Advocating for your child when school systems won’t bend

Our episode today starts with that call from school every parent dreads…

Jessica talks with mom and education advocate Tricia McGhee after a classroom discipline incident forces a bigger conversation about neurodivergent kids and school systems that just aren’t built to flex. 

In this episode, we’re also looking at what happens when getting a diagnosis doesn’t lead to help or services — and why collaboration  with schools matters just as much as understanding our own kids.

• Read: What is a 504 plan?

• Listen: Tips from a parent advocate

• Listen: Does my child have dyslexia?

• Read: What is dyscalculia?

Jessica Shaw: Welcome to "Everyone Gets a Juice Box." On today's episode, we were going to talk about the parent portion of diagnosing, when to get a neuropsych evaluation, and what happens when a diagnosis is not enough to get services.

Mom Tricia McGhee was going to talk about raising her daughters, figuring out that one of her kids has dyscalculia and dyslexia, and making sure the other one had support for her ADHD and anxiety. But a few minutes before we were going to speak, Tricia got a call from her daughter's school.

You know that dreaded call when you see the school's number pop up on your caller ID. Turns out there was a conversation that had to happen about how a teacher disciplined her child, and that informed our conversation.

Many of us have been there. Our kid has certain ways of reacting to things in the room. Maybe a teacher understands, maybe they don't. One of my own parenting lows was hearing my child tell me her teacher made her sit at a table with her head down in her arms because she was squirmy sitting on the rug with other kids.

I so distinctly remember that feeling of profound sadness for my kid, frustration with that teacher, and confusion as to why in a top public elementary school, there wasn't some kind of plan in place for 6-year-olds who don't thrive sitting crisscross applesauce on the floor. For Tricia's daughter, it was a different situation.

But that need to not only figure out our own kids but to also ensure that the other adults in their lives are committed to figuring them out is such a big part of raising neurodivergent children. Let's hear from Tricia about what happened.

Okay, so Tricia, I know something kind of big just happened and we're going to get to that in one second. But before, first and foremost, welcome. Thank you for joining me and tell me — tell me about you, tell me about your child, and then we're going to get into something that happened just before this recording.

Tricia McGhee: Sure. Thank you so much, Jessica, for having me on. I'm Tricia McGee. I live here in Kansas City, Missouri. First and foremost, I'm the parent to two wonderfully creative, intelligent, neurodivergent teenagers who both happen to be Latina even though I'm not.

One has two learning disabilities and ADHD — so dyslexia and dyscalculia. And then my oldest is the one that has an anxiety diagnosis and pending ADHD diagnosis. And after years of helping advocate for my kids and advocating for others, I stepped into school board service this year here at our local public school district.

So, like many parents that go through educational advocacy, you end up almost being an accidental expert. And so that rolled over into my work life and then into my public service life as well.

Jessica: Yeah. Tricia, right before you and I started talking, you had a meeting with one of your daughter's teachers. So tell me what happened that precipitated this meeting.

Tricia: So my daughter, who is a sophomore in high school, was falling asleep in class earlier this week, which she does not tend to do. I've never received that sort of feedback from her teachers. And so the teacher redirected the class generally and then I think tried to redirect her.

And when she didn't start working, she had her stand for the remainder of class, which was about 7 to 10 minutes depending on who you're asking. So we had a meeting about it, emails back and forth on Wednesday, of course.

And my initial reaction was pure parent rage because my daughter did have a different experience of being called out, so to speak, in the classroom when she was in the fourth grade. A teacher actually put her on the phone to call me in front of all of her peers to say that she hadn't turned in an assignment.

And that was in the fourth grade, which is horrifically using public shaming like that was very inappropriate. And that school admin did agree. So when my daughter was told to stand up, she felt like she was just being put in time out essentially or being punished for falling asleep. And so we had a meeting about it today, literally 30 minutes ago, and so fresh off of that meeting.

Jessica: And what happened? I mean the day that it happened — today was the meeting and this happened earlier in the week — what was the conversation with your daughter? I mean were you able to sort of break it down with her what had happened?

