10 Things Every Educator Should Know About Special Education Law | Jim Walsh

Hi everyone, thank you so much for joining us for Parallel's first Texas Learn a Latte. We are so excited to be here today with Jim Walsh and hear from one of the most respected voices in education law. Jim brings such practical and engaging insights Into many of the real challenges that your teams are navigating every single day. Now, you may be asking yourself, where exactly does the latte come in? And before we officially sit down for coffee together, I wanna share a little bit more about Parallel, show you how to schedule our coffee chat one-on-one, and then we will jump into an amazing webinar that we're so excited for. I wanted to quickly introduce Parallel's Texas team, although many of you may already know a few of us. My name is Sofia Borron Santibáñez, and yes, I know that that is a very difficult and long name to pronounce, so feel free to just call me Sofia. I am the Director of School Partnerships supporting Texas, and I will also be your emcee today. We have over 250 people joining us today, which is so exciting, and I know there are both familiar faces and some new ones as well. Many of you may have connected with Taylor via phone or email, and we also have Sarah Grove, our Customer Success Manager, who supports many of our Texas districts directly. A little bit about me personally. Special education has been at the center of my entire career. I started as a special education teacher and then as a dyslexia specialist, and over the past 12 years, I've had the opportunity to support students, families, and school teams in a variety of different ways. What really drew me to Parallel was the mission behind it. Our founder, Diana Heldfond, started Parallel because of her own journey with dyslexia and the impact that the right supports had on her life. That was something that deeply resonated with me because I've seen firsthand how meaningful those supports can be for students. I want to take a moment to thank Some of our current district partners for joining us today. We're excited to have you here with us, and thank you for trusting Parallel as a partner and for the incredible work that you do every day. It has been incredibly meaningful supporting your districts this past school year. We wish you all of the best, and we look forward to 2026-2027. So to have a little fun today, we are going to quick— to kick things off with a quick poll, and I am going to share that poll with you all right now. What's your go-to commute style? Would love to hear if you enjoy listening to podcasts, if you prefer silence, phone calls, Music that's really loud, or you don't know and you just need your coffee? I love this question because it's such a glimpse to how you recharge, or at least try to. I am personally a big fan of podcasts, and especially anything related to literacy or special education, that's probably what I'm listening to. But we'll give you A few seconds as people are still filling this out, and then I'll share the results. Alrighty. So speaking of all things filling your commute and your day, I want to transition into some of the challenges that your teams may be navigating right now. I want you to take a second just to read these statements. Have you said or felt any of these this past school year? If so, you're not alone. I hear statements like these a lot of times from directors I connect with daily, and unfortunately, Many of these challenges feel constant year after year. Your teams may be stretched thin, you may be wearing multiple hats, and you're doing your best just to keep up and keep services moving while staying compliant. I also hear a lot about inconsistency, so maybe the support looks a little different across some of your school buildings, staffing changes that you weren't anticipating and now is impacting continuity. difficulty tracking data and progress. And the reality is that these challenges aren't happening because you or your teams don't care. They're happening because you're being asked to do a lot with sometimes a limited amount of resources or ongoing staffing challenges. And that's really why Parallel exists, to help create additional support and consistency for your students and your staff. And it's also why today's conversation around IDEA is so important, because understanding what the law requires becomes even more critical when your teams are already stretched thin. We partner with districts across Texas to support in these areas like speech-language pathology, assessments, behavioral mental health counseling, as well as specially designed instruction. All of our services are delivered virtually, and that's very intentional. We've built our practice around the research on the effectiveness of virtual supports and what that entails, and our platform and service model were actually designed with those best practices in mind. Our goal is to help fill those gaps that you may have, partner with you by delivering consistent services for your students at a time when staffing and compliance challenges may be very real. So when we talk about Parallel's clinical difference, we often call it the machine because you aren't just getting a provider. There's an entire support system working behind the the scenes to support you, and the services that we provide feel like an extension of your school's community, not just outside of it. Alongside our clinicians, you also have clinical leadership support and a dedicated customer success manager like Sarah, who you saw previously, and they help with communication, scheduling, problem solving, and ensuring that things run smoothly through the entirety of that partnership. Behind the scenes, there's operations, technology, and support teams that are all working together to ensure consistency and quality, not just fill a vacancy and disappear. So before we jump into today's webinar, it wouldn't be a Learn a Latte without some coffee. So some of you have already signed up to meet with us, and we're really looking forward to it. This time of the year is actually one of the best times to connect as you're planning for the fall, which will be here before we know it. So if you haven't already scheduled some time to connect, you can scan the QR code. I'm also going to drop that link in the chat as well. I'd love to hear what your team is navigating and talk through and explore ways that Parallel may be able to support. And of course, coffee is on us. Starbucks is on us. So I will give you a few moments to fill this out, and then we'll get started. So at this time, I ask everyone to click the link in the chat. find time to meet with Sophia, but we are really going to turn it over to Jim. So I asked Jim to turn on his camera and Jim will start his presentation.

OK, real good. Well, thank you so much. I'm delighted to be invited by Parallel to present this webinar today. It's a timely thing. I think we're at the end of the school year. You guys are wrapping up another lap around the track, and so it's a good time to kind of reflect on our our special education law and, and what we can do to prepare over the summer and for next year to serve the kids appropriately. So I am going to share the screen. Let's see, this is the hard part of this now. Here's my PowerPoint, and I'm going to go with from the current slide. That's the idea. There we go. I hope that's showing up. So, Sophia, I see your face there. Is that showing up? Is it properly displayed?

Looks great.

