March 19, 2025 • 21 mins
Cobb County School District provides essential special education services that significantly enhance the educational experiences of students with special needs. It is imperative for parents to comprehend the available resources and supports designed to assist their children. In this enlightening discussion, Host David Owen engages with George Morgan, the Director of Special Education, to explore the diverse services offered within our district. We delve into the identification process for special needs students, the development of Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), and the importance of collaboration among educators and families. Our conversation emphasizes the critical role of community involvement and the continuum of support that extends from preschool through age 22, ensuring that every student receives the individualized attention necessary for their academic and social growth.
Guest: George Morgan, Director of Special Education Services
Chapters:
- 00:00 - Introduction to Special Education Services
- 04:18 - Understanding the IEP Process for Special Needs Children
- 08:36 - Navigating Educational Support Systems
- 15:50 - Support Services for Special Needs Students
- 16:25 - Connecting Students to Community Resources
Useful links from the podcast:
- Special Education - Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy and Special Education Nursing
- Special Education – Preschool
- Special Education – Parent Mentors
- Georgia Department of Education - Special Education Services and Supports
- Special Education
Podcast Home:
https://the-inside-scoop.captivate.fm/
Cobb Schools on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/@TheRealCobbSchools
Give us a review:
https://www.podchaser.com/TheInsideScoop
Here's the link to let us know what you'd like to hear:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/VYTRCLG
Cobb Sports Podcast:
https://cobb-sports.captivate.fm/episodes
The Cobb County School District:
https://www.cobbk12.org
Takeaways:
- In Cobb County, over 14,000 students are receiving special education supports tailored to various needs.
- The process of identifying special needs students involves collaboration between parents and educational professionals.
- Individual Education Programs (IEPs) are crucial for outlining the specific support each special needs student requires.
- Parent mentors play an essential role in guiding families through the complexities of the special education system in Cobb County.
- Support and service administrators are embedded in each school to assist families in navigating available resources.
- Cobb County provides a wide range of services from preschool through age 22, ensuring students receive necessary support throughout their education.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
All about Cobb specialeducation services is the topic for
today's the Inside Scoop.
Hello and welcome back to theInside Scoop.
I'm David Owen.
Every parent wants the verybest education for their child.
That includes the parents ofspecial needs students, too.
Getting the right people,providing the right services for
(00:23):
your child can make a hugedifference in the lives of special
needs families.
It's critical here to provideinsights on what that looks like.
In Cobb is our director ofspecial education, George Morgan.
George, welcome to the podcast.
Hi, David.
Welcome.
Good to see you.
It's great having you here.
Although the tie is just soover the top.
(00:45):
You are.
I mean, I chose this color for you.
Okay, that's.
I've never had somebody dothat, but that's all.
So you not like it?
No, purple's fine.
It's good.
It's all good.
So you, as head of the specialed department, so many challenges
to deal with.
And that's one of the reasonsI wanted to have you here, is to
(01:06):
understand what you guys do,who you serve, and maybe offer some
help to parents who have aspecial needs child as well.
So let's just start kind of asan overview.
Sure.
How big is the special needscommunity in Cobb County?
Students.
How many students have specialneeds in Cobb?
(01:27):
That's a good question.
We have over 4,14,000 studentsin our district receiving special
education supports.
And those supports are wide ranging.
We have students that receivesupports for a number of different
eligibility categories,whether it's a specific learning
disability and other healthimpairment, maybe even autism.
(01:49):
Maybe they're deaf, hard of hearing.
There is a list of categoriesthat we support.
And on a daily basis we've gotspecial educators tapping in to provide
that support.
Actually, kind of.
My next question, how manyspecial ed teachers and I guess parapros.
Yes, We've got specialeducation teachers, paraprofessionals,
(02:10):
related service providers,think nurses and occupational therapists,
physical therapists.
We have a lot of differentfolks, and that's only a small list
out of a long list of folksthat are there to support students.
And we're talking about over2,000 of them that are supporting
our students across the district.
How are those studentssituations reviewed or qualified?
(02:36):
Or let me ask you this, howare they identified, first of all
as being a special needsstudent Potential.
Not every child that comes inis a special needs student.
How does that process work?
Because a lot of us don't know.
Yeah, it's actually one of themost frequently asked questions when
(02:57):
you have parents that areexploring the possibility of having
their students receiveservices they want to know, how does
this whole process work?
