By Isabella DeHayes
For Rebecca Hawley, EdD, advocating for special education services for families is personal. As a single mother who navigated the complex education system for her daughter, she felt that she could help others like herself who may struggle to find the right supports for their children. As an individual with dyslexia, she also wanted to make it easier and better understood for other children. Dr. Hawley, a graduate of Drexel’s School of Education’s Special Education Law and Process Post-Baccalaureate Certificate and an adjunct professor, .
“I got the crazy idea again, I can do more, and went back to school when my daughter was six to get my doctorate in education leadership and administration, but with a focus on early childhood and special education, and continued to work in the field as I did that, and really stayed in the field doing that,” Hawley says.
Through her experience working with school districts and other settings, Hawley recognized gaps that keep children from receiving life-changing educational services. She says that while there is often a lack of transparency from the school district, families also face other barriers to services, including economic, social, and language barriers. Many families don’t get services because they simply don’t know where to start or where to look.
Hawley describes her role as meeting parents where they’re at and really understanding the issues that their child is having in school. She also wants to know what they want for their child in school and then assist them in understanding their legal rights as parents.
“I walk them through each step of the way, using me as needed, to help them know their rights, to speak with them and for them, if needed, at meetings, to read all of the assessments… and then helping them to negotiate with the school district around what's working and what's not working, and then, if needed, what that means to move it up to the next level to work with the school district in alternative dispute resolution if we needed to get there,” Hawley explains.
She has been an education coordinator, an education director, the head of school for an alternative learning school, and the director of special education and family support services at an independent school. All of this experience prepared her for the opening of her own practice.
While Hawley has worked in classrooms, in administration, as an education coordinator, in consulting, and in both public, private, and nonprofit settings, she went into the Drexel Special Education Law program with the intention of starting her own special education law advocacy practice. While there are quite a few advocacy practices in the San Francisco Bay area, where Hawley is based, she wanted to focus on blending the special education law practice with the developmental side since she has a background in special education. She is also a certified child adolescent developmental specialist, which sets her practice apart from others.
“Bringing it together to look at the child in a holistic way, from their social-emotional, their developmental, their educational, and then what the families need in terms of their rights."
"So that is really what I wanted to bring to the practice that was a little bit different than some others,” she says.
Since Hawley’s goal was to bridge the gap between the child’s development and the practice of special education law and advocacy, she conducted extensive research to find a program that fit her ambitions, and Drexel kept emerging as the choice for the courses she wanted and that aligned with her educational goals. She wanted to deepen her understanding of the law and to dive deeper into family advocacy to inform the type of practice she wanted to open. She was even brought in as an adjunct professor to teach the special education law and policy course and to help update the advocacy course, given her practical experience.
Dr. Rebecca Hawley is doing something unique and essential in the world of special education through her advocacy practice: bridging the gap between special education development, law, and advocacy. With her support, families can access the services their child needs for a meaningful educational experience.