About ABC
ABC Education Advocacy Central offers helpful information and services for families seeking educational support for their children with disabilities in western Pennsylvania public schools.
Pam Cook, M.Ed., ABC Consultant, is a former teacher with a masters degree in special education. She has taught in elementary schools in Ohio and Pennsylvania and worked as an education advocate at the Mental Health Association of Allegheny County and Allegheny Children's Initiative. She's also been employed in a University of Pittsburgh research project designed to develop strategies for the inclusion of students with emotional disabilities into regular education classes in the Pittsburgh Public Schools.
She is the author of Becoming Your Child's Best Education Advocate: A Guide for Parents of Children with Emotional, Behavioral, or Learning Problems (1997) and co-author of Meeting the Needs of Students with Attention and Behavioral Challenges in the Classroom: A Practical Guide for Teachers (1996). Ms. Cook has provided inservice training at the local, state, and national levels.
With a strong interest in literacy, Ms. Cook initiated an ongoing Junior Great Books program in all elementary schools in the Franklin Regional School district in 1985.
In 1986 she was appointed to the state board of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) where she served as the Pennsylvania chair of AAUW's national issue, "Public Support for Public Education".
In 1985,
she was elected to the Franklin Regional School Board and served as the district's
representative to the Westmoreland Intermediate Unit Board. More recently,
she has worked as a consultant to the Duquesne University Charter School Project.
Ms. Cook coordinated the Southwest PA CHADD Network (Children and Adults with
Attention Deficit Disorders) and is a former member of CHADD's National Board
of Directors and the board of the Pittsburgh Regional Group of the International
Dyslexia Association.
Currently, Ms. Cook is working with the Pennsylvania Training and Technical
Assistance Network (PaTTAN), the Parent Education Network (PEN), and the Learning
Disabilities Association of Pennsylvania (LDAPA) and Total Learning Centers
on PaTTAN's Response to Intervention (RtI) Parent Engagement Subgroup to prepare
RtI informational materials for parents across Pennsylvania.
Ms. Cook
serves on the Board of Directors of the Education Law Center-PA and
is a member of the Western Pennsylvania Coalition of Education Advocates and
the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA).
