10 Common Mistakes Parents Make in IEP Meetings

DeAnn Foley Author

04/05/2020 Added

131 Plays

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2020 Conference Breakout

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[00:00:00.110]I'm really excited to present to you today.
[00:00:03.310]This isn't exactly how I expected it to be,
[00:00:06.240]but this is exciting, this is I'm learning Zoom
[00:00:08.840]just like everybody else is.
[00:00:11.030]I was telling Jessica that last week,
[00:00:13.480]I didn't even know what's Zoom was before last week
[00:00:16.110]so it's all a learning curve.
[00:00:17.880]I am happy to take chat questions during the session.
[00:00:22.420]I'll kind of move on.
[00:00:23.380]I'm used to having face-to-face
[00:00:25.200]so this is just a little bit odd.
[00:00:27.250]Again, but we'll make adjustments,
[00:00:28.718]we're all learning together.
[00:00:30.850]But let me introduce myself first
[00:00:33.260]as far as how I came to be presenting
[00:00:35.577]about this topic in particular.
[00:00:40.290]So hang on, let me see if I can make the switch.
[00:00:43.090]Okay, so this is my family.
[00:00:45.983]I am originally from Nebraska, Gretna,
[00:00:51.150]my parents moved there when I was one.
[00:00:52.920]I went through the whole public school system in Gretna
[00:00:56.160]so I still consider Nebraska my home.
[00:00:58.520]People will ask me where I'm from, I say Nebraska.
[00:01:01.490]If you ask me where I live, it's Texas,
[00:01:03.950]and I've been here about 40 years now.
[00:01:06.230]So, my son Ryan is sitting on the right
[00:01:10.920]and he is why I'm here today.
[00:01:13.180]He was diagnosed with PDD-NOS when he was five years old.
[00:01:18.520]When we first started my husband and I,
[00:01:21.800]we had no background in education.
[00:01:24.547]We started in as parents first
[00:01:28.400]and I worked through the Department of Education
[00:01:30.655]where I became a parent trainer
[00:01:32.610]as I became more and more involved
[00:01:33.952]in our son's education and the IEP process.
[00:01:37.440]I am currently an educational diagnostician in Texas
[00:01:40.833]in the Plano ISD area just outside of Dallas.
[00:01:47.070]Before that, I was a, I taught for 10 years in resource.
[00:01:53.530]So like I said, my first exposure
[00:01:56.590]to the education system was being a parent.
[00:02:03.280]The reason that we wrote this, this initially was,
[00:02:07.500]we were meeting with Carol Gray,
[00:02:09.850]and she's the author and creator of "Social Stories"
[00:02:13.430]and at the time she had a newsletter, The Morning News,
[00:02:16.000]and she asked us to write something for her letter,
[00:02:19.010]for her newsletter.
[00:02:20.550]And my husband and I sat down and literally in 30 minutes,
[00:02:24.010]pulled this together.
[00:02:25.390]Generally, he and I present this together.
[00:02:27.288]He's not in education so he gets a,
[00:02:30.670]has more of a parent perspective piece of it
[00:02:33.560]and mine can be more of the educator,
[00:02:35.350]but I'm good with either way.
[00:02:37.760]So, let me switch to the first one.
[00:02:42.810]Here's the goals for this.
[00:02:47.523]So that we can identify the key elements
[00:02:49.570]of procedural safeguards,
[00:02:51.930]we can define effective elements
[00:02:53.341]for building collaborative relationships
[00:02:55.540]between educators, families, and individuals with autism,
[00:02:58.740]and summarizing the parent's role in the IEP process.
[00:03:04.350]And my system is it just lags a little bit behind
[00:03:08.130]as far as changing these slides.
[00:03:11.087]The summary is is that it's important
[00:03:13.520]that parents be informed
[00:03:14.806]and involved in their child's education.
[00:03:17.942]Every mistake that we talk about today
[00:03:21.110]my husband and I made firsthand and probably many times.
[00:03:25.260]This was definitely a work in progress
[00:03:27.560]of just learning this.
[00:03:29.360]We wrote this, it would have been back,
[00:03:31.224]probably in the late '90s.
[00:03:34.240]So the education system looked different at that time.
[00:03:36.430]We were out in West Texas,
[00:03:39.530]but we wanted to just help parents
[00:03:42.245]with coming to the team and coming to the IEP meetings
[00:03:46.641]and being more informed and more involved.
[00:03:52.440]This was originally when we present for audiences.
[00:03:55.850]This is like a Go Fish game,
[00:03:57.780]but I wanted to hang on to this
[00:03:58.861]because it'll go through some terms that I'm going to use.
[00:04:02.400]I will tell you that we present at different states
[00:04:05.460]and it seems that each state has its own lingo,
[00:04:09.080]so I'm gonna do my best to stay
[00:04:11.210]in the general federal lingo.
[00:04:14.280]I may not be successful,
[00:04:15.670]but some things we use are exclusive to Texas,
[00:04:18.230]some terms that we use are exclusive
[00:04:19.636]to the district I work in,
[00:04:21.528]but I just wanted to have this commonality
[00:04:23.571]for what I'll be talking about today.
[00:04:27.370]If I do use a term that somebody doesn't recognize,
[00:04:30.710]feel free to holler out, let me know and I'll correct it.
[00:04:34.530]Like I said, every district, every state,
[00:04:38.020]everybody has a different way of saying
[00:04:40.840]some of the certain same terms.
[00:04:44.010]So the first one is what we'll be talking about today
[00:04:46.844]is the IEP, that's the Individualized Education Plan.
[00:04:51.810]And so what that is is that's the written document
[00:04:53.986]that's developed for each public school child
[00:04:56.580]who is eligible for special education.
[00:04:59.000]So this is really important
[00:05:00.520]because this has to be individualized
[00:05:02.560]for each particular child.
[00:05:04.260]It's based on what the assessment says that the child needs,
[00:05:07.860]and that will vary from meeting to meeting
[00:05:10.950]as to what that IEP will look like.
[00:05:13.060]It should be a fluid document.
[00:05:14.838]If at any time we need to go back
[00:05:16.850]and we need to rewrite that or rework it,
[00:05:18.780]then we're required to do so by law,
[00:05:20.870]and that can be done by either the teacher's requests,
[00:05:23.930]the school's requests, the parent requests, et cetera.
[00:05:28.060]Another term that I'll be using
[00:05:29.510]is Free Appropriate Public Education.
[00:05:32.786]Let's see if I've got these numbered right.
[00:05:36.460]Let me move this little box out of the way for me.
[00:05:38.920]And this is that, this is, whoops.
[00:05:42.570]So this is what's guaranteed to every child
[00:05:45.140]throughout the United States
[00:05:46.450]that receives special education services.
[00:05:49.010]We're to provide services at no expense
[00:05:50.875]to the parent, to the child.
[00:05:55.240]It's just a basic right that everybody has
[00:05:58.953]in that special education process.
[00:06:02.690]Okay, the IEP/ARD meeting, in Texas,
[00:06:06.170]we refer to the IEP meeting
[00:06:07.578]and that's the meeting where we develop the IEP,
[00:06:10.280]the Individualized Education Plan.
[00:06:11.890]We are the only state that refers to them
[00:06:14.287]as an Admission, Review, and Dismissal meeting
[00:06:17.340]and we call that an ARD.
[00:06:19.550]So the ARD is the meeting of a group of people
[00:06:24.920]who help determine whether or not a child
[00:06:26.750]is eligible for special education and we develop the IEP.
[00:06:35.090]Goals and objectives, this is another key part
[00:06:37.820]to what we'll be talking about today.
[00:06:39.760]And goals and objectives are to be individualized
[00:06:42.850]for every student, and what that is is that is,
[00:06:47.371]those are statements that are specific,
[00:06:50.070]measurable, use action words,
[00:06:51.840]are realistic and time-limited.
[00:06:54.800]So they're to be specific to the child.
[00:06:56.919]You wanna have it specific but not so specific
[00:07:00.210]that you can't follow it,
[00:07:01.710]but it should be, in theory,
[00:07:03.300]that when an IEP is when these goals
[00:07:05.630]and objectives are written
[00:07:07.170]that I should be able to send my goals and objectives
[00:07:10.640]to another teacher, to another educator
[00:07:12.870]and we can understand what it is
[00:07:14.530]that the expectation is for that child.
[00:07:17.010]What's really nice about this is that it also shows us
[00:07:19.905]the success that we're having.
[00:07:21.980]Are we able to meet this child's needs?
[00:07:25.731]Are we fulfilling what we need to?
[00:07:28.520]Do we need to go back and do we need to readjust this?
[00:07:32.780]Okay, so number nine, Least Restrictive Environment,
[00:07:37.210]and we'll be talking about this in more depth
[00:07:39.220]a little bit later but this is another important key
[00:07:41.537]to the IEP and Least Restrictive Environment
[00:07:45.000]is the requirement that special education students
[00:07:50.380]spend as much time as possible with their peers
[00:07:52.590]who do not receive special education.
[00:07:54.950]This is an extremely important piece of the IEP.
[00:08:00.698]In the past, when my son first was in school,
[00:08:03.710]if you had autism, you were automatically put
[00:08:06.600]in a self-contained classroom.
[00:08:08.420]Our big fight for the beginning as parents
[00:08:11.560]was to get our son in with general education kids.
[00:08:14.770]I don't see that as much anymore as being a problem,
[00:08:17.860]at least in the school districts that I am in,
[00:08:20.028]but I have seen it every once in a while
[00:08:22.350]where it kind of pokes its head that we're making decisions
[00:08:25.010]where students are placed
[00:08:26.320]not based on their needs necessarily,
[00:08:28.600]but sometimes just based on what we think
[00:08:30.750]as far as their eligibility where they should be.
