IDEA, IEPs and ABA with Matthew Storey, Esq. Part I

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Welcome to ABA on Tap, where our goal is to find
the best recipe to brew thesmoothest, coldest, and best
tasting ABA around.
I'm Dan Lowry with Mike Rubio,and join us on our journey as we

(00:23):
look back into the ingredientsto form the best concoction of
ABA on tap.
In this podcast, we will talkabout the history of the ABA
brew, how much to consume toachieve the optimum buzz while
not getting too drunk and therecommended pairings to bring to
the table.

(00:43):
So without further ado, sitback, relax, and always analyze
responsibly.

SPEAKER_00 (00:54):
All right.
All right.
And welcome back to yet anotherinstallment of ABA on tap.
As usual, I'm your co-host, MikeRubio, along with Mr.
Dan Lowry.
Mr.
Dan, how you doing, sir?

SPEAKER_01 (01:05):
Doing great.
Real excited about this one.
Have somebody in the studiotoday.

SPEAKER_00 (01:09):
I'm not going to be able to help myself with the
pun, so I apologize to ourguests in advance.
We've got a really good storytime today.
We're going to give you thestraight story.
We've got a super importanttopic.
We really do.
I'll stop there.
Really important topic.
We're going to be discussing, Iguess, education law, special
education.
Probably with specific regard tospecial education, but we'll get

(01:30):
into all sorts of other topics.
Very excited to have thisresource for you listeners out
there.
I think that we will all learn alot.
Given that we both bring topicsto the table, and sometimes I
bring them, sometimes you bringthem, Mr.
Dan, you take the lead on thisone.
I'm going to let you leadbecause I think this is your
guest, as it were.

SPEAKER_01 (01:50):
Yeah, so just very excited to have a good buddy of
mine, Matthew Story, joining thepod.
So, so glad you could join ustoday.
Matt, thank you so much forcoming.

SPEAKER_03 (01:57):
It's an absolute pleasure to be here.
Thanks for having me, guys.

SPEAKER_01 (02:00):
Super, super excited for this.
It's the first time we've donelive at your house.
So, the second or third timewe've had a live guest on.

SPEAKER_00 (02:07):
Oh, good

SPEAKER_01 (02:08):
point.
And we've transitioned outsideof the Reptile.
It does

SPEAKER_00 (02:11):
sound a little...
We're in the culinary studiotoday, and we're going to call
it the dining room studio, ifyou will, which I can tell...
The distillery.
Yeah, I can tell.
The distillery.
My bourbon collection.
Very nice.
I can tell that, yeah, it's alittle bit more open air, so
we'll see.
I hope we don't get any streetnoise.
I didn't prepare anything beyondjust what we have here, but it
sounds pretty good so far.
It does.

(02:31):
We'll let the editing tools dothe work for us.
So...
Matt Storey, thanks again forjoining us.
We're really excited to pickyour brain and learn from you
today.
We like to start with the originstory.
Sure.
And for you, I think there's aduality that is super important
that probably drives your workand motivates you, and at the

(02:52):
same time gives you a realpersonal insight, if not an
unteachable empathy for theclients you work with.
So as it were, I'll pass it onto you.
Just go right into it.
Yeah, go right into it, man.
Let us know what you do andwhere you came from.

SPEAKER_03 (03:04):
Sure.
So I'm a special educator.
and civil rights attorney.
And that really just means Iwork with children who have
disabilities in their education.
I started off a long time ago.
My brother has cerebral palsy,which I'm pronouncing wrong, but
that's how you pronounce it whenyou're a kid.
So it's just the way it goes.
So we just say CP.
And we grew up in the 80s and90s, so there wasn't a lot of

(03:25):
support for families like that.
My mom was an early advocate.
So for me, he had a real badexperience, a real bad
experience throughout hiseducation.
He was isolated for weeks at atime.
never got any support.
And my mom and dad did a reallygood job with what they had.
And so I went to law schoolspecifically to do this.
And my total focus has been thepractice of law in disabled kids

(03:49):
and getting them support andservices throughout their life.
But I do primarily focus ontheir education, which is where
most of the service is,honestly.
It's where you can get the mostsupport in anybody who has a
disability in their life.
Really, the most you're probablyever going to get is when
they're in school.
And people don't know that.

SPEAKER_01 (04:06):
So looking back on your brother's situation, do you
think it had a long-lastingimpact, or because you were
aware of it and your family wassuch big advocates, you were
able to kind of go outside ofthe school and get him the
service that he needed?

SPEAKER_03 (04:16):
Not at all.
So, you know, I was born in LongBeach, and at the time, Long
Beach probably was one of thebest places you could be if you
had a disability.
Okay.
And my parents moved us toMurrieta, Riverside area, and it
was pretty bad from there.
They had no support andservices.
They're better now.
But I would tell you what stillmakes me angry.

(04:37):
I still run into situations likethis all throughout the state.
It wasn't a situation wherebecause my mom was advocating,
she was getting services.
I think a lot of it was justgetting to the end of a rope and
trying to get anything.
He ended up going to theRiverside School for the Deaf
and Blind, which makes no sensefor a kid with CP who

SPEAKER_01 (04:57):
had neither disability.
I was going to say, is he deafor blind?

SPEAKER_03 (04:59):
No, not at all.
Not at all.
Understand that CP, like mostdisabilities, is a spectrum.
There are kids who are superimpacted they're in a chair they
don't talk my brother's not thatway he's six foot eight
cognitively there you know he'sa great guy he should have just
been in a general educationclass throughout his life but
that's not what they did theyfirst they put him in they
didn't have a special ed classso they just put him in a room

(05:21):
by himself and played videos forhim all day that went on for a
long time my mom realized it andthen we got him into sort of a
special ed class that theydeveloped but it wasn't really
that and that went all the waythrough high school it was a bad
situation It's a lot better formost kids now in that area.
For me, that is the drivingforce behind what I do and why I

(05:46):
do it.

SPEAKER_01 (05:47):
Without your brother, you might not be in
this field.

SPEAKER_03 (05:49):
100% wouldn't be.
Who knows anything about specialed?
You have to experience to gothrough it.
Every parent that ends up havinga kid with a disability, it's a
shock.
My son was on an IEP early on.
I had a lot of knowledge.
It was easy for us, but mostpeople You know, you get a
disability, you know, diagnosis,you're shocked.
Then you walk into a system youthink is supposed to support

(06:11):
you.
And it usually, for most people,it does.
But for some, you know, theydon't realize it until they're
years into the system that, oh,wait, this isn't the way it's
supposed to be.
And sometimes by then it's toolate.
And that can become a realproblem for people.
And that's usually when theycall me.

SPEAKER_01 (06:25):
Yeah.
So I will do some, I guessshelling might not be the best
word, but I will speak Matt'spraises because I've used some
of the resources that you have,one of them being the IEP
Pocketbook.
But you talk about the IEPprocess, and a lot of times I do
think school districtsoftentimes do the best that they

(06:45):
can.
Oftentimes, again, you see a lotmore than I do for the kids that
they work with, but they havehundreds or maybe thousands of
kids at that school site,whereas a parent, you have one
or two kids.
And it is an interesting dynamicat these meetings where one
person, one entity, the schooldistrict, the IEP team, has all
of the knowledge, and oftentimesthe other individual has almost

(07:05):
zero knowledge.
They're just coming in therelike, I don't know what...
autism is.
I don't know what thisdisability is.
I don't know how it's going toaffect.
You're the expert.
You tell me.
And that can be a dangerousscenario where one entity has
all of the knowledge in thatsituation.

