0:00:05.4 Vickie Brett: Welcome to the Inclusive Education Project. I'm Vickie Brett.

0:00:08.4 Amanda Selogie: I'm Amanda Selogie. We're two civil rights lawyers on a mission to change the conversation about education, civil rights, and modern activism.

0:00:19.9 VB: Each week we're gonna explore new topics which are going to educate and empower others.

0:00:26.2 AS: And give them a platform to enact change in education and level the playing field.

0:00:36.0 VB: Welcome back, friends!

0:00:36.0 AS: Welcome back, friends!

0:00:37.2 VB: No, I thought we were saying, oh, you know what? I did that.

0:00:39.6 AS: You guys, we're very, very excited.

0:00:45.2 VB: This is our 300th episode. I wanted to try something new. We rehearsed it and that's the problem. When Amanda and I rehearse things, we just [0:00:49.0] ____.

0:00:50.9 AS: We're better just off the cuff, saying what we feel. And in that, as this is our 300th episode, we're really reflecting back and looking at the start of our podcast and why we really started this as this way to start and change the conversation about education and civil rights, disability rights. And it was really meant to be that conversation, but also how can we try to better this education system?

0:01:21.8 VB: We could live in just starting the conversations, and I think we have elevated it to include how can we change? And it's actually not just going to be Amanda and I. This is just a special intro. We have Lacey Robinson from UnboundEd who joins us and really is just like the epitome of us wanting to not just start the conversation, but also change the way in which we approach the situation, we look at how things have been, and what can we change moving forward?

0:01:57.8 AS: Yeah, and we're really jazzed for you guys to listen to this episode because, you know, not only did we, I mean, you know we love getting into practical tips and how can we, like what can we actually do in the classroom, not just talking about it from a theoretical standpoint? And Lacey just brings, I mean, just to touch joy, she's definitely our people, but she brings such a perspective into these actual practical tips that we absolutely love. We're excited. We'll definitely have her back and we hope you enjoy.

0:02:26.5 VB: Enjoy. Today's guest is gonna give some real good insight into what we're seeing with a lot of our current clients, right? Like there's learning abilities and like, how can we, you know, help those that are boots on the ground, the teachers, right? They're all inclusive teachers, what we're gonna be talking about too. Lacey Robinson, thank you so much for coming on to our podcast.

0:02:50.5 LR: Thank you for having me.

0:02:53.2 AS: We're so excited to have you on because we talk so much about the benefits of inclusive education and like global, like bigger picture. But we love getting like boots on the ground, like specific examples of how do we do it and how do we do it successfully? So we're excited to have you. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?

0:03:12.2 LR: Yes. Lord, I always feel like when I get this question, it's like back to the future, like a flashback for me but... So I am truly an early childhood teacher at heart. I actually started out thinking my entire career was gonna be teaching pre-K and kindergarten for the rest of my life. And I've always had a great interest in reading language arts, writing. I will tell you that my math interest and science, I have to say, I've always been a science person or really like into inquiry, I should say.

0:03:44.6 VB: Yes. Yes. Curious, curious.

0:03:46.5 LR: Very curious. But my reverence for math picked up when I taught fifth grade and certainly took fire when I became a turnaround middle school principal. But I've worked at district level, I've been in the building level, I've been a principal, I've been a coach of principals and now I have the awesome, awesome opportunity to lead a group of, they're my superheroes. I feel like I work in the halls of justice. I'm the CEO and president of UnboundEd with the subsidiary core learning. And so I have an opportunity to sit shoulder to shoulder with educators as we march across the United States providing professional development that is grade level engaging, affirming, meaningful instruction.

0:04:25.4 VB: Everything that we love to see.

[laughter]

0:04:29.3 VB: And everything that we love to see and need. Yeah. Yeah. Everywhere.

0:04:32.5 AS: Every teacher, every administrator should learn from you because it's just not happening. Like, I think even the teachers who meanwhile who want to do it, they're not given the training and the tools of how do you do it. And we can only be in so many IEP meetings to give them examples.

