Introducing the IDEA and Other Laws in Special Education

ANDREA YU: All right. So, we are going to talk about the IDEA and other laws in special education. This is going to be super basic. We will discuss everything else like evaluations. LRE goes more in-depth in parts two, three, four, so on. And I have here my director, Karma. Karma, would you like to say a few things before I get started?

KARMA QUICK-PANWALA: Thank you for joining us for part one of our 10-part series. I’m looking forward to getting the show on the road. Please note that we are going to be recording this webinar. So, we want to make sure that you have access to this webinar in the future. If you want to come back to do’s website and review the recording and we will do that for all 10 of these webinars so that if you miss next month’s webinar you can review it afterwards on our website as well. So more to come on that but let’s get the show underway.

ANDREA YU: Thank you, Karma. Okay. So today’s agenda, we will be doing some introductions and expectations. We’ll understand the laws that are very important. These laws include IDEA and other laws that are pertaining to the students’ education. We’ll understand your rights and your students’ rights of course and we’ll talk about advocacy strategies. Advocacy strategies we will have in every boot camp presentation or training. So please be aware of those. Some of them may be very repetitive. However, that is something that we on a daily basis discuss with families when we talk to them one-on-one. We also will have a Q&A. And of course, just know that all of this information is because we want you to have the power. Knowledge is power. Information is power. And we want the parents to be the strongest advocates for their families. And if there’s any youth here with a disability or who has a 504 plan or IEP document, we want you to be the fiercest most appropriate advocate for yourself.

So, who we are at DREDF. DREDF is a unique alliance of people with disabilities and parents of children with disabilities. Our vision is a just world where all people live full and independent lives free of discrimination. We also talk about very important laws because disability rights laws are civil rights laws essentially. We talk about IDEA, ADA because these laws affect people with disabilities and we want people with disabilities their rights to be acknowledged and of course to be respected. Sorry. Disability rights are civil rights. So we work really really hard for you to understand these rights and how these rights empower people with disabilities and just move our society forward.

So what we do specifically is that we are a, or actually, DREDF is a whole entity, but I on the Parent Training and Information side, I am a bilingual educational advocate. So what that means is that I provide information, technical information to families, youth and professionals. This includes teachers or any other oric that wants to know more information about disability rights. And we empower them. We let them know their rights, their options, and we also give them resources. If you look into our website, we have great resources for you to have. We serve 30 counties. We might not fall into your county. If you are outside the 30 counties we serve. So even if you’re outside those counties, you’re still more than welcome to join our webinars and just be part of this discussion and of course have your Q&As. But if you do want a one-on-one support, do please go to the Parent Center Hub website. This is a live website that will take you directly to your Parent Training Information Center that serves your county.

Okay. So, here’s some of the expectations that we will have for tonight. We will what we will talk about is the laws about special education, the six principles of IDEA, which if you learn anything from this presentation, I would say that’s the number one thing, the six principles of IDEA, and of course, we want you to know the advocacy of course, how the IEP document is built, and lastly, advocacy strategies. We will not talk about specifics students and schools. Again, I just want to remind everybody this is a public forum. We do not want to share your information. I do not want to share your private information. So, please just keep it very general. And of course, you can always contact us at iephelp@dredf.org or the number is 510-644-2555.

I’ll put it in the chat later on if you have specific questions. What we cannot do… I would say that as frustrating as it is, when there’s problems in the education system, it’s not going to be a quick fix. It will take patience, it will take diligence, and it will be data recording, something that we all love. So we do want to just say that I really understand that it can be very frustrating, but we want to see it as we’re running a marathon. We’re not running a sprint. We are not legal advocates. We are not attorneys. So, we will never tell you what to do. We will never advise you on anything because we are just lay advocates. But if you do want any type of resources on how to get access to an attorney, we can go ahead and give you those resources. This is not a recommendation. They’re just resources for you to have.

