0:00:05.0 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Inclusive Education Project, I'm Vickie Brett.

0:00:09.2 Speaker 2: I'm Amanda Selogie. We're two civil rights lawyers on a mission to change the conversation about education, civil rights, and modern activism.

0:00:21.6 Speaker 1: Each week we're gonna explore new topics, which are going to educate and empower others.

0:00:29.9 Speaker 2: And give them a platform to enact change in education and level the playing field.

0:00:32.3 S1: Welcome back, listeners.

0:00:35.1 S2: Welcome back.

0:00:39.8 S1: We got a solo episode for you today, [laughter] I'm very excited about it. I feel like we're going to be pulling a lot from the things that we have seen as we enter spring. Some people may be on spring break, some people may have come back from spring break, some people have spring break next week. Yeah, after Easter, which is this weekend. Easter was so like, it's so weird to me to have Easter like two weeks after St. Patrick's Day, it just feels like really early, but...

0:01:11.8 S2: Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. And I feel like I heard someone say, Oh, Easter's so late, and I'm like, I don't think it's, I think it's early.

0:01:19.5 S1: No, I feel like it's early, isn't it, usually in April? I feel like we usually have it in April or whatever. I digress, all I know is that spring is upon us. It is hitting us fast and furious with people's transition, IEP meetings. So we're transitioning either from preschool to kinder or sixth grade to middle school or middle school to high school, or for some of you even into the vocational program and beyond. And then we have annuals on top of that and triannual, and I know it's like plan review meeting, old habits die hard, everybody.

0:01:55.2 S2: Well, I mean people, some districts still use annual, I, triannual, I dunno, but.

0:02:04.8 S1: Isn't that interesting? Yeah. And California's supposed to be going to like a one format, IEP for everyone, so we'll see how that...

0:02:08.8 S2: I mean it's [0:02:08.9] ____ take 20 years to get every district in California...

0:02:12.5 S1: Supposed to have already I know to actually do it, right, like just upload it on the [0:02:17.3] ____. And like, let's get it together. Anyway...

0:02:17.5 S2: But one, so for this time of year. I mean, I know we always talk about like, this is the time to start scheduling if you have transition IEPs, if you're gonna go tour schools, that sort of thing. But also like for your triennials, if your triennial is due in May or June, it's a good idea to make sure you're getting the assessment plan now. Because in order to have the 60 days window and have the IEP before the school year ends, it's important to make sure we're preparing for that. And don't get me wrong, this is the district's obligation. They're supposed to be accounting for this, but they don't always do that. Sometimes we have be proactive. So what I see sometimes is like, if your triennial is, as we do end of May. Sometimes we need two meetings for a triennial, because we're only allocated an hour and a half, or we don't get the assessments until day off.

0:03:02.5 S2: So if you think about it, if you don't get the assessment plan soon, you won't have them done. You'll have your first meeting in June. School will be out and you'll have to have part two in the fall. And if we're talking about a transition, it's very important that we have an IEP complete before the end of the school year. So just kind of take a look at your records, see if it's, if you're one of those that it's due at the end of the school year and be proactive, reach out to your IEP team.

0:03:24.7 S1: Yeah. I've been on some cases for a couple years and it's nice when I don't have to reach out. They're like, oh, you wanna have an IEP meeting now? You know, mom had mentioned it, and his annuals in a couple months, but yeah, yeah, let's do it. I'm like, oh, awesome. Yes, you guys are trained well. Like let's get in there. Let's talk about what's happening right now. And then we can focus, for one of the cases that I'm thinking of in particular, it will be his tri, so great. We just focus on that, right? Instead of like all the other issues that had accumulated since we had, had our 30 day back at the beginning of last year. So anyway, just something to think about. It's not too late. We're still in it. We still have plenty of time to get things sorted out.

