Today we’d like to introduce you to Raja Marhaba
Hi Raja, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My name is Raja Marhaba and I am a mom, an entrepreneur and formed a nonprofit to support families going through the trials and tribulations of special education with the public school system. I will give you an insight of my story and why I do what I do for families.
I embarked upon this national broken special education journey 28 years ago when my youngest son, Jonathan, was having difficulties learning the alphabets at the age of 4. He could only learn 11 of the 26 letters. Jonathan was in a private school with his older brother Omar. The private school teacher told me Jonathan was struggling to learn, would hide under her desk, and stand outside the classroom door crying, not wanting to attend class.
She told me to enroll him in the public school, stating that the private school cannot help my Jonathan. She gave me a referral note to provide to the public school so Jonathan can get services. She said the public schools have the services to help Jonathan excel that the private school does not. She also told me to remember one thing as I navigate the special education system: “Nobody knows your child better than you.” Those words stuck in my mind; however, I did not understand what they truly meant at that time.
I did as the private teacher recommended. Jonathan started kindergarten at a new school, and I thought all will be fine because Jonathan will have the services he needed as the private school teacher stated. The public school provided me with an Assessment Plan that I needed to sign to give them permission to assess Jonathan in the areas of cognitive, social, behavioral, emotional, and academic. After 60 days we had our first Individual Education Plan (IEP) meeting. There must have been about seven teachers in the room, including me. They commenced the meeting, everyone introduced themselves, then the psychologist started reading a report stating all the strengths and deficits that Jonathan had. The special education teacher read her report as well as the speech and language teacher. They all stated what they were going to do for Jonathan and how their program will help him progress.
Jonathan still was not making progress in the first grade, and the teacher recommended I retain Jonathan in the first grade. He was not ready for second grade. I was very upset. I did not know at the time by making Jonathan repeat the first grade would have been one of the worst things I could have done for him. As time went on, the school tried implementing a universal reading program, stating it would help remediate his reading deficits. Universal is just that universal and not specific to Jonathan’s unique needs.
I let the teachers do what they do best and help Jonathan. Jonathan was now in the first grade a second time, and four months into the first grade, his teacher called me and told me that she needed to see me. I went to school to learn that Jonathan still cannot read; he is unable to learn the rest of the letters of the alphabet. I asked her why did it take her four months to figure this out. Apparently, when she would have circle reading time, Jonathan’s peers would read from the book, and by the time it was his turn, he was reading beautifully. She noticed Jonathan was looking into her eyes as he was reading the story, and then the teacher asked him to read from the book. He could not. It turns out Jonathan was memorizing the story, so by the time it was his turn, he would not be embarrassed by reading in front of his peers. Since he memorized the story, he did great.
During those days, there was no Google, no networking, and no support for parents. Nothing like there is today. I started asking questions and learned that a Program Specialist can make decisions in the IEP. I was able to obtain a number for a Program Specialist in Sacramento at the Dept. of Education, told her about what was going on with Jonathan. She approved Non-Public Agency (NPA) tutoring to help Jonathan catch up in reading. The next day I had an IEP meeting for Jonathan and allowed the team to present their findings and make their recommendations. They offered Jonathan half the amount of time the Program Specialist offered me. I was very upset and told them to make a call to Sacramento and confirm. The team did and then provided Jonathan with what they should have originally.
It was this experience and many more that came after that caused me to be on the defense when it came to my son’s special education needs. Jonathan was diagnosed with severe dyslexia, ADHD, a very high IQ, speech and language deficits, needed intensive educational therapy, nonpublic school placement with smaller classes (no more than 10 students), and counseling. The school offered some, not all, and the ones they did offer the amount of time in the week he would be seen for those therapies was not sufficient. It almost seemed as if they were putting a band-aid on Jonathan’s true struggles and getting him by in school.
Eventually, I learned about attorneys, private psychologists, and specific reading programs such as Lindamood-Bell, and nonpublic schools. I am a middle-class mom trying to learn the system. I do not have a lot of money for the expenses that my family was going to endure in an attempt to help my children learn. While all this was happening with Jonathan, Omar’s fourth-grade teacher called me to tell me that he, too, may need special education.
The first attorney seemed to want to do well for Jonathan and things were going ok for the most part. Omar was having significant difficulties in school, and he, too, needed representation. I asked Jonathan’s attorney if she would take Omar’s case as well. Both my son’s cases were delayed for several months, which turned into a couple of years, and by that time, my husband was getting frustrated with me and the attorney. The legal fees were piling up, various assessments requested by the attorneys, and witness fees all impacted us financially. The boys were on hold, bills were pouring in, my husband was working to make ends meet, and I was trying to navigate all of this.