SPEAKER_03 (07:19):
Well, it makes sense.
If you're a parent, they havethe degrees, they have the
resources, they have theknowledge, and they're telling
you your kid needs A, B, and C.
Well, you would never think tochallenge that.
You wouldn't challenge yourdoctor.
Why would you challenge theeducational staff when you're
first engaging it?
And so, you know, that powerdynamic is a real issue for
parents early on.
And what you see is they goalong with the IEP team they're

(07:41):
not really a part of it theyjust go along with whatever the
team's doing and then you knowyou get to fourth or fifth grade
and they realize their kid thatshould read is not reading right
and then they're like okay nowwe have a problem and then they
begin challenging the staff andthey're noticing well wait a
minute they're intransigentthey're not doing anything
they're not making any changesand that becomes a problem and I
do agree for the most part yousee school teams doing the best

(08:02):
they can with the resource thatthey have that is true I think
90% of the time the otherattempt percent of the time is
not true.
And they're just trying to kindof shuffle kids through a system
and get them out of school.
And that's usually where we playa role in the work that we do.

SPEAKER_01 (08:17):
And I have one more question with that, and then
I'll pass it to you, Mike,because I think you were going
to say something.
Do you find that that disparityor that discrepancy between
school and parents?
We live in San Diego.
There's a lot of ESLindividuals.
There's a lot of nationalitieshere.
Do you find that that isexacerbated with families that
might not be English firstlanguage or might not be here

(08:39):
for a while and really have noidea.
They might have just gotten hereand they don't really understand
maybe how our education systemworks or something like that.
So it's really challenging forthem to advocate for themselves
because they might not speak thelanguage and certainly don't
know how our education systemworks.
Do you find that that's common?
And do you find that There's anyrelationship there?

SPEAKER_03 (08:57):
It's very common.
We have a lot of differentlanguages spoken here, a lot of
people from a lot of differentcountries here that come from
places where there was noeducation.
So you walk into this country,your kid has a disability, and
all of a sudden they're going toschool.
I mean, that's rare in mostparts of the world where people
are coming from.
And then what you see is I thinkschools can play into that.

(09:19):
So those communities are evenmore under-resourced,
essentially.
And with that, you see a lotworse...
So the worst cases, and I thinkI can speak for most attorneys
in Southern Californiaespecially, the worst cases
you're going to see are going tobe those where English is a
second language, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 (09:35):
But those parents wouldn't know to call a special
education lawyer, right?
They have no idea.
So how do you get referred thosecases?

SPEAKER_03 (09:42):
So, I mean, I work in that community a lot.
So people just know who I am.
So if they're accessing somelevel of support, they're going
to find out who I am, butthey're also told not to.
I mean, and I don't want to be,you know, I don't want to go too
into this, but I have absolutelyhad parents who have brought up
hiring a lawyer to an IEP teamand been told that INS will get

(10:02):
called if that happens.
That's happened a lot.
So I've been practicing forroughly 15 years and I can, it's
definitely over 10 times I'veseen that.
So if I'm seeing that, you know,and there's not a lot of us,
then that means it's probablyhappening substantially more.
But most of what I see are justreally underserved communities
with the school system.
And those schools are stretchedvery thin.

(10:23):
You see that mostly.

SPEAKER_00 (10:24):
So I can't imagine that's going to get any better
anytime soon.

SPEAKER_03 (10:27):
No, that's going to get worse.
No, and we do get a lot of phonecalls about this.
How will this play into, youknow, my kid's a naturalized
citizen.
I'm not.
How is that going to play intoit?
And I cannot answer thatquestion.

SPEAKER_00 (10:38):
Yeah.
I'm going to rein us back in alittle bit.
We've gone into the origin storyas far as being a son and a
brother and now an attorney allthroughout.
You've got a much more personalconnection to that.
You mentioned your son.
I don't know if you can spend alittle time talking about that
and how you brought.
So you were an attorney firstand then you had your son who
then ended up having the veryspecific need of legal advocacy,

(11:02):
which you're able to provide.

SPEAKER_03 (11:03):
It was fun when that happened.
Actually, I have to admit.
So my My son, my youngest, waspretty much nonverbal.
We were getting services throughour insurance.
We were getting services, like alot of people, through regional
center.
Did a great job, speechservices.
They were coming to the house,appreciated it very much.
When we transitioned intoschool, my son is five.

(11:24):
He's still pretty much nonverbalat the time, and they had done a
speech assessment.
They were a lovely group ofpeople, and they said, well,
your son no longer qualifies.
He doesn't need speech.
I'm like, he doesn't talk.
In all fairness, they had noidea what I did for a living,
right?
That time, you know?
And so I said, okay, well, wewant an independent educational
evaluation.
And just for people that don'tknow what that means, it's

(11:46):
important to know that when adistrict does an assessment, you
as a parent have a right torequest that assessment is done
independently, which means thedistrict pays for, but you
choose the assessor.
This is the number one thingmost parents can do, right?
For their kid, right?
Because you're not trustingmaybe what the district is
doing.
You don't like what they'redoing.
Maybe you think they should bedoing more.
almost always the answer is IEE.

SPEAKER_01 (12:07):
And the goal is to remove the conflict of interest?
Huge.

SPEAKER_00 (12:10):
It's a second opinion, as it were.
It's a good thing.
Who wouldn't do that, right?
Your doctor just told you newsyou didn't like.
I'm going to go get a secondopinion.
Honestly,

SPEAKER_03 (12:17):
I talk to parents a lot every week.
And usually, I would say asubstantial portion of those
cases is get an IEE.
It can cure so many things.
So we do that.
And a friend of mine wasteaching at San Diego State at
the time in their speechprogram, which was one of the
best in the country.
So I take my little guy overthere and hand him to a bunch
your graduate students.
It was rad.

(12:38):
And they took him, they didassessments for a while.
They did some other stuff too.
And then they brought him back.
They gave me the assessment.
They go to my IEP team meetingand they went from no speech to
an hour of individual and anhour group a week.
That's the power of that.
Never had an issue since, by theway, that my team has done a
great job and my son's doingreally well.
But again, I start off early.

(12:59):
Most parents, right?
In that situation, you're toldhe no longer qualifies for
speech and they're going, okay,well, I tried you right huge
mistake because we know soconclusively that early on
services are going to be lessservices later and you're not
going to have to be fighting toget more support later on and
this this applies to everythingfrom behavior to reading writing

(13:20):
math social behavior everythingyou want to hit it early young
and a lot of times teams justdon't want to do that

SPEAKER_00 (13:26):
what do you think constitutes that difference so
again you said a lovely group ofpeople it's not that they're not
seeking to provide what'snecessary what falls short where
that discrepancy.
You mentioned conflict ofinterest, Dan.
I think that plays in.
I mean, I don't know what kindof secret meetings happen or
what the school psychologistsget told or how they actually
read the terrain politically orotherwise at certain times and

(13:48):
realize that maybe theirrecommendation is supposed to be
such and such.
And clearly, somebodyindependent comes in and gives
you a whole different picture.
Give us some insight on that.
How does that really happen?
Because it makes no sense,right?

SPEAKER_03 (14:00):
How does one professional so far fetch from
another?

SPEAKER_00 (14:03):
These graduate students weren't, you know, they
didn't stand to gain anything bygiving you their other than
their studious observations andsay, man, we're really into
this.
This is what we do every day.
I'm getting a master's degree.
I'm going to give you the bestdata I can give you.

SPEAKER_03 (14:14):
We're going to do what you're going to do.
We're going to do for your sonwhat we think he needs.
And this is the difference.
So I'll start off with how itworks out in assessments and
then what I see in schooldistricts.
When a school district does anassessment, they're going to
make a series ofrecommendations, whether or not
it's a psychoeducational report,a mental health report.
What I have found is when aschool district does that,
they're making a recommendationbased on what they have, meaning

(14:36):
what do we have on site that wecan provide you?
That's where the recommendationis coming from.
An independent assessment isgoing to make a recommendation
based on what the student needs.
Those are fundamentallydifferent.
We see that all the time.
Somewhat to answer your questionabout why are we seeing this
difference, I think there aretwo things.
I think, number one, again, theydon't have the resources.