[00:08:36.180]And then related services, my screen is kind of blocked,
[00:08:40.688]But that's like transportation,
[00:08:42.910]that can be occupational therapy,
[00:08:45.400]that can be physical therapy,
[00:08:47.540]it can be several different therapies, supports,
[00:08:52.110]and that, again, are individualize to that child,
[00:08:57.350]and that's to help us support toward the child's success
[00:09:01.040]in the IEP to make sure that we're submitting that.
[00:09:05.200]So I'll see if I can switch over to my next screen,
[00:09:08.500]oh, it did it easily, I'm kind of surprised.
[00:09:12.010]This is the first mistake
[00:09:13.370]and I was in a Zoom ARD yesterday,
[00:09:15.720]and just before the meeting, the parent said,
[00:09:17.737]"I'm not an expert."
[00:09:18.847]"This is what I think I'm not an expert like you are."
[00:09:22.090]And I always cringe when I hear parents say that
[00:09:25.340]and I said it too you when I first started,
[00:09:27.270]before I became very involved.
[00:09:30.380]I think we forget as parents that we do have the expertise,
[00:09:33.780]we have expertise when it comes to our child.
[00:09:37.730]You actually, from what I've seen,
[00:09:39.431]and I very rarely have been proven wrong in this,
[00:09:42.540]that parents have a really, really good sense
[00:09:45.273]of what their child needs as far as support and education.
[00:09:50.630]And we're, yes, we educators have degrees,
[00:09:54.197]we had certainly trained in this,
[00:09:57.000]we do not have expertise on that particular child.
[00:09:59.665]Now as a teacher, I certainly had expertise
[00:10:01.867]on the child that I was teaching in the classroom
[00:10:04.660]in that particular setting,
[00:10:06.300]but I didn't have necessarily a broad expertise.
[00:10:09.620]The other piece too is that what I've learned as a parent
[00:10:13.452]is that I have had, I am now Ryan's,
[00:10:18.290]my son Ryan's case manager, and my husband are,
[00:10:21.600]he is also the case manager,
[00:10:23.490]and we're the one that has the broad view
[00:10:26.130]of what's happened over the years.
[00:10:27.890]We know where he started,
[00:10:29.240]we know incrementally how he's gotten where he is.
[00:10:31.826]And even today, Ryan is on a CLASS Medicaid Waiver program.
[00:10:35.290]The CLASS, it's called CLASS in Texas,
[00:10:37.940]the Medicaid Waiver program,
[00:10:39.392]which supports independent living.
[00:10:42.182]And we are the people, the only people in the room
[00:10:47.960]when we're meeting who have had year-to-year experience
[00:10:52.489]with Ryan on what he needs, where he's developed,
[00:10:55.330]and where we need to go in the future,
[00:10:57.170]and that's a key piece
[00:10:59.040]in any time that you're developing a plan.
[00:11:02.330]We're experts in our own right,
[00:11:04.590]we can certainly develop our expertise
[00:11:06.890]and workshops such as this.
[00:11:09.710]We can certainly develop it by reading up on materials.
[00:11:12.820]There's a lot of good information out on the internet now.
[00:11:16.070]There was not the information like there is
[00:11:20.130]when we first started, you had to go to the library.
[00:11:23.440]We spent many times, many, many hours in the stacks
[00:11:26.480]looking up laws, talking with people,
[00:11:29.260]but there is a lot more expertise readily available now.
[00:11:33.910]The other piece is is that parents
[00:11:35.660]provided historical information in the big picture.
[00:11:38.910]And so for instance, at yesterday's ARD,
[00:11:42.450]the parents had taken this child
[00:11:45.040]to several different professionals
[00:11:46.920]and because she was able to give us information
[00:11:49.790]that we would not have had or not be able to use
[00:11:52.840]if we didn't have that in our assessment
[00:11:54.820]and developing a plan for her.
[00:12:00.210]The other mistake that we've seen,
[00:12:03.560]and I still see this today,
[00:12:06.050]and again, we certainly made this mistake
[00:12:08.360]in the beginning ourselves when we were first working
[00:12:12.060]with our educators or the teachers
[00:12:15.030]and the staff in the '90s, and that is making requests,
[00:12:21.600]but not putting those requests in writing.
[00:12:24.090]And anytime that you make a request,
[00:12:27.750]you need to go ahead and you need to have that in writing,
[00:12:31.480]send it in an email, used to be, of course,
[00:12:34.250]we would send it in letters,
[00:12:35.380]that's not necessary so much anymore but emails,
[00:12:38.500]and in our state, and I'm sure
[00:12:40.736]that it's throughout the United States,
[00:12:43.330]that for instance, for an initial evaluation,
[00:12:46.280]if a parent asked for an evaluation,
[00:12:47.647]we have 15 school days in which we need to say,
[00:12:50.547]"We're going to go ahead with that evaluation,"
[00:12:53.290]or we're going to say that we're not
[00:12:54.770]because we don't have the data.
[00:12:56.867]We don't feel it's necessary at this time.
[00:13:00.020]But until that is submitted to us in writing,
[00:13:02.900]we can't go forward or we're not as likely to go forward
[00:13:06.267]and nor do we have the time constraints
[00:13:08.310]that we would have with the written request.
[00:13:12.740]I see many times in IEP meetings
[00:13:16.330]that parents make a request.
[00:13:20.340]I'm hearing little bells and also I'm not sure
[00:13:23.107]if that's something that I should be paying attention to,
[00:13:26.320]Jessica, or--
[00:13:27.697]No, that is just people coming into the meeting.
[00:13:31.010]It gives a little notification
[00:13:31.843]when there's somebody new coming in.
[00:13:33.730]I was just getting a little alarm just like,
[00:13:35.720]is this telling me I need to take care of something
[00:13:37.850]or can I just ignore.
[00:13:39.020]No, just more people to hear
[00:13:40.810]what you have to say.
[00:13:41.650]Okay, perfect, perfect, just making sure, okay, thanks.
[00:13:46.290]As far as going back to what I was saying before
[00:13:48.750]is making requests in writing.
[00:13:51.610]If you have what I used to do when I would go
[00:13:54.530]into an IEP meeting, what we would do
[00:13:58.300]is we would write down everything
[00:13:59.870]that we wanted to discuss in the meeting
[00:14:02.410]on a piece of paper, and we made sure
[00:14:04.960]that as we went through it,
[00:14:06.200]I would check it off to make sure
[00:14:07.720]that we had addressed whatever the issue was
[00:14:10.930]that we wanted to make sure we addressed.
[00:14:13.060]If we were gonna ask for any type of service
[00:14:15.900]or evaluation or any kind of changes,
[00:14:18.090]we were sure to either put it in writing ourselves
[00:14:21.117]or ask for it to be placed in the minutes.
[00:14:23.980]Part of it is is that way,
[00:14:25.860]unless it's actually written down,
[00:14:27.900]it really didn't happen.
[00:14:29.940]And I've seen with the best of intentions on our end
[00:14:33.800]as a school person, we intend to follow through,
[00:14:36.351]but we work with so many kids
[00:14:38.400]that sometimes if it's not in writing, it doesn't happen.
[00:14:41.980]Again, rarely do we drop the ball but it does happen,
[00:14:47.940]and that's why it's just paramount
[00:14:49.650]that you make sure that it's in the minutes,
[00:14:51.580]that you presented it to writing.
[00:14:54.460]I also, a habit that I got into very early on
[00:14:58.320]that I still use today is I keep a journal
[00:15:02.520]and I write down who I talked to, the day I talked to them,
[00:15:06.290]the day I talked to them and what we discussed.
[00:15:10.040]That helps me as far as keeping up with a chain of events,
[00:15:14.400]it helps me kind of keep consistency,
[00:15:17.370]it helps that if somebody forgotten something
[00:15:19.500]or sometimes I forgotten something
[00:15:20.980]that I thought something was said or agreed to
[00:15:23.060]that my notes just don't reflect that.
[00:15:25.420]That has helped so often and I really, really encourage you,
[00:15:29.610]that is a strategy is keeping up with the journal.
[00:15:33.833]I use it to this day with a CLASS Medicaid Waiver.
[00:15:38.130]I encourage lots of parents to do it.
[00:15:41.720]It just turned out to be an invaluable skill set
[00:15:44.710]that I developed.
[00:15:48.420]The procedural safeguards, this is that booklet
[00:15:52.541]that you are offered time and time and time again.
[00:15:56.620]It doesn't change much often,
[00:15:59.410]but it is such an important document
[00:16:02.150]that you need to be familiar with.
[00:16:04.950]This goes through your rights as a parent
[00:16:07.160]and your child's rights,
[00:16:08.540]and it helps clear up any kind of misunderstandings,
[00:16:14.241]it helps explain the system that's in place,
[00:16:17.618]it goes through, like, it'll say what's consent,
[00:16:23.330]what's notice, if there are some behavior concerns,
[00:16:27.160]if we have to do what we call a manifestation determination
[00:16:30.210]because of behavior problem that is to see
[00:16:32.240]if there is a link between the behavior and the action
[00:16:35.620]or what happened with the child,
[00:16:38.280]it talks about due process, it talks about a lot.
[00:16:42.590]It is not an easy read.
[00:16:44.620]It is written by lawyers
[00:16:46.660]and each state has written it differently.
[00:16:49.990]I think, Texas is one of the most more readable ones.
[00:16:53.140]I had found some research a while back as far
[00:16:55.810]as what were, that were easier to read than others,
[00:16:59.240]but I don't think our Texas one
[00:17:00.790]is particularly easy for a parent.
[00:17:04.410]It's not a light reading and we kind of joke
[00:17:08.580]when we hand it out to parents,
[00:17:10.035]if you need something bedtime reading,
[00:17:12.550]this is great bedtime reading, but it is so, so important.
[00:17:16.610]And I still will refer back to it as an educator
[00:17:19.840]when I'm working with parents.
