Justin Thomas

Marisha (00:01)

Hello there and welcome to the Special Ed Leaders podcast. I am really looking forward to another episode. Today we are focusing all on inclusion and co-teaching and we have Dr. Paula Cluth with us. She is the founder of Inclusion Rules and she is a consultant, author, advocate, independent scholar.

And she works with teachers and families to provide inclusive opportunities for students with disabilities and to create more responsive and engaging schooling experiences for all learners. And she has an incredible wealth of knowledge and experience. She's worked as a K through 12 special educator. She's also worked at the university level. And this bio does her absolutely no justice.

But let's hear a little bit from Dr. Pollack-Cluth on her story. So, hello. Hi.

Paula Kluth (01:03)

Hi,

I'm really excited to be with you. I know we've been had many months in the planning. This is great. And that's already just a fantastic bio. But I'll just add the more personal piece to it is, you're right, I've been working as a teacher and working in education settings for a long time. And that's the course of piece that I'm most proud of. And I've been working in teacher ed for quite some time.

Marisha (01:09)

Okay.

Paula Kluth (01:32)

most recently doing in-service work with folks. I really, I love telling kind of my origin story with this because I feel like it's so relevant for what we do in schools. I really got started in, my interest in this because when I was a senior in high school, kids with kind of more complex support needs were brought back from kind of a separate setting into my high school. I wouldn't call it exactly inclusion.

But I became connected, I got connected to that teacher because she was so good at reaching out to kids and she had a great big influence on me. I always say that she wasn't even supposed to be my teacher and she was my best teacher and so think that's a lesson for all of us. We're not gonna probably get into this this workshop, but in this session I should say, but I always say that 100 % of the adults in the school should be there for 100 % of the kids, at least in ideology and.

in the sort of the spirit. And so she was really there. those were also my first friends with disabilities and she was responsible for that. So kind of got the bug. And so I always talk about when people say, are the, what's the impact of inclusion on other kids? Like I, I'm so passionate about that. Cause you could say I'm one of the other kids and it's just given me this great, great experience and career. But we'll of course go beyond some of the anecdotal evidence as we chat.

But yeah, I've been doing kind of a little bit of everything. And as you said, I was at the university, most recently Syracuse University. And so I am interested in those elements of research. And I've been very interested in practice as much or more so in the last few years. But basically everything I've been doing is coming into schooling environments.

and helping folks to either solve problems or kind of have a vision about what environments, what we can do in school settings to open our doors wider and create like sort of the healthiest and most accessible and appropriately challenging learning experiences for all kids. And so that's, guess, what brings me here to be chatting with you.

Marisha (03:47)

Yeah, what an incredible mission. I love that. so for, so it sounds like you do some really amazing consulting work and supporting with districts, but some districts might not be as familiar with inclusion and all of the things that we're talking about today. So can we make sure that we're all on the same page and chat about like what the, your definition of inclusive?

an inclusive classroom or an inclusive education is and kind of what that might look like.

Paula Kluth (04:19)

Sure.

So, you know, think that most, the shared definition I think that most folks have is that, you know, inclusion is about bringing students with and without disabilities into a shared context, you know, of course, with supports and services, you know, as we are reminded of in the law. But a lot of times that language is about, you know, just space itself.

And that kids learning together, not just in the classroom, but in all kinds of contexts, right? In extracurricular activities and even beyond. So that's important and thinking about placement, but there's also sort of a spirit to this work too. So what's sort of the, you know, the essence of it or your goal? And so what's really exciting in the last decade or so as the United Nations has even weighed in on this, which again, it's mind blowing how much evolution there's been since I started.

And the United Nations have talked about barriers. They've talked about the sort of the social model of disability. so in reminding us that inclusion isn't just about what we're doing in the space or where kids receive services, but thinking about the spaces differently. So that's about, you know, we want to think about the removing of barriers. Inclusion is about assessing bias in, you know, in these spaces. It's about systematic reform. It's about, you know, creating the

best possible spaces for all kids, including those kids without identified needs. So it's about how we think about families, you all families and being welcoming. So I'm paraphrasing, of course, from the UN, but I like that idea that it's not just about, you know, the focus isn't just on families, you know, of kids with disabilities or kids with disabilities, but like, what is the, you know, the universal design of it all? Are we thinking in advance about, is this truly a community for all?

And so that's really helpful. And then I also think there's an element of like looking at just communities and democratic learning communities and looking at inequities. so, you know, I just finished, did, I have a book called, You're Gonna Love This Kid, which is about autism and inclusion. And so I just had to kind of rewrite the definition and it was really nice to see after, you know, all these years like,

That definition has really evolved a lot from thinking about sort of the basics to thinking about a dynamic. It's like what we do as educators and then how we're thinking about kids and it's about sort of not just, you know, what those elements about planning, but it's also about having a vision about what is possible. Can I add one thing to that? I know I'm talking a lot about the first question.

But one of the things that we had talked about as we were prepping is you said, do you think there's confusion about the definition? And I just always like to add that I think it's really important. So the answer is yes, because I thought that was a really good question that you had. And the answer is yes. And I think it's really important to always be talking about what we mean by inclusion, even if we're two colleagues. Like I'm a special ed director and you're a principal.

What do you mean when you say inclusion because we could be having a dialogue for ten years and we're not even on the same page and we don't even realize it and in fact I mean, this is this sounds like a shameless plug, but it's really just I'm really just trying to say how much I think about this is I have a whole book called don't we already do inclusion because I found that everybody was saying this is inclusion or that's inclusion or don't we already do this and really it came down to the shared definition, so I always say

your definition might not be mine. So it's really important that not only we have a shared definition, but that we have to realize, yes, we're doing inclusion, but that target is a moving target. And this work is aspirational. And what I mean by that is the technology is changing and how, and it is helping us to uncover ability in so many kids. You know that as an SLP, what we thought was possible 10 and 20 years ago, what we're seeing kids, what they're able to do on some of these, you know.

augmentative communication systems that they're now getting access to, it's a different person. And so that technology is evolving. The law is actually changing and evolving. Our definitions are evolving. Our understanding of these principles, like justice, are evolving. we're, I always say, I'll borrow from Nike, we, there's no finish line. We're just always gonna be looking at this target. So we have to constantly talk about it.

Marisha (08:51)

Yeah. And it's interesting because I've had some conversations in previous episodes regarding inclusion from a legal perspective. And that is about as clear as mud when you're analyzing that. So I love that you were able, like, this will be a really great snippet to remember of just when we're thinking about what inclusion is and how we're implementing it and that there is no finish line. I love that.

Paula Kluth (09:06)

You

That's right.

Marisha (09:21)

why is inclusion so important for SPED administrators to focus on? We obviously have the legal aspect.

Paula Kluth (09:33)

Yes. Well, and I think that's one of the most important. I mean, I think this is a very good snippet. And I know that you have a lot of administrators listening. I always think that what's really hard for administrators is that there can be a misconception. I'm not saying everywhere that I have to get everybody on board and we have to believe in this work. And even if that term isn't used, it's sort of.

you know, it's sort of lives there a little bit in some spaces. So I even work with this and I'm telling you, incredible administrator. And she had a whole event that was like, you know, it was sort of focused on this idea of like buy in and beliefs. And I love that. I mean, I'm not going to lie. Inclusion is part of my own value system. So I'm not going to lie about that. That's true. However, if we as administrators are focusing our, you know, our energy,

around this idea of getting the buy-in in the way that we're talking about in terms of values, that might be some wasted energy because the minute I meet somebody that says, I'm so sorry, that's just not part of my, I'm not into that, I'm not into inclusion. We are defeated in a sense, right? So there's nothing wrong with sort of putting your ethic out there, but really this boils down to two things. And whenever I feel like push comes to shove or somebody says I'm in it with this particular, I'm in it with a, you know,

another professional and they're challenging me around this. I say, take all that stuff out of it about your own. Go right to the two core elements, the research and the law. And that's where you live. That's all it is. We don't have to debate it because the as you said, there is a lot of there's, the law can be there's some wiggle room there. On the other hand, it is a solid of a foundation as we have right now. And

there's a lot of nice language in there. I mean, starting with FAPE, of course, but also looking at LRE and even some of the more recent circuit court decisions. There was a great, I don't wanna go too far down this road, but if your listeners don't know about the Hyde decision, H-Y-D-E, Hyde, the Luca Hyde, I think I'm saying that right, decision, that's a circuit decision that's a handful of years old. And I wanna say it's...

I'm not going to guess. I think I know where it is, but I'm not going to guess. But I, this judge was so clear about what LRE means in terms of this was a child with Down syndrome. But essentially the district was making the claim that this child could not be included because he's basically, he's not anywhere near the other students. He's not, he doesn't look like them. doesn't act like them. his, standards he is accessing are different.

that kind of thing. And they fought and fought and this went on for years. And finally the family prevailed, actually twice there was an appeal. And the judge essentially said the yardstick is not about catching up. You don't have to be even close in terms of grade level. The yardstick is can the child achieve growth and success in their own IEP, in their own personal goals. And of course these kids are gonna be accessing general ed standards as well.

but that's one of the more recent victories. And so I think there is some legal language that we can hang on to there. And then the other element going to the research is there's just such exciting research right now. And so I don't have to get blue in the face like I had to maybe 30 years ago. The study that I think everybody needs, the two studies I think everyone should know about, and I normally wouldn't do this on the podcast, but you know your district administrators want these because they don't have time, right?

But the Sandy Cole study, COLE out of Indiana, and there's a couple there that are actually incredible. And it's sort of a, it's a long-term tracking of these, I call them sort of developmental twins, kids that were matched on all kinds of criteria. And they looked at this group of kids that looked very, very similar in elementary school. They caught up with them later in late middle school. And they looked at these kids that were identical nearly.

in terms of these characteristics. And then what did they look like later and what were their placements? And they found that the kids that were included far outperformed kids that were not included and that was across all disability groups. I can't do it justice, but if you look up the Cole study, think Edutopia, I think did a nice piece on it. There was a high school study that was paired with that that showed very similar things. And then the other study that I think everybody needs to know about in terms of...

inclusion is the Cathy G study, GEE. And that's a piece that looked at kids with complex support needs. So these kids are not at grade level. They're not taking those assessments. And so they had to do a lot of observation over the years. I think, I believe the Cathy G study on inclusion and inclusion environments was a 2019 or 2020 study. And again,

Same kind of thing. We're seeing kids that aren't, they're not at grade level, they're not even close. And their outcomes in terms of all of these measures, academics, what they could assess, but also related skills. And so that's where we have to keep the conversation. It's not like it's not, I mean, I love to connect with others that have those values, but really when we're in the schools making these, especially in public schools making these decisions, that's where we have to center everything.

As you can tell, I feel quite passionately about that because you run into lots of barriers and so it's a safe space in many ways.

Marisha (15:20)

Yeah, and I really appreciate this conversation too, because I've heard a lot of conversations on the other side where you have to get your staff in alignment with your values. Like you have to hire in alignment with that. But you're saying that, no, it's the law and there's research supporting it. so we don't have, I mean, it's always nice to have in alignment. Yeah.

Paula Kluth (15:42)

That's right. It's always like, you don't always pick your staff. And there is

a difference between, think somebody could have like really great values around kids, but just for some reason, not know the research or not understand the law and think, I think this is, they're the kind of person that you want, but they just, they're unaware of that. And so that happens too. So I don't disagree with the idea of building culture. I guess I should clarify that or having folks that have similar ways of thinking about the work that all makes sense to me.

Marisha (16:01)

Mm-hmm.

Paula Kluth (16:12)

I guess I'm just trying to say that if we're always having a conversation about inclusion as it, then it's just my values against yours. Like we have to take it down to the same place that we take literacy instruction or any other conversation is why are we ignoring this, these two bodies.

Marisha (16:28)

Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And then what are some of the best, and we, so I think you already shared these, like the Sandy Cole study, the Cathy G study. Do you have any other favorite examples of like the documented benefits of inclusion? Okay, let's talk about it.

Paula Kluth (16:47)

Do I? How long do you have? Yes, well,

the other, I I am, I'm not even like a big, know, I'm not like as, I should say, like as severe as some of my colleagues about like scrolling away research, but I do like, I do love collecting this because it ends up being the bread and butter for a lot of other conversations. So those are studies that I'm super excited about at the moment, but you know, there's also this,

I just have to go back a little bit in my history. So my history is that I am a teacher by training of kids with complex support needs. when I, I'm 55. So when I was getting my certificate, it was in severe and profound, you know, that's what we called it. And so all of these families that I would meet through those first, like especially 20 years, they would be sold a story. And the story was you can either have really great, you know, training for life.

I mean, that was sort of the language. can, we can either teach your kid how to live, you know, interdependently or independently. We can teach your kid life skills. We can teach your kid functional skills, or you can have inclusion. But you can't have both. And so that, even if that wasn't said, it was always the spirit of this. And I mean, I've worked with so many parent groups and if I've heard this once, I have literally heard it a thousand times. Is like, have, you know, we have to, we.

We can't be focused on all of those things, essentially. And so parents would sometimes feel almost bullied, like I can't have it, so they're telling me, so you don't want your kid to have a good life? You just wanna put them in inclusion? So they would be like, what should I do? And so it's always hard to guide a parent because I'm not there working with that school and I'm not that teacher and things like that. But what's so nice now is to have this research that is very much flies in the face of that way of thinking. So there was this...

analysis, I guess an Australian consortium or something like that, that put together this great collection of inclusion resources a handful of years ago. And one of the

the, I guess, pieces of information in their, in that collection is this glimpse at benefits for kids with disabilities that go beyond academics. So things like kids with disabilities are, who are included are less likely to have a disciplinary.

Kids who are included are more likely to belong to a school group. Kids who are included are more likely to have competitive employment. Kids who are included are more likely to live independently. So that kind of flies in the face of some of those messages that folks are getting. And the other piece that I think is interesting is, know, we just keep seeing other, I don't spend a ton of time in those circles around like, you know, transition. I mostly work with school-age kids.

But there is a researcher named Leslie Shaw, and I just emailed her this week. She's in Cornell, at Cornell, and she did a study, or she's engaged in a project, I should say, that looks at transition and outcomes and success, specifically in autism. That's what she's doing.

So I just asked her, there a white paper yet? And she said, we're working on that part. We're working at getting the data out. So I just found a press release and she said that it will come, but we don't have it yet. So it's Leslie Shaw at Cornell for those who are listening. And she looked at all of these markers. So like, what are all of the things that help somebody have a successful post, you know, post-school outcome? And it was over like something like two dozen things that they looked at.

and what is the number one element that pointed towards this positive outcome, inclusive education. So that was another, so I asked her, said, I need that information. She said, it will come, it's coming. But again, just another tally in the column to say, like, this is really important for families to know as much as it is for teachers to know. So it's important for all of us to understand that it can feel sometimes, you know, that,

you know, that this is sort of a path away from preparing for living for certain kids, but we just don't have that kind of data. We also see other kinds of outcomes, you know, for you being an SLP, that Cathy G study that I referenced, amazing outcomes around communication for kids with complex support needs, kids that learned new systems, new vocabulary, had more language.