Tricia: Yeah. So we live in Missouri where you're not supposed to use your phones in schools anymore from the legislative level. She did text me immediately after leaving that class and I tried to get some context from her before contacting the teacher.

And so she and I went over that. She just said she made me stand, I was falling asleep, I had done some of my assignment — sort of almost defending herself in advance trying to rationalize what had happened.

And so I waited about 10 minutes to try and be neutral but also advocacy-forward before emailing the teacher and asking her not to do that again. And the teacher was responsive and added in her admin and all of that and addressed it.

What I now understand after the meeting is that there are a couple options that teachers can use to redirect children when they're feeling tired. One of them is walking around the classroom, which is pretty common for kids with ADHD or folks that need to move their body. She said she didn't choose that option because she thought that would be calling her out even more.

The students do have standing desks. And so the context I didn't get from my 16-year-old at the moment is that the teacher apparently intended for her to just move her desk to the standing position and work, but she didn't do that, so she just stood there at her desk for 7 or 8 minutes.

And so the teacher and I had a good conversation about it, but I was clear with her of, you know, it may be okay under policy, but that still feels incredibly emotionally harmful, especially for my daughter with an anxiety diagnosis.

And so she talked over other things that could be put in her record that could be done in the future to redirect her if she's tired. I wouldn't say it's resolved though, because the other options are to just go ahead and take a write-up or to walk around the room.

I think so much of it boils down to communication. And so I found out after having an initial conversation with the teacher, the desks actually have a standing motion. So she could have been standing and working, but there was a miscommunication between her and my daughter.

My daughter didn't know that, so she thought she was just being put in timeout when in reality, I like a standing desk. But if that's not explained, if the parents don't know to tell kids, "Hey, if you ignore this direction three times, you might have to either walk around the room or use your standing desk to function" — that's how all of these things seem to happen frequently and it all boils down to communication. I think training and expectations and policy are part of it, but a lot of it is communication.

Jessica: Communication and collaboration. It shows just how important it is for a school to be open, not just open to but to be advocating for collaborating with parents in the same way that parents are advocating for collaborating with a school.

06:29 Systemic barriers and cultural dismissiveness when seeking a dyslexia diagnosis 

Jessica: So tell me when — when did you as a parent realize, okay, I want to get my kids evaluated, I need this to be done. And was it for you and for them or was it in order to get services?

Tricia: It was. So our first trek into these neuropsych evals, these really complete educational evaluations, was with my youngest. She is the one that's dyslexic. And so she's incredibly brilliant in many ways, and she was reading two grade levels behind while her sister was two grade levels ahead naturally.

They're a year behind each other in school, and so I started bringing it up when she was in the first grade with her teachers saying like, "Why is there such a big difference? You know, why is she struggling?" And they repeatedly told me just keep reading to her at home, which I'm sure the parent of every dyslexic child has been told that so many times.

Jessica: Which is, by the way, that is such a way of blaming the parent. Blaming the mother. Because yeah, if you only read to your child, she would be on grade reading level. I mean, please.

Tricia: The word gap. The word gap. Have you got those handouts? It's like when you read to your kids before the age of 5, they have 100,000 more words in their vocabulary. Her vocabulary wasn't the issue. She can't decode words. She was dyslexic. And so yeah, that's one of the most frustrating things.

And then to layer on top of that, we lived in Mexico City, Mexico, for their younger years. And so she first attended school in the U.S. in the first grade. So she was attending school in English and in Spanish. And so for about two years, teachers told me, "All bilingual children are behind," which is not factually true.

And so then we had the dismissal from kind of both sides: the general "just read more," and then on top of that, "she'll catch up just because she's bilingual that she's behind."

Jessica: And how do you — I mean, it's absurd and offensive. And I mean, how do you — what happens in the room when someone says that to you?

Tricia: I've definitely evolved in my advocacy tone and voice, I think, especially since I'm in the Midwest. We're so nice here and I want to think the best of intentions in everyone. And I do believe that the majority of teachers are repeating things that they've been told. I don't think they've personally decided, you know what, all bilingual kids are behind.

