Current Issues and Best Practices in Special Education: A 2025 Guide for School Districts

David Bateman (00:00.398)

Okay, how'd you get that out?

Marisha (00:02.547)

Hello there and welcome to Special Ed Leaders Unplugged. I am really excited for our guest today. We have Dr. David Bateman. He is a principal researcher at the American Institute for Research and Professor Emeritus at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania. He's a former due process hearing officer for Pennsylvania for hundreds of hearings.

And he uses his knowledge of litigation relating to special education to assist school districts in providing appropriate supports for students with disabilities and to also prevent and recover from due process hearings. So he's a very established author as well. In the show notes, I'll put links to the books and the texts that he's co-authored.

as well as just a wealth of experience. and the people want to hear it from you. So you've clearly had a very extensive career over 30 years in special education in a lot of different roles. So what motivated you to focus on this field and guide schools through these complexities and kind of what led you here and.

David Bateman (01:10.146)

God, yeah, okay.

David Bateman (01:22.2)

Sure. Thank you for the introduction. I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you about it. I went to school to be, my goal was to go to law school. And my dad had told me so many jokes about lawyers that were not positive jokes. My dad was a superintendent of schools.

And told me about, I one of the things he constantly was saying to me about special education was that there was extensive litigation. And so when I told him that I wanted to go into special ed, he said, no, you don't because there's too much litigation. And it's not a positive experience for anyone. I didn't listen to him. So I went into special ed and very quickly, my undergrad major was government and foreign affairs with a minor in Soviet politics.

And what I decided to do is focus on the, I was really interested in the policy aspects of special education. The intricacies of how the first, how the policy was made, the history of this, how we got to where we are, and then how we resolve disputes when, because the law looks at trying to help us identify and provide for kids an appropriate education. The problem is appropriate is in the mind of the beholder.

And that's very tough, despite we've had two Supreme Court cases, one from the 1980s and one from seven years ago, that have sought to clarify this, that it makes it very difficult for school districts and families to understand what's going on. And so I just gradually evolved into this more. As part of my PhD program, I took a lot of classes at the law school at the University of Kansas. My advisor was a lawyer who had a joint appointment between the school of law

the Department of Special Education. And that's in fact why he, I went there and he recruited me for that. And then when I left there, we moved back to the East Coast to be closer to family. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania heard about my legal background and recruited me to be a due process hearing officer. And because I'd done some writings for some, for special ed administrators about what they needed to know about specialized law. And they, so I did that, I did that for a decade.

David Bateman (03:42.446)

adjudicated just shy of 600 due process hearings during that time and stopped for insurance reasons because my insurance went from $360 a year to $18,000 a year because of what's called the continuing effect. All the previous people can sue you kinds of things. And so I stopped doing that and I started working with at that time, mostly school districts to help them move forward and help decide first, do they have a case?

And then if they don't have a case, how to settle it and then what they should do to change it so that it doesn't happen to another child and move forward from there. All along I was doing this is I started finding instances where there was lack of awareness, a lack of knowledge on different things and I would write about it and started writing journal articles. Then I started writing books.

Like, for instance, one of the first books I wrote was a guide for principals about what they need to know about special education, because principals were testifying in due process hearings. And I had a principal really truly say this, is this IEP term, is this a building level term or district wide term, because I'm not sure what it means. And so I did some research and the vast majority of principals nationwide did not have to have any coursework or competencies relating to special education in order to become a building level administrator.

So I wrote that, I'd been a middle-income administrator, my dad had been one, so we wrote the, it was the first edition of the Principal's Guide to Special Education. The fourth edition of it just came out last week. And so we started with that process, but it was just kind of finding areas that people needed guidance to try to reduce litigation. That was my whole purpose, because people come to contact me all the time saying, what can I do to file litigation? I always say, don't, don't.

