How Changes in Washington Can Impact You

On this episode, learn what's going on in Washington, D.C. to hear how changes coming out of our nations’ capitol can impact you. After that, enjoy a Tech Takeaway with quick tips on using the Monarch. 

On this episode (In order of appearance)

• Narrator
• Paul Schroeder, APH Vice President of Impact and Outreach
• Ashley Palmer, Cornerstone Government Affairs Principal
• Jennifer Wenzel, APH Technology Product Specialist
• Michael Dennis, APH Technology Products Specialist

Additional Links

• Email Change Makers
• Call Monarch Customer Service: (833) 447-8444
• Email Monarch Support

Transcript

Narrator: 0:00

Welcome to Change Makers, a podcast from APH. We're talking to people from around the world who are creating positive change in the lives of people who are blind or have low vision. Here's your host.

Sara Brown: 0:15

Hello and welcome to Change Makers. I'm APH's Public Relations Manager, Sara Brown, and on today's episode, we're checking in to learn what's going on in Washington, D.C. Hear how changes coming out of our nation's capitol can impact you. After that, enjoy a first-ever Tech Takeaway with quick tips on using the Monarch. Up first, to help us understand what's going on, I'm tossing it to APH's Vice President of Impact and Outreach, Paul Schroeder and his special guest, Ashley Palmer Take it away, Paul.

Paul Schroeder: 0:47

This is Paul Schroeder, the Vice President for Impact and Outreach here at the American Printing House for the Blind. And I want to thank Sara for letting me take over the podcast for a bit. There are lots of things happening in the policy world that we thought it would be good to update you on. So we're going to focus a little bit on budget and funding issues. I'm very pleased to have as our guest, Ashley Palmer, who works with a group called the Cornerstone Government Affairs Group in Washington, D.C. Cornerstone actually works with APH. We say they're our lobbyist in Washington or our education arm in Washington, however you want to put it. Ashley, thanks so much for joining us.

Ashley Palmer: 1:33

Thank you so much for having me, Paul. It's a pleasure to be here.

Paul Schroeder: 1:37

Well, thank you very much. And tell us a little bit about who you are. I know you are now working for Cornerstone, but you have some experience on Capitol Hill as well.

Ashley Palmer: 1:45

Sure. Yes. So I have a passion for serving people and therefore have worked in and out of federal government and around the halls of Congress for almost 20 years. I worked for different members of the House of Representatives, including Speaker John Boehner at one point and the House Budget Committee. also the Department of Health and Human Services, and most recently worked for the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies.

Paul Schroeder: 2:16

Well, excellent. I am sitting here in the state of Ohio, so very lovely to have a former John Boehner person on the pod with me. We're going to talk, as I said, about a lot of activities happening in the Federal Government. And as I reminded Ashley before we got on, by the time this podcast airs, things may well have changed from what we talk about today, but we'll try to keep this as general as we can just to let people know what kinds of things are happening. So let's start a little bit, if we could, with the funding situation and start from the general to the specific. So federal funding, a lot of people are confused about how this works. what this means, how it takes place. So let's talk a little bit about how does federal funding occur. This is important to the American Printing House for the Blind, of course, because as I hope most of our listeners know, there is a federal appropriation that funds the work that we do that provides the accounts for states to procure books and products for blind students. And that's been happening since 1879 under different ways. But now it's an appropriation decision. So how does that come about, Ashley, in a general sense?

Ashley Palmer: 3:29

So the American Printing House for the Blind, their funding is provided through an annual discretionary appropriations process. And that is really where the House and Senate write legislative bills that fund the different departments and agencies, their programs, projects, and activities on an annual fiscal year basis. And in the case of the American Printing House for the Blind, their funding is provided through the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. So there are, like I said, each chamber has their committee, there are 12 subcommittees, and Labor HHS, we call it for short, is one of those 12 subcommittees that works on annual appropriations.

Paul Schroeder: 4:17

Did you work for the Senate Labor H subcommittee? I don't remember. Was that part of your...

Ashley Palmer: 4:22

Yes, I did for almost seven years. And I began my work with the subcommittee, primarily working on Department of Labor, even though most of my time in Congress as a staffer has been in the healthcare policy space. So I did Department of Labor, employment and training, administration programs, but then mostly HHS, so Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Administration for Community Living. Health Resources and Services Administration, those different programs, I helped write those bills for the subcommittee.