0:04:49.6 VB: Well, first and foremost, we are trained in the law. Right? Of course Amanda and I through this podcast, through our experience, through the years that we've been special education attorneys, you'll learn a few things, right? You wanna take from the best and then throw it back. But what is one of the major things that you see when you are conducting these trainings, I'll say? Do we hear like, I just don't know what to do? Is that something that you hear often or...

0:05:16.4 LR: Oh, yes.

0:05:16.5 VB: How do we do it? Or what... Like, sometimes it's like making it a bigger thing than it actually is, right? Like I feel like so many practices can be inclusive. It's just, you just think about it a little differently.

0:05:28.2 LR: Well, let me say this. I think that first of all, I say it in the book, Justice Seekers, I say it everywhere I go, you know, educators, practitioners from your classroom teacher to your paraeducator, to your literacy coach, to your, even I would say in some respects a special education teacher but I always put them in a different category and I'm gonna tell you why, none of us are appropriately prepared. None of us are given the opportunity and space to take the theory, deep dive it into the practice, get feedback, go back in and practice in real time with students and really get underneath our belt what it means to be a conveyor, a coach, some instances a ground layer of knowledge. So when you talk about being inclusive in classrooms, educators are not being included in their own learning. So being inclusive has to start with the preparation of our teachers. They're not magical beings. They don't walk in the room and spray dust and all of a sudden the kids, all kids learn how to write and do math. It's not... They're not missionaries.

0:06:45.7 AS: Right.

0:06:46.0 LR: They're not volunteering their time. This is their career, their profession. And I say this all the time, I have yet to meet another profession that does not get its due service in keeping up with the research, evidence. Y'all gonna get me started. But I have to say this, and this is [0:07:08.5] ____. I had a man who owns his own company to come and fix my fireplace. I have a propane fireplace that works off electricity, and I'm just talking to him 'cause I talk to anybody and I'm always a teacher in me. Right? I'm like asking questions or whatever.

0:07:23.3 VB: Curious.

0:07:24.1 LR: And I literally caught my breath when he told me the type of license certification, reading, research, practice that he has to go through every single year in order to keep his own business license up. I'm like, teachers, come on now, are not asked to give that much rigorous role. And it's not like they don't wanna know. They wanna know.

0:07:49.5 VB: Right. They do. Yeah. Agreed.

0:07:51.9 LR: Well, because we don't as a society place enough emphasis on education. So many people think education is just a place my kid goes like, yeah, they learn. Unless you're in the nitty gritty, so many people don't think about it as such a foundation to citizenship, to community, to being a human. And we leave our kids in school. We place them in school with the understanding that they're gonna learn, but yet we don't place that importance. Politicians don't place the importance. I mean, how many times is there a local, statewide, federal election where, where is education? Is it fifth, sixth, seventh, 10th, 15th, 20th, down on their platform importance?

0:08:35.4 AS: Right. Yeah, right.

0:08:36.5 LR: So nobody is talking about how can we improve?

0:08:40.3 AS: Yeah. Or what I find is, and this has happened over the past couple of years, they use educators as these political pawns. You know? All right, so, Mrs. Smith, fourth grade teacher, third year in her role might just be getting underneath her belt how to build her classroom environment. She's just starting to understand about how to engage her students. And now you're fear mongering around if she has a Harriet Tubman book sitting on the side of her chalkboard. Or God forbid they have a picture of their spouse on their desk that is the same sex of theirs. Yes.

0:09:19.3 LR: Exactly. So rather than looking at us as partners in their children's lives, you become this pawn. And I wanted to just say that I don't agree with everything. 'Cause Amanda, you just made a note of this. I don't agree with everything. I don't agree with everything. What everybody says. Things that I latch onto that, Horace Mann, who says, they say he's the father of public education. Right? They can't say... I'm doing air quotes.

0:09:45.3 VB: Yeah. Yeah [laughter]

0:09:46.5 LR: But one of the things that he talked about and was just adamant about around public schooling is it is essential for a country that holds democracy at its center to want to develop, support your public education. This is where your citizenship is flourishing. This is where your societal norms take place. And most importantly, this is where your democracy gets an opportunity to be re-birthed and birthed again. And so even just thinking about our education center and the importance of it, you would think that we would pay closer attention. So I actually don't think it's for fodder. I do think educators are literally saying I didn't know. I don't know. I will tell you my first IEP meeting, and I think about this all the time coming in as a first year teacher in Georgia, you get the slip in your mailbox, you get the time. I didn't, they didn't necessarily say, they said bring work examples. No one explained to me what the process was. No one...

