Session 2 | Building Better Outcomes | Building Cross-Campus Collaboration

Good afternoon, everybody, or good noon to some of you, depending on where you're calling in from. I'm Lauren Kenny. I'm the Director of Business Development at Parallel. Thank you so much for joining us today. While we wait for a few more folks to join us, we wanted to run just a fun poll, keeping it relevant for where we are in the school year right now. So I'm curious, What is the most underrated spring break luxury for you? Is it that on spring break you finally have time to finish reading that book? You just like to sit in silence, maybe do some meditation? Or is it that you get to wear comfy clothes and no more business casual? Or is it just kind of ignoring your email inbox for a little while? I'd love to hear. What's the most luxurious aspect of spring break for you? All right, and we have the results coming in here soon. I think it's really interesting though, when you look at these options, that most of them come down to the same thing, just having an opportunity to give yourself a little space. Space to think, space to rest, space to not have, you know, continuously reaching out to the next thing coming in. So I hope everybody has some time to enjoy some luxury on their spring break. So before we jump into this session, I want to take just a minute to introduce Parallel and our virtual special education instruction and related service offerings. What we've learned from working with districts across the country is that no 2 partnerships look exactly the same. Some districts already have virtual services in place, others are thinking about how to expand and improve them, or maybe you're curious about virtual services, but there's some important and maybe some tough questions that you want to work through first. So wherever you fall on that Our goal at Parallel is to meet you and your district where you are to build a support that makes the most sense for your students and your team. Today, a lot of what you'll hear comes directly from conversations with leaders like you, the questions you've asked, the challenges that you're navigating, and things that you're working to solve for next school year. Throughout the presentation, you'll see a QR code at the bottom of the screen. If something that we talk about resonates with you, I'd like to encourage you to scan that QR code and schedule some time with our team. A little housekeeping item: if you have any questions, please put them below on your Zoom toolbar. There's a place for Q&A. And I also wanted to note that this session will be recorded and sent to everybody who registered. So now, without further ado, I'd like to introduce Dr. David Bateman. I'm thrilled to introduce him. He's somebody who has truly become a trusted voice in the special education space. Many of you already know his work. With over 3 decades in special education and experience presiding over more than 500 due process hearings, he brings both deep legal insight and practical understanding of the challenges districts face every day. We're incredibly grateful to have him with us today. And with that, I'll turn it over to you, David.

Thank you. Thank you very much. And I appreciate the opportunity to talk with all of you and appreciate what's going on. And so I applaud all of you for wanting to learn more about this. Just a little bit about me. If you want to get in touch with me, please let me know. But I'm proud to be working with Parallel as a part of this one and appreciate the opportunity to engage with what's going on. Just so, just so that we understand each other as we're addressing this. Is first, I want to make sure we understand the poll question. When you said finish your latest book, I thought when you were finishing your latest book that you're writing. That's where I took it at, not reading. Someday I'll do that as well, but I— misinterpretation of mine on that one. Legal disclaimer. Well, let's make sure this presentation is for informational and educational purposes only. If you need legal advice, you need to see your attorney as a part of this one. That's something you need to pay attention to as part of what's going on. But What I'm gonna be sharing with you is kind of recommendations and information that I know that there were— that have been shared with hearing officers. 2 weeks ago, there was a nationwide training of hearing officers, and I wanna make sure that some of the information that I'll be sharing with you was shared with them. How do I know this is I did that presentation. So I wanna make sure that you are aware that you're gonna hear some of the very same things that we talk about as we talk, as we're addressing and what hearing officers are saying as we pay attention to this one.

Okay?

So let's set the tone. Before we dive into the specifics of the mechanics, we need to establish a tone. Okay, every school year, every school year, whether you like it or not, begins with the same aspiration. Keep this in mind. We want the year to be compliant. We want the year to be organized, and we want the year to be effective. And when I say effective, we want kids to move forward and make progress. That's what our obligation is. But compliance rarely fails. Because someone ignored the law. It usually fails because systems are overloaded, staff are isolated, or resources are stretched too thin. Cross-district collaboration can help stabilize this one. So we're going to be talking a little bit about this one, and hopefully we're going to bring someone to talk about this from her perspective towards the end. Just baiting you. Stay, stay, stay where you are. It's coming. All right, so get ready for this one. So let's talk about this one, building cross-district collaboration that actually works. Many directors already talk to colleagues in neighboring districts. If you don't, you need to start. That's— write that down. Start talking to my neighbors. That's one thing. But conversations alone don't solve systematic problems. Real collaborations, real collaboration. And we're going to be talking about this one. It talks about shared functions. It talks about defined governance. It talks about financial structures and clear decision rules.

Next slide, please.

