Seattle IEP Advocacy

Local IEP Advocacy, Grounded in Real School Experience

When your child is struggling at school, it can be difficult to know what to ask for, or whether the supports already in place are enough.

Our advocates bring professional experience from inside public schools. Our team is overseen by founder Allison Mahoney, a Board Certified Behavior Analyst and former Special Education teacher with more than a decade of experience working in school settings.

That experience shapes how we approach advocacy.

We are collaborative, inquisitive, compassionate, and non-adversarial. We believe most families and school teams want the same thing: for students to be successful. But differences in communication, expectations, resources, or understanding of a student's needs can make it difficult to determine the best path forward.

We help bridge that gap.

We Start With Understanding

Before recommending more services, a different placement, a new evaluation, or changes to an IEP, we work to understand the full picture.

That may include reviewing evaluations, IEPs, progress reports, behavior plans, school communication, and other relevant records; talking with you about what you're seeing at home and school; and, when appropriate, observing your child in their school environment.

We look for patterns, unanswered questions, and places where additional information may be needed.

We Help You Make Sense of the IEP

Special Education can feel like its own language. We help families understand what evaluations and school data actually say, how goals and services connect to identified needs, and what questions may still need to be answered.

Our role isn't simply to tell you what to request. It's to help you understand why you might request it.

That way, you can make informed decisions about your child's education and participate more confidently as a member of the IEP team.

We Help You to Work With the School Team, Not Against It

Effective advocacy does not have to be adversarial.

Because our team has experience working within schools, we understand both the family's perspective and the realities of implementation in a school setting. We help translate concerns into specific questions and actionable recommendations that an IEP team can discuss and implement.

Parental participation is an integral part of the IEP process, but no one taught you how to participate. We can help with that.

When there is disagreement, we help identify where the disconnect is and what additional information, evaluation, data, or conversation may help move the team forward.

We Focus on What Will Actually Help Your Child

An IEP is only valuable if it translates into meaningful progress during the school day.

We look beyond what is written on paper to consider how accommodations, goals, behavior supports, services, and instructional strategies are being implemented in the classroom.

Our goal is to help families gain clarity, insight, and a deeper understanding of their child's individual needs, and to help school teams develop supports that are appropriate, practical, and meaningful for the student.