Okay, good deal. Oh, thank you. So this is, you know, IDEA, our special education law, really revolutionized, I think, not just special education. I think it revolutionized public education. And last December, marked its 50th anniversary. The law was signed into law by President Ford on December 2nd, 1975, so it's 50 years old. And when PEARL asked me to do this presentation, I thought, you know, this would be a good springboard to talk about a variety of things. So I've kind of broken it down into 10 things that you really need to know, all educators need to know about our special education law. So Let's go ahead and jump into this. When I talk to school board members, this is where I start. I want them to understand how special ed is different from everything else that the school district does, and I call it upside down. The special ed is upside down compared to everything else, and what I mean by that is, as I'm sure you folks are aware, school districts are top-down organizations. The school board sets the policy. The superintendent is the CEO. The principal is in charge of the campus, and decisions come from the highest-ranking administrator, generally speaking. Not so in special ed. In special ed, you know, I would say that the special education director lacks the authority that a lot of other high-ranking administrators have. And the reason for that is because of the way the law is structured. In special ed, the law is deliberately designed to make sure that decisions are coming from the bottom up rather than from the top down. So it's upside down compared to everything else. If you're a special ed director and you find your job particularly stressful, that's one of the reasons. Now, I think there's a lot of reasons, but that's one of the reasons is that you have responsibility, but you don't have the same level of authority as, for example, your transportation director, your HR director, your athletic director. Decisions that affect budget and personnel deployment are going to be made by ARD committees on a case-by-case basis, and nobody can override that. We're upside down compared to everything else, and that's just a fundamental principle that you have to take into account. Like I say, it is, it is intentional and it's reflective of a key principle of the law. We want parents to be involved in this. We want decisions about the services to the students to be made by the people who know the student best. So it's upside down compared to everything else. This has major implications both for the Director of Special Ed and also for whoever serves as administrative representative at an ARD meeting. That's a leadership function, but it's a little bit different than any other leadership function that we have. So we're upside down, and that's gonna be a theme that runs through my presentation this morning. ARD meetings are about communication. You know, I did— when facilitated ARD meetings became a big deal, I don't know how long ago was that, 20 years ago. I went to 3-day training. I went to a 3-day training in Houston about facilitated ARD meetings. I got a lot of good out of it. I thought it was very helpful. In fact, I took some of the principles that I learned about facilitated ARD meetings. I brought that back to my law firm. And we incorporated some of the principles about how to run a meeting into how we run our Our shareholder meetings here at the Walsh Gallegos law firm. One of the things I learned is that people have different ways of measuring the effectiveness of a meeting. There are those people who focus primarily on the efficiency. You know, so if you ask them, how did the meeting go? Oh, it went well. You know, it started right on time. We had an agenda. We stayed on it. We finished on time.

Good meeting.