Without that, without these elements, collaboration remains informal and temporary. So where we're going about is trying to talk more about how to do this in a better way and move that. Okay, so why am I talking about this one? Just make sure you understand. Okay. Some of you have staffing shortages. Scan that thing at the bottom there. That can help. Okay, but there are several forces that drive collaboration now. Okay, staffing shortages are one of the most obvious. I'm not bringing this up because this is with Parallel. Parallel has given me latitude to say what I want to say. They're not— there's no editorial guidance that this is a part of this one. But I want to make sure that you need to pay attention to is that staffing shortages is a nationwide thing. So keep that in mind as we address this one. But districts across the country are struggling to hire school psychologists. They're struggling to hire behavior specialists and speech pathologists. It's posing a problem. But what this does is this leads to evaluation backlogs. And as a part of compliance, let's make sure you understand that's something we often pay attention to in due process hearings. If you don't know that, please write that down. What's interesting about this one, at the same time, disputes are rising. Every one of you, you have— you've seen the numbers. Disputes over the past 5 years have been a step-by-step growth on each and every single year, and disputes are absolutely rising. And if you look at what's going on about this one, typically most of the disputes historically have been on what we refer to on What we is the definition of appropriateness. We have the Endrew Supreme Court case nine years ago. Hasn't time flying since then? But we've had that nine years ago, and what we have since then is now we're seeing a lot more procedural violations that we need to pay attention to, not just substantive violations. And that's something that I I'm writing about. I've got something going out and for the Division of Learning Disabilities next week on that very same topic. But what we're seeing disputes are rising. Compliance scrutiny is increasing, not in Washington. Just make sure it's not happening in Washington. States are stepping in and having more compliance auditing as a part of this one to pay attention to. Specialized programs. This, this, you didn't think you'd learn anything, but feel free to learn this one here. Specialized programs are becoming more expensive. See, told you you learned something. No district is experiencing these problems alone. So keep that in mind as we address this. But most, but most are still trying to solve them alone. So keep that in mind, right? Okay. So let me understand, emphasize this. So that's building the foundation for what we're addressing here.

All right.

What collaboration is not. It's important to clarify that collaboration does not mean just another monthly meeting that we have to go to. It doesn't mean that we just have a venting session, though venting sessions are incredibly popular. And I, I've attended a number of them lately. If you haven't, you should. They're kind of fun. Okay. Not just, not just sharing PowerPoints. So not an, not an informal call of a friend. What I'm talking about, collaboration equals shared ownership of defined functions. You absolutely need to vent. Absolutely. Some of you are working, especially directors, are profoundly lonely positions. You have staff below you who are always asking for something. Every time you go into the superintendent's office, they look at you when you walk in and they see money walk out. You're in a tough position. So you need to think about what your role is as a part of this one, but also informally calling a friend as a part of this one. Someone from the outside who can preserve confidentiality and talk Talk about what it's like and to give you advice on how to do this so that you have backbone. Okay, so what you could do as a part of this one— this— think about this one— is you could start thinking about staffing pools, start thinking about program design, evaluation supports as a part of addressing these things, but also think about legal strategy coordination as addressing this one. That's what we're striving for as a part of this one. All right, so let's talk about the structural premise on this one. Okay, the structural behind Behind that, the structural premise behind collaboration is very simple, but it takes time. All right, it follows a progression. We go from clarity to stability to trust to outcomes. All right, when districts clearly define roles and expectations, systems become more stable. Stable allows trust to develop. Why do we need this? This was— just look at the numbers. Ready? 1 in 4 principals nationwide is changing every single year. That's why I wrote that book for principals to help them as a part of this one. 22%, almost 1 in 4, but just a little less of special education directors are changing every year. Many superintendents are changing every year as a part of this one. So there's— what we need to think about is building stability that is independent of who we have in those positions and making sure that we're addressing that and paying attention to what we have as a part of this one. Stability, stability, what that does, it allows trust to develop. And so we have to think about this one, and trust leads to better outcomes for students. Regional stability is created when districts have clear internal structures and systems and clear cross-directional relationships. So keep this in mind as we pay attention to this one. So that's what we're talking about here. This is a way to help you think about where to go. Most people talk about their job as being very lonely. This should help. Okay, let's talk about this, the