When the Process Is the Violation

A parent’s letter to a system too used to looking the other way.
By Aga — Ambitious Goals Advocate

There comes a point when silence becomes complicity.

For months, I’ve documented delay after delay in my child’s IEP process. Missed timelines for assessments. Assessments conducted without accommodations. Parent input ignored. Services cut without explanation—or Prior Written Notice. And when I raised these concerns, I was met not with collaboration, but with a familiar phrase:
“If you disagree, you can go to due process.”

Let’s talk about what that really means.

It means the school district knows the law, but won’t honor it unless compelled by legal force. It means parents—already exhausted from navigating a complex system, are told to lawyer up or walk away. It means IDEA, Endrew F., and the foundational rights of students with disabilities are treated like optional guidelines instead of binding commitments.

I watched an IEP team default to predetermined decisions based on one-hour assessments with no support staff, suggest alternative curriculum based on narrow metrics, and deny services written into the last signed IEP—all while politely skimming over the word “collaborative.” It’s hard to call something collaborative when every request is redirected to legal process. And yet, this is what parents face all the time.

Here’s what I need the public—and policymakers—to understand:
This isn’t a matter of one bad meeting.
This is a process-level failure.
And the process is the violation.

The law requires that we build IEPs based on individual need. That we provide Prior Written Notice when services change. That we respond to parent input. That we don’t push students toward programs based on assumptions or funding shortages, but on data, observation, and the unique circumstances of the child.

But none of that happened.

The IDEA wasn’t followed. The Endrew F. standard wasn’t honored. And when I pointed this out, my concerns were politely acknowledged... and then disregarded.

If school districts are worried about budget cuts, perhaps they should look at the cost of failing to uphold the law. The cost of complaints. The cost of adversarial processes. The cost of losing the trust of families who once believed this system existed to support children—not to deter them.

I still believe in public education.
But belief without action is just hope on pause.

To the system that brushed me off: the record is still open. The consequences are still unfolding. And I will keep telling the truth because what happened here wasn’t just disappointing. It was unlawful. And that matters.