Special education services have grown faster than staffing in many regions — leaving fewer hands to support more students and creating gaps that schools are forced to cover.
45 states reported special education staffing shortages last year.
You’re not alone.
A Different Kind of SPED Partner.
Better student outcomes, strong evaluations, reliable providers and no compliance issues - ever.
*CA: We are a certified Non-Public Agency #9904102
Ready for better support?
The ACES Approach
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A real clinical team.
Not one isolated provider. Not a rotating marketplace. When you partner with ACES, you’re supported by a connected clinical team that knows your students, your caseloads, and your timelines.
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Thoughtfully matched providers.
We assign providers based on fit, availability, and your service needs — and we always have backup built in. If someone is unavailable, services and evaluations continue without disruption.
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Dedicated Point-of-Contact.
You don’t chase vendors. You get a dedicated coordinator who tracks timelines, provider coverage, IEPs, and communication — so nothing slips through the cracks.
Our Why
ACES Clinics began because we saw how often schools were asked to do more with less — more students, more timelines, more complexity, and fewer people to carry it. As providers ourselves, we felt the strain on both sides: students waiting for services, and school teams trying to hold everything together.
There are many agencies in this space. You may have heard of them, worked with them, or even been let down by them. We built ACES to be something more thoughtful — a small, provider-owned, family-operated SPED partner built around showing up, staying involved, and doing the work the way it should be done.
From Dr. Tim:
In special education, what really matters to schools is cost, accountability, and knowing who is actually overseeing the work. When there are too many layers between a district and the people doing the services, things get messy—communication gets lost, quality becomes harder to control, and it’s not always clear who’s responsible.
ACES was built to be different. We’re family-owned and provider-operated, which means there’s no middleman. I stay directly involved in the work we do, so schools know there’s always real clinical oversight behind every evaluation and service.
We may not take on massive, nationwide volumes, but when we commit to a school, we’re all in. And after seeing how constantly changing providers can disrupt students and overwhelm school teams, I wanted to build something steadier—where people stay, relationships form, and the work actually moves forward.
Dr. Tim Castaneda, Ed.D., LEP, NCSP, ABSNP
Founder & Clinical Director
If you’ve read this much, you probably care about doing special education work the right way. We do too.
If you want to see what working with ACES could look like, we’d love to tell you.