Well, what did you decide? Well, I don't know, but it was a good meeting. That's a person whose focus is on the efficiency of the meeting. Then you have people who focus on the outcome. We got a lot done. Decisions were made. They're going to be implemented. It was a good meeting. And then you have people who measure the success of the meeting by the relationships. How was your meeting? Oh, it was so good. It was so good. We held hands and sang Kumbaya at the end, and the parents promised to bring cookies the next time. You know, well, what did you do? Well, I don't know, but everybody felt good about it. So, you know, I think that ideally you get an A score on all 3 of those measures. We have an efficient meeting, we have outcomes that are important, and we feel better about our relationship after the meeting than we did before. So running the meeting well really is the responsibility of the administrative representative at that meeting. They should control the structure and the flow of the meeting. That does not mean that they're going to be controlling the outcome of the meeting. Remember, we're upside down. So we can— we should, I think, control the structure and the flow of the meeting, so to speak, to have an agenda and so on. And a good ARD meeting should improve the relationship between the parties, you know. I call ARD meetings parent-teacher conferences on steroids. They really are. It's— I know there's a lot of laws, there's a lot of paperwork, there's a lot of anxiety about complying with all of that at an ARD meeting, but fundamentally it's about communication and it's about— it's a parent-teacher conference. It's a meeting between the people who are serving the student at the school and the parent to talk about how the student is doing, And what we need to do better. So that should be the main focus, communication. And we want to model good communication skills. You know, I know that at ARD meetings you sometimes deal with people that are hard to deal with. Sometimes people get out of control. Many of you have heard me tell the story. I've told it for many years. Of the time I called the other lawyer a bozo at the ARD meeting. I was out of line when I did that, but stuff like that happens at ARD meetings. But I think to the degree that we can model civility and respect and professionalism, we're more likely to get that in return. And that includes when we disagree. You know, one of the skills of the leader of an ARD meeting is the ability to bring the meeting to closure even when the parties disagree. You know, you do not have a duty to sit there for 16 hours until somebody— until we reach consensus. You can close the meeting in a non-consensus situation. So the main focus should be communication, and all of the school members of the ARD committee should be focusing on that. But I would put particular emphasis on the person serving as the administrative representative. That person ought to be making eye contact with that parent. That person should be fully present and focused on the meeting and doing everything they can to make sure the parent feels comfortable and that the parent has an opportunity to participate in the meeting in a meaningful way. So there's a lot that goes into that. I think this is a true statement. Parents are going to come away from every ARD meeting with at least 2 perceptions about you. How competent are these people and how much do they care about my child? If you get positive answers to those 2 questions, you're, you're very likely to be able to resolve whatever legal difficulties may come up. You know, there has been research done about doctors and medical malpractice cases, and the research has shown that the doctors who get sued most frequently are not the poorest doctors. They're not the doctors that don't have good equipment. They're the doctors who don't have good communication skills. If a patient feels like my doctor is on my side and my doctor is doing everything my doctor can to help me, you're very likely to see litigation over that. And the same is true in special education. As long as the parent believes I can trust the school. They are, they're doing their best to serve my child. If you have that kind of perception on behalf of the parents, I think you're very likely going to avoid litigation in the first place. So we want to focus on that. Parents have the right to bring advocates or lawyers to an ARD meeting to help them. That is specifically written into the regulations as a right that they have. So that's a little bit different from a parent-teacher conference. I don't think parents are bringing lawyers to a typical parent-teacher conference, but they can do it at an ARD meeting, and, you know, the school ought to respect that parental right. Parent says, I want to bring an advocate, or I've got an attorney who's going to come to the meeting. I think the school's response to that should be, well, they're very welcome. We'll get them a latte or a cup of coffee or whatever we're drinking, And welcome them to the meeting. And, you know, keep in mind though that the reason that parents are bringing someone to help them at the ARD meeting is because they feel like they need that. They feel like they need that. And so that may be a signal that there's a beginning of a loss of trust at the relationship. And so we want to, we want to pay attention to that. And, and, you know, focus our efforts to making sure that we rebuild that relationship as well as we can. So some basics to remember about ARD meetings. Number one is the school's meeting. You know, I have heard there are some advocates who think it's their meeting or it's the parent's meeting or it's the child's meeting. No, it's about the child, but it's the school's meeting. Now, why do I say that definitively? Well, Because the law says that it is the school district that has the responsibility for initiating and conducting these meetings at least once a year for every child. So it's our, it's our meeting. That means we bear primary responsibility for the quality of the meeting. You know, if you host a party and it's a dud, that reflects on you, doesn't it? So it's, we bear primary responsibility for the quality of the meeting. Another thing that I think needs emphasis is there are only 2 parties at that table. There's only 2 parties at the table. Now, I've been at ARD meetings where there were as many as 20 people, and my observation is the more people you have, the more likely there's going to be trouble. But there's only 2 parties. There's the school and there's the parent, or there's the school and there is an adult student, but either way, you just have 2 parties. And so let's talk about that a little bit, because when I say the school is a single party, but we may have 5 or 7 representatives of the school at the meeting, and they're going to bring different perspectives to the issues that we're discussing. But because there's only 2 parties, at some point, at some point, the school district has to speak with a united voice. The school district has to say things like, we think your child is eligible, or we think your child is not eligible. This is our proposed placement. We think it is not a manifestation of disability. At some point, we have to take a position, and it is really the role of the administrative representative to give voice to that position. So Before I get off of this slide for just a second, let me point out that the fact that there's 2 parties doesn't mean there's— there can be a tie vote at the end of it. Number one, we don't vote. We don't vote in an ARD meeting. We seek consensus, and the law has some good dispute resolution mechanisms built into it. Here in Texas, it's very clear that if we don't come to consensus, the school district is supposed to implement the IEP that it thinks is appropriate. So there comes a time when the administrative rep may need to say to the parent, I know you disagree, but this is our proposed placement, and we're going to give you a prior written notice document that lays that out, and that's what we're going to implement. Now, you have the right to challenge this. You can request a due process hearing. You can file a complaint. You can ask for mediation. And if you don't understand any of that, we'll, we'll go over it with you. It's all written out in the procedural safeguards document. That kind of straightforward language is important. Okay, so it's a goal-setting instrument, the IEP. Okay, the ARD meeting is a meeting between 2 parties. The IEP that we develop at that meeting is fundamentally a goal-setting instrument. You know, I think it's unfortunate that IEPs have gotten so long and so complex. I've had highly educated people tell me they find the whole process hopelessly confusing. That's, that's unfortunate because fundamentally, if you get it, what the law was trying to accomplish here, we're trying to have a goal-setting process. So I like to use an analogy here that I think most of us can relate to. I'll bet most of you at some point in your life have set a personal goal for Money, for money saving, perhaps getting out of debt, paying off student loans, saving for retirement, or weight loss. You know, the high school reunion's coming up. I want to look good. And so there's a weight loss goal. Those are goal-setting things that most of us are familiar with because we've been through it. And they're, they're easy to deal with in the sense that both of those deal with numbers. You know, money and weight, that's numbers. And so setting the goal for things that deal with numbers is very easy. Achieving the goal is the hard part, but setting the goal is easy. You stand on the scale, you face the naked truth, and you write it down. And then you set your timeline. 