cross-district pressure test. I've been involved in over 1,000 due process hearings, and there's a— there are sometimes when we think about— there's some directors of special ed who come to me, should we just buy a house in a neighboring district for this family because it would be cheaper than going to due process? That is not something we're going to advocate today. Just make sure you understand this one. Okay, but I want to hear a useful test. Imagine tomorrow. Just imagine this. Imagine tomorrow a high-cost placement situation emerges. Ask these questions. Ask these questions. Who makes the final cost decision? How do neighboring districts handle similar cases? What are the regional norms? And if the answers are unclear, fragmentation occurs. Fragmentation increases legal risk and financial instability. We're seeing a rise in complaints. We're seeing a rise in— not as much as I'd like in mediation. I push mediation, but we're seeing a dramatic rise in state complaints and also in special education due process hearings. I was in Oklahoma this past— I guess just this past week, and they were telling me that they've already— this— they already had as many state complaints this year as they had all last year, and they still have multiple months to go and don't see the number increase. I'm seeing that in multiple locations as a part of this one. So keep this in mind as we pay attention to this and as we move forward as we address this. Okay, so wait, there's more. Okay, functions. All right, functions that should never be isolated. This is things that we need to think about how we can collaborate with others as a part of this one. Okay. Some functions are simply too fragile for districts to handle alone. And this is good. Look at this one. Just look at this. And I'm betting if we locked everyone in a room, you would come up with these same things. But I'm putting it out here as a way for to remind yourself as a part of this one. But evaluations overflow. The numbers of— I'm just talking with the school psych this morning about this one— is by talking about the numbers, the job security they have is through the roof because you guys are identifying more and more kids. Special education numbers are going up dramatically. 504 numbers are going through the roof. We've doubled the number of percentage nationwide of kids eligible for 504 just in the past 5 years. Mostly in part due to anxiety and ADHD. But you have to think about this one. You have hard-to-fill service-related services roles as part of this. You have behavior program designs, and I'm seeing we're having to design behavior programs and assistance with behaviors, and a lot of general education staff are unaware of what their roles and responsibilities are to that. That could be a different session all of our own on this one. We have many low-incidence classrooms, and we're having trouble getting teachers to provide services in some of these low-incidence classrooms. My daughter was a classroom teacher for that in a number of years. We have homebound instruction pools as a part of this. We need mediation strategies on how we're going to address mediation. I work as a mediator in several states, and I can talk about this one. Legal trend analysis. I'm part of a state collaborative where we bring people together to talk about trends in different states and address this one. Trends that you need to pay attention to. Just real quickly before I go on the other topic, just because I'm having fun with this, is the trends that we're seeing more cases relating to The science of math. Now we've heard about the science of reading. We're seeing cases on the science of math. We're seeing cases on issues relating to compliance, as I mentioned just a few minutes ago, and we're seeing cases relating to ABA instruction. So if you haven't had this, it's coming because I know people are talking about this on the internet. Okay, but then how we design compensatory methodology. What do we mean by this one? Is it an hour for hour? Do we have to work on making the kids whole? Just did a presentation for that for a school district in Southeast Virginia the other day about what we mean by And then make sure we have consistent ESY criteria consistency, because that might help with staffing as a part of this one. Isolations in these areas create risks. Shared expertise can help as a part of this one. So let's go to the first one. All right, the evaluation backlog model. Okay, you need to think about this one because the increased number of parents requesting independent educational evaluations, or just the sheer number of evaluations that need to occur as a part of this one. Is we need to make sure we have regional psychological pools that we can pull from as a part of this one, but share vetted contractors because there are some contractors that I bet you've worked with that you would gladly work with again, and there's some others that you might not want to work with again. I'm just going out on this one, okay? But align evaluation timelines so we understand what's going on. Share report templates to make it easier. I work with multiple school psychologists, and it's interesting to talk with them that they've had training and they still get training from NASP, which is a great organization, by the way. I highly endorse it. I do workshops with Eric Rosen on a regular basis, and what's interesting, but we make sure we have different understanding about how to align this and understand this helps districts manage evaluation backlogs more efficiently. So we give you— if you need something really quickly and address this, because those 60 days go really fast, folks, and we have to think about this one. But this is built on this one. All right, related services staffing collaboration.