And that makes sense to me when you're in this robust context. I wrote a whole book, this is like old, this is not even a recommendation, but I wrote a book called A Land We Can Share. was like maybe the first book on autism and literacy. And so we wrote all about like, what does that context mean for kids, especially kids with complex support needs or higher needs. And so it wasn't surprising to me at all to see that data, that kids who were eavesdropping on conversations, kids that were having, they were with competent communication partners all day long.

Other kids are interested in the tech, so they're modeling some of these things. That wasn't a surprise to me at all to see some of that. So we see achievement. There was a study from Jenny Curth at Kansas a handful of years ago looking at literacy outcomes for kids with disabilities. that was autism. And again, just the same kind of story over time. So I think, again, it's really important to understand that this isn't just about academics and then

just about, or just about some of these adjacent outcomes, like they're all important to talk about and they're all relevant to this conversation.

Marisha (22:52)

Yeah, I absolutely agree. thank you for kind of, I'll add to the different articles and things that you've mentioned in the show notes for anyone who wants to dive in deeper, but having these resources as a jumping off point is beautiful. I love it.

Paula Kluth (23:03)

Yes. And I can help you too, Marisha.

We can build some of those other links in that for the show so that if we, if you can't find anything, let me know.

Marisha (23:12)

Okay, awesome. And then, so you talk a lot about co-teaching. So where does that fit into all of this?

Paula Kluth (23:20)

Yes.

Yeah,

you kind of understand my background now, so what I do. So I do a lot of work with schools around inclusion. This is definitely an area of study for me and a lot of work in universal design for learning and co-teaching. the strands here are that inclusion's at the center, but all of these other elements kind of feed in because it got to a point where I'm sort of on the soapbox, as you can imagine.

Marisha (23:54)

Thanks

Paula Kluth (23:54)

about

inclusion and then it comes to but how do you do it? So that got me down, also I was a co-teacher so that got me down that road as well. excuse me. So one of the things that, you know, really got me interested is I go in and talk to teachers and I would see what was possible. Again, also being a co-teacher.

see what's possible when there's that constant dialogue because a lot of these things, you we are teaching in silos a lot of the time. And what I found that there was somewhat of a loneliness as an inclusion facilitator to like bringing my kids from space to space, but never getting to kind of be involved in the lesson design or learn about what was happening in general education. And so that I, you know, in those ways, I couldn't always support my colleagues.

to solve a certain problem because I wasn't in on some of those conversations. When I was in on those, we could, it was very dynamic. There's lots of room for some growth there. So I got really into that. later in my career, was teaching about co-teaching. I taught at Syracuse University most recently. So I was teaching about that. then I was just getting a lot of, like people would, I would come in and talk about.

inclusion, but then I would sort of stay to talk about collaboration and co-teaching. So I ended up writing about that as well. I wrote about a book about that with my colleague, Julie Costin, and just got very interested in what are the possibilities. Again, it can be a very lonely profession when we come together to not only think differently about the possibilities for kids. know general education teachers and SOPs and OTs and school psychologists like in my collaborative roles.

Marisha (25:18)

Thank you.

Paula Kluth (25:43)

expanded my ideas of what was possible for kids, but also helped me become a better lesson designer, better at classroom management, all of those things. So now I do a lot of work in collaboration and co-teaching. That's a big part of my work life.

Marisha (26:02)

Yeah, and so what are the skills that are most important for teachers to start looking into co-teaching?

Paula Kluth (26:13)

Well, I think there's a lot of things that not only teachers can kind of profit from when they get into those environments and share with others, and then there's a lot of things that can be learned. But there are some skills that are really helpful just to kind of bring into that interaction. So things like,

I think collaboration in general, we assume that two teachers can come together and we know how to work together. But the fact of the matter is, most, many of us, I shouldn't say most, but I think for a great majority of folks, there's not room for another class on collaboration. So in other fields you might learn, and certainly when you're becoming an administrator later, you might learn techniques for collaboration. I didn't, I mean, my first job, I had nine paraprofessionals on my team, nine.

I didn't know a thing about like, you know, communication or I mean, it's mind blowing to me to say nothing of working with my teachers. So that idea of just not assuming that I will know how to sit down and solve a problem with you, that we have techniques for, you know, even just for running a meeting efficiently and effectively. That's just a very simple concrete thing. So I have this...

co-teaching event, which we had talked about earlier, this co-teaching kickoff, which is like a virtual event. And I have these sessions where I break down just some of these sub skills because I think, again, it's, when we talk about co-teaching, it's like, okay, here are some different structures you can use to co-teach. And I'm like, yes, and let's back it all the way up to like the simplest of like introduction, getting to know you and what are some of the ways in which we.

we'll know how to interact, not only when we hit a problem, but even just on the day to day. The other skill set that I think is helpful is just understanding how to not only plan together, but again, we're used to being in our own spaces. We are taught typically about how to design those lessons on our own, not with another adult. So this idea of being able to design with somebody else opens up a whole bunch of possibilities.

so that teachers need to understand and get support around, yeah, you can use like typical co-teaching structures like station teaching and parallel teaching and one teach, one assist, but there's also all kinds of other ways to use those, to sort of exploit these all different people in my classroom, different roles. How do we work together in a really smart way when students are in book clubs? What if they're engaged in project-based instruction? What's your role as an SLP, Marisha?

So what are interesting ways to work with our paraprofessionals so that it's like the best bang for our buck? So even that kind of conversation I think is really helpful and that's a skillset that, where would we have gotten that? Because we mostly learned how to plan on our own. And then things like even role sharing, which I'm kind of dipping into there. So what can I learn from you as an OT? What can I learn from you as an SLP? What can I learn from you as a general?

So how do we start to take on some of those other roles? And that gets us back to something that I talked about earlier, which is 100 % of the adults in the school are there for 100 % of the students. But that also, that doesn't have to mean we're all like role sharing everything, but that we are sort of not only having a mindset that, you know, this is our community, but also that over time I'm learning from my colleagues, that there is sort of an ongoing professional development, even very subtly.

that I'm curious about what you're doing, I'm seeing what you're doing, and I'm getting a little bit better because you're near me.

Marisha (30:07)

Yeah, and I absolutely love that quote. 100 % of the adults at the school are there for 100 % of the students. That's a really great mindset of it being our community and we're working together as a whole. And so, and you touched on who can co-teach. It's not just classroom and special education teachers. We've got SLPs, OTs.

Paula Kluth (30:09)

you

No.

multilingual teachers, school psychologists.

You know, some of these folks, like your school psychologist, they're not gonna co-teach all the time, but a lot of those social workers, they're already in the classroom doing mini-lessons with kids. So like, what can we learn from them? Are there opportunities to have a co-teaching lesson now and then so that we're all whetting our whistle about what that looks like? Could we bring somebody in in a stations context so that they can offer extra support now and then, but we learn from them.

So I think like thinking differently, kids can actually co-teach as well. That's a whole nother taught for a whole nother day. But these are skills that are sort of lifelong, life skills, know, they're forever and can be very powerful. The collaborative teams are just a powerful asset to any inclusive school.

Marisha (31:15)

Yeah, and you've talked a little bit about, or you often talk about the benefits of co-teaching to the adults and the students. So what does, can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Paula Kluth (31:31)

Sure, I mean, I think there's, when you are operating at that level where, you know, you're, are two teachers together, they're sharing planning, they have a vision for themselves as a team. So this is not like I'm teaching and you're texting or something, you know, where we're really given time to support, to support each other. And there's a, you know,

When we have a true co-ta classroom where it's not just one teach, one float, but we have teachers who are playing together and there's lots of different structures being used in ways that adults are are jelling and working together, we see these academic outcomes. There's a study that I think is around high school kids that's fairly recent.

that looks at just engagement, like engagement is higher with two teachers because I think naturally you get to use a lot of different formats, ways that you wouldn't get to engage otherwise. So we see, you know, that the potential of academics, but we also see that there's an opportunity for kids to learn other things. There's a lot of opportunity for kids to, if I'm in there and I'm having to work with kids around social emotional kinds of things, then there's a model there. Even just two teachers.

So like, let's just say we decide that we're social studies teachers and we want to, we get to co-teach. So every now and then we're gonna model what like respectful discourse looks like. You know, you might disagree or we might model how to give an appropriate compliment because there's two of us. So there's all kinds of these other like tangents, right? That can be actually very helpful and we can be purposeful about that. We wanna show what it looks like to.

talk to somebody else and to ask questions in a certain way. And so another adult is there and that's all possible. So I think it's also just super helpful for teachers. One of the things that I talk about in my sessions is that every co-taught team should be selfish and that they should, we're gonna, like if I was working with you all year long, we would be learning things from each other. Like that we know that. But what I could do is say to you, I could be even more pointed than that.

And I could say, Marisha, really, I know that you're doing something with language when you're with students and I watch you in those literacy lessons. And when you are actually, I know that there's some really subtle modeling going on when you're working with those kids at that center. I wanna learn what you're doing over there. Can you teach me about that? Or I might say like, you are making those anchor charts while you are actually teaching a lesson and I've never.

How do you do that? I've never had a chance to do that. Or you're so good at like when kids are having a hard time and I see that you just step up. Can you like by the end of the semester or year, can I get better at that? You're so organized. So like you can be turned down of course, but this is a perfect opportunity to actually say, it's up to you, but like I know I could learn that from you. You're so tech savvy.

So I always say in addition to just on the spot professional development, we can even be a little bit more selfish and say, I'm gonna ask for something from you and you can ask for something from me and let's get better together.

Marisha (34:36)

Yeah, and so just to recap, you talked about some of the benefits for students, their study showing those improved academic outcomes, the engagement, and there's opportunities to learn things that we might not get to address, like the social-emotional aspects that you mentioned. So those are really great benefits for students, but then it's also really beneficial for the teachers involved or the staff involved.

because it allows them to like continue building their skills. They're not working in a silo. I bet it's a much more fun way to work. Like I love I've loved it when I've been in more collaborative settings because I have more fulfillment in my job and like I've learned so many O.T. and teaching strategies and I'm a much better educator as a whole because of that opportunity to work with other professionals. So yeah, thanks for guiding us through that.

conversation of some of the benefits for students and adults. And at the end of the day, it just makes for a way better results for our students because if teachers are engaged and operating like at the top level that they can, just is like the benefits just keep rolling in.

Paula Kluth (35:55)

Yeah, and I always say, you know, it can be more spirited for sure. And the opposite is also true. Like, I think when COVID hit, I was working with lots of co-teaching teams and they were saying, like, I can't imagine doing this on my own. Like, I'm so glad I have a co-teacher. And so the other is true too. Like, this is a very hard job. Like, let's not.

even try to think it is like anything but it's very, hard. It's very challenging. So having like having somebody to kind of lean on, I don't know if I did that right, you know. And so I love the idea of being able to lean on somebody when it's like I just that was really tough. Like, you know, like I mean, I'd be in tears a lot in, you know, in school. Somebody threw a chair at my head once, not an adult, you know, child. You know, it's very upsetting and if somebody there with you and saying like you did this

best job that you could do, that's so helpful too. And I always say then it's also the other piece is just having somebody, this sounds weird to say, but I always talk about there's even some of their to admire your work, you know, in a sense where it's like, sometimes you just nail it, you just get that lesson, right, something small, you just you were funny, you

the kid just like did something right there and you saw the skill just develop and there's somebody else to say, especially if you talk about doing this for each other, you know, a little slow clap in the back of the classroom, which you, and I know that's kind of funny to say, but I believe it. And so I always say, talk about being those kinds of team members for each other. Cause those are some kind of not so commonly addressed benefits.

Marisha (37:31)

Yeah, that's amazing. So this all sounds really great, but I know conversations that I've had with administrators and educators, it's like, how do we do all these things? And it can feel, when our plates are already full, it can feel like, this is another, just an other thing to add on. And hopefully talking about the benefits got, cause I know a lot of us in the schools are.

heading towards burnout if we're not already there. And so this could be like a really amazing tool for us as well. But what, because I know you have tons of resources, but what recommendations do you have for ongoing professional development and like starting to work on applying this and especially in the context of like overwhelmed teachers and administrators?

Paula Kluth (38:24)

Well, you

I love that you said that it can be really a lot for folks. was I did a virtual session yesterday with a district and one of the it was just such a the only word I can use. It was very warm. You know, I just really had a nice afternoon with these this elementary elementary teachers. And one of the words that we talked about as we were reviewing some of that research that I referenced was that they said it was comforting.

And why was it comforting? Because a lot of teachers just want to know they're doing, you know, a lot of people think teachers don't want to do inclusion. It's not true. You know, a lot of administrators I know will be like agreeing with me. Yeah, there might be some resistance, but for a lot of teachers, it's different. It's not that they don't want to do it. They just have to know that this is hard. It's imperfect in so many contexts. And so just tell me that I'm doing the right thing for kids and I will run with this, but I need to know it's the right thing for kids.

So they were saying they're doing some really sophisticated things in this district and they said that research was really comforting for us. That legal element was really comforting. that was nice. So don't always assume that providing more information will be overwhelmed. So the first thing I say is inclusion is not a one-shot deal. Don't we already do inclusion? know, that book, that whole book was written on the idea that yes, we are doing it, but it's again, it's aspirational and it's ongoing. So that if you had quote unquote,

training on inclusion, like there's probably lots of updates, like whether it's a steering committee, whether it's a group that's constantly having a conversation about related needs, that's not something that we're gonna educate and then move on. That's gonna be constant. How do we create schools for all? That's never-ending conversation. And then of course, along with that, I know we had to limit ourselves today, but I do a lot of work in that area of universal design for learning, so that comes up a lot. That can be another.

question and answer to the question of how do we do this? And so where a lot of folks are saying I can't possibly bring this child in it's not working for this space or what we're doing. Sometimes I'm not going to say every teacher is going to say wow this is super comforting to learn something new but it can kind of help us because instead of saying we're going to try to figure out how we're going to do this for this kid and this kid and this kid you know this language and this model and framework of universal design for learning is going to help us maybe think differently.

about how we can design upfront so there'll be less to think about, you know, down the road. How can we make the space more accessible to begin with? What do we do in our school to make sure that there's already entry points, you know, around activities? And so some of that work gets done upfront and then we don't have to do it, you know, down the road. So that's kind of another way to think about that. And then of course, you know, I'm a broken record on this, but I think everybody needs to have that content on collaboration because

No matter what you're doing, we talk a lot in the Coteach kickoff event about every role, there's collaboration involved. So I talk about even this strategy that I call spotlight co-teaching or collaboration where even if we can't co-teach formally all day, you might say to me,

you know, I'm an eighth grade teacher. cannot figure out this, these two kids, they cannot do the warmups, the bell ringers, they're just lost. And so I just need a solution for that every day. And so I might say, let me get in there and work with you on that for, you know, maybe a couple of times a week for a while. And let's try to find materials or a change in format or some tech that we can infuse or a way that we can strategize around this or.

What's something to point to I can give to a paraprofessional that's in there. Let's try to kind of like spotlight that one idea and then I'll float out and work on something else for a moment. But we have to be able to know how to like even if it's in the small moments how to kind of come together to do some of that problem solving. So I think that's probably got to be part of a conversation for just about every staff.

Marisha (42:29)

Yeah, and you mentioned the co-teaching kickoff. Can you tell us a little bit more about what that is?