0:10:52.4 VB: Like how long it was, who was gonna be there.

0:10:54.0 LR: How long it was, my role, the parents' role. And I just remember walking up to the meeting, and I know I'm not gonna say the young man's name, but I can see the young man's mom still in my mind. And first of all, she was panicked. Second of all, she had to take off of work. Right? So she was...

0:11:13.9 VB: Right. Right. Yep. Already kind of...

0:11:17.6 LR: And I remember walking up to her and the first thing she says to me is, I'm not in trouble, am I?

0:11:23.2 VB: Right. Because the last time that she dealt with the school district, you had that fear of when you were a kid. Isn't that insane? We say that all the time. Yeah. That's the last time that a parent dealt with the school district and you were the follower, right?

0:11:39.3 LR: Yeah. And...

0:11:40.8 VB: Isn't that wild?

0:11:41.5 LR: Immediately without anybody having to tell me, I flipped into advocacy. I said in trouble, if anybody is in trouble, it's the school. They should have been supporting your son for the past... Now, are you ready for this? I was a first grade teacher. And this young man was the age of a fourth grader who had been placed in my first grade classroom.

0:12:06.9 AS: Wow.

0:12:08.4 LR: And I said, mom, we are going in there and we are going to demand that he gets the support that he should have been getting since he came into this. And I know what I was talking about, I just know I did. I immediately fired up...

0:12:21.0 VB: Right. Of course.

0:12:22.6 LR: That boy's mom who was an African American woman felt vulnerable enough to me in that moment to say, am I in trouble?

0:12:31.3 VB: Am I in trouble? Right.

0:12:32.3 AS: Right.

0:12:32.9 LR: Well, because even though you hadn't been given all the tools of this is what an IEP is, this is the trainings, you knew in your gut that something wasn't right. And you believed in equality and you believed that kids should be treated like human beings. And I think most teachers feel that way, but then the more and more they're in the system without getting the tools to help support, the parents don't get the tools, it gets...

0:13:01.6 VB: Well, and sometimes that Kool-Aid is forced down their throat. Because you are already in a position where you were free in the sense of the advocacy, and we had this director of special education. I mean, she was like in her 90s, she'd been in special education since before it even got created. It was amazing. And one of the things that she said is, as a director of special education, you should be the advocate for the child.

0:13:28.5 LR: Yes.

0:13:28.9 VB: Like, you should be able... And that should trickle down, like it's so often us versus them. That's what a parent comes to us with. Us versus them, us versus them, 'cause they already come to us pissed off. Like, alright, okay, I get that. And it should be us against the problem. What's the issue? What is not connecting for this student in the classroom? Is it the teacher? Is it a perspective shift? Is it just, you know? And it just blows my mind that sometimes you go into these IEP meetings and everybody, I think Zoom kind of calms everybody down.

0:14:02.9 LR: Yeah.

0:14:03.3 VB: Like I definitely feel a different shift as opposed to pre-COVID when Amanda and I would likely like walk into an IEP meeting, [chuckle] but like that freedom, you know, I'm sure she felt so much more confident walking into that meeting knowing that you were on her side. Whereas now, if anything, and this like, I mean, we don't have cards anymore. They're digital cards. But it used to be like the teacher would just slide our card across the table and say, you didn't get this from me, but you need to talk to, and like, don't say that I told them. And it's like that fear of getting fired, reprimanded, is awful. Like, it really is.

0:14:44.7 LR: Yeah. It flipped me into my advocacy. And I have to tell you from that point on, actually that next year, it was the first time, and I actually started doing my own study on this, was the first time I ever heard there was a child that was registered in our school who had a rare form of autism. Rare form. And there was... The school system could not adequately support the learning environment. And so it was incumbent upon the school system to be able to support the student in their learning environment. And so they ended up having to hire, fly somebody in who had the actual training around how to support the student and all of that. And I remember being in awe like, wait, they can do that? And I started doing my own studying and researching and then asking my friends who had decided to go into special education after they got their bachelor's and they were in their master programs. And I inadvertently, I say this by accident, ended up becoming a child advocate. People who weren't even in my school were bringing me their students, whether they got them at church, friends of my mother's would call me and say like...