Paul Schroeder: 4:56

So these subcommittees, they're called subcommittees because obviously they're part of a larger committee on appropriations. And so there's a handful of members in each body that are parts of these subcommittees. And do those members tend to stay fairly consistent from year to year as long as they're reelected?

Ashley Palmer: 5:14

They do, yes. Really, these appropriators, as we call them, they are typically team players. They are those members of Congress that leadership in the House and Senate can rely on to pass these annual funding bills. And so they do typically remain consistent year over year. It's rare for a freshman member to get a seat on an appropriations committee. It's considered an A committee because there are some perks that come along with being an You're being so closely tied with the funding bills. But one of my former bosses, Senator Shelby from Alabama, used to say there are Republicans, there are Democrats, and then there are appropriators.

Paul Schroeder: 6:00

I sometimes will say to people that it's one of the last places anyway these days where you still see some level of bipartisanship.

Ashley Palmer: 6:08

Yes. Well, the process requires bipartisanship because it is an annual routine process that these bills have to be done. And in the Senate, especially, it requires 60 votes to pass anything. And so that requires bipartisanship. And usually the Senate bill will reflect more of that bipartisanship, the House bill, not so much because the House is set up to do the will of the majority. But at the end of the day, the final product usually reflects that conflict. compromise.

Paul Schroeder: 6:39

And I know there's another insider term that people use for the chairs and ranking members of these committees. And let me just say to people, the ranking member is the member from the minority party, in this case, Democrats, who is the head of the committee. What is that term that sometimes gets used?

Ashley Palmer: 6:55

Yes, yes. So there's a ranker, they may also say, inside the halls of Congress. And then the chair is also considered a cardinal, is a term that they use for the chairman of the different sub committees. And like I said, there are 12 subcommittees in each of the House and Senate.

Paul Schroeder: 7:15

And that suggests just how important these chairs are because they really do have a lot of influence. So we've got these subcommittee that make these decisions. There's also something called the President's Budget Request that we've just recently received and people may have heard about. What is that?

Ashley Palmer: 7:35

Sure. So the budget and appropriations process, typically, it should follow a cadence where the president's budget is sent to Congress as a request. Typically, that first Monday in February is when that lands in Congress. And then Congress takes the spring, usually March, to review that. the budget request, setting the different allocation levels, funding levels for the programs, projects, the departments, and their operational needs or the grant programs that they run. And then the committees will have the different principals, the secretaries for the different departments come up to Congress to testify on their budget request. And then from there, the appropriators will work through the budget request. And then they'll also open up what we call a portal to members of Congress to submit their own request based on what they're hearing from constituents, from advocacy groups, or what they may or may not like in the president's budget. They can submit that to the committees to request to be included in the bill.

Paul Schroeder: 8:52

A lot of times I know when the administrations change, the new president most assuredly does not put their budget in early February as they've only been in office for a couple of weeks at that point. We just saw the president's budget request. I think it just came out May, the more complete one. I'm not even sure if that is entirely done yet, but May 30th, I know for some stuff, at least where the American Printing House for the Blind was included.

Ashley Palmer: 9:16

That's right. And the first year, it is typically delayed because it does take a lot of time, especially when there's a change in the administration. The new party will want to reflect their vision for the years to come. And so there's a lot of work that goes into producing that. So yes, May 30th is when the president's budget We received sort of what we call a technical supplement or appendix. It gives a few more details on what's in the request, but we're still awaiting more details. And some of that is tied to the reconciliation bill that we might talk a little more about.

Paul Schroeder: 9:55

Yes, we're going to get to that for sure. So, and just for our listeners sake, American Printing House for the Blind was, they say level funded. So the presidential request was for the same level of funding as in the current fiscal year, which is fiscal year 2025. The next one will begin in October, fiscal 26. So it begins a couple of months before the calendar changes. And it's the same level of funding, 43, 431,000. That's typical. From my experience, the president almost always requests level for APH. Once in a great while, there's been a decrease. And I think once, maybe even less often, there's been an increase that's come from the president. You mentioned these portals that are open to members of Congress. And you said based on what they're hearing from their constituents and their own interests. So from your experience, having worked on the staff at a bunch of different levels, Can individuals influence this appropriations process? And if so, how?