And you've got a team ofprofessionals that come together
with parents using all of thisinformation that is gathered over
time to make those decisions.
So you have information that'sprovided from the parent, you have
(03:19):
information provided from theschools, sometimes evaluative information
that is provided from folkslike our school psychologists and
other personnel.
The list keeps going on andon, but we bring all of that information
together and we make adecision based on some rules and
requirements about whether thestudent is eligible for services.
Right.
And those rules andrequirements are, I'm guessing, federal,
(03:42):
state.
Everybody's got something tosay about the situation.
That is true.
You're in the right pocketwith that.
And I'm assuming a lot of paperwork.
There is paperwork, yes.
There is paperwork afterpaperwork after paperwork.
But it's good in that itdefines exactly what students need
and gives us a good foundationfor really understanding who is the
student.
(04:03):
What is it based on theirprofile that they're going to need
from us if they're deemed eligible?
Without all that information,we wouldn't be able to hit the mark
as well as we do.
All right, so we have a childwho has been deemed eligible for
special needs services.
Yes.
Okay, as a parent, what's next?
(04:24):
How does that all work?
I mean, the whole process,first of all, I could see as being
overwhelming for a parentwho's probably overwhelmed to begin
with.
So what would be the next step?
Do you guys approach the parent?
Does the parent fill out aspecial form?
How does that all work?
Sure.
After they determine that thechild is eligible, they move forward
(04:45):
with developing an iep, whichis an individual education program.
And what you've got are allthe supports that will be available
to the students, to thatparticular student as they're going
through their educationaljourney year to year.
And that's tailored for the student?
That is tailored specificallyfor the student.
So you've got those same professionals.
(05:06):
We talked about a team of people.
We've got parents at the table.
We've got those professionalsthat helped determine the child was
eligible for services in thefirst place, all coming together
to make some decisions aboutwhat is it that this student requires
day to day from a specialeducation teacher, from a related
service provider, fromadditional supports.
(05:29):
However, those supports.
Look, who is it that isproviding those supports?
How do we get that student tomake progress based on the supports
that we outline?
Okay.
And this goes to the famousEIP meetings I've heard about.
Sure.
Which can be rather lengthy, Iwould imagine, because you're Having
(05:49):
these very in depth and attimes, maybe even painful discussions
about a child's needs andwhere the parent would like to see
them go and the assessments.
Right.
Is that how that all kind of works?
Yeah.
I mean, these are honestconversations that we're having,
necessary conversations sothat we can see the growth that we
(06:11):
need to see from students.
It was interesting a secondago you said eip, and it's one of
those things because there'sso many acronyms out there.
We are educated.
That's what we do.
They are.
It's interesting because one,as they're looking through the IEP
by going through that processand supporting students with that
document, there is acompliment when the students are
(06:32):
deemed eligible, actually thefamily gets a welcome packet.
And one of the items in thatwelcome packet is a list of acronyms.
When you said EIP a secondago, I thought about all of those
acronyms because sometimes youneed that guide right next to you
to know what exactly have theysaid in this meeting based on all
of these acronyms?
(06:53):
So just a little funnyaddition because those welcome packets
are really.
No, that's spot on.
I mean, education, it seemslike there must be a class in educational
graduate degree programs thatmake up an acronym kind of thing.
Which gets to your point ofhow do you even navigate this as
a parent?
(07:13):
What is happening after you gothrough the process of determining
eligibility?
What happens after youestablish that iep?
And who can you go to as youhave questions?
Exactly.
Yeah.
Some of the ways that we kindof help parents navigate that is
to say, one, we've got parentmentors in our district.
There's two of them, to beexact, that help parents navigate
(07:36):
this journey from start whenthey are deemed eligible.
Questions prior to even tohelp them understand what that's
going to look like from theperspective of an actual parent that
has had a student withdisability go through the process?
So that is always a valuable resources.
Sometimes they even aredirecting folks to other resources
(07:57):
as they are engaging andhearing the questions and giving
them perspective on differentbenchmarks, how they go from one
year to the next, and somethings that they might see.
So parent mentors are key.
If you go to our district webpage, you'll be able to access information
about them in trainings thatthey provide throughout the year
(08:18):
because they're a valuable resource.
And we'll make sure that thelinks to your page and all of that
are in the show notes anddescription and all that.
I love that.
So that brings to the top ofmy mind an acronym I Hope is relevant
SSAs.
What are SSAs?
