I have been thinking about you since we wrapped up on Friday.

This was not a typical training week. It was a small group. Real conversations. Real IEPs. Real moments where parents had aha moments right in front of us, and then went back to their child's document with new eyes.

Whether you were with us live every day, or you caught the replays over the weekend and started looking at your child's IEP differently, you showed up. And that matters more than you know.

First, your Guide is here.

I put together a complete participant Guide that captures everything we covered across all four days. The permission slip. The gift box. The SSMMAARRTT goals framework. The Connect the Dots framework. The parent stories. The sentence frames you can bring to your next meeting.

It is yours to keep. Come back to it before every IEP meeting, before you send that email to the school, before a parent-teacher conference. Any time you need to remember what you know and what your child deserves.

 

Now I want to share something I said on Day 1, because I think it matters even more today.

Years ago I heard a disability rights advocate named Judith Snow talk about giftedness. She said some of us have ordinary gifts, we can read, spell, figure out math problems. But some people carry something else entirely. Extraordinary gifts. Things that belong only to them.

I went home after hearing her speak and called a family meeting. We made a list of Dylan's extraordinary gifts.

*A gift of unconditional love for others. Curiosity. A sense of humor. An undaunted spirit. A kid who loves to have fun.*

And I brought that gift box to every single one of Dylan's IEP meetings.

Your child has a gift box too.

I know you know that. You know it the way only a parent can in the stories you tell about them, in the things that light them up, in the moments that make you so proud you can barely stand it.

The question is, does their IEP know it?

Because here is what I see every day as an advocate. Parents come to IEP meetings and share everything they love about their child. What makes them extraordinary. How they learn. What lights them up. And then the IEP comes back, and it is like none of that ever happened.

The gifts get left at the door.

That is what last week was about. Getting those gifts off the doorstep and into the document. Into the goals. Into the placement decision. Into every section that shapes what your child's school day actually looks like.
 

The guide gives you the knowledge. The Inclusive IEP Audit™ applies it to your child.

This is the thing I want you to sit with.

Knowing what a strong IEP looks like and knowing whether *your child's* IEP is actually doing its job, those are two very different things.

You can use the 3-color review. You can bring the sentence frames to your next meeting. You can read every goal through the SSMMAARRTT lens. And all of that will help.

But when you are sitting across from a team that has been writing IEPs for years, in a room that was never designed to feel like yours, having someone who can look at your child's specific document and say *here, right here, this is where the thread breaks and here is what you do next* that changes everything.

That is what the Inclusive IEP Audit™ is.
Here is what we do together:

You fill out a form with some basic information about your child and your situation. I do the prep work: color coding, redacting, reading every section before we meet.

You will also use This Is ME! before we hop on our call. You answer questions about your child, who they are, how they learn, what lights them up, what makes hard things possible, and then you share that report with me. So when we sit down together I already have a rich, detailed picture of your child in front of me. Not just their IEP. 

Then we sit down together on a 90-minute Zoom call and go through your child's entire IEP. The two of us, together, looking at your child's document in real time, so you can ask questions, understand what you are seeing, and know exactly what to do next.

You walk away with:
🔵 The full recording and transcript of our session, so that every conversation you have with the school from this point forward is grounded in what your child actually needs, not what the system finds easiest to offer

🟣 An inclusive action plan with specific next steps before your next meeting, so that your child walks into their next school year with an IEP that finally sees them whole: their strengths driving their goals, their needs reframed around how they learn best, and their place in the classroom no longer up for debate

🟢 The confidence of knowing someone has looked at your child's IEP the way it deserves to be looked at, so that your child stops being defined by what they cannot do and starts being taught by what they can do.

💥 Because you were part of this week's group, if you sign up by tonight, Monday June 29th at 11:59 pm Eastern time, you receive This Is ME! as a bonus included with your audit.

We demonstrated it live on Friday. In less than an hour, a parent answered questions about her son, and what came back was something she had never had before. Not a checklist. Not a generic profile. A portrait of her child that made it nearly impossible for any teacher to look at him and not see him.

*When he is motivated and supported, he can accomplish things that may initially seem overwhelming. Initial discomfort does not mean an activity is inappropriate. Sometimes it means he needs the right supports, enough time, and the opportunity alongside his peers.*

That came from a parent answering a question about baseball. That is the argument for inclusion. And it is the kind of language that follows your child into every classroom, every meeting, every new relationship they build with a teacher who does not know them yet.

👉 audit.iep.today

One more thing before I let you go.
I started this week by handing you a permission slip.
I want to close it the same way.

You have permission to expect more from that document. You have permission to bring your child's gift box into that room and refuse to leave until it makes it onto the page. You have permission to have help so you find exactly where the thread breaks and what to do next so your child will be valued and belong.

Because out of all the things that need to change...
Your child is not one of them.
 

Until every child belongs,

P.S. The replays come down at 11:59 pm Eastern Time,  today, Monday, June 29th, which is also when our private Facebook group, IEPs for Belonging closes.  Thank you for being here, thank you for speaking up for your child!