Ashley Palmer: 11:21

Yes. From constituents and advocacy organizations, you know, can take different forms. So, you know, requesting meetings, either in the district office, the state office, or if there is a fly in to Washington, DC, that typically happens in the spring, like I said, around March, April, sort of in response to the president's budget, that's typically when those fly ins happen. Writing letters to members, you know, emails, phone calls to their offices, and And even I don't know that this is employed all that often, but I think even letters to the editor are really important because these members of Congress, they receive daily clips. And any time there's a mention of their name in the press, it hits their inbox. They see it. They get it. And so I think that's a direct way to get into their inbox. If you're having a letter to the editor printed mentioning you're a member of Congress. I would also suggest. for folks who want to get involved and build a relationship and cultivate a foundation with their members of Congress to not only weigh in when there's a need, but to also just express appreciation and gratitude when they have done something right. So often they only hear from people when they've done something wrong or something is breaking. So it's really meaningful when folks weigh in with those positive notes as

Paul Schroeder: 12:49

I always like to remind people that APH and so many other programs to have so much positive news to share about things that are happening. And regardless of how what you think of your member of Congress, they don't mind hearing about good things because they don't probably hear it very often.

Ashley Palmer: 13:10

That's right.

Paul Schroeder: 13:11

Do you have any sort of interesting stories about situations where you saw individual advocacy make a difference? And before I do that, I should probably define a term. You said these fly-ins that happen. And just for folks, that's when a group of individuals, often a set of businesses or something, come into Washington from around the country to advocate for policies. And our own community has that, the National Federation of the Blind and the Americans Council of the Blind both do organized meets in Washington where their members come in in February and March and do those spring fly-ins that Ashley talked about. Any fun stories for advocacy?

Ashley Palmer: 13:54

Yes, and specifically, it means so much for these members to hear, like I said, from organizations because the members of Congress themselves then make requests of the committee cardinal or ranking member to be reflected in that bill. And so ultimately, I think an advocate wants their request to be included on that member of Congress's letter to the committee. And so there are some examples where smaller organizations, just like a husband and wife or a brother and sister started an organization, in one case, advocating for more funding and research for Lyme disease, for example. And we have year over year seen increases and funding dedicated to increasing awareness about Lyme disease, but it really started in observation from just a very active and involved you know group who were affected on the ground by Lyme disease and their personal lives got involved and over time there are now you know dedicated programs there and funding and it's increased year over year because of their work there's also you know just you know the Alzheimer's disease group they're so active and They are, I think, just an example to look toward for advocacy in terms of the coordination. They're very good about weighing in with their members and arriving, sort of coordinating their meetings with big events on the Hill, committee hearings. So they're in there seated where they're all wearing purple, very coordinated, that sort of thing. There was, I would suggest though, Certainly knowing who you're talking to. If you do have a meeting or a phone call, I've had instances where people refer to me as the senator. And while I was humbled and honored, I had to tell them that I was just a lowly staffer, but I would get their message to the senator. I've also had cases where I was in a meeting and an advocate sort of unloaded on what the Republicans in Congress were doing and what certain members were doing. And I had to remind this person that I was a Republican staffer. But it was a very cordial, when she recognized her mistake. So it's just important to know who you're talking to. You'll have some background on who they are. But even the staff assistants, those would be sort of the entry level folks who are answering phone calls, greeting you at the front door. I would say even staff assistants sometimes rise to levels of chief of staff or secretary of something or other, assistant secretary. So I just remind folks to always keep in mind who you're talking to and where they could go someday. You just never know.

Paul Schroeder: 17:08

Yeah, lots of stories about that. One of the guys we work with at Cornerstone was Senator McConnell's driver when he started out, and he apparently wasn't a very good driver either. So they found a better job for him in running appropriations eventually. So I want to turn to a topic that has been much in the news. It's important to, I think, the people who listen to this podcast who work in education. The president has vowed to close the Department of Education, the Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon has said that's her final mission is to close the department. Is that something the president can do? And what's the current news on that?