Paula Kluth (42:34)

Sure, yeah, so that's like one of my, I don't know, that's kind of one of the centerpieces of the work that I do. It's because it's my only event that's ongoing. So if people go to my website, which is just inclusionrules.com, like inclusion rules, like yay. That's where you can contact me, that's where you can find everything out about me.

Marisha (42:52)

Thank

Paula Kluth (42:57)

But if you go there, that event runs, we have two versions. One is that you can sign up for just the fall. And then we have another one that goes all year long. And so if you were joining, say if this podcast is probably gonna drop in the winter, people can join anytime until I think April or May or something. So it goes all year long and every year it runs. so it's a set of, it's asynchronous. We have like 20 videos.

And you can watch with a partner, you can watch on your own time. there's lots of materials with each session and we've got all kinds of folks. We have high school teachers teaching together, we have administrators, have sessions on, the idea was to go beyond the structures, right? Most people get collaborative training and they understand how to, again, one teach, one float, station teaching, how do we do anchor.

And so we wanted to say those are helpful and we need to know those, but there's so much more to know like lesson planning, like meeting, like how, what are some ideas for high school math? You know, so we wanted to collect that in a place where you could kind of customize. You might only have five sessions that you're going to watch, but you're to watch some of those a few times. And so we put these together and we run it every year with slightly different content, but it's kind of just having co-teaching support in your pocket.

That was sort of the idea because I was getting called to run around and do these same sessions everywhere. And even when I was going in person, even for three days, I didn't get to half of this stuff. So I wanted to make that available so that you can find out more about the co-teaching kickoff and frankly, other stuff, other events, sort of online offerings, all of that's on inclusion rules. And by the way,

There's lots of stuff over there that you don't have to spend a dime on. There's video over there that you can use if you're an administrator and you want to do a mini PD on something. There's video over there. There's lots of downloads that you could use for activities, brown bag lunches, know, internal kinds of meetings. There's little articles and things like that. And you don't have to ask. It's there for you to use.

Marisha (45:05)

Awesome. Yeah, and I shared a link to the website as a whole and then the code teaching kickoff and I mean, your top navigation bar makes it really easy to find all the things. yeah, that'll be an amazing resource for any administrators who are wanting to learn more. Yeah, so was there anything that you wanted to close out with or?

Paula Kluth (45:18)

good, I will tell the tech guy.

You know, I just,

first of all, thank you for having me. And I just want to extend my gratitude to anybody that was listening because I know, again, this is one of those topics where you might say, you know, again, we're doing that already and I've got some grounding there. So I think anybody that's, you know, again, such an overworked role is the director. So I just have lots of gratitude for folks in those spaces and for what they're able to do. And I'll just say this.

All of those outcomes that we're seeing, whether it's the work of Kathy G that I referenced or the work of Sandy Cole study or even the work of Jenny Curth there at KU, all of that research that looked at kids in these inclusive contexts, somebody made a decision at the district level to make that happen. And so when I say that I extend my gratitude for the work that folks are doing every day to give kids these possibilities to see that.

that we have never seen some of these stories and these potential, these possibilities for many of these kids with disabilities. The kinds of stories that we're seeing now, absolutely incredible, some of these opportunities, and that's all because of somebody initially at a district level giving a thumbs up. And so lots of gratitude out to folks who are part of that decision making and to you too, Marisha, for taking this topic on.

Marisha (47:01)

Oh, well, thank you so much for being so generous with your time and expertise. This was such a treat and, um, yeah, a great conversation. So thank you. And yeah, I have second the thank you to the, and the gratitude to the administrators who are doing the work out there because it is not easy. So props to you for listening and soaking this in and considering the information and continuing to brainstorm and figure out how to.

Paula Kluth (47:21)

now.

Marisha (47:31)

do our best for our students. So yeah, thank you and see you next time.

Paula Kluth (47:35)

Thank you. Thanks for having me. Bye everybody.

Marisha (00:01.4)

Hello there and welcome to the special ed leaders podcast. Today we have a very special guest, Marin Boothby. She is the CEO and founder of Boothby therapy services. And I've had the opportunity to have some really incredible conversations with her. She is such an innovator and problem solving problem solver in the SLP space. and I'm really excited to dive into,

some of the things that she's been up to, especially her workload calculator. think that's a really interesting conversation for district administrators to hear about. and so like I said, Marin's the founder of Boothby therapy services. she also consults with school districts and helps them navigate changes. and this little bio does her no justice. So I'm going to turn it over to.

Maren Boothby (00:57.091)

you

Marisha (00:59.214)

So that she can just share a little bit of her story with us before we dive into some of the other things she's up to, including the workload calculator. So hello, Mary.

Maren Boothby (01:11.951)

Hi, it's great to see you and thank you so much for that nice introduction.

Marisha (01:17.783)

That's great to see you too.

Maren Boothby (01:19.023)

I'm excited to share about our workload calculator and tell you a little bit about what we're doing at Boothbee Therapy Services.

Marisha (01:26.7)

Yeah. And so I'm really curious to hear just more about your story. So you started off as an SLP and then like, how'd you end up here as the founder and creating all these solutions?

Maren Boothby (01:43.639)

Right. So when I was a new SLP, my passion was brain injury and stroke. And I actually started working in a rehab setting. And I really did love that. But I did feel a little bit burdened by some of the pressures of working with insurance companies and constantly working to get approval for my clients to have more units. And that that just became more and more of a burden over a few

years that I was working in the rehab setting, the productivity requirements were high, and I thought to myself, there's got to be a better way to do this. Meanwhile, I was living in New Hampshire. We had a dearth of speech pathologists available to work in schools, and I was receiving phone calls from a tiny little school all the way through the National Forest in New Hampshire saying, hey, can you come help us? And I decided, you know, I can, and there's a better way to be a speech pathologist, and I'm going to do that. So I left the medical setting.

I headed into schools, I was excited about working with kids, and I thought, I'm going to do this the right way. So I have to thank the folks at Waterville Valley for introducing me to special education and all of the supports they gave me as I learned how to become a school-based SLP. So I did that. Shortly after that, I was then in a full-time capacity working in schools. I did that by myself for a few years, and then about three years later, there was just so much demand, so much need.

people calling me all the time and my husband Christopher Boothby who's also one of the founders of our company said hey we need to start employing some other people so we decided to do that and that was the beginning of Boothby Therapy Services as a larger group of really you know passionate SLPs and providers who are all about helping children succeed.

Marisha (03:35.83)

I love that. And where is Boothbee Therapy Services at now? Like what does the company look like?

Maren Boothby (03:42.753)

So we've really grown. We're in our 25th year delivering school based services in New Hampshire and Maine. And about eight years into our company, we bought an occupational therapy services company and really dove into that. And we have found over the years that our school partners are really looking for one stop shopping for their contracting needs. want their jobs are so

complicated. They want to have a provider and a partner that they can trust. So over the years we've expanded to also provide school psychology services, teacher the visually impaired, orientation and mobility, counseling, school psychology, I think I said that, and special education teachers. So it's just been this really awesome partnership as we've just tried to become the comprehensive solution for our school partners.

Marisha (04:41.624)

That's amazing. And you do way more than just offer people to fill the roles. Because you are, like I said at the beginning, I've just been so impressed in our conversations. You are such an innovator and problem solver. And you have some really creative solutions when it comes to supporting staff development and workload and other problem solving.

But can we chat a little bit more about the workload calculator and how that came to be? Like what led you to develop that and kind of what does it look like?

Maren Boothby (05:17.455)

Absolutely, that is one of the things that I am most passionate about and I'd love to share that a little bit with you and your listeners. It really started for me in 2002, that was early in the time that we were delivering services on a bigger scale in New Hampshire and that was the year that ASHA published their workload caseload position and that position basically states that SLP caseload

assignments should really be based on workload, not on the numbers of kids so that you're actually taking a look at what the needs of the students are. So at the time, my primary concern was making sure that I was staffing, I was making sure that each of the contracts that we were serving had enough time, not just to see the kids and deliver their direct services, but also to make sure that the SLPs were able to

develop IEPs, attend meetings, do new referral evaluations, triennial re-evaluations, and to do all the compliance work that's needed, the Medicaid documentation, the quarterly progress reports, and all of those things. So the ASHA workload caseload position is fantastic. It's detailed. They provide lots and lots of tools, but those tools are somewhat complicated, right, to apply on our own. So

So I started taking apart the Ashley workload caseload analysis and I made a spreadsheet on Excel, you know, and I was trying to figure out how do I plan all this time. And eventually it got to be our own proprietary software which we call the Data Driven Needs Analysis or the Data DNA for short.

Marisha (07:14.368)

I love that. so, can you tell us a little bit more about, so I guess we have a pretty good idea of what the workload calculator tells us. It looks at all of the aspects of our role and kind of what to expect. And what are the benefits of calculating that? what problems does it solve and how could that benefit a school district?

Maren Boothby (07:40.239)

Absolutely. I mean, I really feel for directors of special education or student services because they are running a huge special education program with all the related service providers, the school psychologists, the special ed teachers. They have so many things to comply with. Most of them are not themselves speech pathologists. I wish I had a dime for every time someone said, I'm not a speech pathologist, but... So what they need, especially

especially special Ed administrators are they tend to have more special education teachers in their districts and in their buildings and they have OTs or speech pathologists for example. Meanwhile, we're in the business full time. All we do is related services and special education. So the benefit for a district is they're able to dial in on what exactly are the needs

needs of their speech and language caseload or of their occupational therapy caseload, for example. So it's not, it begins with how many kids do we have? But then it goes on to look at, what are their services? Are they individual or are they group? How much group time can we reasonably plan if that's not already prescribed in the IEP? And then which kids are due for triennial reevaluation? Are we doing trimester?

progress reports or we're doing quarterly progress reports. What does the compliance look like in our building? What does the Medicaid documentation do? Do I need my speech pathologist to be team leaders and do 30-day reviews for my Medicaid to schools program? Do I need my speech pathologists and occupational therapists to also do duties? Do they need to serve on committees? What's the time requirement? Now, it's difficult to

to even identify what all those needs are, never mind plan for that time and see what is that? Is that a three day a week job? Is that a five day a week job? I'm not sure. So the great thing is we can take all that data, plug it into our data driven needs analysis and put out, hey, this is what the job looks like. This is the number of hours you need per week. This is the number of hours you need for the year. The places that I have found it to be most helpful is when districts are looking at a significant change.

Maren Boothby (10:09.629)

either they're adding a building or they're consolidating buildings so they're moving from having like five elementary schools down to four so they have tape they have staff that they can reassign or perhaps

if they are adding a program like a preschool program or an intensive needs program. So it's a tool that really helps them dial in what the needs are and it gives them data that they can speak to their stakeholders about, their business administrators, their superintendents, and their school board members.

Marisha (10:40.43)

Yeah, and I think that's probably one of the biggest hurdles is just like whether you're hiring an employee or a contractor or working with a company and just knowing exactly what you need. So if you have this calculator and it gives you a report of, this is exactly what we need, then we're much more likely to be set up for success. And we know what to expect.

Maren Boothby (11:04.431)

Exactly, and there's a high level of accountability for special education administrators too. From this data DNA, right away it generates a budget. So, you know, they have a good sense of what their costs will be.

and gives them the data that they need to be speaking to, again, the business administrator, superintendent, school board members, and so forth. And importantly, talking to SLPs like us so that when they make staffing decisions, they can say, yes, I've planned for this time. Yes, I've looked at the progress report writing time. I'm confident that there's time for you to do this job with excellence.

Marisha (11:53.23)

Yeah, and I've heard a lot of, just in my conversation with administrators, it sounds like there can be a revolving door of contractors. And do you think that the inappropriate, like incorrect calculation of workload is a huge factor in that retention?

Maren Boothby (12:14.128)

I think you're absolutely right.

A lot of times I feel like some of our school partners, they're coming for the first time to us with an emergency. my gosh, I have an unanticipated vacancy. I have someone who's out on medical leave or has a leave of absence. Help me. It's a desperate situation. I need to meet the needs of these kids. That's no one wants to be in that situation, of course, right? But that's the world we live in, like we're all people and emergencies happen. What we

is when we have this kind of ongoing relationship with the district so that we can plan ahead. And what we find is even when our company is maybe doing 20 or 30 percent of the services in a district versus, you know, some of our clients will have 70 or 80 percent of their services contracted, we can look at the total resources in the district. Hey, let's look at all of your speech paths across the district. Where are the caseloads upping?

and flowing. I'm sure you've seen this yourself, right? Like there's a bubble of kids in fourth grade. Like you've got this giant group of kids, right? And you need more resources. But meanwhile, maybe your middle school SLP has fewer kids that year. Perfect opportunity for her to come down and help that elementary level SLP. How does that look? What parts of the job are easy to break off? That's where again, the data DNA can really provide some guidance because it may be, hey, that

new referral piece would be a perfect piece to delegate to the helping SLP because there's not already an existing relationship with the primary SLP at that level and so on and so forth. There are just so many ways to look at it and when you have all the data in front of you it makes the staffing decisions just easier.

Marisha (14:13.602)

Yeah, and it's a great problem solving tool in optimizing our current resources.

Maren Boothby (14:21.261)

Absolutely.

And, you know, in the process of looking at caseloads to create the data-driven needs analysis, we're able to also get a gauge on some real key factors that impact efficiency. So, for example, in New Hampshire, we need to prescribe whether the services for kids will be group or whether they'll be individual. But in Maine, that's not required. We don't do it that way. It's kind of to the discretion of the provider and based on the student's schedule.

There are some advantages to that approach, but an administrator wants to ensure that an appropriate amount of group services being provided for a lot of reasons. One is efficiency, but it's also less restrictive than those individual groups. you know, taking a look at that and the percentage of time that's going to be delivered in a group setting also really drives efficiency too.

Marisha (15:19.342)

And do you offer supports to your, like do you find that especially, because if we're using the same calculations for a CF versus an SLP who's been in the field for 30 years, do you find that some SLPs have a hard time? Like in terms of experience or other factors?

Maren Boothby (15:37.199)

you

Maren Boothby (15:42.639)

You've got to take in all those factors and they're factors that are related to the provider and they're factors that are related to the building culture as well, right? So I mean the data-driven needs analysis has several kind of, what do we call it, it's some standard planning allocations of time planned in. So for example,

We might typically plan 15 minutes to write a progress report that includes rating scale and a narrative. But if you're in a school that only requires rating scales, then that could be done in 10 minutes. Or if you're in a high needs program with medically fragile kids or kids with autism or kids that have some kind of behavior needs, you may need more documentation so you have the ability to customize the planning time.

maybe to be like 20 minutes for example for a progress report and the same thing can be true as you said for the different providers You know really experienced people are going to have a ability to fly through the work in some levels Whereas a new one not as much and even for I've talked to so many directors who know their providers and their SLPs and they say hey I know that this person really needs extra time for you know preparing their advice

or their IEPs or this person's participation in our meetings is really essential. I want to make sure they're there for the whole time instead of just reporting out at the beginning. So we can customize all of that.

Marisha (17:20.43)

And it sounds like your company does a really great job with staff development. Do you have strategies or supports in place to help optimize SLP's productivity and matching the timeframes in the workload calculator?

