When Special Education Fails Kids (And How to Fix It) — Karen Mayer Cunningham on The Epic IEP

And we don't educate teachers. I love teachers. God bless teachers, strangers that take our children for the whole day. Like, they're definitely all going to heaven, right? And they want to do the right thing. But you would think or assume, as I would, if your child goes to school and goes to math class, that that teacher is probably certified in math. You would also think and assume that special educators were certified in Special education. You would be incorrect. So we have more continuing ed requirements for people that change oil for a living, which is important, than we do for educators, general ed and special educators, teaching kids with exceptionalities and disabilities.

Karen, welcome to The Book Thinkers. Life-Changing Books Podcast. We are here today talking about your brand new book, The Epic IEP. So for the audience that's not familiar, what does IEP stand for?

It stands for Individualized Education Program.

And why do we need an entire book on this?

Oh well, just because 8.5 million children in America have an IEP. It's an Individualized Education Program. So is for kids in public schools or charter schools, um, that need special ed services, right? So that could be reading, attention, all those things.

And what is the education system doing wrong? I mean, I hear all of these stats about how the education system is not keeping up with the rest of the world and not serving its students. And I mean, I have a little one at home, he's 13 months old, and that's one of the big questions that we have is like, Does he go into the traditional education system with all of the negative stuff that we're hearing? So what are some of your thoughts on that?

So, you know, I don't know that we've done anything great in our education system in the 50 years that special education has been around. But I can tell you, special education, which is what this book is about, when delivered with fidelity, changes a child's entire future and gives a family hope. And so there's not a better setting for kids in special education than public schools when we get it right, and we get it right a lot. And so the, the point of the book is there's so many law books about special education law, because that's enjoyable. Like, if you ever have trouble going to sleep at night, just bust out some federal law, tuck it under your pillow, you will be out like a light. But we've had this amazing law since December 2nd, 1975. I know you probably weren't alive. And our great president signed it into legislation, and so that kids with disabilities can have access in public school. And it changes kids' lives. It changed my son's life, which is the reason I do this work.

Yes, tell us a little bit more about why you do this work and also why you saw a need for the book.

Yeah, so I do this work because I like to grind my teeth. No, just kidding. I'm working on, you know, walking in forgiveness. That's why I sit in IEP meetings. I do this work because my son was diagnosed with a disability when he was 2 and a half and became part of the special education process. And I thought, this is gonna be great. He needs special ed supports. He needs a little speech therapy. I'm gonna buy him a Lion King backpack, send him to school, and they'll take care of that. That's what they do. They just take care of it at school. And I found out very quickly that it is a much-needed but broken system. that really ties the hands of people that want to help kiddos, and that's parents and educators. And so when I started this process, I just became obsessed with these kids, obsessed with this law, obsessed with educators. And it's just a great little puzzle. And when we put it together, kids flourish. And when we don't, kids don't flourish. And so I've been doing this for 29 years. I started when I was 6, when I still had a thyroid. And You know, I do this because I couldn't not do it. Have you ever had something like that in your life, Nick? Like you, you couldn't not do it, even though I didn't do it for a living. I can't wait to talk about it. I can't wait to tell somebody about it. And so these services change a child's life. It teaches them skills. And it's just so important that we deliver them with fidelity. And we haven't got it exactly right. But we're getting a little bit better every day.

What do you mean that the current system ties the hands of parents and educators?

What does that What do you mean by that? Well, so kids with disabilities— we'll just get right down to it— kids with disabilities are the most expensive student in the school, and kids with disabilities are rarely a school board meeting photo op. Just think about that for a second. They're rarely a school board meeting photo op. And the things that we celebrate in school, like, you know, the quarterback and, you know, the head of the drill team and who got, you know, the highest, you know, score in the science STEM And I did all those things too, right? We don't really often think or behave or put our money where our mouth is for kids with disabilities. And I think because people believe that might not be the best ROI. And you know what? I was one of those people. I absolutely was one of those people before I had a child in my house with disabilities. My whole life I've been able to control outcomes or write a check to fix things. And guess what? This was a little pop quiz that I got from God, and neither one of those things were going to work. And so we have to do what's best for kiddos. And I wrote this book so that we would have a book that was actionable. There's so many law books or textbooks— that's— who doesn't love a good textbook? And the federal law is 115 statutes. Like, we could all memorize those, but you're going into a meeting trying to negotiate with people who have already spent their entire school budget. So I'm going in and I'm saying, you know, Nick, he is 12 years old, he has ADHD and a speech impairment, and the money is already spent. And so services cost money, they cost time, and they cost hands. And so this is important that you know this process so that we negotiate these outcomes so that kids just have amazing adult lives.

