Most parents leave IEP meetings feeling steamrolled, dismissed, or unsure if what just got signed actually helps their child. Here's how we fix that.
The IEP is a legal document with permanent consequences for your child's education. It uses language you've never seen, references regulations you've never read, and gets written in a meeting where you're outnumbered four to one.
You feel behind, alone, and second-guessing every appointment. You don't know if you're being too pushy or not pushy enough. You don't know which battles are worth fighting and which are noise. Nobody told you it would feel this isolating.
Your child deserves a parent who can advocate. And you deserve a guide who's actually been on the other side of the table. Once as the teacher running the meetings, and once as the mom walking into them. That's the gap. We close it.
Whether you end up needing one hour of advocacy or twenty, we don't go into your IEP cold. The audit gets us aligned on what's in the document, what's missing, and what we're actually fighting for. Then we decide together what comes next.
Start here
$200
Written audit plus 60-minute review call
Line-by-line review of your child's current IEP against IDEA standards, Florida regulations, and what schools are required to provide. Every red flag flagged. Every vague goal rewritten. Every missing service named. Required before any ongoing advocacy.
Book the audit →After the audit
$100/hour
For families who want me at the table
After we've reviewed the audit together and decided you need representation, I (or one of the advocates on my team) prep with you, attend meetings with you, and follow up.
Get in touch →Not sure if you need an advocate yet? The Coaching Session ($99) is built for families who just have questions, are newly diagnosed, or want to talk through their situation before committing to anything. School is one topic. It is not the only topic. Learn about the Coaching Session →
Plus any recent evaluations, progress reports, or communications you'd like me to review. All documents are encrypted and stored only as long as needed. You can redact your child's name if you'd prefer.
Goals checked for measurability. Services checked against your child's evaluation. Accommodations checked against IDEA, Florida regulations, and what schools are actually required to provide. I draw on eight years of writing these documents from the school side. I know the language schools use when they're hoping you won't push back.
A document that flags every red flag, names every missing service, and rewrites every vague goal in language a school can't sidestep. Hand it to your IEP team. Hand it to your attorney. Or read it once and walk into the meeting with the language in your head.
I walk you through every red flag. We role-play how to bring each one up. You ask everything you've been afraid to ask. You leave knowing exactly what to say at your next meeting, and exactly what to say if the school pushes back.
After eight years writing these documents from inside the system, here are the failures I see in roughly half the IEPs that come across my desk. None of them are accidents. All of them are fixable.
"Will improve reading skills" is not a goal. "Will read 90 words per minute on second-grade text with 95% accuracy by April" is a goal. The first can be checked off without anything happening. The second can't.
The evaluation says your child needs speech therapy. The IEP doesn't include it. Or it includes it at 30 minutes per week instead of 60. Or it lists "consultation" instead of "direct services." Those are different things, and only one of them actually puts a therapist in front of your child.
Last year's IEP had sensory breaks. This year's IEP doesn't. Nobody mentioned it. Nobody got your written consent to remove it. Schools are required to. They often don't.
Inclusion is a real, valuable model when it's resourced properly. Small groups, trained staff, dedicated supports. It becomes harm when it's just "your child sits in the gen-ed class without help because we don't have the staff." The IEP should specify the supports that make inclusion actually inclusion.
A good Behavior Intervention Plan teaches replacement skills and adjusts the environment. A bad one is a list of consequences. Bad BIPs are extremely common, and they're especially harmful for autistic children whose behaviors are communication, not defiance.
Watch for this exact language. "The team will consider sensory breaks as needed" means the team can decide not to provide them. "Sensory breaks will be available every 45 minutes during academic instruction" means the school is on the hook. Audit your IEP for every "will consider" and ask why it isn't "will provide."
Twelve specific questions to check before you sign your child's IEP. Written by Merrie. Print it. Bring it.
Merrie brought clarity in the meetings by explaining things we didn't understand and ensuring our voices were heard. Because of her guidance, our son received services thoughtfully tailored to his specific needs.
