Weinfeld Education Group?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know others will feel differently but my best advice given your child's profile is to give up on the IEP for now and use that money towards tutoring. It sounds like you are well off enough to afford tutoring so the sooner you accept that you may be hiring tutors for the rest of your child's schooling the happier you will be. I spent a full year fighting for my child to get the support he needs at school and it was a waste of energy, time, and money. A lot of that money went to Weinfeld. The process left me horribly defeated and did not help my child at all because even after we got very little of what my child needed on paper it was never implemented anyway.

Once I realized my child could do better with outside support instead, the freer I felt. This does not work for every child. Many children need in class supports but from what you've described your child may not.

Thanks, this is reasonable advice. I feel defeated and I also don’t think appealing will get us anywhere since we don’t have more data other than what we’ve already shared. I DO think my son would benefit greatly from OG interventions three times a week during school. Our school has OG certified staff. Especially since he is so exhausted from trying to “get by” during the school day and tutoring after school will be challenging for him. I would not describe us as well off- we are fine but spending the funds on the private assessment was a big deal. We just could not sit on a waitlist for 6-12 months given what we know how how things get harder starting in 3rd grade and we could see the issues he was having with reading and written comprehension.

I’m just really disappointed and I understand your point that even if we appealed and got an IEP, it may not be written in a way that offers what he needs. I agree that we should do what’s in our control, and that the money would be better spent on tutoring vs an advocate or lawyer. I wish the school could have supported him with the interventions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know others will feel differently but my best advice given your child's profile is to give up on the IEP for now and use that money towards tutoring. It sounds like you are well off enough to afford tutoring so the sooner you accept that you may be hiring tutors for the rest of your child's schooling the happier you will be. I spent a full year fighting for my child to get the support he needs at school and it was a waste of energy, time, and money. A lot of that money went to Weinfeld. The process left me horribly defeated and did not help my child at all because even after we got very little of what my child needed on paper it was never implemented anyway.

Once I realized my child could do better with outside support instead, the freer I felt. This does not work for every child. Many children need in class supports but from what you've described your child may not.

Thanks, this is reasonable advice. I feel defeated and I also don’t think appealing will get us anywhere since we don’t have more data other than what we’ve already shared. I DO think my son would benefit greatly from OG interventions three times a week during school. Our school has OG certified staff. Especially since he is so exhausted from trying to “get by” during the school day and tutoring after school will be challenging for him. I would not describe us as well off- we are fine but spending the funds on the private assessment was a big deal. We just could not sit on a waitlist for 6-12 months given what we know how how things get harder starting in 3rd grade and we could see the issues he was having with reading and written comprehension.

I’m just really disappointed and I understand your point that even if we appealed and got an IEP, it may not be written in a way that offers what he needs. I agree that we should do what’s in our control, and that the money would be better spent on tutoring vs an advocate or lawyer. I wish the school could have supported him with the interventions.

Does your school do RTI for reading/writing? That could be a way to more informally get the attention of the interventionists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If anyone ever needs to know the exact purpose of an IEP meeting, the meeting invitation letter states it.

You assume all schools send this out. Our school is notorious for "administrative processes optional".
In 5 years of IEP meetings, we received 2 PWNs. We frequently disagreed with the IEPs and asked for other items and no PWNs from the school.

Even when there was a box checked and signed by the LEA rep that PWN was created and distributed - no PWN.

What does PWN mean?

[Anonymous]

Terrible service. I decided to retain them for advocate services. I had a terrible feeling when the person who answered the phone did my intake, was rushing me and being so rude like she didn’t know how hard it is for special needs parents (Weinfeld must work on this.) Since I assumed the advocates were good, I decided to ignore the bad feeling and hired them. I chose Amy Mounce for advocate, the first thing she said when we talked over the phone and without checking my son records was, maybe your son should not be on the diploma track which made me doubt about my son. During the IEP all she did was agreed with the teachers’ suggestions that were not working for my son. Few months later, we ended up switching him to a private school and he is on track for graduation with an advanced diploma.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Terrible service. I decided to retain them for advocate services. I had a terrible feeling when the person who answered the phone did my intake, was rushing me and being so rude like she didn’t know how hard it is for special needs parents (Weinfeld must work on this.) Since I assumed the advocates were good, I decided to ignore the bad feeling and hired them. I chose Amy Mounce for advocate, the first thing she said when we talked over the phone and without checking my son records was, maybe your son should not be on the diploma track which made me doubt about my son. During the IEP all she did was agreed with the teachers’ suggestions that were not working for my son. Few months later, we ended up switching him to a private school and he is on track for graduation with an advanced diploma.

