Destiny Huff, MS, LPC, CPCS is a Licensed Professional Counselor, Certified Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavior Therapist, and Special Education Parent Advocate. Destiny is also a military spouse, mother of two neurodivergent children, and a late diagnosed member of the neurodivergent community! Destiny has presented at the Licensed Professional Counselor of Georgia Association Conference, the Louisiana Counseling Association Conference, and the Autism in Black 3rd Annual Conference. Destiny will be presenting at the upcoming Military Children Education Coalition Summit, as well as The Black Collective Network Advocacy Conference!

Destiny has been in the mental health field for 15 years with degrees in Psychology and Social and Community Services. Destiny has worked with children, adolescents, and adults in the community setting, school setting, juvenile justice setting, children’s advocacy center and now in private practice. Destiny became a special education parent advocate after navigating the special education system and having to advocate for her own child which led to a diagnosis for her child, as well as a late diagnosis for Destiny. Destiny is passionate about helping her mental health clients navigate life stressors and provides a safe space for them to process those stressors, while helping special education parents advocate for their child at the IEP table in a neuro-affirming way.

Celeste Winders is a non-attorney advocate and COPAA SEAT 2.0 alumni. She is the co-founder of the national Title VI advocacy organization Save Your VI and parent of four BIPOC children - three with IEP’s. Celeste has over 30 years working in the disability and BIPOC community advocating for equity and justice. In 2023 after over a decade of fighting for the rights of disabled and BIPOC students in Sonoma Valley public schools, Celeste was elected by her community to serve on the local school board after a long, hard fought and won election where she was elected to her seat by eleven votes. In addition, Celeste sits on the Executive Cabinet of the NAACP Sonoma County Chapter. Her work with the NAACP is primarily focused on education and the rights of Black students in public education. Together with the chapter president and other cabinet members, she provides direct advocacy and support to Black families whose children are experiencing racism and Title VI violations in Northern CA schools.

With her advocacy business partner Mindy Luby, Celeste co-owns Strategic Education Advocacy providing direct advocacy services and parent training. SEA’s business model is one that is founded on justice work and ensuring that advocacy services are accessible to all, especially students where disability intersects with race and gender

Mindy Luby is a non-attorney advocate, dyslexia specialist, certified Barton tutor, and parent of 3 children with disabilities. She is a regional leader for Decoding Dyslexia, a member of COPAA, Academy of Orton-Gillingham Practitioners and Educators, National Down Syndrome Society, and American Cancer Association Cancer Action Network. She is currently serving a two-year appointed term on the Northern California Office of Administrative Hearings Special Education Advisory Committee. Mindy was an integral part of the grassroots movement that brought the California Dyslexia Law, AB 1369 (2015-2016). Heading the lobbying effort in Sacramento, AB 1369 was the first dyslexia law in the state of California. She has lobbied at the state, local, and national level for education, civil rights, and cancer related legislative initiatives. She is the co-founder of Strategic Education Advocacy and works with families across the US, helping parents and children to understand the processes of special education, disability, and the intersectionality of special ed and race and gender.

Diane Smith Howard manages the NDRN team that works on community integration for people living in institutions, such as, prisons, hospitals, residential treatment centers, migrant shelters. Her individual work focuses on conditions for children and youth with disabilities in institutional systems, with a concentration on those who are members of multiple protected classes. Diane also provides training and technical assistance to the P&As, and advocates on these issues within the Administration, on the Hill, and in the courts, through NDRN’s work on amicus briefs.

Diane holds a B.A. with honors from Colby College, and a J. D. from Wayne State University Law School. She has represented individual clients and handled systemic cases at the P&As in Maine and Michigan. She has classroom teaching experience at the graduate, undergraduate, and high school level. Diane’s passion for this work is rooted in a family connection to children and adults with disabilities, LGBTQ and foster and adopted children and youth.

Maria E. Blaeuer is an attorney whose practice focuses on education law, with a particular emphasis on special education, disability and school discipline matters. She is admitted to practice law in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

Mari is currently the Director of Programs and Outreach at Advocates for Justice and Education (AJE) in the District of Columbia. AJE houses the Parent Training and Information Center and the Family-to-Family Health Information Center for DC. AJE provides training and individual support, including representation, to parents in DC about all aspects of the education decision-making process, and supports access to appropriate health services in schools and the community. She has participated in IEP meetings as a student, parent, teacher and most recently, as an attorney on behalf of students and parents.

In addition to representing parents and children in disputes with school systems about special education, school discipline, Title IX matters and residency, she has also provided training to special educators and other professionals in Washington, DC, Chicago, IL and Boston, MA on how to use the IDEA’s procedural requirements to build stronger relationships with families, avoid due process and improve student outcomes. She has also participated in the training of court-appointed attorneys in the District of Columbia and previously presented at COPAA.

Maria is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University and Howard University School of Law. She is a native of the DC region and lives near Montgomery County, Maryland’s agricultural preserve with her husband, children and a significant menagerie of animals.

Akela Crawford joined AJE in 2023 as the Director of Legal Services, where she manages AJE’s legal services work. Akela has over 13 years of legal experience and has spent most of her legal career providing legal services to the DC Community. In 2012, Akela served for over three years as a compliance case manager with DCPS, ensuring that DCPS carried out its legal obligations under IDEA., including educating and training school-based staff on understanding and implementing special education laws and policies. Before joining AJE, she was a supervising attorney at the Neighborhood Legal Services Program. She provided program management and supervised staff attorneys, paralegals, and loaned pro bono attorneys in various housing matters at the administrative and court levels. Akela also first volunteered as a pro bono attorney and then served as a full-time staff attorney at the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless (WLCH), where she represented tenants and tenant associations and provided legal assistance in public benefits, subsidized housing, shelter and street rights matters. Also, while working in private practice, Akela provided legal advice and representation in domestic relations matters, bankruptcy, and small business matters.