And so you've been involved in this for 29 years. At what point did you say, I think I need to write a book about this process?

Never, Nick. I'm a book hostage. I was taken hostage in a meeting about a year ago. And I talk a little bit, and I've always been a speaker. I'm a stand-up comic. So talking has not been a problem for me. That getting still and putting something on paper was a little bit of a difficult thing for me, but so needed. I am such a Book junkie, and for years people, when I would train and teach school districts and parents, they were like, "Do you have this written down somewhere?" I'm like, "Well, that's kind of rude. I just told it to you at 3x. I don't know why you didn't remember everything I just said." And it was a labor of love, like having a baby, but it's going to change the world. It's actionable, it's hope-filled, and it puts us all on the same place. I believe that special education is divided. for a number of reasons that we don't need to talk about in this wonderful podcast. But I feel like leadership in schools sometimes pit parents against teachers, and really those 2 people are the ones that have the biggest buy-in for the kiddo. But, you know, we've got a principal who's being told by, um, somebody that's a bean counter, keep the numbers down, keep the numbers down. And we don't educate teachers. I love teachers. God bless teachers, strangers that take our children for the whole day. Like, They're definitely all going to heaven, right? And they want to do the right thing. But you would think or assume, as I would, if your child goes to school and goes to math class, that that teacher is probably certified in math. You would also think and assume that special educators were certified in special education. You would be incorrect. So we have more continuing ed requirements people that change oil for a living, which is important, than we do for educators, general ed and special educators, teaching kids with exceptionalities and disabilities. And so when I started this, you know, doing it online and, you know, roughing up the microphone late at night, um, in 2016, there's just no information that gets down to the people that need it the most, the teachers and the parents. And they want the information, Nick. They want the information. 75% of the people that I end up training our school-based members. Why, why me, a college dropout, am I training them? Because our school districts don't. And so teachers want to know. They want to know how to develop this epic IEP and really put this paperwork together in a way that serves a child. We're so busy filling out software, and we're training teachers on software that we forgot about the student. And so this is important. It's going to change the way we all do special education. And it's what we've needed for so many years.

I have a couple of things that I'd like to unpack in what you just said. First is a note for some of the other authors in the audience. Karen, one thing I love that you said was that there was an inbound demand for this book to be written before you decided to write it. You said it held you hostage. And I want to ask you about the comedy piece in a minute too, but you highlight something that's really important. You didn't just one day say, I have this awesome idea for a book and I'm going to write it and there will be a demand for it. It happened the other way around.

Yeah.

So many people were asking you to elaborate on what you were already sharing, and so you knew there was a need for it. And I think that so many authors miss that mark. They say, here's a leadership book because I'm special and everybody should learn from me. It's not the case.

Right.

But clearly there's a demand for this, and clearly, I mean, you know, What you just highlighted, which is that there are more continuing education requirements for somebody changing the oil in your car than there are the special ed resources in schools. Like, that's— that by itself is the case for this book.

