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Letters to your child’s school: an evaluation, the records, the IEP

A talk at pick-up or a phone call with the office is easy to lose. A short letter with a date on it is a record for you and for the school. This page has five letters from a parent or guardian to a public school: please evaluate my child for special education services, I want to see my child’s school records, I want a meeting to review my child’s IEP, please put the school’s decision in writing, and there is a problem I want to solve with you. Pick one, fill in the blanks, and print it, save it as a PDF or copy the text into an email. The letter can be in English or in Spanish. There is no account and no price.

Nothing is kept. Nothing you type here is sent anywhere, and nothing is saved, not even on this device: close or reload the page and the boxes are empty. Print or download your letter before you leave. This page runs no analytics or tracking. How we handle privacy.

This tool needs JavaScript. You can write the same letter by hand: the date, your name, address and daytime phone number, the name and address of the person at the school, your child’s full name, grade and teacher, one or two plain sentences that say what you are asking for, a thank you, and your name at the bottom. Keep a copy.

Good to know

Before you send it

Put it in writing, and keep a copy. CPIR, the Center for Parent Information and Resources, says: put all your requests in writing, even if your school district does not require it, and always keep a copy of each letter or email you send.
Who gets it. CPIR says many letters go to your child’s teacher, others to the principal, and some to the local Director of Special Education. It says that if you are not sure, you can always send the letter to the principal, who is responsible for giving your request to the right person. It also says to send a copy to your child’s teacher.
Keep it short and calm. CPIR says to keep a letter short and to the point, to say what you want rather than what you don’t want, and to give the facts without letting anger, frustration or blame creep in.
Let it rest, and let someone read it. CPIR suggests putting a first draft aside for a day or two, reading it as though you were the person receiving it, and having someone else read it.
If no answer comes. CPIR says: if you have not heard from the school within 10 working days of sending your letter or email, phone the office to make sure it was received, and ask when you can expect an answer. If you need an answer sooner, it says to let the school know.
If you need an interpreter. CPIR’s guide in Spanish says to put that in your letter, and gives a sentence for it. The tick box in step 4 adds a sentence like it.
Write down the day you sent it and how. Paper trail is a log for that, and Dates to keep holds the day you plan to call. This is our own suggestion, not from a source.

Who can help you with this

CPIR says each state has a federally-funded Parent Training and Information Center (PTI), and that PTI staff can help explain the laws, policies and procedures for special education in your state and help with problem-solving ideas. Find your Parent Center on CPIR’s site.
CPIR says each state and school district has its own guidelines for special education, and that you can call the main office at your child’s school and ask for a copy of your district’s written guidelines.
Our guide Help at school for your child walks through evaluations, IEPs, 504 plans, discipline and bullying, with its own sources.

Where the facts come from

Every fact on this page is passed on from CPIR, the Center for Parent Information and Resources, at parentcenterhub.org. We read these pages on October 5, 2026: its guide Communicating with Your Child’s School Through Letter Writing (marked updated October 2021), and its model letters for requesting an initial evaluation (marked current as of February 2022), requesting your child’s records, requesting an IEP review meeting, requesting prior written notice and discussing a problem (each marked current as of October 2021).
Those pages are several years old. We did not check them against the law itself or against the U.S. Department of Education’s own pages.
The letters on this page are ours, not CPIR’s model letters. Ours are shorter and say “my child” throughout. CPIR’s are at the links above, and you may prefer them.
CPIR also has model letters we did not turn into letters here: an independent evaluation, a change of placement, a private school placement, mediation, a due process hearing and a complaint to the state. They are linked from its guide.
No state’s rules are stated here, because we read none for this page. CPIR says some states give parents more rights and protections than are in the federal law.
Rules change; if CPIR, your state or your district says something different from this page, trust them.

What this page can’t do

It is not legal advice, and no lawyer, special education advocate, teacher or Parent Center has reviewed the letters.
It cannot promise an evaluation, a meeting, a copy or an answer. A letter asks.
It does not know your deadlines. CPIR says some special education guidelines give the amount of time a school has to respond to a parent’s request and some don’t; that the IDEA says schools must respond in a “timely manner” or within a “reasonable” period of time; and that some states and districts define this by a certain number of days. To find out what is true where you live, it says to check your state and local regulations.
It is about special education in public schools under the federal law called the IDEA. Four of the five letters are for that. It says nothing about 504 plans, private schools, suspensions or expulsions, or what to do when you and the school cannot agree.
It does not send the letter. You mail it, hand it in or email it.
It does not write in your place. There is no AI inside this tool: the sentences of each letter are a fixed text, written ahead of time with AI, and the page fills your blanks into it.
It does not translate what you type. Only the fixed sentences change with the language of the letter.

Which words are yours, and which are the page’s

Everything in the boxes is yours and goes on the letter as you typed it.
The subject line, the greeting, the sentences of the letter, the line about how to reach you, the thank you and the closing are the page’s, the same for everyone who picks that letter.
The fixed sentences ask. They do not name a law, and they do not threaten anyone.
Where your name or the name of the person at the school is still empty, the letter shows a line in square brackets or opens “To whom it may concern”, so the gap is easy to see.
Nothing on the printed letter names this website.

Tools that go with this

Find the letter: every letter on this site on one page, sorted by who it is for.
Help at school for your child: the guide these letters go with.
Paper trail: a log of every call, letter and visit.
Dates to keep: deadlines and meetings on one list.
Call script: know what you will say before you phone the office.
When your attention won’t stay put, When you wonder if it’s autism and When reading, writing or math has always been harder: three of our guides.
When you need a lawyer and can’t pay: free and low-cost legal help.
All the free tools, and how to save them on your phone.

A letter, not a lawyer. General information, not legal advice. If what you are carrying is too heavy today, call or text 988 (in the U.S.), or open Get help now. In an emergency, call 911.

The tool, the five letters and the wording around them were written with AI (Claude) for Scarlet Beast (our AI policy). The letters were not reviewed by a lawyer, a special education advocate, a teacher or a Parent Center, and no person has yet used them with a real school. The facts are passed on from parentcenterhub.org pages read on October 5, 2026; U.S. only. Scarlet Beast is not part of CPIR and is not endorsed by it. Also in Spanish: Cartas a la escuela de tu hijo o hija. Found a mistake? Email [email protected].