So, this is how we will proceed. We will take general questions at the end. Like I said, as this is being recorded and we do want to assume positive intentions. I know that can be very difficult if a student is not getting their needs met and they’re not progressing from year to year. So I do hear you on that. But we do want to have that positive mentality. And, we all have something to learn from each other. Everything we share is of course super valuable. We I want this forum, we all want this forum to be collaborative free zone, and I will do my very best to explain unfamiliar terminology and just use plain language for everyone to understand as we live in the land of acronyms and the special education world. So, I will do my best to break those downs.

So, a very important term, we use disability and not special needs. And as a actually as a special education teacher, I want to say that I would use special needs a lot. When I came here to DREDF, that’s when I started to understand that the word here is disability. And the reason is because disability is a specific legal definition and it has a very intentional meaning. When you discuss disability, that is now tied to disability rights. When you talk about special needs, it of it often has this idea of the student needs to have something very specific because they need like a special treatment if you will without actually getting to the root of disability is a right. So if we talk about disability rights, we talk about the students’ rights, the laws that are in place, everything that allows students or youth to have access just like everybody else. When we use this word “special needs” and I would often have to slap my hand when I would say “special needs,” we just start to have this idea of “oh, special needs means that you just get something ‘extra’ because of whatever.” So we do want to just steer away from that label as also “special needs” can be a very stigmatizing label as opposed to disability because again disability is tied to rights.

Okay. And this is a very awesome quote that I really like. “Special needs gives the impression that the rights of people with disabilities are special or extra. We have the same rights as everybody else because we are all part of the society and we all we can all and of course will contribute to the society. So therefore, when you imply that the acts of accessing our rights as “special,” it gives the rest of the public a pass to treat us as though our rights are special privilege, which of course is not. It’s a right.”

Okay. Now, let’s talk about some laws that is very important for everybody to know because this applies to the students and the youth that are here in California. And if you are from outside California, I just wanted to state that we will talk about the federal laws, which applies of course to all the US, but when I get into the nitty-gritty of things, it really comes to the California state laws because that’s what I know. But let’s talk about the federal laws which trumps any type of law, any type of school policy, what have you.

So we have IDEA, again the land of acronyms, Individuals with Disabilities [in] Education Act, which is a special education law that governs the IEPs, which stands with for individualized education programs. Here I want you to look at the “I” individualized that means the individualized needs of the of the student and then the “E” stands for education. Education does not mean only academics. It also means social emotional. It means psychical health. It means vocational,  the way you jump, walk, all of those things are tied to the word education. So, one thing that I sometimes hear is, “Well, your student is they need to be two grades behind in order to now be evaluated for an IEP.” That is completely false because again, when we talk about education is not just the academics. It has to be everything. We’re looking at the child as a whole. And the program is essentially meaning what is a student receiving when it comes to their needs and how are their needs met. That’s how we talk about goals and placements and so on. I’ll go into detail further on the Every Student Succeeds Act to make sure that students are able to meet the standard essentially the Federal Education Records Privacy Act or FERPA. This is a law that’s very important here in California. It actually means that the parents have the right to request the records and review them as long as they let the district. And when I say district, I also mean school. I mean non-public school. I mean charter school within five business days. The key here is to provide documentation all the time that you’re requesting the records.

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Section 504. When you hear Section 504 plan or 504 plan, this is not a special education law. This is a anti-discrimination law. So when a student has a disability, they have the right to accommodations. They have the right to access everything that any other student needs to access. Therefore, if they need certain type of accommodations, for example, let’s say I have ADHD and I have a hard time maintaining my work schedule because it’s hard for me to keep that order, right? So maybe an accommodation that I will have is that I will have a planner in front of my desk every day for me to just check off what’s next because for me organization can be difficult. That is an example of an accommodation in order for me to participate just like every other student. We have the Americans with Disabilities Act title two which is a broad disability rights. It is for public entities that ties back to the unroll, which is also a broad disability rights law that applies to non-public schools, private schools, for students and parents to not be discriminated. The McKinney-Vento Act is a homeless student and families. So the McKinney-Vento essentially means the student has a right to be educated whether they do not have a a home and what I would describe as a physical home is that they have an address. Right? So if the student is homeless or even temporarily homeless, there is somebody in the district who is in charge of the McKinney-Vento students who may fall under that category. The McKinney-Vento Act allows students to have be able to participate in any school, be enrolled in the school and also to be assessed for either a 504 plan if need be or an IEP document.

