05/04/2026
In addition to being a phenomenal special education advocate for our clients, Jill Calian MCA Spedlaw is a parent with personal experience advocating for her son. Thank you for all of the expertise and care you bring to your work, Jill!
It is spring and that means spring cleaning and organizing. To many of the parents and special educational professionals reading this post, it also means IEP season. These two rituals of spring intersected for me this morning when, in a spring cleaning purge, I decided to clear out file boxes containing the IEP records for my own son, who is now 24 years old. The photo below (IEP records Kindergarten through 3rd grade) depicts only one of many such boxes. It is surprisingly hard to toss this stuff. Why is that? There is nothing particularly nostalgic about my son's occupational therapy evaluation from 2nd grade. The files represent an educational chapter (IDEA eligibility) that has closed. But reading all the labels of the red subfolders reminds me how much work it was. For years, my brain WAS this file box. Ironically, I'm still reading IEPs -- but now I read the IEPs for our firm's clients' children and not my own. So, to all the parents/guardians with files like these in their closets and in their heads, I just want to say, "I see you" and I appreciate the unseen labor of your love.
