We have sat at that table
Every special education parent knows the unique weight of this process.
You walk into meetings, table full of people already seated, wanting to trust the experts, hoping that everyone at the table shares the same vision for your child.
But the reality hits quickly: the school sits with a full team of specialists, administrators, and taxpayer-funded legal resources. They have run this hour many times, so they know its shape and they move quick.
You sit there alone, clutching a binder, trying to decipher acronyms, timelines, and legal jargon you were never taught, all while managing the emotional exhaustion that comes with simply loving and raising your kid.
It’s hard to get a word in unless they reach a point where they ask you something directly. You don’t want to interrupt, or give the impression you aren’t hearing them out.
It’s a system that quietly wears parents down until they run out of hours, energy, or money for private advocates or attorneys. For some of us that was never an option to begin with.
Advocary started for us with a single piece of paper, a Prior Written Notice that answered a question we hadn’t asked and implied we did. It was written in a way that not only closed the door, but also attempted to shift responsibility onto us, while leaving our child’s needs completely unresolved.
That showed us the real problem.
The gap in special education isn’t that the rights don’t exist, it’s that the parents and caregivers are the enforcers.
It’s the distance between a rule existing on paper and a family knowing about it and understanding it in time to use it.
Professional advocates and special education attorneys are invaluable resources, and they do incredible work for special education families. There just aren’t enough of them, and for most of us the cost puts them out of reach.
But you can’t be an equal partner at the table when you don’t understand this complex process and all the jargon that comes with it. We already have little or no time for ourselves, and our hands are full. The choice is to reach for professional services we can’t get, or to take up SPED 101 on our own with no time or energy to do it.
If you’re like me, you made time anyway and kept going well beyond the point you had anything left in you to give.
ALL children with disabilities and their families matter, and every one of them deserves to get everything they can out of school, with somebody who knows this process standing beside them. The law already says they are entitled to a free appropriate public education, so the right is not what is in dispute. Getting it is. That disparity is real, it’s unacceptable, and it shouldn’t be this hard.
Advocary was created by two parents just like you: Beverley lives the advocacy and shapes the tool, and Nick keeps the engine running.
The best outcomes for our kids come when schools and families work well together. We want you to be able to advocate fiercely for the child in your care and still have that.
When an advocate is difficult it reads as doing their job. When a parent is, it reads as who they are.
We won’t be sorry for challenging, but we aren’t enemies.
Advocary is not an advocate, and it doesn’t replace one. If you can reach one, we’ll help you find them. If you have one, there’s still plenty here to make your part easier. Either way you are the expert on your child, and the one who decides.
What the mark means
- The two colors of the A. One side is the parent and caregiver. The other is the school. They are working together, and the letter only holds because both of them are carrying it.
- The hand. That is Advocary, carrying what it can.
- The star. A compass, for finding your way through a system nobody taught you. And the child at the center, because they are who all of this is for.
What we’re building, in detail ›
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Advocary is still in development. Leave your email and we’ll tell you the day it opens. That’s the only email you’ll get from us.
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This page describes Advocary as of August 29, 2026, and it’s kept honest rather than kept impressive. If something here is labeled working and you can’t find it, that’s a mistake worth telling us about at feedback@advocary.app.