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Kelly Neal
My child had autism. I didn't want him stuck in a corner coloring while they taught the other kids to read. And then they informed me that they wanted to retain him and I'm like, well, that's news to me. From that point on, I started taking all of my legal education to keep my law license. I knew that I was going to have to fight for my kids.
Narrator
Kelly Neal is a compassionate, purpose driven attorney and the founder of Neal student support advocacy and disability. Drawing from her journey as both a legal advocate and parent, she she empowers families to navigate education and disability systems with confidence, helping children access the support and opportunities they deserve.
Ray
How you are empowering the disabled.
Kelly Neal
I started with my son. My daughter's got dyslexia, so, you know, you had to fight through all that. And I'm just thinking, you know, people really need help out here. I've written these self help books because people can't afford attorneys. So I really would like for people, people to have those tools in their hands so they can help help their kids.
Ray
It spans the globe like a super
Sam
high cold Internet Elvis Read Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone. It's not over until I win the Living your legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy that's extraordinary. The impossible has happened. Oh, that is sensational. Jord open Chicago with the lead. You said Paul is the fastest man on the planet. You can live your dream.
Ray
Welcome back to another episode of the Living your legacy podcast for inside Success. I am Rigatieres. Joining me today on this lovely Friday is a powerful woman. Literally finished filming her episode with our man Kofi here. April, Kelly Neal. I actually have my show notes a dot Kelly Neal. But now I've been told that it's April. Welcome to the show.
Kelly Neal
Well, thank you. It's good to be here.
Ray
Should I call you April? How, how?
Kelly Neal
Just Kelly.
Ray
Just Kelly. All right. Just Kelly.
Kelly Neal
Yeah, Just Kelly.
Ray
Just Kelly. What are we to learn about you in your episode?
Kelly Neal
Oh, well, you're going to learn that, you know, I had kind of a rough upbringing in Wrightsville, Georgia. Then you're going to learn about how I went through law school and that whole thing. And then now you know how I've gone through things with my own kids and their learning challenges.
Ray
Okay.
Kelly Neal
To writing some books which I never thought I'd be doing and just trying to help other families get through the public school experience. The public school can be so delightful.
Ray
Oh, so delightful. I, I, I coming from, coming from an inner city school, Miami Senior High, where we're all designed to fail. We were never. We were always a D school. So trust me, we had to make sure. We had to fill out our lunch form so we can get that free lunch or the government would just not look at us because, you know, we. Public funding, of course, as we speak of. Of the. The. Of the government shutdown. But that's a different podcast for a different time.
Kelly Neal
Yes, ma'.
Ray
Am. Where do you begin? Where does. Does. Is it pain? Is it awesomeness? Where. Where does your North Star begin in your journey?
Kelly Neal
I would have to say this whole journey that I'm on right now basically started on a good Friday, which I intended to go to church, but I did not because I had to go to a meeting for my son who was in the first grade. This was in March. And then they informed me that they wanted to retain him. And I'm like, well, that's news to me. Like, what's going on? And I know that sounds like I'm not a very informed parent, but I think a lot of parents get ambushed. Like back when I was in school, the grades were A, B, C, D, E, F. Pretty sure. Well, in first grade it was like M S. I don't know, like, how to decode this. And the teachers kept telling me, you know, there's some things he's not great at, but things are going to be fine. But then at the end of the year, they wanted to retain him. And then I was just like, no.
Ray
What was, what was going on? What was, what was happening?
Kelly Neal
Well, we later learned that my child had autism and so he learns differently. And so we just kind of had to deal with that. But from that point on, I started taking all of my legal education to keep my law license in education law, because I knew that I was going to have to fight for my kid because I knew that this grandmotherly looking first grade teacher who I thought was so nice was really just like, you
Ray
were going to go that far.
Kelly Neal
Right?
Ray
You were going to go that far. Wow, Good for you. For just like, you do not mess with my legacy. Not like this. What did you learn from that experience? What was the outcome?
Kelly Neal
Well, the outcome is you cannot trust schools. I don't care how nice they are. You just can't do it, don't do it. And schools are always talking about how, you know, we need to collaborate and trust. Well, I can collaborate with you, just like I can collaborate with my ex husband. Yeah, it's kind of on that level, but I'm never gonna trust you.