Okay.

We're having trouble getting good SLPs and we're having trouble this. So think about this one, which is related services staffing. On this one, districts' model could co-fund positions such as a regional speech-language pathologist. Still on this one, share teletherapy contracts or build regional supervision structures that help align caseload expectations. What this will do is create a more stable workforce as a part of this one. I already do a lot of trainings for building-level administrators and they have, they have, they have, they have related services personnel coming and going with within their building. My advice to you is you make sure you document all services that they provide. You keep track, very detailed track, of when they're providing services, what they're doing as a part of this one, because it's going to be one of the very first questions we're going to ask as a part of due process preparation as a part of this one. So keep that in mind as we pay attention to this. Okay. All right. Another one. Okay. Shared specialized programs. Avoid duplicating low incidence programs. Okay. I mean, we all see that. We see this when I worked in Pennsylvania with the IUs. We see it in California with the SELPAs. We see it in New York With the BOCES. There's different versions of this one. We have to think about them. Autism is self-contained. What we need as a part of this one, the services. Now, I'm a huge fan— make sure you understand this— I'm a huge fan of the least restrictive environment. But there are some kids who need— have needs are so intense that we need to provide structured specialized programs for them. And you get— you can see the list here as a part of this one. What we have to think about is the regional collaborations allow districts to consolidate enrollment and share costs. But you still need to make sure those kids are receiving an appropriate program. Don't just place in some program as part of this one. Make sure that they're still getting their goals and objectives addressed as a part of this one. Okay, so we can spend more time on that, but we're not going to. Collaborate governance. This is another one. Collaboration fails without governance. Successful partnerships define decision authority. Successful partnerships define cost allocation formulas. Successful partnerships help with dispute resolution processes. Successful partnerships define Full governance talks with exit clauses and written agreements. Without governance structures, collaboration claps when leadership changes. So what we have to think about is making sure what we have is understanding who's under— responsible for what and when. All right, so I'm going to start moving through this because I want to get to some questions about this, but wait, I still got a lot to go. Okay, regional decision makings, right? A decision matrix clarifies responsibilities. We need to think about key questions. Who owns the program? Who funds the program? Who supervises the staff? Who evaluates performance? What triggers a review as a part of this one? These questions must be answered before launching collaboratives. So I wanna make sure that you understand, I've helped set programs up like this one, but you have to think about who is actually doing the responsible needs and addressing what's going on so that, so that we have a better understanding of who's doing what. Because if the system breaks down, we need to make sure we have some ownership. The same thing— this way I see the same thing is the parallel to his MTS programs. Someone's got to make sure who evaluates their performance and what defines a trigger, what makes the kid move from a different level of MTSS to another, so that we have some sense about this one. I have attended an MTSS meeting the other day. I'm not going to say where, but I attended one the other day where they had a great discussion, wonderful discussion, but there's no ownership and no matrix for what is viewed as success. You need to think you have some understanding as a part of this one. Make sure. Okay. Funding structure options. Funding structures must be clear. Let's just, just start about this one. Okay. And there's different ways of doing this, but there's multiple things about the way to pay attention to. Options include per pupil contributions. Options include a proportional enrollment as part of this one. Usage-based billing, fixed membership fees. The key principle is what we need to understand is modeling sustainability over multiple years. Why is this important? Because you need to be able to count on the services as kids move in and out of your district. Don't just say that we're going to set this up and we're going to have this down the road. You need to think about what we're going to have as a part of this down the road so that we can provide appropriate services. That is a vital part of this process. Keep this in mind as we pay attention. Okay, so role drift. Yeah, a term you should use this when you go to your next convenience store. Talk about role drift. All right, role drift is a common problem. What we often see is informal agreements slowly expand, and it poses a problem. Okay, costs shift. Timelines become assumed rather than defined. Okay, leadership turnover destabilizes the system. The solution is a written. Charter or written agreement. Not saying we have to think of this as separate from a charter school agreement. Make sure you understand about this one, but it's separate, separate. So you have an understanding of what we have. We've seen, as I said before, we've seen multiple examples in different states that have collaboratives such as this to work together. I highly recommend this one. And what we see, things like this, a regional charter, and this is separate from a charter school. Make sure you understand this one. Okay. Wrote a book on charter schools a few years ago, became widely popular about what their responsibilities were relating to special education. Thank you, CEC, for marketing it like crazy. But I probably— but we have to think about this one. Well, regional charters should talk about the purpose of what you're doing, the scope with decision thresholds about what's going on. But then what we often think about, and we don't do this, is make sure we have an escalation pathway about who's responsible for what. And then if there is conflict, how are we going to step in and address this one? But what I get to And this is something that I spend a lot of time when I talk to school districts and regional cooperatives is the data sharing expectations. What is the data? Many of you have attended workshops that I've done over the past couple of months where I'm talking about dramatically increasing your progress monitoring data, and that's something that I emphasize as a part of this, and then use that for informed decision-making. I've got a book going to the publisher next week on that very same topic. But so you have to think about this one. But what we're talking about is increasing, creating accountability and stability for everyone as a part of this one. Well, let's talk about data sharing. If I'm going to talk about this one, right? Sharing without a legal panic about this one.