I think it's more systemic in teacher development and training and how we set up teachers for success, but it's affecting all of our kids. And it was affecting my child in that moment. And so I used to say, you know, the evidence doesn't show that, that's not true, I'll send you some studies.

But the fact is the area we live in in Kansas City, Missouri, 80% of children are not on grade level. So for me to say my kid is two grade levels behind, why are we not more concerned, they're like, "Well, just read more, maybe it's because she's bilingual, but also a lot of her classmates are behind, so we're not worried yet."

It's the "wait to fail" sort of method, which is common I think across the U.S., but so many of those things kind of crept in. And I didn't struggle to read and wasn't even thinking dyslexia. And so that was first grade.

Got her a tutor over the next couple years, was a single parent through all of this, trying to make things do here in the Midwest. And finally I was just like, I feel like this is something more. And so got her on an eight-month waitlist, paid more than a month's rent for the neuropsych eval.

Jessica: For an evaluation? Yeah.

Tricia: For the eval to see for all of the learning disabilities plus ADHD and autism. And the results were very clear. And actually one of — this was in the fourth grade, she's a ninth grader now, so five years ago — I still say to this day one of my proudest moments as a parent: we're sitting in front of this guy who did four or five hours of testing. They take a month to review it, type it up, they're very long.

And he's going through every single one of their, like, 20 tests. And he finally gets to something and he was like, "Can I ask you something? Did you listen to a lot of audiobooks or audio stories when she was younger? Because her verbal comprehension and vocabulary is so high for a student that's dyslexic. I'm really curious."

And I literally start bawling in the office. Because when they were really — I'm like crying because I'm like, I did one thing right. I didn't know that she was dyslexic, but when they were really young, I got them hooked on Sparkle Stories. It's an audiobook subscription, audio story.

And it just, I mean, it proved like early zero-to-five learning experience and exposure to books, whether they be reading them on paper or listening, is important. But I didn't introduce them to those stories with the intention to develop her vocabulary. I just like stories.

And so it was the one moment that I was like, "Okay, I did something right and she'll be fine." And so I just always think back on that moment of — because like, we put so much pressure on parents. You should have known earlier, you should have flagged this. And I didn't, you know, I guess aggressively enough until she was in the fourth grade.

Jessica: No, you did. That's the whole thing, is that you did. But people were telling you that you didn't. And it's really — it's really hard not to internalize it and not to take, you know, just say, "Okay, my fault, my fault, my fault."

I mean, yeah, that's heartbreaking that you're sitting there getting information that you need, that you need as a parent, and by the way, also that you spent a ton of money on and waited forever to get, which is not easy also. And that somehow it's holding up a mirror to you as well.

Tricia: Yeah. And that's a lot of things with parenting, right? None of us learned to be a parent until we're doing it in the trenches. And then even still, your kids aren't exact replicates of yourself. So even your lived experiences as a child may not prepare you.

Which is why I think it's really important to be in communication with other parents to have frank conversations. I do want to name a fellow parent here in Kansas City, Missouri, Twyla, who is actually also dyslexic herself and is a strong advocate for her own daughters.

She was the first person I called and I didn't know her in person. I knew her on Facebook and I messaged her and I was like, "Can we have a conversation?" And she talked to me for three hours while I sat on my porch like trying not to cry. She's like, "It's okay, you'll figure this out, your kid is brilliant, you're going to figure this out." But it's other parents that lend that type of support, you know.

Jessica: Oh my gosh, absolutely. So wait, you found her on Facebook just —

Tricia: We were connected through a group. Yeah, we were in some random group together. We had mutuals and so we were somehow friends. And I had seen her posts about dyslexia advocacy and I was like, "Twyla, you don't know me in person," and she got right on the phone with me.

Jessica: I love that. First of all, I love that she got right on the phone and I love that you reached out because I think sometimes for me there — there have been moments of real loneliness and then it's like no one knows exactly what I'm going through, you know, no one knows. It's just me, which of course is ridiculous, but when you're in it and when you're sort of figuring out, okay, I got to do this with the school, I got to do this with my kid, I got to do this — whatever it is, it's very hard to think that you're part of a bigger picture. And then when you realize you do, it's just very validating and comforting and helpful.

