Working at Parenting the Spectrum: here's what to expect.
A small, growing team built around one belief: parents are the experts on their child. Everything we do starts there.
The real tools schools rarely give families on their own.
We give autism and special-needs families the advocacy, academic support, and coaching that most families can't get from their school district alone. Two service lines, one mission.
IEP advocacy
Most parents walk into IEP meetings outnumbered and underprepared. That meeting decides their child's whole school year. We close that gap.
Tutoring the Spectrum
Most autistic children with reading or math skill deficits aren't getting instruction that actually works for them. We work the specific skills on each child's IEP, using the same ABA principles their team already uses.
Eight years on the school side. Then she became Jacob's mom.
Merrie spent eight years teaching exceptional student education in Florida public schools. What she learned from the parent side, after eight years inside the system, was that the documents she'd written hundreds of times read very differently when they were about her own child.
The gap between what a parent needs and what the system delivers is wider than anyone wants to admit. We're not here to fix the system. We're here to close that gap, one family at a time.
That's the reason this company exists. Audits and advocacy that actually work. Tutoring built around how autistic children actually learn. A team trained to do both.
Five principles we hire and operate by.
If you read these and nod, you'll like working here. If you read them and bristle, you probably won't.
Parents know more than the documents do.
Every IEP, every evaluation, every behavior plan is downstream of what the parent has been watching for years. We start from what the parent is seeing, not from what's already been written down.
Audit before you advocate.
We don't take on an IEP without first reading the document. We don't tutor a child without first seeing how they learn. Generic advice is cheap. Real work requires looking at the real thing.
No gatekeeping.
Free resources stay free. The blog isn't a teaser for the audit. If you write something for us, we don't ask you to hide the best parts behind a paywall.
Be the person on both sides of the table.
We hire ESE teachers who became parents, parents who became advocates, and tutors who've actually worked with children on the spectrum. People who can read a room because they've been in the chair on more than one side of it.
The child is the point.
Not the bookings. Not the upsell. Not the email list. The child sitting in front of you and the family at home with them. If a decision serves the business but not the child, we don't make it. That's the line that runs through every other principle on this page.
What you'd actually do here.
Most of our team is either advocating in IEP meetings or tutoring children on the specific skill deficits in their IEPs. The day-to-day is direct, real, and built around the child in front of you.
You meet the family before you meet the child.
Every engagement starts with the parent. We read the document, then we listen, then we plan.
You teach the way the child learns.
Instruction aligned with ABA principles and practices. Clear prompts. Errorless teaching. Visual structure. We train you on the curriculum so you don't have to invent it.
You document what worked.
Brief session notes the parent sees. Patterns flagged so we can coordinate with the ABA team or the school. Communication is part of the job, not extra.
You don't market yourself.
We bring you the families. We handle the FES-UA invoicing through Step Up For Students. You teach.
We hire when we have a real need.
Right now we have one role open. If it's not your fit but you read this far and believe in the work, the bottom of this page tells you how to pitch us anyway.
Tutor (Reading, writing, math)
Teach autistic and special-needs students one-on-one. Skill-targeted instruction aligned with ABA principles and built around each child's IEP. Pensacola in-person or virtual nationwide. Flexible hours.
Not seeing your role?
If you read this page and want to do something specific for us that isn't listed, email merrieweekley@spectrumparenting.org with what you'd want to do. Be concrete. We've taken on people from cold pitches when the pitch was specific and the timing was right.
If this sounds like the kind of work you want to do.
One open role right now. Apply takes about 10 minutes. Every application gets a real read and a real reply.