Okay?

Aggregate trends. Who is doing what? What's going on as part of this one? And make sure that this avoids identifiable student data. The personally identifiable information that we have on these kids, we need to be very precise about this one. I'm— you've heard me say this before, but I'm willing to say it again. Make sure that teachers are not putting personally identifiable information into ChatGPT. Please, that has got to be— that has got to be a mantra that we say over and over again. I'm hearing— I have no problem, no problem whatsoever with teachers using ChatGPT to write IEP goals. Not a problem as long as there— it's identifiable. It's not— there's not identifiable information released. And we make sure it's tied to the specific needs of the child, and it's a SMART goal. It's relevant and time-bound as a part of this one. So if anyone wants to talk more about that, I'm happy to talk about this one with you. But the same thing with the analogies made when we— those of us who were teachers in the early '90s remember when we started using computer-assisted IEPs and we were worried that those IEP goals were computer-driven. Pay attention to this one. All right. But I want to share placement patterns. Back to this, share what we're doing, share quarterly regional trends as a part of this one, which brings us to the next one. Okay, cross-district legal risk. Just make sure you understand parents increasingly compare districts. When we talk about real estate, we talk about location, location, location. One of those locations is where their child will go to school. And we— so parents are talking and I don't blame them. I want them to talk. I think it's wonderful they're talking and we need to encourage that and facilitate that. But we need to make sure that we don't have differences in eligibility thresholds, that we don't have differences in service minutes, that our ESY is not inconsistent. Because what this does is consistency reduces variability. If you have wide disputes between all these, what that can do is it can trigger disputes as a part of this one. So make sure that you're talking with your neighboring districts about how they're doing this and how they're addressing this, because I can guarantee it's being— it's a part of discussing where we are with this one. All right, aligning eligibility thresholds. So keep this in mind as we talk about this one. All right, is make sure what we're talking— okay, you don't need identical policies. That's not it. I've written policies, I've written state plans, things like this, but you don't need this. But you should understand the differences between what's going on. Yes, we have the federal law. Yes, we have the state law, which all of you have to be compliant in and then to get your Part B flow-through. But what you have to think about is make sure that we understand this one. But comparisons might be SLD identification models. Are you going to use RTI or are you going to use the discrepancy? Let's go through it. Cognitive thresholds for different things. ASD patterns, how you're placing students as a part of this one. Emotional disability criteria. Make sure addressing what components are you including as a part of your reevaluations as a part of this one. Your timelines stay the same, but what do you think about this one? But you need to make sure that your alignment strengthens defensibility. All right. But here's another one. Okay. Review litigation patterns. Review due process decisions. Some of, some of you are watching The Pit. I'm, I've been, I'm watching it too. I'm looking forward to a new episode tonight. What's interesting about this is, but on the whole, I read litigation. Some of you watch Netflix. Don't do that so much here. So what's interesting about this, but we understand, but make sure you understand the due process decisions out there and what's going on. Just, I was doing the training in Missouri Tuesday on this one. But understanding the patterns and understanding what's going on about this one. Share emerging hearing officer trends, share parent attorney strategies, and share intelligence improves prevention. I want to make sure that we learn from every single due process hearing out there, and I want to emphasize this one because if we can learn what happened to one child to prevent it happening to another— problems with another child, then that's what we need to pay attention to. So what do we need to pay attention to? First month, okay? First month of launching, what do I want to do is, like, launching collaborative focuses on exploration. Identify 3 directors willing to collaborate. Identify 2 shared problems and start small. Start small is a part of this one, okay? Start small. Month 2, let's go to month 2, okay? Think about this one. Focus on structure. Come up with a structure, a charter about this, a financial model. Continue a legal review about this one, about who's going to be responsible. All right, month 3. I see how this— don't worry, we'll make sure you have access to these slides. Yes, I've gone through them quickly. All right, month 3, launch the pilot. Define the metrics for what you're looking for as a part of this one. Define how you're going to include individuals about this one. Create a communication plan to understand how you are going to engage with others and how you're gonna supervise those, but then also track the outcomes of part of this one. So yes, I'm talking about ways of reducing your burden, ways of reducing your responsibility, because is your responsibility going to get lessened? It's not. In fact, we're seeing, we're seeing with the way the budget is in Washington, is the budget in Washington is for special education is flat. The same money for last year is the same money as we're going to get for this year. So what does that mean? As we increase the number of kids eligible for special education related services, that each kid We're going to have a little bit less money because the number of kids is going up, but the share of the pie is staying exactly the same. So that's why you need to think about this kind of collaboration. This is a direct result of what's going on in Washington. But what's also is the states are now monitoring things much more closely because the Office of Special Education Programs in Washington is not doing that. There's hardly anybody working there now. So we have to think about what we do. All right, so some ideas. Some ideas that we have as a part of this one. All right, let's look at this one. That basically, I already mentioned a few of these ones. Okay, but think about this one: a shared psychologist pool. Okay, so think about what you, how you can get involved with this. Shared behavior specialists. Joint ESY program to reduce costs and share responsibilities for kids. Because typically it's the kids who have the problem with regression and acoupment tend to be low incidence. There are others as part of this one, but think about this one. Okay, short joint professional development day. Do a lot, do a A lot of those work myself and help with what's going on. But then shared MTSS coaching cohort so that we can pay attention to what we're doing as a part of this one. And so keep that in mind as we pay attention to this one. All right. So the next one is a superintendent. Well, things like this. And as a superintendent, I just make sure I talk to superintendents on a regular basis, things like this. And as a nepo baby, my dad was my superintendent. I can talk about this one and feel very comfortable about this one. All right, for collaboration to succeed, superintendents must understand the value and frame the work as first, talk about it as cost control, talk about it as risk reduction, talk about it as service stability, but also talk about it as a recruitment strategy. As a part of this one, we need to make sure the superintendents fully understand what their scope is. I spoke at the American Association of School Administrators conference in Nashville a few weeks ago. Bunch of superintendents walking around. It was packed. It was warm. It's— it was kind of fun to be there during a warm day as a part of that. But what I'm talking about this is we need to make sure they understand. And I had a lot of people in my session looking for that as a part of this one. So this is something we need to pay attention to is what we're doing. Okay, wait, there's more. Principals. Okay, we need to make sure principals understand this one. Do a lot of workshops with principals, have a textbook for them about this one. But we need to think about— they need to know, they need to know very specifically what is shared, who supervises, What changes? What stays the same? Clear messaging prevents disruption, and that's what we need to focus on as a part of this one. Okay, so keep that in mind. Now, things that you need to pay attention to. So first, get the superintendents involved, get the principals involved, or understand this failure patterns. Yeah, no written governance, personality-driven agreements. Yeah, I get along with them, so I'm going to work with them. That's a great place to start, but make sure it's not just on personality. Unequal workloads. One person is going to do way more than other, or there's a financial imbalance that's going to address this and pay attention to this one. And then leadership turnover, and then there's also political fear. All right. So if there's a leadership turnover, one thing we need to pay attention to as a part of this one, okay, is document agreements, create a transition binder, and have an annual review. Is this working? Is this addressing the needs that we're striving for as a part of this one? And that's what we need to strive for as part of this. Okay? And so keep that in mind. So make sure that you do this. Too often what we do is we set these things up and then they just run their course and then there's drift, and then we don't review them on an annual basis. We need to do a better job of clearly articulating what's going on and have a sense of what we can do to address this one. So what I wanna pay attention to is we have a hand— I draw something for you to download as part of this one.