[00:17:21.090]This is where I go to if I'm not sure about something
[00:17:24.380]or I'm not clear, I still go back and I refer to it.
[00:17:30.050]And so, the part of the procedural safeguards
[00:17:32.599]which are your child's rights
[00:17:34.190]and your rights within the system
[00:17:35.727]is that whenever a parent makes a request at an IEP meeting,
[00:17:40.905]we're provided to, we are required to provide
[00:17:43.760]prior written notice to the request.
[00:17:46.180]And so where this happened, where this came up
[00:17:48.510]when my husband and I were writing is we,
[00:17:50.900]from our own experience
[00:17:52.230]and from experience of parents at the time,
[00:17:55.654]we would make a request and this was early days,
[00:17:59.370]and the school district would just say,
[00:18:01.167]"No, we're not going to do it."
[00:18:04.050]Well, that was never the intention of IDEA, IDEA.
[00:18:09.410]The intention is is that
[00:18:11.300]whenever a parent requests something,
[00:18:13.724]we need to provide the notice of that,
[00:18:15.967]"Yes, we're going to go ahead and proceed with it,"
[00:18:18.570]or "No, not at this time,
[00:18:20.677]"we're not going to move forward with it."
[00:18:22.690]And it's a document that we complete,
[00:18:24.760]it's a form that has to be provided to you in our district.
[00:18:28.310]If it's a refusal, it's provided to you after the meeting,
[00:18:32.690]but we have to actually, before we can say no to a request,
[00:18:37.870]that our committee or the IEP committee,
[00:18:40.180]there I go, Texas term, the IEP committee is required
[00:18:44.410]to seriously consider the request,
[00:18:46.823]and I think this documents what we were looking at.
[00:18:50.460]So what, with the form, it would look like
[00:18:53.220]that I would complete would say, "What was the request?"
[00:18:55.337]Let's say a parent requests testing.
[00:18:58.690]And the next one would be,
[00:19:01.647]"What did we consider?" or "What is our decision?"
[00:19:05.427]And we might say,
[00:19:06.260]"We're not going to move forward with it at this time."
[00:19:09.282]And then we're to document what did we look at,
[00:19:12.040]what did we consider?
[00:19:13.610]We needed to before we make that, reject that request,
[00:19:16.540]we need to look at classroom data,
[00:19:18.140]we need to look at teacher data, parent data.
[00:19:20.830]Sometimes, we get requests for testing
[00:19:23.010]and when we look at it, it doesn't appear
[00:19:26.300]that the student has an educational need
[00:19:28.770]or we just don't have the data
[00:19:30.190]to support the testing at that time.
[00:19:32.340]So we can't just say no, we have to go through
[00:19:34.910]and we have to complete that
[00:19:36.780]or we have to complete that notice.
[00:19:43.000]So, the other mistake that we saw a lot
[00:19:45.648]and again we made this mistake ourselves many times,
[00:19:50.370]as we request like we thought in the beginning
[00:19:52.700]that Ryan needed occupational therapy,
[00:19:56.520]and instead of asking for an evaluation,
[00:19:58.980]we would just say, "Well, we want,
[00:20:01.687]"we think he needs occupational therapy."
[00:20:04.080]And we were told, "No, he doesn't need it."
[00:20:08.810]As we became more experienced, what we learned is that
[00:20:12.170]we should never have requested the related service.
[00:20:15.050]We should have requested the evaluation
[00:20:16.981]for the related service.
[00:20:19.400]The related service such as occupational therapy,
[00:20:22.666]physical therapy, or speech therapist,
[00:20:25.550]though that's not technically related service,
[00:20:28.400]adapted PE, those, any service that we are considering
[00:20:33.760]to provide for a student in special ed,
[00:20:36.400]we need to provide the evaluation first,
[00:20:40.382]and so we need to be looking at to establish
[00:20:43.290]not academic need, but educational need for this child.
[00:20:47.520]So the only person who can decide if a child,
[00:20:50.293]they're the only discipline who can decide
[00:20:52.640]if a child needs occupational therapy or physical therapy,
[00:20:55.860]speech therapy, those services, is that professional.
[00:20:59.620]As an educational diagnostician,
[00:21:01.620]my certification allows me to make the recommendation
[00:21:04.316]to an IEP committee if the student needs eligibility
[00:21:08.300]for a particular, for special education.
[00:21:12.630]That being said, I cannot go nor can any professional go
[00:21:18.646]to an IEP meeting and say,
[00:21:23.047]"He doesn't get this, he doesn't get that."
[00:21:25.770]That is an IEP committee decision.
[00:21:28.930]When I'm testing for a student to see if they qualify
[00:21:31.750]for services, whether it be autism, a learning disability,
[00:21:37.860]I look at intellectual disability,
[00:21:39.640]any of those eligibilities, it is an IEP committee decision,
[00:21:44.750]and what we're doing is making a recommendation
[00:21:46.495]to the IEP committee.
[00:21:48.810]The IEP committee then looks at our evaluation
[00:21:51.810]and the parent being part of that team
[00:21:54.920]makes the determination
[00:21:56.218]whether they agree with that evaluation or not
[00:21:58.710]and whether to provide the supports or not.
[00:22:02.949]When you ask for an evaluation for related service,
[00:22:07.570]I would encourage you to write down the reasons
[00:22:09.620]why you think your child needs
[00:22:10.900]the related service assessment.
[00:22:14.213]And I keep going back to occupational therapy
[00:22:16.790]because that's one that comes up a lot
[00:22:18.253]in our school system and I think across.
[00:22:20.760]I just know as a parent and from my own experience
[00:22:24.268]working in the school system,
[00:22:26.243]we like our occupational therapists.
[00:22:29.510]And so what you wanna do is come up with a list of reasons.
[00:22:34.760]So is it because your who maybe has
[00:22:37.650]some intrasensory integration,
[00:22:39.490]you have some concerns about that is that the handwriting
[00:22:44.040]that you think maybe needs to be looked at,
[00:22:45.840]maybe through an assistive technology
[00:22:47.930]from like speech to text.
[00:22:50.450]Is it maybe dysgraphia?
[00:22:53.750]There are all kinds of reasons but list out those reasons.
[00:22:56.340]You don't have to have the terms that we, educators,
[00:22:58.836]might necessarily use, but you can get the intent behind it.
[00:23:04.134]We can generally follow where it is you're going with it,
[00:23:09.220]bring work samples.
[00:23:11.690]Those are very, very helpful.
[00:23:13.240]They can be work samples that you've come home from school,
[00:23:16.800]they can be samples from what you've worked with.
[00:23:20.630]Sometimes parents will bring videos,
[00:23:22.326]anything that you can bring to bolster.
[00:23:25.180]And as I tell people, when it comes to testing
[00:23:29.020]in my own world, my life goes a lot easier
[00:23:31.480]when I agree to it than when I don't
[00:23:34.150]and I think that's across the board.
[00:23:36.036]We will typically, in our district
[00:23:38.197]and in the districts I've worked in,
[00:23:39.840]we'll go ahead and go forward with it
[00:23:41.390]if we have solid reason for which we can move forward to it.
[00:23:44.830]We don't like telling the parents no.
[00:23:47.030]We will if we have to but we really don't like it.
[00:23:51.800]Accepting assessment results that do not recommend services
[00:23:55.863]that you think your child needs.
[00:23:58.320]The best words I can hear from a parent
[00:24:00.630]when I hand over an evaluation report and they read over it
[00:24:04.790]is when they say you, "Have described my child."
[00:24:07.400]That just has so, this makes my day,
[00:24:12.350]because I'm having to work with somebody's child,
[00:24:14.519]their pride and joy, and I'm having to work
[00:24:17.720]with a classroom teacher's child, student,
[00:24:20.790]that they really like and I'm really trying
[00:24:23.000]to capture what I'm seeing and I'm hoping
[00:24:25.853]that it's consistent with what's going on
[00:24:28.110]in the classroom and at home.
[00:24:31.688]It's a struggle sometimes because students
[00:24:34.811]behave differently in school than they do at home.
[00:24:39.060]But we have parent information that we look at,
[00:24:42.102]teacher information that we look at,
[00:24:45.600]and we try and pull that, get together to tell a story
[00:24:49.390]of what's happening in the school system.
[00:24:51.870]I referred to earlier about educational need
[00:24:54.570]versus academic need,
[00:24:56.124]and I think that's important to keep in mind
[00:24:59.520]as far as assessments and as far as making determinations
[00:25:02.746]whether we're going to evaluate or provide services.
[00:25:06.930]The standard is not academic need
[00:25:08.920]and that is that a student just doesn't have
[00:25:11.280]to be making passing grades or passing our state exam
[00:25:14.680]which we call the STAAR that we would say,
[00:25:16.587]"Well, they don't qualify for special education services."
[00:25:19.800]We're to look across the educational need
[00:25:22.850]and the educational need goes above
[00:25:24.630]and beyond the academic need.
[00:25:27.240]And so, sometimes, it's a little bit of a struggle
[00:25:31.730]to support when you have a child
[00:25:34.110]who's doing exceptionally well,
[00:25:36.120]now we need to look at what we call
[00:25:37.810]the Twice-Exceptional Children.
[00:25:39.859]Those were children that we overlooked
[00:25:43.260]until pretty recently,
[00:25:44.920]and that is that we made assumptions
[00:25:46.245]that when a child had a very high IQ or was very gifted,
[00:25:50.440]that they didn't necessarily
[00:25:51.610]need special education services.
[00:25:54.457]That being in mind, sometimes,
[00:25:57.830]and we certainly found this in one extreme situation
[00:26:01.070]with our son, Ryan, is where he received an assessment
[00:26:03.669]that did not reflect our son at all.
[00:26:06.470]And so the question is when that happens, what do you do?
[00:26:11.610]And you have some several options
[00:26:15.111]or a couple of options come to mind.