Ashley Palmer: 17:47

Well, the short answer is no, the president cannot unilaterally close the Department of Education. And there are a lot of variables at play. But I think this this effort reflects sort of on the macro level, just right now a distrust in some institutions and some corners wanting schools to be more responsive to parents and wanting to return some things, control back to state and local jurisdictions. So I think they're reflecting some of that narrative that's going on right now. But interestingly for the Department of Education, they have an organizing statute I don't know that this is the case for a lot of departments, but the Department of Education is actually authorized and statute to exist. So that's one factor working against the president and sort of shuttering the department. So there are efforts that the administration is taking to, I would say, unwind certain programs and pull back. One of the larger areas are in sort of the federal student aid, financial aid sector. sector, trying to get the federal government out of that, bringing the private sector back in to that space. There was also just this week some news about the Department of Education coming to an agreement to shift employment or excuse me, career and technical training programs over to the Department of Labor. So there are steps that they're taking to sort of unwind and pull back.

Paul Schroeder: 19:25

I want to, at the moment, there is not an effort that has gained, I think, strength yet in Congress to repeal those statutes, though there are bills, right, that have been introduced to do that.

Ashley Palmer: 19:40

That's right. I would say that the sentiment in or interest in eliminating the Department of Education is probably stronger in the House of Representatives amongst Republicans, less so in the Senate. But there are a lot of just sort of legal ramifications that I think members of Congress and their staff are trying to understand as it pertains to the Department of Education. And so like the special education And Individuals with Disabilities and Education Act, there are certain authorities there that I think members of Congress want to ensure that these programs don't fall through the cracks and ensuring that there's certainly continuity of funding. And some of these things are very important to these members.

Paul Schroeder: 20:31

Well, let's turn our attention to something we might call the O triple B. What is the one big beautiful pill? What does it do? What is it for?

Ashley Palmer: 20:40

Sure. So the one big beautiful bill is called a budget reconciliation bill. So it's basically a legislative vehicle that is only used when there's unified government between one party that has control of both the administration and the House and Senate. And it's a budget tool that can bring federal spending and revenue, so like taxes and fees, into line with a budget resolution. And What makes this budget tool so appealing is that it allows for, um, passage through the Senate with just a simple majority of votes, 50 votes. And I mentioned this earlier when we were speaking that the Senate typically requires 60 votes or three fifths of its members to vote, um, for something to pass for a bill to pass. Um, but reconciliation requires just a simple majority. So that's the appealing part, but it's a very complex process and we can talk about that. What makes it complex, but, uh, At its core, it's really a bill to bring the budget in line with that resolution.

Paul Schroeder: 21:51

And this particular package has some extensions of tax breaks that were passed in 2017, or 2017, I guess. That's part of it. There's some spending changes, I gather, in the bill. To bring it back to maybe specifics around education, is this a way in which the Department of Education could be shut down?

Ashley Palmer: 22:16

No, it's not. Reconciliation process is really only geared at what's called mandatory funding. And so talked about discretionary annual appropriations. Discretionary annual appropriations only make up about maybe less than a quarter of the total federal spending. Mandatory spending is really what is sort of what we call permanent or direct, or it's funding that just goes automatically out the door for services like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, that type of spending makes up over three quarters of the total federal budget. And reconciliation can really only address mandatory spending. So APH, the American Printing House for the Blind, our appropriation, it would not be affected in this case because it's not a mandatory appropriation or mandatory funding. And the Department of Education, I'm sorry, to answer your question about Department of Education, a lot of the funds funding through the Department of Education is discretionary formula grants for K-12 education or the special education rehabilitation services. And so that could not be affected. Where members of Congress are looking at policies that could affect the Department of Education are largely around, again, that student financial aid and sort of resetting the balance there with the federal government.

Paul Schroeder: 23:47

And there is something tucked into this bill about Choices for Children Act or something like that. What does that do?

Ashley Palmer: 23:53

Yes. So that is a newer, it would be a tax provision right now. It is in the version of reconciliation that passed the House of Representatives just before Memorial Day. And it's the Educational Choice for Children Act. It had been introduced, a version of that legislation had been introduced earlier this year. And essentially, it would allow for a charitable donation incentives or tax deduction for funds to support scholarship awards for students to cover expenses related to education. So I believe the way the Ways and Means Committee in the House wrote the language, it would essentially just be for individuals to make those donations and for students to benefit from low-income households.

Paul Schroeder: 24:43

Something that people may want to keep an eye on as this moves through the Senate. And as I understand it, the goal for the Senate has been, and I guess still remains, to try to pass their version before for July 4th.

