Get the IEP or 504 accommodations your child needs
A documented request for evaluation and accommodations submitted to the school district — the full educational record obtained under FERPA, the statutory evaluation clock started in writing, diagnoses mapped to IDEA eligibility categories, SMART goals and an accommodation matrix drafted, and prior written notice demanded for anything the district refuses.
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Who it's for
Parents and guardians of neurodivergent public-school students (autism, ADHD, dyslexia) who face a district that delays evaluation, refuses accommodations, or dismisses their concerns — and who want to run the process themselves instead of paying an advocate at $100–$600 an hour. Also for families with a private diagnosis but no IEP or 504 plan yet.
About this playbook
Get the school district to evaluate your child and deliver an IEP or 504 plan — or to refuse in writing. The guide starts with the paper trail: a FERPA request for the complete educational record, your private evaluations, and a dated timeline of every concern and request. Then it puts the district on the clock with a written evaluation request under IDEA, maps the child's diagnoses to eligibility categories, and produces SMART goals and a prioritized accommodation matrix the team can adopt as written. The final phases prepare you to run the team meeting itself, demand prior written notice for every refusal, and lock the outcome into a signed plan with follow-up deadlines. It does not cover filing a due-process complaint, state complaints, or hiring an advocate or attorney.
What you'll do, step by stepFree preview
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Phase 1: Decide Your Path and Open the File
2 stepsPhase 2: Get the Complete Paper Trail
4 stepsPhase 3: Put the District on the Clock
4 stepsPhase 4: Map Diagnoses to Eligibility Categories
2 stepsPhase 5: Draft the Goals and Accommodation Matrix
3 stepsPhase 6: Prepare for the Team Meeting
4 stepsPhase 7: Run the Meeting
3 stepsPhase 8: Lock In the Plan and the Follow-Up
4 steps
Details
What you need first
Your child is enrolled in a US public school district covered by IDEA and Section 504, and you have authority to act on their behalf. You have, or can obtain, the private evaluations and medical reports the process depends on. You can set aside roughly 20 hours over 6 to 10 weeks.
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Common questions
Glossary
- IEP
- Short for Individualized Education Program, the legally binding document produced when a student qualifies for special education under IDEA. It states the child's present levels of performance, annual goals, and the specialized instruction and services the district will provide, and it comes out of the eligibility/IEP meeting this guide prepares for.
- IDEA
- The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the federal law that governs evaluation and special-education services for students with a qualifying disability. It sets the evaluation timelines, the child-find duty, and the disability categories this guide's request letters and eligibility mapping rely on.
- 34 CFR § 300.8
- The federal regulation listing the disability categories, such as autism, specific learning disability, or other health impairment, a child must fall under to be found eligible for an IEP under IDEA. The evaluation request letter in this guide lists every suspected category from this regulation with a line of supporting evidence for each.
- Section 504 plan
- An accommodation plan for a student whose physical or mental impairment substantially limits a major life activity, delivered inside general education without specialized instruction. A child can qualify for this even if found ineligible for an IEP, so this guide treats it as a fallback path or a parallel request.
- FERPA
- The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, the federal law giving parents the right to inspect and obtain a copy of their child's complete education record within a set number of days of a written request. This guide's first records request cites FERPA to obtain the cumulative, discipline, health, and testing files rather than a summary.
- Child-find duty
- A school district's ongoing obligation under IDEA to actively identify, locate, and evaluate every student suspected of having a disability and needing special education, rather than waiting to be asked. The written evaluation request letter in this guide cites this duty to establish that the district must act.
- Prior written notice
- A written explanation a school district must give a parent, in a language the parent understands, whenever it proposes or refuses to change a child's identification, evaluation, placement, or services. It must name the action, the reason, the data relied on, the other options considered, and the parent's procedural safeguards, and it must arrive before the district acts on the decision.
- OCR complaint
- A complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights over a district's failure to meet its Section 504 obligations. This guide treats the dated Section 504 request letter as the paper trail such a complaint would rest on if the district never responds.
