When Vision Minutes Go Wrong: How to Use Data to Fix an Epic IEP

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 enough. The paperwork looked “fine.” The VISIT form was “calculated.” But the child still wasn’t receiving the direct services he needed.

In this episode, you’ll learn how Karen broke it down:
• Why zero minutes would force a DNQ
• How to use functional tools (like the VISIT/VSST) in real-life conversations
• How an advocate sees the paperwork from a different lens

Karen also explains why parents and school-based staff are equal stakeholders, and why disagreement is not a problem — it’s part of the process. Parents rarely know their safeguards or how to interpret evaluations, and schools are often too close to the student to recognize when a need has grown or changed.

The heart of this episode:
Data tells the story. Data drives decisions. Data determines services.
Your job is to listen to the data — not the feelings, not the assumptions, not the “we’ve already calculated it.”

If you’ve ever been in a meeting where things drag on, stall out, or go in circles — this episode gives you the clarity and language to move forward with confidence.

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