(14:58):
You can meet plenty of people,teachers, psychologists, speech
language pathologists,behavioralists, who go, we don't
have enough people.
you pull them aside they'regoing to we don't have enough
people to support the kids thatwe have that is across the board
true on the other side of that ithink there is a reality that if
you're around children who havedisabilities a lot you see that

(15:19):
spectrum right the kids that areon the higher functioning end of
that spectrum are going to goless served because schools just
aren't equating that to a needbased on the other kids that
they see the squeaky wheelalways gets the grease right you
know i mean i've been arounddisabilities my entire life life
i've grown up with it i don'tnotice a lot of it it doesn't
you know it you know i will seelike if my brother was sitting

(15:41):
here you guys would notice itright i wouldn't i i mean it
would take me a minute you knowand so there's that spectrum of
disabilities that just goesunderserved as a result of them
being on that higher endspectrum where in fact they
could use the services quickly

SPEAKER_00 (15:56):
right right that makes a lot of sense it makes i
mean it makes the what you'redescribing makes a lot of sense
that discrepancy doesn't makesense and i i imagine it's hard
to reconcile It

SPEAKER_03 (16:05):
is.
It is.

SPEAKER_00 (16:06):
And you make a good point.
Everybody's considering, youknow, everybody's doing their
due diligence in terms ofsaying, well, you know, speech
therapist, I have this caseload.
And well, that teacher iscomplaining about that kiddo.
Maybe I need to pull him out.
But that kiddo does OK.
We'll keep him in the push ingroup services, for example.
And I'm not being facetious orcritical as much as I can
imagine those that thoughtprocess in somebody's mind who

(16:27):
is well aware of the logistic onany given school site as well as
their caseload.
And they are doing their best.
And then they are what youdescribed.
is certainly relevant as well.
Well, and

SPEAKER_03 (16:37):
you have like 500 kids on the school site, right?
You have one speech languagepathologist.
That speech language pathologisthas a certain amount of contract
hours, and people just can't fitin that caseload.
So they're also going to give,even if they're giving you
services, it's not going to bebased on the need usually.
It's going to be based on howlong they're at the

SPEAKER_00 (16:52):
site.
How much time do I have?

SPEAKER_03 (16:54):
And that's a reality.
I mean, it's not their fault.
They're not the ones in chargeof the purse.
Absolutely.
But it's what they have.
And so most of the time when Irun them, even my son's SLP, who
is great, she was a really goodperson.
I know She had said, well, he'syoung.
You know, we don't have a hugediagnosis here.
So he's probably just going tosocially develop language.
There's truth to that.

(17:14):
But, you know, he may not have.
And we won't know that becausehe got the services he needed.
And I think a lot of it fallsinto that.

SPEAKER_01 (17:21):
So you brought up an interesting point and
discrepancy.
And we can hold off on it, Mike.
I'll ask it.
No, we're good.
About what?
Starting it based on whatsomebody has versus what
somebody needs, which makes alot of sense.
Can you speak to that and maybeeven what the law says somebody
has a right to?
Because my child might need–Mike and I, and I think you've

(17:42):
even been brought in to consult,have a child that went blind
recently.
Let's say that district doesn'thave any support for the blind,
so they might– offer somethingthat they have, which is not
necessarily what the childneeds.
Can you speak to number one,what that differentiation is?
And number two, what anindividual's legal right is?

SPEAKER_03 (18:00):
Right.
So, well, I mean, the differenceis that's probably not legal.
And so globally speaking, thefederal law, which is the
individuals with disabilitiesand education act, uh, tells
districts, they have to providewhat we call a FAPE, a free
appropriate public education.
It's a mouthful, right?
But what it means is that adistrict is required to ensure a
student access their educationand make progress in light of

(18:21):
their disability, their uniquedisability.
And they have to develop an IEPto address their unique needs.
And so schools can never, eversay, we understand your student,
your child needs this service,but we don't have it.
That's illegal.
right?
They then have to create it orfind a place that does have it.

(18:42):
And you see a lot of that.
So we're in San Diego, right?
We have probably some of thebest private schools in the
country from what I've seen.
I've traveled quite a bit.
And so if they don't have aprogram to fit a student's need,
maybe they have to put the kidin a private school.
That happens a lot.
I do a lot of that, actually.
We don't like to because youdon't want to take kids away
from their typically developingpeers.
Sometimes the programnecessitates it.

(19:03):
But what you should never runinto is we don't have that.
I understand You don't havethat.
You're going to create itbecause that's why you receive
state and federal funding forthis purpose alone.
It just requires a lot of worksometimes.

SPEAKER_01 (19:16):
Now, when you say private school, are you
referring to what people thinktraditionally is private school
or are you thinking more of likea non-public school?
Yes.
Like what are you referring

SPEAKER_03 (19:22):
to?
That's actually reallyimportant.
In the state of Californiaespecially, there's a difference
between a private school and anon-public school.
A non-public school is a schoolcertified by the state to
provide special educationservices.
So these are focused primarilyon disabled students.
This is not a private school.
not a parochial school likemodern day or something like
that where it's just a privateschool those are those are
totally different and schoolsaren't going to be have to ever

(19:43):
pay for that

SPEAKER_01 (19:44):
so you're talking about the

SPEAKER_00 (19:45):
non-public route always the non-public route yeah
yeah now that the privatedesignation now they're not
required to have specialeducation services or into but
they but they might be compelledto if they can serve a certain
need and then non-public schoolsby contrast then are completely
specialized settings is thatfair to say

SPEAKER_03 (20:02):
pretty much I mean a private school doesn't have to
really they might they don'thave to they almost And they can
do it if they want.
But one of the things we have toremember that federal and state
law, these are funding laws.
Congress says, I'm going to giveyou money.
You are going to adhere to theIDEA.
Private schools don't take thatmoney.
if they took federal funds, thenthey would be held account to
that.
And then on top of that, most ofthe schools that we see are

(20:25):
parochial schools, they're goingto have almost no legal
obligations.
Can you define parochialschools?
Yeah, if it's a religious schoolespecially, they're going to
have no obligations under anyfederal law for the most part.
We avoid those.
And we have to warn parentsabout that.
That's fine, you can take yourstudent here, but they can kick
you out for whatever reason theywant.

SPEAKER_00 (20:43):
And they can certainly say, no, we don't have
that.
Sorry, you have to go somewhereelse.

SPEAKER_03 (20:47):
Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 (20:48):
And it's their right, so not to put them in a
weird spot, but that's theirright to

SPEAKER_03 (20:52):
do that.
They're creating a program and avision privately that parents
are privately funding.
They can do whatever they want.
And that makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_01 (20:58):
So just to define kind of the different levels of
schools.
So the private, no federalfunding completely can do their
own thing.
If they want to help somebodywith special needs, they can be
compelled to do that, butthey're under no legal
obligation.
We talked about non-publicschools, which is like a
specialized school, basicallycertified by the district, which
is compelled.
Then there's charter schools.

(21:19):
and public schools.
I think people know what publicschools are.
Charter schools, to myunderstanding in California,
have to be affiliated with adistrict and are then compelled
to follow IEPs.
I don't know if you want tospeak to that.
And then the second part of thatquestion is, in my experience,
so I have a lot of parents come,I think, is Helix a charter?

(21:39):
Yes, it is.
So there's a lot of really goodcharter schools.
One of the issues that I'veheard parents say is that
Because charter schools mightnot be part of the public school
system, the resources that theyhave at that site might be a
little bit more limited.
So you might get more of the wedon't have it kind of stuff,
even though they are legallycompelled to.
Do you want to speak to charterschools at all?

SPEAKER_03 (22:00):
Yeah, there's no difference between a charter
school and a public school.
They're under the exact samelegal obligations.
That even goes for if you're anindependent charter school or a
virtual charter school or a homecharter school.
You have all the sameobligations because you're
taking state money.
And so it is true that there aresome good charter schools.
charter schools.
I have a lot to say about that.
You want to go into charterschools?

