My 504 Voice

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Say what school is like, in your own words

This is a place to write down what school is actually like for you, see the full range of accommodations other students get, read what the law says in plain language, and make a dated document you can print or send.

Everything you type stays on this device. Nothing is sent anywhere. There is no account and no sign-in, and it keeps working with no internet.

  • Free, no account
  • Nothing leaves this device
  • Works offline
  • Everything comes out dated
  • Every rule cites its source

On a school-issued device, separate monitoring or filtering software the school installed can often see screen activity as it happens — that is true of any page, not something this one does. Use a personal or family device if that matters to you.

What do you need right now?

You do not need a diagnosis to use any of this

Nothing here is locked behind a label. Every accommodation in this tool is visible to everyone, and you can ask for anything on the list. Picking what is hard for you, or picking a condition, only changes what gets shown first. It never takes anything away.

Why the date matters

Keep a copy of every version you send, with the date on it. A document written before a disagreement starts is worth far more later than anything written afterward. This tool puts the date on the page for that reason, and keeps a dated log of everything else.

New here? Start small

You do not have to do the screens in order, and you do not have to finish. Nothing is submitted anywhere, so a half-filled page is not a mistake. If you only do one thing today, do What is hard for me and stop.

About me

Only fill in what you want to. You can leave anything blank.

Your words stay your words. Nothing you type here gets reworded or cleaned up. That is on purpose. A document in a student's own words is harder for anyone to dismiss as a parent's version of events.

What is hard for me

Check anything that is hard, in any amount. This is not a test and nothing here is a diagnosis. It only decides what gets shown first on the accommodations screen, and you can always see everything.

Or start from a condition

Optional shortcut. Picking a condition checks the areas that commonly go with it, so you have somewhere to start. You can uncheck anything, add anything, and nothing here goes into your document unless you write it yourself.

My health

My conditions

List the conditions you have, one at a time, in whatever words you use for them. You do not need a doctor's wording, and you can skip this entirely.

Getting to school and staying there

Attendance is often treated as a behavior problem when it is a health problem. Writing down the reason, in your words, on a dated page, is how that gets untangled later. See Know your rights for what the law says about disability-related absences.

School in my words

What makes school harder

What makes school easier

What I am asking for

This is the full list. Check anything you want, from any section, whether or not it matches what you picked earlier. Asking for something does not mean you have to use it every day.

Add my own

If it is not on the list, that does not mean you cannot ask for it. Write it here.

My list so far (0)

Each one is saved with the date you added it.

My strengths

This section stays in the document on purpose. A list of only problems is not a fair picture of you, and it is not what anyone should be reading.

What would help most

If you could change only two or three things, what would they be?

My document

This builds a dated document from everything you have written. Check it, then print it or copy it into an email.

One page keeps the one thing you most want, your numbered asks, and the comparison counts. For my teachers keeps what helps most, what happens when it is too much, and the accommodations actually in the plan. Both leave out everything else below — the full document is everything, unchanged.

To make a PDF, choose Print and then pick "Save as PDF" as the printer.

Press "Build my document" to see it here.

Know your rights

This is information, not legal advice. Each entry says where the rule comes from so you can go read the source yourself. Laws change, states differ, and your situation may not be typical. For a real dispute, talk to a special education advocate, an education attorney, or your state's protection and advocacy organization, which is free.

If something goes wrong

Find the situation closest to yours. Each one lists what you can do, roughly in the order most families try it, and which rule backs it up.

Almost everything here works better in writing, and email counts as writing. Timelines usually start on the date the school receives a written request, so a dated email is worth more than a hallway conversation.

What the words mean

School meetings are full of initials. None of them are hard once somebody says them plainly. Nothing on this screen is a rule you have to follow — it is just the vocabulary, so nobody can use a word to end a conversation.

You are allowed to stop a meeting and ask what a word means. "I don't know that term, can you explain it?" is a complete sentence, and asking for it in writing afterwards is normal.

The meeting itself

What usually happens, what you are allowed to do, and a place to write down what you want to say. Anything you write here goes into your document.

Who is normally in the room

  • Someone from the campus who can commit the school to things — often an assistant principal or the 504 coordinator.
  • At least one of your teachers.
  • Someone who can explain any testing that was done.
  • A parent or guardian. For an IEP meeting in Texas this is the ARD committee, and a parent is a full member of it.
  • You. A student can attend their own meeting. It is required once transition planning starts, and welcome long before that.

Things you are allowed to do, that people often do not realise

  • Bring someone. A friend, a relative, an advocate. You do not have to explain who they are or come alone.
  • Ask for the draft in advance. If the school has already written something down, you can ask to read it before the meeting rather than in it.
  • Say "I need to think about it." You do not have to agree to anything in the room, and you do not have to sign that day.
  • Ask for it in writing. Anything agreed out loud should end up in the plan. If it is not written down, it did not happen.
  • Ask for prior written notice. If the school refuses something, under IDEA you can ask for the refusal and the reasons in writing. See Know your rights.
  • Ask to reconvene. If the meeting runs out of time, or you get new information, you can ask for another one.
  • Take notes. Always. Recording rules vary by state and district, so ask first — but nobody can stop you writing things down.

After the meeting, the same day if you can

Send one short email to whoever ran the meeting saying what you understood was agreed. You do not need it to be perfect. A dated summary that nobody corrected is worth a great deal later.

What I want out of this meeting

The meeting is part of school, so the way the meeting runs can be accommodated as well: a shorter meeting, breaks, questions sent ahead in writing, or answering in writing instead of out loud. Those are on the accommodations list too.