Maren Boothby (17:38.167)

Yeah, well, so yes, I think that professional development and consulting work with our school districts is one of my favorite things. And it's kind of led to some of our very best kind of partnerships and relationships. I say we're full time in the business of delivering related services and things like, for example,

identification criteria when you're identifying kids as having a speech and language disorder. Of course, that varies from state to state. Some states have a very, very well defined criteria and some states have a more open criteria. So how do you achieve consistency across your district with how those decisions are being made? It's such an essential role for the SLPs and it has such a massive impact on

caseload numbers and cost for the special education budget. I guess that would be the one thing that I would say to a special ed director is if you're not 100 % sure that your speech and language pathologists are identifying students as being eligible for speech language impairment with consistency and accuracy, that's the biggest, easiest thing to look at in terms of efficiency and making sure that we're giving the service

that kids need to the kids who need the services.

Marisha (19:09.698)

Yeah. And that can be, so I've had a lot of conversations on the podcast with, like attorneys and just kind of the legal side of special education. So that's critical for, productivity and all of that, but it's also huge in terms of compliance and avoiding litigation and due process and all of that, which is a huge productivity and budget.

Maren Boothby (19:37.622)

Absolutely.

Marisha (19:39.296)

sink too if we end up going down that route.

Maren Boothby (19:42.893)

Yeah, absolutely. mean, you don't want to over identify nor do you want to under identify. One of the strategies we've come up with is a decision making tree. So to make it as visual as possible to lead a team through the process so that, you know, whoever's at the table, parents, case managers, advocates can understand the decision that's being made and that SLPs who are maybe new to the role have something to kind

fall back on and guide the conversation.

Marisha (20:15.66)

Yeah, and that's invaluable if the SLP or the OT or whoever the provider is, if they're appropriately trained in that, that can have huge impact for districts.

Maren Boothby (20:28.289)

Absolutely. I find that especially at the preschool level it's even trickier for the identification decision and you know we have so many little ones now at least in the northeast we're certainly seeing just a huge need among our three four and five year olds for sure. So getting that eligibility criteria dialed in is super important.

Marisha (20:56.652)

Yeah, well, I think there is, can see so much value in appropriately calculating workload and just the benefits that that can provide to a district administrator and having that clear data to.

Maren Boothby (21:06.145)

the board.

Marisha (21:12.394)

share with the team and justify their decision making and then also just setting up the providers for success and ultimately I think all of our goals are ultimately to provide the best possible services for our students and this is such a great way to make sure that we're doing that.

Maren Boothby (21:30.815)

It is, and you know, as you go through the year, this is something we do for every SLP and every provider in our company. It's a great tool to guide how people are spending time. So when you have somebody who's new to your building or new to the role, it's a chance to say, hey, let's take a look at that data DNA. How much time were we allotting on a weekly basis for your testing time, for your therapy time? Well, let's go take a look at your schedule. is that, do you have a

evaluation time, you know, reserved in your schedule? Do you have time for, how much time are you scheduled for therapy and how does that compare to what we planned for? And it really can show us where things can get tightened up and give some really valuable guidance to how the whole year unfolds.

Marisha (22:22.094)

Yeah, that's amazing. I love how, cause it sounds like that consulting piece is kind of baked into the work that you do with districts. And so that's, don't, I feel like that's probably not super common.

Maren Boothby (22:32.771)

Yeah.

Maren Boothby (22:38.263)

Yeah, we're kind of on a mission to kind of share what we know and what we've developed so that people can use it. I mean, we've got these tools. If they need to be customized based on a district's location and state regulations or their own particular, you know, policies, we can do that. But man, I just like to get them out there and share them the eligibility criteria, the dismissal criteria, how to identify young preschoolers and for sure the data DNA. And I think most of the SLP, you know, SLPs,

Marisha (22:40.014)

.

Maren Boothby (23:08.247)

to about the data DNA, they just love knowing, hey, all my time is planned for, I have the time I need to do my job with excellence.

Marisha (23:16.768)

And it makes it really, cause I know I've had roles as an SLP where it was kind of unclear exactly what the expectations were. So this is a great way. think SLPs, especially really like just from the SLPs that I know, they really appreciate that clarity and like knowing what the expectations are is really empowering.

Maren Boothby (23:38.231)

Right, that organizational streak is a mile wide in us, in SLPs.

Marisha (23:40.966)

I love it. this is amazing. So is there anything else that you wanted to share around workload or Google consulting or the problem solving piece?

Maren Boothby (23:56.963)

You know, I just love that you gave me a chance to share what we're working on. I appreciate that our providers are using SLP Now and the tools that you have to help them be more efficient with their lesson planning, which is something that's important to make sure that we're having those quality lessons and the data that your tool provides is really helpful as well. yeah, you could get me on a roll going about consultation topics and working with special ed directors. have a lot of

respect for them and empathy for the challenge that they're facing in our public schools. But it's great to have that partnership. So thanks for sharing.

Marisha (24:39.168)

Yeah. Yeah, I love that. if a special ed administrator is listening to this and is super inspired and feeling like they could benefit from consultation or services, what's the best way for them to learn more?

Maren Boothby (24:55.683)

So.

I would definitely direct them to our website at www.boothbetherapy.com and we have a special tab that's for school partners and they can go and there's a on that menu data driven needs analysis or data DNA page that they can find more about it. And we would love to do an initial consult and even a demo for them to, know, hey, let's, let's look at one of your schools and see, see what, see how the tool works for you and try it out and then see if it's something

that they want to use on a broader scale.

Marisha (25:30.03)

Well, thank you so much for being so generous with your time and expertise. This was super helpful. And yeah, thank you to everyone who joined us for this episode as well. I hope you have a fabulous rest of your day.

Maren Boothby (25:46.169)

Thank you so much for having me.

Marisha (00:02.008)

Hello there and welcome to the Special Ed Leaders podcast. I am super excited to introduce our guest today, Dana Sanders. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Washington, and then she went to Washington State University for her graduate degree in speech and hearing sciences. And she's been an SLP for 12 years. She spent nine of those years working in the schools.

And then she ended up switching gears and started, well, she was doing these simultaneously, but now she is the full-time CEO, founder, co-founder of Next Level Speech Therapy. And they are doing such amazing work for school districts, which is why I invited her here today. But Dana, I...

just gave like a super brief little bio, but I'm just curious to hear a little bit more about your story, especially around like next level speech therapy, like what led you to start that and kind of what does it look like today?

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (01:12.19)

yeah, it is a fascinating story. One with many,

turns and routes and all of that. think like I was, I mean, it was before the pandemic. so teletherapy was just like this word out there. And like we do more than just teletherapy, but that's how it started. And like I was 34 weeks pregnant with my second child in my school district office and somebody had mentioned teletherapy. And I remember going home and telling my husband like, like I could do something on the side.

like and have some like private clients and do it via teletherapy. And he was like, Dana, like you should hire that out. And so like people see me as like the face of Next Level, but really it's like Mike behind the scenes. That's like kind of the brains of the business. cause he was the one that like kind of held my hand through it and was like, we can do this. Like you can do this. And so Next Level honestly was going to be set up as a

private practice teletherapy clinic. And then I had a contact in a school district that was like, I need you for a maternity leave. Like, and I have no one like, so can we try this teletherapy thing? Um, and that's how we transitioned to schools and it just grew from there. Like people, um, special ed directors in the area, they were like, you're a local, like we need you. And then the pandemic hit and then teletherapy

therapy, like since we were doing it, we kind of became this like in the, in our area, like, Hey, can you help us get set up? Can you help our SLPs get set up? and so it just like, was not a thought of like, we want this grand, huge business. Like I don't want to work in the schools ever again. Like it just was one thing after another. And it was like the biggest, like kind of blessing in a way to be able to like,

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (03:19.543)

build something with your significant other, have your kids see what you're building and help SLPs get like good quality jobs being cared for by like an SLP team of like a company that's like owned and operated by SLPs and then districts being like you know what you're talking about you're an SLP too and there's not a corporation behind you like we don't we didn't have investor money so it was like this kind of

flow.

start and you learn along the way and you build something that like your customers want. And so it's just what has been super exciting. I never thought, and I don't know if this was you too, like with your business, like I never thought like when I graduated school, like that this is what I was going to be doing. but then now like Asha was in Seattle and, from your introduction, like I am a born and raised Washingtonian and I went to

two major schools in Washington that are actually like rivals. So I am a Hooger. One's a Husky and one's a Cougar.

And so, like talking with professors now and stuff, they're like, how can we work with you so that you can help us develop things for our students and SLPAs and we need more providers out there? What are you seeing? And so it's this amazing thing all around. It was a really long...

Marisha (04:55.596)

No, that's incredible though. And it's really a win-win situation or win-win-win because you get to have a big impact on the field and you're providing quality jobs for SLPs with really great support. And I've talked to a lot of SLPs who work for you guys and everyone has the same feedback. It just sounds like an amazing place to work. And then you're also providing a really great service to school districts.

and like really solving a big pain point there.

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (05:30.121)

That's a huge pain point right now. I mean, I always feel bad talking about it too because I'm an SLP that left the school and am doing something different. But I don't know where SLPs are going. I mean, the pandemic was a really big turning point for our field, positives and negatives, I guess.

But it's hard because grad schools only take so many SLPs or potential SLPs. And then not everybody goes into schools. There's clinics, there's medical. So if you think about, I think there are three major programs in Washington State, Western Washington State University and the University of Washington.

And like if you just think, okay, just for round numbers, there's 30 like graduates each year. Like that's 90 in Washington state alone. Like, and we know that the amount of school districts that we have here, like you could place everybody in a school position, but that's not the reality of it. So it's super tough for schools right now.

Marisha (06:36.61)

Yeah, it's not a lot.

Marisha (06:52.908)

Yeah, so I actually went to the University of Washington for girls' school.

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (06:57.231)

No! When did you graduate? Did we go at the same time?

Marisha (07:03.47)

I graduated in 2014. Yeah. But I, so I can relate, like I'm picturing the whole landscape and just imagining like 90 new SLPs for all of the school districts and yeah, so that is a huge.

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (07:08.037)

Okay, so you were after me. Okay.

Marisha (07:24.834)

component in terms of like why districts are struggling to hire. And I've talked to a lot of special ed administrators who like that's their, that seems to be the biggest pain point of like, we can't hire people. And it was definitely a pain point when I was working in the schools in Washington. And I think it's only gotten worse.

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (07:47.113)

Yeah, no, it, I remember when I graduated, it was like, please take me, please take me. Like it was very competitive to kind of get in the schools. And like now it's like, do you have a degree? Like, are you willing to work in our district? Like, yeah. Are you competent? You have, like, you can do this. Okay. You're hired. Um, I mean, that's a super simplified version. Like they do vet people, but like,

It's just so different. I don't know if it's like retirement, like people needing to be at home, like childcare, we're trying something different. But yeah, there's definitely a big shortage and it's only gonna get worse, I think, because of the, like the boomer population is retiring and yeah, there's all the numbers, yeah.

Marisha (08:32.056)

Mm-hmm.

Marisha (08:43.362)

Yeah. Yeah. And that makes it really hard because like the job of a special ed director is really, really stressful if you don't have SLPs to cover the workload, because then the SLPs are overworked and no one's happy. There's a lot of issues.

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (09:01.159)

I know, I think they...

And for us coming from the school is like you see like the stress like the day in the day out of special Ed directors and because you're in meetings with them like you're in IEP meetings about meetings like parent meetings Like it is a job that is pretty it could be like 24 7 like it is putting fires out left and right like staffing Is like the one thing like it's like okay if I can come in and support you and take that off your plate and have a partnership

with you where you know that if like there's an issue that has come up like with one of our caseloads or whatever like it's Dana or your team like here's the situation and it's like okay I got you you don't have to explain it to me because I understand what's happening under the surface because we need to do this this this this and this so you handle what you need to handle we've got you and I think that's the difference

between like Next Level like and some other companies is like you don't have to explain the whole situation. If you say we have a parent concern, we need a Nevada dad, okay, like I can understand all the things that are happening under the surface for that. So we gotcha.

Marisha (10:25.23)

Yeah, and you'll know what needs to be addressed to make sure that everyone is happy and that it's well done instead of creating issues down the line where, this evaluation wasn't actually handled appropriately and now the parents are frustrated or they're threatening litigation or all of the potential kind of worst case scenarios. We've got a competent.

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (10:49.735)

Yeah, yeah. And it's like, I'm not gonna come back with you like with, you know, 10 questions that like you need to answer so that I can understand the situation more. It's like, okay, let's, your job is stressful enough. Like let's try to take as much stress of the staffing piece off your plate as possible.

Marisha (11:08.397)

Yeah, and it can be, because I've seen positions open for years and years where it's just hard to find people. I don't know why. Well, I guess it must be the grad school rate, the number of SLPs in the market, and just, I don't know, it's just really challenging. But the fact that you can help with that too.

of like you have SLPs ready to go to fill in.

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (11:35.965)

Yeah.

Yeah, we have one of the most like a wonderful school district in Arizona and it's super rural and it's just like there's not, you know, it's hard to get people there because of the geography of the location. And so yeah, we can go in and support them and we've had a great partnership with them for a while now. So.

Marisha (12:03.73)

and then that reminds me too, like, there states where you, are you able to provide, like to work with any district in any state or some are all of,

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (12:15.687)

Yeah, technically we can be, we set up Next Level as a professional corporation so that we can, I mean, there's all these fun little nuances to all of that and how you set up a company and stuff. Some states don't recognize certain like LLCs from out of state and all of that. So, but yes, we are able to work in every single state. And like, we have a lot on.

the West Coast just because like people like Sped Directors are more like, you're local here. But I'm one of those people, I'm like, I will fly to you to like help get things set up. Like, it's like no matter where you are, like we are gonna make sure that like you feel like we are right there and are partnering with you. So yeah, we have contracts all the way from like Florida to Alaska.

Marisha (13:12.494)

That's amazing.

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (13:13.607)

And those contracts we've had for year over year, like, and I would say like, yeah, it's the year, the, we're doing at next level. It's like, like districts want to continue working with us. so we've had, yeah, we've, our retention of, employees and clients is pretty high.

Marisha (13:38.296)

Yeah. And what do you think contributes most to that? Because you mentioned some of the things, but I'm curious. Like, what sets you all apart?

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (13:42.458)

partnership.

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (13:47.101)

I think it's like we don't have investor money behind us. It is Mike and I's money that started this and the business income, the profit is going back into the business to make it better and grow it and all of that.

And so we're not responding to people who are not within the business. And so the pain points that directors feel or employees feel, that is what...

like we are putting the money towards. It's not like, okay, here's this shiny new object that we want you to go for and we want you to make more revenue. Like, obviously we have to like, it's a business where we have to have some money coming in to be able to continue doing what we're doing and getting exceptional SLPs and having partnerships with school districts and being able to like market towards them so that they

know we're here, like we don't have the huge amount of money to have this huge marketing campaign and so it's kind of like more of a grassroots approach. So it's slower but it's much in my opinion much more meaningful and I think that's the difference and they feel that difference when they work with us.