6 months from now is the reunion. 6 months from now is my daughter's wedding. I want to lose 15 pounds. There's your target. There's your goal. Then you lay out how you hope to achieve it. This is the exercise I'm going to do. This is the changes to my diet. Or if it's money you're talking about, this is the savings I'm committing to. This is the, you know, whatever, tearing up the credit cards, whatever your strategy is. And then you have a timeline and you set out to try to achieve the goal. That's what an IEP is supposed to look like. Now, it's not that simple. I realize that, and it's not that simple because we're not dealing with numbers. We're dealing with more amorphous concepts, but I think it would be good if we could keep in mind and try as much as we can to get back to the notion of we're just setting some goals here. That's what we're doing. IEPs, present level, measurable goal, services designed to achieve that goal. Where is the student in reading? Where is the student in life skills and self-care, for example? You know, my observation has been it's a little bit easier to make goals concrete and measurable with the lower functioning students. But with students who are, you know, on grade level or close to it, we've got to, as much as possible, set a goal that is measurable. That's what the law requires. So in order to be measurable, what's the present level? What's the goal? Can you describe those in concrete indicators and so on? So that's what we're trying to do with an IEP. Courts have been real clear about, about a few things. Now the term free appropriate public education is extremely vague, ambiguous, murky. Difficult to pin down. The courts have said a few things about them, and when I say the courts, I mean the Supreme Court. Number one, the Supreme Court has said you don't have to offer the best possible education. Now, every parent wants for their child the best possible education. Every teacher wants that for every child. We're dealing with public schools that have finite resources. It's, it's not possible to give the best possible education to every child. The courts have said, the Supreme Court, the first time they looked at the term FAPE, they said you, you don't have a duty to maximize the child's potential. That's not the school's responsibility. So here's the standard they've come up with. You have to write an IEP that is reasonably calculated. It's got a good shot at reasonably calculated to enable the child to make progress that's appropriate in light of this child's circumstances. That is a fuzzy standard that is full of subjective terms, and this is one of the reasons we have a lot of litigation over the content of IEPs. The Supreme Court has said that every child's IEP should be appropriately ambitious. Both of those words are important. If you take a student who is not capable of performing at grade level and you set the goals as grade-level performance, you are being inappropriately ambitious. You are setting the student up for failure. So we want it to be ambitious, but only appropriately so. Not too hard, not too easy. It's kind of a Goldilocks standard, so to speak. When I have a live audience in front of me, when I get to this part of this presentation, I always ask how many here have served on a jury? And there's always quite a few people who have. And then I'll ask them, do you remember what the judge told you right before you retired to the jury room? And, and the judge gave a bunch of instructions, a lot of them. But one of the instructions the judge gave was that you are to base your decision exclusively on the evidence that I've admitted into this case. That's why the lawyers fight so hard over what's admissible evidence. So here's a— here's an analogy for you. Evidence is to the jury as evaluation data is to the ARD committee. Everything that we do should be driven by evaluate— this child's evaluation data. Now that is the formal evaluation, the initial evaluation, the 3-year reevaluation, as well as a whole lot of other stuff. Test scores, grades, informal evaluations. Information provided by parents, all of it goes into the mix. So when you're at an ARD meeting and somebody, it might be the parent, it might be a school person, expresses a view that's kind of contrary to what we're— the direction we seem to be headed, that's a good question to ask. What data supports your view? You know, what data do we have about this child that makes you believe that that's the appropriate present level or annual goal or whatever. So we are responsible for the quality of the data that we rely upon, and that has implications for how we respond to an independent evaluation as well as how we conduct the evaluations ourselves. Okay, so let's say the parent has gone out at their own expense and had the child tested by a psychologist, a behavior expert, a dyslexia expert, whatever. And they share this with the school. What do you do? The parent may not be asking the school to pay for this. That's a separate issue, but the parent has got this evaluation done by a qualified person and they share it with the school. I would suggest to you a 3-step process at that point. Number one, say thank you. Say thank you. When the parents share information that will help us understand the student better, That's a, that's a good thing. Good for the parents. And so I would say thank you. But the second thing is to ask the parent to sign consent to authorize us to talk to the author of that report so we can gather some more information. We can't share any information about the student with this outside person without the parent's written consent. So you need to ask the parent to give you the written consent. Now, you know, sometimes parents might say, well, I don't see why you need that. I mean, I think the doctor's report speaks for itself. I think you just need to explain. We get a lot of reports from a lot of experts, and we always have some questions about them. It will help us flesh out how much weight to give to this, the recommendations in this report. If the parent refuses to give you consent, I think the parent's making a mistake. Now, of course, they can do that. They can refuse to give you consent, but I would explain to them, well, you know, we can't give as much credence to this report if we can't have an opportunity to ask a few questions of the person who wrote the report. So just explain that. Now, if the parent does give you consent, then contact the person who wrote the report and engage in what I call Mild cross-examination. All right. Now some of you may be thinking cross-examination is what lawyers do. We're not trained to do that. Au contraire, I would suggest if you have been married for more than six months, you know how to engage in cross-examination. If you have adolescent children, you are probably somewhat of an expert on mild cross-examination. So mild cross-examination is just asking the logical questions. That will help you get an understanding of the foundation of the opinion. Keep in mind, you get a doctor's report, you get an evaluation by a learning specialist, you get a report from a BCBA, they're expressing their opinion. We need to explore the foundation of that opinion. And here are some common questions. You know, if it goes to a hearing, these are questions your lawyer is going to ask when it's time to cross-examine. When and where did you see the child? Have you ever observed the child in the school setting, or was it in your office? Who else was there? Did you do any formal testing? Have you observed the student in the school setting? Have you reviewed the current evaluation that the school has conducted? Are you familiar with the school records, the grades, the test scores? Have you talked to the teachers who've been working with the child? These are all just good questions to help me understand How big of a picture do you have here? And so that's important to examine the foundation of the person's opinion. So 3 steps: say thank you for bringing us this report, please sign consent so we can follow up, and then follow up with mild cross-examination. What about the school's evaluators? You know, we just need to make sure that they're doing things properly. We need to be sure that tests are administered as they are supposed to be. Administered, that they're, you know, the right test for the right student at the right time and so on. This term I have in the PowerPoint here, cogent and responsive explanations, I didn't make that up. That comes from a Supreme Court decision. The last time that the Supreme Court looked at the issue of free appropriate public education was in 2017, and Justice Roberts in his opinion said that the courts are not educators and they should defer to the judgment calls that educators make. They shouldn't second-guess the educators because that's not, that's not our field as lawyers. But they did, but they added this. They said, but they should expect that educators will have a cogent and responsive explanation for their judgment calls. So, To say, well, I've been doing this for 20 years and that's my professional opinion. I would not call that a cogent and responsive explanation. So we want to be able to explain clearly why we recommend what we do, what's the basis for it, and so on. Okay, so we can't develop an appropriate IEP without a solid evaluation as its foundation. It's the— I call it the rudder that steers the ship.