(22:21):
This is your time.
I don't think they should exist.
I think all it is is justanother way to say it's just a
way to take public money.
I don't like it.
That doesn't mean they're bad.
Globally speaking, I don't likethis whole push away from public
schools the way we're seeing.
Charter schools most certainlyare going to have less resources

(22:42):
than larger school districts,but guess what?
Little districts are going tohave the same problem.
The bigger a district usuallythe more resources they have.
San Diego Unified, LA Unified,just whoever you're dealing with
because they're just going tohave more money.
They're going to have more of atax base.
Smaller districts are not goingto have as many resources
usually.
And we see that across the stateas well.

SPEAKER_00 (23:01):
So you started by talking about the difference
between Long Beach and Marietta.
And there it is.
That's the difference.
Yeah,

SPEAKER_03 (23:06):
it really was.
Long Beach, it was a bigcommunity.
It's one of the bigger schooldistricts.
And at that time though, mostkids that had disabilities went
to specialized school within thedistrict.
That's illegal now.
But my mom loved it.
She loved it.
All the parents did.
Their kids had a disability.
They went to this special publicschool that was all for kids

(23:26):
with disabilities.
They hated it when they went towhat we call mainstreaming or
least restrictive environment.
They were really upset by this.
And so that was another reason,I think, in part, that my
parents ended up moving.

SPEAKER_00 (23:39):
That's a good theme of conversation, top of the
conversation there in terms oftalking about least restrictive.
And then sometimes that doesn'tnecessarily...
uh, fit the mold for a parentwho's now, hey, they're throwing
my kid out into the wild andyou're not giving them the
individualized, specializedservices.
Maybe speak to that a little bitas a parent and as a
professional because bothcircumstances are relevant.

(24:00):
You want that least restrictive.
That least restrictive sometimesthen may mean that as a parent,
you don't see the supports youthink your child needs in place.

SPEAKER_03 (24:10):
Yeah, it's a hard game to play because the idea is
that you are educated with yourtypically developing peers to
the maximum of extendappropriate that's what the law
says but you know a lot of timeskids given the their disability
they have to be restricted iswhat we call it they go to and
think just special educationclass and this is a really tough
call because socially that isgoing to impact your child if

(24:34):
you are not around typicallydeveloping peers you are going
to miss out on a huge socialpiece and when you graduate high
school you know you find thatsometimes if they've been in
that restricted environment andit hasn't been warranted
especially that these kidsbecome very socially isolated.
And I think that really happenedto my brother, you know, because
he was in a special ed class.

(24:54):
There was no reason for it.
And I think he struggled a lotwith that to some degree, just
being somewhat, you know,isolated from typically
developing peers.
And we do see that prettyconsistently.
So I'm always pushing LREbecause I see the social impact,
but it's so hard to make thatcall based on a kid's
disability.
Like how, you know, where reallyshould they be and how should we

(25:14):
be pushing to keep them in LRE?

SPEAKER_01 (25:16):
It's interesting because I I know when I had my
boss, Kim, on the podcast, shehad the great saying of whose
needs are we meeting when?
And are we changing theenvironment based on the
school's needs?
Are we changing the environmentbased on the kids' needs?
And the client that we both usedto work with, I think you may
have even consulted with thisparent at one point, a pretty, I
don't know how old he is now,he's probably pushing 18, pretty

(25:37):
large individual was doing someattention-seeking behaviors, not
really violent or anything likethat, but they were moving this
individual to his own roombecause it was challenging to
deal with.
And I can understand from theschool's perspective of why
that's challenging to deal with.
But I think that might pose someissues for LRE.
And also my question from an ABAperspective is, okay, I

(25:59):
understand why you're doing it,but now that he's in this other
room, how are we getting himback into the LRE?
And it almost seemed like it waslike a warehousing for lack of a
better term.
I probably should have a betterterm than that, but like, let's
just get him here so he's notaffecting the other kids.
But for his perspective, how arewe teaching him skills so he can
get back in that leastrestrictive environment?

SPEAKER_03 (26:18):
I see that quite a bit.
And that is warehousing.
I don't think there's a betterword for it.
And so when you have a kid who'sexhibiting certain types of
behaviors and you see schoolsisolating him, that's a
consistent problem.
But you're right.
Number one, there has to be aplan to get him back into the
general education environment.
And if there's not, they're mostcertainly violating the law.
But it also goes to the factthat sometimes the supports we

(26:40):
may need in a class, like aone-to-one aid, ABA in the
class, which I know we're goingto talk about is just going it's
just completely absent and it'sa huge issue because you know
parents and kids shouldn't beput in that position and we get
a lot I get a lot of cases likethat where you know a kid or
they're being sent home earlythat's a that's the bigger one
they're sent home that's myfavorite yeah I all the time

(27:00):
I've got cases right now whereyou know this school year I mean
the kid basically spent all yearat home because mom would drop
him off and then she would get acall an hour later you need to
come get him he's so illegal

SPEAKER_00 (27:11):
they cannot do that as behavior animals for us,
that's a killer, right?
So you've got an escape.
Based behavior.
You've got an escape basedbehavior.
They just admitted it.
And now you're doing what you'reallowing the escape.
Oh, good job.
We call that reinforcement.
Do you know what that means?

SPEAKER_03 (27:26):
I thought you were going to say, I mean, and then
it's so much harder to get thekid back into school because now
they assume, okay, the second Iget there, I'm chucking this
pencil box across the thing.
Cause I want to go home.

SPEAKER_00 (27:35):
Even with simple things though, like a kids that,
um, you know, might get anxiousto use that, that word freely.
And you're, they're walking upto the bus and they're anxious
about going to school.
And all of a sudden they vomit.
And the, bus driver has to go ohwait that's vomit i can't wait
but they don't have a virus theyvomited because they're
escalated yeah and now we'reallowing the escape i can say
that full disclosure because iwas that kid who figured out

(27:59):
that oh wait if i vomit you guyscool i don't want to go to
school so let me conjure up i'malready feeling queasy i'm
already not wanting to go toschool i'm already upset it's
pretty easy for me to up checkmy breakfast and hit now i'm at
home

SPEAKER_03 (28:10):
are you seeing this so i'm seeing this getting worse
since covid Kids were at home,like being at home, and they
didn't want to go back toschool.
So the behavioral cases that Isee are all a lot of anxiety
cases where the kid just wantsto be at home.
I have parents call me all thetime.
They're like, well, I'd like toget them on an independent
charter school program.
Like, don't do that.
Don't work through this problem,but they weren't given the

(28:32):
resources.
They weren't offered theresources.
So in those cases, we're like,okay, let's figure out how to
get him back into school.
And that can, I mean, we wantwraparound services.
They're in-house therapeuticservices to try to start
developing that plan.
because I'm sure you guys have,I've definitely seen the
19-year-old who doesn't leavehis room.
Yep.
Right?
And the parent who is for nofault of their own is just

(28:53):
struggling.
And they're like, I don't care.
I don't want to get hit.
Just give them video

SPEAKER_00 (28:56):
games.
All he does is play video gamesall day.
They're comfortable.
And as a parent, that's achallenging notion, right?
My child is comfortable.
If I steer him in this directiontoward their growth, they begin
to express distress.
Yeah.
Or what I see is distress as aparent.
No, no, just leave him alone.
In most

SPEAKER_03 (29:13):
parents, I mean, I don't know about you guys, but
the divorce rate in ourcommunity is super high, right?
It's over 90%.
Most of the parents that I workwith, my parents included, it's
going to be mom-centered.
And when you have a son whobecomes bigger than you and you
don't have the support, what areyou supposed to do?

(29:36):
I have a lot of parents I'veworked with, moms who I've
worked with, they weigh 130pounds and the kid weighs 240.
You're not winning that fight.
And so, you know, for safety'ssake, you're like, I have to let
him do whatever he needs to dobecause I'm not going to get
punched.
And you see that over and over.

