The SpecialMoms Parenting Magazine Issue 5 | Page 15

I understand you are a Special Education
Advocate. Can you explain to us what that
entails and how long did it take for you to
get your certification?

behalf of special needs children and their
families. Really interested to learn more
about what you have done and how easy is
it to do this?

Sure. When my son was a toddler, he was at a local Arc preschool program. They sent home a flyer. I only signed up to do the
coursework because he was so
young (it’s expensive to do!)
and I said to my husband “But
we’ll get like 20 years out of
this knowledge…” because I
knew I had almost 20 years of
IEP meetings ahead of me. The
course itself is a school year
long, twice a month, all day
Saturday, with homework in
between. Then, you have to do
volunteer hours to complete
your certification. After my first case of working
with a family, I was hooked. I knew this was for me.
As fate had it, I lost my job in 2010 as part of the
recession, so I had time to do volunteer work and
get started.

It’s just my personality that I am a “big picture”
and problem solving kind of person. Very early
on…I realized that part of the
main problem, the reason for
all this tension between families
and schools, is that the schools
simply do not have enough
money to serve our kids’ needs.
(As a side note, philosophically,
I get that, really I do. However,
why fight with the parents over
it? Why not band together to
approach our legislators and
demand better?) A lot of advocates will tell you—we’re simply
putting out fires. We help one family at a time, get
their situation resolved…but we don’t feel we do
enough for the whole. I wanted to help the “whole”
too. So I have been to Harrisburg (my state capitol) and DC several times to talk about special ed
funding and the need. People don’t realize—IDEA
1975 was never fully funded. Ever! Our federal government agreed to fund up to 40% of what IDEA
would cost, and they’ve NEVER ponied up more
than 20%. States have made extreme cuts which has
trickled down to the local level…and it has literally
pitted family against family in districts, because one
family knows that their extra-curricular was cut to
pay for “those special ed kids.” It’s not right.

If someone is interested in getting their
certification, can you explain to us how they
should go about doing it? Was it an online
course?
The program I did was through a group called
NSEAI.org. National Special Education Advocacy
Institute. The group started in Philadelphia which
worked for me, but now they do offer it via webinar
due to popular demand.

How can a family work with you?
Well, I only do my local geographic area. I would
do online or phone consults, but it’s hard. Here, I
know the players, I know the climate, I know what
services my county and state offer. It can vary greatly from state to state so I may not have all the answers for a family not near me.

I also understand you do some lobbying on

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We need to collectively speak up and demand
better. To make matters worse, “those special ed
kids” are a small minority, and with recent Supreme
Court rulings (about unlimited campaign donations) it means that our voice is smaller than ever.
It’s a large and complex problem, but it’s a very serious one—much more serious than most parents
realize. If big businesses can contribute as much as
they want to campaigns, who are our candidates going to listen to? And do you think that any of these
big businesses care about our kids, or their profits?
Unless we demand otherwise, our legislators are go-

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