Massachusetts IDEA Child Find Project

09/27/2026

Important article that every MA parent, citizen, community member should read!

It’s the beginning of a new school year, and I’m thinking back to the summer of 2017. I had walked into a brand new school, grade, and community. Upon entering my classroom, I was handed three texts and told, “These are the books we read, just connect them to the standards. You gotta sink or s...

09/18/2026

School Administrators, School committees and policy makers as well as teachers, parents, and community members need to focus on human learning and teaching - building the human mind. Understanding the impact that of AI - when it's useful and when it is not is a serious responsibility.

Schools may be adopting AI faster than the research can keep up. Is that a problem? We asked BU education researcher Ola Ozernov-Palchik, founder of the Evidence-Based AI in Learning (EVAL) Collaborative at Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development, to break it down. In a n...

09/13/2026

This story isn’t about me. It’s about every parent who has had to fight a big system to get support for their child.

It’s about knowing your child needs help, asking the system that is supposed to help them, and finding door after door slammed in your face.

Andy Pierrotti’s investigation found that Gwinnett County Public Schools spent more than $720,000 in taxpayer dollars on special education due process legal fees from January 2023 through February 2026. Fayette County spent more than $343,000 over the past three years. And that doesn’t even include settlements and payouts to families.

If it costs more taxpayer money to fight a parent than it would cost to actually figure out what that child needs, something is deeply wrong.

And this is why I answer phone calls late at night, early in the morning, and on weekends. Sometimes I’m giving advice. Sometimes I’m helping a parent figure out what to put in writing. Sometimes I’m just listening because I know how overwhelming this system can be.

Too often, we wait for kids to crash out academically, emotionally, or behaviorally before deciding their needs are serious enough. Then we start treating what years of failure did to the child instead of addressing the underlying issue that was there all along.

That is not early intervention. That is damage control.

These moms are why we advocate. They’re why we keep talking and keep showing up.

Parents should not need an advocate, an attorney, a crash course in federal law, and thousands of dollars just to get someone to listen when they say, “My child needs help.”

Thank you to Andy Perotti and Atlanta News First for continuing to investigate what families are experiencing and where our taxpayer dollars are going.

👇 Comment “INVESTIGATION” and I’ll send you the link to Andy’s full investigation.

09/09/2026

Action ‼️ Alert🚨
You can use this sample email and customize it with any personal touches.

To Whom It May Concern:
I respectfully request that DESE recommend, and that the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education initiate, a conforming amendment to 603 CMR 26.00 pursuant to M.G.L. c. 30A and the authority granted by M.G.L. c. 76, § 5.
Effective August 5, 2025, M.G.L. c. 76, § 5 was amended to prohibit exclusion from or discrimination in Massachusetts public education based on disability. The statute now protects students on account of “race, color, s*x, gender identity, religion, national origin, immigration or citizenship status, disability or s*xual orientation.”
However, 603 CMR 26.00, which implements M.G.L. c. 76, § 5, has not been updated and continues to omit disability. The regulation should be amended promptly to conform to the governing statute and to ensure that students, families, districts, and enforcement personnel receive an accurate statement of Massachusetts law.
Specifically, “disability” should be added to 603 CMR 26.01 through 26.08 wherever protected classes are enumerated, including provisions addressing admissions, courses of study, educational guidance, curricula, extracurricular activities, active efforts, nondiscrimination policies, training, complaints, investigations, and corrective action.
Because the amended statute also adds “immigration or citizenship status,” DESE should update 603 CMR 26.00 to incorporate that protected category at the same time.
Thank you for your support in making this change with urgency.

08/26/2026

Dyscalculia: from a team in Arizona, an education policy brief. Link's in a comment below.

-- excerpts --

“To help leaders seize this opportunity, we organized our brief around what dyscalculia is, how it differs from more general math difficulty, why schools miss it, and what early identification, intervention, and policy each requires.”

“The cost of missing this window is not abstract. When dyscalculia goes unidentified, repeated failure can generate math anxiety, erode self-confidence, and progressively narrow the academic paths that students believe are available to them.”

08/22/2026

04/03/2026

Less than one week to go! Register here- bit.ly/4pq8hfq

Come learn more about our specialized school supporting students in grades 1–8 with dyslexia, ADHD, and other language-based learning differences.