So that's another frequentlyasked question.
(08:40):
Usually after the student isdeemed eligible and they have that
IEP in place, parents arelike, I heard the language around
an ssa.
This acronym, what does that mean?
That's one of our support andservice administrators.
They are actually embedded inevery school.
So there is one that isassigned to each school.
And in the same way thatparent mentors help parents navigate
(09:02):
the journey through aparticular perspective, in their
case, as a parent that hasgone through the experience, there
are lots of rules and regulations.
You brought up paperworkearlier and an understanding of what
this process is about, why wehave so many documents to support
students in this process andwhat is happening day to day to support
(09:23):
students.
That SSA is trained to helpthem understand the entire of that
process.
Yeah, so that's like, tell meif this is accurate.
It's almost like having theparent mentor for the school wide
audience of special needs.
Yeah, they're district administrators.
So you have local schooladministrators, they're district
administrators embedded in ineach building and they can give you
(09:48):
perspective on what the daylooks like.
Given how you all haveoutlined what supports are required
for a student, they'll helpyou with resources.
If you have additionalquestions, they can help guide you
through.
Go to this resource or utilizethis personnel to support you in
this and link you together.
So they're a key part inmaking sure that students are supported
(10:11):
district wide.
Yeah.
That's fantastic.
Because it doesn't do any goodif there's a program available to
help your child if you don'tknow about it.
These are facts.
Okay.
All right, so a moment ago, Iguess early in the podcast here,
you mentioned the wide rangeof services available.
Can you kind of touch onbriefly what that encompasses?
(10:33):
I mean, you have mentioned somany already, but can you kind of
go through the litany ofgeneral services that are provided
by Cobb Schools?
Yeah, I usually tell peoplethink of support from preschool up
until potentially the age of22, when that student turns 22.
We provide supports that rangefrom preschool to school, age, time
(10:57):
to even transition.
So as we prepare students forpost secondary outcomes, we've got
programming that helps connectthe dots for parents in making sure
once they leave our schoolsystem, we want to make sure they're
prepared.
So it gives a frame forhelping get us there.
And then you've got everythingthat happens in our day to day support
(11:20):
of students.
Okay.
So it's everything fromoccupational therapy, speech therapy,
of course, the educational side.
Got to work that in.
We are an educational institution.
And these are all tailored foreach individual child's needs and
(11:41):
understood capacity or goalsfor what they can realistically achieve.
You were talking about thosehard discussions.
That has really got to bechallenging for every parent to be
able to face.
Okay, here are the realities.
But also, let's have some hopein setting those realistic goals.
(12:04):
Maybe they're a little bit high.
That's.
That's fine, I would presume, right?
I like how you usedhopefulness in the midst of what
they're experiencing.
Because those honestconversations, once you outline a
plan for how that support willlook, there is a.
An element of hopefulness interms of how your student will move
(12:26):
forward.
There's a clear vision, setout key benchmarks for what success
looks like.
And the team is workingtogether to make sure that those
benchmarks are set or toreframe those benchmarks Once we
get into that pocket in ourdiscussions about what we know is
the reality.
(12:47):
But couple that with our clearpicture for where we want to move
the student and how we'regoing to get there.
It assuages parents concernsbecause we're all on board together.
This whole team, inclusive ofthem, trying to make sure that we
have outlined everything theway it should be outlined to meet
(13:07):
the needs of kids.
One of the things that anystudent needs is not only the academic
side of school life, but thesocialization side.
What is Cobb doing to helpspecial needs students relate to
others in the real world in agood way?
(13:30):
If there is a deficitidentified for a particular child
because we want to support thewhole child, efforts are made in
the development of that IEP tofigure out how to support those socialization
needs.
It could be in the form ofopportunities that might be embedded
personnel that helps a studentpractice it and models it so that
(13:53):
they can, when they're incertain situations, they can show
what they have learned interms of how to engage more appropriately.
Man, you've just top of my mind.
Recently we had the dance atKennesaw Mountain.
Is that a good example of thesort of thing you're talking about?
Yes, it was right beforeExceptional Children's Week, which
followed that week after, fromMarch 10 to March 14.
(14:15):
And you had children fromacross the district, Middle school,
school and high.
When I was there, I was likerocking it out with them.
So all of us were actuallyrocking it out because they too needed
a space where they could havethe freedom and be able to just be
themselves in all of theirfullness with a supportive family.