The Title VI is Civil Rights Act which is again, is you cannot discriminate against language, religion, ethnicity and the Title IX is a sex and gender meaning you cannot discriminate against sex and gender. These, I just want to say that the McKinney-Vento Act, Title VI, Title IX, Section 504, the IDEA, FERPA, all of this there’s always somebody in the district or the school who will manage that. So I can assure you as a previous teacher that there was somebody usually the vice principal or the principal who would manage Section 504 or there would be somebody maybe a parent liaison or someone in the school they just had a title that were supporting any students with McKinney-Vento, etc. And then the Lanterman Act, which I will not really go into detail very much, but what I do want you to know is these are rights for developmentally disabled Californians. As the way I would describe it is the Lanterman Act allows disabilities of people within California to just have the rights and it has very specific criteria. If you fall under the Lanterman Act, you probably have Regional Center support or you’re a Regional Center client.

Okay. Now let’s talk about the six principles of IDEA and we’ll focus on FAPE again Free Appropriate Public Education land of acronyms and the LRE, the Least Restrictive Environment.

All right. So again if you have anything to take away from this is the six principles of IDEA. Number one: the student should always be have the right actually for evaluation and this is Child Find. Child Find is a law essentially that states that the district again district I just want to lump it with charter schools any non-public school etc. They have the obligation to assess students if there is a suspected disability. And I’m using very specific language, suspected. You do not, as a parent, if parents want, you know, I just want the parents to know that the parents do not need to have a medical diagnosis in order for the school district to say, “Okay, now we’re going to evaluate your child. We’re going to assess them in a 504 plan or an IEP document.” That is not a requirement.

I personally don’t know where this came from, but it’s just an idea that maybe has been passed down from director to somewhere else. As a previous teacher, I also had that  misconception. But, just know that you do not need to have a medical diagnosis to start this process. Just a suspected disability concern. And also just because you have a child who’s medically diagnosed with a disability, it also does not guarantee that the student will be eligible for an IEP or a 504 plan. I want to go back to this to the E. It has to be educationally related. Medical-related and educational-related are two different things.

In order for the district to determine if a student is eligible for a IEP document or a 504 plan, they first must assess them and they must assess them in the educational sense. If you do have a medical diagnosis, that can provide a lot of information, but that is not a direct guarantee of now my student has a 504 plan or now my student has an IEP document. But be aware that the district should always implement Child Find. This means that if there’s a concern of a suspected disability, they can start that process. They can tell the parent, “Hey, we think your child should be evaluated for a 504 plan or an IEP document. Here’s the assessment plan. Look it over. If you agree, sign it. Give it back to us. We’ll start the evaluation process.” So, the parent does not have to start that process. They usually do. And if they do start it, it’s always always recommended to do it in writing so you have some type of data or some type of record, excuse me. But even that is not necessary. You can also say it verbally and the teacher or the principal can make a essentially a request saying, “Okay, we’re going to evaluate the student.” If they say yes, it’s appropriate to evaluate the student, here’s the assessment plan, etc. But just know that keyword suspected disability.

FAPE is a Free Appropriate Public Education that must be available to all children residing in the states uh between the ages of three and 21, and again it just has to be based on what are the needs of the students and these are very specific languages that I always use with my families that I talk to. Appropriate means appropriate to the child. Not all the students are the same, of course. So, it has to be appropriate to that specific student based on their needs. And when there’s free, I sometimes get calls from parents, “oh, they told me my child gets very overwhelmed with sound and they recommend noise-cancelling earphones. They told me that I should go buy them.” When I hear the parent needs to buy something for their students’ education or their access to education, that is no longer free. So we do want to go back to this acronym. I always go back to this acronym is the situation not allowing a Free Appropriate Public Education. The IEP is Individualized Education Program, which is a legal document that specifically lists a special education instruction any support services goals etc. that the student will need. And again it’s a legal document. The least restrictive environment is where students with disabilities are educated. Ideally, we want the students to be educated with their typical peers, which is general education. However, the district must indicate if the student needs to be in a special day class or separate schooling or any other type of placement besides a general education, it needs to indicate how this special day class, etc., is a appropriate placement. And it usually has to indicate because of the severity of the disability the student cannot be in a class, a regular class and therefore this placement special day class is appropriate because that’s how they’re going to meet their goals and have their services in the appropriate placement and essentially why this gen ed cannot use supplementary aids and services and they cannot be achieved satisfactorily in a gen ed class.

