Special education and Section 504 advocates for Decatur City Schools families in Decatur.
3 virtual advocates who work with Alabama schools
Advocates work for you, not for the school. That is the whole difference.
Decatur parents tend to call at one of two moments. The first is before an initial evaluation and the second is after a service quietly disappears from the plan.
After the meeting the work is dull. The advocate reads the draft against the notes and sends a correction back the same week.
Read the evaluation report twice. The second read is where the missing service usually shows up.
These advocates are not based in Alabama. They join IEP meetings by video or phone, which IDEA allows when you and the school agree.
Virtual · based in Newcastle, OK · works with Alabama schools
Special Education Advocate - IEP Consultant
Former special education teacher and educational advocate with experience on both sides of the IEP table.
Virtual · based in Austin, TX · works with Alabama schools
Special Education Advocate
Hi, My name is David Gonzales. Living in Austin, TX, but originally from Los Angeles, CA. I carry a masters degree in special education and currently practice as a sped teacher.
Virtual · based in Leesburg, FL · works with Alabama schools
CEO IEP Advocate Espanol
Evelyn Roman-Santos is a bilingual Special Education Advocate with 30 years of experience as a School Social Worker.
17 public schools inside Decatur belong to Decatur City Schools. Each one has its own case manager and its own backlog, and the answer you get about scheduling depends on which building your child attends.
Families who move between Florence and here change districts, and the new team is not required to keep the old plan word for word.
Confirm your child's district by address. Decatur addresses may fall in more than one public school district.
The deadline for finishing an initial evaluation in Alabama is 60 calendar days. Put that date on your calendar the day the paperwork goes in.
Write down what you want the school to add, in one page, before you walk into the Decatur meeting, because a team that reads your list in advance cannot pretend it never came up.
Alabama gives a school district 60 calendar days to finish an initial special education evaluation. No Alabama rule sets a separate deadline for answering a written request, so the federal reasonable-time standard is what applies. Missed deadlines are handled by the Alabama State Department of Education, Special Education Services, which takes written state complaints from parents.
Training varies, and so does what it proves. A parent who asks how many Decatur IEP meetings an advocate sat in last year learns more than a certificate would show.
Membership in a professional body is not a licence. It usually means dues were paid and a code of conduct was signed.
Advocates charge for this. At $75 to $150 per hour, a standard IEP cycle with two hours of prep and two hours in the meeting runs about $400, and that money does not come back if the answer is still no.
Advocates who have never seen the file cannot tell you what is missing from it. Send the records first and book the call second.
No advocate is listed in every city. A remote advocate who knows Alabama rules is usually a better hire for Decatur than a local one who does not.
Ask whether the advocate has sat in a Decatur City Schools meeting before. The answer is a yes or a no and it tells you a great deal.
Answers about hiring a special education advocate in Decatur, Alabama, including cost, timing, virtual support, and Section 504 help.
What do special education advocates charge in Decatur, Alabama?
Flat fees are common for a single meeting and hourly billing is common for everything else. Many advocates give a free first call. Nobody bills you through this site, so ask each person how they invoice.
Do I need an advocate for a routine annual review?
Most parents call after a school says no to testing, after goals repeat unchanged for a year, or a week before an annual review. Earlier is cheaper. An advocate hired the night before a meeting can only read so much.
Can we work with an advocate who lives outside Alabama?
Video is normal now. A remote advocate reads the file, drafts your concerns and joins the meeting by phone. What a remote advocate cannot do is walk the building or read the room.
Who runs special education for Decatur schools?
Decatur City Schools runs the IEP meetings for most Decatur students. District lines and city lines are not the same, so confirm yours by address before you send a letter.
What is the evaluation deadline in Alabama?
The rule here is 60 calendar days. It covers the evaluation only. Writing the plan after a child is found eligible is a separate step with its own timing.
Official Alabama links for parents in Decatur.
Last reviewed 2026-08-11.
The same Alabama rules apply in Florence, Madison, Dothan, Phenix City and the other cities listed here, or see every Alabama advocate.
Print the current IEP and bring it to the first call. Every advocate on the Decatur list will ask for it.
Keep a one-page timeline of what happened and when. Every advocate you talk to will start by building the same thing.
