We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Arielle Allen a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Arielle, thanks for joining us today. Looking back, what’s an important lesson you learned at a prior job?

Working as a teacher, I got a lot of experience interacting with students, families, educators and support staff. Quite honestly, it was first time that I was directly working with individuals from such diverse backgrounds. It helped me realize that nothing exists in a vacuum and everyone has their own unique experiences and worldviews that are shaped by their own experiences.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I earned my undergraduate degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders from Michigan State University in 2007. I had planned to become a Speech Language Pathologist, but at the last minute switched gears and decided I wanted to become a teacher. I completed my Masters of Education from Depaul University in 2009, with a dual certification in elementary and special education.
In the fall of 2009 I started my first “real job,” as a teacher in Chicago Public Schools. I worked in a self-contained classroom for students with profound cognitive impairments. The students were aged 14-22 years old. The students in my class all had a primary diagnosis of severe/profound cognitive impairment, but all had multiple diagnoses. The secondary diagnoses included autism, cerebral palsy, PICA, among a plethora of other medical diagnoses. I had 13 students on my caseload. I had 4 paraprofessionals assigned to my classroom. There was full time school nurse at the school (which, in addition to the self-contained program, had 1100 general ed students who she was responsible for as well). In addition to my classroom, there were 3 other self-contained classrooms in the program, all comprised of a similar makeup as mine.
Many of students in the program required partial or full assistance with all direct care needs, such as toileting, eating, mobility, positioning, safety, etc. Yet no one, not paraprofessionals or teachers, who were providing this care were given any training. There were many students who had direct nursing minutes, yet it was not humanly possible for the one nurse to provide these minutes. The Physical therapist and occupational therapist worked in our school and several other schools and had caseloads of hundreds of students. We had one speech therapist who worked in our program and with students in gen ed, so a huge caseload. As you can imagine with these numbers, minutes were not being met as they were supposed to. We were taught at trainings that, as a district, it was their policy that they do not provide 1:1 aides, that once students were in high school they were not eligible to receive direct PT and OT minutes.
All students in our program were eligible to receive transportation services. Every single day there was an issue with transportation; if a bus aide called in sick there was no sub sent and the student could not be picked up from school. This happened frequently and parents were told there was nothing that could be done about it.
IEP’s were never sent home to be reviewed early, oftentimes team members completed their portion the day of the meeting. Multiple times there was no translator provided for parents who definitely should have had one. There was never once a substitute sent to cover our classrooms when we had an IEP during class time, leaving the rest of the students without instruction.
After 8 years I left that job and moved to a co-op district, which served 8 area districts and provided placement for students whose needs could not be met within their home district. I worked in a self-contained school for students ages 3-22 years old. This district was very different than my previous district, as they were extremely stringent on following minutes, but there were several other ethical concerns. Such as toileting students in the classroom-not in a bathroom connected to the classroom, on a changing table in the actual middle of the classroom and little to no interaction with general ed peers, leading to concerns about FAPE. WE were also chronically under-staffed, and teachers and paraprofessionals were expected to provide many extra duties that they were not compensated for.

All of these things did not sit well with me, but I was told by coworkers, administrators, central office that that was just how things were. I am not proud of it, but at the time, I was young and unsure of myself and couldn’t risk losing my job so I accepted these things as truths as I was told, because, surely, I naively believed, that if it were not legal or parents didn’t know their rights then there is no way it would be allowed to go on. Obviously, I was very, very wrong. I started doing my research and learning more and more about special ed law. I became well versed in IDEA, what parents were entitled to, what support teachers and paraprofessionals were entitled to and what districts had to provide by law. I worked really hard to implement change where I could. I started helping a lot of family and friends who were navigating the IEP process.
I left teaching full time in 2020. I was so burnt out that I felt that I was not being a good teacher to my students or a good mom to my daughters. I am extremely fortunate that I was able to stay home with my girls at that time. They were 3 and 6 and I was able to dedicate myself to them, which I am eternally grateful for that time. I continued to help friends and family with IEPs, 504 plans and just with general special education questions.
A few years later when both of my girls were in school full time, I started to think about what I wanted to do with my time. I missed working in schools and helping students, but I didn’t think I could go back to the stress of teaching special education full time. I realized what I loved doing most was helping people navigate and get what they were entitled to in an unfair system. That is how I came up with the idea for Bespoke Advocacy. I want to help students and families get the services they are entitled to and the education and supports that they deserve. I want to help be an advocate for positive change, and to make up for the times that I didn’t speak up when I was working in the school system.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

A lesson that I had to unlearn is the misconception that education advocates are formidable enemies of teachers and schools. It was constantly engrained in me when I was teaching, espeically in a large urban district, that parents were “unreasonable,” and were “asking for too much,” and the supports that were needed could not be provided. When advocates came in it was always such an adversarial experience and it felt like they just could not understand how thin we were stretched and that we were trying our best.
I realize now that that could not be further from the truth. Advocates help families to know their rights and to hold schools accountable. When schools are held accountable it benefits everyone. WHen families advocate for their child’s right to a free appropriate public education (FAPE), they are not being difficult, they are holding school’s accountable for what they are not providing. Parents who bring advocates are so often labeled as difficult for simply demanding the district upholds the law.
While I used to feel that advocates were out to make things harder for educators, I know now that it really is forcing districts to give educators and support staff the resources, support and credit they need and deserve. When districts see that families are demanding what they are not providing, it allows districts to get away with it. When you advocate for students, you advocate for educators. I know that a lot of educators still feel the way that I used to, that advocates were there to berate them and work against them, and I really hope to help others unlearn this as well.

Student need sho

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

The best source of new clients for me has been referrals and word of mouth. I feel so honored every time one of my clients refers someone to me. It is an honor that anyone trusts me to represent them and help them navigate their child’s education, and when they put themselves on the line to recommend me to someone else, it brings me so much pride and joy.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://bespokeadvocacyllc.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bespoke_advocacy_/

Image Credits

Marcin Myslinski