0:00:05.3 Vickie Brett: Welcome to the Inclusive Education Project. I'm Vickie Brett.

0:00:08.9 Amanda Selogie: I'm Amanda Selogie.

0:00:11.2 Vickie Brett: We're two civil rights lawyers on a mission to change the conversation about education, civil rights, and modern activism. Each week, we're going to explore new topics which are going to educate and empower others and give them a platform to enact change in education and level the playing field.

0:00:33.6 Amanda Selogie: Hi, friends. Welcome back. We are on the brink of spring break. We have, I feel like some districts already are going to be like on spring break pretty soon, especially across the country. But of course, we're now in this zone, which is like so different from how it used to be. Like, I feel like everyone went on spring break between one of two weeks. Now it's like a month and a half where there's just...

0:00:59.7 Vickie Brett: Early March, yeah, to like late April.

0:01:02.6 Amanda Selogie: Like, Easter is late. And so like my son's school district is the week after Easter, so it's like April. So it's a wild time.

0:01:12.5 Vickie Brett: Yeah. Break for a lot of our clients will start like the second week of March, right. It's like conferences, and then it's mid March, which neither of those are... Oh, I guess your son's is near Easter at least. But like having it the third week of March is like nowhere near Easter, which is annoying.

0:01:31.5 Amanda Selogie: No. And then you have some districts that like next week or do, or have ski week.

0:01:36.1 Vickie Brett: Oh, ski week, right. Yeah.

0:01:38.4 Amanda Selogie: They might have a late spring break, I guess, because then they have ski week. I don't know, so it's like everything's going to be a little crazy with breaks in the next couple of months. So like this just a quick reminder that this is the time that anything you want to get done before the end of the school year.

0:01:54.3 Vickie Brett: Testing, touring...

0:01:57.1 Amanda Selogie: Annual assessments, if there's anything that like data collection is needed, like decisions need to be made. Get started now.

0:02:05.3 Vickie Brett: Yeah. And so I think this is a very poignant kind of state of affairs podcast, right. With me and Amanda really kind of laying out the differences even from a year ago to six years ago, right. Typically, the busiest times we would see were like March and October, and it was a couple months after winter break and then a couple months into the school year. But there, it feels very different, this year, I think right out the gate, right back from winter break, both you and I had cases that just seemed to have blown up in the sense of, I know for some, a couple of my cases, it was supposed to be advocacy at the IEP level, and we were making some headway but it just wasn't enough. And it was one of those situations. Even though the parents went to each IEP meeting and we requested either the one to one aid or the additional support or the assessments, the district's like, we're just not seeing it. We're just not seeing it. Ignoring like a whole, oh, we need to collect data. And unfortunately for some of my cases, until the child started to, "wild out" and they started to see it, it's kind of like too little too late, right?

0:03:24.5 Vickie Brett: We always say districts are reactive, they're not proactive. But there seems to be a really big uptick of this in terms of we are just going to wait and see, which legally is not sound. And it's something that unfortunately, I don't know if it's budgetary. I don't know. It is, like Amanda, you had talked about a teacher shortage, a support shortage. Is that related to finances?

0:03:54.2 Amanda Selogie: All in all though, like the things you can do to be proactive is going to be much more cost efficient. If you work at a school, you're a teacher, you're an administrator, and you're listening to this. Like, we're not here to tell you, oh, you should do this because of the kindness of your heart. Like, obviously we would love you to do that. But when we look at it from a monetary standpoint, if you wait and you are reactive, most likely it's going to take longer to get that kid back on track than if you were to just be proactive. Like, I mean, how many times have we talked about this in the context of like behavior, right. Having proactive strategies versus reactive. But the same applies for a kid is like seems like they're starting to struggle. Like they're in kindergarten, they're a little young and they're like already struggling. We should be getting on this because maybe we can have some accommodations. Maybe we only need an IEP for a year and a year or two. Like I remember back when I first started, like I used to have situations where you get in with an IEP early on, kinder first grade and like they can be exited out later once they catch up or go to a 504 plan.