We had the same experience with a different advocate. She was really nice but could barely remember my child's name. She said absolutely nothing during the meeting. Just there to clock in the money and we never heard from her ever again. Very unprofessional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rich Weinfeld came with me to IEP meetings. He was able to be so calm. But, it wasn’t cheap - definitely more than $1000 because of the document review, meeting time and travel time. But, it meant being able to get/keep an IEP, so worth it.

TBH, he didn’t say anything I wasn’t saying at the meetings (I am a lawyer), but when I said it, it was unreliable emotional talk from a helicopter mom who couldn’t handle that her child wasn’t brilliant. When the same words came out of his mouth, they listened to him. It was infuriating really - which was not his fault at all. Just a combination of institutional sexism and his professional educational credentials.

After many years and a lot of $$$, I learned to do a lot of the work on my own by watching what he was doing in our meetings and reading up on the law.

Worth it.

This is how the school system treated my dh. He knew nothing and wasn't really interested. They loved that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Terrible service. I decided to retain them for advocate services. I had a terrible feeling when the person who answered the phone did my intake, was rushing me and being so rude like she didn’t know how hard it is for special needs parents (Weinfeld must work on this.) Since I assumed the advocates were good, I decided to ignore the bad feeling and hired them. I chose Amy Mounce for advocate, the first thing she said when we talked over the phone and without checking my son records was, maybe your son should not be on the diploma track which made me doubt about my son. During the IEP all she did was agreed with the teachers’ suggestions that were not working for my son. Few months later, we ended up switching him to a private school and he is on track for graduation with an advanced diploma.

We had the same experience with a different advocate. She was really nice but could barely remember my child's name. She said absolutely nothing during the meeting. Just there to clock in the money and we never heard from her ever again. Very unprofessional.

That is awful. I have an advocate who knows all about my son and has been the main driver in shaping IEP goals and interventions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Terrible service. I decided to retain them for advocate services. I had a terrible feeling when the person who answered the phone did my intake, was rushing me and being so rude like she didn’t know how hard it is for special needs parents (Weinfeld must work on this.) Since I assumed the advocates were good, I decided to ignore the bad feeling and hired them. I chose Amy Mounce for advocate, the first thing she said when we talked over the phone and without checking my son records was, maybe your son should not be on the diploma track which made me doubt about my son. During the IEP all she did was agreed with the teachers’ suggestions that were not working for my son. Few months later, we ended up switching him to a private school and he is on track for graduation with an advanced diploma.

We worked with Amy Mounce as well and also found the process frustrating. She was well prepared when we talked but non-responsive in between. We had to reach out to her two or three times every time we needed her input on something. She helped us feel more comfortable with the setting and had a couple of good ideas with the IEP when we talked but she didn’t seem fully invested and I suspect that someone else might have been able to help us craft a stronger IEP. I wouldn’t use her again.

[Anonymous]

New poster here and I would say that this is the difference between a sole practitioner and a big firm. And I see parallels between neuropsych testing and therapy providers as well. Sole practitioners live and die by their current clients. One client doesn't make a difference to someone employed by a firm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Terrible service. I decided to retain them for advocate services. I had a terrible feeling when the person who answered the phone did my intake, was rushing me and being so rude like she didn’t know how hard it is for special needs parents (Weinfeld must work on this.) Since I assumed the advocates were good, I decided to ignore the bad feeling and hired them. I chose Amy Mounce for advocate, the first thing she said when we talked over the phone and without checking my son records was, maybe your son should not be on the diploma track which made me doubt about my son. During the IEP all she did was agreed with the teachers’ suggestions that were not working for my son. Few months later, we ended up switching him to a private school and he is on track for graduation with an advanced diploma.

We worked with Amy Mounce as well and also found the process frustrating. She was well prepared when we talked but non-responsive in between. We had to reach out to her two or three times every time we needed her input on something. She helped us feel more comfortable with the setting and had a couple of good ideas with the IEP when we talked but she didn’t seem fully invested and I suspect that someone else might have been able to help us craft a stronger IEP. I wouldn’t use her again.

This is similar to our experience. I needed to remind her 3 times to do something that was time sensitive. We moved on.