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What the Advisor is and how to use it

The Advisor is a chat surface you can ask questions of about your IEP. It reads the document you uploaded plus a curated knowledge base on special-education process, available to families nationwide with reviewed state-specific sources where available.

What it's good at

• Surfacing patterns. "Are the reading goals SMART? Which ones aren't measurable?"
• Drafting questions. "What should I ask the team about my child's progress on the social-emotional goals?"
• Translating jargon. "What's the difference between accommodations and modifications?"
• Process orientation. "What happens if I disagree with the proposed IEP?"

From a concern to a goal for your meeting

You do not need a goal written before you start. Choose Help me find and draft a goal in Advisor, or describe a concern in your own words. As you talk, Advisor can help identify goal ideas and shape proposed wording.

1. Tell Advisor what your child finds hard and what you want to change. Share current progress information when you have it.
2. Use a goal action in the reply, or Review goal ideas when it appears, to open an idea in Goal Coach.
3. Edit the wording directly or ask Coach for a specific refinement. You can also choose Write a goal myself to start without AI.
4. Choose Add to Meeting Pack when you are ready, then View pack to see the proposal on your meeting agenda.

Opening and editing a draft does not use an AI action. Asking Advisor or Coach to generate wording does. You choose which proposals to bring to the team; saving a proposal does not change your accepted IEP.

How to use it well

Be specific. "What's missing in the math goals?" gets a better answer than "Is this IEP good?" Quote the exact text you're asking about when you can. Ask follow-ups — the Advisor remembers the conversation, so layered questions work better than a single long question.

What it isn't

It isn't legal advice. It isn't your advocate at the meeting. It isn't a substitute for the people who know your child best — you and your child's teachers. PrepIEP surfaces patterns and questions for you to raise with your IEP team. The Advisor is instructed to flag situations that may need an advocate or attorney (due-process prep, a BSEA hearing, complex compensatory ed) and point you to your local Parent Training and Information center, but do not rely on AI alone to identify when professional help is needed.

When the Advisor gets something wrong, hit the thumbs-down on the message and tell us why. Every flag goes into prompt iteration — see Why the Advisor sometimes gets things wrong.