What it often feels like
Something isn’t adding up
“My child is struggling. The school says they’re getting support, but I don’t know whether this is an IEP issue, a 504 issue, or something we should keep watching.”
Free IEP tools for parents and caregivers
Understand what your child’s IEP is saying—and prepare for what comes next.
NestIEP gives parents practical, private tools to decode school language, review IEP goals, understand key timelines, and bring clearer questions to the next meeting.
No account for free tools. No IEP uploads. Nothing about your child is collected.
Have a new IEP, service change, or progress report? We’re building the next NestIEP tools with 50 parents.
You shouldn’t need a law degree to understand your child’s plan. Start with one document, one question.
The parent IEP journey
Where are you right now?
The IEP process rarely feels like a straight line. Start with the moment that sounds most like your family today, and see what may be in front of you — and where useful help lives.
What may be in front of you
The paper trail
Help that fits this moment
Go here next
Sometimes the right next step is a person.
Parent Training and Information Centers and Community Parent Resource Centers help families understand special education in their own state. CADRE can also help you locate state agencies and dispute-resolution resources.
NestIEP — practical parent tool
Official — federal IDEA resource
Human help — Parent Center / dispute support
General information, not legal advice. State rules and timelines can differ. When a situation involves a formal dispute, rights question, or legal strategy, a qualified special-education advocate or attorney in your state may be appropriate.
Why a tool like NestIEP matters
The parent who walks in prepared is the parent who gets answered.
Parents are often outnumbered and out-talked at the IEP table. NestIEP won’t change who is in the room — but it helps you arrive knowing the words, the timelines, and the exact question the plan invites, so your voice is part of the decision instead of being talked past. Help decide what we build next, so the tools answer the questions parents actually have.
Add your voice as a Founding Parent
11 spots left
Free tool 1
Is this IEP goal written clearly enough to track progress?
Paste one goal to see whether its wording includes the five details that make progress easier to measure—and get a calm question to ask about anything missing.
Step 1 · Nothing leaves your browser
Optional: paste the present levels too, and I’ll check whether the goal comes from them
Runs in this browser. The text is never transmitted, stored, or seen by anyone, including us. Not at that stage yet? Start with 504 or IEP.
Your report will appear here
Paste your draft goal on the left to see whether it meets the five core IDEA compliance standards — and to instantly Nest it into an airtight alternative.
- 01
Observable behavior
A specific, visible action — not a vague verb.
- 02
Current baseline
A measurable starting point (PLAAFP).
- 03
Measurable target
A number that defines when the goal is met.
- 04
Evaluation method
How progress is measured and recorded.
- 05
Timeframe
An explicit date to reach it by.
Runs in your browser
No account, no login
Nowhere to upload a document
Nothing about your child
What comes after one goal
One goal is only part of the picture.
A new IEP, progress report, or service change can leave parents with a bigger question: What changed, what does the evidence show, and what should I ask next?
Today, NestIEP offers free tools for the questions you can tackle now. We’re inviting 50 Founding Parents to help build the next layer: a parent-first way to make sense of changes across IEP documents and prepare for the conversation ahead.
Apply as a Founding Parent
11 spots left. No documents or child information needed to apply. About 2 minutes.
Why this exists
It isn’t in your head. It’s in the transcripts.
When researchers recorded IEP meetings and counted who was speaking, parents accounted for 15% of intervals. School staff accounted for 51%.
Martin et al., 200615%
Parents
51%
School staff
Nothing on this site changes who is in the room. What it can change is whether you arrive with the specific question that the wording invites — which is the difference between being talked past and being answered.
Three more free tools
The route, the words, and the clock.
No account, no uploads, nothing about your child. Each one opens on its own page so you can send a link to someone.
504 or IEP?
A step-by-step walk through the evaluation process, one question at a time — with the thing schools commonly say at each step, and what to do about it.
Find your routeJargon decoder
Sixteen acronyms in plain English — FAPE, LRE, PWN, PLAAFP — each with one question you can ask at the table.
Decode the acronymsState timelines
The federal 60-day floor, and the seventeen states whose own deadlines are verified — including which ones count school days.
See your stateGuides
The questions parents actually ask.
Written from what parents post publicly before a meeting, not from what reads well in a brochure.
Does the IEP process differ by state?
One federal law, seventeen different clocks. What changes when you cross a state line.