Marisha (15:12.334)

Yeah. And I'm sure that like when you're doing your annual goal planning and everything, it's focused on how can we provide like a better service to our SLPs and our school districts versus if you have a team of investors you're answering to it's like, Oh, well, you didn't hit that profit margin. What are you going to do to quickly get more districts? So yeah, I think that having that kind of, I really, I personally really liked that approach. I'm a little biased.

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (15:35.9)

Yeah.

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (15:39.817)

I

Marisha (15:42.25)

though. I love that. And then because you guys, you are doing so much work in terms of fostering the relationship with the SLPs and the districts. Can you give us like a little bit of insight in terms of what that looks like and what you're maybe what you're prioritizing in this season for like those providing that epic service for the SLPs that you hire, but then the districts too?

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (16:10.844)

Yeah, and

So for us, we have been doing a lot of work, because we don't just do remote teletherapy work. It's in-person and hybrid. So SLPAs in-person and with remote supervision or district supervision, whatever the district needs. And so that's been a huge focus. And how do we make that better for districts? Because there's nuances. SLPAs are coming out of grad, or not grad school, undergrad.

with theory and they want like a lot of them you know want to go into the field as an SLPA to see what they think of it before going on to grad school or like I mean it's simple too like I need to make some money like I just spent a lot of money in undergrad and

I need to work before I go to grad school. And some people are like, I'm just not interested in going to grad school. My sister-in-law personally, she was like, I'm happy being an SLPA. So that's kind of what we've spent some time in fostering that growth and how do we work and mold SLPAs to be really solid boots on the ground.

clinician support for SLPs, district SLPs and like our SLPs that are supervising them.

Marisha (17:40.718)

So do you like is part of the because I'm not super familiar with like how your contracts work, but so do you I? Knew that you provided like SLPs and SLP a's but you also support like if a district already has SLP a's you support that too

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (17:59.805)

We could, yeah, you could support that too, like with the supervision piece. Like sometimes they just need the supervision. Like they have an SLPA. Like let's say like it's a super rural community. They have an SLPA, they need the supervision. Like we can come in and provide that supervision. Yeah.

Marisha (18:02.446)

Marisha (18:17.87)

amazing. And that those that gives districts some different hiring options, then they don't have to outsource everything. They can just get like the, yeah, make the most of what they already have. That's really cool. And then they have like that, because they have all of your brains and the whole team's brains in terms of like resolving those issues that come up and providing really great support.

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (18:28.67)

Yeah.

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (18:34.557)

Thanks.

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (18:44.305)

Yeah, and like when we were talking earlier, you and I, like, it's...

that like a lot of your like the people on your team are SLPs too. you hire SLPs to answer the questions. Like that's what we do too. Like our operations team like consists mostly of SLPs that are doing the jobs. Like accounting, HR and tech are not SLPs right now. But everybody else is. And so we're putting people in those positions that

have the clinical knowledge plus like a business knowledge or a drive to like have the business knowledge. And so like when spend directors reach out to us, it's they also are talking to people like recruiters, salesperson, like they're SLPs. So they know as well. And I think that's the difference too. And like they can see that difference when they're talking to us as a company.

Marisha (19:49.314)

Yeah. Yeah, that's amazing. And then, so I know that, cause I've heard some stories from school districts who hire companies and it doesn't go so well. And it sounds like you guys have a really great track record with the districts that you work with. so I've, cause I've chatted with your team a little bit as we were like preparing for this episode, but they were chatting about how important transparency is. And they think that's what sets things up.

like part of what sets things apart. So like if a school district admin is listening, hopefully they'll reach out and they need support. Hopefully they'll just reach out to you. But what are some tips that you would give to a district administrator in kind of making the most of a contract and making sure that they're setting up a good one and kind of to maintain that?

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (20:44.111)

Yeah, transparency is huge for us. like our one of our core values is authenticity and being authentic. And like I think people get that from me, like even as like the CEO of the company, like I am myself, like, you know, with who I talk to, like everybody will know like, yep, Dana's favorite color is pink with sparkles. Like, and she loves Hanson, like the Mbop Hanson. Like, I mean, I from the top, like down in the company, and I don't like to think of it

as like a top-down type of thing. Like we're a pretty flat organization, but like that is like a huge like transparency, like with like as much as you can, like with finances and like who you are as a company. think that permeates into like the contracts and stuff. And so the transparency is super important. And so because we're SLPs talking with the district, it's like, okay, what do you need? Like if a district tells us, okay, we have a high needs caseload with a lot of

AC users, like we're going to be like, okay, we're not going to put a like super brand new person in that position. And if we have to, like, we're going to provide the mentorship and support. Like this is what you're going to get, to be like transparent about like your caseload, your numbers. And that helps because then it's like, we can find the best fit for you as an SLP, whether it's SLPA in person with remote supervision or an, or, Hey, this caseload really needs an in-person SLP.

or hey we can go the remote route because of X, Y, and Z. And so being as transparent as possible about like what the needs are of the caseload, super helpful.

Marisha (22:29.582)

Yeah. And so some of the things would be like what the actual caseload numbers are. like what are some other pieces of information that you would need to like get the full picture to make sure that you're able to set up like the best possible.

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (22:43.939)

yeah, like caseload numbers, that's huge. Like the type of students on the caseload, are, you know, what their categories are or hey, is this like a full, I mean...

even like a speech only caseload, like that is not necessarily like an easier case, like quote unquote easier caseload, because with that, comes with a lot of case management. Like you're the person responsible for those IEPs and those evals and setting everything up. And so knowing that kind of information too is extremely important when putting together like kind of like the quote or like the, like,

the conversation with the district. yeah, the types of students on the caseload, the caseload, just like how many schools would somebody be serving? Like are you expecting them to be at five different schools because or is it one school? Because that comes with like if it's multiple schools then that SLP needs to understand multiple teams and not every single school within a district is

running like MTSS things the same or like your meetings are on different days. Yeah.

Marisha (24:12.71)

And then, is it a problem if there are IEPs out of compliance or makeup minutes or anything like that?

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (24:22.717)

Yes, like out of compliance IEPs, makeup minutes, yeah, that, I mean, cause that's not gonna show up necessarily on like caseload numbers. Like it becomes the caseload versus the workload.

piece. So the workload might be super high and like you might not be able to get to a lot of other things. And so then that becomes the conversation because then it impacts like how many hours per week is reasonable. So if you, if a district wants like a part time SLP and like we're having the conversation, okay, it's like

like, I don't know, like 30 students during the week. So we are wanting to contract you for this many hours. And then we set up all of the stuff and then come to find out that there are, you know, 50 out of compliant IEPs and these many kids need to be evaluated and like some makeup minutes. Well then that becomes,

Well, that kind of becomes an issue and we might need to put another full-time person in to get you guys up to speed and compliance because then it's just that hamster wheel of if we're working on this stuff then like caseload's not getting taken care of and students aren't getting the services that they might be getting if we can get this covered as well.

Marisha (25:54.77)

So best practice is to disclose those needs upfront. And then you can, and it might just be a temporary thing of like, okay, let's just put someone there for X amount of time, get this cleaned up, and then we can just continue business as usual. So, okay, cool.

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (25:58.863)

Yes.

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (26:11.485)

Yeah.

Marisha (26:15.086)

And then are there any other questions that you think are really important for a school district administrator to ask an agency?

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (26:26.417)

I think.

Some of the important ones are like, how do you handle issues that come up? Like nothing's ever perfect, right? Like I would love to live in a perfect world where everything is hunky dory green. My husband used to say like, Dana, you like to live in the clouds. Like, yes, I like to be in a happy place, but like sometimes that is not always the case. And things come up and like,

happens and life happens to our employees and school districts and all of that and it's like how do you handle those situations that come up how do you handle if an employee it like a con an employee of yours like there's an issue with it like how do you respond to that like how do you handle

like if there's a team dynamic thing that's happening with the district. Do you, and like the other thing is like,

district meetings. Like, would you like our SLPs to be a part of those district meetings? Like, all of those things. Like, we like to have SLPs kind of fit seamlessly into like the school district that they're being placed at. And so anything that like we can develop on our end to help with that too. So questions about like,

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (28:03.175)

Would your SLPs be willing to come to our monthly SLP meeting? Those are important.

Marisha (28:13.26)

Yeah, that's great. Is there anything, because I think we went through all the questions that I had. Was there anything else that you were wanting to share? Or if there's nothing else, like where can district administrators learn more about Next Level and what you guys offer?

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (28:31.143)

I think I could probably talk for hours about all of our, like the things that we're trying to develop. And I think the biggest thing is like, we are here to partner with you. Like there is no, like ask that like we can't have a conversation about.

And so I think the biggest thing is like, we get, how do you, what are your rates? Right. And it's like, it's a hard one to answer because across the U S it's very different. each state's very different. and like how I answer that is we work with you as a district. Like we understand that there's budgets, like we will have that conversation with you. Like we're not coming in with like a menu and here's our menu and you need to

pick from our menu. Like, yes, we have like certain like our services, but it's a conversation. And so I don't want districts like big or small to feel like they can't have a discussion with us, like because we're willing to partner with districts about all of that.

I think the bit and then the other thing too is like we're here for in-person, teletherapy, hybrid, all of those services and we're just speech. Like so I don't feel like I have knowledge of OT or PT or psych to be able to go to a district and try to like talk about those services. So we are speech only so that we can do one thing and one thing really really well.

So if they want to get a hold of us, they can go to our website nextlevelspeech.com and my email, like I don't know if you're going to post all of that on the platform for them, but it's DanaS at nextlevelspeech.com.

Marisha (30:37.898)

Okay. Yeah. And I, we will have show notes for this episode. So I'll link to the website and I'll include your email since you shared it too. And then, yeah, we'll just have like a quick recap of what we talked about and then all of the links. but yeah, Dana, thank you so much for sharing your expertise and perspective and thanks to district admins who are listening in. I hope this was helpful.

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (30:56.061)

Yeah.

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (31:05.031)

Yes, thank you.

Marisha (31:07.792)

and yeah, we'll see you in the next one.

Dayna Sanders, MA, CCC-SLP (31:11.037)

Thanks.

Marisha (00:01)

Hello there and welcome back to the special ed leaders podcast. I'm especially excited because we have our first returning guest today, David Bateman. he helped us kick off the podcast with our very first episode. and it was such a great conversation. we decided to have him come back and he agreed to help us chat more about IEPs and IEP compliance.

and so I, we already did your intro and everything in the previous episode. So I think we're good to dive right in. and my first question is, because you, you literally wrote the book on IEP compliance. it's called Developing Educationally Meaningful and Legally Sound IEPs and you are a coauthor. So you had, some collaborators with on that book. but I'm just curious what led you to.

David Bateman (00:47)

Thank

Marisha (00:52)

like specialize or write a whole book on this and kind of share a little bit of your story around the path towards that.

David Bateman (01:00)

Okay. several things, and I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you about this. This is great fun. But, and I didn't, I'm not sure how much I highlighted this in the previous podcast is that I was a due process hearing officer for a decade. And I saw a lot of problems with IEPs because the IEP is one of the main documents that's used at a due process hearing to determine are we fulfilling the lack

for lack of a better term, the contract that we have with the parents regarding the child. And it poses a significant problem with this. So I did that. was a due process here in office for a decade and since worked with a number of school districts about this. I just, I saw a lot of problems with how IEPs were being implemented. I saw a lot of problems with how IEPs were being addressed.

So I wanted to make sure that when Mitch, Jim and I worked on this book is that we addressed, we took what we knew about this to address the practical needs of this because every child has an IEP, every child needs assistance and teachers are writing these. And I don't want to piss anyone off here, but the level of legal standard that we hold a brand new teacher who's emergency certified is the same legal standard as someone who's been teaching for 25 years.

And so what we have to think about what we can do to be of assistance to help these individuals as a part of this process. But the other thing is I just want, I'm just committed to trying to help the kids because I think I used this phrase with you last time is these kids have disabilities at no fault of their own and we just need to do what we can for them as a part of this. The great thing about that book is it's gone nicely viral.

and a whole bunch of colleges and universities use it for their IEP writing course. And so the big book out there that was used prior to this one was written by Barbara Bateman, who I'm not related to, but a wonderful woman, wonderful woman. She recently passed away. And so that book is not going to be being updated, but we're just trying to get good information into people's hands to help them as much as possible.

And so some of the things that we've stemmed off from this is that this was written, it was written before AI was really something that we addressed. And actually, I'm gonna caution some of the listeners on this about this, is that what I'm seeing is parents taking IEPs and loading them into chat GPT.

And which first, I applaud the parents for wanting to participate in their child's education, wanting to be part of this process. But that's not the way to do it. Because what you do is you're basically releasing a whole bunch of personally identifiable information about a child into the internet. And once it crosses over the threshold, you're never getting that stuff back. And so there are ways we need to make sure that we talk to parents about this, because I'm hearing from districts in multiple states.

parents were walking in saying, hi, I loaded this in the CHED GPT and this is what they told me, a good summary and here are some better goals and just talk to them about this. mean, they're looking for a way to do it. There's ways of doing, of loading a goal into that but doesn't release all the information but we have to talk about where we're going with this. So, the appendices of the book also give some really good information that are helping families understand what the rules and responsibilities are as a part of this.

So there's a variety of things we're trying to get out there. But IEPs, yeah, they're the big kahuna that we look at in special education and we need to take them very seriously. so I've also written a module, Michiel and Cartho, we wrote some training modules for this at the IRIS Center that are really, they're being used pretty heavily. So we're really pleased about those as well. And they're all free for people to use. So that's good stuff.

Marisha (04:46)

And we can link those in the show notes as well. That sounds like an incredible resource. And yeah, I just want to reiterate a couple of things that you shared because I think anyone in special education, whether they're like an educator or an administrator or...

a consultant. think ultimately everyone's goal is to better serve students. We don't go into this industry to become rich and famous. So I think that's one of the

David Bateman (05:11)

Bye. Right, and

if anyone is, please tell me how we can become rich and famous.

Marisha (05:19)

Yeah. And so I think we all have that shared goal. And I guess so, and we talked about this a little bit in the previous episode, but, you mentioned a couple of things, but where are we, like, what are the biggest issues that you're seeing with IEPs? Cause you mentioned that emergency certified teachers are held to the same.

legal standard as very tenured teachers. So I assume that experience is part of it and that we're having a lot of quick hires to fill roles and turnover in the field. But what other factors are you seeing that are contributing to these issues with IEPs?

David Bateman (05:54)

Yeah. Yeah.

I could break this down probably just some really basic things. The first one is lack of understanding of what FAPE is. That the IEPs are really not aligned with what the kids need and therefore they aren't really helping the child make progress.

And so as a part of FAPE, our obligation is for kids to make progress. And some of these kids are not making progress and we're not changing what's going on as a part of what we're doing with it. So we need a better job to ensure that the kid is making progress as a part of this. Second big thing I'm seeing is just vague or lack of ambitious goals where the goal is too vague and doesn't really articulate what's going on because

Many of these kids are very transient and they're going from location to location to location, again, at no fault of their own because their parents are moving them. But it's that they need better understanding of someone that needs to make sure we have really good goals that are tied directly to this child that someone can then implement. The next thing I'm seeing is, I'm going to keep going on. I'm just generating as we go, is lack of baseline data.

on the goals because we sometimes we write these goals but we don't know where the kid currently is functioning so that we don't know actually if we're making progress on said goal and then can't articulate yay or nay about what we're doing for the child is helping that child make progress. But the biggest thing and I've got others after this but by far the biggest one that I'm seeing is and I speak to you is you're an SLP. SLPs take data differently than teachers do.

