For parents reading an IEP or a 504 plan
The district has a team.
Now you have one too.
Paste the IEP. You get it back in plain English: every deadline in it, what the law requires that the page left out, and the sentence to ask for it, like “Please provide Prior Written Notice of your refusal.”
It's 11pm after the IEP meeting that went sideways. Everyone in that room sounded so sure. You have a folder of documents written to be skimmed and signed, and a feeling that something in there isn't right.
You're right to read it again. We'll read it with you.
The paperwork it reads
Every document the district hands you, in plain English
IEPs
Whether each goal can be measured or is mush. What the services grid promises in minutes, frequency and dates. What the placement statement says, word for word.
Evaluation Reports
What was assessed, what the scores section says in plain words and what was found. Then any area of concern that was never assessed at all.
Prior Written Notices
The notice the district owes you when it proposes or refuses a change. What it refuses, the reasons it gives, and the required parts this one leaves out.
504 Plans
Each accommodation as written and who is responsible for it, plus the plain difference between a 504 plan and an IEP.
Denials and Refusals
What was refused and why, and whether the letter meets the written-notice duties a refusal triggers.
Procedural Safeguards
The rights booklet, read for you and brought down to the handful of rights that change what you can ask for in the meeting.
How it works
From the folder to the meeting, without an account
Paste or Upload
Text, a PDF, a Word file or a phone photo of the page. You see the extracted text and approve it before the decode starts, and nothing is stored.
Read the Decode
A plain-language summary, findings ranked by how much they matter, every deadline, what the law requires that the document left out, and your options. Each finding quotes your own page, and everyone gets the same decode free.
Walk In Ready
When a meeting is coming, the $25 Prep Pack turns your decode into an agenda, the magic-words sheet, an email draft and a one-pager for the room.
The goal-quality checklist
“Will improve his reading skills” is a wish.
The law's own word is measurable. Advocate checks every goal as written for four parts: a criterion, a baseline, a timeline and a named person who measures it. So you can see which goals you can hold the district to a year from now. You're allowed to ask for a rewrite of the rest before you sign.
✗ Criterion ✗ Baseline ✗ Timeline ✗ Who measures
✓ Criterion ✓ Baseline ✓ Timeline ✓ Who measures
The Meeting Prep Pack · $25 flat
Parents don't lose in documents. They lose in meetings.
The decode stays free for every document. When a meeting is coming, the Prep Pack turns your decode into the kit you carry into the room:
- An agenda drawn point by point from your own documents, such as “the IEP promises 60 min/week of speech; ask for the service logs.”
- The magic words, written out to say aloud or email, each one a request that triggers a legal obligation and each with its citation.
- A “put it in writing” email that confirms what was said, before memories soften.
- The goal checklist, laid out to hand across the table.
- A printable one-pager for your side of the table.
The promises
Built like it's your kid's file. Because it is.
Read Once, Then Discarded
Your document is read in memory and gone when the decode ends. It is never stored, never sold and never used to train anything.
One Answer for Everyone
Free and paid users get the identical analysis. Paying adds the meeting kit, and never a better truth.
No District Money, Ever
We never take money from school districts, their vendors or anyone we critique. We work for one side of the table: yours.
Free Help First
When your situation needs a person, the decode says so plainly. It points first to your state's free, federally funded Parent Training & Information center, then to advocates and attorneys.
Every rule in a decode carries its regulation number, source and verification date. The whole promise is written out in our charter.
What it costs
Free to understand. $25 when you're heading into the room.
Free, Every Document
- • The full plain-language decode, findings ranked and quoted from your page
- • Every deadline, in the document and from the rules
- • What the law requires that the document left out, and your options
- • The goal-quality checklist results
- • The procedural-rights explainer for that document type
The same analysis paid users get. Exactly.
Meeting Prep Pack · $25 flat
- • The point-by-point meeting agenda from your documents
- • The verbatim magic-words sheet, with citations
- • The “put it in writing” email draft
- • The hand-it-over goal checklist
- • The printable one-pager for the room
One document, one fee. No subscription. No account.
Fair questions
Worth asking before you paste anything
›Is this legal advice?
No. Advocate explains procedure and decodes what's written in your documents. It is information, and we are not a law firm. A decode tells you what the document says, what the regulations require and the words that trigger obligations. What to do is always your call. When a situation needs a lawyer or an advocate, the decode says so plainly and points you to real ones, free ones first.
›What happens to my child's document?
It's read in memory and discarded when the analysis ends. We don't store it, we can't retrieve it, and it is never sold or used to train anything. We keep two things at all: your email if you opt in, and payment records, which live with Stripe. You can also remove your child's name before pasting; the decode works the same.
›How do I know the analysis isn't making things up?
Three checks are built in. Every finding must quote your own document, 12 words or fewer and word for word, or name the spot it came from. Every rule cited comes from a versioned rules library, where each entry carries its regulation number, source link and verification date. And after the analysis runs, a guard checks every quote and date against your document, removes anything it can't verify, and tells you it did.
›Can it tell me what services my child should get?
No, and be wary of any tool that will. Advocate never diagnoses a child, never says what services a child should receive, and never predicts how a dispute will turn out. It decodes what's written, names what the law requires that the document left out, and hands you the procedure. The 'should' questions belong to your child's evaluators and to a team you're an equal member of.
›I'm not in Oregon, Washington, or California. Does it still work?
Yes. The federal IDEA and Section 504 rules carry most of the decode, and they apply in every state. Where a timeline varies by state, the decode gives the federal default, says your state may differ, and points you to your state's Parent Training & Information center to confirm. State-specific detail for more states is being verified and added.
›Why is the Prep Pack $25?
It's a flat $25, once, per document, roughly a tenth of a single hour with a special-education attorney [[REAL PROOF NEEDED]]. The decode stays free because understanding your child's paperwork shouldn't sit behind a price. The pack is the part you carry into the room: the agenda, the exact words, the email and the one-pager. And paying never changes the analysis; that promise is published in our charter.
›What's a Prior Written Notice, and why do you keep mentioning it?
It's the written explanation a district must give you when it proposes or refuses something about your child's identification, evaluation, placement or services, with its reasons, the data it relied on and the other options it considered. Without one, a refusal can stay verbal, with nothing on paper to answer. We think asking for Prior Written Notice is the most useful sentence a parent can say in that room.
IEP season comes twice a year
Spring reviews. Fall re-starts. Be ready for both.
A short note before each season: what to request before the annual review, how to read the new draft, and the deadlines that sneak up. Unsubscribe any time. Apart from Stripe's payment records, your email is the only thing we keep, and only because you asked.