Your personal story is the most powerful message you can send. 

You don’t need legal language — just write from the heart. 

Use the prompts below to guide your letter. Feel free to adapt or skip sections based on your own experience. 

 1. Tell Your Story 

  • Describe your child’s challenges and needs. 
  • Share how special education and related services have helped your child learn, communicate, and thrive. 
  • If you feel comfortable, explain how missing services have affected your child and family. 

2.  List the Services Your Child Receives (or Should Be Receiving) 

Examples include: 

  • Speech Therapy 
  • Occupational Therapy (OT) 
  • Physical Therapy (PT) 
  • Counseling 
  • Para Support or SETSS 
  • Vision Services 
  • Hearing Services 
  • Assistive Technology 

Note if certain services are hard to find — for example, bilingual providers, vision teachers, or teachers of the hearing impaired. 

3.  Explain What Happens When Services Aren’t Provided 

  • Describe any times services were delayed, missed, or not provided at all. 
  • Explain how this affected your child’s academic progress, communication, behavior, or emotional well-being. 
  • If you had to secure services privately, share how this created financial or emotional strain on your family. 
  • If your child depends on assistive technology, describe how delays in getting equipment make it impossible to function in school. 

4. Why Taking Away Due Process Is Dangerous 

  • If you have used an impartial hearing, explain how it was the only way to compel the district to deliver services or reimburse you. 
  • If you haven’t used one yet, share why you may need that option in the future. 
  • Make clear that without this right, districts could promise services on paper but never actually provide them — and parents would have no way to enforce the plan. 
  • Emphasize: Public school children keep this protection. Nonpublic school children lose it. That’s not fair — same disabilities, fewer rights. 

5. The Cost and Stress on Families 

  • Describe the time, money, and emotional toll that comes with caring for a child with disabilities. 
  • Explain how being forced into complex complaint processes or court — with no guarantee of help or reimbursement — is unrealistic and harmful. 

Optional Example Paragraph 

Feel free to personalize and adapt this sample: 

As a parent of a child with special needs, I am deeply alarmed by the proposed amendment to Section 200.5. If you remove my right to a neutral hearing when the district fails to provide my child’s IESP services, there is no real way to hold the system accountable. My child will be left without critical support, and I will be left facing months of delay, confusion, and frustration — with no fair chance to be heard. Public school families would keep this protection. My child, only because they attend a nonpublic school, would lose it. 

⚠️ Privacy Tip: 

Please do not include your child’s full name or identifying details in your letter.