I just wanted to thank you for offering the Wilson tutoring this summer. I am so happy we did that with you ! It placed my son right where he needed to be. He is super confident with his reading class in school now and he is excited to read the story in the reader. It is actually even a bit easy for him. Today, when his teacher told the students they would read the story together he started reading it on his own while he waited for others to get their books. He was flipping the pages and eager to read what was next and he got so excited when he saw he actually read the page by himself and he was excited to read what happened next. It was such a joy to see that and he would not have that confidence if it was not for your class.

Again, we thank you for all you do. Truly you are a blessing to us. It has been a great experience working with you. Ever since you become part of our son's IEP team, we feel that our voice has been heard. You have helped us get our points across the table and have been a real advocate for our son in the truest meaning of the word. You have helped us from understanding testing, creating goals to making sure everything we think he needs are contained in his IEP. We can never thank you enough Colleen! We are now confident that our son will get what he needs for his education as long as we have you on our team.

Without Colleen as our advocate we would not have gotten an IEP for our son. We have been working with the school since our son was six years old trying to get him services for dyslexia. We called Colleen after three years of what we call fighting the school system to get services for our son. Within one meeting the school tested our child and nine weeks later we had an IEP on the books. Without Colleen it could've been years before this happened. Our only regret is not hiring her earlier in the process.

We were absolutely blessed (one of the chosen few!) to have Colleen as our son's teacher for 3 amazing years. She has the insight and compassion to help individuals with all kinds of special needs. Colleen is truly one of the most dedicated and inspirational educators I've met.

I cannot say enough good things about Colleen Arnold. She is such a dedicated educator and she cares deeply about her students. She has made such a difference in my son’s life. He came to her special ed class in 3rd grade with many challenges. She was always patient but firm, and helped transform my son into a real student! By the end of 5th grade, my son was given the Consistent Achiever Award, which is given to the student who has shown exceptional citizenship, and has worked to his or her highest academic potential. My son was given this award over 75 other 5th grade students, regular ed included. Without Colleen’s guidance, he never would have been able to get to where he is today.

We hired Colleen for her special education and advocacy background and experience, her innovative approach to negotiations, and her results oriented approach. What we did not anticipate was how much we would grow as parent advocates while working alongside her. Or how she would become our rock through a very emotional and difficult time. We cannot recommend Colleen highly enough for her work as an advocate. She has repeatedly exceeded our expectations. She also helped us to understand the process better and opened our minds to the possibilities for our child. We are beyond thrilled that we decided to work with Colleen.

We had been struggling with our local public school and district to get the needed supports in place for our child. We ended up hiring Colleen Arnold to join our team in an effort to help our child, who was struggling due to the lack of support and inclusion at the school level. Colleen has been excellent at listening to the complexities of our child’s medical issues and understanding how they impacted our child in the learning/school setting. Her deep knowledge and extensive experience in education/special education, along with her child-focused approach, has allowed her to identify those supports that would benefit and assist our child in a way that makes our child feel successful. She has been a staunch advocate for our child. At the same time, her professionalism and calm, open demeanor have allowed her to work well with the school and district. Colleen has been able to make great progress on behalf of our child with our local school and school district, both formally with the IEP process and informally, that we were unable to achieve without her help. She also has been an excellent, open collaborator with our other team members. With Colleen helping us navigate the world of IEPs and school-related supports, we find that we can take a deep breath and have confidence that our child will get needed support to be successful in our local public school. We highly recommend Colleen Arnold to any other parents working with a school or school district on a formal or even informal basis to help ensure their child gets the right support(s) in place to be successful.

On Thursday, my daughter will begin her freshman year at our local High School.

Never thought I'd actually write that sentence. I'm writing it because of you. I am SO ETERNALLY GRATEFUL for the work you did on behalf of my daughter. You've given my beautiful and brilliant kid something to believe in, something to fight for, something to dream about. THANK YOU.