0:04:05.1 S1: And one of the things that we wanted, we have in the past talked more specific about like accommodations, and what those are, and like how... But we've gotten a lot of questions over the last couple of weeks that we wanted to go over. And then just in our experience of attending IEP meetings and seeing so many accommodation, you really at the end of the day have to bring the team back to, this is for my child. We always encourage, and we've always said to you guys, even if they don't change. Maybe everybody's into the home edit and like decluttering. Like if he no longer needs the use of calculator on his IEP, take it off. If you don't need to have the seated right next to the teacher, because you know, she's able to focus now, that she has an aide, take that out. Obviously if it's like no harm, no foul, that's totally fine too. But at the same time we wanna be sure because what had, what do you always see Amanda, like when we get to middle school, Oh, we don't do that. Oh no, this. And it's like, Okay, then you need to think of a way to do it. Yeah, exactly right. Yeah. Right.

0:05:14.9 S2: Well, and I think that bottles down to, far too often, teams gloss over accommodations, as...

0:05:20.5 S1: Yes.

0:05:21.0 S2: Just a small thing. For many students, accommodations can be huge. And making sure they're implemented appropriately can be huge. And so today we really wanna talk about how do we write the accommodations in the IEP appropriately. And I just wanna, as we get into it, I wanna kind of tell our listeners, I think like I've talked about this, but my rule of thumb with accommodations is, we don't wanna just be specific. Like being specific is really important. But I try to say we wanna use our wh-questions, who, what, where, why, and when. Right. If we can answer these wh-questions about the accommodations, they are clear, concise, and specific, individualized to this student at this given time in their educational career.

0:06:10.7 S2: And that should change because what happens in one classroom with one teacher might be different than another teacher. What happens in elementary school, it's gonna be different than middle school. And far too often we have very vague accommodations that look the same boilerplate template type accommodations from one kid to another. And it doesn't really help the student when they're not specific enough. It doesn't help the teachers. And that's where like we get families that come to us that are super frustrated because they feel like their child isn't making progress. And they'll say like, my kid really needs this and that, and they'll list off of things. And we'll look at the IEP and we'll say, well it's in the IEP. So it's not a matter of, is your IEP, is it included, but is it included correctly? So that the teachers really understand and know how to implement them the way that this particular student needs them. So we wanna talk in specifics. And we're gonna go through some examples today, but really get you start thinking about how to write these appropriately.

0:07:08.6 S1: Right. And just really quickly, accommodations don't alter like what is being taught, okay. So just think of an accommodation as like, what are we changing either in the environment, either in the format, in the way that the curriculum is being delivered. Like maybe even sometimes like the tools, equipment that they're using. And an accommodation is to just help that child gain access to the content that is being presented and or like complete assigned tasks. So our go-to is always like, Hey, if all the second graders have to do a hundred math problems for homework every night, which we would hope that like never happens, but just to throw it out there. This child's attention can only be sustained for so long. So they are potentially doing half of the problems. Now when we use that in the IEP, I mean try to get as specific as possible.

0:08:04.1 S1: I get that once we get to middle school and high school, it is different. And if we need to write the accommodation, the same type of accommodation, which is the reduction of the homework assignment, and it needs to be different from science than it is for history, than it is to like whatever. Like have those teachers there when the child is in middle school and high school, because there's different teachers so that they can explain it to you. Because I cannot tell you how many times the parent's like, we need a this accommodation. I'm like, it's already in there. Your problem is that it's not being implemented correctly. Right? Right. And then sometimes we get the teacher and they're like, oh, well I'm already doing this. But we like didn't know, or like... I was just in an IEP yesterday, which this was, I didn't even get a chance to tell you about this, Amanda.

0:08:48.7 S1: So the child just had zero, zero, zero, zeros, and he was in the IEPs, high schooler, the math teacher had been at a previous IEP but wasn't at this IEP. And we were saying like he can't finish the work. And he spoke up and he had said, I'm finishing the work and sometimes I'll get like an 80% on it and I'm okay with that, but she wants me to redo it so that I could get a 100. And then I was like, but you're getting zeros. And he was like, but she's not putting that in on like whatever they were using, like their, I don't even remember the name of their like. Yeah, whatever. Because parent was seeing the zeros. Yeah. And I'm telling you, because he was sitting with his case carrier and, and she like looked at him and she's like, I don't understand that. Like why would she do that?