(14:35):
As I say, all around them, rocking.
It out together and thegeneral ed students there.
The socialization between ourspecial needs kids and the general
ed population was just.
That's something special.
If you ever get a chance toview that, I can't tell you enough
how heartwarming that is towatch and.
(14:55):
Shout out to KennesawMountain, which hosts the event.
Yes, we have communityvolunteers that come in.
All of the students.
When I tell you they put on an event.
It is an inspiring event thathappens every year.
And you can see it from themoment that the students walk through,
with students clapping andcheering as they walk through the
door.
(15:16):
There is nothing that willbring you more joy than that kind
of event because you can seethe immediate joy rising for students
as they are entering the space.
And it gives them the freedomto be themselves and have fun.
You know, I think you'veinspired me to drop a video in right
about here.
I think that's where you were going.
That's the end of my career.
If it were on YouTube right uphere, there should be a link for
(15:40):
you to be able to see some ofwhat we're talking about at the dance
at Kennesaw Mountain High School.
So is there.
George, you have shared somuch so far.
Oh, I do want to go into acouple of things here.
Earlier, you talked aboutspecial needs students can receive
services up to age 22.
(16:00):
Right.
And of course, this depends onthe individual again.
But there are resources thatyou guys provide throughout the year
for all levels of specialneeds students.
One that comes to mind is the.
I think it's called theResource Fair.
Yes.
There's a Todd MariettaResource Fair that is happening on
(16:22):
the 27th of March.
So what you'll have are lotsof community providers there to connect
people to resources, somewhile students are still in school.
So think recreationalresources that you might be able
to access for your kiddos.
And then for those thinkingabout what happens after they leave
(16:45):
our schools, connecting themto all those resources, because you
need a starting place.
And when I tell you there area number of vendors ready and willing
to help them navigate that, itis a good thing to witness.
So if you can join us for thatresource fair, that'll be an amazing
thing.
Yeah, I will make sure thatthere's a link to that information
as well as an example of that.
(17:06):
There are some children whodon't do well in loud environments.
I would imagine they were notat the dance.
At Kennesaw Mountain, we makesure that.
We have created a space for them.
Absolutely.
In some form or fashion tospeak to that need There are some
movie theater operators I'veheard of who provide a reduced volume
(17:28):
showing of some popularchildren's movies or movies that
are oriented toward specificage groups of students.
And that's the kind of thingthat most people don't realize exists
in our community is vendorswho want to help, and they do.
By providing these opportunities.
You just have to know about them.
(17:49):
Yeah.
Sensory rooms and places like stadiums.
We've got theaters that openour doors to help make sure that
students that might be deaf,hard of hearing have the appropriate
captioning to help themunderstand what's happening.
Or you might have a theaterthat has oriented the space so that
(18:12):
different types of studentswho might not necessarily be comfortable
in a traditional theatersetting are able to access that theater
setting.
There's nothing better thanwhen the community comes together
and offers space for studentswith disabilities recognizing their
unique needs.
And the community always comesout to support and pulls it together.
(18:34):
And you just think about howmuch we adults lean into the fun
time activities that we do tojust kind of relax our emotions and
our state of well being.
Special needs students needthat even more, for the most part,
is what I've been able to discern.
(18:54):
Right.
Yeah.
And we.
And the venues that we have inour district to make that happen,
we've talked about a couple ofthem, but we've got things like field
day, where you have anopportunity for students across the
district to go and have gamesand activities that really connect
to them out in the field.
Or intramural day that happensin the fall that has certain populations
(19:17):
able to engage in intramuralactivities similar to what you would
see if you were on a college campus.
So those sorts of activitiesare always helpful and really connect
our community together andeven the students as they come from
different schools to engage indifferent activities.
(19:37):
So again, you've shared so much.
Is there anything else youwant to add or can offer to parents?
I think parents, we alwayslove feedback.
So one, there's a parentsurvey that is out there.
We've communicated and thecommunication will continue to connect
people to that survey link.
(19:57):
We do value the survey and wedo look at the survey.
I was going to say it does.
Not go into the ether.
It actually is.
We review it and we make changes.
So for all parents to express,you know, the things that we are
doing well, the things that wecould improve on, I think that's
a perfect venue to get yourthoughts out there.
And then of course, you've got.
(20:18):
The website that I dididentifies all of the different supports
that we have throughout the district.
We named a few.
We highlighted the ssa, wehighlighted the various related service
providers and teachers.