There's got to be a better way to work on this to solve this. And so I did a case study book. I did a special education administration textbook, legally compliant IEP textbook. And so we've got a variety of things in the works also coming up, but it was just trying to help reduce this and try to move it forward because school districts, I mean,

David Bateman (06:00.702)

They were dragged kicking and screaming into providing services for kids with disabilities. I say that because my brother-in-law was legally prevented from attending school for the first 17 years of his life. He's labeled as having profound intellectual disabilities. He needs help toileting. He needs help getting dressed. He's nonverbal. He knows maybe 10 signs of which eight relate to going to McDonald's right now.

And so, but he was legally prevented from attending school. And my wife and I, he's in his upper sixties now, my wife and I assumed care for him as my mother-in-law's like 94, 95. And so we, but it was preventable from, so families experienced this. And individuals with disabilities experienced this. And I just was trying to make it a way of trying to help people.

and just help move what's going on and do it with the rules and policies that we have now. Now, are the rules and policies we have right now great? They're not perfect, but it's what we have to live on. so actually working with individuals right now, we formed a working group on how to make recommendations about due process so that it improves things. But there's a lot to go on. And the problem is I wish I could say that I've been effective in reducing litigation.

I haven't, but I'm trying. I truly am trying on many levels. do a lot of workshops. I do a lot of case studies. I do a lot of Zoom sessions with school districts and how to help them move forward. And I know your original podcasts were speech language pathologists. And I just let you know, I love speech language pathologists. And let me explain why. Because when I do witness preparation for due process hearings,

Speech language pathologists have data every time they've worked with a child and they're a gem to do preparation for. Special Ed teachers don't have that. And so it makes it more difficult to actually prepare what's going on. So, and I do a lot of my writing with a speech path, who basically I write things and she makes me look good. And so it is what it is. So I really appreciate the service you provide.

Marisha (08:20.635)

Wow, what a I love the whole the whole getting to hear the whole progression and also a little bit of your personal why behind kind of the motivation behind the work that you do. That's great. And so if a district administrator is listening to this, I know this is a really broad question, but like if a district administrator is listening and maybe they're newer in their role or maybe and they're just worried about

litigation in general and they want to decrease their chances or someone who's had their fair share of litigation. It's like, okay, we don't want to get stuck in this rut. Like what suggestions, like what starting points would you recommend for them in terms of, okay, I want to reduce my district's chance of litigation. can we do?

David Bateman (09:10.542)

this is an easy one. Thank you. But it's also a great starter thing because our obligation, as I said a few minutes ago, our obligation is to provide an appropriate education. And appropriate is defined basically three different ways. so we have this then. And so I don't want to go like I'll do a long lecture on this, but I'll break it down pretty fast. The first part is we have to follow the procedures.

And so just make sure we're following the procedures. And this is why, for instance, special ed directors hound people to make sure that we have the right people in the room when we're having the IEP meetings, that we follow the timelines. Because the thought process is fair procedures makes fair outcomes. So it's a procedural aspect of this. And we need to make sure that we're following the fair procedures. So one of the things we need to think about is ensuring just basic legal compliance and consistency, that we're following the laws, the state laws.

And so like this. So what I would recommend, for instance, is just make sure that they stay updated on IDEA. And I'm going to shill something. it's a free thing. So is that OK? I have a blog that I do with Mitch Yell. And the blog is spedlawblog.com. And what we do is we put the most up-to-date things about legal things, legal cases out there, just to try to

Marisha (10:21.875)

Yeah, good point.

David Bateman (10:37.614)

keep people aware of what's going on. I wrote something that went up last week and it was basically tips for school districts that they can do in October and November to get ready for the December 1 child count because that's how they get all their reimbursement. And it's a big driving force for their income for their school district relating to kids eligible for special education related services. Because without that they would bomb. But there's some great tips there for things like this. Upcases, things like this.

I do a summary of the big articles out there on the mainstream press that they talk about special education out there. It's a free blog. never, ever, ever, we guarantee this, we're never going to try to sell you something on that blog. Because publishers have reached out to us saying, could you just plug this for me? Could you do this? And it's like,

No, that's not that's I feel like we would break the bond of we are we're not trying to we're not trying to get rich out this we're just trying to reduce litigation and help with this as much as possible and it's a way to provide appropriate services. So the first thing is just stay up to date and sped law blog is a great way, but also just periodically conduct compliance audits and encourage adherence to procedures, make sure we're following the procedures like evaluations, eligibility determinations.