And I applaud because when I've done witness preparation for SLPs, it's a joy. It truly is because you have data like crazy. And I applaud you for this. And I appreciate that. But a lot of teachers aren't taking enough progress monitoring data to help us understand what's going on with the child and help us really determine what we're doing with the child. I mean, one thing that would change services.

would absolutely change every services and reduce the amount of litigation that we have relating to special education. As if teachers would just take more data and use that for informed decision making as opposed to just taking data and ignoring it. Because the law looks at when you knew or should have known that a child was having problems. And it's better for us to look at when the child is having problems and articulate and change what's going on about that instead of just having the kids continue to suffer.

Other things I'm seeing, not getting the parents involved in the process or not paying attention to them. I start every single IEP meeting I go to and I only go to the contentious ones. I don't go to the happy ones that are done in like 20 minutes and we have pizza and some kumbaya. No, I don't go to those. I go to the contentious But I start every single IEP meeting I go to with parent. Tell us about your child.

Because what that does is it grounds us and reminds us we're there to talk about a child. not just there for a paperwork compliance document. Other things I'm seeing is, again, proper team composition, where I'm trying to give you a good example of this, where we often pull the teacher who is free that period, not the teacher who knows what the kid looks like. It meets the letter of law, but I don't think it meets the spirit of the law. The spirit of the law would be have the teacher who's free

go cover the class of the teacher who knows what the kid looks like until that teacher come down just for 20 minutes, half an hour, just talk about that child and what they're experiencing. I'm also seeing cookie cutter IEPs where all the IEPs are the same. And I'm also seeing a lack of consistency between the present levels and the goals that we have where there's like...

Like I'm seeing, a kid has reading, reading, reading behavior problems, right? I see really good reading goals, but I see nothing to address said behavior issues. And that's probably one of the things that's tripping up districts the most is the problems relating to discipline problems, because that's why teachers are leaving the profession. They're not leaving the profession because a kid has a reading problem. They're leaving the profession because they have behavior problems. So we needed a better job of coming up with solutions and suggestions on how to handle this one.

That's just a broad answer on a variety of things that I'm seeing of late and what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to think of cases that I've recently been involved in. So, everything we're talking about are hypercurrent and things that I've every example, everything I've you are that I have seen since the beginning of the school year. So, this is things that we're seeing that – so, it's very current stuff, okay? So, great question. Thank you. I appreciate that one. Yeah.

Marisha (10:44)

Yeah, and that

is not a short list. There's a lot of...

David Bateman (10:47)

No, no, I could go

on, basically is the, yeah, but staff training. I mean, we're not doing good staff training on what the Gen Ed teachers need to do relating to the implementation of the IEPs. And probably as your background as an SLP, you understand that because you are often only with the kids on a limited time and you need others to implement those services for the kid in the classroom and be consistent with what you're trying to provide instruction for and reinforce those skills.

So we need to do a better job of all those things.

Marisha (11:19)

Yeah, and then, okay, so we have a lot of different challenges when it comes to writing effective IEPs. And you mentioned staff training as a big strategy, that, like that's, the staff is writing the, they're writing the IEPs, so that makes sense. That's where we want to start. Have you seen districts make...

David Bateman (11:36)

Yeah.

Marisha (11:43)

Like have you had any success stories with districts where they have been able to implement staff training and see a really big improvement in the quality of their IEPs? Or like if you could develop kind of a rough guideline of a program, like what would that look like?

David Bateman (11:58)

Okay, yeah, let me, I appreciate the latitude here. This is good, I love this, okay. This start with the why of the IEP. And is to give an example of because kids with disabilities were previously not receiving services. And they're now a protected class because they were historically prevented from participating in school.

So it's a legal document because they're a protected class. It only exists for kids eligible for special education. It doesn't exist for other kids. So the first is it's a legal document to explain what's going on. then we, so I would talk about collaboration and make sure we have really good team input for this. Do we have really good team input? We have this, everyone involved in the process that we have.

Everyone who's gonna be working with a child and talk about this because let me give you an example. I don't think I gave you this example before. A few years ago, I would walk my dog with a teacher. She was a fifth grade teacher and she had just gotten her class list. And of the 25 kids in her class, 22 of them had preferred seating close to the teacher. And...

We were trying as we're walking our dogs, she's walking her dog, I'm walking my dog. We're trying to figure out how is she going to do that? And what we originally thought was stacking the kids on top of each other so that they all could sit close to the teacher. And what she ended up doing is she ended up setting her classroom in a U-shaped format so that she could go down the center and see all what's going on. Those three kids who did not have preferred seating, we sat them in the field, we didn't care about them. But it's interesting about this is that we need to talk about

the responsibilities of the teachers who are working with these kids. Get them in the meetings, get them involved in the process so they understand what their roles and responsibilities, and also that they're participating. Because when I go to these meetings, I mandate that everybody who's in the meeting takes notes. They're not grading, they're not on their phone, they're sitting there taking notes. So that forces them to pay attention because...

We as educators get to attend many, many of these IEP being ZEAR, but the parents, this is their one. We need to give it the time, we need to give it the respect. They have taken time from their family, their work. We need to honor that as a part of this. But other things I would focus on, and the book covers this real nicely, I would focus on smart goals for kids.

Make sure this my son's in the business world. He came home not too long ago and said, dad, we have this new thing called smart goals. I said, really tell me about this. And he sits there and he's started and it was really, it keeps going. just tell me more, tell me more. I finally said, wait, you've heard of this, haven't you? So I pulled out the book and he was a little pissed, but it's interesting about this. start, but then, but for all kids is make sure that we start with a really good present level statement.

because that drives everything. It truly drives everything. It drives the services, it drives the goals, it drives the intensity, it drives everything. So I make sure as a part of this that I get statements from everybody who observes and works with that child. I get statements from bus drivers. I get statements from playground monitors. I get statements from lunchroom monitors about this. But I also make sure that we have really good statements as a part of this. But there's new thing that I'm also doing with the districts that I work with.

is that I'm asking them to put at the beginning of the present level statement, a three sentence summary of the services the child's receiving. Just a three sentence summary so that when that child moves to a new district, if that's all they read, they're now in the ballpark to start thinking about the services this child sees, having to read the whole thing. And that just makes it easier for these kids to transition from place to place as a part of this. But then,

But then talk about then if I was going to do more training, I would then practice writing some goals in some of these kids, make sure that we have good examples for this. Those IRIS modules that we're going to link to have some really good things as a part of this. I'll make sure to get those links as it addresses that. And those are free modules. You can use them over and over again for your teachers. In fact, I recommend if your district gets a brand new teacher, send, I know where that teacher's been from.

Send that new teacher into and have that teacher as part of their onboarding do the IRS module on legal and client IEPs for teachers. You get a brand new administrator, building level principal, assistant principal, I'd have them do the one for administrators. It'll be worth it. And true, these are free. Do them over over again and things like this. Then I would talk with the teachers about how to use technology for progress monitoring to keep track of things.

because people are feeling really overwhelmed with the amount of progress monitoring and how to keep data on these things. But make sure that we have good technology, technological advice, advantageous tools for them to help with this and keep track of these things. And it's in an consistent place and a consistent format because we may have a teacher who has great data, but they've locked it in their own personal computer. And if they're in an auto accident, we can't access it. We can't pay attention to it.

So we need to make sure it's data that is consistently used among others and help with us. But just keep this mind. The last thing I would do, and in addition, there's many other things, is I would make sure that we have really good mentors for new teachers as a part of their writing of these things. Because new teachers are great. I'm so glad that they've come into the field and I appreciate them.

but we need to provide the mentorship about what is expected about a good quality IEP and where to turn the forms in, how to do this and how to participate as part of where we're going with this. And then continue with follow-up support. Follow-up support because what's that great phrase we have about kids with autism? If you've seen one kid with autism, you've seen one kid with autism. Well, the same thing about IEP meetings. If you've seen one IEP meeting, you've seen one IEP meeting because they are all so very different. So continue to follow

allow mentors to work on this and plan for these in the future because they are all, thankfully they're different because of the independent nature of what's going on. We make sure that we provide the support for people down the road because my first year of teaching, I remember this real specifically, I had a lot of parents who came in and they just asked, where do I sign? And they were in and out of the room in 30 seconds. Then I had others who...

One, spend five to six hours on it. so it depends on the needs of the parent and how we do this. So we have to address this and move forward. But make sure there's continued support for this. so keep that up. Another great question. I like that one.

Marisha (18:29)

Yeah.

Yeah, and

I'm reflecting on my experiences in the school districts and I personally would have loved, like when I was starting out, I would have loved, like a mentor who would review my IEPs and give feedback. Like I was craving that. was, cause I was trying to do my very, very best and like look at the training resources and all of that to make sure I was writing an effective IEP, but having that feedback and having someone point out, cause it makes sense. okay.

we want to have comprehensive present levels and we want to make sure that goals are tied to that and but in the beginning it is really helpful to get that feedback and yeah and in a district that I worked in later provided that and it was just incredible and the quality of my IEPs significantly improved too.

David Bateman (19:10)

Absolutely.

Yeah, well, I'm glad to hear that and I appreciate how you share that because the stress that you felt because coming into a new position is there's a steep learning curve of the written rules, but also the unwritten rules. And you have to learn these things and just have someone guide you about what to do and how to do things. You're exactly very good.

Marisha (19:40)

Yeah, and I think, cause I was like, I was asking like, give me some templates and things like that, but it has to be very individualized. It's not cookie cutter. So just giving someone a couple of templates isn't gonna do the trick. So, yeah.

David Bateman (19:54)

Right, exactly, because it's

so individualized to that child. You're exactly right.

Marisha (19:59)

Okay,

perfect. And then, and so the, cause the training side of things doesn't have to be, like they can use the free, like do you think using the free iris modules would do, would be sufficient for that initial training?

David Bateman (20:13)

Yes. And let me explain how to do that as free initial training. So no, because I'm giving this advice to others. I would have like the special ed director have all the teachers and speech paths and other related services providers do the free module for teachers. And then that's their ticket in the door to a meeting the following week with the special ed director and

Marisha (20:14)

And so, okay. Okay, cool.

David Bateman (20:37)

staff of the school district. All right. Now that you've seen the module, the module is written at a national level. This, let me talk to you about how we do this within our district. This is where the forms are kept. This is who you turn the form into. This is who monitors the days. This is how your notices need to be sent out. you pass out a prior written notice to a parent, this is where you get it. Those kinds of things, but make it individualized to your district.

The same thing for building level administrators. I would have the special ed director say, here's the module, free module, there's no cost to this stuff. The free module for building level administrators, have them take that module and a week later, give them time to process it, form some questions, nature of adult learning, and then sit down with them. This is how we do it in our district. What questions do you have? This is where you go. You have a pre-referral form. This is who you file this with. Who do we monitor this? Who's counting the days? Those kinds of things.

So do that and so take that information that but then parallel to what you're doing in your district to make sure it's precisely know what they need to do it. So that would be a great way of teaching your district about it it's free. You don't need to get someone from the outside and you just get someone and do this and I think it would be better for everyone to do something like this because those modules when we were writing them, they went through layers of lawyer vetting and they field tested them before they saw the light of day and there...

wildly popular. So we're pretty pleased. We're pretty pleased with the effect of it. And they're free. I don't get any residuals off this. It's not like I'm endorsing something where I'm going to get paid on from this. It's just a great resource as a part of this. And the other thing is just to let you know, is if people happen to reach out to me next spring, we're going to have a lot of training modules for principals and training modules for teachers about IEPs. They're just all going to be free stuff. then so we're going to have these things and

I'm just trying to push out as much free resources for people as possible because I'm well aware that most of the districts of representative people who are listening to this, they're probably really well off and they have more than enough money to spend. But I'm gonna try to give free stuff to the ones who don't. So just to help them, okay?

Marisha (22:53)

Yeah, that's great. And I'll keep an eye out too if I...

David Bateman (22:56)

Yeah, sure. I'll put

a ticker on my calendar to send you also the information when it comes out.

Marisha (23:00)

Okay, and then I'll

update the show notes. if anyone's listening after the spring of 2025.

the show notes should have the updated links and additional trainings. Yeah, and as a former district employee, would have loved that too, just having, and if the training, because if they had sent me a link of do this training, I think that would have been helpful, but having the special ed director lead it and then start off with saying how important it is, like connecting to the why, like you said previously,

David Bateman (23:11)

Sweet. I like that.

Marisha (23:32)

I think that would be really helpful. And then if you're doing it in person, you're much more likely to pay more attention and have some discussion and engagement around it. So I love that. And then the follow-up with the specifics for the district is even better because then they're equipped to know how to actually do it.

David Bateman (23:38)

Right, right, right.

So having helped some of these new directors of special education do the follow-up, what I do is this is going to seem a little strange, but I have the people, they've had to watch the module before they walk in the room. They walk in the room, I give every one of them a three by five card and they can write whatever question they have about IEPs and we sit there and we answer all their questions because

Marisha (24:04)

Okay.

David Bateman (24:19)

And I'll be candid with you. Some teachers and some administrators are embarrassed to ask questions in front of their peers. This is a way to do it anonymously and this is a way to allow them to get their questions addressed. it just helped them as much as possible to get these things so that everyone truly understands what's going on. But it also lets you know where the individuals seem to feel lacking and what they can do as a part of this and where do they need to get more trainings as a part of this.

So it's, but it just, we do our, this is where the forms are, this is who you contact, this is the special ed secretary, call this number for questions, but just take your questions about IEPs. Special Ed directors should be able to handle those questions. They should be able, if they can't, there's resources that can help them get answers to those questions, but it's a way to help them address this and help them move forward.

Marisha (25:09)

Yeah, that's great. And then in terms of mentorship and follow-up support, I'm sure there's some district administrators who are, because scheduling a training, think that, especially using the free modules, that feels doable. I think that should, I don't know, I don't foresee that causing too many hurdles. I know scheduling can be tricky, but.

We do beginning of the year training all the time, but then in terms of like, you're, if an administrator staff is spread really thin or they're like, I don't know who could even be a mentor, provide that support. or maybe they have a huge percentage of new SLPs and only one or two people who could be mentors. What are some strategies in navigating that? Is there.

like outside support that they can enroll or strategies to help the mentors be able to have the capacity? Like how do you, have you seen administrators navigate that?

David Bateman (26:08)

Well, it's fine. It's trying to find a first trying to find a person that they can be a mentor who they trust. And who and then making sure that that person has some time in their schedule to do this, because they're doing their job, but then they're also going to be shaping the character of another person's job. But

But just make sure that we talk about the, we go through just those tips I went through before. We address the areas of the need, but things like this. But also talk about collaboration with individuals and help with this move and help this. But the last thing, the one thing that I think I've seen the best is shadowing and co-writing IEPs.

I'd co-write the first few IEPs with the new teacher or SLP with the district and then provide feedback along the way saying, all right, sit side by side with them. Here's the data we have. And we're really good in special ed about doing this, but task analyze, this is the first thing I would do. This is the second thing I would do. This is the third thing I would do and kind of walk through this and where we can get the information.