But there are other personnelthat we could name within this podcast
and you'll see some of thosenames or resources and programming
as you peruse our website.
(20:39):
So if you can go there, you'llfind some good information.
It's just, frankly, it's toomuch to put into one podcast.
I mean, it is.
I mean, you could, we could dothis again.
You could give, you know, wecan make it 45 minutes if you want
to keep it.
Turn this into the GeorgeMorgan Show.
Why we do that?
No, we don't like that.
Well, George, thank you somuch for coming in.
Really appreciate it.
I resent you for raising thedress code bar.
(20:59):
By the way, if you have foundany of this information helpful,
please make sure you give us alike subscribe and share it with
a friend.
They could use theinformation, too.
You're not the only one.
Also, the links of things thathe's discussed that we've discussed
in this podcast will beavailable in the show notes on the
Captivate audio podcast and inthe description on YouTube.
(21:23):
Thanks for listening to thisedition of the Inside Scoop, a podcast
produced by the Cobb County School.
All about Cobb specialeducation services is the topic for
today's the Inside Scoop.
Hello and welcome back to theInside Scoop.
I'm David Owen.
Every parent wants the verybest education for their child.
That includes the parents ofspecial needs students, too.
Getting the right people,providing the right services for
(00:23):
your child can make a hugedifference in the lives of special
needs families.
It's critical here to provideinsights on what that looks like.
In Cobb is our director ofspecial education, George Morgan.
George, welcome to the podcast.
Hi, David.
Welcome.
Good to see you.
It's great having you here.
Although the tie is just soover the top.
(00:45):
You are.
I mean, I chose this color for you.
Okay, that's.
I've never had somebody dothat, but that's all.
So you not like it?
No, purple's fine.
It's good.
It's all good.
So you, as head of the specialed department, so many challenges
to deal with.
And that's one of the reasonsI wanted to have you here, is to
(01:06):
understand what you guys do,who you serve, and maybe offer some
help to parents who have aspecial needs child as well.
So let's just start kind of asan overview.
Sure.
How big is the special needscommunity in Cobb County?
Students.
How many students have specialneeds in Cobb?
(01:27):
That's a good question.
We have over 4,14,000 studentsin our district receiving special
education supports.
And those supports are wide ranging.
We have students that receivesupports for a number of different
eligibility categories,whether it's a specific learning
disability and other healthimpairment, maybe even autism.
(01:49):
Maybe they're deaf, hard of hearing.
There is a list of categoriesthat we support.
And on a daily basis we've gotspecial educators tapping in to provide
that support.
Actually, kind of.
My next question, how manyspecial ed teachers and I guess parapros.
Yes, We've got specialeducation teachers, paraprofessionals,
(02:10):
related service providers,think nurses and occupational therapists,
physical therapists.
We have a lot of differentfolks, and that's only a small list
out of a long list of folksthat are there to support students.
And we're talking about over2,000 of them that are supporting
our students across the district.
How are those studentssituations reviewed or qualified?
(02:36):
Or let me ask you this, howare they identified, first of all
as being a special needsstudent Potential.
Not every child that comes inis a special needs student.
How does that process work?
Because a lot of us don't know.
Yeah, it's actually one of themost frequently asked questions when
(02:57):
you have parents that areexploring the possibility of having
their students receiveservices they want to know, how does
this whole process work?
And you've got a team ofprofessionals that come together
with parents using all of thisinformation that is gathered over
time to make those decisions.
So you have information that'sprovided from the parent, you have
(03:19):
information provided from theschools, sometimes evaluative information
that is provided from folkslike our school psychologists and
other personnel.
The list keeps going on andon, but we bring all of that information
together and we make adecision based on some rules and
requirements about whether thestudent is eligible for services.
Right.
And those rules andrequirements are, I'm guessing, federal,
(03:42):
state.
Everybody's got something tosay about the situation.
That is true.
You're in the right pocketwith that.
And I'm assuming a lot of paperwork.
There is paperwork, yes.
There is paperwork afterpaperwork after paperwork.
But it's good in that itdefines exactly what students need
and gives us a good foundationfor really understanding who is the
student.
(04:03):
What is it based on theirprofile that they're going to need
from us if they're deemed eligible?
Without all that information,we wouldn't be able to hit the mark
as well as we do.
All right, so we have a childwho has been deemed eligible for
special needs services.
Yes.
