Special Education Boss® with Karen Mayer Cunningham

It is the last full week of IEP meetings and Karen Mayer Cunningham is answering your live questions - and none of the answers are soft. This is a fast-moving Ask the Advocate session covering some of the most important questions in special education right now.

Plus - big announcements. The Epic Educator Academy launches June 1st at 7PM Central. The Two-Day Advocacy Intensive is live in Lexington, Kentucky on May 30th and ...

Behavior is not just a choice. It is communication, capacity, nervous system response, and often a reflection of the support a child has — or has not — received.

In this powerful episode of Special Education Boss® with Karen Mayer Cunningham, Karen sits down with Rick and Doris Bowman of Bowman Consulting Group for a deeply important conversation about behavior, trauma-informed support, nervous system regulation, and what schools mu...

Nobody prepared you for what it actually feels like to sit across from a teacher in an IEP meeting. And nobody prepared that teacher for what it feels like when you walk in.

Karen Mayer Cunningham, Special Education Boss, sits down with Chana Dixon - special education supervisor with 23 years in the field - for one of the most honest conversations in special education. This is not about paperwork. This is about people.

Can a teacher call you on the phone and ask if you want to drop your IEP and go to a 504? Can the school relocate self-contained students because they are too loud during state testing? Can your principal tell you the campus does not have resource?

No. No. And absolutely not.

HERE'S WHAT KAREN COVERS:

→ Why resource rooms are required under IDEA 300.115 and what to do if your school says they elimina...

In this live Q&A episode, Karen Mayer Cunningham answers real questions from parents, educators, and advocates about some of the biggest special education issues showing up right now.

From dyslexia tools and ADHD support to paraprofessional roles, raw data, ESY, reading levels, 18–21 transition services, and IEP service minutes, this conversation is packed with practical insight to help you show up more prepared at the table.

In ...

Can a paraprofessional replace a special education teacher in the classroom? What tools actually help kids with dyslexia? And what is ESY — really?

In this LIVE Q&A, Karen Mayer Cunningham answers real questions from parents, advocates, and educators about the issues showing up in IEP meetings right now, with 35 days left in the school year.

Here's what Karen covers:

→ What paraprofessionals can and cannot do under NCLB and E...

Can a paraprofessional deliver specially designed instruction? What are the paraprofessional laws in your state? And what happens when a school district admits — in writing — that no certified special educator has been in the classroom all year?

In this episode of the Special Education Boss® podcast, Karen Mayer Cunningham breaks down a real IEP meeting in Texas where the district's own deliberations confirmed that a general ed...

If someone at your school said it was fine without showing you the law - it probably was not fine.

Karen Mayor Cunningham answers your live questions on this Ask the Advocate session of Special Education Boss. She brought the federal statutes, the DSM-5, and zero patience for made-up rules.

In this episode:

- The brand-new Epic IEP Para book: all 50 states, all federal laws from 1965 to 2015, everything y...

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...