And we're also implementing the IEP. But then document. There's a famous phrase that we have in litigation is that if it's not written down, it didn't happen. Make sure that we have really clear documentation of who's going on. So like, even if you have a conversation with a parent in a hall or in the parking lot, which is a lot of building level administrators have, memorialize that in an email follow-up. this is what we talked about, just so that there's something on there.

So we have an acronym in special education. I don't think it's a special acronym. It's called CYA. I don't remember what it stands for, but it's basically just trying to clarify that you have to keep documentation on these things. that's so that's the first thing. The second thing is I would emphasize appropriate training and professional development. I do a lot of workshops and I do a ton of workshops and I enjoy it. I have fun with it.

David Bateman (13:01.022)

And I parry questions fairly well with this, but there's some really good resources out there from like the Progress Center or from the IRIS Center or the center that I'm working on with at AIR right now called the LEAD IDEA Center. It's the new OSEP funded center that's going to train principals nationwide relating to their knowledge relating to special education. We're gonna have a whole bunch of resources available in the spring on this one.

but there's some great resources out there that are already. So what I would do is I often do workshops and say, here are some follow-up things you can do with your district to follow up because one-time trainings often don't do it. And so in fact, that's my new mantra with districts is I refuse to do one-time trainings. I'll come to your district, I'll do a workshop, and then we're gonna do a follow-up through Zoom because the nature of adult learning, as you think of the questions two weeks later, three weeks later.

or when you're interacting with their parents. You don't think of the questions right then. So just trying to help with that as much as possible, things like that. But then make sure, that was, is this the one? Yeah, the second one. Make sure you have really clear communication protocols about how to talk with families and train staff to not use jargon. Because we use jargon like crazy in special education. I mean, the best example I can give to you is I was in a meeting.

And I only go to the contentious ones. don't go to the happy ones anymore. But I was in a contentious IEP meeting and the parent finally turned to the teacher and said, is this Dibble's thing? Is this something I should pay attention to? Or is Dibble's the name of the classroom gerbil? I don't remember. And we, cause we use these terms and we don't, and parents don't understand standard scores and we don't do a good job of explaining standard scores to parents. We have to explain things, not as a way of talking down to them, but as a way of facilitating communication.

Because there's that little known statistic that if a child attends full day kindergarten does not miss a single day of school, by the time they're 18, they will be in school less than 10 % of their life. The rest of the time, they're the responsibility of the parents and the parents pick up a major responsibility afterwards. I can talk about that and the responsibilities that I have with my brother-in-law.

David Bateman (15:12.074)

And so it's interesting, we have to embrace the families and appreciate the families and help them as much as possible as part of this process, but have really clear communication. But then also, create, the other thing is to pay attention to, if there's one thing, and I alluded to this a few minutes ago when I was talking with you, if there's one thing that I could get districts to do, if there's just one thing, in fact, you guys can turn off this podcast after you hear this one thing.

There's one thing that I would recommend you do is dramatically increase your progress monitoring data. That bar none, because it's amazing because the vast majority of the lawsuits that I'm involved in, because school districts, they'll send me stuff. They'll send me stuff on a Thursday. And to see, for us to meet with a special ed director and superintendent on Monday. If I'm looking through the progress monitoring data on Thursday afternoon and Friday, there's no progress monitoring data.

I'm done. There's no reason to look at any additional information because first you can't, you don't know where the child is. You can't make informed decisions about what's going on. So when I say increase your progress monitoring data, what do I mean by this? Like in a nine week marking period, there are multiple districts I've worked with that have one data point per nine week marking period. as a speech, is your background speech path?

