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

ABA on Tap is proud to present Matthew Storey, Esq. (Part 1 of 2)

Matt became a special education attorney because he saw firsthand the struggles his family went through navigating the education system. Matt's goal has always been to put parents on equal footing with schools and provide effective representation. 

In this episode, we discuss all matters from procedural rights, to the intent of IDEA from its origin, to the current state of affairs. Matt shares his very up close and personal experience with the notion of disability and adds his professional expertise along the way. 

Know your rights, demand due process and always analyze responsibly.

You can find Matt's expert law firm at the link below:

https://calsped.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Welcome to ABA on Tap, where our goal is to find the best recipe to brew the smoothest, coldest, and best tasting ABA around. I'm Dan Lowry with Mike Rubio, and join us on our journey as we look back into the ingredients to form the best concoction of ABA on tap. In this podcast, we will talk about the history of the ABA brew, how much to consume to achieve the optimum buzz while not getting too drunk and the recommended pairings to bring to the table. So without further ado, sit back, relax, and always analyze responsibly.

SPEAKER_00: 0:54

All right. All right. And welcome back to yet another installment of ABA on tap. As usual, I'm your co-host, Mike Rubio, along with Mr. Dan Lowry. Mr. Dan, how you doing, sir?

SPEAKER_01: 1:05

Doing great. Real excited about this one. Have somebody in the studio today.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09

I'm not going to be able to help myself with the pun, so I apologize to our guests in advance. We've got a really good story time today. We're going to give you the straight story. We've got a super important topic. We really do. I'll stop there. Really important topic. We're going to be discussing, I guess, education law, special education. Probably with specific regard to special education, but we'll get into all sorts of other topics. Very excited to have this resource for you listeners out there. I think that we will all learn a lot. Given that we both bring topics to the table, and sometimes I bring them, sometimes you bring them, Mr. Dan, you take the lead on this one. I'm going to let you lead because I think this is your guest, as it were.

SPEAKER_01: 1:50

Yeah, so just very excited to have a good buddy of mine, Matthew Story, joining the pod. So, so glad you could join us today. Matt, thank you so much for coming.

SPEAKER_03: 1:57

It's an absolute pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me, guys.

SPEAKER_01: 2:00

Super, super excited for this. It's the first time we've done live at your house. So, the second or third time we've had a live guest on.

SPEAKER_00: 2:07

Oh, good

SPEAKER_01: 2:08

point. And we've transitioned outside of the Reptile. It does

SPEAKER_00: 2:11

sound a little... We're in the culinary studio today, and we're going to call it the dining room studio, if you will, which I can tell... The distillery. Yeah, I can tell. The distillery. My bourbon collection. Very nice. I can tell that, yeah, it's a little bit more open air, so we'll see. I hope we don't get any street noise. I didn't prepare anything beyond just what we have here, but it sounds pretty good so far. It does. We'll let the editing tools do the work for us. So... Matt Storey, thanks again for joining us. We're really excited to pick your brain and learn from you today. We like to start with the origin story. Sure. And for you, I think there's a duality that is super important that probably drives your work and motivates you, and at the same time gives you a real personal insight, if not an unteachable empathy for the clients you work with. So as it were, I'll pass it on to you. Just go right into it. Yeah, go right into it, man. Let us know what you do and where you came from.

SPEAKER_03: 3:04

Sure. So I'm a special educator. and civil rights attorney. And that really just means I work with children who have disabilities in their education. I started off a long time ago. My brother has cerebral palsy, which I'm pronouncing wrong, but that's how you pronounce it when you're a kid. So it's just the way it goes. So we just say CP. And we grew up in the 80s and 90s, so there wasn't a lot of support for families like that. My mom was an early advocate. So for me, he had a real bad experience, a real bad experience throughout his education. He was isolated for weeks at a time. never got any support. And my mom and dad did a really good job with what they had. And so I went to law school specifically to do this. And my total focus has been the practice of law in disabled kids and getting them support and services throughout their life. But I do primarily focus on their education, which is where most of the service is, honestly. It's where you can get the most support in anybody who has a disability in their life. Really, the most you're probably ever going to get is when they're in school. And people don't know that.

SPEAKER_01: 4:06

So looking back on your brother's situation, do you think it had a long-lasting impact, or because you were aware of it and your family was such big advocates, you were able to kind of go outside of the school and get him the service that he needed?

SPEAKER_03: 4:16

Not at all. So, you know, I was born in Long Beach, and at the time, Long Beach probably was one of the best places you could be if you had a disability. Okay. And my parents moved us to Murrieta, Riverside area, and it was pretty bad from there. They had no support and services. They're better now. But I would tell you what still makes me angry. I still run into situations like this all throughout the state. It wasn't a situation where because my mom was advocating, she was getting services. I think a lot of it was just getting to the end of a rope and trying to get anything. He ended up going to the Riverside School for the Deaf and Blind, which makes no sense for a kid with CP who

SPEAKER_01: 4:57

had neither disability. I was going to say, is he deaf or blind?

SPEAKER_03: 4:59

No, not at all. Not at all. Understand that CP, like most disabilities, is a spectrum. There are kids who are super impacted they're in a chair they don't talk my brother's not that way he's six foot eight cognitively there you know he's a great guy he should have just been in a general education class throughout his life but that's not what they did they first they put him in they didn't have a special ed class so they just put him in a room by himself and played videos for him all day that went on for a long time my mom realized it and then we got him into sort of a special ed class that they developed but it wasn't really that and that went all the way through high school it was a bad situation It's a lot better for most kids now in that area. For me, that is the driving force behind what I do and why I do it.

SPEAKER_01: 5:47

Without your brother, you might not be in this field.

SPEAKER_03: 5:49

100% wouldn't be. Who knows anything about special ed? You have to experience to go through it. Every parent that ends up having a kid with a disability, it's a shock. My son was on an IEP early on. I had a lot of knowledge. It was easy for us, but most people You know, you get a disability, you know, diagnosis, you're shocked. Then you walk into a system you think is supposed to support you. And it usually, for most people, it does. But for some, you know, they don't realize it until they're years into the system that, oh, wait, this isn't the way it's supposed to be. And sometimes by then it's too late. And that can become a real problem for people. And that's usually when they call me.

SPEAKER_01: 6:25

Yeah. So I will do some, I guess shelling might not be the best word, but I will speak Matt's praises because I've used some of the resources that you have, one of them being the IEP Pocketbook. But you talk about the IEP process, and a lot of times I do think school districts oftentimes do the best that they can. Oftentimes, again, you see a lot more than I do for the kids that they work with, but they have hundreds or maybe thousands of kids at that school site, whereas a parent, you have one or two kids. And it is an interesting dynamic at these meetings where one person, one entity, the school district, the IEP team, has all of the knowledge, and oftentimes the other individual has almost zero knowledge. They're just coming in there like, I don't know what... autism is. I don't know what this disability is. I don't know how it's going to affect. You're the expert. You tell me. And that can be a dangerous scenario where one entity has all of the knowledge in that situation.