Okay?

What this— think about this one. Is think about what we have. If caseload exceeds a certain number, you meet within a certain number of days as a part of this one. If backload exceeds a different number, adjust within 30 days. If cost exceeds, think adjust this. Pre-commitment prevents blame as a part of this one. So that's what we're striving for as we're addressing. So that's something we need to pay attention to as a part of what we're doing. Okay, so what I'm seeing also is some of these shared collaboratives. Now I'm not saying Reproduce or duplicate or do in place of what we're seeing, for instance, in Pennsylvania with IUs, New York, the BOCES or the SELPAs. I'm not saying do that. I'm thinking on a smaller scale, just a little smaller thing on just helping address some of these needs. Keep that in mind as part of this. So, so you— because what we could think about is some of these places have shared payroll for some of the teachers who is a part of this one, shared supervision, joint hiring. This requires a high level of trust. This requires you have to do your jobs, right? But you also need a high level of trust in order to do this. And that's what we need to pay attention to as we're paying— as we're addressing. Okay, so keep that in mind as we're thinking about this one and thinking about what we're doing to address this one. All right, so I've got just a few more that I'm gonna pull up. I get a special guest. All right, but think about this one: shared litigation strategy group, a pool outside counsel hours on how to do this. Some people contract with me to talk about some questions. I don't know the answer to everything, but I know where I can get answers as a part of this one, having been in so many lawsuits. The shared expert review— is this IEP up to snuff? What have we done this IEP? What can we do as a part of this one? Joint training as a part of this one, and shared mediation preparation. Mediation is something we're going— some states don't allow your attorney to participate in, so we need people to guide how we actually do that and understand what's going on. I work as a mediator in several states and do prep on It's an interesting process, but it's a valuable process, and I push mediation on everybody as much as possible instead of litigation. More professional development, shared professional development. What we're doing is a part of this one. Join SDI training. I've got a textbook on SDI that I wrote, just making sure that people understand what is SDI, but what is it not? If the teacher can't answer the elevator question about the SDI they're providing for that child, then they're not providing SDI. So keep that in mind. Joint MTSS refinement as a part of this one. Make sure you understand the process. Shared Principals Academy, and then shared coordination of 504 training on this one. The previous session that we did as a part of this threesome is what we have to think about is there was a document on 504s that you need to download and get out to whomever you want. Can help as a part of this one. The assistant principals, school counselors did a workshop for some school psychs about that this morning, trying to help understand what we can do as a part of this. But make sure you get that 504 document out as a part of this to help or weaken the baptism. But take a minute. Metrics that matter. Okay, for compliance, what are we paying attention to? Timeline for compliance. We have 60 days. Some of you it's school days, some of you it's business days, but we have 60 days. Make sure you're paying attention to this one. Your caseloads are also appropriate, and they're adjusted to whatever is going. They do pay attention to your overall high incidence rate. Some of your numbers are very different from one district than another. It's true. Cruelly different. It's shocking as a part of this one, but also dispute rates per 1,000 students. Some states— those of you who live in New York know who you are— but some states have much higher participation in disputes than others. And so keep that in mind as we pay attention, as a part, and understand this one. But I know just what we have. All right, so what I'm recommending is we keep a cross-district scorecard, build shared dashboard, not for competition but for early warnings and stability as a part of this one. This is something that we need to think about responding to. Because many of you, yes, you're going to have more compliance relating to the demands from your state education agencies. I just had a wonderful conversation with the state director of special ed in Oklahoma about this the other day. But you have to think about making sure that you have opportunities to address this one and pay attention. Okay, track the trends. It's not about competition. It's about early warning and stability and building this one. Keep that in mind. Okay, so reflection questions. If a neighboring district collapsed tomorrow, what happens to your students? Okay, what would happen to your students? Could you absorb them? Would services fracture? What does that question expose? System fragility is a part of this one. So we have a question here for directors as a part of a self-assessment. Okay, this is just— I want you to rate yourself on this one. Okay, do you share staffing strategies? Do you share eligibility trends? Do you share legal analysis? Do you share cost modeling? Do you share written governance? These are things we need to focus on sharing, okay? And we need to emphasize this as a part of this one. The hard truth: isolation feels safe. You control your own little backyard. You have everything controlled about this one. But I want to make sure you understand, isolation is expensive. Isolation is risky. Isolation is exhausting for staff. Because get this, staff often talk with others about this one. So keep that in mind as we pay attention to and address this one. So we need to address this and pay attention to how we can do this appropriately. Okay? So structure precedes compliance. Okay? Structure completes compliance.

Okay?

And I want to emphasize this. It produces regional stability. And that's something we can't— I want to emphasize as much as possible and pay attention to this one. All right? So what I want to do now, okay, is you do not need more heroic doctors. You need engineered collaboration. I can't emphasize that enough. I'm rewriting the special education leadership textbook I did with Routledge a few years ago, and we're emphasizing this throughout the book, making sure that everything is aligned and addressing this as appropriate. You need engineered collaboration as a part of this one. So keep that in mind if you pay attention to. All right. So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to bring on a friend of mine who saved my butt this past fall. I'm gonna bring on Amy, and I want to just ask some basic questions of Amy about what we're doing here, but just to help with what we can do to provide appropriate services for kids. So, Amy, I'm glad to see that you're actually here. So just let you know.

All right.

Just for those in the background, we've had some technological difficulties that you're not privy to, but she's here and she's great. All right.

Happy to be here.

Good. And when I said Amy saved my butt, I flew into northern Michigan a few months ago, and Amy was able to get me a ride where there was There's no Uber or Lyft services at midnight. So she was very generous about this. Okay. So, Amy, I've got some questions. You've just listened to some of the things we've talked, and you and I had a nice car ride after the sessions, so we got to know each other. But I want to just make sure you understand, you work in a variety of roles up there, and you have many hats. And that's why I wanted to reach out to you, because of the many hats that you do have. But what is the hardest part of your job that people outside your role don't understand?

The hardest part of this position— so I, my background is, um, I've been an administrator for 18 years. I was a school administrator, a building principal at the middle level and the high school level, and then now I'm the director of special ed for all of Menominee County up here in the Upper Peninsula. And, um, regardless of the role, the hardest part of this job is always managing relationships. And those relations, every relationship is critical. And in my current role as Director of Special Education for our county, I'm managing relationships in multiple school districts across the county. So parents, teachers, my colleagues that I lead, our special ed related service provider team that fans out, the administration of every district, All of the kind of the nuances of each district because they're all different, but we provide services in all of them. So you can't do any of that work without having just really good relationships and being seen as someone that is supportive and contributes to their community. I can't come in and just criticize. I have to really Go in, have well-established relationships with everyone, and be seen as someone that can really be an ally and a contributor for them.

That's great. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate how you articulated that, and I appreciate your willingness to talk about this one. But let's— this— can we dive? I'm going to dive in a little, if you're willing to dive into this one. And if you're willing to admit this, what's— because I'm not always willing to admit this. So, but what's one mistake you made early on that changed how you lead?