Meaningful participation indicates that you as the parent have to participate and you are the most important besides the student who’s receiving or who has this IEP program catered to are the most important member of this IEP team. You are not a guest in this IEP team meeting. You are the most important member besides the student. So you do want to participate in any capacity. You want to always indicate what do you think are the strengths or their challenges for your students? What are your thoughts and certain goals, services, etc. And procedural safeguards lastly is a legal protections designed to ensure the rights of students with disabilities and their parents and are upheld during the special education process. Every time you go to an IEP meeting, you should be receiving the procedural safeguards. And I know that it’s this packet that looks very intimidating. When I was a teacher, I was like “wow.” Even for me, it was quite intimidating, but please read that procedural safeguard packet because it has all your rights and one of those rights is to challenge the evaluations. We are not going to go into evaluations right now, but that is something that I want you to keep in mind and please join us on the second part of this boot camp because we will talk everything evaluations. But, I do want that idea to be in your head. All right.

Okay. So, very broad: evaluation and Child Find. Again, the district must locate, identify, and evaluate all students that are suspected of having a disability. This includes students from ages 3 to 21, even if they’re passing grades. Because, even if they’re academically doing amazing, there might be some other concerns there. Maybe there’s some emotional concerns. Maybe there’s some social emotional where they have a hard time making friends or keeping friends or just navigating that social sphere. Or, maybe there’s some occupational therapy which could be writing concerns, walking concerns, etc. So, not everything just has to be focusing on passing the grades or going from grade to grade. And this of course, Child Find applies to private schools, parochial schools, and charter schools. Charter schools

are the same as any other school. They’re also public schools. And the evaluation process is ongoing. It’s ever-changing. It’s a living document. You can always request more evaluations. And, again we’re going to get into the nitty-gritty of evaluations on parts three and four.

Okay. Now further breakdown of Free Appropriate Public Education and what is FAPE? Free, again, like I mentioned before is no cost to the family. Anytime you need to pay for something that is no longer a Free Appropriate… I’m sorry, a Free education. If you need to come into the school because there isn’t an aid, or because your student is having a hard time behaviorally that you come into the school again I totally understand, but, you are not one of the district’s employees and usually when I hear that I always ask the parents, “oh did you ask for you know for for your time right?” Because you’re not a district employee. So be aware of that.

Appropriate is the IEP contents. That means the student’s unique needs. The Public must be provided by the public school district, of course. And the Education like I said again is not just academics. It’s all related to the students needs in order for them to have access to life activities outside of the education.

Okay. The IEP is a roadmap that describes how we will monitor progress because it is essentially the blueprint. How are the goals going to be met? Who is going to provide the services for the student to meet the goals? Who will be the students around the student who has an IEP to meet those goals? It should provide educational benefit and equal access for the student to have their education. It also, I mean, the essential gist of the IEP document and then the whole idea of the law of IDEA is for students to… once they graduate from high school or if they decide to stay until [age] 22, they are now ready to embark in either future education, employment… living either with their parents or living by themselves in any independent way. Whatever independence means to them to them, sorry, capacity because that is what we’re striving for. As a teacher, I would say we would always look at the year-to-year but as parents I know you’re looking at the bigger picture. So, the purpose of the IEP document is to track year-to-year to reach that goal for them to just be completely independent once there’s once they’re out of the education system, because in reality there is no such thing as IEPs once they graduate high school, or once they are now adults, and they are now more than 22 years old. So, we do want to think about you know those things.

Again, education is not just academics is very broad. And, Appropriate…. always use that word. When we say “best” that is not the word we want to use. We want to say appropriate. Appropriate is very specific and it’s a very intentional word. So when we say this is what’s appropriate for this student, now you’re pinning on what are the specific needs of the student.