13:21 High costs and bureaucratic hurdles

Jessica: Before you reached out to her, before you reached out to Twyla, you got from the eval, you got the diagnosis, or she got the diagnosis of dyscalculia, dyslexia, and ADHD.

Tricia: Correct.

Jessica: Okay. So when you hear these things, what were you thinking when you read that diagnosis, when you talked to the evaluator? Did things like make sense in your mind all of a sudden?

Tricia: They did. And that's why, I wish there was some way to make sure that every parent living in this state had access to pay for these evaluations. And we need more people doing the evaluations, the waitlist was so long, because they give such detailed information about your child's brain that you have no way of knowing.

Even if you were a teacher, you don't know how to do those sort of things. And so it really goes through what things that they struggle with as you know, and where their strengths are. And as you're reading them, the whole time I'm nodding like, "This makes so much sense, this tracks with how I know my child, like this makes 100% sense and now I can take this to the school." I should just let you guess what their reaction was. And the school was great in many other ways. She wasn't "dyslexic enough" to qualify for an IEP.

Jessica: Wow.

Tricia: She's never qualified for an IEP. She has a 504 and many of those —

Jessica: Can you explain what a 504 is?

Tricia: Yeah, Section 504, really just accommodations or changes that a school would make within the school environment. So frequently it's like more time on tests, extended time to turn in homework. For dyslexic learners, it can be that someone reads the test out loud to you because if you can understand things orally or listening to it, you shouldn't be discounted for that, so you should be able to test your knowledge.

So she received her diagnosis summer before fourth grade, and then COVID happened, so we were having virtual learning. So we did a lot of her accommodations that weren't in a 504 at home because she was doing virtual learning. So she was doing voice-to-text, which is a common accommodation under a 504, or she was transcribing things or she was listening to books.

So those are all very common accommodations for dyslexia. And then when you return to the classroom post-COVID, she's entering that age where she's early middle school. Let me tell you how many middle schoolers like to feel special by having accommodations and having them called out. Not that the teachers would do it intentionally maliciously, but if someone's like, "Okay, let's go read your test" in front of all your peers, the kids don't want that either.

Jessica: I mean, like — it's very hard, even hearing that. I know it's not malicious. It's not like there are people sitting there with, like, a witch's cauldron thinking, "How am I going to destroy this child's life today?" You know, that's not the reality of the situation.

And you would hope that at a place committed and devoted to bringing children up educationally, emotionally, socially, in all of those ways, that there might be the awareness of, "Hey, let's not call out a middle school child in front of a class to be like, 'Hey, different kid, come let's go do your different thing.'"

I want to just rewind to her, to the evaluation and the diagnosis. So we've talked about the dyslexia. Tell me about the dyscalculia and did that also click in your mind when the evaluator told you about that? And how does that manifest? And I'm curious about the 504, what the accommodations for that are, if any.

Tricia: Her accommodations under a 504 for math were that she would be able to use a calculator.

Jessica: Okay. And are those —

Tricia: No, that's not certainly not enough. No. But what we ended up doing, so in the middle — when she was in middle school, she came home and she is really good at saying when something's not working for her. And I love that. I'm like, either you were born with that, I fostered it or something, but I love it for you because it's really going to serve you in life.

And she would come home and she would say very — and for someone who's a seventh grader, to be able to say, "It's nothing about the teacher or their personality, it's their teaching style. I have no idea what he's saying. I don't understand what he's teaching." And so she could recognize it's not that I hate this teacher, you know, it's not that this teacher is bad, it's that the way he's teaching ain't clicking for me.

And she would express that very clearly. And so we had a couple meetings at the school and math interventionists at the middle school level are not as common. And you have to really be struggling to qualify for some pull-out time with the interventionist.

Jessica: And the interventionist is sort of a — an in-school tutor, right?