0:15:53.9 VB: I believe it. I believe it.

0:15:54.7 LR: Like say, what should I do? And I would show up to those meetings, they didn't know. At one point I was like, they must think I'm the lawyer or something. And I would come in with the law. I would come in with the definitions. And in some instances, I kid you not, I taught some of the people in the system, which blew my mind that you're in the system and your job is to support the special education function and you don't even know.

0:16:26.3 VB: Yeah. You're running this meeting and you don't even know what needs to be done.

0:16:30.9 AS: Yes. I mean, the amount of times we go into an IEP meeting and we make suggestions of things where we get responses of, oh, I've never heard of that. Or can we do that? Or I have to ask and see. And I'm like, I've seen it done in like 20 IEPs. I'm not really sure. And I mean, granted, there's so many different resources out there. There's a lot of programs, there's a lot of tools, a lot of that, this and that. So like okay, to expect the teacher to know everything, sure. But like administrators, their role in the IEP meeting is to be able to be the person to explain, here are all the offerings, here are all the things that are available to you. And it often comes mostly from parents hearing from another parent, oh, I got this.

0:17:16.5 AS: I have a client who recently got music therapy added to their IEP. Not because it was proposed by the team, but they had heard, actually they were telling me it was another parent had heard about it. And asked their kid to be evaluated, got an evaluation for a music therapy and the music therapist came into the classroom and did an evaluation for the specific child. That child didn't qualify. Then they went to the school teacher and goes, yeah, this kid isn't qualified, but this other kid who's my client, this other kid took so well to this. He would benefit from music therapy so much. And then the school then was like, oh, what is this? What can we... And now this kid has, so it wasn't even the school team saying, yes, we can offer music therapy. No one in the team ever knew that this was even a possibility. And...

0:18:01.7 LR: And it's not their fault. That's what I wanted to say.

0:18:04.9 AS: It's not their fault. No, no.

0:18:05.3 LR: It's not their fault. We as a country, I know this, I feel it, first of all, there's a reckoning that's happening because every day you open up the news, every day you look at social media, you hear the droves of administrators and teachers leaving. And I got news for you. IRobot is not teaching our classes. I don't care, people, I'm an advocate for AI. I could talk about it all day. That is not the threat. The threat that we have is that we as a society have to hold our educators in the same light that we hold our doctors.

0:18:42.0 VB: Yes.

0:18:42.3 LR: That we hold our electricians. We have to be able to have reverence for this field, for this profession and say that we have to move all barriers so that educators are continuously developing their own teaching, learning, research, evidence-based, pedagogical, community affirming, engaging, meaningful groups.

0:19:09.9 VB: Yes.

0:19:10.0 LR: All of that, which is the work that my organization and our organizations do on a daily basis, all of that has to be a continuous cycle. And I dare to say, my sister is a surgeon and what I watch her go through every single year [0:19:25.8] ____, reading 36 articles.

0:19:28.6 VB: Boards. Yeah.

0:19:29.9 LR: Well, her boards. And I'm like, as a teacher, I would've craved that.

0:19:32.9 AS: Yes. Yeah.

0:19:33.4 VB: Great.

0:19:33.5 AS: Right. And it's not just that these services need to be available, but the school district needs to make this a part of their yearly routine. They need to be paid for these hours, they need to be given the opportunity, the time to do it. And I get it. That's what you're talking about, all the barriers that come into play and it's a school district's obligation to ensure that they're given these opportunities.

0:20:00.3 S4: Yes. It's not a side dish. It shouldn't be a side dish or an add on or do it after school or do it over. It should be a part of what a systems environment and community is.

0:20:13.0 AS: Yeah. So we know that you help schools get all of this support. One of the things we love to have for our listeners is practical tips. So if a teacher is listening to you where their school district has not engaged you, outside of them saying, hey, you need to come and get... Or to come do trainings, what is one thing that you could tell a teacher, like a Gen Ed teacher who hasn't gone through training, one thing that they can do in their classroom to be more inclusive within their own means?