Okay, let’s look at the path to FAPE which is the Needs. The needs have to be data-driven all the time. Data is the foundation of evaluations of the assessments. So, the data includes, of course, the assessments, the parent input, the grades, any test scores, any type of behavior reports that also provides us a lot of information. If the student does not want to partake in an assessment, that still gives us information, or any independent service providers, data data all the time. I feel like I cannot stress that enough. When we talk about goals, we talk about all the areas of need. Again, not just academics, but behavioral, daily skills, social emotional. And we want to talk about SMART goals. SMART goals… and we had a whole training on SMART goals as well. They have to be specific, measurable, achievable, but they have to also be ambitious and relevant and time-bound. The goals are what drive the services, which is now, we’re getting into the individualized sector, which are the accommodations, the service providers. If your student has a speech goal, something about either this the way they sound letters or any type of blending sounds together any of that stuff, you definitely know that if there’s a goal related to speech, there’s going to be a speech service provider, which is the speech pathologist. If the student needs support in writing, making sure that they’re writing between the lines, are able to pinch things. I used to be a preschool teacher, so it was a lot of pinching, a lot of grabbing. Any of that is an occupational therapist who will be supporting that goal. So, just be sure that it has to be the needs derive the goals, they derive the services. If there’s no goals for speech therapy or occupational therapy, or special education, you’re not receiving those services. And it doesn’t work backwards. Just because… let’s say there’s a service provider shortage. Let’s say there’s not a special education teacher this year for whatever reason, and the district conducted these evaluations and they said, “Well, you know what? We don’t have a special education teacher. We know your student needs this service, but we don’t have that service provider. So, we’re just not going to make those goals.” That is not how it works. It has to be the need is what derives the goals. And the goals derive the service. So, if you have a specific goal on a specific area, you know, you’re going to get a service. And when you ask yourself, “you know, my son, they need some sort of social support.” That’s a need. But in the IEP that I have in front of me, I don’t have a social-emotional support goal. They’re not going to be supported. But now, let’s add it and let’s incorporate it in the IEP. Let’s have an IEP meeting. Let’s talk about that goal so it can be included in the IEP document. And now they’re going to get services because now they have that goal that targets that need. And then after all of that, we will talk placement.

Okay. So if you look at your IEP document, and if you do have it in front of you, if you don’t, that’s okay. The IEP Contents are as follows: We have the present levels. The present levels, where do they come from? They come from data. They come from the assessments. They come from the parent reports. They come from the academic functional performance etc. That is just data that’s there and it’s usually after the general page of the student’s IEP document. Then, we’ll talk about the special factors, the statewide testing accommodations, if the student is taking a statewide testing. And now let’s talk about the offer of FAPE, the offer of a Free Appropriate Public Education. It will have the goals, and the goals ideally will be SMART. And, there also will be the accommodations or modifications page in which indicate what are the accommodations for the students, and where will they get these accommodations? Will they get them in the general education class? Will they get them in the special day class in the resource pull out? What is that going to look like? And it should be there in the documents. The offer of FAPE should also include the services. How often, how long, where are these services going to occur? Again, is it a push in, meaning the occupational therapist and the speech therapist and the special education teacher? Are they coming to the gen ed class or the special day class? Or is it a pull out meaning “oh this we are taking the student for 30 minutes to a different classroom to work with a group of two more kids because it’s a small group and this is how we’re going to provide these services and we’re going to work on this goal.” So all of that information should be on the services page in order for you to understand how is this even going to be about. And then, the placement will be the percentage in and out of gened. And it will also indicate the diploma certificate any type of information. But for the placement, I do want to say that if the student, it should always indicate if the student will be in Janed, what percentage I sometimes see in the AP document where parents ask me, oh, they told me my child would have opportunities. They’re primarily in a special day class, but they will have opportunities for general ed peers, but I don’t know what type of opportunities. And then I check the placement percentage and I see that there’s 20% of gen ed placement, right? Or the percentage that they will be in. So when I think of 20% I think that sounds like the opportunities will actually be they will be in recess together with gen ed peers. They will be in lunch together with gen ed peers. But is that really participating with gen ed peers? Or is that just being in approximation to gen ed peers?