Tricia: Essentially, they, yeah, they would support kids one-on-one with intensive support. And the school that they attend is a — you know, we call them signature schools here in the Midwest, they used to be called magnet schools — so it's our public school system, but you apply to get in. It's academic, college-focused.

And so the majority of the kids that are there, I bet you there's so many twice-exceptional kids that are there that do have these diagnosis of being gifted and have ADHD. That's why they're getting such high grades. But not all of them have either diagnosed learning disabilities or they have parents that are paying for tutoring outside of school because our school doesn't have a math interventionist at the middle school or high school level because kids are so advanced. So if you struggle in just one area, you better figure out how to bring it up.

21:21 Transition to high school advocacy 

Jessica: Okay. So then as a parent, what — what does that look like for you? Is it just like, okay, like I feel like it's like, "Not it!" The school is just doing one big "not it!" on the playground and is it then, okay, I guess, in the way that I was hoping to partner in the education of my child, I guess it's now going to be all on me. And is that essentially what's happening?

Tricia: That certainly — it certainly felt that way. You know, and we went round and round and I had conversations with others to really understand if that was legal. But because it's a school that you're choosing to apply to and attend, and they're not denying you returning to the school your child is assigned to where those interventions or those help are provided, it's not illegal because you're the one that chose to go to that school and opt out of where the services did exist.

Jessica: It's not your specifically districted school you've chosen to go to that, right.

Tricia: It's within our public school district, but it's like a special one that you, you know, decide to send your kid to. And what did I do? I got a second job so I could pay for math tutoring. And she did that, I think seventh grade, from January to May, twice a week for 50 minutes — five zero, 50 minutes — almost an hour. It was $600 a month, which I could not afford on my income at the time working at a nonprofit.

And she grew two and a half grade levels in math. I mean, she has the ability to learn it, she just — it has to be taught in a very specific way. And yet there you are getting a second job knowing, okay, this is — this is something I'm going to have to do. I mean, that seems like a lot. I mean, you have and had a job, and to have to add on to that.

Yeah. I think, you know, in a way I felt a lot of guilt around just saying, instead of continuing to push, instead of trying to figure this out, I'm just — I know I can solve this if I just go out and get a second job and if I just pay for tutoring. Because the wheels of change turn so slowly.

And so my kid can't wait another two or three years while we go back and forth and try to figure out, "No, the middle schools all should have interventionists" or "No, this should be a thing." Bureaucratically, that takes forever. And by that point, my kid's failing every math class she takes and not living up to her potential.

It's the same with, I think, really easy to understand for parents of kids that are struggling to learn to read. Because that's like that K to 3, we're learning to read, and then above third grade, we're reading to learn. So you have to be able to read pretty well starting by the third grade because all the topics you learn are through reading.

And so when we wait and wait and wait and have conversations and try to advocate, all of that takes time. And in the meantime, your child is getting further and further behind. So it was one of those things of, "Can I, should I, push harder to try and get them to do this? Or does my child need support now? Today, last month, last year?"

And so it's never a perfect answer. That's what I and I think many other parents end up doing. I lasted 10 months at that second job and was like, "Why am I snapping at everyone? Why am I so grumpy all the time? Oh, because I'm working 60 hours a week and parenting and doing all of these things."

And so I think, you know, it — I don't regret doing that because she needed the support, but it also just highlights, you know, the opportunity gap so many students of our students are living through. I mean, one in five people are dyslexic. That's a huge amount of students. And I assume some similar numbers for dyscalculia or dysgraphia, you know, all the very similar learning disabilities.

Some parents are already working two jobs. This economy right now kind of sucks. You know, we can't expect parents to just be like, "I'll get a second or a third job and pay for this." And not all of them can. And so that just the inequity just continues to deepen even with the barriers that she's already facing and I'm trying to manage. She's still getting support that some students don't because I'm just like, well, I guess we'll address it at home somehow.

Yeah. I mean, when did you realize — was there a moment that you realized, "Oh crap, this is going to fall apart here"?

