Digital tools for scholarship season, the years after high school, and the school meetings in between
These are self-serve versions of the systems we use with families. They download instantly and they are yours to keep.
The scholarship tools organize the work and sharpen the essays, and every sentence stays in the student’s own voice. The planning guides cover the stretch from age 14 to 22, including the eighteenth birthday. The Foundation Family Advocacy kits give parents of students with IEPs and 504 plans the paperwork to use when something goes wrong at school. The guides and kits were written for California.
Scholarship season
The Essay Self-Review Workbook
Every essay we review is scored on six dimensions: prompt responsiveness, authentic voice, specificity and evidence, structure and momentum, reflection and meaning, and mechanics and fit. This workbook turns that method into a guided, fillable PDF. Your student can revise like a reviewer before anyone else reads the draft.
- A 10-page fillable PDF you can type into or print
- Three diagnostic questions for each dimension, taken from the review method we use with our own clients
- Room to commit to one concrete improvement per dimension, which is the discipline that moves a draft
- Works for Common App personal statements, supplemental essays, and scholarship essays
The Scholarship & Application Tracker
This is the cleaned-up template of the spreadsheet one of our own students used to manage more than 50 scholarship applications in a single senior year. It runs on one principle: every application gets two deadlines. The first is the sponsor’s published deadline. The second is a counselor deadline ten to fourteen days earlier, which is the date transcripts and letters need to be in hand.
- A scholarship tab with dual deadlines, requirements, status, and notes, with room for 200 applications
- A college applications tab covering rounds (EA, ED, and RD), essays, letters, and aid forms
- A winnings tab that tracks renewal requirements and keeps a running total automatically
- A season summary that updates itself as you go
The Scholarship Season Bundle
The Workbook and the Tracker together, covering essay season from the first draft through the final submission.
How these tools fit with our services
These are self-serve tools. Each one is used on its own, without a review by us, and no tool or service of ours guarantees any outcome. Deadlines and submissions remain each family’s responsibility.
Every writer benefits from an outside reader, because no one sees all of their own blind spots, and every scholarship committee is a stranger reading the essay for the first time. Our standalone Essay Review provides that reader. Kelsey reads the draft the way a committee will and tells your student what a stranger experiences on the page. The written assessment gives one concrete improvement direction for each of the six dimensions, and it comes back within five business days. It costs $175 per essay, or three for $500.
Families who want a plan for the whole year usually start with the $495 Scholarship Readiness & Strategy Review, which is credited in full toward any package booked within three months. Families working through a transition plan, the eighteenth birthday, a dispute with the school, or a school evaluation they are not sure they agree with can book a One-on-One Session with Kim for $395, which includes a written follow-up plan.
Planning for the years after high school
The years between 14 and 22 cannot be done over. The first guide below is for every family with a student approaching 18. The two that follow are for families of students with IEPs, covering the transition plan and the eighteenth birthday for a student with a disability. All three were written for California by Kim Ewing, M.S., M.S.W., a former California principal, school psychologist, and director of special education.
Your Student Is Turning 18
At 18 your child becomes an adult in the eyes of the law. The doctor stops talking to you. The college sends the grades and the bills to your student. If your student is hurt far from home, the hospital may not call you. About an hour of paperwork fixes this, and the guide walks you through that hour with the California forms named. It covers the four documents every family should sign: the HIPAA release, the Advance Health Care Directive, the durable power of attorney, and the FERPA release. It explains health insurance and campus health fees, bank accounts, credit, and why you still fill out the parent section of the FAFSA until your student is 24. It covers voting, Selective Service, jury duty, leases, and car insurance under California rules, and how to stay informed about school and college records without taking over. It ends with a birthday checklist and a fillable emergency information card.
Transition Planning in California
Most guides on this subject are written for a national audience, so they cannot name the agencies that matter here. This one does. It shows a boilerplate transition plan next to a real one, so you can ask for the second version. It walks through ages 14 to 22 year by year. It names the California agencies: regional centers, the Department of Rehabilitation, WorkAbility, Transition Partnership Programs, community college DSPS, and Family Empowerment Centers. It explains who is responsible for what, so you stop being sent back and forth. It covers the diploma decision, the college documentation request to make in eleventh grade, and a print-and-bring page of questions for your next IEP meeting.