The marriage began to suffer; I only saw the needs of my sons, not my husband’s. The attorney was not doing enough to resolve our issues. I fired the existing attorney and started looking for another to take both cases. I could not find an attorney to take both sons’ cases as one was in due process and the other was not. They told me to take another’s attorney’s case in the middle of due process is not recommended. I said if they can’t take both then I am walking either they take both cases or nothing. I finally found an attorney who did take both cases.
Jonathan’s case was settled in due process, and Omar’s case went to the 9th Circuit Federal Court. Jonathan was easier to figure out since he was very hyper. Omar has a high IQ as well, depression, vocabulary and writing deficits, and ADHD, but the inattentive/combined type ADHD, so he is not as hyper as Jonathan.
Omar had a 504 Plan, and he needed an IEP. Omar’s case was referred to as an “Eligibility Case,” one of the most difficult cases for attorneys to defend. We started Omar’s case in the fourth grade, and it did not settle until he graduated High School. How sad is that for him to struggle with all of his schooling without proper support?
The emotional and financial stress took a toll on my family, and the marriage finally fell apart. I entrusted my son, the most precious gift God gave me, into the hands of the public school system, whom I thought would do the right thing. No family should have to go through what my family did, and no child should be sacrificed for a Free and Appropriate Public Education. That is what the school is supposed to provide.
Lessons learned if a child has a 504 Plan or an IEP, the test data shows significant deficits, and it is clear the child needs services in a certain area; if the staff is not well trained, and the higher-ups in the school are not collaborative it will be a major uphill struggle for the family to obtain badly needed services. Parents need to be well versed with assessments, the Individual Education Disability Act (IDEA) special education law, 504 Plan, and IEP in order for them to achieve success. The issue is most parents are not. Navigating this broken national special education system is not simple. The law dictates what the school needs to do, but the school does not always comply. IDEA is not fully funded and that affects the schools as to what services they will or will not provide a child, thus sacrificing the child for money. The law is the law, and the school must provide services and placement for the child. However, without proper funding, the school has challenges to do so, and with that, the child gets sacrificed when the school does not provide those services. The school would have failed to provide a Free and Appropriated Public Education (FAPE). Failure to provide FAPE allows the parents to initiate a due process against the school system because the IEP is a legal contract between the child and the school.
I sacrificed my marriage to save my sons. This happens often with families that have special needs children. Statistics are high for families with special needs children for divorce due to extreme financial and emotional stress in these cases. To keep the family component united, not divided, becomes significantly challenging.
It is for the above reasons why I decided to establish The Jonathan Foundation for Children with Learning Disabilities (TJF). I started advocating for children with learning disabilities, but as families were seeking help from me their children had co-existing conditions. This forced TJF to advocate for children beyond learning disabilities. It is important to address the strengths and deficits in each child no matter what the diagnosis or eligibility is. TJF also raises money for psychoeducational assessments that test in the areas of social, emotional, behavioral, academic and cognitive domains.
In 2022, I launched my book Unstoppable: A Parent’s Survival Guide for Special Education Services with an IEP or 504 Plan.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BPGKXT46?ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_CCCPCA4Y4MATJRZ3MBQ8
This book goes into detail about my family’s special education journey. Both my sons co-authored the book with me providing families a parent’s and children perspective. I created it to be a “living document” to help families better navigate this broken national special education system.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has not been a smooth road. The struggles my family endured were finances, lack of knowledge of the special education law, assessments, 504 Plan, and an IEP. Resources were rarely available. Back then I was a novice parent without direction, turning every stone looking for answers. Special education is complex. In order to “prove” to the school that a child needs a particular service the parent must have an assessment to rebuttal the school assessment. The parent needs to understand what that assessment states, what the standard scores and scaled scores mean. What is a bell curve? Parents need to learn how to do an academic review for the past three years of their child’s progress or lack thereof in order to come up with data to show the child needs a special service. My advice for parents is do not put yourself at the mercy of the school district. Do your homework, become familiar with the above and your child’s academic story.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My career started in New York, working for General Electric Company under the supervision of Jack Welch, who ran the financial department. Got married and relocated to California. I obtained work in Beverly Hills working for a Fortune five hundred corporation in the administration field. My husband was in the construction industry. He decided to obtain his electrical contractors license and start his own business. We were in our twenties, and things were going well. Gave birth to two beautiful sons, and we were cruising.