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think that, you know, for those authors that are out there, it's— this is what I say. This is my love letter to everybody. If I'm gone tomorrow, or as my friend Garth Brooks would say, if tomorrow never comes, My husband said, you know what, if you pass away, the book sales will be even higher. I was like, thanks, sweetie. I appreciate that. Thanks for being forward-thinking. But what a waste to have lived through all of this, to have survived all of this, to have succeeded all of this, whatever that this is in your life, and to be able to give somebody else your steps so that they don't have scars. How could you not leave that for them? Right? And so this is my love note. It's a testament of the goodness of, you know, God in my life, the goodness of this work, the greatness in people, and that children are exceptional, right? I think all children are RA. They're ridiculously amazing. And I would have been selfish if I didn't take the time to do this work so that somebody else somewhere can be served. We have a great social media presence, about a million followers, which means I have to wear pantyhose. Every day. And, you know, when people come up to me and they're like, I'm from Minnesota, I watch your videos, I did what you said, and now my daughter's getting dyslexia intervention. That's what it's about. It's not about me. I don't need another Karen. We have enough Karens. But good news, I am trending. I like that. But we need people to be equipped. This is about equipping people so that they can go be that special ed boss wherever they sit at the table. And I know that it's gonna help people all over the world. Special ed doesn't care what what politics you believe, what religion you don't or do have, what continent you live on. Special education is 12.9% in America. Pediatricians would say 25%. When we give kids with disabilities equity and access, it's a game changer.

I love how you said earlier exceptionalities and disabilities. It reminds me of that often attributed Einstein line, like if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life thinking That it's stupid. And so, you know, you have people that are exceptional in different ways, and if they're all forced to learn the way that everybody else does, I can imagine that won't work out very well.

Not really. And teachers teach to the middle, and, and how could they not, right? They have 28 wet cats in their class called children, right? I was an exceptionality. Not, not for the teachers. They were glad I left their class. You'll be so surprised, Nick, that I made really good grades and I got an F in conduct for 12 years because I was committed for talking too much. When you're trying to juggle that many kids, we are trying to do the norm and the middle. But kids with disabilities, we have one job in special ed, just one job, and that's to teach them a strategy to self-manage their disability. That's it. Not make it go away, just teach them a strategy. When we do that, it's just everything and it's life-giving. And, you know, if I didn't do this for a living, I would do it for the rest of my life. If I was 120 years old with one shiny tooth, it would be shiny. I would still be doing this work because I just can't not. And I think this is gonna be the first book that anybody could pick up, whether they're a parent, a grandparent, um, a teacher, a principal, and understand the why and the how behind special education. I think people think the why is because Because we gotta, and it's a federal law. But the how is what was missing. And so I'm excited for this to get in the hands of so many people.

You mentioned a million social media followers. You have a very unique strategy, which is to go live how often?

Um, about every 5 seconds. So I go live, um, about 3 or 4 times a week on TikTok, and we put out, um, 364 pieces of content every 7 days. So we're looking for more, better speed. So you have a story to tell. I don't know why that we are selfish and don't tell it. It's very difficult. You take your phone, and I'm not as smart as Nick is. I just have, you know, an Android phone because, you know, I'm not going to stand in line for the snow for a phone. And my content has been built on a $50 Joby and an Android phone. Just go live. Stop editing. Stop looking for perfect. Nobody cares about your perfect. They care about your perspective and your passion and your protocols and your processes that somebody else's lives can be changed from.

Yeah, like you mentioned with The Epic IEP, you're condensing decades of your research and practices and stories into days of learning. And that's why I love books. Because in what other way for $30 or less are you going to learn this type of content? Right now, you mentioned that the book is both for educators and for parents. I want to talk about the parents piece in just a minute, but on the educator side, you mentioned schools don't really have a budget. Now, asking them to buy a few copies of a book—

Let me just correct you, dear. They have a budget. You can go to their schools, and they have these coliseums that we call football stadiums, and we have these big buildings where people at desks sit in. We have a budget. We just choose to allocate it in a way that tells us what we prioritize. And listen, I love football. It's state law. I'm in Texas. All of my children wore polyester during football games. It's a requirement. But when we spend $200 million on a football stadium, And half of our graduates read at a 6th grade level. Shame on us.

I agree. I agree. Shame on us. And what I like about a book is that it's an inexpensive bridge into improving this process, right? It's not hard to ask someone to buy a copy or to buy 50 copies. And so is that part of the strategy for your upcoming launch? Are you selling into schools in that way?

So we're starting that process now. Um, we have lots of contacts and over the years, um, right now we've just sold one book to one person, which we're super excited about. But yes, I do professional development and we—

That one person was me, by the way.

