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EDquity at the Margins

EDquity Scholars

A year of advocacy, executive function, and college and career readiness for thirty students with high-incidence disabilities.

First cohort July 2027 Gallatin, Tennessee 501(c)(3) EIN 42-2295582

The problem

Year after year, IEPs set goals for organization, planning, and self-advocacy, and almost none of them say who will teach those skills or how.

Students sit through meetings about their own education without anyone showing them what the document says or how to speak in the room.

What our first thirteen IEP reviews found

0 of 13 goals included a stated baseline
0 of 13 plans a teacher who had never met the student could carry out as written
81% of compliance conditions passed
35% of substantive conditions passed

Thirteen independent IEP reviews for eleven families, scored against a 54-condition rubric with state overlays applied. Two of the thirteen used language a family could follow without help.

The documents carry the required elements while the instruction they are supposed to describe goes missing.

The program

Thirty students in grades 8 through 12, together, for a full year.

July
A five-day intensive makes the cohort.
Sept to May
Nine monthly Saturdays, nine in the morning to one in the afternoon.
Two visits
Two local college visits where students meet the disability services office alongside the standard admissions tour. Dates to be confirmed.
May
A family showcase where every Scholar presents.

What students build

Students build executive function directly: planning, organization, task initiation, and self-monitoring. They learn what their own IEP says, how to ask for their accommodations in class, and how their rights change the day they graduate.

Parents attend their own workshops on the same days, so a family leaves knowing the same things.

How we know it worked

We audit every Scholar's IEP when they enroll and again in May against our 54-condition rubric, which is anchored in IDEA and in the standard the Supreme Court set in Endrew F.

The second audit is the outcome measure, and sponsors receive an annual report showing what moved.

The ask

A seat is $1,000. Thirty students, thirty seats.

$1,000One seat
$5,000Five seats
$10,000Ten seats
$30,000Full cohort

We name every sponsor on our website and in the annual report.

Who runs it

Dr. Reba Clarke-Wedderburn founded EDquity at the Margins after twenty-one years as an educator and years advocating for her own children through IEP meetings. The organization delivers free independent IEP audits to families and built the 54-condition rubric the program measures against.