So my youngest is the one who just started high school, so she's a freshman. So she's been there since August. And I'm kind of holding my breath, like with bated breath, to see when she runs into it. She's my like strong self-advocate and she was like, "Mom, I'm fine, I don't need these accommodations, I can keep going."

So I'm actually kind of still waiting for her to run into content that without accommodations is too difficult for her. Not that it's too difficult because she can't do the things, but like her brainpower using all of her strengths without having any support on the side where she needs it is eventually going to make things really difficult cognitively.

And this is my kid that wants to be a lawyer. You want to know how much reading there is in law school? And it's super interesting all the time, too. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. Focusing on things that don't interest you is something that we as ADHDers don't do. I just don't, as an adult.

But so far, I'm just kind of holding my breath. She has a super strong social network, so she has friends that are supportive. So we haven't run into many issues with her and her transition. It's my oldest that doesn't have the diagnosis that is starting to run into some stuff that presents as behavioral to some of the teachers.

But when you talk to them and you get them to give specific feedback, they're like, "No, the content she gets, no she's generally a good kid. She just won't turn the things in on time or she's really tired and not hearing direction" and things like that. I'm like, you know, some of these things sound like they point to something, which a school can't diagnose. So I don't expect them to, but you know, we'll be going up for a third round of evaluations here in the spring to see if now with updated information — because now she's a sophomore, and the content is different, and the type of focus you have to do is different.

And the older you get, you have to do all those things alone without — you know, fourth-grade teachers do a lot of redirecting because kids in the fourth grade are younger. And they do less of that as you get older. And so I think this is her year where it's become quite obvious that she needs additional supports, likely from an ADHD side, but I can't diagnose her, so we'll see.

So how — did you find that in middle school that the school was more open to hearing from you as a parent? I feel like sometimes with my kids it was a different thing. In elementary school, there was just more involvement and there was more access for me as a parent to people, whether or not it yielded the result that I wanted. Whereas the older kids get, the more it's like, "Oh, parents, you're not involved anymore."

Yeah, it's definitely a different tone, I will say. Now I can't tell, it's like what comes first, the chicken or the egg. I can't tell if teachers are responsive to me because I do this for a living and now I'm on the board and I'm involved, or because I'm lucky. Like, they're still responsive via email, but on the elementary side like you're saying, it feels much more preventative and relationship-building.

So there's these back-to-school nights — not just back-to-school nights, but open houses — where you're actually spending time with teachers and they're sending kind of cute little updates or whatever. And so that — that across the board for most parents is true in elementary. The expectation is parent gets to be super hands-on and then the older they get, the more you back off.

And so yeah, I'm not quite sure what the vibe is — to use the language that our teenagers do — and what causes teachers — so they are very responsive to emails, but at a school that has very high academic standards and is college-focused, I think there is an expectation that students thrive independently.

And I do want that for my children, of course, but one of them is needing more support at this moment. And it's like a little bit of push and pull of like, "How do we get this for her?" because actually the teachers can't make her focus either. So to be fair, they can redirect her, they can certainly give her extensions on deadlines and things like that, but at her core I think she needs additional support. And then and then you're once again advocating for her.

31:26 Celebrating the power of parental advocacy

Jessica: You mentioned that this is your job. I want to just make clear that you are an education advocate. So this is something that you — and I feel like they get an email from you and they're like, "Oh yeah, this is what she does. Got to listen to this one. Got to hit reply."

Tricia: So I do want to talk about that because it's — it's opened my eyes so much to — I don't think it's overt classism or overt injustice or prejudice, but the way I type and the way I email and my colleagues is all very pretty academic and straightforward.

And so even if you've never heard of our organization and you receive that email, it's different than a parent who may not have finished school, whether high school or middle school or elementary school. I've worked with parents who lived in a different country, went to school through the fourth grade, are sharp as a tack because they've learned a whole another language, but do they type well? No.

And so administrators intentionally or not aren't giving those types of emails from those parents as much attention as they do us. Because I get a response from everyone I email. But because we do it for a living and the longer the organization does it, the more social capital or awareness that we exist and we're going to continue to push and we'll show up to meetings in person and we'll help parents give public comment at school board meetings.