It was you. I mean, just, and I, I was like, Nick's order just came through. Oh my gosh, this is gonna be amazing. And so school districts love for, um, myself or one of our teams to come in. It's much more efficient to take my decades of learning from IEP meetings to prep to do process hearings to federal complaints with the U.S. Department of Civil Rights. Um, it's much easier for me to come in and train 400 or 500 people in one shot, get them this book. At the end of every chapter in this book is a checklist for parents, a checklist for teachers, a checklist for advocates, so that we can build this amazing, um, roadmap for kids to win.

Yeah, you said 12.5% of students, but according to pediatricians, maybe it's closer to 25%. So there are people who should be getting special attention that probably aren't because they haven't been diagnosed. Is that what that gap means?

Oh, wouldn't it be nice if it was that simple, dear? Nope. We send parents away. We just pat them on the head and send parents away. I don't know what this unholy alliance is that people have with schools. I had it. I had it when my kids were in school. But, you know, if your, your broker or your mechanic or your pastor said something you didn't agree with, you wouldn't go, Okay. But if we say something at school, it's like it's the Trinity. Somebody's come down with the Ten Commandments, the school said. And so many times we send parents away that come and say they're concerned about their child, or worse, we send teachers away. And I love teachers, and they— listen, I love them. They are asking for the help. They're asking for kids to get assessed. And if we never assess a child, then we never identify their need. Those kiddos become behavior kiddos, they are withdrawn, they might drop out because they don't look like they have a disability. We all have biases. But there are plenty of disabilities that I can't see when you walk past me. We've got to do a better job of that. The schools have an obligation to test. We haven't really picked up that speed, but we're pretty good at telling parents no. Part of this is telling parents, however you are, to stick The landing. When somebody tells you no, then what are your legal resources? What is the proper requirements after that? Because sometimes you have people in school who have good hearts but don't understand their obligations under federal and state law.

Hmm. Yeah, we just had a functional medicine doctor on recently, and part of his book was how to talk to your doctor, because these doctors are trying to flip you every 7 minutes and they don't want to answer difficult questions. But it's part It's part of what he's teaching people to do. Slow down, understand your options, and have the conversation. And so you're doing the same thing. You're educating parents on how they can interact with the school system.

Yeah.

Um, yeah, I have a brother and his wife, so I have a sister-in-law as well that are teachers. And so this is going to be an excellent resource. I'm going to go update my one order to 3 so that I can have copies for them as well.

Yeah. Yeah. And, and it's, it's not just parents. It's for teachers too. Teachers walk down the hall and tell Principal Bob, hey, I need some support. He needs to be tested. And this is what we do. Oh, you know what, Nick? We just, we just got back to school. Summer break was long. Okay. What about now? Well, we just, you know, we're coming up on Thanksgiving. You know, these kids are squirrely. What about now? We just got back from Christmas break. What about now? And we just put people off. And, you know, people become disheartened. The Bible says that hope deferred makes the heart sick. Parents are gonna only ask so many times. Once you keep telling them no, one of two things happen. Either they just go away and they don't have access to resources, or they'll get a second job, or they'll figure out how to get their child a tutor. The last thing that we need to do for a child with a disability is to make them work 3 or 4 more hours. They already went to work for the whole day. And so for those parents, I say stop skewing the data because you getting a tutor is excusing the district from identifying the child and teaching them. They are the most skilled to teach them.

And what do people get if they preorder a copy today? I think you have $500 in free bonuses.

So, you know, I know that everybody wants an 8 by 10 glossy headshot. But they probably already have that, Nick. They probably already have that. So they get, um, a ticket to a full-day live mastery summit. They get, uh, chapters released early. We have a book club on Facebook. We're just so excited about this movement. You know, my heart is to, uh, train special education bosses everywhere. You are going to see people that I will never have access to. And when we, we've simplified it in the book so it's actionable, you know, there's a phrase that said only teachers can take something simple and make it complicated. And the federal law is super complicated. Teachers— teaching is complicated. But I've condensed this that anybody can pick this up and use it immediately.

How do you think your history in comedy has impacted your ability to talk on such a serious subject? Because anybody listening today is probably wondering, why is she so funny?