So we do want to look at that percentage, because that percentage is important and now we can have a conversation. And then lastly, the Individual Transition Plan that is for students that are 16 years old and up in order to support them. That is not a separate document. It is part of the IEP document and it should be embedded there. It should indicate what are the goals for them to transition to adulthood. And the Behavioral Intervention Plan or BIP as the acronym should also be embedded in the document and it should be very specific on how are they going to support the student for their behavior and the emergency IEP. That means that in case there’s an emergency because we are now living in the time of post-COVID, hopefully that will never happen again, but we do live in California. There’s forest fires, or there could be any type of emergency if the school needs to close down for more than 10 days, we do not want students to not have their services or their goals met. So, how are we going to go about this? That information be should be in the emergency IEP section of the IEP document. If you do not see any of these (well, for the Behavior Intervention Plan, the district must do a behavioral assessment first, if the student doesn’t have that, of course, this one is 16 and up), but let’s say that your student doesn’t have any behavior concerns or is under 16. There should be an emergency IEP section of that document. And if there isn’t, request it, for sure.

Okay. Least Restrictive Environment, and I know that there’s questions already pending, but please bear with me. We’re almost there. The Least Restrictive Environment includes the use of supplementary aids and services. Aids and services and other supports are provided in the general education, I’m sorry, in the regular education class or gen ed class or other educational-related setting to allow children with disabilities to be educated to the most extent possible with non-disabled children. And this is very intentional. Again, we want to say that the district must justify why the student cannot be in gen ed class. And usually there is a really good justification if that is so. If the student gets very overwhelmed in the gen ed class, that is not the appropriate setting at this time. But let’s go ahead and work with the student to meet their goals and be able to be in the gen ed. So, we do want to work with that and we do want to get information on what’s happening that is not appropriate at this time. And if they’re in a special day class, okay, let’s work on those goals. Let’s work on the settings. The placement, or the… in the LRE is unique to that specific student, because even if a student, let’s say I I’m just going to be super general and we know that if you know one kid with autism, you just know one kid with autism, but that student with autism isn’t cannot be in gen ed class at this time because that is not their Least Restrictive Environment. But, that other student who also has autism, they’re in gen ed. Again, they’re two completely different individuals. So we just want to look at the unique needs of that student. And if we are are in disagreement, the parent can always request an Independent Education Evaluation at a public expense. I will not get into that detail super in-depth at this time, but just know that that is something the parent has the right to.

The student can only be removed from the gen education class if the parent provides consent because yes, you should always be provided consent. You can sign the document in part, meaning I agree to everything except for my student taken out of the gen ed class, or disagreeing with the placement. Or, if your student is in a special day class and now the district says, “Oh, let’s go ahead and discuss now the student being in gen ed class, but the supports are not there.” Then you know if you have a concern with that, you can always say “I am in disagreement at this time that my student needs to be in a gen ed class” because we want to make sure the student does get supported either way, right? So we do want to look at that right that you have which is you can always provide consent and you can always sign in part if you’re in disagreement with anything in the IEP document. If you want certain things to be implemented right away, you can sign it in part. For the other things to not be implemented, please write it in the document itself. But everything that comes to justifying if the students Least Restrictive Environment is appropriate has to come down from the data and the information from those assessments in order to make the case if the LRE is appropriate for the student. All right.

Now we see here the least restrictive or least separate, least specialized general education class, and then we just start to go down the tier of the most restrictive or most specialized, most separate. When we say most specialized, it’s just really getting down to the specific needs of the student because again, every student is unique. But it is when we say most separate, it means the student is now farther and farther access to gen ed peers or their typical peers. So here we have this trajectory, as you see, residential schools are the most restrictive and the least restrictive is a general education class or regular class. I don’t like saying regular… anyways, general class is now in the spectrum of the least and the most.