Okay.

All right, let's talk discipline. You can't talk about special ed law without diving into discipline. I do think this is one of the revolutionary things that IDEA brought about is changes to this. This second bullet point, prior to the enactment of the law, enactment of the law in 1975, we had a lot of kids with disabilities who were simply expelled. Here, I remember, you know, here in Texas, the term was incorrigible. Incorrigible. If the student was labeled incorrigible, they could be kicked out of school. And so we had a lot of kids who engaged in inappropriate behaviors that probably had something to do with a disability, but there was no effort to look into that. The school just looked at the behavior and took care of it. So that changed with the enactment of IDEA. And in fact, if you look at the Congressional Record that led to the enactment of it, that was one of the primary considerations that Congress mentioned. We have kids with emotional disabilities in particular that are being excluded from the school and they're being deprived of an education. It's not right. So, all right. So in 1988, was the first and really the only time that the U.S. Supreme Court took up a case involving special ed discipline. It's a case called Honig v. Doe, and it had to do with the stay-put rule. So what happened here is we had a couple of high school students in San Francisco who the school considered to be pretty dangerous Fellows. They had engaged in violent behavior in the past, and the school was proposing a long-term change of placement to get them into a more restrictive setting. The parent disagreed with it. The parent requested a hearing, and that automatically invokes the stay-put rule. So these boys were going to stay right in the classroom that they've been in all along where the school district— I'm sorry, excuse me, I thought I had my phone turned off, but okay. The school district had proposed this change of placement and the parents requested a hearing invoking stay put. And the school said, well, we don't think stay put applies when the kid is dangerous. And, you know, you can understand the school making that argument. The school said, we're responsible for safety. If these kids hurt somebody next week and, and we left them in that classroom where they're likely to do that, we're going to get the blame for that. So they said, we don't think stay put applies when the student is dangerous. That's the issue that went to the Supreme Court, and here's what the court said. The Supreme Court said, we think it clear that Congress very much meant to, meant to, did it on purpose They decided to strip— pretty strong verb there— strip schools of the unilateral authority they have traditionally employed to exclude disabled students, particularly those with emotional disabilities. Pretty strong statement. So what they said to the lawyer that represented the school district is, you know, the stay-put rule doesn't say stay put unless the kid is dangerous. If that's what Congress intended, that's what Congress would have said. They said, says stay put. There's been some changes since then, but that was the ruling of the court. And I want to focus in on, focus in on the word unilateral. That's an important thing. Let's go back to this. Congress meant to take away your unilateral authority. It doesn't mean you're powerless, but your unilateral authority has been significantly curtailed. Now, they, in that very same case, the court approved of the short-term removal of a student for up to 10 school days in a school year, and that is a unilateral power that the campus administrator has. So now, here in Texas, we don't do short-term suspensions for 10 days. Out-of-school suspension in Texas is limited to 3 days. But the principal can order a short-term suspension from school for 3 days, and they can do that at least 3 times because they have the authority to remove kids for 10 school days in a school year. That's unilateral power. Congress also gave campus administrators unilateral power to order the removal for 45 school days if the student engages in what's called special circumstances offenses. Those are drugs, Weapons and the infliction of serious bodily injury. So those things can be done unilaterally, but a change of placement beyond that, it cannot be done unilaterally. If the stay-put provision would leave a student in a placement where the school is generally nervous that it's going to cause injury to somebody, the school district has to seek help. They cannot act unilaterally. And you know what? Look at that word substantial with a double L. That's a typo, folks. That's the dreaded typo. There it is. I hate to see that, but we— that one just slipped right by us. So it's supposed to be substantially likely. It is not the worst typo I've ever had. The worst typo I ever had called for a free appropriate pubic education, and I did that at a statewide conference. So I always remember that. So that's not so bad. Okay, so where are we now? School districts have a duty to maintain safety, right? Everybody knows that, but they also have a duty to serve students who engage in disruptive behaviors. Administrative authority is restricted. Parents have legal recourse to challenge disciplinary decisions. And, you know, this is an area where a lot of training is needed and a lot of training is provided. I know our law firm does a lot of training. Some of you have been through our toolbox training. We do a lot of training about special ed discipline, and it's needed. It's a complicated area of the law, and you know this last bullet point sums it up: Administrators are not powerless, but they need to understand the limitations that the law has placed on their authority. The most important tool that you have with regard to behavior is a behavior plan. It's the only tool that you have. That is designed to improve the student's behavior. That's what a BIP is. You know, we have things that are laid out in the code of conduct that are designed to manage a student's behavior: short-term suspension, withdrawal of privileges, assignment to and when Texas what we call a DAE P. Those are things you can do to the student. A BIP is what you do for the student. So it is proactive. It's Positive. It's what we would do for a student. So, and I want to emphasize the second bullet point here. At every ARD meeting, for every child, for every child, the the ARD committee is asked: Whoops! Does this student have behaviors that impede the learning of the self, of the student, or others? You have you have that in your paper, in your forms. And you have a yes box and you have a no box. And if you check yes, then you have to proceed to discuss, well, how are we going to address it? If the student has behaviors that impede the learning of the student or of other students, how are we going to address that? And so a BIP is not the only way to do that. But it is probably the best way to do that. And so this is something that we do for the student. In an effort to improve the student's behavior. All right, number 6 of our 10 points here, parents matter. You know, parents always matter. Of course they do. And every school district has statements in their mission statement or in their policies or something about how much we care about parental input. And I'm not making light of that. I believe that to be true. But in special ed, again, it's on steroids. And that's because parents have legal recourse if we fail to live up to this. The idea that we solicit and value parental input, I think, is true across the board with all parents, but in special ed, if the student is— if the parent is a parent of a child with a disability and we fail to solicit and value their input, there are legal consequences. So in special ed, it's not just an aspirational goal to solicit and value parental input. It's a legal requirement with legal consequences. Okay, so the goal is meaningful parent participation, and, you know, I think that has particular implications for parents who are perhaps not as well skilled or equipped to manage the complexity of an ARD meeting. You guys serve the full spectrum of humanity through your ARD meetings. You serve parents who are highly educated, very knowledgeable of their rights, and well-prepared for the meeting. You also serve parents who don't speak English. You have parents that you serve who are not living in this country with the proper legal documentation. And they may be quite nervous to be at a meeting of government officials. All of those parents have a right to meaningful participation, so we need to make step— take steps that we can to make sure that they all understand that and, and feel free to exercise their rights as parents. So we are honest, we're direct, we're transparent, we share relevant information, and we approach every ARD meeting with an open mind. Predetermination is a term that the courts have been using for quite some time. I think it was about 20 years ago that a case from the Sixth Circuit, the court used this term and said that the school district did not have an open mind. They had their mind made up when they walked in the door, and that's not proper. You have to approach it with an open mind. So, you know, it's kind of an interesting area of special ed law. The courts are kind of doing a Vulcan mind probe to see what you were thinking as you go into the meeting. And the— there's been hundreds of court cases since then in which parents have alleged that the school district was predetermined. I haven't done any quantitative analysis of this, but I would tell you I think that at least 90% of the time, the parents do not prevail with that argument. Most of the time, the courts will say, Well, the school district had a plan. The school had its recommendations, and that's the— that's what they're supposed to do. That doesn't mean they were predetermined, but it is important that we understand that we don't finalize any decisions until we come together as an ARD meeting. You come to the meeting with your recommendations. You can come with a draft IEP. It should say draft, and then we should solicit parental input and be prepared to make some changes if it seems appropriate. Okay, we got a lot of acronyms in special ed, you know, IEPs, ARDs, LRE, EYS, IDEA, FAPE. What's the OSFAA? Well, I made that one up. I made that one up. It's a one-size-fits-all answer, and I came up with this after reading cases and trying to figure out where'd the school go wrong. You know, when I read a case where the court rules against the school district, I always try to think about that in terms of Where's the mistake? What did they do wrong here? And some of this came back to what I developed, what I call the one-size-fits-all answer. Now, this is about when the parent is— when an issue comes up that has to do with the content of the IEP. Okay, so let's distinguish this from something else. Many times parents' complaints have nothing to do with the content of the IEP. It has to do with the implementation of the IEP. In fact, I think those are the more common complaints. The parent says, I don't think you guys are following the behavior plan. I don't think the math teacher is providing the accommodations that we agreed on. That has to do with the implementation. That's not, that's not when the OSFAA comes up. The OSFAA comes up when the parent is bringing up an issue or when a school person brings up an issue that has to do with IEP content. Let's consider some common examples. The parent says, I think my child needs more speech therapy. You know, y'all are providing speech therapy once a month. I really, I think she really needs more than that. Okay, that should trigger in your mind that's about the contents of the IEP. Or how about this? You know, my child is spending half of the day in the resource room. I think he's ready to go to the mainstream setting a little bit more. So can we make some changes to put him into that general classroom a little more, bigger part of the day? That's IEP content. Parent says, you know, I've learned that some students have an aide that's just assigned to them personally. Not a classroom aide, but an aide for one child. I think that's what my child needs. So their IEP content. Okay, so any of those questions, it's a good idea to, to bring up in your mind what I call the one-size-fits-all answer. So let's look at it. First of all, here's what you don't want to say. Parent brings up one of these things. I think my child needs a one-to-one aide. Don't say yes. You don't have the authority to grant that request. That can only come from the ARD committee, so don't say no. All right, don't, don't kick it to somebody else. This is probably the most common response. Well, I'll talk to the principal about that. Well, I'll talk to the special ed director about that. I'll have to run that by the transportation director. No, that's not the right answer. We've never done that before. Well, that might be true, but so what?

So what?