It feels more pressure on them to respond and they do respond when we're on the email. But I've had parents show me that they emailed four times with no response, in English or in Spanish.

Jessica: Right. So you — so you have this group of parents now who support each other and who I'm guessing share information about, "Hey, this worked in dealing with the school and this is some way that you can support your kid or support yourself, I mean for God's sake." And so how has that been for you, having a kind of squad of parents to go through this with?

Tricia: I think it's incredible. So our mission is based around building collective power in the Latino community around issues in education. Revolución Educativa is the name, which means education revolution. The goal is not that I have to come to every meeting, it's that you develop the skills because we walk side-by-side and do it together.

But then when your neighbor struggles or your coworker struggles, they can ask you and you can do that with them. And we've had a lot of people say, "I went with my neighbor to a meeting, I helped them get this, but I think we do need the additional pressure of you supporting."

And so we're seeing it happen in real-time where people, once you figure out how to navigate school systems, they're all pretty similar because there's a lot of school districts here locally. But if you don't know that, it's such a specific skill set. Even if you're from here, even if you speak English, American English-speaking parents also don't know how to navigate school systems.

Jessica: No. We don't go to school. Yeah, we don't go to school to learn how to deal with school. So it's a real learn-on-the-job as a parent kind of situation. You also reached out to your newspaper. Tell me about that and I'm so curious if — I mean what was that like? Like you just one day like picked up the phone or sent an email?

Tricia: Yeah. So my role at our organization was parent advocate for two years, and last year I started crying every day on the way home because seeing the same injustices over and over and over again, mostly around discipline and sped, those were some of the two things that I just couldn't anymore. I was starting to get burnt out.

And so I pivoted into a communications role and I still help on the advocacy cases when they're things that I've dealt with a lot. So we all kind of keep that expertise. But I pivoted into that, so I started working quite a bit more with media. And last fall, I accompanied a parent who had a kid that's super gifted but was lacking a dyslexia diagnosis, a middle schooler, a bilingual family.

And the people from the school sat across from — told me and they just said, "Can we just be honest? He should just go ahead and get tutoring because the services he needs we're not going to provide him." Because exactly. Okay. And you know, I could joke and blame it on the fact that I'm an Aries, so I take injustice very seriously and get very fiery.

And I left that meeting and I'm talking to the mom and the mom's crying and upset in the parking lot like, "They just — I have the diagnosis, they know he needs the support, why did they just tell us that they're not going to give it to them?" And so I'm talking her through that and next steps.

And so I get home and I'm like trying to collect myself and then I just send off this huge media pitch to one of our local nonprofit news stations, The Beacon. And it was long. That poor reporter, she does education for a living, she's incredible, education reporting for a living.

I'm sure she's seen some feisty emails, but I was like, "That is it. Why do parents go through this over and over? It's the same story everywhere." Now the details might be different, but it's the same outcome. And I was — I was angry.

You know, people don't like to talk about anger in a positive way, but like anger moves us to action. Like, no. At some point, no, this could no longer happen. And so it was some of the most rage-filled email I've ever sent and I said, "And this is happening everywhere, it's not just this district, I can personally connect you to six or seven parents that are willing to speak on record and so will I."

And so she emailed back and she decided, they ended up turning it into a series. So they did I think three articles on dyslexia and they interviewed a wide range — people from all different districts, parents. I think they interviewed a couple teachers. They spoke with a dyslexia specialty school that's a private school here. And I would say that was the proudest moment of 2025 when the first article hit and I was like, "I know that I did that." I mean I pitched it, I didn't write it.

Jessica: You made it happen though. I mean, so much of this is like who got the ball rolling? In the same way of who made the first call to get the evaluation? Who ensured that, "Hey, by the way, this is not making my kids stand in the classroom is not the way to go." I mean, there's always that first step. I can see it in my mind, you writing this email and hitting send and then just being like, "I did it."

Tricia: I think the most gratifying moment honestly for me is the first article comes out, the second article comes out, and then about a couple months later they post naming me saying, "A parent Tricia McGee brought to us concerns that this was happening across the district. We want to continue to hear from parents, share with us your concerns."