Okay, as a parent, what's next?
(04:24):
How does that all work?
I mean, the whole process,first of all, I could see as being
overwhelming for a parentwho's probably overwhelmed to begin
with.
So what would be the next step?
Do you guys approach the parent?
Does the parent fill out aspecial form?
How does that all work?
Sure.
After they determine that thechild is eligible, they move forward
(04:45):
with developing an iep, whichis an individual education program.
And what you've got are allthe supports that will be available
to the students, to thatparticular student as they're going
through their educationaljourney year to year.
And that's tailored for the student?
That is tailored specificallyfor the student.
So you've got those same professionals.
(05:06):
We talked about a team of people.
We've got parents at the table.
We've got those professionalsthat helped determine the child was
eligible for services in thefirst place, all coming together
to make some decisions aboutwhat is it that this student requires
day to day from a specialeducation teacher, from a related
service provider, fromadditional supports.
(05:29):
However, those supports.
Look, who is it that isproviding those supports?
How do we get that student tomake progress based on the supports
that we outline?
Okay.
And this goes to the famousEIP meetings I've heard about.
Sure.
Which can be rather lengthy, Iwould imagine, because you're Having
(05:49):
these very in depth and attimes, maybe even painful discussions
about a child's needs andwhere the parent would like to see
them go and the assessments.
Right.
Is that how that all kind of works?
Yeah.
I mean, these are honestconversations that we're having,
necessary conversations sothat we can see the growth that we
(06:11):
need to see from students.
It was interesting a secondago you said eip, and it's one of
those things because there'sso many acronyms out there.
We are educated.
That's what we do.
They are.
It's interesting because one,as they're looking through the IEP
by going through that processand supporting students with that
document, there is acompliment when the students are
(06:32):
deemed eligible, actually thefamily gets a welcome packet.
And one of the items in thatwelcome packet is a list of acronyms.
When you said EIP a secondago, I thought about all of those
acronyms because sometimes youneed that guide right next to you
to know what exactly have theysaid in this meeting based on all
of these acronyms?
(06:53):
So just a little funnyaddition because those welcome packets
are really.
No, that's spot on.
I mean, education, it seemslike there must be a class in educational
graduate degree programs thatmake up an acronym kind of thing.
Which gets to your point ofhow do you even navigate this as
a parent?
(07:13):
What is happening after you gothrough the process of determining
eligibility?
What happens after youestablish that iep?
And who can you go to as youhave questions?
Exactly.
Yeah.
Some of the ways that we kindof help parents navigate that is
to say, one, we've got parentmentors in our district.
There's two of them, to beexact, that help parents navigate
(07:36):
this journey from start whenthey are deemed eligible.
Questions prior to even tohelp them understand what that's
going to look like from theperspective of an actual parent that
has had a student withdisability go through the process?
So that is always a valuable resources.
Sometimes they even aredirecting folks to other resources
(07:57):
as they are engaging andhearing the questions and giving
them perspective on differentbenchmarks, how they go from one
year to the next, and somethings that they might see.
So parent mentors are key.
If you go to our district webpage, you'll be able to access information
about them in trainings thatthey provide throughout the year
(08:18):
because they're a valuable resource.
And we'll make sure that thelinks to your page and all of that
are in the show notes anddescription and all that.
I love that.
So that brings to the top ofmy mind an acronym I Hope is relevant
SSAs.
What are SSAs?
So that's another frequentlyasked question.
(08:40):
Usually after the student isdeemed eligible and they have that
IEP in place, parents arelike, I heard the language around
an ssa.
This acronym, what does that mean?
That's one of our support andservice administrators.
They are actually embedded inevery school.
So there is one that isassigned to each school.
And in the same way thatparent mentors help parents navigate
(09:02):
the journey through aparticular perspective, in their
case, as a parent that hasgone through the experience, there
are lots of rules and regulations.
You brought up paperworkearlier and an understanding of what
this process is about, why wehave so many documents to support
students in this process andwhat is happening day to day to support
(09:23):
students.
That SSA is trained to helpthem understand the entire of that
process.
Yeah, so that's like, tell meif this is accurate.
It's almost like having theparent mentor for the school wide
audience of special needs.
Yeah, they're district administrators.
So you have local schooladministrators, they're district
administrators embedded in ineach building and they can give you
(09:48):
perspective on what the daylooks like.
Given how you all haveoutlined what supports are required
for a student, they'll helpyou with resources.