SPEAKER_03: 7:19

Well, it makes sense. If you're a parent, they have the degrees, they have the resources, they have the knowledge, and they're telling you your kid needs A, B, and C. Well, you would never think to challenge that. You wouldn't challenge your doctor. Why would you challenge the educational staff when you're first engaging it? And so, you know, that power dynamic is a real issue for parents early on. And what you see is they go along with the IEP team they're not really a part of it they just go along with whatever the team's doing and then you know you get to fourth or fifth grade and they realize their kid that should read is not reading right and then they're like okay now we have a problem and then they begin challenging the staff and they're noticing well wait a minute they're intransigent they're not doing anything they're not making any changes and that becomes a problem and I do agree for the most part you see school teams doing the best they can with the resource that they have that is true I think 90% of the time the other attempt percent of the time is not true. And they're just trying to kind of shuffle kids through a system and get them out of school. And that's usually where we play a role in the work that we do.

SPEAKER_01: 8:17

And I have one more question with that, and then I'll pass it to you, Mike, because I think you were going to say something. Do you find that that disparity or that discrepancy between school and parents? We live in San Diego. There's a lot of ESL individuals. There's a lot of nationalities here. Do you find that that is exacerbated with families that might not be English first language or might not be here for a while and really have no idea. They might have just gotten here and they don't really understand maybe how our education system works or something like that. So it's really challenging for them to advocate for themselves because they might not speak the language and certainly don't know how our education system works. Do you find that that's common? And do you find that There's any relationship there?

SPEAKER_03: 8:57

It's very common. We have a lot of different languages spoken here, a lot of people from a lot of different countries here that come from places where there was no education. So you walk into this country, your kid has a disability, and all of a sudden they're going to school. I mean, that's rare in most parts of the world where people are coming from. And then what you see is I think schools can play into that. So those communities are even more under-resourced, essentially. And with that, you see a lot worse... So the worst cases, and I think I can speak for most attorneys in Southern California especially, the worst cases you're going to see are going to be those where English is a second language, for sure.

SPEAKER_01: 9:35

But those parents wouldn't know to call a special education lawyer, right? They have no idea. So how do you get referred those cases?

SPEAKER_03: 9:42

So, I mean, I work in that community a lot. So people just know who I am. So if they're accessing some level of support, they're going to find out who I am, but they're also told not to. I mean, and I don't want to be, you know, I don't want to go too into this, but I have absolutely had parents who have brought up hiring a lawyer to an IEP team and been told that INS will get called if that happens. That's happened a lot. So I've been practicing for roughly 15 years and I can, it's definitely over 10 times I've seen that. So if I'm seeing that, you know, and there's not a lot of us, then that means it's probably happening substantially more. But most of what I see are just really underserved communities with the school system. And those schools are stretched very thin. You see that mostly.

SPEAKER_00: 10:24

So I can't imagine that's going to get any better anytime soon.

SPEAKER_03: 10:27

No, that's going to get worse. No, and we do get a lot of phone calls about this. How will this play into, you know, my kid's a naturalized citizen. I'm not. How is that going to play into it? And I cannot answer that question.

SPEAKER_00: 10:38

Yeah. I'm going to rein us back in a little bit. We've gone into the origin story as far as being a son and a brother and now an attorney all throughout. You've got a much more personal connection to that. You mentioned your son. I don't know if you can spend a little time talking about that and how you brought. So you were an attorney first and then you had your son who then ended up having the very specific need of legal advocacy, which you're able to provide.

SPEAKER_03: 11:03

It was fun when that happened. Actually, I have to admit. So my My son, my youngest, was pretty much nonverbal. We were getting services through our insurance. We were getting services, like a lot of people, through regional center. Did a great job, speech services. They were coming to the house, appreciated it very much. When we transitioned into school, my son is five. He's still pretty much nonverbal at the time, and they had done a speech assessment. They were a lovely group of people, and they said, well, your son no longer qualifies. He doesn't need speech. I'm like, he doesn't talk. In all fairness, they had no idea what I did for a living, right? That time, you know? And so I said, okay, well, we want an independent educational evaluation. And just for people that don't know what that means, it's important to know that when a district does an assessment, you as a parent have a right to request that assessment is done independently, which means the district pays for, but you choose the assessor. This is the number one thing most parents can do, right? For their kid, right? Because you're not trusting maybe what the district is doing. You don't like what they're doing. Maybe you think they should be doing more. almost always the answer is IEE.

SPEAKER_01: 12:07

And the goal is to remove the conflict of interest? Huge.

SPEAKER_00: 12:10

It's a second opinion, as it were. It's a good thing. Who wouldn't do that, right? Your doctor just told you news you didn't like. I'm going to go get a second opinion. Honestly,

SPEAKER_03: 12:17

I talk to parents a lot every week. And usually, I would say a substantial portion of those cases is get an IEE. It can cure so many things. So we do that. And a friend of mine was teaching at San Diego State at the time in their speech program, which was one of the best in the country. So I take my little guy over there and hand him to a bunch your graduate students. It was rad. And they took him, they did assessments for a while. They did some other stuff too. And then they brought him back. They gave me the assessment. They go to my IEP team meeting and they went from no speech to an hour of individual and an hour group a week. That's the power of that. Never had an issue since, by the way, that my team has done a great job and my son's doing really well. But again, I start off early. Most parents, right? In that situation, you're told he no longer qualifies for speech and they're going, okay, well, I tried you right huge mistake because we know so conclusively that early on services are going to be less services later and you're not going to have to be fighting to get more support later on and this this applies to everything from behavior to reading writing math social behavior everything you want to hit it early young and a lot of times teams just don't want to do that

SPEAKER_00: 13:26

what do you think constitutes that difference so again you said a lovely group of people it's not that they're not seeking to provide what's necessary what falls short where that discrepancy. You mentioned conflict of interest, Dan. I think that plays in. I mean, I don't know what kind of secret meetings happen or what the school psychologists get told or how they actually read the terrain politically or otherwise at certain times and realize that maybe their recommendation is supposed to be such and such. And clearly, somebody independent comes in and gives you a whole different picture. Give us some insight on that. How does that really happen? Because it makes no sense, right?

SPEAKER_03: 14:00

How does one professional so far fetch from another?

SPEAKER_00: 14:03

These graduate students weren't, you know, they didn't stand to gain anything by giving you their other than their studious observations and say, man, we're really into this. This is what we do every day. I'm getting a master's degree. I'm going to give you the best data I can give you.

