If you have a child who receives, or may qualify for, special education services, the Individualized Education Program (IEP) process can feel equal parts essential and overwhelming. The room is full of professionals, the document is dense, and the stakes feel high. But here's the truth: you are the most important person in that room. You know your child better than any teacher, specialist, or administrator.   Walking in prepared, with clear, specific questions, can shift the

I recently co-authored a chapter on progress monitoring for a newly published educational textbook—a project I'm genuinely excited about! Progress monitoring is an incredibly powerful tool that helps educators figure out if an intervention is actually working or if it needs tweaking. In my work as a school psychologist, I’ve found that while schools share this data with families, parents often have deeper questions about what it means and how to use it to advocate for their c