0:09:34.4 S1: And we were just like, mom and I were laughing afterwards because we're like, yeah, one, this explains so much we didn't even know. And he hadn't even really thought about it until we were really talking about it. So like, get into it. And I get it, sometimes not all the teachers can be there, but if this is that important and you have a feeling that this teacher isn't implementing this accommodation, that teacher needs to be at the IEP meeting because sometimes there's information that's missing that you don't know about. And sometimes we need to be able to write the accommodation in a way that it can be actually implemented in that specific classroom. So it's a, it is a little different for elementary school. You'll have the teacher there, but we really wanna focus in on okay, how are we appropriately accommodating it?

0:10:18.1 S1: You will have the discussion with modification where we see the modification as yes, maybe it is the spelling words, it's half the second grade spelling words, but the child is not at grade level. So then those five spelling words will have one second grade level, but then the remaining are whatever level the child at, let's just say first grade, right? We're actually modifying what content is actually being provided to the child. So hopefully with that in your mind, we can kind of get more in depth with some of the accommodations.

0:10:52.9 S1: I wanted to read one from that same IEP back to you Amanda. Where, older child of course. So this child went from one district to the next, and so we had to figure out how to write it so that everybody in the new district understood. So it said, student may take pictures or ask for copies of notes, and then in parentheses it said when available and requested. So I wanna hear your thoughts because I had a lot of thoughts.

0:11:21.5 S2: Yeah. I mean...

0:11:21.6 S1: When you see something like that.

0:11:23.0 S2: My immediate reaction is there's too much leeway. It places the burden on the student, and now I'll preface it with this. There are some times where we are working on independent skills and self-advocacy skills, and having a student ask for an accommodation is appropriate for high schoolers who are preparing to transition to college, because they will then have to ask for it. However, majority of the time, placing the burden on the student to have to ask or do something is kind of an undue burden. Because one, a lot of times these students are still learning self-advocacy skills. So placing the burden assumes that they're already there and we know they're not. But the other thing is oftentimes just socially not wanting to stick out, having to ask a teacher in a Gen Ed classroom for support is really difficult for these students and it's really unfair for them to have to do it.

0:12:14.5 S2: Also, more often than not, if we're writing an accommodation, most of the time it should be given automatically, because it's likely the student needs it. If they don't need it, then we probably should be fading out from it. So the as needed thing is, I think it's become kind of this, this catch-all that happens in IEPs, where rewrite as needed. Because let's just say for example, in the art class, in an PE, they don't need notes, because there are no notes, right? But these other classes, need it. So some teams will say, we wanna write the accommodations that apply to all classes, so we're gonna say as needed, because we know that in four of these classes that are core academics it's, the child needs it. And so we understand it like that.

0:13:00.8 S2: However, if a teacher goes and sees that, they're gonna say, Oh well, like I get to decide if it's needed. Well, this content I think is easy, so I'm not gonna give it, because I don't think it's needed, whereas this is not, and that's not appropriate. So what we should be doing is being more specific than this. If the reason we're asking for, we're saying as needed is because certain things like certain classes like PE for example, classic example, it's not needed. We should be saying in ELA, math, science, history student will have...

0:13:31.8 S1: Or core classes.

0:13:33.0 S2: Yeah. Core academic classes students will be provided access to written notes, or be allowed to take pictures. Maybe we can even get more specific. Because otherwise, we're leaving interpretation up to the teachers. And often, like you said, the teachers weren't at this IEP, because another team drafted it, and many teachers aren't at IEPs all the time, and teachers can change. So if, when we're writing an IEP, we're supposed to write it in the eyes of any person off the street can pick this up and understand what it means. Right. There's so much room for interpretation in what you just read to me. Yeah. That it's not gonna work, it's not gonna be implemented appropriately.

0:14:12.3 S1: Yeah. And just to clarify, like when Amanda was talking about like the as-needed, we see that a lot in the high school. It wasn't in this specific one. But it is something that is this catch-all that sometimes they just like put on, and if everybody in that moment is like on the same page, I think that that's different. Right? Yeah. Or they give like specific examples. But you know, to Amanda's point, anybody should be able to read this, because yes sometimes, teachers go on maternity leave, they take a sabbatical, the child has to change classrooms to accommodate a sport or whatever. And so then if that person wasn't there, and they're just getting this, they're like, Okay, well I don't have... Because this was the problem with this particular child's like math teacher. It was like, oh, I don't have notes. And it was like, okay.

