Howland & Spence was founded in 1955 by Robert S. Parsons. Since then, the organization has enjoyed a reputation as one of Boston’s leading educational consulting firms for school placement. In 1975, Faith Howland joined Robert Parsons, continuing the work of helping families with school placement. When Michael W. Spence joined the firm in 1984, he added the important college consulting service. Linda Woodard joined Howland & Spence in 2001. While Faith works only with school planning and placement, both Michael and Linda work with school-age students and also with college consulting.
Ours is a very small and personally oriented practice, and we make every effort to suit recommendations to the strengths, interests and needs of the individual student. We work with students from age seven, and upward, with a broad range of abilities, including youngsters with mild diagnosed learning disabilities. We are not diagnosticians nor psychologists; thus we do not work with students with primary emotional or behavior disorders, nor with substance abuse issues.