That's too expensive. It's not in our budget. Hmm, that's— no, that's not it. So, and sometimes you'll be at an ARD meeting where one of the staff members will say something like this. What do you do? You pivot to the OSFAA. See next slide. Here we go. You know, this is true. We've never done that before. We've never done a 1-to-1 aide for a child. But we're going to have the ARD committee take a look at the evaluation data that we have and we'll see if this is something your child needs. If your child needs it in order to receive a free appropriate public education, then we'll figure out a way to make it work. All right. Now there's 4 components to that. ARD, evaluation data, need, and FAPE. And so as long as you can remember those 4 components and somehow weave them together And to your response, I think you're on firm ground. Okay. So ARD, this tells the parent who's gonna make the call. That's why you don't wanna say, well, I'll have to talk to the special ed director about that one. So not up to the special ed director, it's up to the ARD committee. So we're upside down. So first key component, we're gonna take this to the one and only body that has the authority to make the decision. Second component, evaluation data. It's not going to be based on our budget. It's not going to be based on past practice. It's not even going to be based on what the principal thinks we ought to do. It's going to be based on what the evaluation data tells us about your child. So we'll look at the evaluation data and then we're going to see if your child needs it. Now, that's another subjective word. You know, do you really need that second cup of coffee every morning? Subjective, but that's the word that we have, and it's the only word in the law that acknowledges the limitations of the school's resources. We cannot give every child every service that would benefit the child. We can't do that. So we have to focus on what do they need. All right, so need is subjective, and it's got to be tied to something. I need sleep. I need food, I need rest, I need, you know, whatever. So it's tied to FAPE, another vague, murky, subjective term, free appropriate public education. But we know this from court cases. If you're talking about a student who can achieve at grade level, if you're talking about a student who has a disability and yet is perfectly capable of achieving academically at the same level as a, as the same age students, same grade students, then the IEP needs to provide services that are sufficient to enable the student to do that, to get promoted from grade to grade, to pass the statewide testing. If the student is lower functioning, then we want to make, have an IEP that's going to provide progress that's appropriate In light of the child's circumstances. It's subjective, and it's not like a dipstick that you check the oil with and see if you, you know, check your car's oil. So it lends itself to disagreements. You know, my ideal of appropriate progress for my child may be different than how you see it. That's understandable. So that's one of the reasons we have a lot of arguments. Murky and Ambiguous, subjective, impossible-to-define standards. This is one reason we have so much litigation, and it's also one of the reasons that litigation is hard to predict. You know, I read a lot of cases where I read them and I read that the parent won this one or the school district won this one, and I frequently think, you know, if you took that to 10 different hearing officers, they'd probably split right down the middle. 5 of them would say Rule for the school and 5 for the parent. So it's, it's difficult. It's one of the reasons special ed is litigious and administration of the program is stressful. Okay. Now I like to, I like to quote the unwritten rule. What's the unwritten rule? We've got lots of written rules, lots of written rules in special ed, but I do believe there is an unwritten rule underlying all of that, and that is that the hearing officers and the courts that hear these cases are always kind of Assessing how the people treated each other. Were they reasonable? Were they collaborative? And that's because the law expects that. This whole thing is built on a foundation that assumes that we all want the same thing. You know, we all want the kid to be successful. We all want the parent to be happy. And so how do we interact with each other? And so the communication, the way we run our ARD meetings, all of that comes into play. How to violate the unwritten rule. You know, when I see schools, when I read a case and I think, boy, I really think they violated the unwritten rule, it's sometimes by being disrespectful, by being rigid, by being dishonest, by withholding information that's important, that kind of thing. Parents violate the unwritten rule when they fail to consent to an evaluation or they fail to work with you to schedule the ARD meeting, that type of thing. So, you know, it's kind of an interesting area of the law because the parties all want the same thing. And yet we get into lawsuits over it. And so the— one of the factors the courts look at is, did the parties work collaboratively? And so we want to be sure that we're complying with the unwritten rule. I think this is important, and maybe this is just because, you know, IDEA was adopted in 1975. That's the same year I graduated from law school. And so we kind of began our careers together, me and IDEA. And I think it's helpful to keep in mind what I call the big picture, which a lot of this has to do with history and who exactly we're serving. Okay. So let— first, I want to show you my 4-quadrant analysis. And I know some of you have seen this before. It uses some acronyms that you haven't seen before. One of them is SDI, that is specially designed instruction, which means exactly what it sounds like, a type of instruction that is different from what is provided to the general education student. So here's my 4 quadrants. I created this based on the 2 factors that make a child eligible for special education. And you all know this, in order to be eligible, the student first of all has to have a disability. You know, we do this formal testing to determine, do they have one of the disabilities that, that the law mentions? But besides that, they need to need something. They need to need specially designed instruction. Now, if they have a disability that results in a need for specially designed instruction, they should be in quadrant 4. They're special ed eligible. All right. So Quadrant 1. These are students who don't have a disability. They have strengths and weaknesses. They may need some extra help in math or whatever, but they don't have a disability and they don't need specially designed instruction. That's still the majority of your students, I think. How's 504 fit in? They have a disability too, and it's not necessarily a minor thing. They have a substantial impairment of a major life activity. That sounds like a serious disability. So why aren't they in special ed? They don't need specially designed instruction. The simplest possible explanation I can give you of a 504 student is a wheelchair-bound student. Most of the time, that's a disability that does not result in a need for specially designed instruction. They just need an accessible campus and so on, and some accommodations in the classroom, and that's 504 territory. What's this quadrant 3? These kids don't have a disability, but they need specially designed instruction. Why? Well, here's 3 categories. The emergent bilingual student. Teaching the student English as a second language is different from what we teach the— that's not the, you know, the general population. That's different. It's specially designed. It's not due to a disability, Not being a native English speaker is not a disability. Struggling learner, what we, you know, a lot of people used to call a slow learner, student who's kind of below average cognitively, perhaps not so far below average that we would classify them as intellectually disabled, but they're going to struggle with school, and particularly because schools have gotten more academically rigorous over the past decade. So they belong here. You got to give them some special help. What's WBFWR? I made that one up. Way behind for whatever reason. Way behind for whatever reason. Now the general term for that is at risk, and I think you know who these kids are. These are kids who are frequently struggling with poverty, food insecurity perhaps. Abuse in the home, substance abuse in the home, criminal behavior, whatever. These are the kids that are working at the Taco Bell till 11 o'clock at night to support the family and then trying to make it to school the next day. None of that is a disability that qualifies you for special ed, but all of that is a problem that results in a need for something special. If you don't help these kids in quadrant 3 in some special way, they're going to drop out of school. That's why they're all classified as at-risk. Okay, so that's your 4-quadrant analysis. And then the history. I want to emphasize the history. And one of the points I like to make about special ed law is that it is part and parcel of the civil rights movement of the '60s and '70s. You can't understand it outside that context. So let's think of some benchmarks. 1954, Brown versus Board of Education. The Supreme Court said Segregation by race is inherently unequal and therefore unconstitutional. Pretty big deal. 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus. Now, these have to do with racial issues. 1956, Forrest Gump is turned away from the public school. What is that doing here? Well, if you will remember the scene between Mrs. Gump and the principal, not the second scene between Mrs. Gump and the principal, but the first scene where they met in the principal's office and he explained why Forrest could not go to the regular public school. Forrest needed something special. You know, I saw that movie and Forrest is about my age. I could tell that from all the historical things that happened in that movie. The reason I pointed out is I think that was a realistic depiction of how parents of kids with disabilities were treated in the 1950s. Some parents like Mrs. Gump didn't take that laying down and they started to file lawsuits over this. We got lawsuits asking that these children be admitted to the regular public schools and we started seeing in those cases terminology like free appropriate public education. Least restrictive environment. Now, the racial issues kind of kicked off in 1954, and exactly 10 years later, we got the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The special ed litigation started in the late '60s, early '70s, and by 1975, we got a law. And so this is how litigate— this is how major changes happen in our culture. frequently. Major changes in our society frequently follow this pattern. It starts with litigation and it culminates in legislation. You know, to— for litigation, you just need a good cause and a good lawyer. For legislation, you need majorities. Okay, so here's some ways that I make the case that the IDEA, our special ed law, truly revolutionized All of public education, I believe. Number one, it was the first time in our country that we said we're rejecting nobody from our public schools. We're not rejecting them because of race. We're not rejecting them because of sex. We're not rejecting them because of disability. Regardless of the nature or the severity of the disability, the child is welcome in the public school. That was new. That happened because of the law. So, so that's number one. Number 2, it's the first time we had an emphasis on individualization. And I think this has just only increased since 1975. We have so many special programs now. And I think with the advent of artificial intelligence, we're going to see more opportunity if we use it well to really hone in on individual skills and individual Pathways for students, but that started with IDEA. We had an expanded concept of what education is. You know, you have kids who are getting services in your public schools that if the general public saw what was going on, they would say that's medical care. I didn't know the public school was serving kids that have to have their diapers changed when they're in high school. I didn't know that. But we have a broadened definition of what we mean by education. Recognition of the need for non-instructional related services— that was new with IDEA. Some kids need some services that are non-instructional. Parent empowerment is more than just an aspirational goal. Services driven by need and data— we didn't have that before we had this law. And legal recourse for parents for educational malpractice. Now, in special ed, we don't call it educational malpractice. The term is denial of a free appropriate public education, but that's exactly what it is. If the parent believes that the school is not serving the student appropriately, they can make a legal issue out of it, and if they're successful, they can get compensatory education. They can get reimbursement for private schooling. And they can get other remedies as well, and as well as attorney's fees. General ed students don't have that right. So the courts have not recognized educational malpractice, but they recognize denial of a free appropriate public education. So President Ford signed it on December 2nd, 1975, and he had some misgivings. He had some misgivings, and I think his— I think his prediction of what was going to happen was very accurate. He said this bill is— he said, I support the ideas here, but he said, we're promising more than we're going to deliver. Boy, howdy, is that true? All right. Its good intentions could be thwarted by the many unwise provisions it contains. He said, even the strongest supporters of this measure know as well as I that they're falsely raising expectations by the groups affected. Who does he mean? Parents? students by claiming authorization levels which are excessive and unrealistic. He was worried about the budget in 1975. He said, we're not going to be able to appropriate the money that this is going to cost, and they never have. They never have. So it's been underfunded the whole time. He said, there's other features in the bill which I believe to be objectionable and should be changed. He says it contains a vast array of detailed, complex, and costly administrative requirements. And they're going to insert federal control over what's been a local and state function. It establishes complex requirements under which tax dollars would be used to support administrative paperwork. Can I hear an amen out there? Unfortunately, these requirements are going to remain in effect even though Congress is going to appropriate far less than the amounts contemplated in the law. That's just turned out to be right on target. We have a lot of paperwork. We have a lot of administrative complexity, and we have never gotten from the federal government the type of funding that, that was promised in the first place. So it's one of the most impactful pieces of legislation ever enacted by Congress, certainly in the field of education. I do think it's positively impacted all students, not just those with disabilities. It reflects values that we should nurture and encourage. I think we should be proud of the fact that our country has committed to serving every single child. Not every country does that, but our country has done it. It's a moral obligation first and foremost, and we've just put these— this legal stuff in there to make sure we actually fulfill that moral obligation. So I always like to remind those of you who are doing the hard work, you are fulfilling our country's moral obligation, and so for that you deserve a big thank you. Okay, so I think, let's see, I think I'm supposed to stop sharing. Is that right, Sophia? Should I?