0:20:44.4 LR: Yes. Well, first and foremost, to me, the greatest inclusive move that you can make as a classroom teacher is, and we say this, is to make it a priority to get to know your students.

0:21:01.4 VB: Thank you.

0:21:01.9 LR: Get to know their name, birthday, color. I mean, get to know that you look across the room and you see a look go through Maya's eyes and you have the wherewithal to say, Maya, do you want to go get a drink of water or can you go fill up your water bottle? Because you realize she's been stagnant too long and she needs to get up and move around. You have to know your students enough that when you're teaching the fifth grade students, the pre-algebraic thinking, that you know enough about them and their community that you can draw on their cultural inferences to make [0:21:37.7] ____ and leap off the page. You don't have to be from the neighborhood, you don't have to be from the cultural inference in order to invite it into your lesson. But what you do have to have is a relationship with the student.

0:21:53.1 VB: Exactly.

0:21:54.3 LR: You also need to be given the time, the wherewithal and the opportunity to be able to do that, and so an inclusive environment... And I used to tell my... When I would coach my teachers this all the time. Whether the child, first of all, everybody has an IEP. Everybody...

0:22:11.2 VB: Thank you. Thank you.

0:22:12.9 LR: Has the Individualized Educational Plan. And you [0:22:15.8] ____, I'm not saying you're standing up in your octopus arms. The thing is you look at them as a human being and you recognize that this is where you need support. This is where I'm going to back up. This is where I'm going to let you soar. This is where I'm going to just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. You have to know your students, and I will say that is part of the joy of being a teacher. But nowadays, the time, the task, the taking away their intellectual and knowledge curiosity, the ability to take their subjects and to place it in overarching themes and allow their students to use their knowledge base to go in and out of learning the different modalities that they can use. All of that, it's slowly but surely being crunched because there is this anxiety that we have. Now, they blame it on the pandemic. I would say it was before the pandemic, that we've lost that role of really what it means to teach and learn in the United States.

0:23:24.8 AS: Yeah.

0:23:25.9 VB: Right.

0:23:26.0 LR: So, I'm going to say this to a teacher that's listening right now. There is a student right now in your classroom that you know you don't really know a lot about.

0:23:35.6 VB: Yes. Yes. Yes.

0:23:37.7 AS: Yeah.

0:23:39.5 LR: You want to be inclusive? Go have a conversation. Start there. Follow the student. I used to follow my kids and I would pick one student and I'd go and I'd lean in and watch them in art class, watch them in the cafeteria, or even if I wasn't on recess duty, I'd go outside and I'd watch them just to get to know who they were.

0:24:01.2 VB: Absolutely. And it's no surprise that some of the recent research that has come out that has said, even if the teacher is a "bad teacher", if they are with the same student in a multi-age program where they have the child from kinder to third grade, for instance, the research just says it's the best for the teacher and the student. And in my mind it's of course the getting to know the student. You know Maya's not trying to be defiant. You just know that she needs a break. She's not questioning you to be defiant. She's just questioning 'cause she's literally like, why do I have to do this all the time?

0:24:42.5 AS: I don't know the expectations you have of me are, I don't understand it. And other countries have got this. Other countries have kids having the same teacher year after year or there's more overlap. We don't have that. And that truly is something that really is so hard and why, like I just don't understand, like we have parents that will come up to teachers or school district administrators and say, I would really love to be in this program and have this teacher because my student really, really does well with them. And that is so disregarded as, well you can't choose your teacher, you can't teach your teacher. And it's like, well, maybe we should be focusing on rapport building and if we are going to have the same teacher year after year, maybe we can have the first month of the year be not about academics, but about building relationships. Or figuring out a way to carve out time to build those relationships.