Akela also brings to AJE her lived experience and expertise in navigating DC’s education system as the mother of a child with special needs in the DC public school system. She graduated from North Carolina Central University and North Carolina Central University School of Law and is an active member of the DC Bar.

Melinda Andra, Esq. is the Director of the Kathryn A. McDonald Education Advocacy Project at the Legal Aid Society. Melinda taught middle and high school for 10 years before attending law school. After attending Northwestern University School of Law, Melinda worked as a staff attorney in the Juvenile Rights Practice of the Legal Aid Society, representing children appearing in Manhattan Family Court. Melinda has been a special education practitioner for 

Joel Pietrzak, Esq. is a Staff Attorney in the Civil Practice, Education Law Project at The Legal Aid Society. He earned a Masters in Special Education through the New York City Teaching Fellows program, and after three years of teaching, he decided to go to law school with a focus on Child and Family Advocacy. To that end, he was accepted at Hofstra Law as a Child and Family Advocacy Fellow where he primarily focused on issues surrounding the School to Prison Pipeline and early identification of children in need of special education and related services (“Child Find”). After law school, Joel worked for three years at Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP where he worked as a contract attorney and also represented numerous pro bono clients. In 2017, Joel (thankfully) left ‘Big Law’ and came to The Legal Aid Society’s Education Law Project. Joel’s practice has a particular focus on suspensions and disciplinary matters and he regularly collaborates with ELP colleagues on such matters.

Michael Connolly is a shareholder at McAndrews Law Offices and was named Supervising Partner of Special Education in 2018. With twenty years of experience, he represents parents of children with special needs in a variety of education matters at administrative hearings and state and federal court. He has assisted parents in disputes involving their public school related to issues such as eligibility and identification, programming and placement, tuition reimbursement, discipline, bullying, and discrimination.

He also lectures across the state and nationally to parents, educators, and attorneys on special education and other education law related topics. Throughout his legal career, Mr. Connolly has been an active member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Legal Services for Exceptional Children Committee, where he served as Vice Chair from 2002 through 2003 and as Chair from 2003 through 2006. In his roles as Vice Chair and Chair, he played an active part in helping to shape the Bar Association’s position on legal issues impacting students with disabilities as well as planning one of the Commonwealth’s preeminent legal conferences in the area of special education. Mr. Connolly continues to be an active member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association and its Legal Services for Exceptional Children’s Committee.

Mr. Connolly began his career in education law upon graduation from law school as an associate with a District of Columbia law firm representing parents in special education matters. He later became a partner in a law firm located in Bucks County, Pennsylvania where he spent nearly a decade representing school districts throughout state. Most recently, prior to joining McAndrews Law Offices, Mr. Connolly was a founding partner at another education law firm in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, where he spent seven year representing parents and students in educational matters.

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Kimberly A. Caputo, Esquire has been practicing in the area of special education since 1999 where she has been responsible for handling all aspects of administrative due process involving students with disabilities under IDEA and Section 504. Having spent over 25 years in the School District of Philadelphia as both a special education attorney and special education administrator, Kim has a unique perspective on all facets of the educational process having handled hundreds of matters involving identification, early intervention transition programming, related services, discipline, placement (private tuition and residential), and transition services.  She has developed and provided extensive training opportunities on IDEA and Section 504 issues and developments in the law to audiences ranging from educators, administrators to students, parents and attorneys.

She is on the advisory board of the Urban Special Education Leaders of Tomorrow program at Drexel University and she is a frequent guest lecturer at local colleges, universities, parent groups and organizations.

Miriam Nunberg has over 25 years of experience in the field of education, as an attorney, activist, special education teacher, parent and as the co-founder of the Brooklyn Urban Garden Charter School. She currently advocates for parents of students with disabilities in navigating the IEP and 504 processes, and is a Senior Fellow in New York Law School’s Education Law and Policy Institute. Miriam’s work integrating the middle schools of her Brooklyn school district was featured in the New York Times/Serial podcast Nice White Parents. She also was Of Counsel to the Law Firm of Elisa Hyman - a special education and civil rights practice in New York City. Miriam served as a staff attorney in the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights for 14 years, where she handled civil rights investigations in educational institutions, including an extensive caseload involving the rights of students with disabilities.

Samantha C. Pownall directs the Education Law and Policy Institute and teaches clinical legal and experiential learning courses at New York Law School. Her scholarship and instruction focus on administrative hearings, advocacy campaigns, special education law, school liability, holistic client representation, juvenile justice, civil rights and constitutional issues in education law. She began her legal career as an Equal Justice Works Fellow at the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), where she led a project that provided legal representation to low-income students who had been arrested or suspended from school, and published a report on stop-and-frisk and the school-to-prison pipeline in New York City. At the NYCLU, she also coordinated First Amendment protest monitoring, and advocated for reproductive freedom, sex education, marriage equality, and immigration reforms. She clerked for the Honorable Sterling Johnson Jr. in the Eastern District of New York and litigated special education cases as Of Counsel to the Cuddy Law Firm.