Okay. And why is Least Restrictive Environment? Why is that so important? Well, the data and the science tells us that it works. And it’s important because disability is a natural part of the human experience. And in no way, shape or form does it diminish the rights of the individuals to partake and to be great contributors to the society. When someone is in the Least Restrictive Environment, not only does it help that individual, but it also teaches teachers to use universal teaching principles that apply to all students regardless of what ability do they have, and it just creates more diverse access to education which of course… maybe a student was not assessed, but now they have that access and creating access in any setting is of course appropriate. All students have a better social emotional outcomes when they’re with disabled students and non-disabled students altogether, because again we live in a society that is all together. We are not separate from each other, and students with disabilities are integrated in society and they should be fully integrated in society in any shape or form.  For those individuals who don’t have disabilities, they, you know, really will benefit from having a diverse people with disabilities because that’s just enriching our society. And of course, all students benefit from learning different ways, communicating in different ways, and just interacting in many shapes and forms. All right, now let’s talk about the advocacy strategies and what you can use this current week for you to be a fier advocate. Number one, communication is very important and writing/documenting is your best friend. Document absolutely everything. If you did not put it in writing, it never happened.

I would say for parents who talk with teachers outside the hall, and they say, “you know, yeah, we were thinking about that IEP meeting we had last week and you requested a one-on-one aid for Jimmy. We think that it is appropriate to have him” (I’m using specific words) “It is appropriate to have a one-on-one aid for Jimmy. So, we’re going to make sure that happens next week, right?” Because right now, we still need to hire someone. So, let’s make it happen. One advocacy strategy I would say is, “Oh, thank you so much. I really appreciate, you know, what you just said.” I go home, write a thank you email saying, “I am so glad you talked to me on the hallway at 3:40 p.m., and I just want to verify that we are going to have a one-on-one aid for Jimmy starting next week, September 15, 2025… please email me back if I have this incorrect.” Now, you documented the conversation and you do have an expectation because that’s what it was. It’s an expectation to have a one-on-one for Jimmy, and it was stated that it was appropriate and you are now indicating hey is this wrong? Please contact me back if I misunderstood. So now you created a document. The one thing that we also have is IEP journals or to document concerns, incidents, communication. Some parents, they have a journal for every year and or you can have a binder. It’s really up to you how you want to manage the communication. But I definitely would say that for the families that I talked to and they do create this amazing binder, which by the way, we do have that link on how to create a binder and to just have everything organized. And they take this binder to their IEP meeting, it definitely creates a certain type of energy, if you will. Now, the parent is seen in a different way. They’re like, “Oh, this parent knows exactly what happened, at what time, when, and now they have the most current record. They are super organized, and we see that we visually see that this parent is on it.” And I know that this is you’re probably thinking, “Well, Andrea, that’s a lot of work.” I hear you on that. I definitely do. And one thing we say is, “Oh, welcome to the world of special education,” where it feels like a second job at some times. However, we do want to say we cannot stress this enough that having everything in writing is absolutely I would say even necessary in order to create accountability, but also to create communication and have a positive communication with the district and just create that conversation of, hey, I understood this. This is what’s going to happen next. Can you please clarify? It’s always important that if you do have an IEP meeting, request it in writing as soon as there’s concerns. I sometimes hear the phrase, “Well, let’s just wait and see. Let’s see what happens.” That is creating delays. And unfortunately, if we don’t address it right now, it can create a greater regression. So, let’s go ahead and address it because, as I want you to know, here in California, the district has 30 days, 30 calendar days to have an IEP meeting. There’s no such thing as emergency IEP meetings. It just has to say within 30 days. So, if you have a concern on the 1st of August and sorry, let me go back. And now it is the 20th. I mean, within that time, things can def and if you’re just waiting and see, it’s just going to be even a longer time. If you do request it in writing, you can always request to also audio record the IEP meeting. You cannot video record, but you can audio record. Let them know at least 24 hours in advance. You can either use Voice Memo or you can even use Otter.ai, which is an app that records and also transcribes the conversations that are that were being had, which is a great tool for you to… as me as a verbal person, I can see exactly what happened, and then here’s just another note that you can label things in a very specific way in order to just keep things a little bit more organized.

