Over the years we have heard from families that were so happy to find someone that could pull together the services of several professionals and put the information they had gathered, along with our knowledge of schools and programs, into a pragmatic way to help their children. We have heard from families that felt they had wonderful professionals working with them and their child, but felt that the professionals didn’t share information with each other to work as a team to help their child. Educational Consultants pull together the knowledge and information available from other professionals that know the child, acting as a case manager, and utilize that information to make specific recommendations for an action plan to help their child.
Here are some of the comments of parents with whom we have worked…..
Family group discussion
Mother of an Eleventh Grade Son:
Two years ago my husband and I were at a loss as to what to do about our son’s school. He was a ninth grader in a large public school and he was drowning. He had always been a great kid, but in his school he could not find a way to be seen or heard. There were many negative influences in the school, and we were terrified that he would fall into the wrong crowd. He was a good athlete, but not good enough to make any of the teams. He was a good student, but not good enough to stand out, or be placed in any higher level classes. His friends from middle school were in different classes and he hardly ever saw them. He was miserable and his good grades began to fall.
We heard about BJ from a friend and called her in December of his ninth grade year. We met with her to share our son’s history and she met with our son. She talked with some of his teachers from his ninth grade and also some from his eighth grade. We brought his standardized test scores, along with his progress reports and his grades from earlier years. After our meetings and her conversations with our son’s teachers, we met with her again to hear her recommendations. She recommended 5 boarding schools that she thought would allow our son a chance to reach his potential and shine. We visited all 5 and met students and faculty at all. We decided on a school very quickly. It was easy to see where he would really thrive. Our plan had been to move him the following year as a tenth grader. After discussing this with BJ and hearing her talk about the advantages and disadvantages of waiting, we decided to move him right then and there.
He is a totally changed person today. He excels in his boarding school. He plays varsity football, (his dream) he has met wonderful, diverse and interesting people, made great friends, and is a dorm head. His life has totally changed and he is so happy. I don’t like to think about where he would be now if we had not met BJ and learned about this opportunity for our son.
Mother of a Tenth Grade Daughter:
I had the opportunity to work with BJ Hopper to find a boarding school for my then 13 year old daughter. My family had been through a multitude of changes including a divorce, two moves, two school changes, parental career changes, and a remarriage. My daughter pretended to handle everything well, but had a complete academic and emotional meltdown during the first semester of eighth grade. She had spun out of control and I was no longer able to help her.
At the recommendation of a business acquaintance and a child psychiatrist I hired BJ to help us. BJ assessed the academic records, interviewed me and my husband, my ex-husband, my daughter, and spoke with our therapist. After doing the background work BJ recommended four schools for my consideration. One school stood out so strongly that I called her immediately to ask lots of questions. After careful consideration I enrolled my daughter, and she has attended this particular school for the last eighteen months. She is coming home in a few short days as a successful graduate.
These decisions about school were the hardest ones I had ever had to make, and I absolutely could not have chosen the proper place without BJ’s help. BJ was able to ascertain my daughter’s underlying problems and place her in the exact right place. I cannot thank BJ enough for all she has done for our family.
Mother of a College Junior:
Our daughter was diagnosed with learning disabilities when she was in third grade. She is very smart, but she had trouble reading and organizing her work. She struggled all through school, even with special services in her school and always a home tutor. She wanted to go to college and we knew she should, as she is certainly smart enough. When she was in the eleventh grade a friend suggested that we contact BJ Hopper to help us find the right college for her.
We started working with BJ early in her junior year of high school. BJ worked with her high school counselor to make sure that she had all of the right courses to be prepared for college. She gathered all of her testing records and suggested further testing to help her qualify for extended time on her SAT and ACT. BJ made a list of colleges that she thought would provide our daughter with academic support and a chance to participate in all of the activities that she was interested in. She worked with her to complete her applications and her essays. We knew that had to be taken out of our hands, or our daughter would have never completed it. BJ set deadlines for her and met with her regularly to be sure she was completing what she needed to do. If she came to a meeting unprepared, she didn’t leave until she had completed what she was supposed to have done for the meeting. BJ contacted admissions counselors at the various colleges to talk about our daughter and sing her praises.
In the end, our daughter was accepted into most of the colleges she applied to. She chose the one that had been her favorite all along. Today she is active in a ton of activities and community services through her college. Her grades are good, and she is getting all kinds of special help from the support office of her college. We would not have known where to start looking for colleges that could help our daughter. We knew she could not go to our big state university, but we had no idea that colleges could even work with students with such serious learning problems. I don’t know what would have happened to our beautiful daughter if we had not met BJ.