SPEAKER_01 (29:51):
And then there's maybe I'm going down a line, a
tangent here, but there may belike a codependency because both
of those, that parent had toadvocate so hard, which I
understand.
So there might be anothersolution that might actually be
better for that individual.
Hey, can they go to thispotential residential school or
something like that?
But the parent doesn't want togive that up because maybe they

(30:12):
don't trust him.
Maybe there's a dependency.
level there, there's no judgmentthere.
But I'm sure that also can throwa little caveat of like, Well,
we have a solution for you, butthe parent doesn't want to take
the solution.

SPEAKER_03 (30:22):
They don't.
Residential is a whole differentleague, and it's a hard call to
make.
I've placed a lot of kidsthroughout the country in
residential placements.
That's scary.
I've got two boys.
I don't think I could do itbecause now I have a
13-year-old, and he's in Utah,and I only get to see him a
couple times a year.
There's no way.
There's no way.
I don't think, but I do see itover and over again where
parents have gotten to the endof what they can just take, and

(30:42):
for the safety of them and theirother children, they go
residential.
Usually, by the way, myexperience in that case has been
been phenomenal

SPEAKER_00 (30:51):
you say utah because then placements are hard to come
by

SPEAKER_03 (30:53):
here in san diego

SPEAKER_00 (30:55):
in san diego or in california there's a reason for

SPEAKER_03 (30:57):
that yeah so in the 90s we got rid of lockdown in in
california for residentialplacements this is not jail i'm
talking about residentialplacements for people who have
disabilities the reason we gotrid of that is because you know
basically there was a hugeinvestigation lots of abuse so
the only option we have tworesidentials here in the san
diego county area they're greatbut if a student's eloping they

(31:19):
need a higher level of care,we've got to go out of state.
And it can be anywhere in thecountry, really.
But a lot of the places that arecloser are going to be Arizona,
Utah, Nevada, and then you moveinto Texas.
And I mean, I've even placedkids in New York.

SPEAKER_00 (31:31):
That's a really fine line there.
I mean, you would say that maybethose regulations are
disempowering then to certainplacements in California, but at
the same time, the reason thatthey were removed, that those
restrictions were removed isbecause they were being abused.
What's the balance?
That's hard to strike.
I know that's a big question.

SPEAKER_03 (31:46):
What's your insight?
That's a tough question.
What I would tell you is isoftentimes people that are
making laws don't live theexperience.
You have no idea what you'retalking about.
It's like California making gunregulations.
You really don't know whatyou're talking about.
Let's make them less safe.
I know that's a whole differentthing.
Your point's well taken.
Most of the people that aremaking the laws when that

(32:08):
happened, they don't understand.
You've never seen the severityof the disability we're talking
about.
You most certainly have neverlived with it.
The idea was good.
I get it.
But the response is youovercorrected.
You took away the resources.
These kids are going to go toresidential, by the way.
It's going to happen.
Or jail, right?

(32:29):
Or jail, which is another partof my practice.
I spend a lot of time workingwith juveniles, getting them out
of jail and into residentials.
But the point that you wouldexplain, and I've tried to
explain this to statelegislators, is you didn't end
anything.
These kids are still going toresidential because they require
that level of care.
Everybody agrees with it.
The school district, theparents, the doctors, the
psychologists, everybody agreesthat this is needed but what

(32:51):
you've done is you've now takenaway the resource we have and
now the kids are going to afundamentally more expensive
place you know 500 miles awaywhere the parent can't see their
kid you know you've took away aresource so it was to be frank
stupid but I mean I understoodit I mean you understand it when
you read those cases and I stillget involved in abuse cases now

(33:11):
they happen everywhere but theyhappen in general education
environments too

SPEAKER_01 (33:16):
and in homes

SPEAKER_03 (33:16):
and in homes yeah and in homes and so it And that
was tough.
Out of state?

(33:37):
Yeah, it was one of the worstcases I'd ever seen where there
was a lot of abuse in the home,too, and the kid, everybody
agreed that she needed a higherlevel of care in order to deal
with the psychological trauma ona 24-hour basis.
That's the youngest.
Usually we're looking at earlyteens is when we see residential
placements because they don'tbecome viable.

(33:58):
I'm not a psychologist.
Usually what I'm told is,listen, 16 or older, this is not
going to be as effective.
Whether it's not effective isdifferent, but just less
effective.
So there's an age range you needto shoot

SPEAKER_01 (34:10):
for.
Is that because at 18 and theycan basically get out so they
won't be enough time there?
Is that the part of it?

SPEAKER_03 (34:16):
I think it's part of it.
I mean, somebody better couldprobably answer that.
What I've been told is justbecause the issues that they
have are less treatable at thattype of site.

SPEAKER_00 (34:27):
That makes sense.
I have seen it work.
Longstanding habits too, right?
So behaviorally speaking,whatever the child's been doing,
they've been doing for a whilenow.
So they've been eloping, they'vebeen eloping for a while.

SPEAKER_03 (34:35):
People don't understand all the trauma that
goes in with these.
I work with foster care kids alot.
I'm on the board for that in SanDiego.
We're all in this system tryingto find the best scenario to
help these kids.
When a resource is taken away,it can be devastating.
We see that across this state.
Again, it's all good intentions,but it's the wrong result.

SPEAKER_01 (34:57):
It's been frustrating.
You bring up trauma.
One of my coworkers at PROACT,because we work with all sorts
of individuals, we talk frominstitute to group homes, to all
sorts of things.
She talks about the only thingdifference between the workers,
which is us, and the clients orthe residents, whatever you want
to call them, is circumstances.
And I imagine if we had some ofthe trauma that these
individuals had, we would be intheir similar situation.

SPEAKER_03 (35:20):
Oh, yeah.
And, you know, nobody, the mostunderrepresented and
under-supported group of peopleI've ever met are disabled
foster care kids.
So we do everything we can tohelp them.
But, you know, if you're a youngkid going through some of this
stuff, and I probably won't gointo it here but the stuff that
you've seen that's justunimaginable you're not
recovering from that totally andso you know trying to find these

(35:42):
places to get support for thesekids is you know paramount
importance to me but not wellserved here in california
sometimes we're better than moststates though we are definitely
better than most states

SPEAKER_00 (35:53):
i recall consulting uh forgetting the specifics at
this point but consulting atsome point um with a client who
was in a foster home situationand the professional surrounding
really wanted to change thischild's hoarding behavior.
And it took a little while toexplain to them, no, you're not
going to do that.
This is their stuff.

(36:15):
And they don't know whetherthey're going to be shipped off
right now or tomorrow.
So they need to know where theirstuff is.
And the idea that, I mean,that's really heartbreaking to
think about, you know, six,seven, eight year old who's now
learned a pattern of and said,and you know, wise enough to
say, I need to hold on to mystuff because this is my

(36:35):
consistency.
In

SPEAKER_03 (36:36):
their world, that's everything.
They

SPEAKER_00 (36:38):
have nobody that cares.
That's really tough.
But again, one of those things,behaviorally, where they're
going, I know the good intentionis, yeah, this kid's got a mess
under their bed.
Maybe worry about other thingsfor now.
Make them comfortable over time,and I assure you, once they feel
that consistency, they'll startputting things away.
But

SPEAKER_03 (36:54):
when you know, so you guys have knowledge.
You understand what should beput in place.
And a lot of times, we're in asituation where all the
intellectual wealth, let's say,that understands this stuff and
how to address it is pulled awayfrom the global policymaking.
You see that with the Departmentof Ed.
You see that with school boards.
We were talking about this offthe mic earlier.

(37:14):
You have a lot of people thatjust don't know what they're
doing, making policy thatdramatically impacts everything
that we do professionally.
And that reverberates across theeducational system, which it can
be devastating.

SPEAKER_01 (37:27):
What I see happen a lot, and again, I see more maybe
from the product side of things,I'm sure you see in you, alluded
to it a little bit from theeducational side of things with
the residential places it almostgoes back to the
deinstitutionalization ofCalifornia of like it comes from
a good spot of okay we might nothave been the most humane and
you know back in the 90s of likeyou know Camarillo State
Hospital and things like that oflike trying to

(37:49):
deinstitutionalize and trying tointegrate people which comes
from a good intention but thenthey're not the supports and
it's not executed andunfortunately these people went
from being institutionalized tobeing homeless and we deal with
this so often of like yeahthere's not enough resources,
great idea, really poorexecution.