No, you're good to share.

Oh, okay. Oh, because I got something else.

Yeah, that was great.

Do I go to the next slide yet or do we do some Q&A?

So we'll have some Q&A time right now. And thank you for that, Jim. That was an amazing presentation. But right before Q&A, I am going to drop the link again for the coffee chats. Within the chats, and some people were not able to sign up. We did have some come through, so thank you. We're so excited to meet with you. And in case you were not able to, it's now in the chat. But we'd love to connect with you just in the upcoming weeks before TK. And we'll have some time now for Q&A with Jim. So there is a Q&A button that you all can select and type in your questions, and then once I will read them aloud. We actually have 3 questions thus far. So the first one for you, Jim, is, what if you work in a private school? How do we assist the needs of the special education student?

Well, of course, private schools are not subject to IDEA. So the students, if the parents choose to put the child in a private school, they are foregoing their right to a free appropriate public education. And that's true even with our new voucher scheme. There will be some parents this next school year that will be getting some public funding to attend a private school, but that doesn't entitle them to a free appropriate public education. So as far as, you know, the teacher's role, I would want, if I were a teacher in a private school, and I know I'm serving kids that could be eligible for an IEP in a public school, I want to be sure that parents understand that and understand that the private school may not be able to provide the full range of services that the student needs, but the local public school has a legal obligation to do that. So I want to be sure that the parents understand that.