0:14:58.9 S1: So the point of asking for a copy of the notes is so that that child would have something to be able to take home and practice and/or, this also kind of goes to the fact that like maybe we need pre-teaching, right? Maybe we need a front load. And so then if that teacher doesn't have notes for whatever reason, because I think this gives them an easy out, like when available, because they could just say like, I don't have notes. Which we, believe me, I'm saying this from experience, because I've had teachers say that and then we come to find out they do have notes, and we did get a copy of it eventually. Right. Right. Right. But like, they're just like, Well not my notes. Those are my teacher's notes. Right. And it's like, Okay, well so then what are you going to do? Because this child needs some type of front loading or reteaching and that needs to be provided. And so then maybe we write it that way. Right? Right. So then that's like an idea.

0:15:54.9 S2: And I think like the reason a lot of times accommodations are vague is that teams do gloss over it. They think, Well, I understand it. They make a lot of assumptions. And they also, sometimes I've heard like teams think that they can't write it very specific. And this is what I've heard in IEPs, they go, We don't wanna make it too specific, because we want it to apply to all classes. Or like if they change schools. And it's like the IEP is supposed to be written for now. Yes, to a certain extent, it's written for a year. So in cases where, let's say you're right now having an annual IEP today. Yeah. And your child is transitioning from fifth-grade elementary school to sixth-grade middle school next year. Technically you are proposing an IEP for two different programs from now until June elementary school, and then September through next March middle school.

0:16:40.0 S2: What you can do, you have the ability to do, it's totally appropriate is to write... I mean in the IEP, it literally has certain end times. So you could write two different accommodations. You could say, because this is what I've seen before. It's like, and I had an IEP like a couple weeks ago where we had this scenario where we're transitioning and the team was saying, oh, we can't write it like that because that's not how it applies to like our program. And I said, well, but we are writing it for a year. So we could write two different accommodations. So we could say, this is how it's gonna be for the elementary school setting. Start date now and date in June or the last day of school. And then we could say, this is how we are assuming it, we are predicting, now you should have the middle school team there to help. And in a transition, you will.

0:17:30.3 S1: Right. Right, of course, that's a whole thing. Yeah.

0:17:31.3 S2: Let's say you had an annual IEP in January, and your transitions in May, you're gonna review them again. But you still, if you're gonna anticipate that it's gonna look different because you have multiple teachers, then you can write it that way. There's no hard, fast rule about accommodations. Like it has to be three words or it has to be very vague. It could be as specific as the team feels is necessary to make it appropriate and individualized for that child. So in many, and in fact I, before we started recording, I pulled up two IEPs where in one IEP, the accommodations are so vague. Like I'll read you a couple, working for strategies, modeling, repetition...

0:18:11.2 S1: What?

0:18:13.6 S2: Visual supports working for strategies, extra cues, and additional processing time. These are so vague that anyone reading them is just like, what?

0:18:23.1 S1: They have working for strategies is in there twice. Like I don't even understand what's in reference to...

0:18:26.1 S2: So clearly not like reviewed. But then I have another IEP where to kind of give you an example of a more, and this is an IEP I helped develop. And so like very, very like more thorough and like specific. So one of the accommodations is, that the student may benefit from checking in with the teacher at the beginning of each period to review any missing assignments and set classroom expectations for the period. At the end of each session, the student will check out with the teacher and ask clarifying questions regarding missing assignments and/or task activities that were assigned during the period for the student to complete. So in this...

0:19:00.5 S1: That's more than four words. Yeah.

0:19:02.2 S2: More than four words. Right? Yeah.

0:19:03.2 S1: Yeah.

0:19:04.2 S2: This really explains the why, right? Why we're doing this. Because he benefits from this information. It explains when, I mean it's a little vague in that, it doesn't say every class, but it's assumed that it's every class. Maybe, and because this student actually needs it in every single class, even PE because sometimes we need to make sure that like they're checking in with the teacher. In some cases, you might say this is only for ELA, or maybe this is only for math, but it has the, what. The teacher is gonna be expecting the student to check in with them. The, where, it's in the classroom, with who it's with the teacher. So it's very, very specific. And I find that some teams are really hesitant to do this thorough of accommodations, but anyone picking this up is gonna know how to implement this, and there shouldn't be a problem, versus the other ones I read to you, which it's just so vague.