SPEAKER_03: 14:14

We're going to do what you're going to do. We're going to do for your son what we think he needs. And this is the difference. So I'll start off with how it works out in assessments and then what I see in school districts. When a school district does an assessment, they're going to make a series of recommendations, whether or not it's a psychoeducational report, a mental health report. What I have found is when a school district does that, they're making a recommendation based on what they have, meaning what do we have on site that we can provide you? That's where the recommendation is coming from. An independent assessment is going to make a recommendation based on what the student needs. Those are fundamentally different. We see that all the time. Somewhat to answer your question about why are we seeing this difference, I think there are two things. I think, number one, again, they don't have the resources. You can meet plenty of people, teachers, psychologists, speech language pathologists, behavioralists, who go, we don't have enough people. you pull them aside they're going to we don't have enough people to support the kids that we have that is across the board true on the other side of that i think there is a reality that if you're around children who have disabilities a lot you see that spectrum right the kids that are on the higher functioning end of that spectrum are going to go less served because schools just aren't equating that to a need based on the other kids that they see the squeaky wheel always gets the grease right you know i mean i've been around disabilities my entire life life i've grown up with it i don't notice a lot of it it doesn't you know it you know i will see like if my brother was sitting here you guys would notice it right i wouldn't i i mean it would take me a minute you know and so there's that spectrum of disabilities that just goes underserved as a result of them being on that higher end spectrum where in fact they could use the services quickly

SPEAKER_00: 15:56

right right that makes a lot of sense it makes i mean it makes the what you're describing makes a lot of sense that discrepancy doesn't make sense and i i imagine it's hard to reconcile It

SPEAKER_03: 16:05

is. It is.

SPEAKER_00: 16:06

And you make a good point. Everybody's considering, you know, everybody's doing their due diligence in terms of saying, well, you know, speech therapist, I have this caseload. And well, that teacher is complaining about that kiddo. Maybe I need to pull him out. But that kiddo does OK. We'll keep him in the push in group services, for example. And I'm not being facetious or critical as much as I can imagine those that thought process in somebody's mind who is well aware of the logistic on any given school site as well as their caseload. And they are doing their best. And then they are what you described. is certainly relevant as well. Well, and

SPEAKER_03: 16:37

you have like 500 kids on the school site, right? You have one speech language pathologist. That speech language pathologist has a certain amount of contract hours, and people just can't fit in that caseload. So they're also going to give, even if they're giving you services, it's not going to be based on the need usually. It's going to be based on how long they're at the

SPEAKER_00: 16:52

site. How much time do I have?

SPEAKER_03: 16:54

And that's a reality. I mean, it's not their fault. They're not the ones in charge of the purse. Absolutely. But it's what they have. And so most of the time when I run them, even my son's SLP, who is great, she was a really good person. I know She had said, well, he's young. You know, we don't have a huge diagnosis here. So he's probably just going to socially develop language. There's truth to that. But, you know, he may not have. And we won't know that because he got the services he needed. And I think a lot of it falls into that.

SPEAKER_01: 17:21

So you brought up an interesting point and discrepancy. And we can hold off on it, Mike. I'll ask it. No, we're good. About what? Starting it based on what somebody has versus what somebody needs, which makes a lot of sense. Can you speak to that and maybe even what the law says somebody has a right to? Because my child might need– Mike and I, and I think you've even been brought in to consult, have a child that went blind recently. Let's say that district doesn't have any support for the blind, so they might– offer something that they have, which is not necessarily what the child needs. Can you speak to number one, what that differentiation is? And number two, what an individual's legal right is?

SPEAKER_03: 18:00

Right. So, well, I mean, the difference is that's probably not legal. And so globally speaking, the federal law, which is the individuals with disabilities and education act, uh, tells districts, they have to provide what we call a FAPE, a free appropriate public education. It's a mouthful, right? But what it means is that a district is required to ensure a student access their education and make progress in light of their disability, their unique disability. And they have to develop an IEP to address their unique needs. And so schools can never, ever say, we understand your student, your child needs this service, but we don't have it. That's illegal. right? They then have to create it or find a place that does have it. And you see a lot of that. So we're in San Diego, right? We have probably some of the best private schools in the country from what I've seen. I've traveled quite a bit. And so if they don't have a program to fit a student's need, maybe they have to put the kid in a private school. That happens a lot. I do a lot of that, actually. We don't like to because you don't want to take kids away from their typically developing peers. Sometimes the program necessitates it. But what you should never run into is we don't have that. I understand You don't have that. You're going to create it because that's why you receive state and federal funding for this purpose alone. It just requires a lot of work sometimes.

SPEAKER_01: 19:16

Now, when you say private school, are you referring to what people think traditionally is private school or are you thinking more of like a non-public school? Yes. Like what are you referring

SPEAKER_03: 19:22

to? That's actually really important. In the state of California especially, there's a difference between a private school and a non-public school. A non-public school is a school certified by the state to provide special education services. So these are focused primarily on disabled students. This is not a private school. not a parochial school like modern day or something like that where it's just a private school those are those are totally different and schools aren't going to be have to ever pay for that

SPEAKER_01: 19:44

so you're talking about the

SPEAKER_00: 19:45

non-public route always the non-public route yeah yeah now that the private designation now they're not required to have special education services or into but they but they might be compelled to if they can serve a certain need and then non-public schools by contrast then are completely specialized settings is that fair to say

SPEAKER_03: 20:02

pretty much I mean a private school doesn't have to really they might they don't have to they almost And they can do it if they want. But one of the things we have to remember that federal and state law, these are funding laws. Congress says, I'm going to give you money. You are going to adhere to the IDEA. Private schools don't take that money. if they took federal funds, then they would be held account to that. And then on top of that, most of the schools that we see are parochial schools, they're going to have almost no legal obligations. Can you define parochial schools? Yeah, if it's a religious school especially, they're going to have no obligations under any federal law for the most part. We avoid those. And we have to warn parents about that. That's fine, you can take your student here, but they can kick you out for whatever reason they want.

SPEAKER_00: 20:43

And they can certainly say, no, we don't have that. Sorry, you have to go somewhere else.

SPEAKER_03: 20:47

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 20:48

And it's their right, so not to put them in a weird spot, but that's their right to

SPEAKER_03: 20:52

do that. They're creating a program and a vision privately that parents are privately funding. They can do whatever they want. And that makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_01: 20:58

So just to define kind of the different levels of schools. So the private, no federal funding completely can do their own thing. If they want to help somebody with special needs, they can be compelled to do that, but they're under no legal obligation. We talked about non-public schools, which is like a specialized school, basically certified by the district, which is compelled. Then there's charter schools. and public schools. I think people know what public schools are. Charter schools, to my understanding in California, have to be affiliated with a district and are then compelled to follow IEPs. I don't know if you want to speak to that. And then the second part of that question is, in my experience, so I have a lot of parents come, I think, is Helix a charter? Yes, it is. So there's a lot of really good charter schools. One of the issues that I've heard parents say is that Because charter schools might not be part of the public school system, the resources that they have at that site might be a little bit more limited. So you might get more of the we don't have it kind of stuff, even though they are legally compelled to. Do you want to speak to charter schools at all?