0:05:06.6 Amanda Selogie: Reasonable. If we then just need some accommodations to keep them steady. But like we're not seeing that anymore. We're seeing this trend of by the time we assess, the kid is two, three grade levels, below grade level.

0:05:22.1 Vickie Brett: Yeah. Second, third grade level, already socially aware that they're behind or they're different. We're seeing a lot more of the socialization be completely impacted, right? And this harder stance of, yeah, she may have autism, but it doesn't affect her academics, she's not talking to anybody like that is completely impactful. That she's not socializing with the teacher, with the students, that is a problem. And social, emotional, vocational, it's not just academics in an IEP. And I think we wanted to have this POD as a reminder that even if the first semester has been okay, we are starting to prep for next year. But a lot can happen between now and the end of the school year. And unfortunately, sometimes you have to be the squeaky wheel in terms of documenting things, in terms of holding the IEP meeting, requesting that data. I had an IEP meeting yesterday where we had set that we were going to have this IEP meeting after 60 days. The district was to collect data and present it. And a week or two before the IEP meeting, I did my standard, hey, we're going to record and please give us any documents that are going to be reviewed.

0:06:37.3 Vickie Brett: No mention of any data. Oh, this was a parent requested IEP, so we don't have any documents. So I was already like, okay, well I'm not going to remind them because this was something that was explicitly made clear during the last IEP and in a follow up letter, right? And so we show up and then we make our request for our one to one. Like we've made every other IEP and we were like, now that you guys had the 60 days, like and you said that's what you said the last... All of a sudden it was like, no, no, we part two, we need have a part two and we're going to collect the data and we're going to see. And it's like, no, no, no, you were already supposed to collect the data. So it's like seeing these maneuvers, right? Of trying to kick the can down. Because I'm not going to wait another 30 days to have an IEP meeting for you guys to say, all of a sudden you have this data from the last 30 days that indicates that like we're requesting this assessment. You said this assessment needs to happen for there to be a one to one.

0:07:33.5 Vickie Brett: We're doing it. The kid had an uptick of behaviors, right? It's not like things got better. They got better in some respects. But this is the type of thing that we also deal with. And I think the push and what you were trying to explain to Amanda is like even with us involved it is an advocacy at this level, right? To a certain extent we understand the game, we understand the collaboration, but then when it's time to ring the alarm, we do. So that's another of my cases, right, where it's like, oh, we're in a situation. They eventually gave it to us, right? The one to one. But it is for a limited amount of time and quite frankly, there's a lot that's happened in the last two years before my involvement and since my involvement that we're filing. We just have to, right?

0:08:22.7 Amanda Selogie: Yeah. I mean, I've got an IEP coming up next week where we did a trial of an aid for 60 days. We were doing a SKIA assessment and the IEP next week is to review it. We also decided to move up the triennial early so we could do it at the same time. And we had an IEP meeting in the middle. I believe it was in December. So like the aide had been there 30 days. There's already so much documentation that like this kid is doing so much better with the aide. And of course the parents question to me is like, what happens if they try to say like he doesn't need it? And I'm like, everything all signs point to, his behavior is so much different with the aide. But my argument is, look, we've laid the foundation, we've set the baseline, we've talked about how he was before the aid, we talked about how he is in the middle. And now if data is showing that he's doing a lot better, then it is proof of the support of the aide. And it's really difficult for them to argue with their way out of it.

