My daughter, Nova, is a fourth grader with autism.

For years, she attended a school where her Individualized Education Program (IEP) was respected. She had consistent support, an incredible aide who understood her needs, and an educational environment where she could learn, grow, and succeed.

Then she changed schools.

And suddenly, the supports we had spent years establishing began to disappear.

Decisions about her education were made without meaningful participation from me as her parent. She was removed from her Life Skills classroom. Her educational setting was changed. She was expected to navigate portions of her school day without the level of aide support she requires.

These are not minor scheduling adjustments.

These are decisions involving the education, safety, stability, and support of a disabled child.

An IEP is not a suggestion.

It is not something a school gets to follow only when it is convenient, staffing allows for it, or administrators agree with it.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act exists to protect students with disabilities and ensure they receive a Free Appropriate Public Education. Parents are supposed to be members of the team making decisions about their child's special education—not people who discover after the fact that decisions have already been made.

And this is exactly why families are forced to fight.

Parents should not have to repeatedly email, request meetings, quote federal law, document incidents, or become special education experts just to get a school to provide supports that have already been determined necessary for their child.

When an IEP isn't followed, the consequences don't fall on the adults making those decisions.

The child pays the price.

The child struggles.

The child becomes overwhelmed.

The child is placed in situations without appropriate support.

And too often, when that child eventually struggles behaviorally, academically, or emotionally, attention is placed on the child's behavior instead of asking whether the adults responsible for implementing that child's supports actually provided them.

That needs to change.

This petition calls for meaningful accountability when public schools fail to properly implement IEPs and make significant special education decisions without appropriate parent participation.

We are calling for stronger oversight, appropriate staff training, transparent documentation of changes to special education services and placement, and meaningful consequences when schools repeatedly fail to meet their obligations to students with disabilities.

Because this isn't about one child.

It's about every parent who has sat in an IEP meeting and wondered whether everything being promised in that room will actually happen once they walk out the door.

It's about every child who cannot advocate for themselves.

And it's about making sure the burden of enforcing a child's educational rights does not fall entirely on exhausted parents who are already doing everything they can to advocate for their children.

Our children should not have to fail before schools decide they deserve support.

An IEP should mean something after the meeting ends.

If you believe students with disabilities deserve the services and supports established for them—and that schools should be accountable when those protections are disregarded—please sign and share this petition.

Our children deserve more than promises on paper.

They deserve those promises to be kept.