SPEAKER_03: 22:00

Yeah, there's no difference between a charter school and a public school. They're under the exact same legal obligations. That even goes for if you're an independent charter school or a virtual charter school or a home charter school. You have all the same obligations because you're taking state money. And so it is true that there are some good charter schools. charter schools. I have a lot to say about that. You want to go into charter schools? This is your time. I don't think they should exist. I think all it is is just another way to say it's just a way to take public money. I don't like it. That doesn't mean they're bad. Globally speaking, I don't like this whole push away from public schools the way we're seeing. Charter schools most certainly are going to have less resources than larger school districts, but guess what? Little districts are going to have the same problem. The bigger a district usually the more resources they have. San Diego Unified, LA Unified, just whoever you're dealing with because they're just going to have more money. They're going to have more of a tax base. Smaller districts are not going to have as many resources usually. And we see that across the state as well.

SPEAKER_00: 23:01

So you started by talking about the difference between Long Beach and Marietta. And there it is. That's the difference. Yeah,

SPEAKER_03: 23:06

it really was. Long Beach, it was a big community. It's one of the bigger school districts. And at that time though, most kids that had disabilities went to specialized school within the district. That's illegal now. But my mom loved it. She loved it. All the parents did. Their kids had a disability. They went to this special public school that was all for kids with disabilities. They hated it when they went to what we call mainstreaming or least restrictive environment. They were really upset by this. And so that was another reason, I think, in part, that my parents ended up moving.

SPEAKER_00: 23:39

That's a good theme of conversation, top of the conversation there in terms of talking about least restrictive. And then sometimes that doesn't necessarily... uh, fit the mold for a parent who's now, hey, they're throwing my kid out into the wild and you're not giving them the individualized, specialized services. Maybe speak to that a little bit as a parent and as a professional because both circumstances are relevant. You want that least restrictive. That least restrictive sometimes then may mean that as a parent, you don't see the supports you think your child needs in place.

SPEAKER_03: 24:10

Yeah, it's a hard game to play because the idea is that you are educated with your typically developing peers to the maximum of extend appropriate that's what the law says but you know a lot of times kids given the their disability they have to be restricted is what we call it they go to and think just special education class and this is a really tough call because socially that is going to impact your child if you are not around typically developing peers you are going to miss out on a huge social piece and when you graduate high school you know you find that sometimes if they've been in that restricted environment and it hasn't been warranted especially that these kids become very socially isolated. And I think that really happened to my brother, you know, because he was in a special ed class. There was no reason for it. And I think he struggled a lot with that to some degree, just being somewhat, you know, isolated from typically developing peers. And we do see that pretty consistently. So I'm always pushing LRE because I see the social impact, but it's so hard to make that call based on a kid's disability. Like how, you know, where really should they be and how should we be pushing to keep them in LRE?

SPEAKER_01: 25:16

It's interesting because I I know when I had my boss, Kim, on the podcast, she had the great saying of whose needs are we meeting when? And are we changing the environment based on the school's needs? Are we changing the environment based on the kids' needs? And the client that we both used to work with, I think you may have even consulted with this parent at one point, a pretty, I don't know how old he is now, he's probably pushing 18, pretty large individual was doing some attention-seeking behaviors, not really violent or anything like that, but they were moving this individual to his own room because it was challenging to deal with. And I can understand from the school's perspective of why that's challenging to deal with. But I think that might pose some issues for LRE. And also my question from an ABA perspective is, okay, I understand why you're doing it, but now that he's in this other room, how are we getting him back into the LRE? And it almost seemed like it was like a warehousing for lack of a better term. I probably should have a better term than that, but like, let's just get him here so he's not affecting the other kids. But for his perspective, how are we teaching him skills so he can get back in that least restrictive environment?

SPEAKER_03: 26:18

I see that quite a bit. And that is warehousing. I don't think there's a better word for it. And so when you have a kid who's exhibiting certain types of behaviors and you see schools isolating him, that's a consistent problem. But you're right. Number one, there has to be a plan to get him back into the general education environment. And if there's not, they're most certainly violating the law. But it also goes to the fact that sometimes the supports we may need in a class, like a one-to-one aid, ABA in the class, which I know we're going to talk about is just going it's just completely absent and it's a huge issue because you know parents and kids shouldn't be put in that position and we get a lot I get a lot of cases like that where you know a kid or they're being sent home early that's a that's the bigger one they're sent home that's my favorite yeah I all the time I've got cases right now where you know this school year I mean the kid basically spent all year at home because mom would drop him off and then she would get a call an hour later you need to come get him he's so illegal

SPEAKER_00: 27:11

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

SPEAKER_03: 27:26

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

SPEAKER_00: 27:35

Even with simple things though, like a kids that, um, you know, might get anxious to use that, that word freely. And you're, they're walking up to the bus and they're anxious about going to school. And all of a sudden they vomit. And the, bus driver has to go oh wait that's vomit i can't wait but they don't have a virus they vomited because they're escalated yeah and now we're allowing the escape i can say that full disclosure because i was that kid who figured out that oh wait if i vomit you guys cool i don't want to go to school so let me conjure up i'm already feeling queasy i'm already not wanting to go to school i'm already upset it's pretty easy for me to up check my breakfast and hit now i'm at home

SPEAKER_03: 28:10

are you seeing this so i'm seeing this getting worse since covid Kids were at home, like being at home, and they didn't want to go back to school. So the behavioral cases that I see are all a lot of anxiety cases where the kid just wants to be at home. I have parents call me all the time. They're like, well, I'd like to get them on an independent charter school program. Like, don't do that. Don't work through this problem, but they weren't given the resources. They weren't offered the resources. So in those cases, we're like, okay, let's figure out how to get him back into school. And that can, I mean, we want wraparound services. They're in-house therapeutic services to try to start developing that plan. because I'm sure you guys have, I've definitely seen the 19-year-old who doesn't leave his room. Yep. Right? And the parent who is for no fault of their own is just struggling. And they're like, I don't care. I don't want to get hit. Just give them video

SPEAKER_00: 28:56

games. All he does is play video games all day. They're comfortable. And as a parent, that's a challenging notion, right? My child is comfortable. If I steer him in this direction toward their growth, they begin to express distress. Yeah. Or what I see is distress as a parent. No, no, just leave him alone. In most

SPEAKER_03: 29:13

parents, I mean, I don't know about you guys, but the divorce rate in our community is super high, right? It's over 90%. Most of the parents that I work with, my parents included, it's going to be mom-centered. And when you have a son who becomes bigger than you and you don't have the support, what are you supposed to do? I have a lot of parents I've worked with, moms who I've worked with, they weigh 130 pounds and the kid weighs 240. You're not winning that fight. And so, you know, for safety's sake, you're like, I have to let him do whatever he needs to do because I'm not going to get punched. And you see that over and over.