If you have additionalquestions, they can help guide you
through.
Go to this resource or utilizethis personnel to support you in
this and link you together.
So they're a key part inmaking sure that students are supported
(10:11):
district wide.
Yeah.
That's fantastic.
Because it doesn't do any goodif there's a program available to
help your child if you don'tknow about it.
These are facts.
Okay.
All right, so a moment ago, Iguess early in the podcast here,
you mentioned the wide rangeof services available.
Can you kind of touch onbriefly what that encompasses?
(10:33):
I mean, you have mentioned somany already, but can you kind of
go through the litany ofgeneral services that are provided
by Cobb Schools?
Yeah, I usually tell peoplethink of support from preschool up
until potentially the age of22, when that student turns 22.
We provide supports that rangefrom preschool to school, age, time
(10:57):
to even transition.
So as we prepare students forpost secondary outcomes, we've got
programming that helps connectthe dots for parents in making sure
once they leave our schoolsystem, we want to make sure they're
prepared.
So it gives a frame forhelping get us there.
And then you've got everythingthat happens in our day to day support
(11:20):
of students.
Okay.
So it's everything fromoccupational therapy, speech therapy,
of course, the educational side.
Got to work that in.
We are an educational institution.
And these are all tailored foreach individual child's needs and
(11:41):
understood capacity or goalsfor what they can realistically achieve.
You were talking about thosehard discussions.
That has really got to bechallenging for every parent to be
able to face.
Okay, here are the realities.
But also, let's have some hopein setting those realistic goals.
(12:04):
Maybe they're a little bit high.
That's.
That's fine, I would presume, right?
I like how you usedhopefulness in the midst of what
they're experiencing.
Because those honestconversations, once you outline a
plan for how that support willlook, there is a.
An element of hopefulness interms of how your student will move
(12:26):
forward.
There's a clear vision, setout key benchmarks for what success
looks like.
And the team is workingtogether to make sure that those
benchmarks are set or toreframe those benchmarks Once we
get into that pocket in ourdiscussions about what we know is
the reality.
(12:47):
But couple that with our clearpicture for where we want to move
the student and how we'regoing to get there.
It assuages parents concernsbecause we're all on board together.
This whole team, inclusive ofthem, trying to make sure that we
have outlined everything theway it should be outlined to meet
(13:07):
the needs of kids.
One of the things that anystudent needs is not only the academic
side of school life, but thesocialization side.
What is Cobb doing to helpspecial needs students relate to
others in the real world in agood way?
(13:30):
If there is a deficitidentified for a particular child
because we want to support thewhole child, efforts are made in
the development of that IEP tofigure out how to support those socialization
needs.
It could be in the form ofopportunities that might be embedded
personnel that helps a studentpractice it and models it so that
(13:53):
they can, when they're incertain situations, they can show
what they have learned interms of how to engage more appropriately.
Man, you've just top of my mind.
Recently we had the dance atKennesaw Mountain.
Is that a good example of thesort of thing you're talking about?
Yes, it was right beforeExceptional Children's Week, which
followed that week after, fromMarch 10 to March 14.
(14:15):
And you had children fromacross the district, Middle school,
school and high.
When I was there, I was likerocking it out with them.
So all of us were actuallyrocking it out because they too needed
a space where they could havethe freedom and be able to just be
themselves in all of theirfullness with a supportive family.
(14:35):
As I say, all around them, rocking.
It out together and thegeneral ed students there.
The socialization between ourspecial needs kids and the general
ed population was just.
That's something special.
If you ever get a chance toview that, I can't tell you enough
how heartwarming that is towatch and.
(14:55):
Shout out to KennesawMountain, which hosts the event.
Yes, we have communityvolunteers that come in.
All of the students.
When I tell you they put on an event.
It is an inspiring event thathappens every year.
And you can see it from themoment that the students walk through,
with students clapping andcheering as they walk through the
door.
(15:16):
There is nothing that willbring you more joy than that kind
of event because you can seethe immediate joy rising for students
as they are entering the space.
And it gives them the freedomto be themselves and have fun.
You know, I think you'veinspired me to drop a video in right
about here.
I think that's where you were going.
That's the end of my career.
If it were on YouTube right uphere, there should be a link for
(15:40):
you to be able to see some ofwhat we're talking about at the dance
at Kennesaw Mountain High School.
So is there.
George, you have shared somuch so far.
