About Me
Helping Parents Navigate Special Education With Confidence
Welcome to Parent IEP Roadmap.
My name is Meaghan Burnett, and like many parents who find this website, I started this journey simply trying to help my own child, and like many parents I thought I was alone on this journey.
What began as a search for answers quickly became months and years of learning about special education, evaluations, reading disabilities, dyslexia, IEP development, accommodations, interventions, parent rights, and the complex systems families must navigate to access support for their children.
I did the unthinkable, I challenged my school district, I asked questions, and I verified what I was told instead of trusting that what they had been telling me for years was right. And what I learned changed my life and my child’s.
Along the way, I discovered that many parents face the same challenges:
- Understanding evaluation reports
- Preparing for IEP meetings
- Learning their rights under special education law
- Interpreting testing results
- Understanding accommodations and services
- Finding effective interventions for reading and learning challenges
- Knowing what questions to ask and when to ask them
I created Parent IEP Roadmap to make that process easier so that hopefully less parents will go through the hardships we have been through. I want your road to be smoother than ours.
My Mission
Every parent deserves access to clear information, practical guidance, and the confidence to participate meaningfully in decisions affecting their child’s education.
My mission is simple:
To help parents understand the process, ask informed questions, and become stronger advocates for their children.
No parent should have to spend years piecing together information that could have been presented in a way that is understandable from the beginning.
Why I Created Parent IEP Roadmap
As I searched for answers, I found that information was often scattered across government websites, legal resources, advocacy organizations, and educational research.
While much of that information was valuable, it was rarely organized in a way that helped parents understand what to do next. It moved often, updates were hard to keep in order, and it was overall extremely frustrating even for a techy person like myself.
Parent IEP Roadmap was created to provide practical, parent-friendly guidance that helps families:
- Understand the special education process
- Organize concerns and documentation
- Prepare for meetings
- Learn about evaluations and services
- Explore educational supports and interventions
- Become informed participants in their child’s educational planning
My goal is to help parents feel less overwhelmed and more prepared.
My Professional Background
In addition to my work in special education advocacy, I have spent many years helping people communicate complex information through websites, publishing, digital media, marketing, and content development.
Throughout my career, I have worked with individuals, organizations, authors, businesses, and community groups to create resources that make information easier to access.
Those same skills are now focused on helping parents navigate special education. In addition, I have a diverse history of working in the real world of customer relations and teaching students equestrian journey which has enstilled the realization that not all students learn the way that is easiest for our educators.
How This Website Is Built
Parent IEP Roadmap combines:
- Parent experience
- Educational research
- Publicly available special education resources
- State and federal guidance
- Advocacy tools and organizational resources
The website includes interactive tools designed to help parents identify questions, organize concerns, understand evaluations, and prepare for discussions with their educational teams.
These tools are intended to support parent participation and understanding and are not legal, medical, psychological, or educational diagnoses.
Important Disclaimer
Parent IEP Roadmap is an educational and informational resource created by a parent advocate. The information provided on this website is not legal advice, medical advice, psychological advice, or educational diagnosis. Parents should consult qualified professionals regarding specific legal, educational, medical, or therapeutic decisions.
— Meaghan Burnett