Feedback on Sheila Iseman?

[Anonymous]

Has anyone used her as an advocate? Thoughts on your experience? Worth it?

[Anonymous]

Never heard of her. What district?

[Anonymous]

MCPS

[Anonymous]

She's really smart. People hire her when they want private placement. She's supposed to be an excellent speaker as an expert witness.

Have talked to her a few times but ended up needing an attorney not an advocate but wished we could have afforded both.

There are some old threads that mention her.

[Anonymous]

She is incredibly knowledgeable and has been doing this work for years. I assumed she has retired but would be pleased to hear she is still helping families.

[Anonymous]

She did not help us - she was so focused on the tiny details (ie what time my son would have lunch) - it was very frustrating and she made it worst for me. But I’m glad others had better luck with her.

[Anonymous]

I have not heard good things about her including one friend who fired her when she showed up at a meeting with no notes/documentation.

[Anonymous]

We had good luck with her. On the positive side, I felt like she was extremely perceptive, and understood my son better than most professionals he's seen, even though she only observed him for 1-2 hours a year. And she was tenacious, and successful in getting our son into a supportive placement. My overall impression is that she wants to make sure a placement is rock solid and can deal with anything that comes up, and will err on the side of getting one that is more supportive/more restrictive rather than setting a child up to fail. If you're at the point where you need to get more services that your child requries, she can help you with that. If you're at a different point where you want to take more risk with challenging your kid, as we eventually did, I'd talk to her up front about that and see if it's something you can work together on.

[Anonymous]

I have a good friend who used her and it was a disaster.

[Anonymous]

wow, rare does someone get such wide ranging - and conflicting - reviews! hard to know what to think

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:wow, rare does someone get such wide ranging - and conflicting - reviews! hard to know what to think

I don't think that there is one consultant who will please everyone, just like doctors, dentists, attorneys etc. Sounds like she was a good choice for some people, but not others. People can be pretty nasty on here bashing people's reputations.

[Anonymous]

I used her years ago and wasn't impressed. I felt like I did all the work. I remember going to an IEP with her and it seemed she was not familiar with any of the documentation that I had secured and provided to her. I had to continually highlight passages in the document for the IEP team and it was clear she wasn't familiar with them. She charged a lot and I felt I was the one who should have been getting paid.

[Anonymous]

I'm a professional that provides services to a child with autism. I refered Sheila Iseman to the parents and now I regret it! She has been very unresponsive and not much of a team player. She has written me a scathing email stating that I should be insulting her or questioning her. She began to attack me in the email and I had to remind her that we're on the same side and should be working together. I don't think the parents are very happy either.

[Anonymous]

I hired her to help with placement options for my son. She talked as though she would be great...but she did an abysmal job. When we were getting ready for the IEP meeting, she wouldn't return my phone calls. When I called, her family members tried to get her to come to the phone, but she wouldn't. She finally came late to the IEP meeting. She was completely unprepared. She was not useful in any way. She urged me to transfer my son to a private school in the last 3 months of the school year, in the last year he would have been age appropriate to that school (it ended at 8th grade). All that time we wasted with her, to say nothing of the money; I could have spent that time and money on a responsible, competent educational consultant.

She did something similar to a friend if mine. Find someone else.