SPEAKER_01: 29:51

And then there's maybe I'm going down a line, a tangent here, but there may be like a codependency because both of those, that parent had to advocate so hard, which I understand. So there might be another solution that might actually be better for that individual. Hey, can they go to this potential residential school or something like that? But the parent doesn't want to give that up because maybe they don't trust him. Maybe there's a dependency. level there, there's no judgment there. But I'm sure that also can throw a little caveat of like, Well, we have a solution for you, but the parent doesn't want to take the solution.

SPEAKER_03: 30:22

They don't. Residential is a whole different league, and it's a hard call to make. I've placed a lot of kids throughout the country in residential placements. That's scary. I've got two boys. I don't think I could do it because now I have a 13-year-old, and he's in Utah, and I only get to see him a couple times a year. There's no way. There's no way. I don't think, but I do see it over and over again where parents have gotten to the end of what they can just take, and for the safety of them and their other children, they go residential. Usually, by the way, my experience in that case has been been phenomenal

SPEAKER_00: 30:51

you say utah because then placements are hard to come by

SPEAKER_03: 30:53

here in san diego

SPEAKER_00: 30:55

in san diego or in california there's a reason for

SPEAKER_03: 30:57

that yeah so in the 90s we got rid of lockdown in in california for residential placements this is not jail i'm talking about residential placements for people who have disabilities the reason we got rid of that is because you know basically there was a huge investigation lots of abuse so the only option we have two residentials here in the san diego county area they're great but if a student's eloping they need a higher level of care, we've got to go out of state. And it can be anywhere in the country, really. But a lot of the places that are closer are going to be Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and then you move into Texas. And I mean, I've even placed kids in New York.

SPEAKER_00: 31:31

That's a really fine line there. I mean, you would say that maybe those regulations are disempowering then to certain placements in California, but at the same time, the reason that they were removed, that those restrictions were removed is because they were being abused. What's the balance? That's hard to strike. I know that's a big question.

SPEAKER_03: 31:46

What's your insight? That's a tough question. What I would tell you is is oftentimes people that are making laws don't live the experience. You have no idea what you're talking about. It's like California making gun regulations. You really don't know what you're talking about. Let's make them less safe. I know that's a whole different thing. Your point's well taken. Most of the people that are making the laws when that happened, they don't understand. You've never seen the severity of the disability we're talking about. You most certainly have never lived with it. The idea was good. I get it. But the response is you overcorrected. You took away the resources. These kids are going to go to residential, by the way. It's going to happen. Or jail, right? Or jail, which is another part of my practice. I spend a lot of time working with juveniles, getting them out of jail and into residentials. But the point that you would explain, and I've tried to explain this to state legislators, is you didn't end anything. These kids are still going to residential because they require that level of care. Everybody agrees with it. The school district, the parents, the doctors, the psychologists, everybody agrees that this is needed but what you've done is you've now taken away the resource we have and now the kids are going to a fundamentally more expensive place you know 500 miles away where the parent can't see their kid you know you've took away a resource so it was to be frank stupid but I mean I understood it I mean you understand it when you read those cases and I still get involved in abuse cases now they happen everywhere but they happen in general education environments too

SPEAKER_01: 33:16

and in homes

SPEAKER_03: 33:16

and in homes yeah and in homes and so it And that was tough. Out of state? Yeah, it was one of the worst cases I'd ever seen where there was a lot of abuse in the home, too, and the kid, everybody agreed that she needed a higher level of care in order to deal with the psychological trauma on a 24-hour basis. That's the youngest. Usually we're looking at early teens is when we see residential placements because they don't become viable. I'm not a psychologist. Usually what I'm told is, listen, 16 or older, this is not going to be as effective. Whether it's not effective is different, but just less effective. So there's an age range you need to shoot

SPEAKER_01: 34:10

for. Is that because at 18 and they can basically get out so they won't be enough time there? Is that the part of it?

SPEAKER_03: 34:16

I think it's part of it. I mean, somebody better could probably answer that. What I've been told is just because the issues that they have are less treatable at that type of site.

SPEAKER_00: 34:27

That makes sense. I have seen it work. Longstanding habits too, right? So behaviorally speaking, whatever the child's been doing, they've been doing for a while now. So they've been eloping, they've been eloping for a while.

SPEAKER_03: 34:35

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

SPEAKER_01: 34:57

It's been frustrating. You bring up trauma. One of my coworkers at PROACT, because we work with all sorts of individuals, we talk from institute to group homes, to all sorts of things. She talks about the only thing difference between the workers, which is us, and the clients or the residents, whatever you want to call them, is circumstances. And I imagine if we had some of the trauma that these individuals had, we would be in their similar situation.

SPEAKER_03: 35:20

Oh, yeah. And, you know, nobody, the most underrepresented and under-supported group of people I've ever met are disabled foster care kids. So we do everything we can to help them. But, you know, if you're a young kid going through some of this stuff, and I probably won't go into it here but the stuff that you've seen that's just unimaginable you're not recovering from that totally and so you know trying to find these places to get support for these kids is you know paramount importance to me but not well served here in california sometimes we're better than most states though we are definitely better than most states

SPEAKER_00: 35:53

i recall consulting uh forgetting the specifics at this point but consulting at some point um with a client who was in a foster home situation and the professional surrounding really wanted to change this child's hoarding behavior. And it took a little while to explain to them, no, you're not going to do that. This is their stuff. And they don't know whether they're going to be shipped off right now or tomorrow. So they need to know where their stuff is. And the idea that, I mean, that's really heartbreaking to think about, you know, six, seven, eight year old who's now learned a pattern of and said, and you know, wise enough to say, I need to hold on to my stuff because this is my consistency. In

SPEAKER_03: 36:36

their world, that's everything. They

SPEAKER_00: 36:38

have nobody that cares. That's really tough. But again, one of those things, behaviorally, where they're going, I know the good intention is, yeah, this kid's got a mess under their bed. Maybe worry about other things for now. Make them comfortable over time, and I assure you, once they feel that consistency, they'll start putting things away. But

SPEAKER_03: 36:54

when you know, so you guys have knowledge. You understand what should be put in place. And a lot of times, we're in a situation where all the intellectual wealth, let's say, that understands this stuff and how to address it is pulled away from the global policymaking. You see that with the Department of Ed. You see that with school boards. We were talking about this off the mic earlier. You have a lot of people that just don't know what they're doing, making policy that dramatically impacts everything that we do professionally. And that reverberates across the educational system, which it can be devastating.