0:09:17.3 Amanda Selogie: But some of that required this like pre planning. And so like you're in a position where you're thinking about like what's going to happen next school year or what's needed. And you want to be able to have these conversations before the school year is up. You kind of need to start thinking about it now. And like I have a number of kiddos who are transitioning next year. So like either going from elementary to middle school and middle school to high school. And we're already having IEP meetings. Like I just made a request yesterday to have an IEP meeting with a kiddo to prep for high school because especially when you have these elementary districts versus the high school district. So we're not talking about same district. We're in a situation where this is a kiddo who's in general education with RSP support. But it's really unclear what the high school is going to offer because like middle school has a lot of like collaborative type classes and it's like the school happens to be very inclusive. So the parents question is like, well, how are we going to make this work? And like high schools are so different on like if they have collaborative co teach, gen ed, SDC, RSP, like study skills.

0:10:18.7 Amanda Selogie: Right. And so the teams are very quick to be like, oh, we're going to have a transition meeting in May, so don't worry about it. But it's like, well no, because many times we need to look at different schools because it may not be a foregone conclusion that like this is the high school this child is going to go to because not every high school has all the different programs. So like we need to have a conversation with the middle school team, say okay, what are her needs? We need to have parent take tours. We need to find out about the high school team. Then we're going to need to make a decision. This is a couple months long process. This isn't something that can be done in one meeting especially. We know that those transition meetings, they allocate 30 to 45 minutes max probably most of the time where they're going to be like, oh, we can't have too long of a discussion. If you're listening to this and you have a kiddo that's transitioning, know that a transition IEP meeting should be robust. It should talk about all their needs. However, most schools have a set standard where they're scheduling these transition IEPs on like same day, back to back, where it's very little time.

0:11:19.5 Vickie Brett: I had a school district one time only allocate 15 minutes I have had... But then I have another district that starts their transition to middle school from elementary to middle school or middle school to high school in February, which is incredible.

0:11:36.3 Amanda Selogie: Which is what you should because not only is it the fact that like there might be a lot of discussions because program might be different like elementary to middle school, but even middle school to high school, like programs are inherently going to be different. So there needs to be more of a discussion than just oh, they have RSP now they're going to get RSP then because it might need to look different, but the goals might need to be different. I guarantee you if you had your annual in September, October, November, even December, January, those goals were probably written for your current setting. They probably didn't contemplate middle school or high school. And like those are going to need to change the accommodations, probably need to look different, especially elementary to middle school, because like we're dealing with one teacher versus probably six or seven. So it's a good idea to start now. And then another tip is like please make sure to ask for your transition team to be there. So like if you're going into middle school, ask for the middle school team to be there. Because I can't tell you how many times I've gone to a transition meeting.

0:12:40.0 Amanda Selogie: And the team is like, well, we're just not really sure what the programs look like. Or I think this is what middle school looks like. And it's like, oh, well, if you don't know, how are you proposing the program, right? Like how are you making these decisions if you don't know concretely? So like it's a good idea to have someone from either the school or a program specialist that knows the different programs, right? Because we need to have that information. And like the other thing I'm seeing now that's become a problem. And it does affect transitions, but it also affects like this time of year is like we, I mean, we've been dealing since COVID teacher and like staff shortages. But like the trend I'm seeing now, which is really frustrating, is like I had a family I talked to the other day that were like, yeah, I don't think we're getting our all the RSP hours. And I'm like, oh, what makes you think that? And they were like, oh, well, because there's no RSP teacher.

0:13:37.4 Vickie Brett: Yeah, there's like not... Yeah, I could see why that you would think that.

0:13:42.4 Amanda Selogie: And so obviously like teacher shortages and staff shortages is a real problem. My two responses to that is one, when I see school districts posting ads for these positions, most of the time they're undercutting pay. They're undercutting, they're really not, they're not going out and proactively looking for people. They're just like posting it on the job site. So like that's problem number one, right? There's more you can be doing. But the second thing is if you don't have someone at your school site to provide the service that is guaranteed in the IEP, you as a school district need to be going to your SELPA or you need to be going to an outside agency to support these kids, like comp ed later on, even if it's offered, like it's just not good enough because then you're going to need 30 hours instead of the 10 you missed. It's just, it's not effective.