SPEAKER_03 (38:06):
Well, and then the long-term impact.
So financially, the long-termimpacts, I mentioned this
earlier about early services,right?
The importance of developingearly services is so you don't
need services later in life.
And so what we've done now in alot of cases is we have these
kids that are impacted to somedegree and we shove them through
a system that doesn't work forthem.
And what do you think happenswhen they get out of school?

(38:26):
Well, they become homeless, theygo in the welfare system or
something like that.
Or jail.
Where if we had just heavilyinvested in a young age, None of
that, they would have been aproductive member of society.
And you're right, jail.
And by the way, jail is usuallymore expensive than a
residential facility.
We find that.
And not a good place to be.
Jail is not a place where yourecover.

(38:47):
And a lot of times, I'll be incourt and talking to a juvenile
judge, and we've got greatjuvenile judges here.
They're smart.
Sometimes we get new judges,though, that believe that, well,
the student needs to be punishedfor whatever they did.
Sometimes they do.
But also that there's going tobe a level of recovery because
we have these services and youhave to spend an hour going.

(39:08):
You have no idea what you'retalking about.
Again, higher end person makinga policy decision on information
or, you know, that they don'thave or they don't understand.

SPEAKER_01 (39:17):
I think California last I saw has the spends the
most per inmate and has thehighest recidivism rate in the
country.
It's like 70 or 80 percent.
It's like ridiculous of peoplewho go to jail and come back.
It's really bad.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
And it's

SPEAKER_03 (39:30):
for youth, too.
I mean, a lot of kids I can't gointo some of them, but one of
the, I mean, you just, it alsosnowballs.
So one of the kids I'm workingwith or have worked with
recently, like his crimes havegotten worse.
He's got autism.
His crimes have gotten worseover the last five years.
And we were, you know, arebegging, you know, the people
involved, do not send him backto jail.
We have better services andsupport.

(39:51):
No, we believe he needs to bepunished for this.
And you're pulling your hair outgoing, this is only going to get
worse.
And even when this happened atthe last time he was charged,
you know, I had talked to theAnd they're like, well, I don't
know what you're talking about.
Oh, my God.
He's just going to end up backin jail.
And it's expensive.

SPEAKER_00 (40:08):
Dan, you've got to get us in front of these people.
So they're punishing him, but hekeeps going back into jail.
What is that actually, Dan?
It's not punishment.
That's reinforcement.
It's recidivism reinforcement.
Same thing, right?
So you think you're punishingbecause you're removing them.
And rightfully so.
Maybe you're protecting thegreater environment from them.
We understand.
But if they keep going back tojail, you're not punishing
anything.

SPEAKER_03 (40:28):
No.
And when you're young and you goto jail, you know, after you
done it a few at least from whatI've seen okay you don't care
okay this has become part ofyour life and so if you go back
to jail you're like whatever youknow I mean this is juvie yeah
this isn't you know big boyprison but you know these kids
are just become so desensitizedbecause that's the time in their
life they're living and so ithas no impact and then you know

(40:51):
it just because I've been doingthis for so long now I've seen
those kids okay well you knowI'll warn them you're 18 don't
do it again 19 they do it againand now they're in jail and you
know and you can see But youlook long-term at that funding
because you try to plead withpeople with any way you have.
And I'm like, this is moreexpensive if you don't do this.
And we see it over and

SPEAKER_01 (41:10):
over.
Well, that's the whole reasonthat we get funded is because
Lovaas, I think he published itin 87, showed that at the time
if we were able to intervene– Inpreschool, by the time a kid got
into kindergarten, he was ableto get early intervention and
save society over$2 million overthe course of that individual's
life.
That was 87, I'm sure, withinflation and we're more

(41:31):
efficient now.
I'm sure it's many, many moremillions of that.
I want to go back to somethingyou said earlier and just wrap
this up before we move on.
This have versus need.
This school district might makea recommendation on what they
have versus what the child needsbecause I think this is really
important for our audience tohear.
Now, you said it was illegal fora school to say, we don't have

(41:54):
this, so we're going torecommend this.
My guess is the school districtisn't going to say that.
They're just going to say, werecommend this.
So what are your thoughts on...
Is that where the IE comes in?
How would you empower parents tounderstand?
Because they might especially...
We talked about maybe...
non-native or ESL parents, butwe can just talk about everyone

(42:18):
specifically.
Parents don't know what somebodyhas, and they don't know what's
available to them, so they'rejust going to trust what the
school says, and the school isnot going to tell them what they
don't have but what they need.

SPEAKER_03 (42:27):
Can you

SPEAKER_01 (42:27):
unpack that?
I

SPEAKER_03 (42:29):
think the first thing to think about, and I'll
put myself in this, is you needto think of special education or
the IEP process as a cycle.
It's a cycle.
We start off with assessment.
We have an IEP, so we develop aplan that's appropriate to meet
that kid's needs.
But maybe we have a questionabout it.
And so the next step is ifyou're a parent, they've done an
assessment, you've had an IEPmeeting, you're going, I don't

(42:50):
agree with this.
I don't trust this or whateverit may be.
Or maybe they've beenimplementing that plan and it
hasn't been working.
My go-to statement is go get anIEEE.
you know, let's get a thirdpart, because no one's going to
listen to you.
A court's not going to listen toyou.
They wouldn't listen to me.
You need to bring in aprofessional, you know, of equal
standing to talk to that IEPteam.

(43:12):
So your go-to thing is just anindependent evaluator to come in
and make that recommendation.
That split between what thedistrict does and what the
independent assessor recommendscould be a legal issue, because
you might have two professionalsthat go, this is right, you
know, or this is right.
But usually what what I havefound is that a team will
acquiesce to some degree andlisten to what that IE assessor

(43:35):
is.
If they don't, then that becomesa potential litigation.

SPEAKER_01 (43:39):
So that's coming from the stance of a parent not
agreeing, which makes totalsense to me.
What if the parent doesn't know?
So in my experience, a lot ofthe parents just sign.
They're like, you're the expert.
I sign.
I've had parents literally comeup to me and say, is there like
a la carte menu of things thatmaybe it's not appropriate to my
child, but how do I even knowwhat is available to him?

(44:00):
Because number one, I want toreiterate, we can talk about
this later, just becausesomething's available doesn't
mean the school district'slegally required to provide it.
How would you empower parents onthe front end to know that?
I guess maybe the IEP or IEE isthe answer.
It

SPEAKER_03 (44:15):
can be.
I mean, you know, you're notgoing to know early on.
You're not a professional.
Most of you, you know, who areparents are not going to be
professionals.
They're not going to know that,okay, they're offering 30
minutes of speech a week.
How would I know unless I have adegree in training in this area
that actually he needs an hour?
So you're just not.

SPEAKER_01 (44:32):
Okay.

SPEAKER_03 (44:32):
What I would say is this, then IEE is definitely
going to be your friend.
Okay.
Number two is, you know, don'tkeep doing that.
You know, measure the progress.
So an IEP really is broken upinto four things.
It's broken up into presentlevels of performance.
Where is my kid functioning attoday?
Goals.
Where do I want my kid to go atthe end of a calendar year?

(44:53):
Services.
What are we going to put inplace to get him there?
And placement.
Where is he going to be sitting?
That's what an IEP is inessence.
As a parent, your number one jobis to understand that document.
If you do not understand thatdocument, then you are not
helping.
And this is hard.
It's hard to tell parents, hey,read this 60-page document and
understand it all.

(45:13):
But what you can look for as aparent is, is my child growing?
Did they meet all their goals?
But also on top of that, do Iunderstand their goals?
If you don't, ask questions.
And that's a big thing.
A lot of times, listen, when Iwent to my son's early IEP
meetings, I didn't talk.
It was really uncomfortable.
Weird thing.
I mean, I litigated a lot and Iwas very uncomfortable.

