Claim OwnershipSpecial Education Boss® with Karen Mayer Cunningham
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© 2025 Special Education Boss® with Karen Mayer Cunningham
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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.
122 Episodes
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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 story — from being the student with challenging behavior to bec...
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 alertCan students be left alone with high school helpers?Can a short-...
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 through an IEP step by step, plus how to pre-order the book and u...
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 crazy for asking.” 📚 The Epic IEP™ – Pre-Order + Bonuses Kar...
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 baseline. When the school claimed the student was reading 80 w...
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 “calculate...
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 thought we were collaborating.” She explains why parents are equal ...
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®, breaks down a real IEP story that starts with “she’s doing fantastic” and ends with a fourth grader reading 13 words correct per minute and a team refusing resource for five meetings straight. If you’ve ever sat at the table and wondered why services become the sticking point, this episode gives you clarity. Karen explains why the “why” doesn’t matt...
Welcome back to The Epic IEP™, where we share stories that are funny, frustrating, and absolutely fantastic—because they really happen at the IEP table. In today’s episode, Karen Mayer Cunningham, Special Education Boss®, breaks down one of the most common battles in special education: getting a student the actual services they need. This fourth grader was reading 13 words correct per minute (average is 120), had failed district and state assessments, and still the team insisted she was “doin...
Welcome back to The Epic IEP™, where we share stories that are funny, frustrating, and absolutely fantastic — because they really happen at the IEP table. In today’s episode, Karen Mayer Cunningham, Special Education Boss®, walks into what should have been a routine meeting… and instead ends up in a debate about whether a student needs support every day or only three days a week— even though his disability exists seven days a week. When the team insists the student “isn’t focused,” “isn’t mot...
Welcome back to The Epic IEP™, where we share stories that are funny, frustrating, and absolutely fantastic—because they really happened at the IEP table. In today’s episode, Karen Mayer Cunningham, Special Education Boss®, walks into what should have been a simple progress-review meeting… and instead gets blamed for everything from eligibility to data collection. When the teacher admits she didn’t take any data because she “didn’t want to stress the student out,” the meeting goes sideways fa...
Welcome back to The Epic IEP™, where we share real stories from the IEP table — the fantastic, the frustrating, and the downright funny. In today's episode, Karen Mayer Cunningham, Special Education Boss®, walks you through a 6:20 AM Zoom meeting that was supposed to be “quick and easy”… until it wasn’t. A visually impaired and orthopedically impaired student needed ESY. The team said no. Why? Because they believed the #1 myth in special education — that ESY requires documented regression onl...
Welcome to Tales from The Epic IEP™ — real stories that are funny, frustrating, and fantastic from the IEP table. In this debut episode, Karen Mayer Cunningham, Special Education Boss®, shares one of the most jaw-dropping meetings she’s ever attended — a story that reminds every parent, teacher, and advocate why facts, not feelings, win meetings. When a three-year-old student with a physical disability was denied access to the playground and told to “prove he was stable,” Karen realized again...
“I assumed everyone at the table understood the law… until I learned they didn’t.” In this powerful conversation, Karen Mayer Cunningham (Special Education Boss®) and Cindy unpack what really happens between MTSS, eligibility, and the IEP—and why so many well-meaning educators and parents are working from bad training, not bad intent. You’ll hear Cindy’s journey from 27 years in the system to discovering Special Education Academy™, and Karen’s charge to bring clarity, rigor, and hope back to...
You don’t know what you don’t know — but you need to. In this Clips from TikTok Live episode, Karen Mayer Cunningham (Special Education Boss®) answers real questions from parents, teachers, and advocates—linking every answer back to federal requirements, not opinions. What we cover: When 1:1 paras help short-term—and why they don’t fix instructionEligibility vs. services: needs drive goals, not labelsHow to follow up on an open OCR complaintDyslexia/dysgraphia/dyscalculia: what to request ins...
This episode dives deep into The Epic IEP—the practical, step-by-step playbook every parent, teacher, and advocate needs. Karen and Cindy unpack what’s inside (including built-in QR codes for templates, guides, and ongoing tools) and answer powerful questions from the community. Inside This Episode: How The Epic IEP serves as your outline for meetings, evaluations, and progress trackingThe real story behind 1:1 classroom models and why ratios matterWhat “evaluate suspected disabilities” actua...
This Q&A gets practical fast—how to think about one-to-one aides, what to do when bullying pushes a student out of a class they love, how accommodations must be delivered (without kids “asking”), and why “emergency placements” and mass homebound aren’t a thing under IDEA. Direct, clear, actionable—just how we like it. What we cover: One-to-one aides: When they help (short-term, targeted), when they don’t, and what to teach instead: skills and strategies.Placement clarity: Matching setting...
Does a medical diagnosis guarantee an IEP? Not under IDEA. Today, Karen breaks down medical diagnosis vs. educational eligibility—and why the IEP team makes the call based on educational impact and specially designed instruction, not just a doctor’s note. Then we dive into your Q&A: ADHD suspensions in K, Tourette’s (OHI), MDRs & safety, private school obligations, 504 vs. IEP, re-evals, para shortages, and more. We’re not giving legal advice. We’re educating you. What You’ll Learn Dx...
If you ever land in a due process hearing, your documents become your voice. In today’s SEB Live Q&A, Karen Mayer Cunningham breaks down how hearings actually work—resolution sessions, mediation, exhibits (joint, petitioner, and respondent), witnesses, timelines—and why clean, consistent documentation is the difference between overwhelm and outcomes. What we cover Due Process ≠ TV drama: what really happens in an administrative hearing15-day resolution session window and how timelines run...
Karen shares why she wrote The Epic IEP, who it’s for, and how this book delivers a clear roadmap for parents, educators, and advocates to navigate and negotiate successful student outcomes — without guesswork, confusion, or misinformation. 💬 Inside this episode: Who The Epic IEP is really for (and why every teacher, parent, and advocate needs it)The biggest lies told in IEP meetings — and how to respond with truth and dataWhat to do when schools retaliate against parents or ignore IDEA timel...
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