So I learned very quickly that if you don't set your own stage and set the parameters of how you work, other people will do that for you. And that can very quickly get away from you. So I'll give you an example. Early, early on in my career, because I've been doing— working in administration since 2005. So email, simply, let's just talk about email for a moment. And people sending their grievances, their concerns, their thoughts about whatever it is related to their, their students' education or a colleague, all of, all of the, all of the people invested that you're working with. And email Well, you know, if you don't define to people how you communicate and collaborate, you'll just end up responding. You're always kind of in that response mode. So I learned very quickly to set the stage with people in terms of how I communicate and collaborate. And I do that by telling them I'm very direct. I don't— I tell— I would tell parents as a principal, don't, don't waste your time sending me an email that's 3 paragraphs long. I won't reply to it. I'll start reading it and I will just call you or I'll set up a meeting. But I do very little heavy communication via email. So the biggest lesson I learned and the mistake I made early on, and I just had to learn the hard way, is I'm in the driver's seat. And if I'm not, everybody else will be. And so I'm— I set very clear expectations and parameters on how I communicate, how I, how I collaborate. So people know what to expect, and I'm always the one kind of managing that in front and not just always in response and you know available to just every email and the hours that can go into that.

It could suck you dry. So yes, it will.

Yeah.

Yes.

All right.

I'm gonna ask you another question. Then I'm gonna go to a question that is in the chat. But this I'm liking this. This is your I appreciate and I sincerely appreciate. your willingness to share. That was very generous of you. But let's just talk about IEPs, something that's near and dear to my heart. How do you know whether your IEPs are actually being implemented the way they're written?

So I've always been a boots-on-the-ground administrator, and even in this county, I make a point to be in every local district frequently. And you know right away— I just, I dealt with this yesterday— you know right away when an IEP isn't being followed. First and foremost, the people that we work with operate— most of our colleagues operate with integrity, and they care. They care about other students. They care about students. They care about the work that we do and the services that we provide. It doesn't take much with my group and my colleagues and the schools that I'm in. If something isn't happening the way it should, somebody's sounding the alarm. And I learn very quickly from, from my colleagues, both in the schools and on my team, if things are, you know, being— if things are compliant or not. And I think that comes from the stage that I have set in terms of my expectations, in terms of providing a very high-quality service and operating from a point of providing quality customer service and service across our schools to our parents throughout the county. And when you set that stage and you have a level of excellence of the team that you lead, you very quickly, you know, are made aware of pockets where excellence isn't in play. And that's how, that's how, um, that's how those situations come to light. I had one, I had one yesterday that I had 3 people sounding the alarm on one student with an IEP that people were concerned about the lack, the lack of oversight and implementation. So it happens very quickly. It's the, the care and the professionalism of the people around you and the stage that you've set that will sound that alarm very easily.

I loved, I loved your answer. And one thing that I'm telling people, and then we're going to get to a question in the chat in a second. But one thing I'm always telling people is that there are 3 parts to FAPE. The compliance, like procedures, timelines, right people in the room. Is the kid making appropriate progress? But third, are we implementing the little suckers? And because we spend a lot of time writing these IEPs, we spend a lot of time writing these behavior intervention plans. We just need to make sure that they're being implemented as written, because it's the first question we often ask, for instance, in a manifestation determination review. It's the first question we ask if they're in due process. It's, we got to implement. So I love your answer there. So thank you for sharing that. There was a question in the chat, and I'll start, and I'm going to have you see if you can piggyback on this one. And so what I— so I mean, I'll start and I'll have you just add on because I feel very comfortable that you can chime in eloquently on this one. Is that for kids who are chronically absent, you need to make sure that if they're missing school, it's not due to a school factor that is causing them to be absent. Because there are some kids who are being bullied in school and they're having trouble participating in school because bullies are causing problems for them, either on the bus, playground, or in the classroom. The second thing is make sure that the kid is not being absent because they're lacking the necessary preschools and are having trouble, and we're asking them to do things that is posing problems there. But third, we need to make sure is, is there a kid who is just chronically absent? Is it because of a health condition, and do we need to think about altering the program for them and start delivering components of the program virtually to them to keep them up as much as what's going on as a part of this work? Too often what I see is schools just count either kids as tardy or count them as absent, but they don't analyze what's going on about this one. Amy, you want to chime in and see if there's anything else?

Yeah, I agree. I also recommend being relentless in finding out what's going on, and oftentimes don't wait too long to address truancy, to address absenteeism. Don't take it lightly because I've been involved in a number of wellness checks related to absenteeism. And when you go and bring someone with you, knock on the door, find out what's going on, why they're home today, oftentimes you get a lot more when you make that wellness check. You really, you can cut Cut to the issue very quickly if they've been out for a couple days. I do, as a principal, I did a lot of personal follow-up with parents. I just called parents. There's automatic calls and automatic emails. I just had relationships with parents. I invested, well, obviously I invested more of my time in relationships than technology, as was evident earlier today. I invest all my time in building relationships, and when you have those relationships, you can leverage them. It was very easy. It's very easy for me to call up a parent and find out what's going on, invite them in, and really, you know, get to the bottom of what's going on. But don't wait too long. Do it early. Don't let it get away from you. Do a wellness check if you haven't heard from a student, you know, in a few days. If you haven't heard from a parent and a student in a few days, Just get your school liaison officer to conduct a wellness check and see what's happening.

I love your answer, and I loved what you said about being relentless because one of the things when we have to think about litigation, there's a term we have in special ed. I don't know what it stands for, but it's called the term is CYA, and so I don't I don't remember what that stands for, but it's it's something that we need to pay attention to as a part of this one. My my daughter is a millennial. She she uses it, so I who knows what it means. So keep that one. All right. So let's go. Let me ask you another. Another question, and then I'll get to another question in the chat in a second. But when a parent conflict starts escalating, what do you do in the first 48 hours?

