From tarnished to treasure (plus a "compliant" failure) ✨

Lately, my husband Steve and I have been spending our weekends on a bit of a treasure hunt. We’ve started visiting estate sales and thrift shops, looking specifically for the "tarnished" items—the silver and metal pieces that have lost their luster over the years.

We’re using the science of cream of tartar (of all things!) to restore them. It’s been so much fun learning about the different silver plate makers' marks and watching a dull, black surface transform into a bright new treasure. We’re even starting a new YouTube channel, Touch of Tartar, to share our cleaning recipes and transformations.

If you want a "behind the scenes" look at our restoration journey, you can subscribe to the channel here before we start posting our first videos!

But as I was looking at some silver cleaning recipes this week, I couldn't help but think about how often we do the same thing with our children’s IEPs. We look at a document that seems "fine" on the surface, but underneath, the true potential of the student is being buried by a lack of support. This week on the podcast, I’m pulling back the curtain on a specific IEP case study from 2017.

On paper, this 9th-grade student was an honors student. His IEP was "compliant." It was finished on time. The teachers called him "polite" and "kind."

But that IEP almost destroyed his academic career.

In this episode, I’m sharing the story of how a "compliant" document failed to protect a student when a teacher refused to believe his diagnosis was "real." We’re talking about:

• The High-Achiever Trap: Why schools assume bright students don't need accommodations.
• The "Cost" of Doing the Work: Why "good grades" don't always mean the IEP is working.
• The Math Mystery: How this student went from being "dropped" from 9th-grade math to earning an A in a college-level math class.

​Listen to Episode #150: The IEP Case Study​

Coming Soon: Over the next week, I’ll be releasing a 4-part video series on the Water Prairie YouTube channel that digs even deeper into the lessons from this case study—covering assistive technology, the "high achiever" bias, and how to turn your parent intuition into documentation. Keep an eye out for those!

If you’ve been sitting with a nagging feeling that something in your child’s IEP just isn’t right, don't wait years for "proof." Let’s look at it together now.

​Book a Free 20-Minute IEP Consultation​

Have a great week!

Tonya