About Us

Since 1994, Deborah has worked throughout Northern California and the Bay Area as an Educational Consultant and Special Needs Advocate. She has been assisting families with school planning for students in public schools, private schools, and programs that address special needs.

Deborah is uniquely qualified as a consultant and advocate resulting from her many years of experience working with families who have a wide range of issues; she understands the impact that an inappropriate school placement has on the family and student. She successfully advocates for students whose needs aren’t being met by their current placement. When a student requires a non-public school or residential setting due to educational, social, and emotional difficulties she works directly with the school staff to secure district placement and funding.

Before becoming an educational consultant, she received a Master’s Degree in Speech Pathology, and worked in several multi-disciplinary settings and schools in both the private and the public sectors, with a wide age range of students — from pre-school to young adults — with social-emotional, learning, and language delays.

She was a Program Specialist in the Santa Clara County Office of Education, responsible for one of the first teams of speech and language therapists implementing the newly passed Federal Legislation for Special Education. She consulted with teachers, parents, and administrators, in order to meet the unique needs of students. She also team-taught with an Occupational Therapist in a public-school Kindergarten program, providing direct, intensive intervention, with the goal of preventing at-risk five and six-year-olds from requiring special education intervention later in their school career.

Deborah has visited hundreds of private and public schools and classrooms while serving families from Santa Cruz to Sacramento. With extensive experience in child development, and school curriculum, including the issues surrounding the teaching methodologies for reading and math, Deborah understands the styles schools use to challenge their students, the social milieu on campus, and how that might affect student behavior. She continues to remain current in advancements in testing, language processing, special education law, and the issues surrounding the needs of exceptional students.

Deborah is a member of the Council of Parents, Advocates, and Attorneys. (COPAA). She is involved in several non-profit organizations aimed at improving California education funding or policy. Weaving together her training, interests, and observations, she draws upon this range of experience in ways that benefit her clients. She is committed to offering families guidance to help them determine which school setting and/or educational plan might work most effectively for their child. She encourages families to take a close look at both the academic and social environment of a potential placement. She makes every effort to provide information and insights that her clients find helpful as together they go through the process of educational planning for their children.