Call the parent. I'll call parents in advance if I see something— when I would see something percolating with a student, if there was an uptick in something and it wasn't consequential, It was maybe just a one-off. I, again, I leverage relationships. I have no, no problem. Just, I didn't put any of this in email, but I would call a parent and say, hey, it's Amy from the middle school. Give me a call. I just want to check in with you on a couple of things that we've observed here at school. And it wasn't disciplinary. It was, you know, what can you tell us? And, or the parents, the parents were really appreciative. I call with great news. I would call parents with really cool things that I saw happen, which they never know what to do with. I know we toss that around like that's on your principal to-do list, but I did it and it paid dividends. But I simply, I call parents. I wouldn't send an email. I would just call them and Schedule, see if see if we could schedule a few minutes right then or at another time, or I'd invite them in. And but I I never wait. I also if I I was a same day. I'm still a same day person. Anything that comes through, any concern, issue, problem, I'm same day. I'm calling calling that person. And addressing it. If I don't have an answer, if I can't give you an answer to that problem or have it resolved, I'll let you know I'm looking into this. I will call you back by noon tomorrow with next steps. But it's— I, I'm an— I have always operated, um, kind of within the same day.

Great. All right. All right. There's a question. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate you jumping in like that and, and thinking about— thinking about the urgency of this one. Is there's a question in the chat asking for an elaboration. I basically understand what elaboration on due process patterns. I'm going to answer that now. I just want to see from your perspective what you're seeing also. We're still continuing seeing science of reading as a demand from parents. We're seeing kids relating to autism needs, making sure that we're providing appropriate services for them. Based on research-based interventions, not just some fly-by-night. Do you have research that clearly documents what's going on as a part of this one? Compliance issues are going through the roof in multiple states.

Mm-hmm.

Compliance used to be where if you evaluated the— if you took a little bit longer than 60 days to evaluate the child, got the kid in and wrote the IEP a little faster, got the kid in the door, it was basically the thought process was no harm, no foul. We're seeing a lot more relating to compliance, and that's something that we're seeing. And those are the easy gets for us as a part of this one. I alluded to this before. We're seeing things relating to the science of math, and what the big thing also is relating to the provision of ABA therapy in schools. And so those are things that I've just encountered. But last is districts not having staff trained in how to take data for an FBA and then implement and write and be part of an appropriate BIP. This in addition to a dramatic rise in 504 litigation as a result of the Supreme Court case last June. So keep that in mind. Amy, you see anything else out there?

We're just seeing— we're seeing more and more interest in ABA therapy. And Michigan is— there's some legislation out there. Yep. And so we're seeing an uptick in that. And just parents accessing it and then accessing it during in another at another location clinic outside, you know, during the school day but separate from the school setting. So there there's that the you know autism related and all of the programming for you know to provide. the most appropriate programming and services for our students with autism. And again, it's the idea of coming, always coming back to the individual and what they need. And sometimes I think that gets lost and really trying to keep the individual needs versus kind of what people are comfortable with And how they program and what they provide.

Okay. All right. There was another question in the chat, and in one sentence or less, when you said a wellness check, what did you mean?

A home check. Go to the home.

All right.

Yeah.

Okay. That's what I thought you meant. Make sure that you do what you're going to do.

Resource officer with you, or like a social worker, another professional. But we refer to them as a wellness check.

Okay.

Yeah.

So Amy, thank you very much for joining us, and I really appreciate the fact that you gallivanted and moved forward as a result of your technological problems. And it's been fun. But Amy and I, we had a car ride, and we had some really candid conversations about what special education is. There are some great people out there providing services. Amy's an example of one of them who understand what is going on in special education and can be a resource for you as a part of this. Month. And so that's why we brought her on to talk about her from her perspective, because it's volatile. Parents are upset about what's going on in Washington. Teachers are unsure. Just make sure you understand, and Amy, nod your head appropriately if you endorse what I say, is what a teacher does in his or her classroom with a child eligible for special education services has not changed, and we still have a legal obligation to ensure that that kid receives a free appropriate public education. And that's something we need to emphasize as a part of this one. All right, anything else before we wrap it up, Amy?

No, great. Thanks for having me.

Thank you. It was a pleasure to work with you, and I appreciate your flexibility about this one. Um, so I'm, I'm going to move on. You can stay there, but I'm going to put that— we've already taken some questions. If you have questions about this one, okay, do— I, I'm well aware that the best, the best, your best questions will come next week or the following week. Just make sure that you reach out to us and help with this one. So I'm going to turn it over to Lauren right now, who's going to bring us home and talk about what the symptoms here. All right.

Thank you. Huge thank you, David and Amy, so much for sharing your time and your expertise with us. We really appreciate the insights and perspective that you've brought to this conversation. And to everybody who is our participant today, thank you so much for taking time out of your day To join us, I do want to invite you to participate in one last poll before we wrap up. You can scan the code or the link is in the chat. We would love to hear from you and how Parallel can help support you, whether you're looking to fill an open role on your team, support and retain current staff, strengthen maybe some compliance things that you have going. Going on, or proactively plan for next school year. We'd love to start the conversation with you. This poll helps us understand where you are and how we can follow up with the right information. Thank you again for spending part of your day with us, and I hope you all have a wonderful evening and relaxing spring break.

Thank you very much. Let us know what we can do for you.

Okay. We'll leave everything—

we'll leave this on for just a quick more— quick one more minute so you can scan the QR code to answer the last poll before you check out today. So be sure to scan the QR code or click the link in the chat.

Thank you guys for coming. Give 5 seconds.

Okay, thank you. Have a great rest of your week.

Bye-bye.

Yeah.