What to send, and by when

Pick what is happening. This puts together the steps, the wording, who it goes to from your district details, and the dates the district owes you once you send it.

Making a complaint

There is more than one route, they do different jobs, and they have different deadlines. Nobody at the school is going to lay them out for you, so here they are.

Deadlines are the part that catches people. The shortest one here is 180 days, and it runs from when the thing happened, not from when you gave up trying to sort it out informally. If a deadline is close, file to protect it. You can always withdraw a complaint; you cannot un-miss a deadline.
You can use more than one at once. Going through the district's own process does not pause the others, and you do not have to finish one before starting another. The one common exception is noted under the TEA route.

Which one fits

Before you file, whichever route

  • Have the dates. What you asked for, when, what was said back, and when. is for exactly this.
  • Say what you want fixed. A complaint that describes only how bad it has been gives the investigator nothing to order.
  • Keep it factual. What was said and done, not what you concluded from it.
  • Keep a dated copy of everything you send, and send things in writing so there is a date on them.

This page describes the routes and their rules. It is not legal advice, and for a due process hearing in particular it is worth talking to an advocate or an education attorney.

The current plan

This section is for a parent or guardian. Type or paste what the current 504 plan or IEP actually says under accommodations, one per line. Nothing here is sent anywhere.

What the plan contains (0)

Type it as written, including wording you disagree with. The comparison is more useful when the plan side is exact.

Asked for vs. in the plan

Every request is checked against the plan. The tool suggests a match; you confirm it. Nothing goes into the document as granted or not granted until a person has confirmed it.

Is it actually happening?

A plan on paper and a plan a child actually gets are two different things. This tracks each accommodation over time, so "it keeps not happening" stops being a feeling and becomes a dated list.

A plan that is not followed is not a plan. Districts have to deliver what they agreed to, and the usual reason nothing changes is that nobody can say which accommodation, on which dates. This screen answers that.

The written record

A dated log of who said what, and when. This is the single most useful thing a family can keep, and it takes about a minute per entry. Nothing here is sent anywhere.

Write the entry the same day if you can. A contemporaneous note — one made at the time, not reconstructed later — carries much more weight than a memory, and it is the thing an advocate or attorney will ask for first.

Add an entry

The record so far (0)

Newest first. Entries appear in your document in date order.

What to log

  • Every request you make, and the date you made it.
  • Every answer, including "we'll get back to you" and the date it was said.
  • Anything promised out loud that has not turned up in writing.
  • Every time an accommodation in the plan did not happen, with the date.
  • Every call to come and collect your child early, and the reason given.
  • Every meeting, who was there, and what was decided.
Keep it factual. Write what was said and done, not what you concluded from it. A log that reads like a record is useful to everyone; a log that reads like an argument is useful to nobody.

My district and campus

Filling this in once makes the letter templates fill themselves in, and keeps the right addresses in one place. It is stored on this device only.

District staff, titles, emails, and phone numbers change constantly, and a request sent to the wrong address is a request that never legally arrived. Anything loaded below carries the date it was collected. Before you send something that has to arrive by a deadline, check it against the district's current website or a recent letter from them.

How it usually runs in a Texas district

  • The IEP team is called the ARD committee. The 504 team is usually a separate campus committee.
  • Evaluation requests are normally sent to the campus coordinator, with a copy to the district office. Copying the district office is what puts the district as a whole on notice.
  • The full evaluation is the FIE, the full individual and initial evaluation, and Texas counts its deadline in school days from written consent.
  • Transition planning starts at fourteen in Texas, earlier than the federal age of sixteen.
  • If the committee cannot agree, a parent can ask for a recess of up to ten school days rather than signing at the table.

See Know your rights for the Texas rules with their citations, and verify current text before relying on any of them.

Letters and templates

Copy these into an email and fill in the brackets. Keep every one you send, with the date.

Communication log

Keep one of these for every phone call and meeting. A contemporaneous note is worth a great deal later.

Settings

Every choice here is remembered on this device. Nothing is sent anywhere, and you can change any of it as often as you like.

How this looks

Hyperlegible is a typeface drawn to keep similar letters — b and d, I and l, 0 and O — from being mistaken for each other. It is the default here.

If your device is already set to reduce motion, this page follows it whether or not this button is on.

More than one child

Each child gets their own separate copy of everything: their words, their plan, their record. Switching between them changes nothing about the other.

Keep a copy of this year

A plan is reviewed every year. Saving this year before the next one starts means you can show what changed over time, which is far more persuasive than any single snapshot.

Privacy

This page makes no network requests at all. There is no analytics, no tracking, no cookies, no account, and no fonts or scripts loaded from anywhere else. Everything you type is stored in this browser only.

Two things worth knowing: clearing your browser data will erase it, so export a backup if it matters — and on a school-issued device, separate monitoring or filtering software the school installed can often see screen activity as it happens, whatever this page itself does or does not send. Use a personal or family device if that matters to you.

Backup

The export is a single file containing everything you have written. Keep it somewhere you can find it, and import it to move to another device.

On an iPhone or iPad, use Share, then Add to Home Screen. That keeps this open faster offline and makes the browser less likely to clear it automatically.

An export leaves this device the moment it is saved anywhere else — a USB stick, a shared computer, an email to yourself. A passphrase protects it if that file ends up somewhere it shouldn't.

Erase

This removes everything from this device and cannot be undone. Export a backup first if you want to keep it.

About this tool

My 504 Voice is free and open source, and it is informational, not legal advice. Every legal entry carries its citation so you can go and read the source yourself. The rights content covers federal law everywhere in the US, plus Texas-specific entries which are labelled as Texas.