Because increasingly, IEP writing software, and if you haven't had experience or if you've had experience in a different system, you now have an, we just make sure that we hold their hands so they understand how to do this so that it's not so overwhelming. But like sit side by side and do one or two and then show how you would do that and move things. But then gradually, just any good change, gradually,

or people that very different. They'll gradually step away on things and be there for the areas where they have additional assistance, kinds of things like this. And then here's one, is make sure we recognize and celebrate progress when someone's actually doing something. Like a milestone, like when the first SLP or teacher, first successful IEP meeting or their first really well-written goal.

Marisha (28:07)

Thank

David Bateman (28:09)

and just periodically offer encouragement or remind them of the positive impact of work that they have on students' lives, those kinds of things. it shouldn't just end the first time that they meet. I say this because my first mentor said, I'm here for you, just come talk to me. And I didn't know what I should even talk to that person about. And so I didn't know what I could do, what I couldn't do. And I was basically left to flounder.

And I probably learned some ways of doing things that were ineffective. Got the job done, but were ineffective. We need to make sure that we help these individuals as a part of this because we're not getting the supply of new teachers, new related service personnel showing up on our school districts anymore. We need to do a better job. We've got a new person who's willing to come to our district, provide them the support to help them with this process so that they want to stay and they want to be part of this. But kind of...

just with anyone, teach them and then gradually fade away as the world. But celebrate these things, celebrate when they've done something as opposed to, because I've also, I saw a mentor who basically only talked to her mentee when the mentee did something wrong.

And so celebrate the good stuff. Celebrate the good stuff, okay? Yeah.

Marisha (29:26)

And that'll be

a factor in retention and all of that. And we will, we're, and, cause we may want to compensate mentors to like extrinsically motivate them a little bit, but the ROI on having a really good onboarding program and like support great, I, good effective IEP training.

will pay dividends because I assume that the new teacher will be much more confident, less stressed, and more enjoyment, which will help with retention too. And then your students are getting better services, which is everyone's ultimate goal. And the IEPs will be higher quality, which reduces the possibility of due process and settlement and all of that messy stuff. And it makes the process just go that much smoother.

David Bateman (29:55)

Yes.

Marisha (30:16)

and we get to be more efficient with our time in the long run. So I feel like there's a really epic ROI in a lot of different directions in spending some time on this.

David Bateman (30:25)

I like how you articulated that because the ROI, the return on investment is huge if we onboard people and show them how to do things. Yes.

Marisha (30:38)

So I'm sure that it's easy to come up with reasons of why setting up mentorship is going to be challenging or tricky, but hopefully, like considering some of those factors makes it a little bit easier. Okay, wow. So many good tips and strategies. Is there anything else that you wanted to share?

David Bateman (30:51)

Yep. Yeah.

One thing, just one thing. Two things, three things by the time I'm done. But first, I really appreciate the opportunity to talk with you. And I appreciate the service that you're providing to the field. And we're lucky that you're doing so much. So just keep up the good work. Second thing, one thing, this is the one thing you asked me, but I wanted to make sure I appreciated you. Is the one thing if

Marisha (31:07)

You

David Bateman (31:28)

that would reduce the threat of litigation or the anxiety that teachers have relating to litigation and IEPs is if they dramatically opt their progress monitoring data. Earlier on, I was talking about how good SLPs are about this is because you guys, SLPs take progress monitoring data every single time you work with a child. I'm not saying quite do that, which I think is wonderful by the way, is at least for like in a typical nine week marketing period, we should have

five to six data points that we can graph as a part of this. And if we can't graph it, it's not good data. And so we need to graph this data and then use that information for something. Because if you find out that the kid is not making progress through what you're doing, you need to change something. Because I have been involved in over 1,000 due process hearings. A lot of them were related to when the district knew or should have known that the child was having problems. If you knew the child was having problems,

and you did not work to address that child's needs, that child suffered. And we need to the professionals in the room, provide appropriate services, change something. I wish there would be just one change that would cause these kids to do something better. Sometimes it takes two, three, four, five changes, but do that will solve a lot of problems. And I think will be beneficial for the child. And I think will really help them down in the long run.

Marisha (32:49)

Yeah, that progress monitoring is huge. If we can start with a solid IEP and have good measurable goals, it'll make that process a lot easier. And yeah, and we can use a similar kind of model of putting together training for teachers on how to do.

David Bateman (32:55)

Yes.

Yes.

Marisha (33:08)

like strategies for effective progress monitoring and come up with strategies and systems and mentorship support and all of that to help boost that as well. So yeah, awesome. Well, this was a fabulous conversation. I feel like there were some really great resources. I love that there's free training that districts can use. So this is super practical and doable.

David Bateman (33:19)

Thank you.

Mm-hmm. Yes.

Marisha (33:32)

And then especially with the additional tips and strategies that you shared. So thank you again for being so generous with your time and expertise. I really appreciate it and I'm sure the listeners do too. And yeah, thank you to anyone who listened and we, I think I can speak for David too, but we really admire that you are.

out there like learning like trying to learn and figure out strategies to improve things in your district and for your students. So keep at it. We know it's not always easy but doing good work.

David Bateman (34:05)

Well stated, thank you.

Marisha (00:01)

Hello there and welcome to the podcast. I'm really excited to have Angela Buchanan-Smogula with us today.

She is a founding partner of Khan and Smigula, a two-woman law firm specializing primarily in education law. And they represent a variety of schools, including public schools, which is where most of our audience kind of lives. But she also co-hosts a podcast that focuses on special education. It's called a special education teacher, administrator, and lawyer walk into a bar, all you ever wanted to know about special education.

So that is another amazing resource. And I'll link to the podcast in the show notes so you can find out more. this quick bio doesn't do Angela justice at all. So Angela, would you mind telling us just a little bit about your story? What led you to specialize in working with?

like in education law and a little bit of your journey there before we dive into all things due process.

Angela Smagula (01:05)

Sure.

Yeah, sure, no

problem. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. My entrance into special education law sort of takes a securitas route. I went to law school after working in publishing, actually, and then didn't take any administrative law classes, didn't take any education law classes, didn't even know that I was aware of special education from volunteering.

in my high school with students with special needs. But other than that, I sort of wasn't aware of it at all. And then I was a big ticket litigator in Boston for a number of years and ended up leaving that after having my first kiddo and went to work for a municipality, the city of Newton in Massachusetts. And through working there, that city's law

office was big enough that they represented everyone in the city, so they didn't have any outside representation, and that included the Newton Public Schools, which is a giant school system. It's the third largest school system in Massachusetts. And through that, I started doing education work and learning about special education and discipline and all the stuff that goes along with it, and I loved it. Really, it became...

sort of my life work in terms of focusing on sort of the grassroots nature of it from the school side. And that's kind of how it went. And the podcast that I have that you mentioned, and I appreciate that, and I hope people listen to, are two people that are much more knowledgeable than me actually about special education, an administrator and a teacher, friends of mine now through work.

And through that we've sort of carried on and in opening my own practice, part of what we do for schools is represent them with regards to special education. And that doesn't only include due process, which we're gonna talk about today. It also includes sort of like day to day work and guidance and being a thought partner. And the districts that I represent, I know it can be contentious between families and school districts.

And as a litigator, I don't mind that. But at the end of the day, the idea is to work collaboratively and assume good intentions. Parents want the best for their kid. School districts that are implementing special education want to do what they think is best for their students. And so if you go in with sort of that view, I think it's helpful.

Marisha (03:35)

Yeah, I love that you mentioned that because that has been a common thread in our interviews is that like we all want what's best for students. Like we don't become special education administrators to become rich and famous. Like there's definitely a mission behind that. And parents obviously want what's best for our kids. it's just figuring out sometimes it doesn't connect quite right, but that is the ultimate.

Angela Smagula (03:48)

Correct.

Marisha (04:00)

goal, which makes this probably a nicer area of the law to navigate potentially. I don't know.

Angela Smagula (04:08)

Yeah,

well, what I often equated to is like a marriage. So a public school system implementing special education for a student is, you know, K through 12 or potentially K through 22. And that's you have to work with people despite having potentially disagreements or having to come to some sort of negotiated collaborative agreement along the way. Sometimes it's going well and sometimes it's not. But it's it is a relationship.

that lasts sometimes longer than some marriages. So you need to be aware of that, and I think people are, and I think lawyers that become involved, either on the parent side or the school side, also need to be aware of that. It's not a situation where you're gonna burn it to the ground in order to win. That's not really the goal.

Marisha (04:53)

we don't want to burn our public schools to the ground. Well, maybe some of us do. I don't know. Okay, but that's a super helpful introduction.

Angela Smagula (04:56)

you

Marisha (05:04)

And then, so let's transition to chatting a little bit more about due process. So can we start with a super broad overview of kind of what due process entails within the context of special education? I know that's a big question, so you can kind of hone it in however you think makes the most sense, but.

Angela Smagula (05:24)

Right, so

due process is a legal procedure that, it's sort of the umbrella legal procedure that allows parents and guardians to challenge decisions that are made by schools regarding their child's IEP or their child's 504. And the reason due process is available, and you'll hear about due process in all sort of walks of life, but the reason it's here is that you're,

The education is a right and not a privilege. So if you have a right to something, like you have the right to free speech, you have the right to education, then along with that comes due process that allows you to engage in a way to make sure that you have that right. And so the IDEA, which is the governing, you know, statute with regard to special education, specifically IEPs,

has, allows for that, so speaks to that. So that, you know, when you have the, when education is a right and not a privilege, then you're entitled to certain things. And so that you can exercise your entitlement to that through the due process system. Does that make sense?

Marisha (06:35)

Yeah, that makes sense. so the laws are intended to protect our students to make sure that they have that right. like, how do the... So how are the laws set up to help enforce that?

Angela Smagula (06:51)

So the laws are set up to help enforce that because the IDEA requires all of the states to follow their statutory framework with regard to due process hearings. And so you have an outlet when you are dissatisfied with the school with regard to accommodations and services, not following the IEP, not providing an appropriate placement, not providing FAPE, not addressing behavioral or disciplinary issues appropriately.

When you have a disagreement with the school, the school doesn't just get to say, sorry, we're right. So it allows for another level of review. And so the states all have their own regulations. In Massachusetts, it's the CMR. And so each state has regulations that further implement what the IDA proposes or mandates in terms of due process. what that looks like, and states can always do more.

know, federal law lays sort of like the baseline of what must be done. So the IDA lays the baseline of what must be done. And then states can always do more. They cannot do less. And so as like the baseline, the IDA mandates that states set up administrative hearings. So it's usually under like the administrative setup within that state. hearings are held.

due process hearings are held with a third party, a hearing officer, depending on what it's called state by state, that then hears evidence. So it's not just opinion, it's not just, don't think this is right, it's not just the school doesn't get to say this is all we can afford, the family doesn't get to say my kid is, you know, requires this because I want it, right? It's based on witness testimony and evidence.

and a third party will determine, depending on what the issue is, but at the end of the day, you know, that a student is making effective progress in the least restrictive environment and receiving a FAPE, that's like the umbrella issue that can be brought to a hearing, but within that are lots of smaller issues that can also be brought.

Marisha (08:56)

And what are some examples of those smaller issues?

Angela Smagula (09:00)

So

it can be a sort of a number of things. It can be concerning whether the school is actually implementing the IEP as written. The IEP is a contract, serves as a legal document. And of course, schools are mandated to provide a free and appropriate education in the least restrictive environment. And they need to provide enough specialized instruction for the student to be making documented effective progress. So.

Any of those issues can be brought as narrow as you want or as broad as you want. Often placement is an issue. So the law requires that students are educated in as inclusive environment as possible, right? Because in the old days, not that long ago, special education students were siloed in separate classrooms. And so the law changed that.

Every child is unique and individual, right? And so what they need is also unique and individual. And so depending on their profile, their disability and their need for specialized instruction, where they fall on the continuum of inclusivity can be up for debate. There can be a difference of opinion about that. And that turns on sort of where your placement is. So that's often a big issue. There's also issues as it relates to discipline. If you listen to my podcast, that's...

one area that I can yammer on about forever, but special education students have the same rights as regular education students plus more. And so often there can be disagreements that can come to hearing about that as well. Essentially, anything that has to do with the creation and implementation of 504s or IEPs are

are gonna be fair game within a certain timeframe. So the statute of limitations, which is a limit on how long back you can go for claims. So like if I have a eighth grader that I'm concerned about in terms of making effective progress, documented effective progress in their program, I can't go back to fifth grade and talk about it in terms of.

evidence for purposes of eighth grade. I can go back that far historically and you'll see that because it's, you know, again a long story. It's a child's life. But in terms of actual claims and compensation for those claims, and by compensation I don't mean money, I mean placement or services or additional requirements that the school district has to do, it can only go back two years from the date that you file.

So if you have a concern about an implementation of your student's IEP and you're sitting in the fall of sixth grade, you shouldn't wait till high school to bring that claim. Does that make sense?

Marisha (11:50)

Yeah, so if a parent is having a concern, they need to bring it up within those two years. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. then, so what are the steps involved? because I'm, and we're looking at this from the perspective of...

Angela Smagula (11:57)

Correct.

Marisha (12:07)

the school district, like the special education administrators or school administrators. And so they wouldn't be filing complaints, but just to give them, in case they're curious about that process, what are the steps involved in filing a complaint and what does that typically look like?

Angela Smagula (12:25)

So sometimes school districts do file complaints, for sure. But what it looks like for either party to file a complaint is you do not have to have a lawyer to file a complaint. So parents can file, it's Latin called pro se, which means they file for themselves. Districts can also file pro se, but they often have lawyers available to them.

You have to file an actual written document that identifies the complaint that you're making, the name of the child, the name of the school district, and the remedy that you're looking for. And it doesn't have to be, you know, the best thing ever written. It doesn't have to include

every single thing that you're concerned about, but it has to include an identification of issues that you want the hearing officer to decide. And even if a parent is writing something pro se, the hearing officer will get the parties together, usually telephonically, and make sure that everyone's on the same page about what the issues are. And then there can be

motion practice about excluding issues that may not fall within the jurisdiction of the BSEA or that's sorry, that's the administrative hearing of the Bureau of Special Education Appeals. That's what it's called in Massachusetts. But any sort of administrative hearing will have areas of jurisdiction as it relates to what I said about special education being implemented pursuant to an IEP or a 504. And then

The school district has the opportunity to write a hearing response. Again, it doesn't have to be your entire argument because, again, the hearing officer is not going to make any decisions based on those filings. The hearing officer is going to make a decision on a hearing, at a hearing with actual live testimony and actual documentary evidence. But the filings are necessary to identify the players, the issues, the time frame.

all that kind of good stuff. And then, I'm sort of jumping ahead, but just to put a bookend on it, when you have an IEP due process hearing, can go over a number of days, and then the hearing officer can sort of find the following things. The hearing officer can find that the school district's proposed IEP or the issues surrounding the IEP are appropriate and deny the family's request for changes or more services.

The hearing officer can find that the school district's proposed IEP is not appropriate and actually tell the school district what changes need to be made. So amend the IEP. And then the hearing officer may find that the school district's proposed IEP is not appropriate and then order additional services, order a different placement, and legally make a decision that the school district has to follow.

