Door of Hope: The Door is Open!

The Door of Hope blog was created through a partnership of three women who share a single common goal: to open doors for people whom society has labeled "disabled." Our partnership has two main functions: 1) To advocate for the rights and welfare of our students with disabilities; and 2) To provide parent training seminars giving parents the tools and skills to command respect from educators in order to establish a collaborative working relationship that in turn, will improve students’ life outcome. Our trainings not only cover parent rights, but also information about how to recognize and stop abusive practices in education.

Who We Are and What We Do:

Two of us are parents and one of us is a speech therapist but we are all  involved not only in working to see that our students get a free and appropriate education, but also that they are treated with respect and dignity. In the last year, we applied a lot of pressure to the district not only to provide our students with an equal education, but also to stop the abusive practices we had identified in one special education center. When we got our state's Department of Education to investigate the school, they finally began to listen. The principal and assistant principal were removed from the school. Unfortunately, the other promised changes have yet to be made, so we are not letting up!  

Door of Hope has developed a series of free parent-rights seminars that will include training to provide parents with the ability to recognize and address abuse of their students in the special education setting. Our seminars are scheduled to begin in late September in the Los Angeles area. Contact us at doorofhope2011@yahoo.com to reserve a seat!

We have created two online petitions to address the issue of abuse. One petition asks that the district cease retaliating against teachers who report abuse. (One of the educators experiencing constant retaliation is our speech therapist).  The second petition  asks our state superintendent of public instruction to require all teachers to be trained in recognizing and responding to the abuse of disabled students. Here are the links. Please sign!
http://www.change.org/petitions/teachers-punished-for-taking-stand-against-abuse

http://www.change.org/petitions/train-educators-to-recognizeprevent-abuse-of-disabled-students