Special Education

Family structure, support, and advice

Special Education is near and dear to our hearts.  Ms. Ortega, having a step-brother with Autism, has dedicated herself to helping family's secure appropriate educational and social programming for our client's. Education is vital to the success of each and every child, even children with special needs.  The educational system is a tool that can allow for our youth to develop, expand, and grow.  These enhancements to the character of our children occur each and every day physically, mentally, and emotionally.  Our firm is dedicated to proving our clients with honest, tactical, comprehensive legal advice which will allow for parents to make informed decisions about their children's educational future.  Our motto is based upon a model of family structure, support, and advice that is motivated toward the structure of success that each parent is in search of.  At the same time, we will aggressively advocate for your child in IEP's, Mediation and Due Process Hearings.  Our fundamental goal is to assist Parents in receiving services for their children that will allow them to progress in an education program that meets their unique specific needs.  We work together with the most qualified experts in the areas of Educational Psychology, Occupational Therapy, Speech and Language Therapy, Physical Therapy and Behavioral Therapy.  We assist you in obtaining Independent Educational Evaluations by experts that are both trusted and qualified in their field of expertise.  Our firm works hand in hand with these experts to ensure appropriate baselines and present levels of performance which derive appropriate goals and services for your child with disabilities.  We then ensure that appropriate services are documented in your child's Individual Education Program ("IEP") document.  

Our entire mission is to provide the support, assistance, and guidance necessary to accommodate each of our clients.  Our motto is to treat our clients as family, allowing them to feel comfortable and secure in their representation.  Our firm treats each case with diligence, devotion, and commitment.  We find many parents are forced into decisions without being given the proper information or guidelines necessary in order to make such important decisions.  Many Districts attempt to use overpowering control tactics to persuade parents to sign IEP's that are simply not beneficial to the progression of their child.  Many clients come to us feeling at fault for prior decisions regarding their children's education, mainly because they trusted the people who committed their lives to education.  Here, we take an aggressive stance on representation, placing the District in a position to explain each and every document and proposed placement in detail.  We force them to prove how their proposed program will benefit your child, and when they fall short of this, we actively and zealously advocate for your child to ensure that he receive all he is legally entitled to.  We represent the child's interests by entrenching the parents into the decision making process.  Our firm takes away the control of the District, and places it solely in the hands of each of our parents, where it belongs.  We truly believe parents are fundamental to a child's progression, as they are the most informed, aware, and knowledgeable about their children's needs.

Federal and State Authority

The Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) provides certain procedural and substantive rights under the federal law that applies to your local education agency (LEA).  The IDEA, unlike Section 504 and the American's with Disabilities Act ("ADA") provides federal funding to states specifically for special education.  Any LEA that accepts federal funding under the IDEA is obligated to provide children with disabilities certain civil rights.  The IDEA was amended in 1997 to allow students to participate to the "maximum extent possible" in general education curriculum.  The IDEA was again amended in 2004, bringing about numerous changes in order to comply with the No Child Left Behind Act ("NCLB").