Merrie was so helpful through the whole process. She really took the time to explain the information, answer all of my questions, and advocate for the most successful plan for my boy. She took all of the overwhelming uncertainty out of it.
Maybe not. The schools that look most cooperative are often the ones writing the vaguest goals, because nothing vague gets pushed back on. A Red Flag Audit will tell you whether the IEP your "cooperative" team wrote actually protects your child, or just kept the meeting comfortable. Plenty of parents come to me, run the audit, and walk away knowing they don't need full advocacy. That's a valid outcome.
An IEP is for children whose disability affects their ability to access education and who need specially designed instruction: different teaching, different goals, often different services like speech or OT. A 504 plan is for children who can access general education but need accommodations (extra time on tests, preferential seating, sensory breaks).
Most autistic children qualify for an IEP. A 504 is sometimes offered as a "lower-conflict" alternative. If your child needs specially designed instruction, the 504 is the wrong document.
The Red Flag Audit is a flat $200, and it's the required starting point for any IEP work. Full advocacy after the audit is hourly. The rate depends on whether Merrie is doing the work directly or whether one of the contracted advocates on her team is the right fit. Most families spend $200 to $1,500 across the lifetime of their advocacy work, depending on whether one IEP cycle resolves the issues or whether it's a longer fight.
Because going into an IEP meeting cold is how meetings go badly, even with an advocate in the room. The audit gets us on the same page about what's in your child's current document, what's missing, and what we're actually asking the school to change. After the audit, some families take the document and self-advocate (a totally valid outcome). Others decide they want me at the table for the next round, and we move to hourly advocacy. The audit is the gate, not the ceiling.
Yes for parent coaching, Coaching Sessions, and Red Flag Audits, since those are virtual and not state-specific in their analysis. For full advocacy at IEP meetings, in-person attendance is limited to Florida (Escambia and Santa Rosa counties); for everywhere else we coach you to advocate yourself, attend meetings virtually when the school allows it, or refer you to a local advocate Merrie trusts.
I sit on your side of the table. Before the meeting, we review your goals and the school's draft. During the meeting, I track what's being said, push back on vague goals or missing services, and make sure the language that goes into the document is actually enforceable. After the meeting, I help you decide whether to sign, and what to put in writing if you don't.
If your child is in school, request an evaluation in writing today. The school has 60 calendar days from the date of your written request to complete the evaluation in Florida. The evaluation is what determines IEP eligibility. Without it, no IEP. If your child is younger than school age, the equivalent process goes through Early Intervention or your school district's Pre-K ESE team.
They can refuse, but only with a written "Notice of Refusal" explaining why and citing the data. If you receive that notice and disagree, you can file a Due Process complaint or a State Complaint with the Florida Department of Education. Both are free, and the school is required to respond. A Red Flag Audit can also help you write a stronger evaluation request that's harder to refuse.
Private school students don't get a full IEP. They may be eligible for a Service Plan, which provides limited services. Homeschool students in Florida can use scholarships (Gardiner, FES) to fund therapies and tutoring, but the public school district is no longer obligated to provide an IEP. We can help you map services across all three settings during a Coaching Session.
Anywhere from 45 minutes to three hours. The shorter ones are usually the ones to be most suspicious of. A 45-minute IEP for a complex child has almost certainly skipped over real issues. If you have an audit done first, you can usually predict where the meeting will get long.
You can revoke consent in writing at any time, and you can request a meeting to revise the IEP. You're not locked in. The fastest path is: request a meeting in writing, naming the specific sections you want to revisit, and consider getting a Red Flag Audit before that meeting so you walk in with the language ready.
You don't have to sign at the meeting. Write "I need time to review" on the consent line and take 10 days. Get the audit. Decide what you want to push back on in writing. Schools respond differently to a parent with documentation than to a parent in a meeting room.
The 12-question checklist Merrie hands every parent before their first IEP meeting. Free.