Thank you. That was a great response. And Next one says, I had a parent indicate that she wanted training for all teachers of her son on Tourette syndrome. Is this something that the district must do, or can we supply a list of trainings and recommend that it is completed?

Not sure I got that. Would you say that one again, Sophia?

Says, I had a parent indicate that she wanted training for all teachers of her son on Tourette syndrome. Is this something that the district must do, or can we supply a list of trainings and recommend that it is Oh, she wanted all the teachers trained? Yeah.

You know, that's a judgment call. I mean, we have a responsibility to make sure that the teachers that are serving the student are adequately trained, but, you know, the district's definition of adequately trained may not be the same as the parents. So, you know, I can't give a specific answer to that question, but it's something you just have to weigh. Go back to the one-size-fits-all answer. You know, does the evaluation data indicate that all the teachers need to be trained on this? You know, or do we think that we've already got it adequately covered?

Perfect. Oh, all these questions coming in. I love it. Here's another one that says, very specific, for students who do not have a disability but need specially designed instruction due to WBFWR, What obligation does SPED have to find a disability such as OHI?

Well, you know, we have it— we have a child-find duty with all kids. And so whenever we have reason to believe that the reason that the student is struggling in school is due to something that qualifies as an other health condition, then we should refer the child for evaluation for special ed. But, you know, that WBF/WR category, what I intend by that is kids that clearly do not have a disability that would qualify under special ed. You know, so, so, but we have a lot of kids that are in very unfortunate circumstances at home, and none of that is a disability that qualifies for special ed. It's certainly something that deserves our attention. But it's not a disability that qualifies for special education. So we should not be serving them in special ed, and I wouldn't refer the child for special ed for other health impaired unless I have some indication that they have a health condition that's leading to the need for some special treatment.

So, and I guess you may have answered this in that, but Someone wrote in, if not SPED, would the SDI be whatever MTSS program is on campus?

Yeah, I'm using SDI in a little different way. Now, SDI is a special ed term, so I don't want to cause confusion here. Specially Designed Instruction is the very definition of special ed, but it also— if you just think of the words in their dictionary definition, isn't English as a Second Language A type of instruction that is specially designed. It's different from what, you know, we're offering it to you because you have a special need for it. It's not offered to all kids in the schools here, so it's, it is a specially— so I'm using it in the dictionary sense of specially designed rather than the legal term that's used in the federal regulations.

Perfect, thank you. Then we have another question to follow that says, what if the parents choose online school and the student currently receive vision and O&M services. Do we continue providing those specific services?

Well, I don't know. You know, I would want to know what the policy of the school district is about online schooling. Is that offered as a general rule to the student? Or, you know, I'm not sure I'm pretty very well equipped to answer that. This is a good time to give our disclaimer, by the way. I hope you all know anytime you're hearing a lawyer from our firm or any of the other law firms that is doing a webinar like this, you shouldn't take it as specific legal advice because we can't really give you specific legal advice in this context. It's informational. We hope it, we hope it triggers you to think about when I do need to talk to a lawyer, give them more detail about a specific situation. And this question is a good example of that because I frankly don't know what to tell you. I'd need to know more about the school's practices and policies with regard to allowing online services in the first place.

Perfect. Well, thank you. And then we have another question that says, what are the steps needed if a parent states outside an ARD that the parent doesn't think the accommodations are being followed?

Yeah, good question. Yeah, I think that comes up a lot. I, I, we usually hear about that here in the law firm when the first set of grades Go out, you know, in the fall when you hit the 6-month— 6-week mark and the grades go out and the parents are shocked to see that the student is failing math or, you know, chemistry or whatever. And the parent may immediately say, well, they must not be providing the accommodations. So they come to school with a complaint about that. And what I say about that is don't call an ARD meeting. You know, let's distinguish this. This is not a complaint about the content of the IEP. This is a complaint about the implementation of the IEP, so it's an administrative problem. It's not up to the ARD committee. It's up to the administrator, meaning the principal or assistant principal or whoever they want to assign, to look into it, to determine if there's a problem, to take corrective action if need be, to document all of that, and then to communicate back to the parent. You know, a complaint that the IEP is not being implemented should be handled the same as a complaint of bullying or sexual harassment or any other problem like that in the school. We listen, we look into it, we take corrective action if that's what's called for, we document what we've done, and we communicate back to the parent.

Perfect. Well, we have one last question, and the last question is, what do you do if there's people that are not behaving appropriately throughout the ARD meeting?

Oh, that never happens. Not in Texas. Oh, oh, no, it's a good question, Sophia. It does happen. I know that I did it myself. I called another lawyer a bozo. I was out of line. What do you do? Number 1, I'm a big believer in ground rules to start the meeting. I think you should set the tone and make it clear. We want to hear from you. If you disagree with what we're proposing, we want to hear about that. So please speak up about that. But we do request, and in fact, we insist that everybody be civil, courteous, polite to each other, respectful, and so on. And, and, you know, if somebody steps out of line on that, Take a break. Take a break. Let's take 5 minutes. Let's settle down. Maybe go out in the hall, talk about it a little bit. But, you know, I'm a believer in ground rules.

I love that. And I think that that's really helpful for a lot of the district leaders that are here. And I'm sure that they were wondering in regards to that. And if I guess for questions, that was the last one. So thank you for sharing all of those questions. They were great. And we can move on, I guess, since we mentioned—

Yeah, well, there's the contact information, and I think most, most, I think most of the people that are hearing this, they've heard me speak before. I'm guessing they know, they know where I'm coming from. And there's our boilerplate disclaimer for you. And then I think I'm supposed to pull this up. Is that right?

Yes, thank you. That was the last slide. So before we wrap up, I just want to say thank you to Jim. For such a wonderful presentation and for sharing all of your insights and expertise with us today. I wish I had attended some of your presentations earlier on when I was a specialist, because I probably would have saved myself a lot of time when trying to interpret the law on certain things. But it's not too late at this point to sign up for that coffee chat. So we have the QR code here one last time. And I am going to throw that link for those of you that are here in the chat again, since I know sometimes those links get lost. But for those of you who signed up, we received it. We are so excited to meet with you and just wanna extend a big warm thank you to everyone who joined us today and spent part of their day with us. We know and appreciate everything that you do to support your students, your families, and your staff. And we know that this is an extremely busy time of the year for you all, so we greatly appreciate it and wish you a great rest of the school year as you close out and look forward to connecting with many of you. Take care.