Yeah, so you understand how bad that is. And so it's, but yeah, it was, it was posed as a problem because so I asked, I asked them to graph that. They graph it. It's right here. You can't tell yay or nay where the child's going up or down. So I'm looking in a nine week market period, I'm looking for probably six to seven data points that give us some sense of what's going on. And people say, well, that's a lot of testing. It's not a lot of testing if done right, because you have to think about it as, as I'm to use an analogy, the difference between a series of snapshots versus long videos.

a five minute probe here, a 10 minute probe there, you can get a lot of data on a child about what's going on. You don't have to give them a two hour test every single time. By doing this, you can get a really good indication of what's going on. But then use that data for something. Because there's an acronym we have in special education law called, it's a real lab acronym, it's not one of my made up ones. It's KUSHK, K-O-S-H-K, K-O-S-H-K.

David Bateman (17:34.73)

It stands for when a district knew as in K-N-E-W or should have known. Knew or should have known, K-O-S-H-K. The vast majority of the cases I'm involved in are what I refer to as KUSHC cases. They knew that the child was not making progress. The best example I can give you is about two years ago. A district knew at the end of the first marking period a child was really having problems.

and did nothing, okay? They knew at the end of the second market period, he was being kicked out of his science and social studies classes four out of five days a week because of his behavior problems. They knew at end of the second market period, he was not doing well. They did nothing. They knew at the end of the third of the market, at the end of the third of the market period, they knew that he was not doing well. And they said, it's too late to make changes. We'll make changes next year. They knew at the end of the first market period, he was not doing well, all right?

My question for you is, who's the slow learner here? They knew at the end of the first Morgan period, he was not doing well and did not make changes. This child has a disability at no fault of his own. And what we need to think about doing is making sure that we're providing appropriate services. And so he didn't choose to have learning disabilities. It's not like he woke up that day. I'll have LD because it's easy to spell. Next week I'll have autism because they have better bumper stickers.

But then he chose, he has a disability and we have to think about what can we do? So use that data to make changes, make changes, but take data and then make changes on it. If I could get districts to do that, I think I would solve probably 80 % of the special education litigation. And that would be a huge asset for life. And I mean that literally. That would solve things and that would prevent problems down the road.

because you would have data because people come to me all the time. I actually wrote a book on how to prepare for due process hearings and people come to me and say, it's hard to prepare. If you have data, it's not hard. You have complete control over the kid from the moment they get on the bus to the moment they get off the bus. Take data out the wazoo and from other places too, but take data. And then you have this data that you can make informed decisions. And if you don't do this, yeah, we're gonna settle. We're gonna settle. And...

David Bateman (19:54.888)

And the vast majority of cases settle because we don't have data. I appreciate the fact that you're like, I'm going to stand up on this one. Okay, here we go. We're standing up. But it's basically the ability to make informed decisions based on data is valuable. And do that because without that, you are shooting in the dark. And you can't say yes or no, whether what you've done for the child is appropriate or not.

That was a long answer to a very good question by the

Marisha (20:27.419)

Yeah, I love that. Well, maybe not this scenario, but that was a really nice explanation. So it sounds like the biggest barrier that we've got here is that lack of data collection. what is so that seems because I was going to ask, like, why have we been so unsuccessful at reducing litigation? And it sounds like the short answer to that would be.

David Bateman (20:31.054)

Yes.

David Bateman (20:43.65)

Yes.

Marisha (20:56.071)

data collection, why is it like, why is this so challenging to implement?

David Bateman (21:03.22)

because people think it takes time. Because first, well, basically the complexity of special education. We can sit here, you and I can go through the black letter differences of what the law is, but it's the gray areas. It's the gray areas that you have to deal with. And that's where the nuances mean the whole term appropriate.

is where most of the litigation lies is what is appropriate for me may not be appropriate for you and may not be appropriate for a parent. appropriate is very much in the IDB holder. And so that's the hard part. And the Supreme Court did give us a little bit of guidance to provide assistance on this, but they didn't give, think, enough to help with this because they're there. Luckily, people are pushing, trying to push what push the envelope on this.

