Irene

Karen Cunningham is currently in yet another due process hearing with Clear Creek ISD (CCISD) for Angel Webb. There's been some discussion with the special education administrators to let Karen actually win one this time. From what I've heard from people in the district, Karen's desperately in need of a win after 5 consecutive losses. This due process is also different for her because Angel Webb is one of Karen's heaviest social media marketers and biggest clientele. She's also the leader of the parents of CCISD special education Facebook page. This will definitely help her business, which is also why they’re making this proceeding open to the public. I'd be interested in what direction the special education department and CCISD board of directions decides to go with this one. One faction of the district is thinking about letting Karen win in return for Karen appeasing her other crusading parents. The other faction is saying enough is enough and wants to fight back against Karen’s shameless self promotion and dishonesty. Either way the schools will end up being the “Big bad school further victimizing those poor parents”

Here’s my experience with “Special Education Boss” Karen Mayer Cunningham. She really does not believe anything she alleges to fight for and does not truly advocate for the rights of children in special education. Having worked in Clear Creek Independent School District for many years in special education in ARDs and managerial roles, I have witnessed her performative outrage, bad faith arguments, distortions, waste, and outright fraud. But unlike the needy uninformed clientele she services, I have also been privy to what goes on behind closed doors and can speak firsthand about her duplicity and how she manipulates people. Here is a breakdown: Karen Karen is just a good marketer. Her product is not only her “Special Education Boss” merchandise, monthly subscription fee, expensive training courses, online classes, but also herself as a brand. Her shortcomings as a person aside, she acts belligerently in ARD meetings and knowingly makes bad faith arguments and discussions in order to perform for uninformed parents. To make herself seem useful she needs somebody on campus who is the evil special education “bad guy” who allegedly denies FAPE to a child. Then she needs to be seen as the good cowboy vigilante who swooped in to save a child from that evil teacher, diagnostician, LSSP, Speech Therapist, Occupational Therapist, Music Therapist, or Physical Therapist who was denying a child a Free and Appropriate Public Education. Special Education Administrators The special education administrators are tasked by the Superintendent and Board of Directors with many objectives. There are two relevant ones at play here. First is saving the district money spent on litigation because expensive lawyer fees are never reimbursed. Second is to avoid public relations disasters that may stem from litigation like Due Process hearings or ADA complaints. Parent Special Education Boss Karen’s clientele are easily impressed parents who without effort fall prey for marketing gimmicks and internet clickbait. They’re often upper middle-class people who spend more time on Facebook than any human being should. They in turn rave about how great Karen is on Facebook or other social media, furthering her narrative and feeding into her grift. Because of confidentiality laws, schools are not allowed to correct these distortions and outright lies. And finally… This is where the mutual interests of Karen and special education administrators come together. She and administrators often have meetings and lunch to chat, gossip, and reach negotiations ahead of official ARD/IEP meetings. They also often badmouth these parents, agree on who Karen gets to attack in the ARD meetings, which campus person takes blame, and how Karen gets to be seen as the person to correct such errors. This in turn impresses the uninformed parents and hopefully the ARD meetings end in agreement and don’t go up to Due Process litigation. Karen in turn looks like a hero and the school administrators get to avoid litigation and bad PR. In essence, they agree to intentionally throw their teachers and other staff members under the bus to give Karen an air of usefulness and legitimacy. Karen gets to give the appearance she swooped in and got the child the services they needed. This typically prevents further litigation because parents feel (falsely) that Karen fixed something. The easily impressed parents then post on Facebook about how great Karen was, thus feeding into her narrative and self-indulgence to feel both intellectually and morally superior. School staff get burned out and either switch careers or get shifted around to other positions. Then some other poor schmuck fills in the position of the vacant special education staff. Nothing really gets better even though there gets to be an impression things actually change, and Karen, in her need for relevance, clickbait, attention, PR, and legitimacy, gets validated as some magical catalyst of change. The parents then recommend her to others and feed the cycle. As of late she is also stepping it up with press conferences in yet another disgusting marketing ploy. Every now and then these parents are still not satisfied and Karen can’t convince the parents to avoid going to Due Process. Here again, Karen inserts herself into more duplicity. From my experience she negotiates with the school behind closed doors and intentionally loses the Due Process hearings. The compromise she has with school administrators is if management lets her “win” most day-to-day IEP/ARD meetings then she will drop the ball on the Due Process hearings. I can’t speak for every Due process she’s been in, but just the ones I’ve been involved in, but by my last count she has “lost” every case of litigation. There has been some discussion with a few districts about giving her a few Due Process hearings to give her some air of legitimacy, but it has not yet come to that. Here is a synopsis of the rogue’s gallery: -Karen = self-promoting opportunist in need of a scapegoat. She does not get any real meaningful results. As another cog in the wheel of injustice, she takes advantage of the system for her own ego. Karen’s “strength” is her marketing, networking, and lack of morals. In her cynical grift-like pyramid scheme she is trying to offer more trainings to others so they can do the same as she does. -Special education administrators = people who want job security, to save the school money, and avoid bad PF. They use teachers and staff as their pawns towards this end. Special education administration’s “strength” is their large pool of educators they willingly shift around like pawns on a chessboard. -Parents / Karen’s clientele = gullible schmucks who fall for Karen’s used car salesman tactics. -Teachers/school staff = the actual people who get things done. Some are good and some are bad. But all are victims who are at best cannon fodder and scapegoats for opportunists like Karen. -Kids who Karen alleges to help = the real victims.