Meet the EMS Team
Founder
Mina S. Hutchins is a special education administrator and consultant with more than 16 years of leadership across school districts, SELPAs, a county office of education, charter systems, and private education organizations. Her experience includes IDEA compliance monitoring, IEP implementation, nonpublic school oversight, dispute resolution, technical assistance, data analysis, fiscal stewardship, administrator development, and multi-agency coordination.
She founded EMS on a simple conviction: no student should become invisible because they receive services far from home. Mina leads with experienced judgment, student-centered care, and respect for contracting-agency, IEP-team, and family authority.
Education & Credentials
California Administrative Services Credential
California Education Specialist Instruction Credential
M.A., Special Education | M.A., Educational Administration
Operations Support
Shannon S. Hutchins brings more than 20 years of executive and operational support experience. She is skilled in anticipating needs, coordinating complex schedules and travel, managing competing priorities, and creating reliable systems that help leaders stay focused.
At EMS, Shannon supports travel logistics, site-visit coordination, communications, and day-to-day operations. Her organized, responsive approach helps us meet communication and monitoring deadlines with careful attention to detail.
Educational Monitoring Services supports public agencies with independent monitoring, structured communication, and organized reporting for publicly funded private and specialized placements. EMS helps leaders maintain visibility into educational programming, student experience, service delivery, and follow-up responsibilities so they can act with clarity and accountability.
A future in which every student receiving educational services beyond their home community remains seen, heard, safe, and meaningfully connected to the public agency responsible for their education.
Vision
Mission
Guiding Principles
Student Dignity — Every student deserves to be treated with respect, heard without fear, and supported as a whole person.
Student Voice — Students should have meaningful opportunities to share experiences, needs, strengths, and goals through communication aligned with their IEP and individual needs.
Educational Stewardship — A public agency’s responsibility to a student does not end when the student is placed beyond the agency’s daily view.
Independent Perspective — EMS provides objective observations and clear monitoring support while respecting the authority of the contracting agency, IEP team, family, and other responsible entities.
Clear Communication — Monitoring information should be timely, accurate, organized, and directed to the leaders responsible for follow-up.
Continuous Improvement — Monitoring should recognize strengths, identify concerns, strengthen systems, and support meaningful educational progress.