filings to the Office of State Review.  The Office of State Review e-File System is powered by a software product called HighQ, and the automated messages are generated from a highq.com email address. In order to receive e-mail confirmation messages from the e-File System, please be sure any spam or junk filters  you have do not prevent you from receiving e-mail messages from highq.com.

If you do not use the e-Filing System, you may mail them to the State Review Officer at the following address:

Office of State Review

New York State Education Department

80 Wolf Road, Suite 203

Albany, NY 12205

4. Improper Service/Filing of an Answer

If you fail to properly serve your  Verified Answer upon the school district within the timeline or your extended timeline, the school district may be prevented from responding to your Verified Answer and the State Review Officer may be required to reject your Verified Answer.  However, the State Review Officer will still conduct an impartial review of the IHO's decision.

If you neglect to file your Verified Answer with the Office of State Review,  the State Review Officer will not know that you have prepared one and will have no way to address the specific points that you made in your Answer at all.   The State Review Officer will be required to issue a final decision within the decision timeline, and will still conduct an impartial review of the IHO's decision after reviewing the entire hearing record.

1. If you need more time to prepare and serve an Answer, you may ask for a specific extension of the timelines.  This allows the State Review Officer to move the decision timeline and, in turn, extend the timeline in which you must serve an Answer.  You must request an extension before the date your Answer is due.

2. Your extension request for an answer must be in writing, addressed to the Office of State Review.  You must also send a duplicate copy of your request to the school district's attorney when you send it to the Office of State Review. 

3. Your extension request should include:

   • the good cause reason why you need the extension of time. Examples of good cause often include good faith settlement negotiations, serious medical procedures and catastrophic events, but reasons such as vacations, general travel plans, and workload considerations alone are rarely considered good cause;

   • whether your child is currently receiving special education services either from a public school district/institution or from a private school/institution/provider. It is useful if you can briefly describe to the State Review Officer the current special education services that your child is receiving, if any, and if the services are being provided under pendency (also called stay-put);

   • whether the the school district, agrees with or opposes your request for additional time.  For this reason you must contact the school district's attorney before filing your extension request to ask if the district will consent or oppose your request for more time and then write in your extension request to the Office of State Review whether the school district consented to or opposed the extension.  If the roles are reversed and the parent is the petitioner, a school district must follow the same process for seeking an extension of time; and

   • it will help the Office of State Review with processing your request if you briefly describe the outcome of the impartial hearing officer's decision being appealed.  Examples of outcomes are "the IHO granted my request for tuition reimbursement" or "the IHO granted a portion of compensatory education that I requested, but denied payment for an independent evaluation of my child" or "the IHO granted my request for an order for pendency services for my child."

4. When filing requests for extensions, it is common for parties to seek extensions of time in two-week increments or less because State Review Officers do not customarily grant extensions in longer increments.

   • As of March 2023, you are strongly encouraged to electronically file any extension request(s) using the secure, encrypted e-File System instead of mailing or faxing them to the Office of State Review. The e-File System features on-screen and e-mail messages to the address you provide and confirms successful transmission of your filings to the Office of State Review.  The Office of State Review e-File System is powered by a software product called HighQ, and the automated messages are generated from a highq.com e-mail address. In order to receive e-mail confirmation messages from the e-File System, please be sure any spam or junk filters  you have do not prevent you from receiving e-mail messages from highq.com.

   • If you use the e-File System, one option you have is to create your own extension request document and upload it to the e-File System. But under that option you are responsible to send a copy to the opposing party, typically the district's attorney.  Alternatively, after filling out the extension request questionnaire in the e-File System, a document can be automatically prepared and filed for you and a copy returned to your e-mail address for your records.  Under the automated option, a copy of your request will also be automatically sent to the e-mail address of the opposing party that you provide in the questionnaire.  Regardless of which option you choose, as noted above, you still need to contact the other side before the request to the State Review Officer and ask whether there is consent or opposition to your extension request.

5. The State Review Officer will inform both parties in writing whether your request will be granted based upon the circumstances of the case.

6. You may use the following form if you wish to prepare your own document  (Form G/ Form G).