You know, well, if you don't have a sense of humor, this life Whichever life you got is gonna be a long pop quiz. And you know, my job is to sit in meetings and to serve the team, serve the teachers, serve the parents, but talk about uncomfortable truths in a way that people keep listening. And if you don't have a little levity once in a while, it's going to be really hard. I have back-to-back-to-back meetings and I'm enamored with myself. Sometimes other people aren't. And I had a lady one time, we were doing a really early meeting and she's like, Ms. Cunningham, Miss Cunningham, I can't find your name on the signature page. What's your category? I said, it's probably under swimwear model. And everybody laughed, but she goes, that's not funny. I was like, actually it was. So, you know, this is like, life can be difficult, right? That's, you know, when we all, we are all more attached to each other by our challenges than our championships, right? And so we're more alike than different. And, you know, comedy brings people together. Let's people take a breath, um, and then let's roll up our sleeves and get to work.

Yeah, I think sometimes with serious subjects like this, uh, you can be dry and academic and you could talk about IEP law and legislature and you could put people to sleep. Like you said, you could read these law books before you go to bed, but sometimes it's more important how you say something than what you're actually saying. As far as social media Is concerned, and so yeah, you've got to have levity, but you also need to be able to capture attention in order to sell books and drive real change. Everybody is scrolling with their dumb brain, and so you need to stop that dumb brain, get it to pay attention, and then sell them what they actually need to be sold behind the scenes. I mean, what you're offering is obviously very impactful and very serious, and you know you're going to sell a lot of books and change a lot of lives. But sometimes you need to be a little goofy to get in front of people.

Yeah, and my goofy was suppressed, um, from 1971 to 1984. I have lots of things I didn't get out yet. I need to get them out now.

Yeah, I need to take some lessons from you on how to be a little more funny. I think that's an area for improvement, uh, on the Book Thinkers Podcast.

Yeah, we will teach you that.

And so what— tell us about the Live Mastery piece, because I see you online with a lot of screens behind you. Like, how the heck is that going to Yeah, so we'll—

the Mastery Summit will be live via the little thing called the YouTube. Um, and so we have great, um, experts in different fields that are coming on that day and talk about, um, their expertise and how their, um, area would, would be a component in the IEP. At the Epic IEP, people can have their books, they can, you know, have their notes, and then we're going to keep it open because it's what I do. My favorite part of anytime I ever train or equip is the questions, right? I'm not just here to razzle-dazzle you because nobody— we're all razzle-dazzled out, but I'm here to serve you, right? Your questions are important. And so, we will keep it open for probably a couple hours afterwards to answer questions, which is what we do in our lives. It's what we do in our academy that we have every Monday night that's professional development because what matters to you is your current question.

What are some of the most common questions that people do ask that I didn't ask you today?

Yeah. Why don't they have a certified teacher in my child's special education room?

Yeah, I mean, you said there are no continuing education requirements. So is there really no certification process?

Well, there's no specificity around continuing it, right? So if you're a teacher in Texas, every 5 years you self-report 100 CEUs. Well, your school district is not bringing in somebody to train you on special education law. I know that because teachers haven't been taught it. So, and if you're a teacher and you're choosing your continuing ed and your choice is special education law or the guy that makes little dogs with, with balloons, not really hard to figure out which one you're going to take.

Right.

So most of the people that are special educators, their last formal education was in college. Right. And so every year, every state has about 40 new pages of special education updates to regulations, which are just as exciting as federal laws. And so my job is to teach people the letter of the law, the spirit of the law, but more importantly, the application of the law. People feel like it's so restrictive, and really it's not. It gives us great liberty at the table to make decisions that we need to make. And really good-meaning people have been trained by other people in their district. They were trained by somebody else in the district that never opened a special education law book. So it's a little bit problematic.

I can see how that's problematic.

