What we’re building

Advocary started for us with a single piece of paper, a Prior Written Notice that answered a question we hadn’t asked and implied we did. It was written in a way that not only closed the door, but also attempted to shift responsibility onto us, while leaving our child’s needs completely unresolved.

That showed us the real problem. The gap in special education isn’t that the rights don’t exist, it’s that the parents and caregivers are the enforcers. It’s the distance between a rule existing on paper and a family knowing about it and understanding it in time to use it.

Why we built this ›

You start from what happened, not from what you know

Advocary takes a learn as you go approach. We meet you where you are, you don’t have to be an expert in the process. This allows you to advocate while you learn, because your child’s needs and the school year don’t wait for anyone.

Say the school sends you a prior written notice, the same piece of paper this all started with. Here is the whole path it puts in front of you.

Guide Me

The school sent a Prior Written Notice

The school has put a decision about your child in writing. This walks through what that notice has to contain, what signing it would mean, and what you can ask them to change.

Before you start

Districts often print a signature line on these, though the rule requiring the notice never asks for one (34 CFR 300.503). Where the line only acknowledges that the notice reached you, that is all it does, and there is no penalty for leaving it unsigned either way. If a signature is meant to be consent, the rule is that the consent itself has to describe what you are agreeing to (34 CFR 300.9). So what a signature does is decided by the words on the page.

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What this document is, and when it is owed
The school’s decision in writing: what they propose or refuse, why, and the evaluations and records they relied on. Two things get missed. It is owed for a refusal as much as for a proposal, and it has to reach you a reasonable time BEFORE they act on it, not after (34 CFR 300.503(a)). Guidance, not regulation. Virginia: the notice is owed a reasonable time before the division acts (8VAC20-81-170(C)(1)), and the rule does not say how long that is. The guidance is explicit that no law defines it, federal or state. The Virginia Department of Education’s longstanding position is that ten business days satisfies the reasonable time mandate where consent is not at issue, and that it is the standard a division’s compliance is measured against (Guidance on Prior Written Notice in the Special Education Process, May 2013). Going past ten days is not automatically noncompliance where the division documents what caused the delay, and the example the guidance gives is schools closed by a natural disaster. (checked Sep 2026) What a prior written notice is ›
What signing it could mean Before you sign anything
Most often the line only records that the notice reached you, and acknowledging receipt is not agreement with the decision or with how the notice describes it. It cannot quietly become more than that. Consent is narrower than it looks: it has to be informed, in writing, and the consent itself has to describe what you are agreeing to (34 CFR 300.9), so where nothing on the page names that, a signature is not consent. Consent you did give can be withdrawn in writing, and what that reaches is the thing you consented to: revoking consent for services ends special education rather than changing part of it (34 CFR 300.300(b)(4)). Consent also cannot be validly obtained without the notice coming first (Analysis of Comments and Changes, 71 Fed. Reg. 46691). A single page can be both. Schools often put the notice and a request for consent on one form, so what matters is which half your signature sits under. Taking it home to read is always available. If you are told it meant you agreed with the decision, or agreed to extend a timeline, or agreed that the notice describes what happened, a line that only acknowledged receipt did none of those. The wording on the page decides it, so asking them to point to those exact words, in writing, is a fair question. If you have been told you agreed ›
Saving the PWN to your documents Today
Dated and stored, it becomes part of the record you can point back to, and it is what the next step reads. Add a document ›
Run the PWN Quality Review
It checks three things: whether the seven required parts are there, whether anything in it asks you to agree to something, and whether any wording can be read two ways. For anything it flags, it shows what you could ask for instead. Review the PWN ›
Asking them to correct it, or answering in writing
The reasons to write are usually these: something in it is wrong, a sentence can be read two ways, a required part is missing, or a decision was made that this notice never mentions. The first three ask them to fix the document. The last one asks for a notice that does not exist yet, and it is still owed. If what you disagree with is the decision rather than the paperwork, a written response keeps your position on the record. The choice is always yours. See letter options ›

Every word of this is what the app shows. The folding is this page only, to keep the page from running on; in the app each step is open and you tick them off as you go. The state note reads Virginia here as an example, and in the app it shows your own state once you have set it.