SPEAKER_01: 37:27

What I see happen a lot, and again, I see more maybe from the product side of things, I'm sure you see in you, alluded to it a little bit from the educational side of things with the residential places it almost goes back to the deinstitutionalization of California of like it comes from a good spot of okay we might not have been the most humane and you know back in the 90s of like you know Camarillo State Hospital and things like that of like trying to deinstitutionalize and trying to integrate people which comes from a good intention but then they're not the supports and it's not executed and unfortunately these people went from being institutionalized to being homeless and we deal with this so often of like yeah there's not enough resources, great idea, really poor execution.

SPEAKER_03: 38:06

Well, and then the long-term impact. So financially, the long-term impacts, I mentioned this earlier about early services, right? The importance of developing early services is so you don't need services later in life. And so what we've done now in a lot of cases is we have these kids that are impacted to some degree and we shove them through a system that doesn't work for them. And what do you think happens when they get out of school? Well, they become homeless, they go in the welfare system or something like that. Or jail. Where if we had just heavily invested in a young age, None of that, they would have been a productive member of society. And you're right, jail. And by the way, jail is usually more expensive than a residential facility. We find that. And not a good place to be. Jail is not a place where you recover. And a lot of times, I'll be in court and talking to a juvenile judge, and we've got great juvenile judges here. They're smart. Sometimes we get new judges, though, that believe that, well, the student needs to be punished for whatever they did. Sometimes they do. But also that there's going to be a level of recovery because we have these services and you have to spend an hour going. You have no idea what you're talking about. Again, higher end person making a policy decision on information or, you know, that they don't have or they don't understand.

SPEAKER_01: 39:17

I think California last I saw has the spends the most per inmate and has the highest recidivism rate in the country. It's like 70 or 80 percent. It's like ridiculous of people who go to jail and come back. It's really bad. Yeah. So, yeah. And it's

SPEAKER_03: 39:30

for youth, too. I mean, a lot of kids I can't go into some of them, but one of the, I mean, you just, it also snowballs. So one of the kids I'm working with or have worked with recently, like his crimes have gotten worse. He's got autism. His crimes have gotten worse over the last five years. And we were, you know, are begging, you know, the people involved, do not send him back to jail. We have better services and support. No, we believe he needs to be punished for this. And you're pulling your hair out going, this is only going to get worse. And even when this happened at the last time he was charged, you know, I had talked to the And they're like, well, I don't know what you're talking about. Oh, my God. He's just going to end up back in jail. And it's expensive.

SPEAKER_00: 40:08

Dan, you've got to get us in front of these people. So they're punishing him, but he keeps going back into jail. What is that actually, Dan? It's not punishment. That's reinforcement. It's recidivism reinforcement. Same thing, right? So you think you're punishing because you're removing them. And rightfully so. Maybe you're protecting the greater environment from them. We understand. But if they keep going back to jail, you're not punishing anything.

SPEAKER_03: 40:28

No. And when you're young and you go to jail, you know, after you done it a few at least from what I've seen okay you don't care okay this has become part of your life and so if you go back to jail you're like whatever you know I mean this is juvie yeah this isn't you know big boy prison but you know these kids are just become so desensitized because that's the time in their life they're living and so it has no impact and then you know it just because I've been doing this for so long now I've seen those kids okay well you know I'll warn them you're 18 don't do it again 19 they do it again and now they're in jail and you know and you can see But you look long-term at that funding because you try to plead with people with any way you have. And I'm like, this is more expensive if you don't do this. And we see it over and

SPEAKER_01: 41:10

over. Well, that's the whole reason that we get funded is because Lovaas, I think he published it in 87, showed that at the time if we were able to intervene– In preschool, by the time a kid got into kindergarten, he was able to get early intervention and save society over$2 million over the course of that individual's life. That was 87, I'm sure, with inflation and we're more efficient now. I'm sure it's many, many more millions of that. I want to go back to something you said earlier and just wrap this up before we move on. This have versus need. This school district might make a recommendation on what they have versus what the child needs because I think this is really important for our audience to hear. Now, you said it was illegal for a school to say, we don't have this, so we're going to recommend this. My guess is the school district isn't going to say that. They're just going to say, we recommend this. So what are your thoughts on... Is that where the IE comes in? How would you empower parents to understand? Because they might especially... We talked about maybe... non-native or ESL parents, but we can just talk about everyone specifically. Parents don't know what somebody has, and they don't know what's available to them, so they're just going to trust what the school says, and the school is not going to tell them what they don't have but what they need.

SPEAKER_03: 42:27

Can you

SPEAKER_01: 42:27

unpack that? I

SPEAKER_03: 42:29

think the first thing to think about, and I'll put myself in this, is you need to think of special education or the IEP process as a cycle. It's a cycle. We start off with assessment. We have an IEP, so we develop a plan that's appropriate to meet that kid's needs. But maybe we have a question about it. And so the next step is if you're a parent, they've done an assessment, you've had an IEP meeting, you're going, I don't agree with this. I don't trust this or whatever it may be. Or maybe they've been implementing that plan and it hasn't been working. My go-to statement is go get an IEEE. you know, let's get a third part, because no one's going to listen to you. A court's not going to listen to you. They wouldn't listen to me. You need to bring in a professional, you know, of equal standing to talk to that IEP team. So your go-to thing is just an independent evaluator to come in and make that recommendation. That split between what the district does and what the independent assessor recommends could be a legal issue, because you might have two professionals that go, this is right, you know, or this is right. But usually what what I have found is that a team will acquiesce to some degree and listen to what that IE assessor is. If they don't, then that becomes a potential litigation.

SPEAKER_01: 43:39

So that's coming from the stance of a parent not agreeing, which makes total sense to me. What if the parent doesn't know? So in my experience, a lot of the parents just sign. They're like, you're the expert. I sign. I've had parents literally come up to me and say, is there like a la carte menu of things that maybe it's not appropriate to my child, but how do I even know what is available to him? Because number one, I want to reiterate, we can talk about this later, just because something's available doesn't mean the school district's legally required to provide it. How would you empower parents on the front end to know that? I guess maybe the IEP or IEE is the answer. It

SPEAKER_03: 44:15

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

SPEAKER_01: 44:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 44:32

What I would say is this, then IEE is definitely going to be your friend. Okay. Number two is, you know, don't keep doing that. You know, measure the progress. So an IEP really is broken up into four things. It's broken up into present levels of performance. Where is my kid functioning at today? Goals. Where do I want my kid to go at the end of a calendar year? Services. What are we going to put in place to get him there? And placement. Where is he going to be sitting? That's what an IEP is in essence. As a parent, your number one job is to understand that document. If you do not understand that document, then you are not helping. And this is hard. It's hard to tell parents, hey, read this 60-page document and understand it all. But what you can look for as a parent is, is my child growing? Did they meet all their goals? But also on top of that, do I understand their goals? If you don't, ask questions. And that's a big thing. A lot of times, listen, when I went to my son's early IEP meetings, I didn't talk. It was really uncomfortable. Weird thing. I mean, I litigated a lot and I was very uncomfortable. So parents just get uncomfortable. So if you're that parent, my suggestion is to go home. Don't sign the IEP. Take a week. Read it. Highlight the things you don't understand and then email the questions back to the team. Do not sign that document until you understand it and you feel comfortable with it. And that's the best thing you can do, I think, because you're going to be the advocate next year, the year after, the year after, and that team's going to change. So if you're not seeing the progress, you know you have an issue. So if you're, if you're, you know, like again with my son, I may have agreed with that when he came into school and said, fine, we're not going to do speech. And maybe you're that parent. You're going, okay, I just agree with that. Well, let's see if by the end of the year or six months from now, he's not talking. Well, you know, intuitively there's a problem and we're going to go do something about it. What you do is different. You ask the district to assess, you ask the district to hold an IEP meeting to make adjustments, you know, based on that lack of progress, or you do an independent assessment. Um, I've done this for so long. I've litigated so much. My gut, I mean, it's a broken record. My gut is like, okay, I hear what you're saying. Let's go verify. We go IEE every time.