0:19:56.8 S1: Yeah. And these accommodations are meant to, even modifications to a certain extent, is what are needed for the student to make progress in the Gen Ed setting and activities. And that just kind of reminds me of one accommodation that we had had where the child, it's really hard for the child to transition. There's maybe a little bit of separation anxiety and sensitivity and like, I don't know how often you guys are on a school campus, but there are a lot of bells.

0:20:29.7 S2: Yes.

0:20:30.2 S1: And so then the child was able to come, I think it was like 10 minutes because that's how many bells there were, like 10 minutes "late". Right. Okay. So that he could avoid all of that just at the beginning. And so that was something that affected his every day at school. Right. And then once he was at school, he could wear his noise-canceling headphones, which we had in the accommodations list of things like that. But you know, you really, you don't have to have this like cookie cutter that we see time and time again. Or they go, Well this is already like embedded in the class. No, if you don't know what was the thing, the strategies like you ask what is strategies, what are working strategies? I have no idea what that means. Like you need to explain it. And if that teacher cannot explain it, then it's not embedded in the program. And how are you making it individualized to my child? Because if it's embedded in a program that's not specifically individualized for my child we are here for my child. And I think that's important.

0:21:26.9 S1: And something I just wanted to touch on when we're talking about the multiple teachers, I've had it where the teachers will rotate out. So they have one substitute teacher, I get the math teacher for 10 minutes, I get the English teacher for 10 minutes, like, and they rotate out. I've also had it where all the teachers show up at the same time, which is what I prefer. Because then they can all, we can all see that like, so and so is different in history than they are in English. Why is that? And that was one of the more progressive and just solution-oriented IEPs that I've ever been in. Because everybody with their great minds came together to really try and find the best accommodations for their particular class and then beyond. Right. Right. And that's something that you can request because when they go, Oh no here, you're gonna sign to excuse the general education teacher, think twice about that, because then if they're not gonna put any effort into it and you're allowing it by excusing them. So if you feel like those people need to be there, not just a statement like their actual person, they can make an accommodation for them to be present for at least 10 minutes, you know?

0:22:34.1 S1: So I just wanted to bring that back around. But yeah, no, that I really liked how the difference, in the way, and who said it only needs to be one word or it needs to be four words. Like yeah, that was a whole beautiful...

0:22:49.5 S2: Right. I mean, I will say I have so many IEP teams where when they talk about accommodations parents will say, I want it to be more specific, I want it to be more specific. The teachers will say, well, it needs to be a little bit more vague so that it can be used in different settings. But like what I always say is, it doesn't need to be if there are different settings or we have different scenarios, write two accommodations. I don't care if the kid has 25 accommodations. Now the team might say, Well that's too much for a teacher to remember. But it's like, it's really not if you think about it. Because if they're trained on it and they truly understand how to do it, like if there are different settings, so like you have one accommodation for ELA and one accommodation for math, or you have an accommodation for like text read aloud for comprehension but not fluency.

0:23:38.5 S2: And so they're both ELA accommodations. You are not necessarily gonna be using all the accommodations at every time. And they may not apply to every single teacher, every single class. So you are not expecting too much, the teachers, and I think there's always that...

0:23:51.8 S1: That's a great point.

0:23:53.6 S2: Assumption that they shouldn't be too long. There shouldn't be too many accommodations. But if you're truly individualizing the program, and you're making sure that the setting works for this particular child, there shouldn't be a set number or a limit. Like of course. Yeah. We don't want a hundred accommodations, but I really have yet to see an IEP where I look at it and go, Whoa, that's too many accommodations. Most of the time it's, these look like the same accommodations I've seen for every kid who has autism. Which is the problem. Right. Because they should be specific and individualized.