0:14:31.3 Vickie Brett: I think it is really important for parents to kind of see, see that and be able to call it out, right? In the sense of check the website. Sometimes I'll just even see districts post on their own website. And it's like, if I'm looking for a job, I'm not necessarily going to the website of the place that, like some people do, but it's like they need to have, in that case where we technically have an aid. So we're at the start of having an aide. It was what they did was they pulled the RSP teacher, which is his safe person, and that's great for a few days. And then, quite frankly, the director had told us, I'm going to have to hire an outside agency. So at least she's using her resources. And now, whether it's somebody that she hired or from an agency, we don't know, but we know immediately. This child thankfully transitioned well from the RSP teacher to this new person and is reporting that he's having good dates, right? And it's really sad that the help is being provided when the child's in crisis, because that's so much more to come back from.

0:15:38.4 Vickie Brett: If we start to kind of see the signs, it's going to be cheaper for you as a district, I guarantee it. Because if I have to file a complaint, I'm going to be seeking my attorney's fees. I'm going to be seeking any reimbursement for things that the parents had to pay for. And then you're going to have to hire your attorney. And regardless of whether you "win or lose", you're paying that person's attorney's fees. And so this is just our plea.

0:16:06.2 Amanda Selogie: And for parents, too, like if you're in this situation, because I did have this one family was like, they've said, like, hey, we need, we're going to make up the time. And, but then they didn't like really have a conversation with the family. There wasn't an IEP team meeting. There wasn't like straight, calm bed. They were just like, oh, yeah, we're making up the time. And like my question to that family was, when are they making up this time? Because if this is a child who's supposed to get an hour of RSP, let's say a day, and they don't receive it for two weeks, so we're talking like possibly 10 hours of RSP that needs to be made up. So moving forward, then when the teacher comes, we're then doing the regular hour, and then we're doing a makeup hour. So now the child is being pulled from class two hours. And this is probably a kiddo who's already behind. So now we're missing instruction. This needs to be an IEP team discussion. Number one, we have districts that shortchange families and say, oh, yeah, we made it up, we made it up. Request the logs to double check.

0:17:08.5 Amanda Selogie: But even if they're saying that they're going to make it up, you should be part of that conversation. The whole team should be as to how are we going to make it up? Because it's not just good enough for them to say, well, now we have this person. And so we're just going to pull them from class because that's going to be so much more detrimental. And I see this a lot. Like I've seen it with, you have a speech therapist that goes on maternity leave and then they come back and they're like, well, we're just going to make up the hours. And then you see this kid is then all of a sudden missing so much more class.

0:17:35.7 Vickie Brett: Just a plan.

0:17:36.9 Amanda Selogie: Yeah, you might have to be creative with, maybe some days we're missing

0:17:40.8 Vickie Brett: An effective plan.

0:17:42.6 Amanda Selogie: Yeah. But the idea is that the discussion should be happening and that the family should be involved, the whole team should be involved to make sure that it is practical and it's working for the student. And I just don't see that happening enough. Especially like I think this idea of like districts need to be making up hours is becoming more prevalent because of like these staff shortages. And so if you feel like there's been a teacher that's been out or you know that there's staff shortages at your school, like have those conversations with your team and ask like, hey, have we been getting the full service hours? You have a right to ask for the logs so that you can double check. But then the next step is don't just take their word for it. Like, hey, we're going to make it up. Like ask for an IEP meeting and develop a plan. Have them put it in writing. It should be in a prior written notice because otherwise they're just going to say, we did everything right. And next thing you know, the kid hasn't met any of their goals because they missed 50% of their RSP time.

0:18:40.9 Vickie Brett: Exactly right. And it's that peak six season, so your kiddo may be missing out anyway. And so we need to have a plan in place. We hope you guys have a good week. Weeks ahead, and we'll talk to you soon.

0:18:55.7 Amanda Selogie: Bye.