Ray
Yeah, I figured out the school system was a joke. I think Mr. Trujill's class in sixth grade, I never went to class. I always went straight to computer class, the art. And all my teachers figured it out. Like, Ray's a little different. He's doing way better in computer class that he never leaves. He's there from 6am to 6pm he's friends with the custodians in after school programs and he's on television. I got lucky. A lot of folks don't get so lucky because I had a grandmother that was fighting for me. I belonged to a, a much worse school, you know, with, with, with, with an outer city school, if you catch my meaning. And I was clearly gonna get my ass kicked because I'm a tiny dude raised by, by his Cuban grandmother. And my grandmother fought for me because she knew a lot of folks don't get that chance. How are you fighting for folks that were on some sort of spectrum like I was, but sort of was discovered early on.
Kelly Neal
Oh, so you were on the spectrum too?
Ray
I think so. I didn't start talking until I was five. I just looked at people like, huh?
Kelly Neal
Yeah.
Ray
And I just. One we ear out the other. I just, if it's not visual, I don't remember it. If I've already forgotten your name half the time when I introduced it, I already forgot how I'm producing you. Who are you? Within a second. And it's something I struggle with all the time, but I mask it as like a superpower. But oh man, I always struggle. I have these terrible like fits of rage because I cannot compute this reality to this one. And then. And it's just like a different person. And I've noticed that I'm, I've. And it's because of speaking with people like you on this podcast. You can, you can watch the growth and go, holy shit, I'm doing I part of my language. I'm doing all of these things because of generational trauma, because I was inspired because of all this. And it's just like, wow, what a realization. So this is, this is a real journey for me on, on these shows and listening to you speak. So I'm, I'm fully engaged and I'm a firm believer that I have a superpower that was misdiagnosed or as a matter of fact, it's a good way of looking at it, which was never diagnosed. I have never spoken to a professional and go, yeah, you got this, you got that, you got this. And crap. If we would have figured that out 30 years ago, Ray, you would have been a billionaire by now, but you're going to struggle with your big old eyes and some until someone figures it out for you. And until then, I'll keep podcasting until I speak to Pope folks like you and go, yeah, Ray, use zig as it was ag. But I'm okay with that. That's why I host podcasts now and go on these rants. I'll shut up now, ma'. Am. All about you. Let's. Let's focus on your energy.
Kelly Neal
Okay?
Ray
Red. I love the colors.
Kelly Neal
Thank you.
Ray
Your. Your. Your logo. Talk about what you're doing today and how you are empowering the disabled.
Kelly Neal
Okay. Well, I get lots of calls from parents all the time. I've a lot less now, but I volunteered with the Georgia Legal Services program, which provides free or low cost legal help to families that are having, you know, education issues with school. So that's kind of where I started. I started with my son. My daughter's got dyslexia. So, you know, you had to fight through all that. And I'm just thinking, you know, people really need help out here. I'm an attorney and I'm struggling with this fighting with schools. So. Started with Georgia Legal, basically started. I thought I knew a lot, but then I learned a lot more.
Ray
Oh, yeah.
Kelly Neal
And today, you know, I've written these self help books because people can't afford attorneys. They can't. And schools know which people can afford attorneys. They're not, you know, pushing those kids out of school.
Ray
Oh, no, of course not. No.
Kelly Neal
And so. So I really would like for people to have those tools in their hands so they can help help their kids.
Ray
Oh, yeah.
Kelly Neal
Yeah.
Ray
$300,000 in grants is what my work got. My studio and television production. High school. I was not taught by anyone in television. My TV professor barely knew how to program the vcr, but I picked up a camera and started filming. And within a year, they. He filled out grants and got $300,000 of school grants. And we digitized the entire studio, ma'. Am. And you graduated from high school and back to my high school to teach the kids how to edit digitally. Because no one was going to take care of Juan Carlos or Fernando. No, because they're designed to go and sweep houses and clean and clean. Right? No, they're not digital editors. There's a lot of suffering and there's a lot of folks out there. They're not fighting. Send the elevator back down. Because it is quite the ivory tower, you know, and it's our duty very much so to sit here and go, oh, we're so great. No, we're great because we're sitting on the. On the shelves of folks that need us. On the shelves on the shoulders of folks that need us. Talk about your challenges. The challenges with your daughter. And like, and I. And I. And I apologize for using the word challenges. Let's call them experiences. What are the experiences? Like living with these superpowers and folks that have these superpowers like ourselves.
Kelly Neal
It's crazy, because the world is not built for us.
