Homeschooling Special Education Students

Should You Homeschool a Special Education Student?

By Sean Taylor, M.Ed.

Homeschooling a child with special needs can feel like the only option when the school calls you multiple times a day to report problems—or when you, as a parent, are the one calling to address ongoing concerns. Today’s teachers face growing challenges with shrinking resources, leaving both educators and families frustrated. With overcrowded classrooms—often 30 to 36 students—many children with special needs simply can’t thrive in such environments.

While states struggle to balance budgets, it can often feel like this balance comes at the expense of our most vulnerable learners. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was created to protect students with disabilities and guarantee access to quality educational programs. However, the reality of limited funding and overwhelmed systems often makes fulfilling IDEA’s promise difficult.

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How to Make Homeschooling Successful for a Special Needs Student

If you decide to homeschool your child, planning and preparation are essential. Here are key steps to help ensure success:

1. Keep Your Child’s IEP Current

Your child’s Individualized Education Program (IEP) or Individualized Service Plan (ISP) is your roadmap for success. It clearly outlines goals, objectives, accommodations, and services. The IEP should be a collaborative process involving teachers, specialists, parents, and—whenever appropriate—the child.
Under IDEA, schools must provide all required testing free of charge. Be sure that evaluations are current and comprehensive before starting your homeschool journey.

2. Become an Expert in Your Child’s Needs

If you’re not already familiar with your child’s specific disability, make it your mission to learn. Study IDEA law, research interventions, and connect with experts and advocacy groups. Even seasoned educators revisit IDEA guidelines regularly to stay informed.

3. Build a Support Team

A strong IEP team may include speech and language therapists, occupational and physical therapists, mobility specialists, and certified special education teachers. Testing must occur at least every three years, but parents can request additional evaluations if they notice regression or new challenges.

4. Maintain Positive Relationships with Your Public School

Even if you homeschool, your public school remains an important partner. They can provide access to evaluations, special education services, and sometimes related therapies. Schools are often overburdened, but not adversarial—working collaboratively can yield better outcomes for your child.

5. Conduct Comprehensive Evaluations

Before beginning your homeschool program, arrange for:

• An IQ test

• Academic assessments

• Vision and hearing screenings

• Behavioral evaluations

• Speech and language assessments

Use these results to design a well-informed, individualized learning plan. If needed, seek help from an education advocate who can help interpret testing data and guide next steps.

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Food for Thought: Special Education in the Age of AI

The world of education is changing faster than ever before. We now live in the Age of AI, where agentic artificial intelligence—AI that can reason, plan, and adapt autonomously—can revolutionize how children with special needs learn and grow.

For decades, educators have wrestled with what psychologist Benjamin Bloom called the Two Sigma Problem: students who receive one-on-one tutoring perform two standard deviations higher (that’s about the 98th percentile) than students in traditional classrooms. Until now, that level of personalized instruction was nearly impossible to scale.

Today, AI tutors and agentic learning companions can close that gap. These systems can function as tireless, individualized mentors that personalize lessons, monitor progress, and adapt content in real time—something no human teacher can do for every child simultaneously.

Here’s how AI can empower parents, educators, and students:

• Personalized Tutoring:
  AI-powered tutors can adapt lessons to the child’s pace, learning style, and current skill level, offering scaffolds, visuals, and multisensory feedback to ensure mastery.

• Progress Monitoring and Data Analysis:
  Agentic AI can collect and interpret data from multiple sources—assessments, IEP goals, daily learning activities, and behavioral notes—to provide clear, real-time progress reports. Trends in growth, stagnation, or regression are instantly visible.

• Dynamic IEP and ISP Support:
  Instead of static paperwork updated once a year, AI can continuously analyze IEPs and ISPs, suggesting refinements to goals, accommodations, and interventions based on student progress. Imagine an IEP that evolves weekly to reflect what’s actually working.

• Assessment and Goal Alignment:
  Agentic AI tools can cross-check instructional data against standardized benchmarks, ensuring that the student’s educational plan aligns with best practices and current IDEA standards. This can reduce human error and keep every child’s plan evidence-based and up to date.

• Reducing Educator Burnout:
  By automating documentation, report writing, and data visualization, AI can free teachers to spend more time teaching and connecting with students—and less time buried in paperwork.

• Empowering Parents:
  Parents can use AI dashboards to visualize their child’s learning progress, track mastery of IEP goals, and communicate data-driven insights with their child’s team.

In essence, AI has the potential to become the personalized education assistant that every special educator and parent has always needed—but never had the time or resources to build.

The goal is not to replace teachers or parents, but to amplify human compassion and expertise with AI precision and adaptability. When used ethically, transparently, and collaboratively, agentic AI can finally make individualized education—once a dream—an achievable reality for all learners.

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My Special Education Experience

I am a Special Education teacher with extensive experience teaching, mentoring, and advocating for students with a wide range of disabilities—including severe and profound cognitive impairments, autism, traumatic brain injury, cerebral palsy, emotional disturbances, and sensory impairments (deaf and visually impaired).

My work has included evaluating students’ cognitive and academic abilities, developing and implementing IEPs, and creating learning environments that focus on both growth and dignity.

If you have questions or need guidance about homeschooling or special education services, feel free to contact me.

Sean Taylor, M.Ed
Special Education Teacher & Advocate

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My Personal Story

Literacy was once an unrealized dream for me. I’m severely dyslexic, and as a child, I couldn’t read, write, or decode words—letters like p, d, b, and q were indistinguishable. English looked like moving squiggles on the page. I was identified as dyslexic at age nine and spent six long years in a special education purgatory.

Many teachers believed I would never learn to read. Eventually, I taught myself by memorizing every word by sight—much like learning Chinese characters.

That struggle shaped who I am today: a reading teacher known for finding unconventional ways to teach literacy. I help students unlock reading through creativity, patience, and a belief that there is always a way forward.

— Sean Taylor