Turning 18 in California: Students with Disabilities
On your student’s eighteenth birthday your legal authority ends, even when your student still lives at home. This guide explains how the school, the doctor’s office, Social Security, and the court will treat your student differently after the birthday. It covers the written option that lets your student keep you in the IEP process, and what to say when a district claims your student needs a conservator. It compares three options side by side: supported decision-making, powers of attorney, and limited conservatorship. For each one, you see what it costs, whether a court is involved, and which rights your student keeps. It walks through limited conservatorship step by step, including the regional center requirement. It explains the SSI redetermination, IHSS reassessment, CalABLE, and the special needs trust conversation to have with relatives. It ends with a birthday checklist and five questions for your attorney appointment.
Both Guides for Students with IEPs
Transition Planning in California and Turning 18 in California: Students with Disabilities together.
Foundation Family Advocacy: when something goes wrong at school
Schools respond to dated logs, numbered requests, and letters that cite the Education Code. Each kit below gives you those tools for one situation: a signed IEP or 504 plan that is being ignored, a suspension, or a child who refuses to go to school because of anxiety. Every kit is a fillable PDF written for California by Kim Ewing, M.S., M.S.W., a former California principal, school psychologist, and director of special education. Each one includes a log, an escalation path, editable letters, meeting templates, and scripts for the conversations that usually go wrong.
Read Your Child’s Evaluation Report
A school psychologist’s decoder for the psychoeducational report. It explains what standard scores, scaled scores, T-scores, and percentiles mean in ordinary life, decodes the tests you will actually see (WISC-V, WJ IV, KTEA-3, WIAT-4, CTOPP-2, BASC-3, BRIEF-2, Vineland-3), lists what an evaluation must contain under federal and California law with the citations, names fourteen red flags, walks you through the decision to request an Independent Educational Evaluation, and includes every letter you may need plus twenty questions for the eligibility meeting.
The IEP Isn’t Being Followed Kit
A signed IEP or 504 plan is a legal document. This kit is the system for getting it enforced. It includes an implementation log built around your child’s actual plan. It lays out the escalation ladder from teacher to case manager to principal to district to state complaint. It gives you five editable letters, one for each step, plus a Prior Written Notice request. It includes a meeting-request letter, an IEP-meeting notes template, and scripts for the conversations that usually go wrong. It ends with a guide to the California Department of Education compliance complaint.
Suspended: The 72-Hour Parent Action Plan
The first three days after a suspension decide most of what follows. This plan walks you through them in order. It includes an hour-by-hour checklist for the first 72 hours and the questions to ask before you leave the office. It explains your rights under Education Code 48900 through 48927 at each level, from a short suspension to an expulsion hearing. It explains the manifestation determination review and gives you a preparation worksheet. It includes letters for the records request, the appeal, the hearing request, and the record correction. It ends with a re-entry plan and a script for the meeting.
School Refusal Response Workbook
School refusal is an anxiety response. Once the school has the right paperwork, it is handled very differently from truancy. This workbook includes a 14-day morning trigger tracker that shows the pattern. It includes an absence and documentation log that protects you from truancy action. It gives you a word-for-word reply to attendance and truancy notices, citing Education Code 48205. It includes a letter requesting a 504 plan or a special education evaluation. It helps you build a gradual re-entry plan with the school. It includes scripts for the morning, the teacher, and the meeting, and a one-page summary sheet for every professional involved.
All Four Advocacy Kits
Read Your Child’s Evaluation Report, the IEP Kit, the 72-Hour Action Plan, and the School Refusal Workbook together.
When a kit is not enough. If the situation has moved past what a log and a letter can fix, or you have an evaluation report in hand and do not know whether to agree with it, a One-on-One Session with Kim reviews the paperwork against what federal and California law require and sends you into the meeting with written requests. It is an advocacy review, not a clinical one. It costs $395 and includes a written follow-up plan.
Instant download after purchase. Treat the planning guides and advocacy kits as general information and organizing tools rather than legal, medical, or financial advice; laws, benefit rules, and district policies change, so verify current requirements before relying on any citation. Because these are digital products, all sales are final.