Special Education Boss® with Karen Mayer Cunningham
The Special Education Boss® Podcast is where advocacy meets action. Join Karen Mayer Cunningham each week as she empowers parents and professionals to understand their rights, navigate the system, and show up strong at the IEP table.
Episodes
141 episodes
Behavior Is Communication: Trauma-Informed Strategies for Special Education Teams
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 Cunn...
What Special Ed Teachers Need You to Know | Chana Dixon & Karen Mayer Cunningham | Special Education Boss
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 ...
Can They Drop the IEP by Phone? Remove Kids on Test Day? Skip Resource? No, No, and No.
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 resou...
Procedural Safeguards, Child Find, Prior Written Notice, and Parent Rights in Special Education
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 paraprofes...
Can a Paraprofessional replace a special educatin teacher?
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, a...
The Para Problem: What Every Parent and Advocate Needs to Know Right Now
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...
Paras, Pain Plans & the Truth Nobody Told You | Ask the Advocate
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 sta...
From Struggle to Strength: ADHD, Dyslexia & Real-World Success
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 l...
Vision Impairment in Special Education, What Parents and IEP Teams Must Know
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 k...
Ask the Advocate: IEP Questions Parents Are Asking Right Now
Ask the Advocate | Real IEP Questions from Parents and EducatorsParents, teachers, and advocates ask hundreds of questions every week about special education. In this Ask the Advocate episode, Karen Mayer Cunningham answers real q...
From Classroom to Advocate: What Schools Do When You Bring an Advocate to the IEP Table
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 ...
IEP Implementation, ESY & Compensatory Services | Ask the Advocate LIVE
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 failuresParaprofessional layoffs and 1:1 suppo...
RTI Is NOT a Gatekeeper + Why Schools Can’t Delay Evaluations (Live Q&A Fire)
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 specia...
From 504s to One-on-Ones: Real Talk from the IEP Table | Special Education Boss®
“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.<...
IEP Meetings, Procedural Safeguards & What Schools Don’t Want to Put in Writing | Ask the Advocate
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, p...
Ask the Advocate: Compensatory Services, Eligibility Traps, IEP Teams & School Pushback
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 ...
“Paras Can’t Take Data”? Let’s Finish the Sentence. | Ask the Advocate
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 deliv...
When Schools Say “No”: AAC Updates, Triennials, Toileting Support, and Your IEP Rights (Q&A)
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...
Stop Playing the “Draft IEP” Game + Why Paras Can’t Replace Certified SPED Minutes
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...
Behavior Is Communication: Safety, Structure & Relationship with John Vergara
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
Ask the Advocate: Recording IEP Meetings, Paras, Inclusion, FAPE & Out-of-District Placement
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 (o...
Ask the Advocate: Truancy, One-to-One Aides, LRE, and The Epic IEP Book
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 roa...
Ask the Advocate: IEP Data, 504 vs IEP, Behavior, RTI, and Comp Time Q&A
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 ...
Cold Reads Don’t Lie: An Epic IEP Story Every Parent Needs to Hear
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 a...
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 essent...