Oh, I do want to go into acouple of things here.
Earlier, you talked aboutspecial needs students can receive
services up to age 22.
(16:00):
Right.
And of course, this depends onthe individual again.
But there are resources thatyou guys provide throughout the year
for all levels of specialneeds students.
One that comes to mind is the.
I think it's called theResource Fair.
Yes.
There's a Todd MariettaResource Fair that is happening on
(16:22):
the 27th of March.
So what you'll have are lotsof community providers there to connect
people to resources, somewhile students are still in school.
So think recreationalresources that you might be able
to access for your kiddos.
And then for those thinkingabout what happens after they leave
(16:45):
our schools, connecting themto all those resources, because you
need a starting place.
And when I tell you there area number of vendors ready and willing
to help them navigate that, itis a good thing to witness.
So if you can join us for thatresource fair, that'll be an amazing
thing.
Yeah, I will make sure thatthere's a link to that information
as well as an example of that.
(17:06):
There are some children whodon't do well in loud environments.
I would imagine they were notat the dance.
At Kennesaw Mountain, we makesure that.
We have created a space for them.
Absolutely.
In some form or fashion tospeak to that need There are some
movie theater operators I'veheard of who provide a reduced volume
(17:28):
showing of some popularchildren's movies or movies that
are oriented toward specificage groups of students.
And that's the kind of thingthat most people don't realize exists
in our community is vendorswho want to help, and they do.
By providing these opportunities.
You just have to know about them.
(17:49):
Yeah.
Sensory rooms and places like stadiums.
We've got theaters that openour doors to help make sure that
students that might be deaf,hard of hearing have the appropriate
captioning to help themunderstand what's happening.
Or you might have a theaterthat has oriented the space so that
(18:12):
different types of studentswho might not necessarily be comfortable
in a traditional theatersetting are able to access that theater
setting.
There's nothing better thanwhen the community comes together
and offers space for studentswith disabilities recognizing their
unique needs.
And the community always comesout to support and pulls it together.
(18:34):
And you just think about howmuch we adults lean into the fun
time activities that we do tojust kind of relax our emotions and
our state of well being.
Special needs students needthat even more, for the most part,
is what I've been able to discern.
(18:54):
Right.
Yeah.
And we.
And the venues that we have inour district to make that happen,
we've talked about a couple ofthem, but we've got things like field
day, where you have anopportunity for students across the
district to go and have gamesand activities that really connect
to them out in the field.
Or intramural day that happensin the fall that has certain populations
(19:17):
able to engage in intramuralactivities similar to what you would
see if you were on a college campus.
So those sorts of activitiesare always helpful and really connect
our community together andeven the students as they come from
different schools to engage indifferent activities.
(19:37):
So again, you've shared so much.
Is there anything else youwant to add or can offer to parents?
I think parents, we alwayslove feedback.
So one, there's a parentsurvey that is out there.
We've communicated and thecommunication will continue to connect
people to that survey link.
(19:57):
We do value the survey and wedo look at the survey.
I was going to say it does.
Not go into the ether.
It actually is.
We review it and we make changes.
So for all parents to express,you know, the things that we are
doing well, the things that wecould improve on, I think that's
a perfect venue to get yourthoughts out there.
And then of course, you've got.
(20:18):
The website that I dididentifies all of the different supports
that we have throughout the district.
We named a few.
We highlighted the ssa, wehighlighted the various related service
providers and teachers.
But there are other personnelthat we could name within this podcast
and you'll see some of thosenames or resources and programming
as you peruse our website.
(20:39):
So if you can go there, you'llfind some good information.
It's just, frankly, it's toomuch to put into one podcast.
I mean, it is.
I mean, you could, we could dothis again.
You could give, you know, wecan make it 45 minutes if you want
to keep it.
Turn this into the GeorgeMorgan Show.
Why we do that?
No, we don't like that.
Well, George, thank you somuch for coming in.
Really appreciate it.
I resent you for raising thedress code bar.
(20:59):
By the way, if you have foundany of this information helpful,
please make sure you give us alike subscribe and share it with
a friend.
They could use theinformation, too.
You're not the only one.
Also, the links of things thathe's discussed that we've discussed
in this podcast will beavailable in the show notes on the
Captivate audio podcast and inthe description on YouTube.
(21:23):
Thanks for listening to thisedition of the Inside Scoop, a podcast
produced by the Cobb County School.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com