0:25:42.5 LR: Yes. I actually had the opportunity to do that in, Justice Seekers I talk about my residency at the Marva Collins Preparatory School where I saw, where teachers started actually with pre-K, and then they became the K, and then they were the first grade teacher. And I had an opportunity to do that one year in an early childhood center I worked at where I got to loop up with my kids. And when I took those two years were some of the best professional years of my life because I knew the kids, I knew the parents. I understood where they left off and where we were going. And so if at all possible, I think that it's greatly apparent. And then I will tell you this, as a middle school turnaround principal, I had students that would matriculate out of my school into high school, and they would get in trouble. Who's the first person they come to? Me. They would call me. Not their parents, not their grandmothers, not their... They would call me. Because, and they would say to me, Ms. Robinson, you know me. You know who I am. And in my mind, I'm like, oh my God, this child is in 10th grade and has to come all the way back to his middle school principal's office to be his advocate.

0:26:56.1 AS: Yeah. And kids spend so much time in school for them not to have someone that they can trust, that they can talk to, that they can come to, that they have that rapport, that they can ask for help from. Like, it's so sad that like so many kids don't have that at all in their school when it, like they should have someone like that every single year. There should always be a point person, not just kids on IEPs. Like any kid, every kid should feel safe to be able to have someone just for the sheer amount of time they spend at school.

0:27:27.5 LR: Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree with that. I totally agree. Kids that I have, whether it's my bonus children or my God children, we look for, we marvel at the relationships that they can build, not only with their classroom teachers, but with their assistant principals or sometimes it's their paraeducators, you know, someone who is their advocate. And I would say this, parents know this, parents know that you have children that you might find easier to communicate with, or you have children, your own children who have decided that not you, but maybe Nana is a better advocate. So Nana's going to come in and say, well, could you just at least let them... That is just a part of who we are as human beings. Right? And I think that purposeful mechanism in school is really essential. Like, which is something else we should consider that maybe it's a revamping of the way that we do school.

0:28:25.4 VB: Yeah, it has to be, it has to be. And we thought that reset would happen after the pandemic, but the rush to just get to the way things were before, like was so insane. And it was in some aspects for some of our kiddos, the pandemic virtual learning was amazing. For the majority it wasn't, but to not use some of the same things that we use, why? And it's because this archaic 1950s reading, writing arithmetic kind of still writing standards when you get in trouble, still getting the kid that has an IEP sent to the principal's office. It's like, what are... Can we take a moment and like, just look at this child and who this child is. And it's weird to Amanda and I that at times we have to go into IEP meetings to remind people, like, wonderful that you have a nephew that has ADHD. And that worked for him. Awesome. We're talking about this kid, we're talking about the child that is in front of you. And if you have something that you would like to share that may work, awesome. But other than that, you know, 'cause there's so many times where it's like, well, all the other kids are... And I don't care about that and I have to, we have to say that out loud, like this... With all due, like, I don't care about other kids. We are here in this moment for this child. What are we going to do to work, to make it work?

0:29:53.6 AS: And I like how you say that like every kid has an IEP, every kid should have individualized. And I think that's something that is really hard to like resonate with a general population of people who are not in this education or a sped world that they think, well, like, it's going to be a detriment to the other kids. And I'll give you a perfect example of this. My son is three and he's in pre-school and he's the only kid of the 24 kids that doesn't nap. And he's struggling because he's expected to sit for an hour and a half and just be quiet. And he's my son. So he's talkative. And I was talking about how it would be great if they could like give him an activity or do something. And you know what, my husband, he's been with me for a while, he knows I talk about this all the time. And you know what he said? He said, well, but like, he's only one kid. They can't be expected to do something different for him. What about the other kids? And I go, wait, who are you talking to? But you know, he knows about being inclusive and supporting kids. And you know, my response was, there's so many things they can do to support him that would help other kids. I guarantee you he's not the first that hasn't napped. He's not going to be the last that hasn't napped.

0:31:01.4 AS: So at the end of the day, like we can support and some of it is rapport building. Like, I don't know that all the teachers, because there's so many kids, have really established a really good relationship with him. Because we do quiet time here, but I have a good relationship. I mean, of course, not the same as like the mom, but just the thought of, well, what about the other kids? We can't be expected to do this for every kid. That idea is so ingrained, I think, in society and it goes back to the us versus them and the, why should we spend money on special education when it should be for general education? But I think it really bottles down to what you're talking about. If we focus, go down to the basics of building relationships and look how we can support all kids, all kids are going to benefit from that.

