leadership, policy & implementation
Summary: Special education teacher Tim Ranis shares how artificial intelligence transformed his IEP writing process and restored his passion for teaching. After nearly three decades in the field, crushing paperwork drove him toward early retirement until he developed KAIIT—the Kairo Artificial Intelligence IEP Tool. This article details the replicable six-step process demonstrated at Closing the Gap 2025, showing educators how to ethically reduce IEP writing time significantly while maintaining profes- sional oversight, legal compliance, and student-centered quality. Using AI to Transform IEP Writing: A Teacher’s Journey From Burnout to Breakthrough
INTRODUCTION: WHEN PAPERWORK ECLIPSES PURPOSE No special education teacher enters the profession dream- ing about paperwork. We come for the students—their poten- tial, their growth, the privilege of watching breakthroughs un- fold, the “Ah-ha” moments. Yet somewhere along the journey, the administrative load expands until it threatens to consume the very reason we chose this work. Last spring, after 27 years teaching special education, I reached an all too familiar stress point. IEP fatigue had become so profound that I was counting down months, then weeks, even days until retirement. The students weren’t the problem. The classroom wasn’t the problem. The suffocating weight of paperwork that followed me home every night and consumed every weekend—that was the problem. Then artificial intelligence entered my professional life. Not as a gimmick or shortcut, but as a genuine lifeline. The tool I developed—KAIIT (Kairo Artificial Intelligence IEP Tool)—has fundamentally reshaped how I write IEPs. It has restored my ability to focus on students and strengthened/ improved, rather than replaced, my professional judgment.
What follows is the story behind KAIIT, insights from the live demonstration I conducted at the Closing the Gap conference, and clear, replicable steps any educator can use to lighten their workload without compromising quality, accuracy, or compli- ance. FROM DESPERATION TO INNOVATION: THE EASTER EXPERIMENT KAIIT’s origin story lacks elegance. It wasn’t planned, fund- ed, or officially sanctioned. I made mistakes, many mistakes. It was born from desperation during Last year’s IEP season when I found myself buried under seemingly never-ending mountains of paperwork from student meetings. Over Easter break, I did something unusual: I spent nearly 40 hours experimenting with AI prompts, testing whether this technology could genuinely assist with IEP writing. Since I pri- marily support math as a Special Education teacher, I was ac- customed to logic and patterns, so I approached AI not with blind faith but with skepticism and systematic testing. What I discovered surprised me. AI could compile, sum- marize, organize, and synthesize information with remarkable
TIM RANIS is a Wisconsin special education teacher, retired Army National Guard Staff Sergeant, and creator of KAIIT (Kairo Artificial Intelligence IEP Tool)— the AI-driven workflow transforming IEP writing. After nearly three decades in the classroom, he developed KAIIT during the 2024 school year and presented this work at the Closing the Gap Assistive Technology Conference. Tim remains committed to translating cutting- edge innovations in Artificial Intelligence into practical, ethical support for special educators everywhere, as well as training educators to embrace and utilize AI in the classroom. He is currently working on pure research relating to the Distribution of Artificial Intelligence Identities across platforms.
February / March, 2026 | https://www.closingthegap.com/benefits-of-membership/ 41 Closing The Gap © 2026 Closing The Gap, Inc. All rights reserved.
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