Special Education Boss® with Karen Mayer Cunningham

What happens when a student with ADHD and dyslexia doesn’t get boxed in—but instead learns how to push forward anyway?

In this powerful conversation, Karen Mayer Cunningham sits down with Sean Foley to talk about what it really looks like to grow up with learning differences—and why success isn’t about labels, it’s about strategy, support, and resilience.

In This Episode:

Sean shares his journey navigating ADHD, dyslexia, and academic...

Most people sitting at an IEP table understand autism, dyslexia, and speech services.

But when a student with a visual impairment enters the conversation, many teams suddenly realize something important…

They don’t actually know how vision services work.

In this episode of Special Education Boss®, Karen Mayer Cunningham sits down with Abel Perez, CEO, from Ready Sight Go, a Certified Teacher of the Visually Impaired (CTVI) and Orienta...

Ask the Advocate | Real IEP Questions from Parents and Educators

Parents, teachers, and advocates ask hundreds of questions every week about special education. In this Ask the Advocate episode, Karen Mayer Cunningham answers real questions submitted during a live TikTok session about IEP meetings, services, evaluations, and advocacy.

Topics include what to do when a student is not receiving services listed in the IEP, how Extended Sc...

What really happens when an advocate walks into an IEP meeting?

In this powerful episode of Special Education Boss®, Karen Mayer Cunningham sits down with Paige Fitzgerald and Kate Magaldi, former special educators turned full-time advocates and founders of Inclusive Educational Practices.

Together, they pull back the curtain on what happens behind the scenes when an advocate is present at the IEP table—and why outcomes shift when so...

Guess who’s back?

In this Ask the Advocate live session, Karen Mayer Cunningham answers rapid-fire questions from families and educators about:

• IEP implementation failures
• Paraprofessional layoffs and 1:1 support
• Extended School Year (ESY) eligibility
• Compensatory services
• Due process documentation
• Placement vs. eligibility
• Resource classroom requirements
• Endrew F. and the FAPE standard
• Evaluation delays and what to do next

This epis...

Guess who’s back?

Fresh off the inaugural Epic IEP™ World Book Tour — eight stops in five days, professional developments, book signings, and hundreds of powerful conversations — Karen is back answering your biggest special education questions in real time.

And this one is packed.

From RTI misuse and delayed evaluations…
To schools sending kids home for behavior…
To missing related service minutes…
To paraprofessionals not...

“Data doesn’t have feelings. It has evidence.”

In this high-energy TikTok Live replay, Karen Mayer Cunningham dives headfirst into real-time questions from parents, teachers, and advocates navigating the special education process.

Karen brings clarity, humor, and decades of experience to the conversation — reminding us that preparation beats panic every time.

✨ In This Episode, We Cover:

• The difference between a 504 Plan and an IEP...

In this Ask the Advocate episode of Special Education Boss®, Karen Mayer Cunningham answers real questions from parents, educators, and advocates navigating complex IEP issues — from unfinished Monday meetings to missing data, procedural safeguards, graduation pathways, and transition services.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why IEP meetings so often stall — and what must happen before they continue
• The difference between a diplom...

In this Ask the Advocate episode of Special Education Boss®, Karen Mayer Cunningham answers real-time questions from parents, educators, and advocates navigating complex IEP situations — from compensatory services and eligibility decisions to attendance struggles, team makeup, and school-based pushback.

This episode is a powerful reminder that IEPs are legal documents, teams are equal stakeholders, and schools do not get to reduce o...

Today’s Ask the Advocate starts with a celebration—The Epic IEP is officially hitting hands soon—and then we go straight into a question that’s blowing up in schools everywhere:

Can paraprofessionals take data and deliver instruction when the teacher isn’t in the room?
Let’s finish the clip, finish the sentence, and finish the confusion.

Karen breaks down what “direct supervision” is actually tied to, why so many teams are uninte...

Did your IEP team say “we don’t have staff,” “we’ll just do a records review,” or “they don’t qualify because grades are fine”?

In this rapid-fire Q&A episode, Karen Mayer Cunningham (THE SPECIAL EDUCATION BOSS®) goes rogue and answers real questions from parents, educators, and advocates about what’s happening in schools right now—from missing AAC subscriptions to paras being left to “teach” SPED classes.

In this episode, we cov...

We’re back to school, and I’m not easing into anything. If your district is only giving parents “part of the draft,” if services are being missed because of staffing, or if someone is trying to use paraprofessionals to “cover” certified special education minutes—this episode is for you.

Tonight we cover what teams are required to do, what’s simply “district preference,” and the fastest way to bring meetings back to what they’re supp...

What if we stopped calling kids “difficult”… and started getting honest about what difficult behavior is really communicating?

In today’s episode, Karen Mayer Cunningham sits down with John Vergara (aka The Difficult Student) — an assistant principal over special education and one of the most impactful voices online when it comes to behavior, leadership, and building classroom culture that actually works.

John shares his personal sto...

This week’s Ask the Advocate is a fast-paced Q&A covering what parents and educators are dealing with right now: staffing shortages, messy “tier” conversations, behavior needs being dismissed, and districts trying to move too fast (or stall completely) when the child needs support.

🧑‍🏫 Staffing, Paras, and “Who’s Allowed to Do What”

• Sub paras placed in self-contained/tier settings with no training—what to say and who to ale...

In this Ask the Advocate episode, Karen Mayer Cunningham, Special Education Boss®, answers rapid-fire questions from parents, teachers, and advocates—and shares how her new book, The Epic IEP, gives you a clear roadmap to write and understand an IEP that actually serves the child.

Karen and Cindy dig into real situations from the IEP/504 table, including:

• The Epic IEP & Pre-Order Bonuses – How the 7-part framework walks you t...

What do you do when the school’s “data” makes no sense, your child is stuck on a 504 instead of an IEP, or behavior is being blamed on your student instead of addressed in the plan? In this Ask the Advocate episode, Karen Mayer Cunningham, The Special Education Boss®, is answering rapid-fire questions from parents, teachers, and paras who are in the thick of it every day.

All with humor, straight talk, and a whole lot of “you’re not...

Today’s episode of The Epic IEP™ is a little bit longer — but you’re going to want to hear this. Karen Mayer Cunningham, The Special Education Boss®, shares a real IEP meeting where the school’s data didn’t match what the student could actually do at home. And the difference wasn’t small.

Karen walks through why she always brings her own data to the table — three cold reads, two cold writes, and a clear picture of the child’s real b...

Today’s episode of The Epic IEP™ is going to be a little bit longer — but you’re going to want to hear this. Karen Mayer Cunningham, The Special Education Boss®, shares a story that is funny, frustrating, fantastic, and absolutely essential for anyone sitting at an IEP table.

Karen walks you through a real meeting where a student with a vision impairment was receiving 15 minutes a semesterof “consult.” The team insisted it was enoug...

Today’s episode of The Epic IEP™ is a little longer — but you’re going to want to hear this. Karen Mayer Cunningham, The Special Education Boss®, shares a real IEP meeting where everything was “fine”… until the parent disagreed. And that’s when things got interesting.

Karen breaks down how a simple request — adding general education as an implementer on two IEP goals — turned into pushback, confusion, and the classic line: “I though...