My child isn't making reading progress
Before asking why, settle whether the goal says how progress gets measured.
What does the eligibility category mean?
The thirteen federal categories, and why the label doesn't decide what your child receives.
What should I ask at the meeting?
A question list grouped by what you're trying to find out, plus how to prep the night before.
Changing schools or districts
What comparable services means, and what to hand the new school on day one.
Good grades, unclear IEP progress
Two documents measuring different things — and the question that lives in the gap.
Founding Parents
11 spots leftHelp build the next part of NestIEP
The free tools help with one question at a time. The next thing we are building is for the bigger moment: when you receive a new IEP, a progress report, or a service change and need to understand what changed and what to ask next.
We’re inviting the first 50 parents and caregivers to help shape it — 11 spots left.
Early access
Be among the first to try new NestIEP tools as they are ready.
A real voice
Help decide what the report should explain, flag, and prepare.
Founding benefit
Receive a clearly defined founding-parent benefit for participating.
Apply to be one of the first 50
11 spots left. Application takes about 2 minutes. No IEP upload, child name, diagnosis, school, or district required.
What we collect
Almost nothing.
These tools were built to be useful before you trust anyone with anything. That means no account, no uploads, and no document ever leaving your device.
The goal checker runs in your browser. The text you paste is never transmitted, stored, or seen by anyone, including us.
No uploads anywhere on this site. There is nowhere to put your child’s IEP, on purpose.
Your email, only if you ask for a PDF. Used to send the file you asked for and occasional prep resources. One click to stop, and it’s never sold or shared.
Nothing about your child. No name, no diagnosis, no district, no school. We never ask, so we can never leak it.
I’m Aryya Bhattacharyya. I’ve spent nearly three decades working with technology, data, and complex systems, and I’m a statistician by training.
I didn’t come to NestIEP as an IEP lawyer or advocate. I came to it through education.
As the founder of STEAM Inventors in Columbus, Georgia, I’ve worked closely with children and met many parents navigating IEPs. Again and again, I saw the same frustration: parents were handed pages of goals, services, progress reports, evaluations, and school language — but still struggled to answer basic questions.
What changed? Is my child actually making progress? What does the evidence say? What should I ask at the meeting?
That problem felt very familiar to me. Much of my career has involved taking complicated information, finding the relationships inside it, and making it usable for decisions.
That is what I’m building next, with parents.
What we are building next—with parents—is a secure, parent-first way to review IEPs, progress reports, evaluations, and school notices together. It will help families understand what changed, what appears unclear or missing, and what questions may be worth bringing to the team.
I’m recruiting the first 50 Founding Parents to make sure it is built around real parent questions, not assumptions.
It doesn’t replace the parent, an advocate, or a professional. It helps the parent walk into the conversation better prepared.
Built in Columbus, Georgia, for parents who shouldn’t have to become document analysts just to understand their child’s IEP.
Take it with you
Not ready to join? Take the meeting guide.
A one-page checklist for what to ask before, during, and after an IEP meeting. Free by email. The tools themselves remain free and work without an account.
Questions
What parents ask about these tools.
What makes an IEP goal measurable?
Usually five things: an observable behaviour rather than a vague verb like improve or understand; a starting baseline as a number; a target as a number; a stated way of measuring, such as timed readings or work samples; and a timeframe. A goal missing the baseline or the measurement method is hard to hold anyone to, because there's no agreed way to tell whether it was met.
Does the goal checker send my child's goal anywhere?
No. It runs entirely in your own browser using the page's own code. Nothing is transmitted, stored, or logged — you can disconnect from the internet after the page loads and it will still work.
Does a low score mean the school did something wrong?
No, and the tool deliberately doesn't say so. It reports which elements it can find in the wording — nothing more. A goal missing a baseline may have one recorded elsewhere in the document, and vague wording is far more often a drafting habit than anything else. The useful outcome isn't a verdict, it's a question you can ask calmly.
Is this legal advice?
No. These are general information tools built by a parent-side auditor, not an attorney. For anything involving your rights or a dispute, talk to a special education advocate or attorney in your state.
What do I get if I give you my email?
The PDF you asked for, immediately, plus occasional meeting-prep resources. Never a sales sequence, never a shared or sold list, and one click to stop. The tools on this page work fully without giving an email at all.