because just awareness on this. So to the complexity of the law. The second thing, mean, resources. I mean, almost all the school districts that I talk about talk with are having trouble getting staff. And I mean this literally, they're having trouble. I mean, there's one of my cases right now, what would solve the case, what would solve the case would be a paraprofessional who has five years of extensive

behavior management training, has great references and is Orton Gillingham certified. right. That would, a paraprofessional who were going to pay like 12 bucks an hour with those credentials. Yeah, that would solve a lot of cases. What I'm looking for is a unicorn there. And that's, it's not happening. But in many of the districts I'm working with, we're just excited that we have people who apply who are breathing.

And so it poses a problem. So we have resources difficulties, but resource, we have personnel issues. The other thing is we're constantly retraining staff because the average special education teacher doesn't last that long. And so we're constantly having to re-up what's going on as a part of this. And that poses a problem for the level of consistency because a teacher who's been out there for one month is held to the same legal standard as someone who's been out there for 15 years. And so we have to think about that. I've got all sorts of suggestions.

David Bateman (23:28.558)

tips of what we can do to pair a new teacher with a previous one and mentor them as a part of this process. But you have to think about this. also, but so we have to think about the training. But the other thing about this is the stakes for the family. The stakes for the family is really high because many of these families are wrestling with issues that are make it difficult for them.

And I mean, my in-laws, they couldn't go to restaurants. Restaurants at that time would legally say, don't bring his type here. They chose their place of worship based on, because my father-in-law moved, they moved fairly often. They chose their place of worship based on where they, places that would allow him to come. And he didn't make any noises. They just didn't want to see him. And he has some facial features that indicate that he has a disability. So families are dealing with restraints. They couldn't get babysitters. And so,

My wife, never went out to eat when she was younger. And it was just standard practice, despite the fact that he shows signs of Prader-Willi syndrome. They would love to have a restaurant take him and they would pay for it. it wasn't a money issue, but it was those kinds of things. So there were constraints on this, but also just understanding the differences of where we are with this. And so the big thing is the inadequate or inconsistent, not consistent training.

And so that's why I said earlier, the use of the Iris modules, the use of the Progress Center videos, I was a senior advisor to the Progress Center, and then use of the lead IDA stuff that's coming out in the spring will be great resources. so I'm, in fact, like tomorrow I'm going to the case conference in Atlanta, and with all the special ed administrators, and I'm gonna be meeting with a lot of people while I'm there.

just trying to help them just solve some of these problems because it's not your district that has this problem solely, it's many of these districts that are having this. And so that makes it very difficult. yeah, you let me rant again. You're very good about this. Okay.

Marisha (25:36.627)

No, and I love getting to hear your insight. This is really helpful. And so from your perspective, and we've touched on some of these already, I think, but what are the most pressing issues facing special education as a whole?

David Bateman (25:58.382)

Well, the big thing is resources. is staffing shortages and just high turnover. Because the shortages increase caseloads, causes burnout among staff, and just reduces the quality of the individualized instruction and support for these kids. And that poses a significant problem. I wish it. I wish we had better funding. And that's an easy answer. Congress has

When we passed the law back in the 70s, Congress said they would pay up to 40 % of the excess costs of the special education services provided for these kids. They've ever paid as 20%. So Congress has never appropriated the amount of money that they told districts about this. But it makes it difficult. limited resources can mean insufficient materials, outdated technology, just lack of training opportunities, which undermine the effectiveness of all the specialist services.

The other things, issues, is basically equitable access to services. And I want to just talk about disproportionality issues, is that we've had some issues relating to special education where we've been overly identifying individuals of certain ethnic classes for special education, and we need to do better job of providing appropriate instruction. I mean, I'm speaking to you as a male. We over identify males, and I think we under identify females.

especially for the category of autism. And so we need to think more about appropriate supports for these individuals and helping identify these individuals, but we need to do a better job of this. And we need to make sure that we're providing equitable access to these things to help them with this. The push towards least restrictive environment and what we need to think about this.

is I can give you some, if you want, I can go on a tangent about horror cases relating to least restrictive environment things, where districts were doing stupid things spelled with two O's. But it's interesting about this. You want me to? I'll go, I'll go. Yeah. All right, so there was a district I was working with where the reason I was involved with this is ninth grade brothers, fraternal twins, one eligible for special education, one not. The one eligible for special education was labeled as having intellectual disability.