0:24:27.1 S1: Yeah. Yeah. And I think, really having a conversation, especially in elementary school, if you have a kiddo that is really aware because I get this a lot too, it's like, Oh, he has noise-canceling headphones, but he doesn't like to use them, he feels different, right? So you know, that's a situation where, is the teacher able to have a conversation with the class about this being something that anybody can use if it gets too loud, or they can, you know, we wanna be affirming. But that is sometimes a quick conversation that could be had with the teacher. And I know we've had this as a question in the past. We had somebody reach out to us saying that they used to send a letter to all the parents in the class about their child being a child with different needs and learning challenges.

0:25:11.6 S1: I think in that instance they had wanted the teacher to like share and the teacher was like, Absolutely not. Like that's a privacy issue, I was like, but I'm giving you permission anyway, I digress. Yeah. I think that a lot of these accommodations, yes kind of see how your child would interact with them. But that's why it's so important for us to be having those conversations. I know it's probably so tough to talk and kind of make your way through what it is that you want your child to know at certain ages. But if we are really trying to facilitate independence, we will want your child to be able to advocate for this to a certain extent. I still think, do not try to adultify a 15-year-old, by making the 15-year-old tell all their teachers that they have these certain accommodations.

0:25:57.0 S1: But we see it more often than not in the general education setting. And it's not the teacher trying to be malicious. It's just like they really didn't know. Now, can you imagine trying to get, and we have different districts say that, Oh, all of our teachers get, the basically the highlights of like what the accommodations are in services for a child. But imagine being a high school teacher with five different science classes and you're probably getting 30 IEPs. That's gonna be really difficult for that person to know off the bat. And that's why we say to parents, have your child start to write an email to all the teachers. You can still help with that as well. But by high school we really want that focus to be on the child. Like who is confident and it's just like anything else that is a part of them. This, learning challenge is a part of me and these are the accommodations that I need.

0:26:50.9 S1: If you already do that as a teacher, awesome, amazing. But if you don't, I'm here as a parent or my child is here to inform you of that, because I know that a lot of people like what are some neuro-affirming accommodations? And it really there, I mean there is a spectrum. We, we've seen that... I've had to have accommodations for a water bottle to be placed on the child's desk because the child required medical access to water. After all, that teacher had a rule, a general rule, that there was absolutely no water and refused to make any accommodations until we had it in the IEP. Right. And so when people tell you, Oh, we can't do that or we can't... Like, I'm sorry if the child requires it for accessing their education, a yes they can.

0:27:40.2 S1: Now, that was years ago pre-pandemic and I don't know, the water's not spilling. It wasn't like Gatorade like I understand like other beverages, but like water. But anyway, some parents are shocked when I tell them that story, because they're just like, wait, what? Like, and I'm like, yeah, sometimes you have to put it in and it sucks. But that is something that, and if something worked with one teacher the year before and it's not anywhere in the IEP accommodation services, if it's in the notes, ugh, get it somewhere else in the IEP, because what we see is that new teacher takes over, and then we have behaviors, or they just don't understand that that was something that was a minimum that the child was getting. Because that's just something that that teacher in the previous year just like had.

0:28:24.0 S1: And I cannot tell you how much of a pain it is to get the team together, talk about this, and like actually put it in like anything that works for your child, especially in elementary school, if it worked, get it in the IEP. It may not seem like an accommodation, but I guarantee you it's, because if the teacher next year doesn't do it, like then it's, it's gone. Right. And it's just like more of a headache. But yeah, if you have any questions regarding accommodations or some that you have seen or like teams like refuse, please reach out to us. We would love to kind of continue this conversation. Yeah.

0:29:00.4 S2: Yeah. Maybe what we will, we can do is we can put up a question box on our Instagram stories. If you have a specific accommodation you'd like us to talk about, obviously, we won't be able to individualize it to your student if we don't know your student. But just on its face, we can talk about what are the questions that we'd ask at an IEP meeting. And we can go through those in stories.

0:29:23.2 S1: Exactly, which we love kind of getting those little hypotheticals, it reminds us of law school. We hope you guys have a lovely kind of spring celebration, whatever it is that you celebrate and we will talk to you.

0:29:36.1 S2: Hopefully the weather's getting better.

0:29:37.0 S1: Yes, I know. It's been well we shouldn't complain in California. We pay for it, you guys. We hope you guys have a lovely week and we'll talk to you later.

0:29:44.1 S2: Bye.

0:29:45.4 S1: Bye.