How to Hire a Special Ed Staffing Agency

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.