Ashley Palmer: 24:54

That's right. The overarching goal is to have the complete reconciliation bill passed into the president before July 4th, but that is not looking likely. So right now, it's really, I think, the Senate's ambition to pass this just through the Senate chamber by July 4th. But there's a lot that goes into writing the reconciliation bill there. Because of that 50-vote threshold in the Senate, there are are certain limitations that Congress has put on the reconciliation process that limit sort of what we call extraneous policy writers and things that are more political in nature typically cannot be included in reconciliation bills because they have to just be funding measures that can affect the deficit. Or revenue measures. So things that are overtly political typically do not get included at the end of the day. And so Congress is working through that process now so that they don't jeopardize sort of this privileged nature of this bill on the Senate floor.

Paul Schroeder: 26:08

And I know these are the kinds of things that make all of us who don't work around Washington every day just incredibly frustrated. Like, it doesn't make sense. Why is this this way? But there are reasons not to go into today, but there are lots of reasons why these things are set up that way. But if you think about your life, there's all sorts of places where you can't always do everything you want to do. You can't speed down the road as fast as you want to without some consequences. So there are always rules. What generally is happening with Medicaid? in this bill?

Ashley Palmer: 26:39

Sure. So Medicaid has been a big topic here because it is part of the mandatory spending in the federal budget, as I mentioned. And the Republicans in Congress and the White House have indicated that there is some areas where they can reduce spending in Medicaid by getting at waste, fraud, and abuse in the spending. Now, some of the specific policies that the House is considering and the Senate is looking at right now would relate to work requirements and tightening work requirements or actually implementing work requirements for the Medicaid program, stricter eligibility requirements, more frequent attestations or eligibility checks on the part of states. There are also some provisions that they're looking at that would impact the way states fund their Medicaid programs. And this is more sort of on the provider side. So provider taxes, or we call them state directed that states do. But at the end of the day, any of those changes will affect how much money states have to spend on their Medicaid program and would affect services is what analysts are saying that would happen at the end of the day. So there are several programs and policies at stake there and could affect hundreds of billions of dollars in terms of savings that Congress is seeking to achieve here.

Paul Schroeder: 28:16

And I think just to quickly wrap on that a little bit, Medicaid is a shared state and federal program, right? And I know there's been the offer of Medicaid expansion was part of earlier efforts around expanding healthcare. So some states took that offer and received additional federal funding for that. And correct me when I say something completely off here. And I've heard statistics that something like 80 million people are currently receiving Medicaid.

Ashley Palmer: 28:45

It is a state federal match. And what the Affordable Care Act did was essentially incentivize states to expand Medicaid to able-bodied working age adults. So typically it had been programmed for low-income women, children primarily, but under a certain income threshold now in certain states, they can receive an enhanced federal match from the federal government if they are serving that able-bodied population.

Paul Schroeder: 29:18

Well, very good. Ashley, I want to thank you, and I just want to close by coming back to appropriations and just to remind people how, if they want to be involved in speaking up for funding for things they care about, obviously, you know, we care about APH, but there's a number of things that I'm sure our listeners care about. The best time to do that is going to be typically right that early spring timeframe when Congress is really fully engaged on that, or at least the subcommittees are fully engaged on those topics.

Ashley Palmer: 29:48

That's right. Before, before the appropriations committee begins writing their bills, um, you know, when the president's budget drops, uh, or is announced, that's typically the best time to, to get engaged. And then sometimes in the fall, once the house and Senate have published their reports and bills or had their committee, uh, hearings, markups, that sort of thing. Um, then it's, it might be a great opportunity to weigh in, um, you know, in terms of, uh, supporting one bill over another or advocating for report language that accompanies one of the bills, either in the House or Senate, for final inclusion.

Paul Schroeder: 30:28

And we're going to hear the House Subcommittee and Committee on Appropriations will be making its decisions late July, Senate probably a little bit after that, if that is, of course, if they get to it. And then we'll have a little better sense of where at least some of the labor HHS education provisions are. Those are the ones that will come last in the process, I guess. And I think almost everybody is betting, of course, that we have this thing called a continuing resolution that we've lived under for many, many years now, where Congress doesn't finish by October and kicks it forward, decision-making forward to later in the year, sometimes even into the next calendar year, where they finally will get around to being able to finish the appropriations process. Are you guessing that's going to be the case?