[00:26:17.546]One option like if it's part of the assessment
[00:26:20.260]that you disagree with or you're not comfortable with,
[00:26:22.620]or you just don't feel really captured your child,
[00:26:24.892]write an addendum, and the addendum can be attached
[00:26:28.380]to that FIE, I've had that,
[00:26:30.770]personally, I've had that happen once,
[00:26:33.676]and that the parent just didn't feel
[00:26:35.640]like an aspect of the report really captured their child.
[00:26:40.000]The other option you have is to request
[00:26:42.960]an independent educational evaluation.
[00:26:45.350]We call those IEEs.
[00:26:48.140]And what that is is that you go into the meeting,
[00:26:52.040]after you've looked at the report when you're in the meeting
[00:26:54.013]and you say, "I disagree with this.
[00:26:56.407]"I'm not comfortable with this, and I'm requesting an IEE."
[00:27:00.920]And so what that does is that triggers
[00:27:03.550]the process of where the school district
[00:27:06.770]and our school district,
[00:27:08.160]we have a list of providers to provide, to give to you,
[00:27:11.478]and you would choose from one of those evaluators,
[00:27:14.460]and they would do,
[00:27:16.580]then you would have an outside evaluation done.
[00:27:19.160]And then after that evaluation is completed, written up,
[00:27:23.330]the IEP committee meets together again,
[00:27:25.809]and they go through and they make a determination
[00:27:29.090]if they agree with that outside evaluation,
[00:27:31.242]or if they want to, if they disagree or agree with it.
[00:27:35.933]You also have a right as a parent, at any time,
[00:27:40.550]to have outside evaluation completed on your own.
[00:27:43.440]And we have parents do that quite frequently here.
[00:27:46.493]And that is, actually,
[00:27:49.040]I really like having outside evaluations,
[00:27:52.450]I love to dovetail it into my own.
[00:27:55.440]Most times, I will say, it's very consistent
[00:27:57.660]with what I've done in the school,
[00:27:59.940]or what I've seen done in the school district,
[00:28:02.150]but it never hurts to have that sometimes.
[00:28:05.920]As a result, sometimes we get a little
[00:28:09.090]like get some different recommendations.
[00:28:12.130]And I think this is important to bring up at this point too
[00:28:15.980]because I do run into this a lot in the school setting.
[00:28:19.670]And that is the difference between a medical diagnosis
[00:28:22.454]and what we're testing in the school system
[00:28:26.380]is special education eligibility.
[00:28:28.980]And so sometimes what happens with that outside report
[00:28:31.610]is the community doctor, psychologist
[00:28:36.620]will provide a medical diagnosis.
[00:28:39.440]But that does not necessarily translate
[00:28:42.730]into special education eligibility.
[00:28:46.020]What I tell parents, is that in the outside,
[00:28:49.450]in the medical community, they have the DSM-5,
[00:28:52.140]and so you have a very thick book
[00:28:53.950]with hundreds of possibilities.
[00:28:56.890]In the special education system, we have 13 eligibilities.
[00:29:01.220]14 if you considered the non, what is it?
[00:29:05.950]The early childhood, non-categorical early childhood,
[00:29:10.410]but typically, we would have a suspicion
[00:29:12.545]of like maybe autism or ID, but for our purposes,
[00:29:18.330]we'll just say the 13 eligibilities.
[00:29:21.040]So we're looking at does the child qualify
[00:29:24.176]for special ed, meet an eligibility criteria,
[00:29:27.740]for one of those 13, and some of those
[00:29:30.670]are autism spectrum disorder,
[00:29:32.774]a specific learning disability,
[00:29:34.930]emotional disturbance, visual impairment,
[00:29:37.270]I think, you're getting the gist, special education.
[00:29:40.620]And you can have that and do they need
[00:29:43.310]specially designed instruction
[00:29:44.650]where they qualify for special education services?
[00:29:47.810]So, again, if you do get a report from the school
[00:29:52.427]and you feel it does not describe your child,
[00:29:55.170]you have the option of, like I said, providing an addendum,
[00:29:58.351]going outside and getting a professional that you've hired
[00:30:02.600]or going through the IEE process.
[00:30:08.250]Okay, this is my pet peeve,
[00:30:12.150]and that is allowing assessment information
[00:30:15.129]to be presented for the first time at the IEP meeting.
[00:30:19.108]As a parent, pretty early on,
[00:30:22.874]we figured out that this just, we just couldn't do it.
[00:30:27.678]The documents that are written are written,
[00:30:31.160]they're pretty involved, a short assessment for myself
[00:30:35.610]might be about 32 pages,
[00:30:37.800]and it's just as filled with lots of technical jargon.
[00:30:42.138]It takes a lot to process.
[00:30:44.740]And then when we think about it,
[00:30:46.510]that all assessment information,
[00:30:50.670]every goal and objective, related services,
[00:30:53.760]everything that we're providing is based on the assessment.
[00:30:58.600]And I can't even walk into a meeting
[00:31:02.140]with my years of training in special education
[00:31:05.110]which now I think I'm approaching 30 years as a parent,
[00:31:07.950]as a teacher as an evaluator,
[00:31:09.925]there is no way I can walk into a meeting
[00:31:12.457]and for the first time, read over the assessment,
[00:31:17.236]process it, and make good decisions from that, I can't.
[00:31:21.500]And I have lots of experience with this.
[00:31:24.360]And as a parent, I certainly wouldn't be able to.
[00:31:27.540]And it's important and I've seen many times
[00:31:32.205]where I've had parents where we I do my best
[00:31:35.147]to send them, where I send them home first.
[00:31:38.750]I contact the parents,
[00:31:40.020]I go through the assessment with the parents,
[00:31:43.190]I send it home, I just give them my number
[00:31:45.484]if they have any questions
[00:31:47.560]and more often than not, I've seen many,
[00:31:50.060]or I should say many, many times,
[00:31:52.370]the parent will walk in and it's clear
[00:31:54.266]that they haven't read the evaluation.
[00:31:57.720]Now, if we parents are to be equal members in this process,
[00:32:02.160]we really need to be familiar with that assessment.
[00:32:06.168]This is, like I said, this is the cornerstone
[00:32:08.771]to every decision that'll be made in that.
[00:32:13.460]The other reason is, is that you wanna read through it,
[00:32:16.144]sometimes, it doesn't make sense.
[00:32:20.087]It's hard to understand at times
[00:32:22.370]or it just doesn't make sense,
[00:32:23.960]and this is the time to call the evaluator and say,
[00:32:26.527]"Hey, this wasn't really clear to me.
[00:32:28.817]"Can you expand this a little bit more?
[00:32:31.207]"Give me some more information,"
[00:32:33.030]or call the teacher and say so,
[00:32:35.130]and I would have this many, many times when I was teaching
[00:32:39.620]is I would sit down with the parent,
[00:32:41.330]I would sit down with teachers
[00:32:42.590]and go over the evaluation with teachers.
[00:32:46.350]This also would help me to have,
[00:32:48.379]it was a nice conversation piece
[00:32:50.510]than to talk about what kind of goals should we be writing?
[00:32:53.590]What kind of accommodations should we be putting in place?
[00:32:56.780]What types of related services should we be looking at?
[00:32:59.666]And you have to have, you need to have these answered
[00:33:04.610]or have an idea of what you're going to do with these
[00:33:06.980]before you go into the meeting.
[00:33:09.510]I'm very fortunate on the campuses that I work in,
[00:33:13.120]work on that my teachers do read the IEPs,
[00:33:18.694]I'm sorry, the evaluation, they do ask questions.
[00:33:22.900]I have a lot of parents who are very involved
[00:33:25.490]and they will ask questions
[00:33:26.850]and that's really valued quite a bit
[00:33:29.160]is when parents are that involved.
[00:33:30.950]I'm trying to watch my time here to make sure
[00:33:32.770]that I'm leaving, left time for questions
[00:33:35.930]'cause I'm sure there'll be quite a few.
[00:33:39.840]Okay, accepting goals and objectives
[00:33:41.581]that are not measurable.
[00:33:45.700]We do a lot better in the districts
[00:33:48.780]that I'm in now in Texas than we did
[00:33:51.240]when I first started with my son, Ryan.
[00:33:55.190]Ryan, our first goals and objectives
[00:34:01.020]were written were pretty vague.
[00:34:04.000]Of course, Ryan started in 1990,
[00:34:05.950]so that was quite a while ago.
[00:34:08.290]They weren't measurable.
[00:34:11.540]And there were times where I had seen
[00:34:14.880]when I was working with parents, his parent trainer,
[00:34:18.680]that I would see like copied pages
[00:34:21.710]that it was clear that these were just cut and paste
[00:34:24.330]or just copied from parent or from student or student.
[00:34:28.400]They weren't individualized, they weren't measurable,
[00:34:34.281]and that makes our jobs very, very difficult
[00:34:39.380]as teachers and as evaluators and as parents.
[00:34:42.260]We need to have these benchmarks,
[00:34:44.260]we need to know that we're moving forward,
[00:34:46.230]that our child is making progress.
[00:34:48.490]A mistake that I've seen and I still see it periodically
[00:34:51.740]for some of our low functioning kids
[00:34:53.850]where we have the same goals year to year.
[00:34:57.194]And so if we're seeing those goals,
[00:35:00.010]those same goals year to year,
[00:35:01.468]we need to step back and ask ourselves,
[00:35:04.780]are those really appropriate
[00:35:06.180]if we're not making progress on these or we're repeating it?
[00:35:09.350]Do we need to make a shift?
[00:35:10.930]Have we set it too high?
[00:35:12.430]Have we set it too low?
[00:35:14.980]Is this really what's important
[00:35:15.912]that we need to be working on?
[00:35:18.660]Without measurable goals, it's difficult to determine
[00:35:21.287]the progress and the growth that a child has made.
[00:35:24.239]Now sometimes, these goals are academic goals.
