To determine whether a school district is violating students’ right to equal education, SSAIS provides downloadable forms that can be easily modified for your situation. These helpful forms were created for SSAIS by civil rights attorney Jeffrey R Caffee. Is there a resource you’d like to see included? Contact us!
Forms to Discover Information
Consider a systematic approach to holding a school district accountable by using these downloadable forms in the following order:
- Use the “Student Information Request Letter to a School District” to discover information directly from the school district about its compliance with Title IX.
- Use this version of the request letter to discover the same information from an individual school.
- Use the “Public Records Request Letter” to obtain documents from the school district regarding its Title IX compliance.
- Use the “Title IX Compliance Checklist” to evaluate whether there are deficiencies in the school district’s Title IX compliance.
- Use the “Student Follow Up Letter” to probe into a school district’s potential failures to comply with Title IX and determine the school district’s plan for becoming compliant with Title IX.
- Use the “Title IX Compliance Demand Letter” to make a final demand for Title IX compliance before beginning an OCR complaint.
- Use the “General Public Records Request Letter” to acquire documents of your choice not listed in #1. Examples: documents reporting sexual harassment and assault, cyber sexual bullying, harassment of LGBTQ+ students, etc. over a specific time framework.
If you are creating your own questionnaire checklist, refer to the questionnaire used in the Equal Rights Advocates study of San Francisco Bay area high schools.
To Inform a School District About its Title IX Obligations
Provide your schools with this fact sheet from the National Women’s Law Center. These documents list students’ rights and include many situations students encounter, including sexual cyberbullying. Then use letter #5 above.