West Chester Advocate

[mSmith]

Good morning, I am looking for a collaborative and thorough IEP Advocate in West Chester PA. We need clarity, a strong collaborative advocate at this critical academic juncture. Please advise with any contacts.

thank you.

[JSD24]

There are lots of good advocates working in West Chester since WCASD seems to be a magnet for IEP issues.  Let me come up with a list.  (Definitely random order.)

 The REACH Group Educational Consultants, LLC

Arc of Chester County

Melissa Yelito at MY Advocacy LLC

Former WCASD Pupil Services Director, Leigh Ann Ranieri now does advocacy:  https://ranierieducationconsultant.com/

Marie Lewis

Cris Fick

Thrive Advocacy Group

Who is the right advocate for you will depend on what the issue is.  Advocates do tend to specialize to a degree.

[Lisa Lightner]

I don't know if WC is a magnet for issues, I think a lot of it is size bias-- WC and Downingtown both have 10-12000 students, so it feels more frequent.

 

Anyway, I need to come up with a list for parents to use to ask questions when hiring an advocate. There are a few on that list who I would not recommend.... and in fact I would recommend not reaching out to them.

 

but in this litigious society, I'm certainly not going to say who or why.

[JSD24]

7 hours ago, Lisa Lightner said:

I don't know if WC is a magnet for issues, I think a lot of it is size bias-- WC and Downingtown both have 10-12000 students, so it feels more frequent.

 

Anyway, I need to come up with a list for parents to use to ask questions when hiring an advocate. There are a few on that list who I would not recommend.... and in fact I would recommend not reaching out to them.

 

but in this litigious society, I'm certainly not going to say who or why.

Several years ago, the Pupil Services Director did a presentation comparing the number of due process cases in WCASD & other districts.  WCASD had more per pupil than all of the other districts in the county.  I'm not sure this has changed in recent years.  The amount they budget for due process does keep increasing.  They had twice the number as DASD (if I remember correctly) which is close in size.