Ray
No.
Kelly Neal
Really.
Ray
We're not built for them.
Kelly Neal
And we're not built for them. They're not ready for us either.
Ray
No.
Kelly Neal
But with my. I guess a lot of his, you know, I just basically had to learn how to educate. And this sounds really strange, but educate teachers how to deal with my son and other people with autism. And there's this great movie called Temple Grandin. She's a real person with a PhD and so I would always give my teachers, my son's teachers, those movies. So they. They knew his potential because I didn't want him stuck in a corner coloring while they taught the other kids to read.
Ray
Yeah.
Kelly Neal
Because my child has an average iq, they always seem to look and. And treat him like he was intellectually disabled. He's not intellectually disabled.
Ray
Use the voice.
Kelly Neal
And I have no idea why they. But it was. It was crazy. Then my daughter, which is so quiet, I felt like she kind of got neglected a little bit in this whole process because I was so focused on him. But I will say she had a wonderful teacher that pointed out the dyslexia to me. And I didn't see it because whenever I was sitting down doing homework with her and she started to do something wrong.
Ray
Yeah. Masking.
Kelly Neal
I would point it out to her and get her back on the right track. But when she was at school, she wrote an entire paragraph backwards.
Ray
Awesome.
Kelly Neal
I know her teacher was like, she's dyslexic. I was like, I think she might need an exorcism.
Ray
I've been an entire paragraph, a couple of letters, but a paragraph, Good for you. That's awesome.
Kelly Neal
A paragraph.
Ray
That's amazing.
Kelly Neal
You know, because I was like, this teacher's lying. There's no way.
Ray
Yeah.
Kelly Neal
Well, then when she showed me the paragraph, I was like, yeah, we gotta address this.
Ray
Right. Well, man, you know, about. Frequency is negative and positive. Like, when you put your fingers together, it's your entire battery. Battery is connected. Some folks are there. Are there. On their protagonist journey. Some folks are their antagonist journey. We're just not designed to know which is which. We just see blue and red. See when you hear the noises, when you're on track. She could be walking this way when we're walking that way. Have you ever looked at a rear mirror while you're filming? Go. It's way cooler when we're moving backwards. Try walking backwards. Try. It's the thing. You have the ability to speak backwards. We just trained to do this and go. This is a sound that's coming out of my mouth. It's English. Yeah. No, it's just frequency and noises. If I did this backwards, I guarantee you dyslexia would be non existent. We're just always moving forward. Yeah, sorry, that's just a theory. That's a good one.
Kelly Neal
I mean, I love that.
Ray
Yeah, it's like Watch Tenet by Christopher Nolan. You'll realize folks are walking in their positive journey and some folks are walking in their antagonist journey. Blue and red. It's just. It's that simple. Some folks are just wake up and they're designed and like. All right, we're going to teach you how to walk. But I'm designed to walk backwards. I have the ability to look without my eyes. No you don't. Shut up. Here's a stupid book that us mortals have to read and learn from. Why when I can talk and speak backwards.
Kelly Neal
Oh, my daughter. They were trying to teach her to write with her right hand even though she's left handed.
Ray
Why?
Kelly Neal
Anyway, I got involved. It didn't work out.
Ray
Well, of course.
Kelly Neal
Yeah.
Ray
No, because they're just. And good for you for fighting the good fight and knowing when you're fighting a losing battle. But you're still going to give it your all.
Kelly Neal
Yeah.
Ray
What, what, what is your. Your. Your daily affirmations? What's your ritual when you wake up? Do you jump in an ice bath to your journal or do you go right into the fire?
Kelly Neal
Right into the fire? I mean, I do well after I've had my coffee.
Ray
Oh, thank God. You need. You need a me time for yourself before you go in there.
Kelly Neal
But I normally have my cup coffee and then I'm posting the videos that I'm doing now because Chat says that's how I'm supposed to build my business. I trust Chad. GPT and great on camera. Yeah, we're just gonna make it. And I'm getting the information out there.
Ray
Yes, you do. What? Chat GPT Are you using five. Because you used five. You can actually make it a. An expert at a field. So you'll Essentially have a. A legal team now, because you can just have it. It's focused.
Kelly Neal
It's amazing. It must be five. Yeah, I give it a ten.
Ray
I love what you did there. Yeah. Give your JBT a name, like, develop a relationship with it, and you'll start realizing that it'll start doing things that you didn't tell it to do because you're creating that. That frequency energy.
