Settlement case management
We manage compensatory education funds from award to expenditure — sourcing providers, writing the educational rationale, coordinating the team, and making sure the money reaches services before it reverts to the district.
Most agreements return the unspent balance to the school district at the end of the term. Slow spending is not caution. It is a loss on a delay.
The gap
A compensatory education settlement moves money into a restricted account. It does not move capacity. Families are handed a fund, an administrator, a list of spending categories, and a deadline — then expected to build and run a service program on their own.
Parents do not know which providers qualify, how to find them, or how to ask.
The administrator's role is ministerial, but only when a request arrives with a clear educational rationale, a vendor invoice, and a category it maps to. A text message and a photo of a receipt sits.
Most agreements bar disbursement to parents. A well-meant purchase on a personal card becomes an unrecoverable expense and a source of conflict.
School, behavioral provider, regional center, coaches, and transportation each work from a different picture of the student.
The balance goes back to the district at the end of the term. There is no extension for slow spending.
Every one of these is a coordination problem, not a legal one. Which is why it keeps landing back on the attorney's desk.
Who we work with
You negotiated a strong remedy. You should not spend the next three years fielding calls about contractor quotes and reimbursement rules. Refer the family to us and stay in your lane, with a clean record if enforcement becomes necessary.
You have the authority to choose your child's services. You should not also have to become a procurement department, a compliance analyst, and a project manager. We do that work with you and in your name.
You need complete, well-documented requests that clearly fall inside the agreement. We are the reason your file stays clean and your quarterly accounting reconciles.
The work
One person accountable for the whole program, not a referral list.
We read the agreement and every addendum, map the eligible service categories, and build a spending plan against the funding schedule, rollover terms, and termination date. You get a running picture of what is spent, what is committed, and what is at risk of reverting.
Behavioral services, academic programs, executive function coaching, related services, assistive technology, transportation, vocational instruction. We find providers who fit the student's actual profile, confirm they accept third-party direct payment, negotiate scope, and run the intake.
Every submission reaches the administrator with the service described, the agreement category cited, the educational purpose written out, and vendor-direct billing already arranged. We write requests to clear review the first time.
Before a dollar leaves the fund we check whether a regional center, insurer, school district, or public program already covers it. Preserving fund capacity is a deliverable, not an afterthought.
A standing family team meeting with every provider at the table, a shared team playbook, documented decisions, and the follow-through between meetings. Everyone works from the same plan.
Plain-language guidance on what the fund covers and how to ask for it, in the family's language. Clear escalation paths. Written protocols so parents stop guessing and stop absorbing costs they will never recover.
Post-secondary goals, work-based learning, and a vocational pathway built around what the student is actually motivated by — and documented as the educational program it is.
Session logging, provider accountability, goal tracking, and a documented record of services delivered. The same record supports the administrator's quarterly accounting and any future enforcement claim.
The first ninety days
Every case is different, but the shape of a stood-up program is consistent. These are the pieces we put in place, in roughly this order, before a fund is spending at a sustainable rate.
The fund and the agreement are usually fine. What is missing is someone whose job it is to move them.
For referring attorneys
Select “Attorney” on the form and we will send scope of services, intake process, and sample documentation.
Engagement
Three ways to work together, depending on how much of the program you want us to carry.
We read the settlement and addenda, meet with counsel, and produce a written scope map and spend-down projection.
We identify service gaps against the student's profile and goals, then build the provider slate and the sequencing plan.
Providers contracted, requests submitted, team meeting cadence established, family playbook delivered.
Weekly coordination, continuous procurement, monthly reporting to family and counsel, quarterly reconciliation against the administrator's accounting.
A scope map, eligibility analysis, and spend-down projection you can act on with or without us.
Providers sourced and contracted, requests submitted, and the full program running.
Continuous coordination, procurement, and reporting for the life of the fund.
Fees are scoped to the size of the fund and the complexity of the program. We quote on the consult, in writing, before anything starts.
Case management is itself an educationally-related service under most agreements and is typically payable from the fund. We confirm this with counsel and the administrator before any engagement begins.
Questions
Through direct payment to qualified providers, against the service categories written into your settlement agreement. Each request needs an invoice, a service description, and a stated educational purpose. We prepare and submit all of it.
In most agreements the unspent balance reverts to the school district at the end of the term. There is no extension for slow spending. This is the most common way families lose the value of a settlement they won.
Usually not. Most agreements bar any disbursement to the student, parents, or conservator — payment goes directly to the vendor. If a family has already paid out of pocket, that money is often unrecoverable. We put vendor-direct billing in place before purchases happen.
It varies by agreement, but generally: academic instruction, related services, behavioral support, assistive technology, transition and vocational services, and transportation to those services. Anything that does not map cleanly to a named category goes to your attorney before it goes to the administrator.
The trustee or fund administrator holds and disburses the money. Nobody is assigned to build the service program. That gap is what we fill.
No. The administrator holds and disburses. The family selects services. We prepare, submit, and track. We never take custody of funds.
No. We are educational case managers. Interpretation of the agreement is a legal question and goes to counsel. We are explicit about that line and we do not cross it.
In most agreements, yes. Case management and educational coordination fall within the eligible service categories. We confirm before starting.
That is most of our intakes. We start with a reconciliation: what has been spent, what was purchased on personal accounts, what is recoverable, and what needs to be documented or written off going forward.
Yes. Coordination is remote, so we work with families anywhere in the United States. Our provider network is deepest in California, where we have the most existing relationships. Elsewhere we build the provider slate from scratch, which adds some time at the front end but does not change how the work runs.
Get started
If a settlement was signed and services still are not running, the clock is the problem, not the money.
Tell us where the case stands. We will review the agreement structure on a thirty-minute call and say plainly whether we are the right fit, including when the answer is that you do not need us.
Attorneys and trustees: select your role on the form and we will send the referral packet instead of scheduling a family intake.
Takes about two minutes. We reply within one business day.
Start the formOr call +1 415-707-7417.
Submitting the form does not create a professional relationship. EF Specialists does not provide legal advice.