Ages 12-14 · Custer County, MT county

Middle School Circle (12–14) — Custer County, MT

The hardest part of raising a neurodivergent child in Custer County, MT is rarely the child. It is being the only person in the room who knows what your child needs, in a meeting where everyone else is paid to be there. Custer County is one of 56 counties in Montana.

Twelve to fourteen changes everything at once: several teachers instead of one, moving between rooms, and a social world that turns sharp. Supports that worked in a single classroom fall apart here.

A monthly meeting in Custer County

1
What broke when the structure changed
2
Multiple teachers and one plan
3
Executive function — organization, deadlines, materials
4
Bullying and social safety
5
One system fix per family

What families in Custer County, MT ask first

Everything got worse this year.

That is the most common sentence in this circle.

Do I still get to talk to teachers?

Yes, and there is a way to do it that works at this age.

Should my child be in the meetings?

Increasingly yes, and the group works on how.

From a room in Custer County to a national count

Step 1
Your circle, in Custer County, MT
Eight to twenty families who meet monthly. Local operations stay local: your meeting time, your venue, your rules, your members. Nothing about joining changes how your group runs.
Step 2
The Custer County chapter
Every circle in Custer County reports one number — how many families it speaks for — and agrees on three asks per school year. The chapter is who a school board, a superintendent or a county commission talks to.
Step 3
The Montana coalition
County chapters send one delegate each. The coalition tracks state bills, testifies at hearings, and works alongside the structures Montana families already have a legal right to: the state's federally funded Parent Training and Information Center under IDEA, its Protection and Advocacy agency, and its Developmental Disabilities Council.
Step 4
The national assembly
State coalitions meet quarterly. One count, one set of federal priorities — IDEA funding, evaluation timelines, restraint and seclusion, transition services, and the gap between what the law says and what a district does.

Montana families are not starting from nothing. Under IDEA, every state has a federally funded Parent Training and Information Center; every state also has a Protection and Advocacy agency and a Developmental Disabilities Council. Those exist to be used. What is missing almost everywhere is a local group organized enough to use them together. Custer County is one of 56 counties in Montana, and each one needs its own chapter.

If you already run something in Custer County

Keep running it. There is no merger, no renaming, no handing over your members or your money. A group that has been meeting in Custer County for years knows things no statewide organization can generate on its own. Affiliation adds two things and takes nothing: your families are counted in the Montana total, and your ask is worded the same as everyone else’s so it cannot be answered separately.

Affiliate a Custer County group · What autonomy means here · Start a county chapter

The rules that make it work

Local groups keep local control

Your meetings, your members, your money, your name. Affiliation adds a count and a shared ask. It never adds a boss.

Nobody is diagnosed here

This is a working group of parents, not a clinical service. Families share what they did and what happened. Nobody prescribes, nobody treats, nobody assesses.

Experience is shared as experience

What one district approved is a fact worth passing on. What worked for one child is a data point, not a prescription. That distinction is enforced in every meeting.