Ashley Palmer: 31:16

Come October 1st, yes, a continuing resolution is highly likely. And again, this comes back to the O triple B, as you called it, that reconciliation bill, in large part, is taking up a lot of time and energy in Congress. While the Senate focuses on that, the Senate will pass their version of the reconciliation bill, but then the House will have to adopt that or they might have to conference and that just takes away your time that could be spent on appropriation. So a continuing resolution is highly likely in the fall.

Paul Schroeder: 31:51

We have covered a lot of ground. Thank you for doing that with us, taking us through these steps, Ashley. We really appreciate it.

Ashley Palmer: 31:59

It's been a pleasure and happy to do this with you. Thank you so much.

Paul Schroeder: 32:05

This is Paul Schrader and I'm going to toss this back to Sarah.

Sara Brown: 32:09

Thanks so much, Paul. And if you have any questions about what you just heard, send an email to changemakersataph.org. You can find that email address in our show notes as well. Up next, it's time for our very first Tech Takeaway. This is a once a month brief segment that shares quick troubleshooting tips for various APH technology and products. Here's APH's Jennifer Wenzel and Michael Dennis. Hello and welcome to our first episode of APH's

Jennifer Wenzel: 32:41

Tech Takeaways. I'm Jennifer Wenzel.

Michael Dennis: 32:44

And I'm Michael Dennis.

Jennifer Wenzel: 32:45

And we are so excited to be with you here in this segment where we will give you quick 10 or 15 minute tips or takeaways that you can use as you are using some of our braille and technology products and our other products.

Michael Dennis: 33:00

We've experienced a lot that people have questions, really simple questions, but don't really have the time to read through a lot of documents. And so we want to use this little segment of our podcast to give you really exciting tips, exciting takeaways you can just listen to while you're on the way to work or while you're, I don't know, just cooking at home and just use it for any future references if you face any challenges with your APH devices.

Jennifer Wenzel: 33:30

Absolutely. And today we're going to focus on the Monarch. But before we do that, I want to tell you a little bit about myself and then Michael will tell you a little bit about himself so you know who we are as we're giving you this information. Like I said, my name is Jennifer Wenzel and I've been at APH almost a year and a half now. I started on the Braille technology team in product development. And now since February, I have been a technology support specialist, which means that I support people teachers and students in the field using our products and with Michael do some remote workshops and some in-person workshops on Monarch, especially. But we will be working on other products as well. My background is in adult blindness rehabilitation. I've also worked with blind preschoolers, blind transition age youth, and I've also worked with blind seniors. So I've seen a lot of different people on their blindness journey and love to teach people and help people, especially by giving small tips and tricks that really can make things easier and can break down maybe intimidating tasks. I am married and have three sons, and I currently live in Wisconsin, lived a couple other places as well, Minnesota, Maryland, and Colorado. I grew up in Wisconsin, and I love to cook, attend concerts and live theater, and I love to read. And I'm probably addicted to coffee, especially in the mornings.

Michael Dennis: 34:56

Oh, I can relate to that. So a little bit personal about me. As I said, my name is Michael Dennis. And from my job duties, I am Jennifer's counterpart. So we actually do the same things as technology product specialists. A little bit about me, I I'm born and raised in Germany and moved to the States a little bit over a year ago. And I have a background, one bachelor's degree in economics and one in sports management. Before moving to the States, I also worked in sports management as an event manager and elite sport coordinator for the Berlin Disabled Sports Association. Federation, which was also a lot of fun and great to work with people with a lot of different disabilities together from blind people over wheelchair users or people also with intellectual disabilities. It taught me a lot and I personally am married as well. I have a really young son and I myself have been an elite athlete for About 15 years have been to two Paralympic Games in the sport of goalball with Germany. I am retired now and I love teaching. That's also one of the things why I came to APH and to this role in particularly. And I think that builds a great bridge to teaching you guys something today, which will be about connectivity to Wi-Fi on the Monarch. Because sometimes you are connected and your Monarch tells you you are connected, but the access to the internet is actually not there and talking to multiple people and Jennifer experienced it once herself on a work trip there's a little trick how you can try to get it up to speed again that your internet works which is actually just making sure your time and date settings are correct to the time zone you're in Jennifer tell us how

Jennifer Wenzel: 36:53

So first, we're going to talk about how to check your time and date on the Monarch. And these are commands you can use anywhere. And with speech on, of course, it will announce the time and date. But with speech off, it's a great, quiet way for a student to check the time during a class or a professional to check the time during a meeting. Not that any of us ever check what time it is during a meeting because our meetings are always so fascinating. But just in case you need to check time, it's a great way to do it. So enter with T. We'll give you the time and Michael can demonstrate on his monarch.