[00:35:27.163]Sometimes these goals are daily living skills goals.
[00:35:32.530]Sometimes we need to step back,
[00:35:34.180]maybe we've set the bar too high for the student.
[00:35:37.197]Sometimes when we're looking at educational need,
[00:35:39.780]we need to step back and maybe the focus doesn't need
[00:35:42.210]to be academics, maybe it needs to be adaptive behavior.
[00:35:46.020]Adaptive behavior is something
[00:35:47.165]that I've really invested a lot of time and energy
[00:35:50.300]into educating myself about.
[00:35:52.670]I think, it's a big piece in education
[00:35:54.770]that we've been missing,
[00:35:56.300]and these are the skills that we're working on
[00:35:58.410]for students to develop adult skills for adult living,
[00:36:02.350]and so maybe those goals need to be directed more to that.
[00:36:06.530]Some of these goals could be executive function goals.
[00:36:09.510]Sometimes, the child is not, I see this a lot for our kids
[00:36:13.368]that have attention problems
[00:36:15.602]or attention difficulties or maybe, autism.
[00:36:19.910]And that is that we need to be focusing
[00:36:21.537]not so much on the academics,
[00:36:23.480]but maybe that executive function piece.
[00:36:25.577]Maybe the child is unable to turn in homework
[00:36:28.450]and mastered the skill, the academic skill
[00:36:32.230]because we need to step back and we need to be providing
[00:36:34.840]some of those executive function goals like task initiation
[00:36:39.140]or emotional regulation or maybe prioritizing,
[00:36:42.565]helping them come up with a schedule or a system.
[00:36:46.215]But anytime that I'd see that goals
[00:36:48.967]are being repeated from year to year,
[00:36:51.340]that makes me a little suspicious.
[00:36:53.410]I'll delve in a little bit deeper as an evaluator,
[00:36:57.610]as a classroom teacher, which is something I just didn't do.
[00:37:01.790]It didn't happen too often with Ryan
[00:37:04.230]once my husband and I became very informed
[00:37:06.730]as far as how to make sure
[00:37:08.730]that goals and objectives are written.
[00:37:10.850]We school about, educators are still working
[00:37:14.750]and honing our skills on this,
[00:37:17.430]but it's just something that you need to be aware
[00:37:20.420]and just watch and the other piece is
[00:37:23.310]is that you wanna have success.
[00:37:25.010]You wanna have a situation in a meeting to say,
[00:37:28.647]"And it's great, this child has mastered this goal.
[00:37:31.917]"What can we build on next?"
[00:37:33.900]Because something that we're supposed to be doing
[00:37:36.680]with special education is we're supposed
[00:37:38.310]to be giving these children the skills
[00:37:40.426]and the supports to where they don't need special education,
[00:37:44.080]they should be that we should be able
[00:37:45.670]to get students in, remediate the difficulties,
[00:37:49.233]give them the skills and have them graduate
[00:37:51.730]from special education as quickly as we can,
[00:37:54.700]not to the point where we're short cert,
[00:37:56.570]we're not serving them like we should,
[00:37:58.144]but that we that we are providing them the supports
[00:38:02.290]to where they don't need us.
[00:38:04.640]I will say that speech therapy tends to be one of the best
[00:38:07.674]I've seen consistently to where they get the students,
[00:38:13.000]they work with the students and they graduate the students.
[00:38:16.150]So if speech therapy is able to do it,
[00:38:18.170]we are certainly able to do it as well.
[00:38:20.010]And I think lots of parents need to hear this
[00:38:22.298]that special education isn't the lifetime sentence
[00:38:25.050]that it used to be, that our children now
[00:38:28.101]who are in special ed are able to go to college, Ryan.
[00:38:32.812]I haven't really spent a whole lot of time
[00:38:34.660]talking about Ryan, I will towards the end of this
[00:38:37.510]so that you guys can have
[00:38:38.610]a little bit more understanding of Ryan,
[00:38:42.159]but that, we're building skills for children
[00:38:44.991]to develop for their lifetime skills.
[00:38:48.320]We're trying to get them to where they have
[00:38:51.638]the supports they need, that they go,
[00:38:53.940]and they get the regular high school credit,
[00:38:55.810]if at all possible.
[00:38:57.040]Now colleges are much more available
[00:38:59.195]for helping students with special needs than they used to
[00:39:02.460]and they have college degrees and they get employment.
[00:39:07.260]Okay, allowing placement decisions to be made
[00:39:10.160]before IEP goals and objectives are written.
[00:39:12.699]And again, I see this.
[00:39:16.060]Well, I see this more than I should.
[00:39:19.517]Ryan, I'll just take a step back for a moment,
[00:39:24.299]just kinda, I'm gonna do a little bit of a segue.
[00:39:26.590]So, if you see that we have Blue Fan, Inc.,
[00:39:29.200]and can you see the blue fan in the top corner,
[00:39:32.094]right, this is our son's nonprofit Blue Fan Inc.
[00:39:37.150]He has autism, he's 34 years old
[00:39:39.625]and he is a professional presenter.
[00:39:41.430]He was going to present for the conference today
[00:39:44.135]but he doesn't have experience with Zoom,
[00:39:46.256]so hopefully next year, we can make it up to Nebraska
[00:39:49.470]and you guys can see him.
[00:39:51.335]But what really got us motivated, my husband and I,
[00:39:54.760]into working with Ryan's school is that
[00:40:00.790]when he was first diagnosed
[00:40:02.110]with Pervasive Developmental Disorder -
[00:40:03.790]Not Otherwise Specified,
[00:40:06.220]this decision was made that he would be placed
[00:40:09.160]in a self-contained classroom for the kids with behavior.
[00:40:12.920]And that was our first clue that maybe we needed
[00:40:17.000]to get more involved and more informed than we were.
[00:40:20.150]And so Ryan would have been,
[00:40:21.660]it would have been his transition
[00:40:22.780]from kindergarten to first grade.
[00:40:25.740]So, at the time, inclusion was just coming out,
[00:40:28.890]it was very unknown.
[00:40:30.672]It was not something that the school districts
[00:40:33.161]embraced by any means.
[00:40:35.470]And so the problem was with getting Ryan
[00:40:40.470]into to the general education classroom
[00:40:42.700]to where he could be with his typical peers.
[00:40:44.430]We felt that was very important for him.
[00:40:46.970]It required us to move, while we were moving
[00:40:50.300]from a district in the Dallas, Fort Worth area
[00:40:54.346]when we moved out to West Texas and Lubbock, Texas
[00:40:57.480]so that my husband could get his work on his graduate degree
[00:41:00.660]and then later, I got my graduate degree.
[00:41:02.728]And when we moved, we insisted that Ryan
[00:41:05.340]be placed in a general education classroom
[00:41:08.010]with typical peers.
[00:41:10.030]They did it, we didn't know how to do it, but we did.
[00:41:14.603]When I look back at now,
[00:41:16.210]'cause we're working on developing a new presentation
[00:41:17.977]for Ryan about his experience with inclusions,
[00:41:21.380]if there was ever something that we set up for failure,
[00:41:23.836]we did it well, but it turned out to be a huge success
[00:41:27.955]because the campus, and we as parents, all pulled together
[00:41:32.667]and it turned out to be just
[00:41:34.550]a wonderful experience for Ryan.
[00:41:36.550]I am very appreciative of the staff at Wester in Lubbock.
[00:41:41.840]So, what was happening at the time
[00:41:44.380]and what I see periodically happen now
[00:41:46.460]is that placement decisions are made
[00:41:48.080]before we write goals and objectives.
[00:41:50.460]And so the way the process is supposed to work
[00:41:52.910]is we administer the assessment,
[00:41:57.890]we make the recommendations to the IEP committee,
[00:42:01.182]the IEP committee writes goals and objectives,
[00:42:05.150]then we develop, we work on our accommodations.
[00:42:08.870]We work then on are they gonna take the state test
[00:42:11.450]or the other state test?
[00:42:12.580]Are they taking the district's test?
[00:42:15.000]Do they need accommodations for that?
[00:42:18.240]I think you can see where I'm going,
[00:42:19.259]is we make lots of decisions first.
[00:42:23.250]We don't make, we are not supposed to make a decision
[00:42:25.742]on placement so we've discussed all these other factors
[00:42:29.880]because there are children who do not need to be pulled
[00:42:33.004]from the general education classroom.
[00:42:35.530]There are many students we're finding
[00:42:36.925]that we can put the support into the classroom.
[00:42:40.300]Now that support can be maybe a special ed teacher going in
[00:42:43.530]and working with that child and other children.
[00:42:46.190]It could be that maybe we're just providing accommodation
[00:42:50.470]for that child that somebody doesn't need to come in
[00:42:53.450]and it could be that maybe we need to pull that child,
[00:42:55.853]once or twice a day to where we're working with them,
[00:42:59.410]maybe with other children that are struggling
[00:43:01.623]with some of the same issues.
[00:43:03.547]If it's a student who's receiving speech,
[00:43:06.410]we might pull them so that they can work
[00:43:08.010]with some other peers that maybe for autism,
[00:43:10.800]their typical peers
[00:43:11.730]who maybe have some articulation concerns,
[00:43:15.490]but we're working on social skills,
[00:43:17.600]and then we trickle.
[00:43:19.420]And so, it should start out with more students
[00:43:21.225]being in the classroom,
[00:43:23.126]and then some students being pulled out some of the time,
[00:43:26.320]then less students being pulled out more times,
[00:43:28.680]so we should really have a small amount of children
[00:43:31.410]who are being pulled to where they're 100% of the day
[00:43:35.480]or the majority of the day
[00:43:36.436]in a self-contained classroom in special ed.