That’s one situation. There are many more, each starting from something that already happened: English is not our first language, my child is struggling to read, we got the eligibility decision. You don’t have to know which tool you want, or what the process calls the thing that just happened to you.

And when you have no idea what you are looking at, a few of the other ways it teaches rather than tells

You can’t understand what you were sent. Open anything in your library, a PDF or a photograph of the paper, circle one paragraph and ask what that part means. It explains the words actually in front of you, and pulls out any acronym in them with a plain meaning.
You can see it but can’t say it. Describe what happens at your kitchen table and it gives you back the words the team works in, which are the eight areas the federal rule names rather than ones we invented.
You don’t know what it’s called. There’s a name for what you want, and asking by name gets further than describing it. Say what your child has a hard time with and it gives you back the terms the team would use for it, assistive technology among them, with what each one actually covers. You pick which fits.
You were handed a number instead of an answer. She’s in the 16th percentile, standard score 85. The Handbook gives you the sentence that asks what that looks like in her actual school day, and the rule underneath it: the district has to take whatever action is necessary for you to understand the meeting (34 CFR 300.322(e)).

And then it carries what it can

The weight of advocating for your own child is hard to put into words. The calls, the logging, sorting paperwork, tracking dates, drafting emails, prepping for meetings, recapping after. Remembering every incident worth bringing to the table. Reading forms closely enough that nothing slips past. Let’s be honest, they aren’t always clear.

It takes an enormous amount of time, and it carries a mental and emotional load that’s harder to measure. Past a point, caring for your family, or yourself, starts to feel like more than you have.

We get it, and we see you.

The school has a team. Advocary is yours.

Almost everything in that list, it either does for you or does with you.

One example, the one that eats the most evenings. Whether it reads a document at all is yours to decide. When you say yes, here is what comes back before you have typed a word.

You photograph the letter that came home

It reads it and fills the record in

A PDF, a photograph of paper, or a scan. It works out what the document is: a prior written notice, an IEP, an evaluation, a progress report, a letter, a meeting notice.

A title you can find again It works out what the document is and suggests a title, so nothing waits on you to name it. PWN 6/11, or EMAIL 6/12 Ms. Reed re speech minutes. Short enough to scan, specific enough that you know which one you’re looking at without opening it.
Tags, and a plain summary Two to four words you would actually search by, suggested from what it read, plus a sentence or two on what the document says. Later they are what pulls a set together for you: everything on one issue, ready for a meeting or to hand to someone. Including the ones you forgot were in there.
Every date in it, not just the important one An IEP routinely carries several: the day it takes effect, when the annual review is due, when the reevaluation is. It pulls each one out and starts the clock on the windows they open, so the deadlines are being tracked whether or not you’re thinking about them.
And what it spotted worth doing If it is a notice, it does more than count the required parts. It checks what the notice says against what you recorded from the meeting, flags wording that could be read a second way in the school’s favor later, and tells you what signing would actually mean: agreeing the account is accurate, or consenting to extend a timeline. If it is an IEP, it finds what changed since the last one, which is the next thing below. You didn’t ask for any of it, and you don’t have to know the next move to make it.

You accept what is right and change what is not. Nothing is filed without you seeing it, and it never puts in a date the document doesn’t carry.