Now, if you’re in an IEP meeting, here are some examples of some question starters or some follow-ups for parents and students if they’re in the IEP meeting: “Can you please tell me how” and my favorite, “what data are you basing your recommendation for that service?” So, if we’re discussing any goal or any support, what is what is the data behind it? Because again, the data is the foundation on what are the needs of the student. Now, how do we assess or how do we now come up with the goals, etc. “Have we considered occupational therapy as an area of need of services? Can you please explain to me why or why not?”

And, one thing I do want to say is that when you have this IEP meeting, sometimes the administrator, which can be the vice principal, principal, special education director, facilitator, sometimes they would just have that conversation with the parent and now it’s just, you know, we’re getting feedback from that administrator. I invite you as the parent in a very important member of this meeting to say, “Hey, I heard great things from your administrator, but hey, special education teacher, what do you think? Do you think that any area of need or service in occupational therapy is appropriate for Johnny at this time? Can you please tell me why not? Hey, speech therapist, can you tell me if OT’s?” So now you are bringing all these other service providers into the discussion because they’re also IEP team members. And then can you please provide me a copy of that policy? So, if the district says we don’t do that here, we you know maybe in other districts they do but not here. I would want to see a copy of that policy, and if they say okay yeah we’ll send it to you. I will say can you please send it to me by the end of this week? I am, you know, I really look forward to that policy, and if they say, well, we don’t, we are not going to do it. If they do, if you just hear a no, then you can also say, I would like to please have a Prior Written Notice or PWN for my request. If you are saying this cannot be done for whatever reason, please provide a prior written notice. And also just know that it has to be individualized for the student and what could occur is that the district can provide the Prior Written Notice, but it has to say why certain services, goals, accommodations cannot be implemented. So, do be aware of any blanket Prior Written Notice statements, and what will the IEP team do to address behavior concerns that I or the teacher, therapist have raised? And if yeah, let’s go ahead address it. Let’s have a behavioral goals. Then you may want to ask, “Okay, awesome, amazing, how would that be implemented? Can you please give me examples? And by who? Who’s going to implement the behavior? Is it going to be the special education teacher? Is it going to be a behavioral therapist? Who exactly will be implementing it?”

And of course, have everything sent in writing after this meeting. If you have the Otter app, now it’s transcribed. But if they say, “Well, we’ll get back to you.” then you may want to email them back and say “thank you so much for that meeting. It was so wonderful to have everybody there and given my in give the inputs of the students or any concerns I have can you please let me know when will I receive the policy, I would like to receive it by so and so date that can just create that response back,” and of course you are now giving them expectations for the district to provide that information back.

Okay, and again it’s a marathon not a sprint. It does take a lot of patience, persistence, time, documentation, and we do want to again keep best intentions when it comes to the district. As a previous teacher, and I just want to say that the individuals that are there to support students, are there because they really do care. I understand that the budget cuts right now are terrible. So it can definitely be very difficult. However, one thing I always want to say is “let’s be soft on the people but hard on the issues” because even if we are being positive and having a positive relationship, if Johnny is just regressing so much, we want to get to the bottom of the issue. We need to get on track on how to support Johnny so they’re able to meet their goals every year because again the purpose of IDEA is for Johnny to be as independent to what it means to them. Once they graduate from high school or once they are 22 with a certificate of completion.

Okay and also ask if there’s any other resources for the district. Maybe if the IEP meeting is becoming hostile, then maybe we’ll need to have a facilitated IEP meeting. If you want to discuss, hey, what are the budgets looking like? I would like to be part of the CAC meetings, which are part of… they should be in the district website and if they’re not, please let me know how I can help you finding that. Or an Alternative Dispute Resolution, if we cannot get to a consensus and we’re just now in disagreement.

It’s also very handy to, of course, learn the policies and the California Education Code. But the IDEA, ADA, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and all other federal laws, they supersede any state, local code, and school district policies. So, let’s say that the district policy is harsher when it comes to or very specific when it comes to the any supports or accommodations for students. Again, we want to look at what does the Section 504 say? What does the IDEA say when it comes to those accommodations or supports? Because even if sure there’s that’s a district policy the IDEA, ADA, Section 504 is always going to trump any of that any state, any local, because those are federal laws.

All right. So now I am going to stop the recording and we are going to go into questions.

[End of transcript]