SPEAKER_01: 46:37

Love that Reagan quote, right? Trust but verify. Always. It's a great quote. So in your situation, you immediately got their recommendation and went to SDSU. And now you're telling parents to look at the progress and then make adjustments accordingly, which makes total sense. Do you ever run the risk, though, of if the plan is ineffective from day one, you look at the progress at the end of the year at the next IEP meeting. They're not making progress. We're like, well, what are we going to change? Maybe they change something still ineffective. And now we're two, three years down the road of time. We can't get back because we've been waiting for the progress of an ineffective plan. Yeah. Any thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_03: 47:13

Most of my cases, I would say right now, are usually in reading. California has done a real bad job with reading, specifically, and the whole reason for that. But you see a lot of kids going into fourth grade who can't read. And you see an IEP that's been in place for three or four years, and year after year, they haven't made progress. So from a parent's point of view, what I would do if I had an IEP, January 1st, 2023, and they were going to implement services and I signed off on it, and then we get to January 1st, 2021, before and I'm not seeing the progress. I'm asking the team, what are you going to do to address this? And if they make no adjustments to that IEP, I'm doing the IE right away. I don't trust that because there's no such thing as we're just going to keep kicking the can like that. And then number two, if they do make those recommendations, I'd be pretty diligent about, okay, well, how long until I see progress? So fine, you've added a reading program once a week. What are my expectations? And parents should ask that. You're going to do this. What are my expectations on progress? Tell me what I should do. That's a good way to do that as well without getting too contentious because parents are entitled to get progress reports on those

SPEAKER_01: 48:21

goals. is there has to be programs or procedures built around it. Just because we write a goal doesn't mean that it's going to start happening. So we had a child, he was in high school, that wouldn't advocate. And after all these IPs, they're like, fine, we'll put in a goal. We put in a goal that said, we'll call him Johnny. His name wasn't Johnny. Johnny will self-advocate on 80% of opportunities across. And I was like, okay, cool. That's in a piece of paper. But what are we going to do to help them advocate? Just because you put it in a goal doesn't mean that you're doing anything for it.

SPEAKER_03: 49:05

And that's why I like breaking down an IEP into four things. You got the present levels, you got the goals, but then the services. How are we going to get the kid to meet the goal? And that's what you were talking about. Great, you added a goal. What are you going to be doing? What does that mean? And again, those are the questions that we can usually ask. And if they say, well, we're just going to keep doing the same thing, that's a legal issue. But stuff like that, self-advocacy goals are a real issue. And because they're important and they're ignored. And it goes back to this idea of, well, we don't have enough services or support and we're dealing with these other kids already. So no, the teacher is not going to take the time to help Johnny or whoever self-advocate. And those types of goals require some level of service. Service should be attached usually to a goal. And those are the questions a parent can ask. What are you going to do? If they don't, again, that can become a legal issue at some point.

SPEAKER_01: 49:53

So focus a lot on the service. And self-advocacy is interesting because a lot of times that maybe goes against the convenience Yeah. Yeah. What do you recommend for parents? taking an IEP, giving it to an advocate and saying, what are your thoughts on this IEP?

SPEAKER_03: 50:56

I love that. I mean, just so people understand, there's advocates, there's lawyers.

SPEAKER_01: 51:00

And can you explain the difference?

SPEAKER_03: 51:01

Yeah. An advocate is there to guide you through the process, make suggestions, explain to you what's going on. A lawyer's job is to make the district do something they're not doing. So my mom was an advocate early on. No training. Advocates don't need any training, which is important. A lot of this started off with parents helping other parents, and that still goes on today. My preference is if you're just starting the IEP process, or you're ongoing and you feel like you don't know what you're doing, there are two things you can do. Number one is get an advocate. Do some research, hire an advocate, interview them, because it would be nice for you to learn how to go through this process. They will tell you what's available. They will walk you through it. It's a good investment. If you can't do that, that's fine. You need to get trained. Taking the time, there's always free classes, I do a ton of them, where somebody will explain to you how the special education process works. And that's So important. You know, I did one at a center a couple of weeks ago and the woman's daughter was 20, right? Really? She was there too. She's a great kid because you can be in special ed until you're 22. Oh yeah. Right. You know, either you get a diploma or you turn 22. She was in the still in special education area and the mom had no idea about this stuff. She felt so devastated. She's like, God, if I had known this. It's not your fault. Nobody tells you this stuff. You know this because we've talked. We're in San Diego County. It's the second biggest school district in the state. There are two law firms. There are just two. A colleague of mine, Megan, who's an excellent lawyer, she's got hers, I've got mine, and then there's maybe two solo practices. Nobody does this stuff. It's too hard. There's not a lot of resources always out there, but training is one that's always existing. If you understand this process, it will become easier for you, but I definitely am a big proponent of advocacy. Never go to an IEP by yourself. I don't do that. Take your friend, take your parents, take your husband, whoever, but never go to an IEP by yourself. That can be overwhelming.

SPEAKER_00: 53:02

What would you... Would you change anything about the way procedural safeguards are presented at IEPs? I mean, it's sort of an opportunity for parents to really be told, hey, if you don't agree with this, these are the things. Here's this sheet. They kind of remind me of the prints that my doctor gives me after my consultation, right? It's really long and difficult to read. I'm like, oh, I think I'm okay. I'm going to put this in my filing cabinet and maybe. Reminds me

SPEAKER_01: 53:26

of the Apple iTunes terms and conditions.

SPEAKER_00: 53:28

Oh, yeah. Or any app you buy, right? Yeah, I'm just going to scroll down and say, and I'm going to agree. So would you change anything? Do you think schools could do more to really help parents embrace the fact that, hey, we're telling you here that you have these rights?