A few of the other things it takes off you

Finding what quietly changed. Put last year’s plan beside the new one and it shows what moved: minutes reduced in the middle of a page, a support gone, wording shifted from will to as appropriate. Including the changes nobody said out loud.
Your state, not the federal summary. Timelines, recording laws, transition age, when eligibility ends. Most of what you find online gives you the federal floor and leaves you to work out what your state adds on top. Advocary looks it up so you don’t have to, and where the counting is too tangled to do for you there’s a calculator that walks you through it. Where we couldn’t get a clear answer, we say so.
Goals, in both directions. Describe what your child has a hard time with, in your words, and it drafts a goal built the way one has to be: what, how it gets measured, by when. A concern is easier to wave off than a concern with a goal attached to it. Or put a goal the school proposed in front of it and see what it doesn’t answer, so you know what to ask.
Writing the thing at eleven at night. Asking for an evaluation, putting concerns in before a meeting, answering a notice. Drafted from the record you already built, so your child’s real dates and documents are in it.
Turning it off for a bit. Rest Mode quiets the countdowns, the overdue colors and the pending counts across the whole app for a day, two days or three, not just the front screen. The dates don’t move. They’re simply not in your face while you get your feet back under you.

Advocary does it for you when possible, and guides you through where it can’t.

What it costs

We don’t know yet, and we’d rather say so than invent a number. We’re two parents building this, and pricing is one of the things still in front of us.

What we can tell you is the plan. The parts that hold your record are meant to stay free: your documents and having them read and sorted for you, your dates, your state’s rules, the trackers, the communication log, and the guides. The tools that draft and scan for you cost us real money every time they run, so those are the parts most likely to carry limits.

That’s a plan, not a promise. We’re not going to tell you it will never change, because we don’t know what running this will look like in a year, and a promise we can’t keep is worth less to you than an honest plan. What we can tell you is which way we’ll lean when it’s hard: a family who can’t pay should still be able to walk into that meeting knowing their rights, their dates, and what to say.

What Advocary will not do

It doesn’t take control. You get guidance and suggestions, the decision is always up to you.
It doesn’t read anything you haven’t told it to. Storing a document and reading it are separate. Uploading puts it in your library and nothing more. Reading it, at any depth, happens because you said so.
It doesn’t give you legal advice. Advocary isn’t a law firm, and it doesn’t tell you what to do about your specific situation. It will make sure you understand the rules so you can decide if something isn’t right.
It doesn’t predict or promise outcomes. No tool here will tell you how a disagreement would turn out, or what a district will agree to. And neither will we.
It doesn’t decide that anybody broke a rule. Where a document and a rule don’t line up, you get the provision and a question to ask, not a verdict.
It doesn’t invent an answer to look complete. Where the rule is genuinely unsettled in your state, it says so and points at the safer reading. Where we haven’t read your state yet, it says that too.
It doesn’t know your district. What the law allows and what your district’s own policy asks for are different questions, and only one of them is ours to answer.

None of these are a stage we’re passing through. They are lines we will not cross.

If Advocary isn’t doing what your family needs

I know what our experience has been. My two share an eligibility category and I still couldn’t tell you their needs are the same. Some overlap. Plenty don’t. So I’m not going to guess at what your child needs.

If Advocary isn’t doing something your child needs, tell me. That gap isn’t there because we don’t care. It’s there because we don’t understand what your child actually needs, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise.

You don’t have to arrive with a solution. If you know exactly what would help, say it. If all you can say is where it gets hard, say that. Either one is more than we have now.

I’m not promising we can build it. Some of it will sit outside what a tool can do, and some outside what two people can build. But I’d rather hear it from you than guess, and I’d rather build nothing than add a token feature so we can say we support families like yours.

Most people won’t write, and that’s alright. I want the invitation here anyway. If somebody needs to be heard, I’m happy to be the one.
Beverley Parent, and founder of Advocary

You can reach me at beverley@advocary.app.

Why we built this ›

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Advocary is still in development. Leave your email and we’ll tell you the day it opens. That’s the only email you’ll get from us.

We’ll only use your email for that one message. We never sell or share it, and you can ask us to delete it any time at info@advocary.app.

This page describes Advocary as of August 29, 2026, and it’s kept honest rather than kept impressive. If something here is labeled working and you can’t find it, that’s a mistake worth telling us about at feedback@advocary.app.

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