Michael Dennis: 37:27

Absolutely.

Jennifer Wenzel: 37:28

Enter with D. will tell you the date. Speech on. And Ryan will tell you. June 10th, 2025. There we go. So if your time and date are not correct and your monarch is like Michael told you, then you're going to need to go to settings to fix your date and time. And there's a couple of different ways to do this. And I tell you the different ways, not so you'll remember all of them, but because one of them may stick in your memory better than others. One great way to get to settings is to use enter with Q And I remember that like quick settings. So cue like Quebec. So that will get you there. You can also go to all applications in your main menu and go to settings. You could use the S in single letter navigation to get to settings. Or of course, you could use your arrows, your space, lots of different ways to navigate there. And the third way is to go to the options menu. So I grew up using Braille Tech and I've used Braille Tech for a while and I've used some HumanWare products and I've often gone to the options menu to change settings. And space with O for the Monarch will get you to the options menu. And at the bottom of the options menu, there is a choice that says Android settings. So that will also get you to settings. No wrong way, just the way you remember or what feels comfortable to you. Or you might change it up. But now you know three quick ways to get there. So, Michael, do you want to go to settings and then tell us where to go from there?

Michael Dennis: 38:58

Absolutely. If we made it to the settings, we need to go to system to be able to change the date and time. [settings] We can navigate also there with single letter, what I usually prefer doing. and if we're in system, we can also go then to date and time, where we can also get it with a D. And as you may have heard already, there's a button, set time automatically, which is a switch. You can just turn on or off to ensure that your Monarch automatically does this. But I think Jennifer can give you a little bit more insight now on how to actually change then your date and time settings.

Jennifer Wenzel: 39:51

So like Michael said, there is the switch for set time automatically, and it often is checked by default, but the time can still be incorrect. In order to make changes in your time, you'll need to turn that switch off. So you need to get your focus to that set time automatically box and use enter, or you can point and click on the set time automatically and turn that off. So once you do that, you're able to set your date or your time i usually set my time first because that often will fix the date so you go to time zone and it'll it will tell you a time zone that you're actually in which may or may not be correct but you want to select time zone and then you'll look to check that your region is correct your region should be set to united states if you're in the united states elsewhere if you are listening from elsewhere and then it gives you different choices for your time zone So if you're looking for central time, for instance, you would look for Chicago. It's all by states. So you'll be looking for the correct state and then the time zone. And once you find the one that you want, and one way to do this is by using arrows, you can also use space, you can use that forward space to navigate, or you can point and click on the one that you want. Once you select that, you can go back using the back button on the front of your monarch, which kind of feels like a sideways triangle pointing to the left. And you'll see in your choices, you'll find in your choices that it says time zone and the time zone should then be correct. And you can check if your date is correct. If it is not, you can select it and set the date to be correct manually. And then you can check the set time automatically switch again if you want to, because then when you're traveling, it may help you and may set the time and help you with that. So if you wanna check that box again, you're more than welcome to, it's a toggle. And from that point on, your date and time should be accurate and your internet should behave properly. So when you are connected, it should then access the APH TGIL properly and your email and all the other things that you need to access on the internet. So if you're having trouble, that date and time is always a good first thing to check. If you're still having trouble with internet or if you have other questions and you're just not sure where to go, one great thing to do is to contact our Monarch customer support team. They are an excellent team. They're there to help you and they would be more than happy to assist you. And you can do that by emailing Monarch support at Monarchsupport@aph.org, or you can call them at 833-447-8444.

Michael Dennis: 42:48

And that is our first Tech Takeaway for today. And if you have any questions, suggestions, or feedback for us, you always can send an email to changemakersataph.org. We are happy also to work with topics you guys are throwing our way. And I'm Michael.

Jennifer Wenzel: 43:09

And I'm Jennifer.

Michael Dennis: 43:11

And we are happy that we had you here today.

Jennifer Wenzel: 43:13

Thanks so much for listening. Have a great day.

Sara Brown: 43:18

Do you have a Tech Takeaway question about what you just heard or a suggestion on another product? Send them my way by emailing changemakers@aph.org. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Change Makers. As always, look for ways you can be a changemaker this week.