SPEAKER_03: 53:41

Yeah. Well, so procedural safeguards, the IDEA, the federal law mandates that the school tell parents a certain amount of things. You have the right to an IEP in 30 days. You have a right to challenge the decision of an IEP. You have the right to audio record the IEP here in California, which you should do. But they give them to you in a five-page thing that's not written in English, right? I mean, it's very tough. It is in English, but it's school. Oh my gosh, terrible. It's written as lawyers. Acronym central. Lawyers wrote it. It's awful. Number one, you should read it if you're a parent. Schools could do a lot by just creating something different that makes it easier for parents to understand. They could actually read it to them, break it down for them. We did this. You brought this up earlier. I have a little booklet that's just procedural safeguards in English. There's a lot of those things. But actually sitting down with a parent early on and going, you can challenge this. You have the right to an independent assessment. Parents Parents should know that. If you've had an IEP before and you've been given those procedural protections, you should have heard, oh, I can have an independent assessment. Teams don't do that. They don't do it because they have 50 IEP meetings a week and it would just be too long. Trying to sit down and if I were on a district, I'd say for a parent's first IEP, we're making this a marquee issue. If we have to have two IEPs, we're going to do it. We're going to explain to them their procedural safeguards. We're going to make a meeting out of it so that they understand early on. We're going to empower them so that they can become better advocates long term. I would love to see that. There are some schools I've seen do that. They've done free trainings and stuff where they sit down and they teach parents, this is how you become an advocate. They don't do that because it's time consuming. They probably don't want to be challenged. It would be huge. You're all supposed to be there for the kid. If you're all there for the kid, telling a parent how to be an advocate would be great. I'd like to see more of that. There have been schools that have done that have singled those first couple IEP meetings out as a way to train parents, hey, you're going to be the person holding the reins for the next 18 years, so we're going to teach you how to do this. I think that would have a huge impact, but it would definitely create a lot more challenges, I think, to decisions.

SPEAKER_00: 55:48

One of the first things I did here in San Diego after graduate school was I was an educational or developmental... I was vendored as a developmental specialist through regional centers, and I did educational advocacy back in the day. I think that... was a service that was provided for consumers right up until about, I want to say maybe 2007. It went away, but it was something that consumers could access. And I remember... Um, so I, I, I did very well at it through regional center because I, I really came into it, um, you know, with a lot of transparency and, uh, being impartial. I'm here for the child. I'm going to talk to the parent as well as the school about what needs to be done. And, you know, even with that impartiality, you come in and you're looking at the school and then once in a while you've talked to the parents and you're like, you kind of have this wrong. You're asking for something that isn't going to work. Yes. I know your neighbor down the street got the, uh, instructional assistant, the one-to-one and And I know that the skia used to be called. I know it's changed or transformed a couple of times. How do you reconcile that? Sometimes you have to look at parents and go, I think you've got this the wrong way.

SPEAKER_03: 56:55

I spend a lot of my time every week telling parents they don't know what they're talking about. I say it much nicer. Yeah, yeah. Respectfully. You'll have a parent say, well, my child deserves a non-public school. They don't. That whole private school misconception. Slightly behind in reading is not going to give you a private school. Well, my kid definitely needs a one-to-one aid. He's 16, and if we give him a one-to-one aid, he's going to quit school. I mean, their parents, again, they're making decisions based on, it's like somebody reads WebMD and all of a sudden they think they need to download it. So this is a really, weird dichotomy because in one and you want to empower parents but in i guess in the conversation we're having it's how do you shut them down to some degree yeah and i think you do that by trying to explain like this is what the requirements are for a school district it's not the cadillac of services it's in order to make sure your child you know uh accesses and makes progress and so sometimes the services you're seeking are going to be far afoot of what a district's obligated to provide the one to an a it's a common one that's the big one because everybody thinks that's the answer everything right that's the fix all it's a cure to reading math writing socialization anxiety and sometimes it is but a lot of times it's a waste of time

SPEAKER_01: 58:04

and it just teaches the kid not to listen to the teacher because now they just listen to the aid

SPEAKER_03: 58:08

yeah or they can become too reliant on them I've definitely we've seen that I know you guys have

SPEAKER_00: 58:12

it's a super careful proposition from our perspective right in terms of the people we might send in there the ABA supports and it's a lot of knowing how to fade back it's not about the actual support it's about tuning the kid in and then getting yourself out of the way as much as possible well

SPEAKER_03: 58:25

but it It's also, it's a parent's response to not seeing progress. I'm not seeing progress. The team's not telling me what to do. So I went around the community and asked what was working for other parents. And nine times out of 10, they do say one-to-one aid or non-public school. And so they come to us with that. And then we have to pull them back and go, there are other things we can do. We can have a reading program. We can have somebody check in on your son or daughter, whoever it is. And that can be much more effective than a one-to-one aid. But sometimes, boy, they dig their heels in. And that cannot be the answer they want to hear from someone like us, especially us, because Because they think usually we're their last-ditch effort to get that service.

SPEAKER_01: 58:58

That's a la carte menu, right? Not knowing what's available leads them to one end or another of the spectrum. So it seems like what you're saying is coming from a point of knowledge and understanding. I think in anything. I mean, you know, parents that are listening to this, your kid's probably the most important thing in your life. Make sure you spend that little bit of extra time knowing... I would always say your kid's going to spend a third of their time at school, a third of their time asleep, and a third of their time with you. That third of the time at school, you want to know, you want to be your child's best advocate. And I understand advocacies can be expensive. So I'm not going to sit here on this podcast and be like, you have to get an advocate. I

SPEAKER_03: 59:37

wouldn't either, by the way. I just think it's a good idea if you can. If you can't, there are other resources out there you might be able to access. Regional Center still does go to IEP meetings, I understand. Service

SPEAKER_00: 59:47

coordinators will show. up yeah and then I mean ABA professionals we're always glad to join the team and yeah and we you know I like I like my role on those tables now because I don't again I can be very impartial and just really look at what the child needs behaviorally and just give my honest opinion there and that's the best way to to I think fit into those situations because there's so many opinions that are trying to converge I think everybody's good intention wants to take the lead I want to be the one that makes the difference which again we want to foster that fervor and that enthusiasm and then you have to work together so

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:15

yeah well and by the way I usually and I'd have to check on the but it's worth asking your service coordinator if there's any trainings. Any parent trainings. Plenty of advocacy trainings out there. There you go. There's a lot of those. You know, USD, I actually teach at it. USD School of Law runs a course, special education advocacy. Forget what the cost is, but it's cheaper than an advocate. And, you know, you go do a couple of weekends over there. And, I mean, you learn, you know, the nuts and bolts of everything that you would ever need to know as far as, and a lot of times people will do that course before becoming an advocate. Yep. People will come up to me, I'm an advocate now. I did my USD training. That's cool.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:48

This can This concludes part one with Matt's story. Please return for part two and always analyze responsibly. ABA on Tap is recorded live and unfiltered. We're done for the day. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. See you next time.