0:31:50.1 LR: Yeah, I was going to say the one thing I would add on to that, and this is one of the greatest lessons that I've... That I learned in my educational track is if you are a teacher or an administrator, you need to make it a point to establish a collegiate relationship with your special education teachers. One of the greatest pieces of advice that I ever got as a middle school principal was I had a coach come to me and say, you should let your special education team create the bell schedule for next year. Really? And the coach was like, absolutely Lace. First of all, they understand that around how to be inclusive, how the timeframe for kids from moving from one class to the other, what classes might need an extra 20 seconds, that would make a difference in the flow of a school.

0:32:46.2 VB: All the world. Yeah. Yeah.

0:32:47.6 LR: Not only that, but it also amplifies your special education teachers as authority or as leaders, as go-to people. And one little move, I can't... The co-teaching took off. The kids were moving expe... People who would walk into my building would be in awe. How the hallways would feel, and before the bell could ring, they would be in the rooms door shut. And I remember people walking in my halls like, how did you get them to do it? I was like, well, I had my special education team write the bell schedule. And it was the most profound... I was like, why didn't I learn this as I was going through school? Why as a first-year teacher didn't an administrator ever come to me and say, it's great you have a mentor, but I also want you to go and spend time in Mr. Hannaford's room 'cause...

0:33:40.4 VB: Exactly, yes.

0:33:42.9 LR: He's our special education teacher for our four or five grades, you can learn from him. We need to do more of that.

0:33:48.4 AS: We could be learning from each other, we can collaborate with each other if we're given the time and the opportunity and the encouragement to do so.

0:33:56.4 LR: Yes, yes.

0:33:56.5 VB: We don't have to reinvent the wheel. And I think that that is just such a wonderful way to be able to show people, you know, you don't have to be afraid of anything. [chuckle] As long as we're in it together is a delicate ecosystem in even a particular school. Lacey, as we wrap up, what is one thing that you would like any teachers or administrators to know? And then we want to obviously plug where they can contact you, but first, if you have any final thoughts.

0:34:27.2 LR: Yeah, I think it's based off of what you just said, and I say this all the time, our EDU sphere, we are a collective community and together we can do anything. Together we have shifted societal norms. We have made certainty or assured inclusiveness. When you look at Brown versus Board of Education, it's nowhere near where it should be. But the educational community is partly the reason why we were able to break down those silos. And so I just encourage all educators, whether you're a para-educator, classroom teacher, or principal, understanding you are a part of a community and together we can do and just about solve all of the barriers and I would say issues that we're confronted with on a daily basis. Yeah.

0:35:13.6 VB: Beautifully said. So Lacey, where can people reach out to you if they have any questions or want to get your services or help? [chuckle]

0:35:22.1 LR: Yeah, I would invite them to go to our unbounded.org website. There you can find where you can purchase Justice Seekers. I talk a lot about the kids that I was thinking about today when I was talking to you all and the experiences that I had moving through the education system, and more importantly, it discusses our work. Our glean framework is a grade-level engaging, affirming, meaningful. CORE Learning is our subsidiary. They are the formidable, I would say, purveyors around the knowledge of the science of reading, but they also support math and in-person curriculum services. So I would say seek us out at our website. If you want to hit me up, hit that help button, and send a message directly to me. I get all of those emails as they come in.

0:36:06.3 VB: Oh good. Oh, that's good to know.

0:36:07.0 AS: Wonderful.

0:36:09.0 VB: Lacey, it was an absolute pleasure. We are going to schedule you for a part two 'cause I feel like we have so much more that we could discuss.

0:36:19.1 AS: We could talk to you all day.

[laughter]

0:36:22.3 VB: So, it is not, I literally am trying to end this so that we can get her calendar out, guys. It was a wonderful conversation and I know that we can get into some stuff. So thanks for listening. If you have any questions for Lacey, send them also to us 'cause we will have a part two and hope you guys enjoy the rest of your day, evening, morning, and we will talk to you soon.

0:36:40.2 AS: Bye.

0:36:41.0 LR: Bye.

0:36:43.5 VB: Bye.