Marisha (28:06.875)

Yeah, let's go.

David Bateman (28:22.818)

because they were both backup guards on the football team. That's an important point in a second. Because he was eligible for special education, he had to ride the special ed bus to school. So he would get picked up 20 minutes before his brother, ride all around the county, get to school after his brother. There was other requirements because he was in the special education class. Because he was in the special education class, he had to eat at the special ed table at lunch.

everyone else in the high school got to eat at the table they wanted. Because he was in the special education class, he also had to walk with a teacher at our aid at all times in the building. He did not need a special bus, he did not need special instruction for eating, he did not need anything. But decisions were being made based on his disability label, not based on his individual need. Wait, it gets worse.

he's a ninth grade boy, he's a backup guard on the football team, he can dunk a basketball. But because he was in the special education class, he was required to take adapted PE. I'm going out on a limb here. I'm gonna say if you can dunk a basketball, you don't need adapted PE. Just call me crazy. But it's interesting about this. And the last thing, and this is really interesting, is all the teachers in the building labeled their classes

by the subject matter that they taught. So the English teacher taught English, the French teacher put hers in French, the Spanish teacher in Spanish, the science teacher, things like this, the special ed teacher had special ed. And the kids did not want to go there. They didn't want to be known as eligible for special education. All he really wanted was he wanted to sleep in 20 minutes, ride the bus with his brother, sit with his football friends at lunch, walk through the hall and not take a dab to PE.

Again, decisions were being made based on his disability label, not based on his individual needs. And we've got to focus on that. We've got to focus on the fact that we do these things without thinking about what the kids really need and we need to pay more attention to what's going on about that. You're very gracious by the way. So, okay.

Marisha (30:37.979)

Yeah, no, that's great. so the, do you think have been the biggest changes over the past several years? Like have you seen any shifts in the landscape?

David Bateman (30:53.938)

Yes. COVID was not good to special ed. And I mean that. I say that because there's been, we're now starting to see the litigation that has filtered up through the due process hearings reach federal court level. And so we're seeing some of those cases really get there, despite the fact that COVID is for many of us in our, hopefully in our rear view mirror.

But it's, so that was not good. We have to remind ourselves that these kids are entitled and need an appropriate education. So other things we've seen is other things. And it's a positive thing is the rise of MTSS or multi-tiered systems of supports. I think it's wonderful. And we have to think it not just about academics, because too often we think about it solely as academics. We also have to think about it relating to behaviors.

and working to help address this. Because one of the things, I was a professor for many years, I'll be candid with you, new teachers don't get good enough training on behavior management, and that is often why they leave the profession. So one of the tips I give to school districts is among the many tips, and I have a lot of tips. One of the tips I give to school districts is we give reading coaches and instructional coaches, we need to give more behavior coaches to teachers.

to help them with this, to help address this, because that's what's frustrating them and how to actually deal with what's going on. We do a really good job of how to organize lesson plans, go through developmental levels, things like this, but we don't do a good job of how to actually respond. And we need to do a better job of this and provide appropriate supports for this. The other things that, the other thing, other changes, hopefully this is a result of just the Ender F Supreme Court case in 2017, is the expanded role of data.

and progress monitoring, is we need to do a better job of this. We need to use data adjustments more frequently, as I said before, ensuring the supports are actually responsive to each student's evolving needs and meet the standards and demand that we make sure that we're providing progress for these kids. And they're not just wallowing things like this. Other things, increased focus on transition planning.