One day, my husband endured a life-threatening fire accident. He sustained second and third-degree burns on over twenty percent of his body. I found myself in a predicament no young couple should endure. He spent two months in the hospital, and thank God he was doing better than the doctors expected. As he was improving with his health, he told me he wanted me to help him finish whatever jobs we had so we can salvage what we can financially.
Originally, I had help at home with the boys as they were ten months and 22 months when the accident took place. I capitalized on that help because I had no choice. My in-laws did the best they can to help me out with the children, but it is a lot of responsibility. I found myself asking neighbors to watch my boys so I can run errands for the electrical business, meet with subcontractors, clients, inspectors, go to supply houses for material, and deliver to the jobsites. My husband would give me instructions from his hospital bed, and I would perform accordingly. My job understood and worked with my new schedule.
After my husband came home from the hospital, he told me to quit my job and run the electrical business with him. Only this time he wanted to get his general contractor’s licenses and work on commercial projects. This was a very difficult decision for me to make because I knew it would take away my independence. He told me as a team we can make more money and live a better life.
I took the plunge, and we formed a general contracting company. During the interim of working in the construction field, I took many classes, accounting, entrepreneurship, and business classes, joined entrepreneurship forum groups such as Young Entrepreneur’s Organization, Birthing of Giants, and Women-Owned Business groups, and obtained certificates for women minority companies. I realized that I needed to learn as much as I can so that I can have some education in insurance, bonding, human resources, etc. We were a small company and did not have money to hire the professionals to help us in these areas.
As time went on, we were awarded projects in construction working for the federal government. The two of us together made a strong force because I knew how to run operations, and he knew how to bid and build. I stayed in the construction industry for 30 years, working with my former husband.
Not only did I run the construction company, but also found myself fighting the second largest school district in the nation that took me to 9th Circuit Federal Court in an effort not to provide badly needed services for my children. My husband’s dream was to become a self-made millionaire by the age of 40. Well, due the litigation that took place for an eight-year period, his dream was swept from under his feet. Thank God for the company, and owning a home is how we were able to weather this eight-year storm, but it took a huge toll on the marriage. The more I needed to pay for litigation expenses the more I took away from my husband’s dream.
Simultaneously, as the above was ongoing, I would apply for various awards to give our construction company recognition and networking opportunities. I also found myself going to school for special education advocacy for training in Special Education Advocate Training (SEAT) Program in 2006. I needed to learn as much as I can to help my sons. The lawsuits were ongoing as I was running the construction business.
To learn about all my accomplishments please go to the link below.
https://thejonathanfoundation.org/about-us/my-story/
My accomplishments were not the typical going to college, however, I did graduate from Borough of Manhattan Community College in New York. I did go to UCLA to obtain my paralegal credentials and won a Scholarship to The Anderson School of Business at UCLA – Business Development Entrepreneur Program. I never stopped going to school, learning, improving on me, winning awards, and eventually wrote a book on my family’s special education journey.
I am proud of all my accomplishments. I am a first-generation Middle Eastern woman born in Amen, Jordan, and immigrated to New York City in 1969. It is not easy to go through all I went through and for some reason continue learning the hard way. Nothing was ever given to me; it had to be earned no matter what the cost. It is my tenacity, grit, ethics, character, and integrity that make me who I am. My hardship is what gives me the strength to push through and realize what my purpose in life is… our special needs children.
Nobody ever said life would be easy, but I never planned on it being this difficult. The key is to NEVER give up no matter what. I have embedded those words into both my sons as they had their own trials and tribulations with the school system.
How do you think about luck?
Luck, what luck? Life has always been difficult for me, both personal and business. Before my dad died, he told me that I am a fighter, Struggler, and a survivor. I am not sure about luck, but I can tell you it was, and still is, my faith and believe in God that has helped me weather through all storms in my life. At the age of ten, my mom made me promise her that I would go to college and become something on her deathbed. Little did she know her making me keep that promise saved her daughter’s life. I went through two stepmothers, put myself through college, landed a job with General Electric, got my own apartment at the age of 19, and established my independence.
I grew up too fast, didn’t really have a childhood, and I seemed to be in constant survival mode my entire life. During the litigation with the school system, I was broken with a failing marriage, children without services, and extreme financial and emotional challenges. I found myself going to the tabernacle in church, kneeling down and asking God to take my life if only he would get me out of the seven-digit lawsuit and save my children. A pact I made with God years ago, and until today I am waiting for him to cash in on that pact.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://thejonathanfoundation.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejonathanfoundation/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheJonathanFoundation
- Other: https://unstoppableadvocacy.com/home
Image Credits
Karim Saafir Photography
Villaframed Photography
