Second Opinion Services
Does your student have a reading difficulty? Have they been denied special education services?
For the summer of 2023, Everybody Advocate will be offering “Second Opinion Services.” These services are exclusively focused on California’s reading fluency issue for CA families that have been denied special education services after assessment. We are making these services free to families through the help of volunteers. Please understand that we do not currently have the capacity to provide second opinions on other issues (autism, other health impairment, etc.) yet.
If your child was denied testing entirely, you were told to “wait and see,” or you were told they were not old enough to test, please attend one of our seminars on that topic.
Although the explicit right to a “second opinion” is not built into IDEA disability legislation — except through a complete re-evaluation through an Independent Expert Evaluation (IEE) — we believe that second opinions address an unmet need and would be an effective, low-cost, and low-conflict option that would help schools and parents work together to get proper services to children in need faster than traditional methods.
How does it work? For Parents/Guardians
Parents, if you are concerned your child may have been inappropriately denied services, we offer to review the assessment done by your school district.
How does it work? It’s simple:
1) Join Everybody Advocate as a parent member so that we have permission to contact you.
2) Email info@everybodyadvocate.org requesting second opinion services. Please include your preferred contact information.
3) We will email you a link to complete next steps.
NOTE: You will need to be prepared to: 1) give us permission to review your child’s assessment, and 2) give us an electronic copy of your child’s assessment. Please prepare for this step by getting or creating an electronic copy of your child’s complete assessment.
4) Beginning June 19, and once we receive your assessment and permission, one of our advocates and/or trained specialists will get back to you with their second opinion and any questions or recommendations they have.
Please consider a donation to our organization. Complete Independent Expert Evaluations (IEEs) typically cost thousands. Professionals in this space in California often charge $150-250 per hour or more. Your donation will help us expand and support families who cannot afford these services.
How does it work? For Volunteers
Are you a current or former special education specialist, advocate or attorney? We are looking for more experienced volunteers to help review psychoeducational assessments. You will be required to sign both a volunteer agreement and a non-disclosure agreement to protect student confidentiality, as well as to attend a volunteer orientation meeting. We respect conflicts of interest and will not ask you, for example, to review the case file for someone in your own school district. You can take as few or as many cases on as you feel comfortable.
This summer (2023), our goal is to offer all services for free. We are ONLY providing second opinions to families on whether they may have been denied eligibility for reading fluency issues.
Longer term, we hope to expand our offering and pay service providers as sub-contractors for their review of evaluations and IEPs. We ask all potential sub-contractors to please start as a volunteer while we engage in more fundraising and field-test our processes.
A further benefit of your participation is Professional Development. You will have the opportunity to see, evaluate, and reflect on the work done by others in your field. We are interested in your input about the value of that experience and how to take that further to advance the fields of special education. This program is our first step.
Please join us! First, please join Everybody Advocate as a member. Then, simply email christina.maehr@everybodyadvocate.org and offer to volunteer.