(45:34):
So parents just getuncomfortable.
So if you're that parent, mysuggestion is to go home.
Don't sign the IEP.
Take a week.
Read it.
Highlight the things you don'tunderstand and then email the
questions back to the team.
Do not sign that document untilyou understand it and you feel
comfortable with it.
And that's the best thing youcan do, I think, because you're
going to be the advocate nextyear, the year after, the year

(45:55):
after, and that team's going tochange.
So if you're not seeing theprogress, you know you have an
issue.
So if you're, if you're, youknow, like again with my son, I
may have agreed with that whenhe came into school and said,
fine, we're not going to dospeech.
And maybe you're that parent.
You're going, okay, I just agreewith that.
Well, let's see if by the end ofthe year or six months from now,
he's not talking.
Well, you know, intuitivelythere's a problem and we're

(46:17):
going to go do something aboutit.
What you do is different.
You ask the district to assess,you ask the district to hold an
IEP meeting to make adjustments,you know, based on that lack of
progress, or you do anindependent assessment.
Um, I've done this for so long.
I've litigated so much.
My gut, I mean, it's a brokenrecord.
My gut is like, okay, I hearwhat you're saying.
Let's go verify.
We go IEE every time.

SPEAKER_01 (46:37):
Love that Reagan quote, right?
Trust but verify.
Always.
It's a great quote.
So in your situation, youimmediately got their
recommendation and went to SDSU.
And now you're telling parentsto look at the progress and then
make adjustments accordingly,which makes total sense.
Do you ever run the risk,though, of if the plan is
ineffective from day one, youlook at the progress at the end

(46:59):
of the year at the next IEPmeeting.
They're not making progress.
We're like, well, what are wegoing to change?
Maybe they change somethingstill ineffective.
And now we're two, three yearsdown the road of time.
We can't get back because we'vebeen waiting for the progress of
an ineffective plan.
Yeah.
Any thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_03 (47:13):
Most of my cases, I would say right now, are usually
in reading.
California has done a real badjob with reading, specifically,
and the whole reason for that.
But you see a lot of kids goinginto fourth grade who can't
read.
And you see an IEP that's beenin place for three or four
years, and year after year, theyhaven't made progress.
So from a parent's point ofview, what I would do if I had

(47:34):
an IEP, January 1st, 2023, andthey were going to implement
services and I signed off on it,and then we get to January 1st,
2021, before and I'm not seeingthe progress.
I'm asking the team, what areyou going to do to address this?
And if they make no adjustmentsto that IEP, I'm doing the IE
right away.
I don't trust that becausethere's no such thing as we're
just going to keep kicking thecan like that.

(47:55):
And then number two, if they domake those recommendations, I'd
be pretty diligent about, okay,well, how long until I see
progress?
So fine, you've added a readingprogram once a week.
What are my expectations?
And parents should ask that.
You're going to do this.
What are my expectations onprogress?
Tell me what I should do.
That's a good way to do that aswell without getting too

(48:18):
contentious because parents areentitled to get progress reports
on those

SPEAKER_01 (48:21):
goals.
is there has to be programs orprocedures built around it.
Just because we write a goaldoesn't mean that it's going to

(48:41):
start happening.
So we had a child, he was inhigh school, that wouldn't
advocate.
And after all these IPs, they'relike, fine, we'll put in a goal.
We put in a goal that said,we'll call him Johnny.
His name wasn't Johnny.
Johnny will self-advocate on 80%of opportunities across.
And I was like, okay, cool.
That's in a piece of paper.
But what are we going to do tohelp them advocate?
Just because you put it in agoal doesn't mean that you're

(49:04):
doing anything for it.

SPEAKER_03 (49:05):
And that's why I like breaking down an IEP into
four things.
You got the present levels, yougot the goals, but then the
services.
How are we going to get the kidto meet the goal?
And that's what you were talkingabout.
Great, you added a goal.
What are you going to be doing?
What does that mean?
And again, those are thequestions that we can usually
ask.
And if they say, well, we'rejust going to keep doing the
same thing, that's a legalissue.
But stuff like that,self-advocacy goals are a real

(49:26):
issue.
And because they're importantand they're ignored.
And it goes back to this ideaof, well, we don't have enough
services or support and we'redealing with these other kids
already.
So no, the teacher is not goingto take the time to help Johnny
or whoever self-advocate.
And those types of goals requiresome level of service.
Service should be attachedusually to a goal.

(49:47):
And those are the questions aparent can ask.
What are you going to do?
If they don't, again, that canbecome a legal issue at some
point.

SPEAKER_01 (49:53):
So focus a lot on the service.
And self-advocacy is interestingbecause a lot of times that
maybe goes against theconvenience Yeah.
Yeah.

(50:21):
What do you recommend forparents?

(50:51):
taking an IEP, giving it to anadvocate and saying, what are
your thoughts on this IEP?

SPEAKER_03 (50:56):
I love that.
I mean, just so peopleunderstand, there's advocates,
there's lawyers.

SPEAKER_01 (51:00):
And can you explain the difference?

SPEAKER_03 (51:01):
Yeah.
An advocate is there to guideyou through the process, make
suggestions, explain to youwhat's going on.
A lawyer's job is to make thedistrict do something they're
not doing.
So my mom was an advocate earlyon.
No training.
Advocates don't need anytraining, which is important.
A lot of this started off withparents helping other parents,
and that still goes on today.
My preference is if you're juststarting the IEP process, or

(51:25):
you're ongoing and you feel likeyou don't know what you're
doing, there are two things youcan do.
Number one is get an advocate.
Do some research, hire anadvocate, interview them,
because it would be nice for youto learn how to go through this
process.
They will tell you what'savailable.
They will walk you through it.
It's a good investment.
If you can't do that, that'sfine.
You need to get trained.
Taking the time, there's alwaysfree classes, I do a ton of

(51:47):
them, where somebody willexplain to you how the special
education process works.
And that's So important.
You know, I did one at a centera couple of weeks ago and the
woman's daughter was 20, right?
Really?
She was there too.
She's a great kid because youcan be in special ed until
you're 22.
Oh yeah.
Right.
You know, either you get adiploma or you turn 22.

(52:07):
She was in the still in specialeducation area and the mom had
no idea about this stuff.
She felt so devastated.
She's like, God, if I had knownthis.
It's not your fault.
Nobody tells you this stuff.
You know this because we'vetalked.
We're in San Diego County.
It's the second biggest schooldistrict in the state.
There are two law firms.

(52:28):
There are just two.
A colleague of mine, Megan,who's an excellent lawyer, she's
got hers, I've got mine, andthen there's maybe two solo
practices.
Nobody does this stuff.
It's too hard.
There's not a lot of resourcesalways out there, but training
is one that's always existing.
If you understand this process,it will become easier for you,
but I definitely am a bigproponent of advocacy.

(52:51):
Never go to an IEP by yourself.
I don't do that.
Take your friend, take yourparents, take your husband,
whoever, but never go to an IEPby yourself.
That can be overwhelming.

SPEAKER_00 (53:02):
What would you...
Would you change anything aboutthe way procedural safeguards
are presented at IEPs?
I mean, it's sort of anopportunity for parents to
really be told, hey, if youdon't agree with this, these are
the things.
Here's this sheet.
They kind of remind me of theprints that my doctor gives me
after my consultation, right?
It's really long and difficultto read.
I'm like, oh, I think I'm okay.

(53:23):
I'm going to put this in myfiling cabinet and maybe.
Reminds me

SPEAKER_01 (53:26):
of the Apple iTunes terms and conditions.

SPEAKER_00 (53:28):
Oh, yeah.
Or any app you buy, right?
Yeah, I'm just going to scrolldown and say, and I'm going to
agree.
So would you change anything?
Do you think schools could domore to really help parents
embrace the fact that, hey,we're telling you here that you
have these rights?