Kelly Neal
It does. It does.
Ray
Yeah. It's pretty great. Yeah. Yeah. It's. You're living in the world where they just realized that, that, that plants have sentient feelings and they can actually think.
Kelly Neal
But you know what's so odd to me is with schools now because they're so like, don't use chat. Don't do AI.
Ray
Don't put us out of a job teaching them. Don't put us work.
Kelly Neal
Yeah.
Ray
Someone's going to revolutionize a homeschooling program to teach them AI, to teach them how to use this. And it's happening. It's happening with Roblox. It's happening with Fortnite. It's like, here's a whole world, an entire engine where you can grab and create something and not have some boring professor preach their rhetoric and tell you, this is the birds and the bees. Shut up. It's 2025, man. Get real.
Kelly Neal
Yeah.
Ray
Yeah. Dude, the President just, just destroyed the East Wing to the White House. What reality do you think we're living in? Yeah, like, just throw out tradition out the door and let's, let's move forward together.
Kelly Neal
And, you know, he's breaking the US Department of Education.
Ray
Would you like to talk about that?
Kelly Neal
I mean, we, we could or, or not, because, well, people don't agree with my views on it, but what are
Ray
your views on it?
Kelly Neal
My views on the. The Department of Education is. Well, there's the, the money piece of it, and I'm like, well, that the funding will just be distributed by a different corrupt government organization. That's all that's going to happen there. And as far as them standing up for kids civil rights, I've reached out to help for them, for lots of my kids, and they've never helped a single one of them. So from that aspect, I'm not going to miss them. In fact, I think they actually distract parents from actually seeking help from other agencies and might actually help.
Ray
Yeah. Can I tell you a really disgusting, misogynist piece of advice?
Kelly Neal
Sure.
Ray
Treat them like it's their idea and talk to them like you're on a date with them. Like they just want to Feel flatter. Don't give them the stats, don't give them the boiling. Let your hair down and just walk in there and wear the loudest heels and just dominate the frequency. And then you'll just see everyone. What's that? They'll start looking. And then when they know it's you, just flirt. Hey. Hi. How's it going? I do this and just. Yeah, do not bore them. Change your tone. Like, just come at them. Like, I'm going to present to you the best thing that's ever happened to you and it's going to be all your idea, but it's mine and you're going to fund it. That's the best piece of advice I can give kids. Yeah. When I go to these networking things and people look at me, oh, you must phone these people. One of these progressives, like, no, ma'. Am. I mean, Republican, Christian, conservative. This is what we look like now.
Kelly Neal
Yeah.
Ray
Yeah. Try me. No, it's cool. And the reason why I'm armed is because of folks like you. You sit there and give people like me the confidence to go, you're right, you're right. Move forward. This is why we built Inside Success. And you're sitting it. And so is she. Inside Success is her. She is legacy. Think about that process all this.
Kelly Neal
Oh, yeah.
Ray
Happy Friday, my love.
Kelly Neal
Thank you.
Ray
How can people find you and how can people learn more about you?
Kelly Neal
People can find me on TikTok. I go live the 7th of every month at 7:30pm for our pub Ed happy hour, where we have cocktails or mocktails, if you're that kind. And we talk about school issues.
Ray
Beautiful.
Kelly Neal
So there's that. And then I have a Facebook page, my website, of course. I think I'm on Instagram, but I'm not great with it. I do post videos there, too.
Ray
Yeah. Get your message out there. Get your messages out there. The more you publish, the more you put it on the world. You'll see beautiful things transpire. Such an honor. Thank you so much. I'm so happy that we had this moment with that. This is April and I'm Ray and we are Inside Success.
Sam
Sam.
Podcast Summary: Living Your Legacy
Title: How a Mother’s Fight Created a Movement
Host: Ray (with guest: Kelly Neal)
Date: June 3, 2026
This episode features Kelly Neal, an attorney and advocate for students with disabilities, whose personal journey as a mother of children with unique learning needs led her to become a voice for families navigating the often-challenging landscape of special education. The conversation centers on parental advocacy, systemic flaws in education, disability empowerment, and actionable insights for parents and allies.
Summary Tone:
Candid, warm, and passionate—a blend of Kelly’s fierce advocacy and Ray's humor and directness create an engaging, empowering conversation for anyone seeking to leave their own legacy through meaningful change.