DR. CHARLES MICHEL currently serves as the executive director of Bayou Land Families Helping Families, a non-profit agency whose mission is to provide information and referral, education and training, and peer-to-peer support to individuals with disabilities or special needs and their families in Ascension, Assumption, Lafourche, St. Charles, St. James, St. John, St. Mary, and Terrebonne parishes. Areas in which people with disabilities and their families are assisted include referral to agencies that provide medical and financial assistance, as well as direct assistance to parents of children with disabilities when they feel that their children need more educational support than their school is currently providing. Dr. Michel has a B.A. degree in psychology, and M.Ed. degree in educational administration and supervision, and a Doctorate degree in educational supervision and leadership. In his 34 years in the field of education, he has served as a general education teacher, special education teacher, middle school principal and assistant principal, high school principal and assistant principal, special education director, and District 504 coordinator. Dr. Michel has been married for 42 years and has two children, ages 39 and 35, each of whom has a disability.

PARRIS A. TAYLOR is an attorney working for the executive counsel of the Louisiana Department of Education and the coordinator for the department’s dispute resolution program for students with exceptionalities. Mr. Taylor was a former IDEA administrative law judge and deputy general counsel with the State of Louisiana’s Division of Administrative Law. He started as a general practitioner with Tyson, Pitcher, Avery, & Cunningham Law Firm before taking a position as a child support attorney with the State of Louisiana’s Department of Children and Family Services. Mr. Taylor later transferred within DCFS to join the Bureau of General Counsel’s legal staff where he also worked as a child protection attorney with the Office of Child Welfare. He served as founding chair, co-chair, and is currently a member of the Louisiana State Bar Association’s Children’s Law Committee and is also a member of the LSBA’s Legal Services for Persons with Disabilities Committee. Mr. Taylor is a past member of the Louisiana State Legislature’s Child in Need of Care Task Force, the Louisiana Child Support Guideline Committee, and was a past-president of the Louisiana Association of Administrative Law Judges. He graduated from Morgan State University in Baltimore before he attended and graduated from the Southern University Law Center in Baton Rouge, where he was an adjunct professor who taught administrative law.

OLIVER WINSTON is the educational and legal facilitator of quality control for the Iberia Parish School District. He has handled numerous Office of Civil Rights (OCR) cases for the Iberia Parish School District since 1996. Mr. Winston has more than 27 years of experience in the educational field as a teacher and administrator in the central office. He earned his B.S. degree from the University of Southwestern Louisiana and educational certification from Nicholls State University. Mr. Winston also has graduate work from Creighton University.