And I was like, "There's my name in lights." They're saying, you know, parents have so much value in advocating for change in school systems for their kids and other kids. And they said it out loud and I was like, this made my entire 2025. Like did that solve everything? No. But now people are talking about it. People have to talk about it to realize something is going wrong.

Jessica: Okay. So I have questions about people who talked about it. First of all, were your kids like, "Ugh, mom," or were they like, "Yes, mom"?

Tricia: I think because they're on the "Yes, Mom" train because I come home and I'm like, "And this happened at this district," I mean my kids have heard all the stories. And so I think that they're raising — the act of building community with others and advocating is something our kids are witnessing us do it.

Whether or not you do it for a living like I do or you're just doing it for your kid, them seeing that teaches them when something is wrong, you can say something and do something. I always check in with my kid, especially the youngest that has a diagnosis every once in a while like, "How are you feeling me talking about this publicly?"

She went to D.C. with me with the National Center for Learning Disabilities this summer to advocate for some laws that affect college students and receiving their 504s or accommodations, taking their 504 with them to the college level. And she's 14, you know. She's like, "No, if they're not going to listen to me or they're not going to listen to you, maybe they'll listen to me." And so I think she's definitely ready for that limelight or she's okay with it because she sees how necessary it is.

Jessica: Where — so where were you when she was able to speak? That must have been such a proud parent moment.

Tricia: We were on the Hill. Like, scheduled, you know, they helped us schedule meetings with our legislators. So senators and reps and things like that. And so it's, you know, I visit our legislators here all the time, you know, many of my peers do as well.

But seeing a 14-year-old do it who hasn't done those trainings — she's just speaking from her experience — was so much better than I ever would have because she was speaking very directly, very — it was just very powerful and they listened to her. I don't think they get very many 14-year-olds visiting them on the Hill in D.C., so it was incredible.

Jessica: No. No. What did that feel like to watch her? To watch her advocate for herself like that?

Tricia: I'm incredibly proud of both of my children and I don't want to project like just because I do this for a living and it's now your entire personality as well. But hearing from someone that has that experience, her input is 10 times more important than mine and so was my older daughter's.

And so in whatever way feels good and is comfortable to them, yes, I'm incredibly proud when they push for change because it won't just help them, it'll help — you know how like neurodivergents kind of gather in crews? Like all their friends have a diagnosis in some way, you know, they always seem to find each other.

And so it's not just benefiting them to have laws be fair or school policies be fair, it's for other students as well. And so it's an incredibly proud moment, especially when your kiddo struggles with something for so long and all the conversations you have around school about them are like, "She needs help, she needs help, she's struggling." So to see her shine in that moment and to really bring so much value and power to the meeting was incredible.

I got to be honest, a lot of this talk made me sad: that Tricia had to explain to a teacher why forcing her kid to stand in the classroom wasn't a great idea or that Tricia had to get a second job to cover the cost of educational support.

But I also felt inspired that there are people like Tricia fighting for what she calls collective power in the Latino community around issues in education. So many of us have had our version of Twyla, the other parent who tells us, "We're not nuts with what we're seeing."

I loved when she said, "We walk side-by-side and do it together." Most of all, I loved when she said her children are learning from her how to speak up for what they need in the education system and beyond. Isn't that the ultimate goal? Advocating for our kids so that they can advocate for themselves one day. I'm glad even on the rough days that Tricia knows what she's instilled in her daughters. See you next time.

Thanks for listening to "Everyone Gets a Juice Box." Our show is hosted by me, Jessica Shaw. It's produced by Cody Nelson and video is produced by Calvin Knie and edited by Jesse DiMartino. Briana Berry is our production director and Neil Drumming is our editorial director.

If you have any questions for us or ideas for future episodes, write me an email or send a voice memo to podcast@understood.org. This show is brought to you by Understood.org. Our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott Cocchiere, and Jordan Davidson. Understood is a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia. If you want to help us continue this work, donate at understood.org/give.