Our family has had an overwhelmingly positive experience in relying on School Committee member Jeff Thielman for help. He has been available by phone and by e-mail to our family. In one crisis situation, he was available late at night, and was most compassionate and helpful in resolving something in an area where there was confusion about responsibility. We have found him to be approachable and available. Even when he had pressing business of his own to attend to, he was accessible, easily engaged and responsive.

He is passionate about meeting the needs of children with disabilities. Children with disabilities do not vote, and their families are often not as involved as others in the political process, being stretched to the limit of their ability to cope just in dealing with their child’s needs and the advocacy required to ensure their child’s school is in compliance in providing their 504-plan accommodations. This small constituency has fallen through the cracks for too long.

Even smaller is the group of children with disabilities who are at the gifted end of the spectrum of academic intelligence. Although it is against federal law to exclude these children from gifted programs such as the Arlington public schools ACE program, in fact, it has been our experience that these children are typically not included. Lack of support on a state level has led to the dearth of programs for gifted children, and to exclusion of gifted children with disabilities from those programs that do exist. Jeff is knowledgeable about what is being done elsewhere to address this need and is committed to working toward meeting these needs in Massachusetts. For this reason and others, Jeff Thielman has my vote for state representative of the 23rd Middlesex House District.