Marisha (15:26)

Yeah, that makes sense. So they're either deciding if it's appropriate or not. And if it's not appropriate, it may result in updating the IEP or setting up additional services or just remediation for whatever that is.

Angela Smagula (15:40)

Correct, so compensatory

services or ordering a different placement. Like oftentimes the decisions are turned on the school district saying we're able to provide FAPE in the least restrictive environment in our public school. And a parent, for example, is saying like, no, my student needs an out of district placement in a special education school. And the hearing officer has the ability to order that based on the evidence. So it has become like a very

Marisha (15:56)

I see.

Perfect.

Angela Smagula (16:08)

What's the best way to put this? Steeped in statutes and regulations. So it's become a very legal process that often requires lawyers, which is great for people like me, maybe not so great overall for families and special educators. I always say when I'm prepping my witnesses, no one went into education to like,

prep with Angela and testify at trial. Like that's not why people go into special education and families trying to get services for their students. It's not their goal to also spend time and energy testifying about why they need it. no one's happy except for me, the lawyer, right? But so, you know, but because again, education is a right and not a privilege, it inherently involves the government and the state.

mandating that certain processes are followed. And when that happens and it becomes codified in statute or regulation or law, you know, it inherently requires process that often requires attorneys.

Marisha (17:15)

Yeah. Yeah. So do you, do you have any idea how many times someone files pro-save? Like does that, cause I guess you're allowed to do it, but do those filings tend to go well? Like what is a lawyer eventually or attorney eventually roped in?

Angela Smagula (17:39)

So there are cases that go all the way to decision that are pro se, for sure. What I would say is that it can be an, like the special education process, even attending team meetings is an overwhelming process for families. And again, it's because it's, the devil is in the details, right? So the school district.

Marisha (17:55)

Yes, absolutely.

Angela Smagula (18:03)

has certain responsibilities that they need to follow. They need to provide, they need to demonstrate effective progress in the least restrictive environment. The school district's view of effective progress is not the best possible thing ever. That's not what the law requires. And so a family member might think, I want the best possible thing required. So there's going to be inherently some...

potential conflict in that. And then in terms of like what is being offered as specialized instruction, I mean, it's just, and with the new IEP, you know, it's just very, it can be very overwhelming. So take that and multiply it by a hundred when you go to hearing, right? Because the hearing rules require a list of witnesses, like a list of documents, the ability to examine and cross examine witnesses. So,

The law allows for parents to go pro se, and actually the way that administrative hearings are set up, is some consideration made for pro se parents, But in my opinion, you're better served by having an attorney to work on your behalf, but of course then that becomes like a financial issue. Now.

Under special education law, this is one of the few statutes that exist that allows for fee shifting. And what that means is if you are the prevailing party at hearing, i.e. you win the majority of the claims, then the school district has to pay for your legal fees. So they do that to allow, you know, to open the door for more opportunities because you don't want the concept of

having to pay for a lawyer restrict you exercising your rights, but you have to win. So if you don't win, then you're still on the hook for your legal fees. So it can be sort of complicated in that

Marisha (19:55)

Thank

Yeah, yeah. do you feel like, like do attorneys in general, do they have a good, I'm just curious, like if a parent brings a case, is it often super clear of like, yeah, this will, like the hearing officer will, like we think this will be the hearing officer's decision. Like, is it easy to predict or is it less clear?

I don't know, does that question make sense?

Angela Smagula (20:31)

It does make sense. what I would say is that it's not. And because there's so many factors and both parties have dug in to their view that they're taking it to a third party. And usually there's going to be some opportunity. There is opportunity to resolve it short of a hearing. So if you actually are ending up at a hearing,

Marisha (20:35)

Okay, because there's so many factors, right?

Angela Smagula (20:57)

then I think it's not straightforward. And I think it's not a slam dunk for either side. Otherwise it would have been resolved short of that. That's not to say someone's not right and someone's not wrong. It's just that it's complicated and nuanced. prior to filing a hearing request for due process purposes, there's lots of opportunities within the law to resolve it short of that. And that looks like a

couple of things. You can do that at the team meeting level. You can do that at mediation level, like departments of eds in all states offer mediation that's free related to the due process within that state. So you can go to mediation. Also, when you file a hearing request, the law requires

the district and the parents to have a resolution meeting unless it's waived. So that's another opportunity without lawyers for people to come together and try and resolve the issue. Sometimes the threat of litigation by a family is enough for a school district to move forward. So there are lots of opportunities for these two parties to come to some sort of resolution.

short of a hearing.

Marisha (22:14)

Yeah, that makes sense. And then, gosh, there's five million directions we could take this. So I think my last question, just from your perspective, so let's say that a school district, like what tips or strategies or like what advice would you share with a school district administrator who is maybe navigating, like let's pretend it's their first

due process or just like tips for due process in general, like what would you say to district administrators in terms of maybe a couple like top considerations?

Angela Smagula (22:52)

So what I would say to district administrators is to involve their council, if they can, as early as possible. In terms of like, if you think there's concerns or sometimes if there's a disagreement about services and you're wondering sort of where to land on it. To partner with other administrators in your district that have had experience with that.

or that have had experience with the family, and partner with your counsel, if you can, to determine sort of what the issue is and can it be resolved or can we come to some sort of agreement prior to it getting to litigation, prior to a filing. Now, other tips and advice around that is that, you know, once there is a filing, we want to make sure from the school perspective that we have all our ducks in a row.

Like is our paperwork good? Are there procedural errors that are gonna be problematic for us or that are harmless? Like we wanna be able to go to hearing with the best possible position. And so what that means is listening to what the families have to say and understanding their position and not just saying they're wrong because you want them to be wrong or because you think you're right. So you have to have the ability to be thoughtful and flexible to the extent that it makes sense. And then,

from my perspective, and you would pick this up when you listen to my podcast and my two former colleagues now friends, is like, be prepared. So I prepare my special education administrators and teachers so that they understand what is important in terms of evidence and what is important in terms of the issues at hand.

I always emphasize telling the truth. You're testifying under oath. You must be honest. And at the same time, you must also provide the information that the hearing officer needs to hear with regard to why you're taking a position that's counter to the family. It can't just be that, like, that's what you think, right? It has to have evidence in support of that. And you have to have data. So data, data, data.

Like the data is most important for purposes of evidence because parents will feel how they feel and they will express concerns about progress, about programming, about instruction. And our responsibility from the school side is to be able to demonstrate and quell their concerns with data. And then if we disagree, we disagree.

And so that's why it's important not to sort of get bogged down in personalities or in long-term difficulties or historical difficulties. It's really about the data and the support for why we think this service is appropriate, why we think this placement is appropriate, and why we're defending that, short of saying the kid needs something different.

And at the end of the day, sometimes people are like, what's the big deal? Well, there's a financial component to it. But obviously, also, it's like, what is in the best interest of the child? And out of district placement is inherently a more restrictive setting. For some kids, that's fape. For some kids, it's not fape. And families and school districts can disagree on that.

Marisha (26:24)

Yeah, and that's the part where it gets all, that's where it gets so intricate because what's faked for one student isn't for the other. But then it really, that's why it does come down to the data of like, we seeing that progress? And yeah.

Have that evidence. That's one big takeaway.

Angela Smagula (26:43)

That's,

you know, like my clients will tell you that I'm all about documentation and all about data. And documentation is important too, again, as it goes to sort of procedural due process. So procedural due process is about following what the regulations and the statutes say in terms of what you have to do. You know this, everyone knows this, there's X number of days that you have to do an evaluation by when you get the consent and there's...

X number of days that you're allowed to discipline someone until you have to add more, you know, process to that. And if you, if you, if you don't have, if you make procedural errors, you know, the question becomes like, does that, is that a negative, enough of a negative impact on the student that something, that changes need to be made. So it's very important to make sure that you're following all the procedures because sometimes it's harmless error, but sometimes it's not.

and you want to be in the best position that you can be. And again, that process is there because that's what the student is entitled to, right? There's a reason you get handwritten notes if you're going to get the IEP 10 days later, you know? And there's a reason why you have 30 days to respond to the IEP. Like these are all, they're not just like there to make everyone's life difficult. They're there because...

Go back to like my friend put it on a t-shirt for me. Education is a right and not a privilege. And when you know that and you think about that, that should guide sort of all the decisions that you're making in terms of following all the rules and regulations.

Marisha (28:16)

That's great. And do you ever work with districts on, because it's simple when you boil it down like that. Just make sure you have your documentation and your data and keep the student's best interest in mind and thinking about education being a right.

But I think the implementation of this gets challenging, like in a school setting, in an imperfect world where we have staffing issues and funding issues and all of that. So have you, gosh, and this would probably be a whole other podcast too, but I guess I'll keep it simple. Like, do you ever work with districts in being more proactive in setting up those types of things or like auditing their?

current systems and processes or anything like that or no.

Angela Smagula (28:59)

Yes, so like,

you know, the state will do an audit on that as well when they do the state audit and they'll pick up on those things. But yes, I mean, we do a lot of, I do a lot of work around that and it's often sort of like learning by doing. So like a good example of that is, you know, when you offer something verbally in a meeting or in a conversation and then you don't document it anywhere. And then they later say like, I don't ever remember that. And they might not.

Marisha (29:03)

Yeah.

Angela Smagula (29:25)

remember that, right? But you need to document it so that you have it. it doesn't actually what I often say, one of my catchphrases is it doesn't really matter what the answer is. Like if you're asking for consent, you have to do it in writing. And it doesn't matter if they say yes or no, actually, it's more important that you that you made the offer in writing, because later we're going to have a disagreement about it. And we're going to want to be able to demonstrate that we for procedural purposes that we that we asked for consent.

that we made that offer, we heard them say that they want an evaluation, and that we responded, right? I can't tell you like how many conversations and disagreements I've had where they say they offered it, but there's no evidence of it. And the family doesn't remember. And it may well not be, and they deny it, and they say that it was never offered. And it may well be that they don't actually have a real memory of that.

because again, it's a stressful environment, especially if it's sort of contentious. So it's really important to document things and the answer almost doesn't matter.

Marisha (30:25)

Yeah, that's great. So I think we can. This was super helpful. I really appreciate. I know these questions were a little tricky and super broad. There's so many areas to dive into with this, but I feel like you did a really nice job of breaking things down and making them a little bit more digestible. So thank you. And then so if district administrators want to kind of learn more about.

Angela Smagula (30:39)

I'm so glad.

Marisha (30:48)

what you do, well, definitely share the link to the podcast. But is there, and we have the link to your practice website as well, or your law firm. Is there anywhere else you would want to send administrators?

Angela Smagula (31:01)

Yeah, mean, so I would recommend, shamelessly recommend listening to the podcast. There's a lot of episodes. I mean, we're on season, I think we're in season four, but you can go through the episodes and click on what you want and you can listen to them sort of like by interest. There's a lot of, mean, because we have an administrator and a teacher, like a very experienced administrator and a very experienced teacher, now administrator, I mean, multiple, multiple decades.

Marisha (31:07)

great resource.

Angela Smagula (31:28)

There's just a lot of really good specific episodes, like the one, two, threes of IEPs and about FAPE and about evaluations, like very, very specific episodes that I think would be helpful. We get a lot of feedback. Also, when we talk about these issues, like one of my co-hosts often tries to sort of like say directly, like, is helpful to teachers because of X or this is helpful. The takeaway we want you to have is why. So I think it's very, very helpful and informative.

If people have like individual questions that they want to raise with me, they can contact me on my LinkedIn, which I'm happy to have you include. Also, we have email that related to the podcast where people write in questions directed often at me or just in general that's also available to people. I'm happy to and we get like our listeners. It's interesting, like our platform.

indicates like where our listeners are from. And when we first started doing this, we thought it would be sort of very Massachusetts and New England centric, but it's not like we have a massive amount of listeners in like Illinois and a massive amount of listeners in like a town in Kansas. Like we have a lot of listeners and then we also have like international listeners as well, which is interesting too. So I'm happy to respond to any questions and I can provide you with the.

the email address that you can put in your show notes if that's helpful.

Marisha (32:49)

Yeah, that would be great. And I also will add a link to your LinkedIn profile. But yeah, so we'll have some great resources in the show notes. They'll be linked in the description for the episode. And yeah, think, is there anything else? I don't want to cut you off. Is there anything else you wanted to close out with or are you feeling?

Angela Smagula (33:09)

Well, I just wanted to say in terms of like the whole continuum of due process, like I did want to mention that if you disagree, if either party disagrees with the hearing officer's written decision and they have to write a decision that's often extremely detailed within a certain number of days, that is appealable in your state according to the regulations in your state, often to either state court.

or federal court, right? And federal court has jurisdiction because of the IDEA, state court has jurisdiction because of the state regs. So that's another layer of due process that's allowed for, for both parties for purposes of if you think they've gotten it, they've gotten it wrong.

Marisha (33:49)

So this could end up being quite a lengthy process.

Angela Smagula (33:54)

It is a lengthy

process. Now, what I will say is that the law requires and the feds have been pretty good on states, specifically Massachusetts, I'm aware of, of making sure that the administrative hearing officers follow their timelines, right? that, so, but it's still, you know, from the day that you file a hearing request, there's going to be extensions, reasonable extensions. There's going to be

a variety of things that that cause things to get delayed. So let's say you file January one. Let's say you have a hearing by the end of February, then they have to generate a decision within 60 days, like you're four months in. Right. And so there is there are like the ability on certain issues and we could do it as another podcast on that for emergency expedited filings. But

You know, it can be that you don't have a decision for months, even in the most efficient of processes. So, yeah, it is time consuming. What I would say again is that like the only person that loves litigation is me. No one else loves it. So, you know, at the end of the day, you know, you want to try and work collaboratively. There's also, I didn't mention, opportunity to work.

Marisha (34:57)

you

Angela Smagula (35:06)

collaboratively short of a hearing decision once you're within the hearing. So for example, in Massachusetts, we have something called a settlement conference that a different person at the agency runs that allows for you, after filing a hearing request, to potentially resolve the case. Also, hearing officers allow for something in Massachusetts and I know in other states called a pre-hearing conference where you can also try and resolve the case. The lawyers can talk to each other and try and resolve the case.

So there's lots of opportunities to do that. Sometimes filing a hearing request is the only way to get someone's attention. That can be true, but that doesn't mean that you're gonna definitely go to hearing. And again, it's very time consuming for both parties. It's very stressful for both parties. It's very expensive for both parties. And at the end of the day, you don't walk away and say like, see you later, bye. Because even if you're placing the student out, like you're still,

monitoring that placement. You're still responsible as a school district for that child's education, even if they're in an out of district placement that you've been told to place them in, or you have decided that you need to place them in. So it's a long standing relationship. Going back to what I said in the beginning, you know, hearings can take a lot out of people, all people, everybody but me, again.

Marisha (36:25)

Thank

Yeah, that was super helpful. Thank you for breaking that down and explaining it in such a clear way. And then, yeah, for anyone listening, thanks for joining us. Definitely check out the show notes for the resources mentioned. And thank you, Angela, for being so generous with your time and expertise. This was great.

Angela Smagula (36:45)

Thank you so much. I really enjoyed it.

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.