Just a little bit, right? Like if your surgeon came out and said, is it his left arm or his right arm? You're like, it's his earlobe. I'll figure it out when I get in there. And that's what happens. These lovely people who I adore, educators, are trying to figure it out. I can't afford for you to figure it out on a child. I can't afford for you to figure it out as you go, because if we don't have a roadmap for you that serves you, That's our problem. And I get paperwork all the time. I have clients from the Kodiak Islands to Miami-Dade, Florida, because I have a thing, a magical thing called an Ethernet cord. I don't know if you've heard of it. And the paperwork that I get from every place is a train wreck. Literally, if you call me and want me to represent you, I will tell you over the phone, it's a stranger, your paperwork is a train wreck. It's either 100 pages long or it's 4 pages long. And I'm sure teachers just go, um, All right, I'm just going to do my best for Billy. And sometimes our best is actually handicapping the child more because we don't know the specificity of his needs.

Wow, handicapping the child more. Yeah, it's like, you know, these kids, these kiddos, like you say, with exceptionalities and disabilities— I mean, this period in their life, at the education period, K through 12 or whatever, It's like the most important foundation that'll determine how the rest of their life goes, and they're being, uh, underserved because there's no structure and it's difficult to navigate. So I see the case for your book. Hopefully a number of parents and educators in the audience today want to get a copy. Where should they go? What should they do?

They should go immediately, um, to theepiciep.com, and then I'll just walk you through the process. Go to your favorite book fulfillment place and, you know, order your 8,462 million books and then come back to theepicip.com, put in your information, that'll release your preorder bonuses. We want to get you fully equipped. This is not about you becoming part of our team. This is about us becoming part of an amazing global movement that will change children's lives.

And for people that want to follow you on social media, and you said a million followers, so they want to watch you on some lives and answer questions, where do they go for that?

Yeah, so you can find us at Special Education Boss on all platforms. We're Special Education Academy on YouTube and our website. They all overlap. But yeah, I am starved for attention. So please, please, please follow me. We want to get you the information that serves kids at the highest level. And so I, I love teaching. I love training. I've never passed a mirror or a camera that I didn't go, you got it. So we're excited about resourcing you so that you can be amazing as you serve kiddos.

Well, Book Thinkers family, I owe Karen about a million dollars for a ride that she gave me one time, so I need you all to buy some books. That way, uh, we could be even. Uh, for somebody like my brother and his wife who are teachers and they're part of a school system and they hear this and they say, we'd like to be involved, how, how do you start as a, as a teacher, as an educator How do you have that conversation internally so that a school might buy 20 books or 50 books at a time? Sure.

So even before the book, we do lots of professional development, and lots of it we just do virtually. Um, I have a professional development that I used to do called Oh No, Karen's Coming, which I always thought was funny. And we let, you know, school-based members ask all of their real hard questions, like, why did you bring an advocate? The same reason you got an attorney, a realtor to sell your house. Parents freaking advocate because this is a space that they don't know of. Right. And so go to your leadership and see if they would have, you know, professional development that's fun, fabulous, frustrating, fruitful, and fulfilling as we walk out our journey in special education so that they can get their questions answered. And if that's not an option for you, we would ask for you to join the Epic IEP Academy. We train every Monday night live, so you'll get to see all of my outfits and hairdos, which aren't very important. We train on the federal law in series, and then we open up for questions, because every 7 days you need those things answered. You know, when things go sideways in special ed, you're on a timeline. If Nick is a principal and he's not a good principal, and he says Billy is, you know, has ADHD and keeps misbehaving, and he's going to an out-of-district placement in 5 business days, you don't have time to run an ad in the Yellow Pages. You need help and resources now. Um, the Academy also has over 400 hours of past trainings and series and resources and templates so that you can be successful wherever you are with that kiddo.

Hmm. Well, I love how many options you have available, and I also love that you positive sandwiched those Fs. You put frustration in the middle, but there were some great terms on both sides.

Who doesn't love alliteration? Yes.

All right, great. Well, thank you for the podcast today. Before I let you go, If The Epic IEP was deleted, gone, disappeared, but you could leave the world with just one simple message from the book, what would that be?

You are the most amazing person in the role that you're in for this child. You're already fully equipped. You're an amazing mama. You're an amazing single dad. You're an amazing grandparent. You're a fantastic paraprofessional. You are a super science teacher. And thank you for loving kids as a principal. You're already fully equipped. This is just going to refine all of that bigness in you so that kids win.

I love it. Well, thank you.

Thank you.