[00:43:39.440]We have those students, we have some students
[00:43:42.630]who have very severe needs,
[00:43:45.150]and so it's most appropriate for them
[00:43:47.520]to be in a self-contained classroom with teachers,
[00:43:50.560]and then being worked out to maybe specials
[00:43:53.590]and our specials will be like PE or art or music,
[00:43:57.020]that is appropriate, but that's not
[00:43:58.850]where we used to be in special education.
[00:44:01.460]It used to be that if you had specific disability
[00:44:04.230]such as an intellectual disability or autism
[00:44:08.120]or an emotional disturbance
[00:44:09.920]that you were automatically placed
[00:44:11.600]in a self-contained classroom
[00:44:12.850]and you didn't even get to go to specials.
[00:44:15.610]So, you should always, always, always
[00:44:19.470]be looking at those goals and objectives
[00:44:21.320]as accommodations and starting out
[00:44:23.442]what supports can be placed, be happened in that classroom,
[00:44:27.960]because I guarantee you that the students
[00:44:30.390]learn a lot more from their peers
[00:44:31.754]than they do from me as a teacher.
[00:44:34.200]When I taught, I would just cringe every time
[00:44:37.360]that I had to work with a child one on one
[00:44:39.790]because sometimes, the kids were sick
[00:44:41.330]and you had a small group that's what happened,
[00:44:43.190]but it was so much more difficult
[00:44:45.680]because the kids are really learning more
[00:44:47.470]from their peers than they are from the teachers.
[00:44:50.760]So we should always be looking
[00:44:52.097]at Least Restrictive Environment.
[00:44:54.275]Again, we had to work really hard
[00:44:56.949]to make this happen for Ryan,
[00:44:58.900]lots of parents really with the inclusion
[00:45:01.853]fought very hard for this right
[00:45:04.230]to make sure that it was being implemented
[00:45:06.030]like it was supposed to be.
[00:45:07.659]I don't see it as much as I used to but periodically,
[00:45:10.977]I'll see a decision will be made
[00:45:12.810]because of a student's disability
[00:45:14.223]and not because we really thought it through.
[00:45:19.790]Allowing your child's IEP meeting to be rushed.
[00:45:23.360]Now, mind you, when we wrote this,
[00:45:25.990]when my husband I wrote this, I was had not taught,
[00:45:30.350]I was working for a nonprofit,
[00:45:35.497]the PATH Project, which responded
[00:45:37.800]to the Department of Education
[00:45:38.806]where I worked with parents
[00:45:40.680]in teaching them what their rights were.
[00:45:42.890]So, this was written from a parent perspective.
[00:45:46.110]Now as an educator and having been responsible
[00:45:50.036]for organizing the IEP meetings,
[00:45:52.593]being responsible for making sure
[00:45:54.360]that these are conducted in a timely manner
[00:45:57.120]and that they're time efficient.
[00:45:59.230]You still don't rush through the meeting.
[00:46:01.500]You still need to make sure that you have the time
[00:46:05.180]that the parent needs to discuss
[00:46:07.595]whatever it is they need to discuss.
[00:46:10.600]Now sometimes, these meetings are held back to back
[00:46:13.970]because we have no choice,
[00:46:15.320]we have a limited amount of days and times
[00:46:17.640]especially when we get to the end of the school year.
[00:46:20.160]We're in a time crunch to get these done.
[00:46:23.090]We're sometimes in a time crunch
[00:46:24.218]because of federal deadlines
[00:46:26.440]or when we need to have evaluation information done
[00:46:29.100]and when we need to have annual meetings completed,
[00:46:32.630]we can be in a time crunch.
[00:46:34.570]But what I would do as a teacher
[00:46:39.350]is I would call my parents before each and every ARD
[00:46:42.590]and I would go through,
[00:46:43.847]"This is what we're gonna discuss.
[00:46:45.817]"These are what I'm going to propose.
[00:46:47.807]"Do you have any questions?
[00:46:49.257]"Do you have anything you wanna make sure that we covered?"
[00:46:51.730]So I did my best that if we had a meeting
[00:46:54.550]that we knew would be lengthy,
[00:46:56.340]that we scheduled that amount of time.
[00:46:58.085]Now we're also sending home in our district
[00:47:01.002]and I think most of the districts in Texas now
[00:47:03.395]are sending home the goals and objectives
[00:47:06.303]and most of the IEP paperwork before the meeting.
[00:47:09.990]Read through it, look through it.
[00:47:12.366]Our meetings, we generally schedule for about an hour
[00:47:16.370]and sometimes that's adequate and sometimes that's not.
[00:47:19.860]If it's not, then we need to either extend the time
[00:47:23.040]of the meeting or we need to stop and meet again.
[00:47:26.190]So if you see that you're going to have some issues
[00:47:29.310]or you have some questions
[00:47:30.470]and you think it's gonna take a while,
[00:47:31.970]I would just let the person who's organizing the meeting,
[00:47:34.207]"No, we will certainly schedule it
[00:47:36.387]"to the amount of time that you need.
[00:47:38.677]"This is your child, it's important.
[00:47:40.277]"We wanna make sure that you don't feel rushed."
[00:47:42.830]Where this mistake nine came from?
[00:47:44.454]And this predated when my husband and I
[00:47:47.060]first started with Ryan, but in the district,
[00:47:49.090]where we first started,
[00:47:50.490]they were having 15 minute ARD meetings
[00:47:52.580]and I heard stories and it was reliable,
[00:47:56.100]I heard it more than once from our district
[00:47:57.780]to where each family was allowed in 15 minutes
[00:48:01.140]and the parents would stand in line
[00:48:02.122]waiting to go into the class, to the meeting,
[00:48:05.960]and they had 15 minutes and that was it.
[00:48:07.874]I have not seen that as a parent,
[00:48:10.300]I have not experienced that,
[00:48:11.480]I certainly have not seen that as an educator,
[00:48:13.831]but that was when our thinking,
[00:48:16.780]and this needs to take the time that it needs to take,
[00:48:20.290]it should not be rushed.
[00:48:22.130]There's no legally established time period
[00:48:24.387]when meetings or how long meetings are supposed to take.
[00:48:29.230]Again, if you think it's going to be lengthy,
[00:48:31.950]or you have a lot to cover, let your school people know,
[00:48:35.330]we'll schedule it, we'll make sure that it's covered.
[00:48:38.350]Sometimes, some of these can be brought up
[00:48:40.130]before the meeting and certainly addressed again
[00:48:42.417]in the meeting, but we wanna make sure
[00:48:44.608]that everybody leaves happy.
[00:48:46.810]Everybody's world and life goes a little bit better
[00:48:50.440]when everybody leaves happy.
[00:48:54.430]Not asking lots of questions, so this is something,
[00:48:59.300]especially for parents that are first starting out,
[00:49:01.450]when I'm not getting a lot of questions
[00:49:03.272]and when I'm talking with parents,
[00:49:05.141]it makes me a little nervous.
[00:49:07.640]And because you should have lots of questions,
[00:49:09.649]I want you to ask the questions.
[00:49:13.480]Sometimes, I'm working with families
[00:49:16.870]where the family member or the parent
[00:49:19.766]was a product of special education themselves
[00:49:22.820]and they have some real fear
[00:49:24.290]about the special education process.
[00:49:26.660]I had a conversation with a parent yesterday.
[00:49:29.918]I had tested his daughter over a year ago.
[00:49:34.240]She did meet eligibility requirements
[00:49:36.523]to be in special education.
[00:49:40.050]We thought that he was comfortable with it,
[00:49:42.050]but when we got to the meeting, he clearly was not.
[00:49:44.670]He revoked, he did not wanna have,
[00:49:47.180]he didn't want his child in special ed,
[00:49:49.150]and it came out at that time
[00:49:50.740]that he had been a product of special education.
[00:49:52.910]He had some experiences with it
[00:49:55.092]that made him very uncomfortable
[00:49:57.683]that placing his daughter in the same system
[00:50:00.358]which is legitimate.
[00:50:03.070]I've seen it, many more, I've heard this a lot
[00:50:05.930]from parents who have been through special education.
[00:50:08.820]So if the child is still struggling
[00:50:11.660]and so they asked that we look at her again
[00:50:15.570]to see if she qualifies for special education
[00:50:17.830]and she does still if the IEP committee agrees to it.
[00:50:23.744]So I called the parent yesterday
[00:50:25.535]and discussed the results with him.
[00:50:27.972]And we had a very frank conversation
[00:50:31.170]and he asked lots of really good questions.
[00:50:33.310]What would this look like?
[00:50:34.990]And as we're talking, he said,
[00:50:36.417]"This is so different from what I experienced.
[00:50:38.747]"This is not at all what I was expecting for her."
[00:50:41.200]He says, "I just want what's best for her.
[00:50:43.196]"I really wanna make sure that she gets what she needs.
[00:50:46.927]"And so I'm willing to do it."
[00:50:48.440]But he asked lots of really good questions.
[00:50:50.990]And some of these questions I've heard, some I haven't,
[00:50:54.891]but, I think, you should ask questions,
[00:50:58.046]there's nothing wrong with questions and it helps clear,
[00:51:00.590]and sometimes I think I'm being very clear
[00:51:02.122]on something and I'm not.
[00:51:04.524]I think I have a pretty good sense when it comes to parents
[00:51:07.257]of how to present it to parents
[00:51:09.230]but sometimes I'm off the mark.
[00:51:10.636]But that's why you wanna ask questions,
[00:51:13.390]and ask questions for like terms and acronyms,
[00:51:17.030]procedures and timelines.
[00:51:19.500]We are just loaded with acronyms
[00:51:22.420]in our education system and special ed,
[00:51:24.770]I think, it's probably the worst at it,
[00:51:27.750]and I also throw out acronyms.
[00:51:29.130]I was talking to my brother recently,
[00:51:31.590]he's not in education, he's never been in education,
[00:51:34.500]and I was referring to an AI students
[00:51:36.660]and I kept referring to him
[00:51:37.810]and finally he asked, "What's AI?"
