Lana Lea Traynor

Lana was recommended to us by another friend who is an attorney. Our son's teacher and principal were delaying an IEP meeting last year, and we couldn't understand why. We agreed, in good faith, to let them have an extension. When we finally met, it turned out that our son had received about 25% of t...he minimum services he was to be provided during the past school year. We didn't want to hurt our good relationship with the school, but we also wanted to do what was best for our son. Lana tells it like it is. She was very up front with us about how hard it would be, and that it would strain things between us (the parents) and the school. She guided us through the entire process, and in the end, our son was awarded compensatory education and we walked away with a great plan for our son, and we are building trust with the district. We started out this school year in a good place with the team we have and when Lana realized we no longer needed our services, we had a moment of panic, but we closed our son's file and she sent a check with the remainder of our retainer. Lana's professionalism, excellent relationships with the staff at our school, and compassionate but upfront personality saved our sanity last year. Our son still mentions her often and we consider her a friend.

I have worked with Lana for over 7 years. She has been a dedicated and tireless advocate for my child while forging postive working relationships with the district. He has gotten services that originally the district was not inclined to provide but she objectively presented the data and worked to ...show it was in the best interest of him, the teacher and class in general. She has seen that adaptive devices we paid for as a family were appropriately used in class by qualified personnel. When a situation arose in which services defined in the IEP were not delivered for months -- she advocated and got private services by our choice of provider paid for. One thing that sets her apart is the understanding, empathy and support that can only come from another parent who has been there - one who can say "this child is a person of dignity who needs to be treated as such and have the tools/opportunity to succeed to the best of their ability and I will defend their rights as if he/she were my own" I have never had a problem with billing or communication - quite the opposite as there have been numerous times that she was out of state even on personal matters and called me to be sure we were ok. I can't imagine my son's academic life without her.