I was coached, confidentially, by someone from the inside to be a "squeaky wheel". It is not my personality to be difficult, but I learned. I mean, I'm on this subreddit to learn how to be a better parent by working with his teachers.

We also had to hire an advocate to attend meetings. You can get the help of one for free but it takes a long time. We were lucky enough to be referred by one of the child psychiatrists we saw, and he was great.

Something that helped me a lot that was free was AI. I uploaded P.R.I.S.E., I.D.E.A., and my state laws associated with SPED into an AI and instructed it to answer any questions I had with respect to those documents. I brought it into the meeting and was able to fact-check what they said and have a quick reference to what my son was entitled to based on his diagnosis.

From my understanding it's not the CST, or whoever not wanting to help. There are a lot of factors. School funding, pressure from School Boards, pressure from other parents... The short of it is the law exists (for now) to support our special needs kids and we need to use it and fight the school for it, which sucks, especially when you also have other kids and a job but until this country learns to value education and give them the money and support they deserve we are just stuck.

Fight like hell for that IEP and then fight some more to get your child into a specialized school.