David Bateman (33:13.016)

Transition planning for life after high school has become more significant focus with schools implementing structure supports to help provide students in vocational independent living and social skills, not just preparing them for college. But there's another area that you would think, why didn't you talk about this first? Is the advancements in assistive technology. The rapid growth in assistive technology has transformed how students are accessing learning.

But one thing, is, I'm sidelining this one, is too often what we're doing for these kids is we're giving them an assistive technology device and they were not then monitoring whether it actually solves the problem. And I can make a parallel to the same with one-on-one aids. We think just by placing a child with a one-on-one aid that that's going to solve the problem. We need to take data.

So what I recommend for districts, if you give a kid a device, whatever the device is, whatever, I don't care what the device is. My daughter taught at a school where most of the kids use Proloque, a wonderful app for the iPad, but look at it three, four weeks later, has it solved or mitigated the problem it was intended to solve? As opposed to just placing and just hoping that it works out, because too often that's what we do. I'm serious, we do that, but then we don't monitor what's going on. The same thing with classroom aids.

we we we thought we're to provide an aid for the classroom. Does it solve or mitigate the problem the student has? If it doesn't, then you need to try something else as opposed to just just hoping it's working and then just bury your head in the sand and assuming it's not there. But we need to we need to do a better job of monitoring this and monitoring what's going on because I can guarantee a question from if you were going to do processing.

I can guarantee a question from parents council would be, okay, so you gave this kid this assistive technology device, did it work?

David Bateman (35:13.622)

If you can't answer that, then what the heck? Why do it? Okay? It's better for us to try something and then see if it works. And if it doesn't try something else and then try something else and try something else. First, it's legally defensible, but it's also better for the child. It's better for the child to say that, well, we spent all this money on this technology device and you can't get it to work. No, we actually have to provide instruction for these kids on these things. And so keep that in mind. Okay? There's also,

There's been a, I'm just going through my head. There are notes on the inside of my glasses. You can't see them. Growing focus on behavioral and mental health supports. The demands relating to mental health supports are dramatic. I wrote a book called Trauma Informed IEPs, which sad to say is getting a lot of press. And I wish it wasn't the case, but there's a lot of kids who have experienced trauma in one form or another. And we need to think about

Marisha (35:49.491)

you

David Bateman (36:12.59)

how we can provide appropriate IEPs for them to help with this and then appropriate then instruction for this. But it is what it is to help with this. I think that's enough right now. But yes, but there's just off the top of my head, those are things that I think we all need to pay attention to and we all need to address. And they're all valuable because it's an ever evolving field. And I'm still learning.

you paid that I've been involved in 30 years. God, it made me sound old. But it's interesting about this. I dinner with my college roommate from last night and we realized that we'd known each other for a long time. And so, and he was bald and looked old and luckily I don't look bald or old. So it's interesting about this, but he made fun of me anyway. But it's interesting about this is that there's so much to learn and it's evolving. so first, for anyone who's listened this far, I applaud you for taking the time

to extend your learning. I applaud you for becoming increasingly engaged. I applaud you for wanting to do a better job of what you're doing, because there's many people who are shutting down. And so the fact that you're continually evolving on this is to your credit, because educators get a bad rap. I come from a family of educators. My dad was my superintendent of schools. My daughter is a special ed teacher. My sister's a reading specialist.

My son, he's going to be a teacher someday. He doesn't know it. He's involved in the cryptocurrency world. But it's interesting about this. And my wife, my wife works at, she was a professor for many years and now she works in guide services at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home. It's on the back of the nickel. It looks about the same. What's interesting about that is that it's, come from, but we get, educators get a bad rap.

that they take things easy. So I applaud people for listening to this. And I appreciate the fact that you're working to try to improve the services for kids. you should be, you should be, I really do mean this. It's a good thing that you're doing this.

Marisha (38:18.791)

Yeah. And I think that's a really nice note to kind of start closing in on or wrapping up with. then I've always just one last question that I had. So for, cause there's clearly a lot of hurdles in terms of, especially if we're in a district with limited resources, we're struggling to find people. We're trying to like training people is really hard if you don't even have the people to train and you're just trying to.

get all of those pieces together. So can, like, maybe just to wrap up, do you, can you share maybe like your top three strategies? Cause there have to be like special education administrators out there who are kind of making some progress and figuring things out despite those hurdles and challenges. could you pinpoint a couple of the things that seem to be helpful?

