Unfortunately, my experience with Jennifer was that she was unprofessional and limited in her knowledge of dyslexia and the 504 process even giving us misinformation at times (i.e. that a impartial hearing and OCR can not be filed at the same time. This is true for Special education, but not true for 504). She attended my son’s third 504 meeting in which we were trying to have the school district qualify him for Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) through 504 in the area of dyslexia. My son was denied 504 for dyslexia as the district felt there was not enough evidence to show he had dyslexia even though we had formal outside testing from a highly qualified professional stating that he had dyslexia and there were ignored indicators and data that was collected by the district in there testing because he has good grades. Jennifer continued to represent us as our advocate for an impartial hearing. Her communication and update in the process was limited with minimal guidance which was only given when we asked her questions. She was NOT proactive. We had to learn information on dyslexia, 504, open records act, etc… by researching the internet. I ended up discovering on my own how to request my son’s school records, communication exchanges of school personal in regards to my son, and how to gain access to review the school’s of testing protocols. She NEVER recommended doing any of this. Even though, this gave me significant and vital information needed to support my son’s case and show that the district was cherry picking and ignoring information about my son. I was given no guidance from Jennifer in how to collect, chart, and graph the documents and information. When I asked her to send information to the district’s attorney we were not always CC’d on email exchanges, as stated in her contract, and were left anxious and worrying not knowing if the district had received the pertinent information given. Her input on the information we shared with her was very minimal such as: “interesting”, “agreed”, and “Those are reasonable. Shall I forward it”. Jennifer QUIT on us in the FINAL HOUR the Friday prior (at 12:28pm) to our 8am Monday morning meeting with the district…. leaving us NO time to find another advocate to represent us for our son. The night before quitting, she stated that she was hoping and disappointed that the district was not able to hold a last minute change of my son’s meeting time to Friday vs Monday because she had a complicated ARD in which the parent really needed her (The Monday morning meeting time was schedule over a month prior with the hearing officer, school district’s attorney, Jennifer, and us all agreeing upon the date and time). This made me feel as though she really didn’t see my child’s case as important. She QUIT in the FINAL HOURS with NO WARNING and NO INDICATION of a problem during our several month process…It took her over 24 hours to give us a reason or even communicate with us. Then she tried to say she quit because we had dual representation, which was a false accusation as we NEVER retained an attorney or another advocate. Now knowing that she did NOT have our child’s best interest, we would NOT trust her to represent our child or anyone’s. EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTED!!!
Jennifer Fitzhugh is a professional in every sense of the word.
She has helped hundreds of families and continues to do so with profession and knowledge.
Please don’t believe everything you read online. Some people have ulterior motives.
Unfortunately, my experience with Jennifer was that she was unprofessional and limited in her knowledge of dyslexia and the 504 process even giving us misinformation at times (i.e. that a impartial hearing and OCR can not be filed at the same time. This is true for Special education, but not true for 504). She attended my son’s third 504 meeting in which we were trying to have the school district qualify him for Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) through 504 in the area of dyslexia. My son was denied 504 for dyslexia as the district felt there was not enough evidence to show he had dyslexia even though we had formal outside testing from a highly qualified professional stating that he had dyslexia and there were ignored indicators and data that was collected by the district in there testing because he has good grades. Jennifer continued to represent us as our advocate for an impartial hearing. Her communication and update in the process was limited with minimal guidance which was only given when we asked her questions. She was NOT proactive. We had to learn information on dyslexia, 504, open records act, etc… by researching the internet. I ended up discovering on my own how to request my son’s school records, communication exchanges of school personal in regards to my son, and how to gain access to review the school’s of testing protocols. She NEVER recommended doing any of this. Even though, this gave me significant and vital information needed to support my son’s case and show that the district was cherry picking and ignoring information about my son. I was given no guidance from Jennifer in how to collect, chart, and graph the documents and information. When I asked her to send information to the district’s attorney we were not always CC’d on email exchanges, as stated in her contract, and were left anxious and worrying not knowing if the district had received the pertinent information given. Her input on the information we shared with her was very minimal such as: “interesting”, “agreed”, and “Those are reasonable. Shall I forward it”. Jennifer QUIT on us in the FINAL HOUR the Friday prior (at 12:28pm) to our 8am Monday morning meeting with the district…. leaving us NO time to find another advocate to represent us for our son. The night before quitting, she stated that she was hoping and disappointed that the district was not able to hold a last minute change of my son’s meeting time to Friday vs Monday because she had a complicated ARD in which the parent really needed her (The Monday morning meeting time was schedule over a month prior with the hearing officer, school district’s attorney, Jennifer, and us all agreeing upon the date and time). This made me feel as though she really didn’t see my child’s case as important. She QUIT in the FINAL HOURS with NO WARNING and NO INDICATION of a problem during our several month process…It took her over 24 hours to give us a reason or even communicate with us. Then she tried to say she quit because we had dual representation, which was a false accusation as we NEVER retained an attorney or another advocate. Now knowing that she did NOT have our child’s best interest, we would NOT trust her to represent our child or anyone’s. EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTED!!!