SPEAKER_03 (53:41):
Yeah.
Well, so procedural safeguards,the IDEA, the federal law
mandates that the school tellparents a certain amount of
things.
You have the right to an IEP in30 days.
You have a right to challengethe decision of an IEP.
You have the right to audiorecord the IEP here in
California, which you should do.
But they give them to you in afive-page thing that's not
written in English, right?
I mean, it's very tough.

(54:02):
It is in English, but it'sschool.
Oh my gosh, terrible.
It's written as lawyers.
Acronym central.
Lawyers wrote it.
It's awful.
Number one, you should read itif you're a parent.
Schools could do a lot by justcreating something different
that makes it easier for parentsto understand.
They could actually read it tothem, break it down for them.
We did this.
You brought this up earlier.
I have a little booklet that'sjust procedural safeguards in

(54:24):
English.
There's a lot of those things.
But actually sitting down with aparent early on and going, you
can challenge this.
You have the right to anindependent assessment.
Parents Parents should knowthat.
If you've had an IEP before andyou've been given those
procedural protections, youshould have heard, oh, I can
have an independent assessment.
Teams don't do that.
They don't do it because theyhave 50 IEP meetings a week and

(54:46):
it would just be too long.
Trying to sit down and if I wereon a district, I'd say for a
parent's first IEP, we're makingthis a marquee issue.
If we have to have two IEPs,we're going to do it.
We're going to explain to themtheir procedural safeguards.
We're going to make a meetingout of it so that they
understand early on.
We're going to empower them sothat they can become better
advocates long term.
I would love to see that.

(55:07):
There are some schools I've seendo that.
They've done free trainings andstuff where they sit down and
they teach parents, this is howyou become an advocate.
They don't do that because it'stime consuming.
They probably don't want to bechallenged.
It would be huge.
You're all supposed to be therefor the kid.
If you're all there for the kid,telling a parent how to be an

(55:28):
advocate would be great.
I'd like to see more of that.
There have been schools thathave done that have singled
those first couple IEP meetingsout as a way to train parents,
hey, you're going to be theperson holding the reins for the
next 18 years, so we're going toteach you how to do this.
I think that would have a hugeimpact, but it would definitely
create a lot more challenges, Ithink, to decisions.

SPEAKER_00 (55:48):
One of the first things I did here in San Diego
after graduate school was I wasan educational or
developmental...
I was vendored as adevelopmental specialist through
regional centers, and I dideducational advocacy back in the
day.
I think that...
was a service that was providedfor consumers right up until
about, I want to say maybe 2007.

(56:09):
It went away, but it wassomething that consumers could
access.
And I remember...
Um, so I, I, I did very well atit through regional center
because I, I really came intoit, um, you know, with a lot of
transparency and, uh, beingimpartial.
I'm here for the child.
I'm going to talk to the parentas well as the school about what
needs to be done.
And, you know, even with thatimpartiality, you come in and

(56:31):
you're looking at the school andthen once in a while you've
talked to the parents and you'relike, you kind of have this
wrong.
You're asking for something thatisn't going to work.
Yes.
I know your neighbor down thestreet got the, uh,
instructional assistant, theone-to-one and And I know that
the skia used to be called.
I know it's changed ortransformed a couple of times.
How do you reconcile that?

(56:51):
Sometimes you have to look atparents and go, I think you've
got this the wrong way.

SPEAKER_03 (56:55):
I spend a lot of my time every week telling parents
they don't know what they'retalking about.
I say it much nicer.
Yeah, yeah.
Respectfully.
You'll have a parent say, well,my child deserves a non-public
school.
They don't.
That whole private schoolmisconception.
Slightly behind in reading isnot going to give you a private
school.
Well, my kid definitely needs aone-to-one aid.
He's 16, and if we give him aone-to-one aid, he's going to

(57:16):
quit school.
I mean, their parents, again,they're making decisions based
on, it's like somebody readsWebMD and all of a sudden they
think they need to download it.
So this is a really, weirddichotomy because in one and you
want to empower parents but in iguess in the conversation we're
having it's how do you shut themdown to some degree yeah and i
think you do that by trying toexplain like this is what the

(57:37):
requirements are for a schooldistrict it's not the cadillac
of services it's in order tomake sure your child you know uh
accesses and makes progress andso sometimes the services you're
seeking are going to be farafoot of what a district's
obligated to provide the one toan a it's a common one that's
the big one because everybodythinks that's the answer
everything right that's the fixall it's a cure to reading math

(57:58):
writing socialization anxietyand sometimes it is but a lot of
times it's a waste of time

SPEAKER_01 (58:04):
and it just teaches the kid not to listen to the
teacher because now they justlisten to the aid

SPEAKER_03 (58:08):
yeah or they can become too reliant on them I've
definitely we've seen that Iknow you guys have

SPEAKER_00 (58:12):
it's a super careful proposition from our perspective
right in terms of the people wemight send in there the ABA
supports and it's a lot ofknowing how to fade back it's
not about the actual supportit's about tuning the kid in and
then getting yourself out of theway as much as possible well

SPEAKER_03 (58:25):
but it It's also, it's a parent's response to not
seeing progress.
I'm not seeing progress.
The team's not telling me whatto do.
So I went around the communityand asked what was working for
other parents.
And nine times out of 10, theydo say one-to-one aid or
non-public school.
And so they come to us withthat.
And then we have to pull themback and go, there are other
things we can do.
We can have a reading program.
We can have somebody check in onyour son or daughter, whoever it

(58:46):
is.
And that can be much moreeffective than a one-to-one aid.
But sometimes, boy, they digtheir heels in.
And that cannot be the answerthey want to hear from someone
like us, especially us, becauseBecause they think usually we're
their last-ditch effort to getthat service.

SPEAKER_01 (58:58):
That's a la carte menu, right?
Not knowing what's availableleads them to one end or another
of the spectrum.
So it seems like what you'resaying is coming from a point of
knowledge and understanding.
I think in anything.
I mean, you know, parents thatare listening to this, your
kid's probably the mostimportant thing in your life.
Make sure you spend that littlebit of extra time knowing...

(59:18):
I would always say your kid'sgoing to spend a third of their
time at school, a third of theirtime asleep, and a third of
their time with you.
That third of the time atschool, you want to know, you
want to be your child's bestadvocate.
And I understand advocacies canbe expensive.
So I'm not going to sit here onthis podcast and be like, you
have to get an advocate.
I

SPEAKER_03 (59:37):
wouldn't either, by the way.
I just think it's a good idea ifyou can.
If you can't, there are otherresources out there you might be
able to access.
Regional Center still does go toIEP meetings, I understand.
Service

SPEAKER_00 (59:47):
coordinators will show.
up yeah and then I mean ABAprofessionals we're always glad
to join the team and yeah and weyou know I like I like my role
on those tables now because Idon't again I can be very
impartial and just really lookat what the child needs
behaviorally and just give myhonest opinion there and that's
the best way to to I think fitinto those situations because
there's so many opinions thatare trying to converge I think

(01:00:07):
everybody's good intention wantsto take the lead I want to be
the one that makes thedifference which again we want
to foster that fervor and thatenthusiasm and then you have to
work together so

SPEAKER_03 (01:00:15):
yeah well and by the way I usually and I'd have to
check on the but it's worthasking your service coordinator
if there's any trainings.
Any parent trainings.
Plenty of advocacy trainings outthere.
There you go.
There's a lot of those.
You know, USD, I actually teachat it.
USD School of Law runs a course,special education advocacy.
Forget what the cost is, butit's cheaper than an advocate.
And, you know, you go do acouple of weekends over there.
And, I mean, you learn, youknow, the nuts and bolts of

(01:00:38):
everything that you would everneed to know as far as, and a
lot of times people will do thatcourse before becoming an
advocate.
Yep.
People will come up to me, I'man advocate now.
I did my USD training.
That's cool.

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:48):
This can This concludes part one with Matt's
story.
Please return for part two andalways analyze responsibly.
ABA on Tap is recorded live andunfiltered.
We're done for the day.
You don't have to go home, butyou can't stay here.
See you next time.

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