[00:51:40.030]And it's like, "I'm sorry, it's just part of my language.
[00:51:43.547]"I forgot that you didn't know."
[00:51:46.670]And we're really bad in ARD meetings or IEP meetings,
[00:51:50.820]sometimes throwing out terms or acronyms
[00:51:53.320]because we're so used to them,
[00:51:55.710]but it's really a second language.
[00:51:57.560]So there's nothing wrong with asking questions,
[00:52:00.170]asking for full clarification.
[00:52:02.440]If I were to come up to Nebraska and said in an IEP meeting,
[00:52:06.252]I think somebody referred to an MDT meeting recently
[00:52:10.770]from another state.
[00:52:12.270]I had to stop and say,
[00:52:13.217]"Well, is that a multidisciplinary team meeting?"
[00:52:18.033]It's just like the what we say as an ARD meeting in Texas.
[00:52:22.300]When I go to another state and I present,
[00:52:24.611]or when Ryan's presenting, we have to really make sure
[00:52:27.340]that we're speaking in terms
[00:52:29.179]that are understandable to everybody.
[00:52:32.640]And it's really important to attain a working knowledge
[00:52:36.690]of the special education process.
[00:52:39.610]A lot of what I've gone over today is part of that process.
[00:52:44.930]I will tell and it was because my husband and I
[00:52:48.720]were so involved with our son
[00:52:51.155]and we were fortunate enough to coach,
[00:52:54.330]wind up in a phenomenal campus in a good school district
[00:52:58.410]that Ryan is where he is today.
[00:53:01.470]Ryan, as I said before, has had as his college degree.
[00:53:06.080]He now has his nonprofit, Blue Fan Inc.
[00:53:09.120]Blue athletic bands are his circumscribed interest.
[00:53:12.490]I feel like Ryan did the hard work.
[00:53:15.610]My husband and I just made sure that he had the options
[00:53:19.790]that we helped spearhead what needed to happen for him
[00:53:24.300]and provide him with the opportunities
[00:53:26.090]and Ryan certainly met the challenge.
[00:53:28.180]And I see this time and time again,
[00:53:30.110]that when parents are involved
[00:53:32.210]and I did not truly understand the importance
[00:53:35.740]of parent involvement and how important it is
[00:53:38.610]for parents to be knowledgeable until I became an educator.
[00:53:43.190]I can tell you that the majority of the kids
[00:53:46.380]who do well in our school system
[00:53:49.122]are because the parents are involved and informed.
[00:53:53.049]They're involved every step of the way,
[00:53:55.180]they're truly partners in the process,
[00:53:57.500]and these are the kids that make it successfully
[00:53:59.930]through our education process and turn it
[00:54:03.260]and also develop to be very fine functioning young adults.
[00:54:07.320]I had the luxury of being able to follow
[00:54:09.344]some of my kids through the parents on Facebook,
[00:54:12.472]and it just warms my heart to see
[00:54:14.403]how well some of my kids are doing.
[00:54:17.040]And these were parents who were very involved
[00:54:18.845]and very informed.
[00:54:22.050]I mean, as an educator, and the educators I work with,
[00:54:25.430]we love parents who are working with us side by side.
[00:54:27.970]We're not offended by your questions,
[00:54:29.610]we want you to be part of the process,
[00:54:31.387]we want you to be comfortable with it,
[00:54:34.070]we want you to be really part of the team.
[00:54:37.561]Okay, so I'm just gonna recap,
[00:54:40.300]and then feel free to ask questions.
[00:54:43.000]I wanted to leave about 10 or 15 minutes.
[00:54:45.770]If we don't get through all the questions,
[00:54:47.274]I will do my best to answer them after the fact.
[00:54:51.760]So let's talk about IDEA, and so that's the law
[00:54:56.130]that makes available a free public education
[00:54:58.900]to eligible children with disabilities.
[00:55:01.630]Let's see if I can turn this,
[00:55:02.463]I have to move my little dialog box here, whoops.
[00:55:05.730]Just had some ads pop up for Omaha Steaks,
[00:55:08.750]I love them, I miss my Omaha Steaks.
[00:55:12.370]See if I can get this to shrink down to get to my other.
[00:55:16.320]Okay, I can't get over to one of my corner ones,
[00:55:19.110]so we'll just get that one, we'll just hit the mistakes.
[00:55:23.820]So mistake number one is believing that professionals
[00:55:26.395]are the only experts.
[00:55:28.720]I hope that you really walk away understanding,
[00:55:31.120]as parents, you are also the experts,
[00:55:34.430]very important experts, we need your expertise
[00:55:37.870]every time we're making a decision,
[00:55:39.420]every time we're developing a plan,
[00:55:40.970]and every time we work with the students.
[00:55:42.640]We need your expertise.
[00:55:45.020]Not making a request in writing,
[00:55:46.920]that's just making a request, just stating a request.
[00:55:49.470]Be sure you put it in writing because that's,
[00:55:51.488]for a lot of times, makes the clock start ticking.
[00:55:54.600]It also documents, what your interests are
[00:55:56.820]and it also holds schools
[00:55:58.530]and ourselves accountable for what needs to happen.
[00:56:01.990]Mistake number three is not being familiar
[00:56:03.842]with prior written notice.
[00:56:05.490]Again, what that is is whether we're going to do something
[00:56:08.420]or not do something in the school setting,
[00:56:10.060]we need to put it in writing what we've decided to do
[00:56:12.520]and why we're doing it or not doing it.
[00:56:17.270]Number four is making mistake or requesting related service
[00:56:21.010]instead of the assessment for the related service.
[00:56:24.540]Many times, we want to give you the service
[00:56:27.280]but unless we have the assessment that supports
[00:56:29.339]the need for it, we can't provide that to you.
[00:56:32.950]Mistake number five, accepting assessment results
[00:56:35.400]that do not recommend the services
[00:56:37.300]you think your child needs.
[00:56:38.990]Again, that's the process of either adding an addendum
[00:56:42.905]to the report, an independent educational evaluation,
[00:56:47.160]that IEE, where the district provides
[00:56:49.290]an outside report to you or you going to a professional
[00:56:52.239]of your choosing and bringing the results
[00:56:54.212]to the IEP meeting.
[00:56:57.110]Mistake number six, allowing assessment information
[00:56:59.770]to be presented to you at the first time at the meetings,
[00:57:02.440]don't, I wouldn't accept it.
[00:57:05.570]I would make sure that I have a copy of it.
[00:57:07.640]It's just, there's no good reason
[00:57:09.897]that you should be walking into an IEP meeting
[00:57:12.950]without that assessment first.
[00:57:15.010]That would just be, I just wouldn't do it.
[00:57:19.130]Accepting, at least, if I can move this box,
[00:57:21.858]accepting, I can't see what I just wrote,
[00:57:24.540]if you guys can see, number seven, I can't see it, sorry.
[00:57:28.970]Number eight placement decisions made
[00:57:30.880]before goals and objectives are written.
[00:57:35.140]And then, don't do it, the Least Restrictive Environment
[00:57:39.030]is key to the process.
[00:57:41.940]You need to be making almost every other decision first
[00:57:44.406]and the last decision you're making as a meeting
[00:57:46.790]is that Least Restrictive Environment.
[00:57:50.340]Number nine, allowing your IEP,
[00:57:52.740]your child's IEP meeting to be rushed,
[00:57:54.690]it needs to be comfortable for everybody.
[00:57:57.350]If you think it's going to take a longer amount of time
[00:57:59.750]than an hour or what you think the school
[00:58:01.335]is going to propose, make sure to let your school know that.
[00:58:05.130]We'll, like I said, we will work with you.
[00:58:08.810]And then not asking lots of questions.
[00:58:11.049]The questions, at any time along the way,
[00:58:14.240]it's important to ask questions.
[00:58:17.666]Nobody's feelings are heard and sometimes questions
[00:58:20.110]are asked and I like it and I like being challenged
[00:58:22.880]by I don't know the answer, obviously,
[00:58:23.994]I don't know the answer and I'll look it up
[00:58:25.710]and we'll find it, we can find it together.
[00:58:28.570]So that's kind of it for me.
[00:58:30.920]Do you wanna open this up for questions
[00:58:32.935]or how would you like to do next?
[00:58:37.950]If anybody has questions,
[00:58:39.750]you are welcome to put those in the chat box.
[00:58:42.640]I also change the settings, we just have 19 people in here
[00:58:45.830]so I changed the settings where you can unmute yourself.
[00:58:50.510]If you would like to unmute and ask a question
[00:58:53.450]that's maybe easier said than typed
[00:58:57.440]or I see that some of you are on like phones
[00:58:59.280]or iPads or something, so that might be easier too.
[00:59:03.590]I just see what my one that I couldn't see before,
[00:59:05.597]accepting goals and objectives that are not measurable.
[00:59:08.100]Okay, that was bothering me, so the procedural safeguards,
[00:59:11.310]let me, so I get that to turn.
[00:59:14.050]Does anybody have questions?
[00:59:15.330]I just said with my last slide, was ask lots of questions.
[00:59:21.350]There was a question from Melissa
[00:59:23.180]which isn't directed at you, DeAnn, but just to the group,
[00:59:25.840]asking if anybody in the group
[00:59:27.920]had a teenage daughter on the spectrum.
[00:59:31.210]I would love to talk about
[00:59:32.736]a teenage daughter on the spectrum
[00:59:34.323]if the other people are interested
[00:59:35.718]because that's one of my extreme interests
[00:59:38.660]is girls on the spectrum.
[00:59:43.380]Does she does she have a specific question regarding
[00:59:45.550]or she just wants to know if somebody
[00:59:48.170]has a teenage daughter on the spectrum?
[00:59:50.640]Just if somebody has a teenage daughter.
[00:59:53.370]Melissa, if you want to give more information
[00:59:56.110]or unmute yourself or chat a little bit more,
[00:59:58.040]that's fine too.