David Bateman (39:19.884)

Yes, yes. I probably got some sense I could go on about this for a while. But first, make sure that you think about implementing across your district as much as possible MTS multi-tiered systems of support, because the vast majority of the kids come to school not eligible for special education related services. And we need to make sure that we're doing this.

So we need to train both general and special education teachers in MTSS. There are really good resources out there. There's the MTSS Center. There's a good module at the Iris Center. But focus on using data to identify students who need supports before issues really escalate. Basically, make sure that you're using regular progress monitoring to help adjust interventions based on real-time data, which can prevent this. Use available free or low-cost assessment intervention tools. Just build these things.

Just help with us, okay? Prioritize professional development in cost-effective practices. Basically, make sure your teachers are trained and provide effective support to reduce the need for extensive, costly external services. Behavior management, inclusive instruction, collaboration, like the IRIS Center or the Progress Center have really good modules on this one. But going back to this is,

you said three, I'm gonna come up with four, I apologize, is work closely with the families. Trust and empower the families. Most people can, most families can handle things as long as it's not a surprise. Make sure that you keep them fully informed about what's going on, that you talk with them on a regular basis and engage them and listen to them. I mean, I start every single IEP meeting that I attend with parent.

Tell us about your child. Because what that does is it grounds us. It grounds us that we're there to talk about a child. We're not just there for a paperwork compliance document. We're there to talk about a child who has needs. it's amazing what I've learned. It's amazing what I've learned from these things. And so we have to remind ourselves of this, is that we listen to this. And the last thing, I reiterated this about a half hour ago or so, but is to dramatically increase your progress monitoring data.

David Bateman (41:47.786)

not just on academics, but on behaviors. So I train people all the time, like just a little sticky pad, just like this. Just number of times a kid gets out of their seat, just a frequency count. Number of times they go to the bathroom. Number of times that they talk out. Just little things like this. Just a frequency count. It doesn't have to be fancy stuff. But then also compare that to the average child in the classroom, so we have some sense, yeah or nay, is that a lot of things.

but just frequency counts or duration counts. How long does the kid go to the bathroom for? I'm not talking, I'm not asking what the kid does in the bathroom. I just want a duration count to this. I'm not talking about fancy stuff like latency data. I'm talking about just basic, just frequency and duration, which is easy stuff that a teacher can implement while they're doing things. Like the number of times a kid, when they're in the playground, how many times do they actually interact with other kids on the playground? How many times do they actually interact with others at end of lunch room?

because some of these kids are really socially isolated and they're having trouble interacting with others. And we need some, just some data to reference this. So we can make decisions based on this. So you asked for three, I gave you four. I apologize. talk a

Marisha (42:58.835)

love a good bonus. But those are really great suggestions. yeah, I'm, I'll, we'll have like a quick summary in the show notes as well. So if you're listening to this, we took some notes for you. And then I'll also share links to David's website and books and publications and all of that, as well as the different resources he mentioned, like for professional development.

David Bateman (43:00.386)

Yes.

Marisha (43:27.907)

and just any citations were able to find, put together to help you navigate this. but this was really great. Thank you so much for being so generous with your time and your expertise. I feel like we could have 5 million follow-up podcast episodes on all of these topics. but I appreciate you kind of helping keeping it broad with me and kind of getting the discussion started. So thank you.

to the listeners. hope this was a good start.

David Bateman (44:00.614)

Thanks, Marcia. I really appreciate your time. I really appreciate what you're trying to do. And I applaud you for this. Thank you so very much for your efforts. All right. Please let me know what else I can do for you guys.

Marisha (44:07.345)

Yeah, like rice right back at you.

Marisha (44:13.575)

Great, thank you so much.

David Bateman (44:15.406)

All right, good.