Terms of Use

1. What Slingshot is

Slingshot helps parents and guardians understand and prepare for their child's Individualized Education Program (IEP), Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) or Section 504 plan. You can organize your child's strengths and concerns, add school documents for analysis, and prepare for meetings with your child's team.

Slingshot is not a legal service, an educational consulting service, or a medical provider. Nothing Slingshot produces is legal advice, a professional educational assessment, or a medical opinion. For legal representation, consult a qualified special education attorney.

2. Your account

You sign in with a link sent to your email address, or with Google or Microsoft. Keep your email account secure and do not share sign-in links.

Accounts are for adults only. You must be at least 18 and a parent or legal guardian with the legal authority to make educational decisions for the child whose information you add. Children do not use Slingshot; parents add information about them. By using Slingshot, you confirm that you have the legal right to share every document and piece of information you add.

If you share educational decision making with another parent or guardian, either of you may generally use Slingshot unless a court order says otherwise. When parents disagree about using Slingshot, we follow a court order. If we receive one that limits your rights, we will act on it.

3. Working with an advocate or firm

An advocate or advocacy firm you work with may invite you to Slingshot. Before you see the invitation, you confirm your child's details, so an invitation that reaches the wrong person shows them nothing. If you accept, the firm can see your child's records in Slingshot. You can see which firms have access, and you can end a firm's access at any time in Settings.

Your agreement with the firm governs the firm's services, including its advice and its fees. The firm is responsible for its own work. Paying a firm does not include Slingshot Plus, and a firm's access does not change what Plus includes.

A firm may also use Slingshot for your case without you having an account. In that case the firm controls those records under its agreement with you, and we use them only to provide the service to the firm, on its instructions. If you later create an account and accept the firm's invitation, the records become yours, and the firm keeps access only as long as you allow. If a firm's access ends, your own copy stays yours until you delete it.

4. Professional users

Advocates and other staff of a firm that has an agreement with Slingshot may use Slingshot for the families they serve. You may use it only for families who have authorized your firm to do so, and only for your work on their case. Your firm is responsible for how its staff use Slingshot, and the firm's agreement with us governs between the firm and Slingshot. Where that agreement and these terms differ, that agreement controls for the firm and its staff.

5. Optional advocacy sessions

Some Slingshot accounts include access to an optional advocacy session, provided by Slingshot Labs Benefit LLC and delivered by Rob Martin, Slingshot's co-founder and a Board Certified Advocate in Special Education (BCASE). Sessions are not offered to families who come to Slingshot through an advocate or firm.

The session covers confirming that the documents your team will need are present in Slingshot and, if helpful, a follow-up conversation to prepare using those documents. It does not include attending your IEP meeting or any other meeting with your school, in any format.

A session is not legal representation. Nothing discussed is legal advice, and a session does not create an attorney-client relationship or privilege. If you book a session, a person will review the documents you have added for that session; see the Privacy Policy.

6. Slingshot Plus

Some features are part of Slingshot Plus, a paid subscription. The price and billing period are shown before you pay. A subscription renews automatically until you cancel. You can cancel at any time in Settings, and it ends at the close of the current billing period. Payments are processed by Stripe.

7. Recording meetings

Slingshot records a meeting only when everyone present agrees, in every state, and keeps a record of who agreed. Whoever starts a recording is responsible for asking everyone present and for following any rules the school sets for recording meetings, which can include notice in advance. If anyone says no, take notes instead.

The audio is deleted once the transcript is approved. Transcripts and meeting notes are records that could be requested in a due process hearing or other legal proceeding.

Slingshot never records a meeting with a lawyer. Sharing a lawyer's advice with anyone, including us, can waive the privilege that protects it. Keep notes of conversations with your lawyer out of Slingshot.

8. Your data

You own the information you add and the documents you upload. You give Slingshot a limited license to process them to provide the service to you and to anyone you have given access. We do not claim ownership of your child's records.

You can delete a child's profile and everything in it, or your whole account, at any time in Settings. How we handle your information is described in our Privacy Policy and our Consumer Health Data Privacy Policy.

9. Subpoenas and other legal requests

If we receive a subpoena, court order or other legal demand for your records, including in a due process hearing, we will tell you, and any firm with access to the records, before we respond, unless the law forbids it or there is an emergency. That gives you the chance to object. We disclose only what the demand legally requires.

10. When your child turns 18

When your child turns 18, their rights over their education records and decisions transfer to them, unless a court or another legal arrangement says otherwise. From then on you may keep their records in Slingshot only if you have legal authority to act for them, such as guardianship, a power of attorney, or your child's written consent. We will ask you to confirm that authority. If you cannot, you can hand the account to your child or delete it.

11. Text messaging (SMS) program

If you provide a phone number and opt in, you agree to receive automated text messages from Slingshot related to your child's upcoming IEP or IFSP meetings, deadlines, and related account notifications. Consent to receive text messages is not required to use Slingshot.

Message frequency varies. Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP at any time to unsubscribe, or HELP for help. Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages. See our Privacy Policy for how we handle your phone number and other information.

12. AI-generated content

Slingshot uses artificial intelligence to analyze documents and help you prepare. AI output may be incomplete or inaccurate, or miss what is specific to your child. Where Slingshot shows what a document says, it quotes the document and the page, so you can check it. Review everything before you rely on it in a meeting.

AI output is a starting point, not a final answer. It does not replace the knowledge of educators, specialists, or attorneys who know your child and their school.

13. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Upload documents you do not have the right to share
• Use the service for a child unless you are their parent or guardian with legal authority, or a professional user working for a family who authorized your firm
• Attempt to access other users’ accounts or data
• Use the service for a commercial purpose, except as a professional user under your firm’s agreement with us
• Attempt to reverse engineer, scrape, or interfere with the service

14. Availability

We aim to keep Slingshot available and reliable, but we do not guarantee uninterrupted access. The service may be temporarily unavailable for maintenance, updates, or reasons beyond our control. We are not liable for harm caused by service interruptions.

15. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Slingshot Labs Benefit LLC is not liable for any indirect, incidental, or consequential damages arising from your use of the service, including the outcome of any meeting. Our total liability for any claim is limited to the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim, or $100, whichever is greater. If you use Slingshot through a firm that has its own agreement with us, that agreement, not this section, governs liability between the firm and Slingshot.

The service is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, express or implied.

16. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Maryland. Any disputes will be resolved in the courts of Maryland, and you consent to personal jurisdiction there.

17. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as the product evolves. We will email you before a material change takes effect. If you signed these terms in Slingshot, we will ask you to sign the new version before it applies to you. Otherwise, continuing to use the service after the change takes effect means you accept it.