[01:00:06.720]I guess, we have some shy people.
[01:00:08.700]I know.
[01:00:10.530]Usually I have lots of questions with this presentation.
[01:00:21.060]Does anybody have questions
[01:00:23.380]or I am, I wondered, how you talked about
[01:00:27.304]those procedural safeguards and how that's a big document
[01:00:30.792]and we joke that there's some light reading
[01:00:34.280]if you need to go to sleep.
[01:00:35.590]Do you have any suggestions for parents
[01:00:37.275]to help them understand that more
[01:00:41.940]because it is a lot of legal, you know,
[01:00:44.550]maybe some things that that you did
[01:00:46.680]or how you chunk to that out
[01:00:48.360]or how you dove into that or learned more?
[01:00:51.300]That's a really, really good question
[01:00:53.561]and there are several different ways to approach it.
[01:00:57.100]I was fortunate and, like I said,
[01:00:58.657]and that I worked for a Parent Training
[01:01:00.560]and Information Center for about eight years.
[01:01:03.120]And so I started going to workshops and trainings on that.
[01:01:07.145]But when you're handed the book and even now,
[01:01:09.360]when I'm handed the booklet or a copy of the booklet,
[01:01:11.423]it's like, there's just a lot,
[01:01:13.610]and there's a lot of legal terms to it.
[01:01:16.700]So what I try and do is when I'm presenting it to the parent
[01:01:20.790]is I try and break it down and say so,
[01:01:22.555]"This is where we are right now.
[01:01:24.487]"This is where we're getting prior written notice,
[01:01:26.647]"this is where we're getting consent."
[01:01:28.740]'Cause it's spelled out in chapters,
[01:01:30.234]so if you look through those chapters or those headings,
[01:01:34.020]maybe might be a better way,
[01:01:35.250]it's not really chapters but headings,
[01:01:37.260]it really does a nice job of what the process is,
[01:01:40.470]so those pieces of it
[01:01:41.580]and that is just maybe taken in chunks to where,
[01:01:44.387]"Okay so right now,
[01:01:45.527]"I've just asked for an initial evaluation,
[01:01:47.957]"and so let me just read the initial evaluation
[01:01:50.117]"and kind of see what I can expect with that."
[01:01:52.580]And then the next step is,
[01:01:53.757]"Okay now, they're going to have,
[01:01:55.357]"we're gonna have an IEP meeting.
[01:01:56.851]"Who's supposed to be at the IEP meeting
[01:01:58.913]"and what will those meetings look like?"
[01:02:00.880]To chunk it into that.
[01:02:02.666]There are some states, through the parent training at the,
[01:02:05.733]what we call PTI centers that also have workshops on this,
[01:02:10.190]on the procedural safeguards.
[01:02:13.005]They won't be say, they won't have a title
[01:02:15.560]like procedural safeguards
[01:02:16.810]but they'll say what your rights are and a lot of times,
[01:02:19.160]they're talking about those rights
[01:02:20.380]and procedural safeguards.
[01:02:22.320]I truly didn't understand the importance of these
[01:02:24.880]until really I got my graduate degree
[01:02:26.897]and started working in it,
[01:02:28.790]but these are constitutional rights.
[01:02:31.690]And so once I've kind of put that together,
[01:02:34.230]it's like wow, these are really really important to know.
[01:02:37.480]But there's lots of good information
[01:02:40.600]out on the web, on the internet now.
[01:02:42.910]And I said, and then going to some trainings
[01:02:45.310]such as this can also help with that,
[01:02:47.310]and reaching out to parents
[01:02:48.510]who have been through the process
[01:02:49.343]or sometimes educators too, like the classroom,
[01:02:52.680]not the classroom teacher but maybe the special ed teacher
[01:02:55.114]will sit down and will go through it with you too
[01:02:57.920]if there's this kind of a sticking point
[01:02:59.590]or something you're not clear about,
[01:03:01.003]we can sit down with you as well.
[01:03:03.030]So there are lots of different options to help with that
[01:03:05.300]'cause it's not an easy read
[01:03:06.989]and if this is a new system to you,
[01:03:09.290]it's not gonna be necessarily easy to follow.
[01:03:12.040]Does that answer your question?
[01:03:13.937]Yes, yeah, I think those are some great ideas.
[01:03:17.840]There was a comment in the chat that just said,
[01:03:19.687]"Thank you for the information
[01:03:21.047]"and IEP is a lot of information parents take in,
[01:03:24.187]"and it's best to think of the parent perspective
[01:03:26.277]"rather than getting the meeting done."
[01:03:28.580]Absolutely, it absolutely is.
[01:03:31.630]And like I said, I love it when parents come in,
[01:03:34.357]they're very informed.
[01:03:36.220]I would say for the most part,
[01:03:37.610]the people that I've worked with over the years, we do.
[01:03:40.530]It's a very involved process and it changes.
[01:03:44.330]And sometimes, we realize that something a little,
[01:03:48.920]we need to be tweaking things,
[01:03:50.674]but it's an important process
[01:03:52.293]but you know what I love about the process
[01:03:54.566]is I've seen some very great authentic conversations
[01:03:58.270]about a child.
[01:03:59.530]I've seen people really pull together as a team
[01:04:02.720]and so I think it's a great process
[01:04:05.427]and I think that we're very fortunate
[01:04:07.080]in the United States to have that.
[01:04:09.510]My husband has family in Ireland
[01:04:11.101]and we've gone over to Ireland a few times
[01:04:13.569]and I've done some research on theirs,
[01:04:15.940]and they would love to have IEPs.
[01:04:18.230]They don't have a system in place,
[01:04:19.670]not every country has this.
[01:04:21.740]And I will tell you when it works, it works really well,
[01:04:24.880]and I've just seen lots of positives.
[01:04:27.110]I mean, I've seen where there have been hiccups
[01:04:29.060]and bumps in the road.
[01:04:30.400]I've seen where not everybody is really pleased
[01:04:32.370]with everybody, but for the most part,
[01:04:34.000]I would say about 95% of the time,
[01:04:36.240]I've been really lucky to just see
[01:04:37.810]some really great outcomes for it.
[01:04:43.690]I wonder if they're,
[01:04:45.830]now that we are all at home due to closure
[01:04:51.040]and we're kind of in this new time
[01:04:53.394]of doing those IEP meetings and stuff
[01:04:57.300]over Zoom or phone call,
[01:04:58.940]if there would be any specific things
[01:05:02.140]you would say to parents as far as anything different
[01:05:06.504]as opposed to participating in person?
[01:05:10.160]That's a really good question because as of a month ago,
[01:05:14.270]when we went on spring break,
[01:05:15.820]none of us here and I don't...
[01:05:19.570]And when I was in Gretna, we didn't have a spring break,
[01:05:21.726]I'm sure we do now in Nebraska, but it is different,
[01:05:27.940]but what I have found too is that there's also,
[01:05:31.830]because everybody's at home, we're so relieved
[01:05:33.702]to see one another and so happy to see one another.
[01:05:36.950]I think right now though,
[01:05:38.380]is that everybody has to realize
[01:05:39.760]is that like I can talk about our assessment piece.
[01:05:43.300]I can't provide assessment directly one on one
[01:05:46.130]to a student for a learning disability
[01:05:48.690]or an intellectual disability.
[01:05:49.960]I have to have that face-to-face,
[01:05:52.260]so that we have to make some allowances.
[01:05:54.129]And we also, we're talking to
[01:05:56.036]as far as getting parent information
[01:05:58.140]for some of our evaluations
[01:05:59.331]but parents are under a lot of stress right now.
[01:06:02.220]Some of them are having to work from home
[01:06:04.120]and educate their children at home.
[01:06:06.470]So I think it's important to know
[01:06:07.760]we're all a little more stressed
[01:06:09.240]and a little more discombobulated than we would be,
[01:06:12.680]but I think just having some of those conversations,
[01:06:16.018]just like letting each other know
[01:06:19.390]that this is working really well, this isn't.
[01:06:22.940]I see where this is a very different time
[01:06:25.450]but I also see where we can really get some,
[01:06:27.883]I don't think it's gonna be all that bad either.
[01:06:30.670]I think when we get to the other side,
[01:06:31.730]I think everybody is gonna have
[01:06:33.370]a deeper appreciation for the other party.
[01:06:38.470]Okay, well I don't see any other questions
[01:06:41.301]in the chat right now.
[01:06:43.920]So I'm going to go ahead and stop the recording
[01:06:46.890]and end the meeting.
[01:06:48.750]There will be a survey for all of you guys
[01:06:50.946]coming out after the conference
[01:06:52.710]if you would please take the time to fill that out.
[01:06:55.620]It really helps the conference team know what to bring you
[01:06:59.440]and what we can do better and what you really enjoy
[01:07:03.870]and wanna see more of, so thank you for taking the time
[01:07:06.980]to join and thank you, DeAnn for sharing your information.
[01:07:10.828]I see you just put your contact information
[01:07:13.409]on the slide there so I would encourage you guys,
[01:07:16.960]if you have further questions to send an email.
[01:07:20.500]Thank you all, I really, really enjoyed it.
[01:07:23.010]I'm looking forward to the time
[01:07:24.260]that we can get up there in person
[01:07:25.322]and I'll meet one another but it was really fantastic.
[01:07:27.792]Thank you very much.
[01:07:28.980]You were my first Zoom video ever and I really enjoyed it.
[01:07:31.900]You guys have a great day
[01:07:32.846]and write me if you have any questions,
[01:07:34.680]I'll do my best to answer it.
[01:07:35.940]Thank you, Jessica, for facilitating this.
[01:07:37.990]I appreciate your help.
[01:07:39.360]Absolutely, thank you.
[01:07:41.330]Take care, bye bye.

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10 Common Mistakes Parents Make in IEP Meetings

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