Hey, friends, it's Tim Vegas. This is thinking cluesive. I'm just gonna give you a Tim update before we get into our conversation with April rehrig. If you've been listening to the podcast for the last couple months, you know that we're kind of winding down season 11. We have four more episodes until we take a break for the summer, April rehrig. Today, next week will be Louis Lord Nelson, author of design and deliver a UDL expert, and fantastic podcaster if you don't know that already, also Sam Drazen from changing perspectives. And Barry Levin rounds out our June. And she is from the I am Abel Foundation. And though we all learn differently campaign, today, I'm talking to you without a script. It's been a wild a couple of weeks, my daughter graduated from high school, the end of May, we went on a family trip to Nashville. And then last week, I was at the AUCD Leadership Academy in Atlanta, and it was just a whirlwind of activity. And I'm finally back ready to produce and finish out this season of thinking inclusive. But I just wanted to speak to you, without a script today, letting you know that I'm so privileged to be able to do this work. And thank you so much for everyone who has told me that you've been a longtime listener, or that you just started listening. This job is a dream come true. I'm coming up on four years, the in the middle of August, coming up, as we start, you know, season 12. It's unbelievable how life giving and important I feel like this work is and so very fortunate to be able to call this my job. And thank you to everyone at the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education for taking a chance on me and what I can bring to you communications, I think I see a big part of my job is, you know, yes, to tell you about how MCIE partners with school districts, and how we can help equip educators and school districts to be more inclusive of all learners to each and every learner, but also to share what is going on in the world of inclusive education as a field. I think I should be leaning into that a little bit more. So I'm just working this out, you know, again, no script today. So thank you. Our guest today is April rehrig. And again, I'm not going to pretend like I'm not reading this. But April rehrig is the founder of Rhys educational advocacy and consulting LLC. She spent over 20 years as an elementary school teacher and school psychologist in Los Angeles. Before starting rise. April's a licensed educational psychologist, and board certified special education advocate. She attended the prestigious COPPA seat 2.0 and 3.0 programs, and April's a certified Autism Spectrum Disorder clinical specialist and Master Ip coach. Her services include Parent Advocacy and IEP coaching TPT toolkits and templates and do it yourself IEP workshops, which we actually talked about during our conversation. We talked about strings spaced IEPs I'm not going to I'm not going to preview it any more than that. I think that that's a really good explanation of our conversation. And if you want to learn more about string space IEPs how to maybe rethink about what words and strategies you're putting in IEPs stick around today and all of the episodes in June, are sponsored by the described and caption media program. DCMP is the nation's leading source of accessible educational videos. Membership is Free for families and school personnel with at least one early learner through grade 12 student with a disability membership includes free access to 1000s of videos educational television series with captions, audio description, and American Sign Language. DCMP also provides guidelines for captioning and describing educational media as well as professional development and elearning resources. DCMP is fully funded by the US Department of Education, and all its services are free. So, go check out the CMP dot o RG and see how the CMP can support your school or student. Okay, now, we're going to play some ads. And then when we come back my conversation with April rehrig. We're not gonna have your free time this week. I just didn't have time to put anything together at the end of this conversation, but I will tease something. There may be a bonus episode sometime in June that you're not going to want to miss. I'll tell you about it next week.
April rehrig Welcome to the thinking cluesive podcast.
Thank you so much for having me, Tim.
April, we were like two ships passing in the night at the Coppa conference. I just read I just realized it's So
Friday night at 5pm that cocktail hour.
I know it's so hard. It's It's so hard. It wasn't. It wasn't the most well attended. So for the people who are listening, we represented the first episode of inclusion stories at the Copa Annual Conference in Atlanta, which was fantastic and, and got a great got a great reception from it. But it's hard because everyone wants to, you know, go out on Friday night. So. But anyways, it's it was a, it was nice to see you in the passing. And I thought it was you. So April, I wanted to bring you on because I think IEPs are confusing. I think they're really confusing. I think they're confusing for teachers, also. So not just families but confusing for teachers. And for the teachers that are listening, I'm sure that it'd be nice to hear maybe a different perspective on that. So why are IEP so hard to understand?
That's a great question. And it brings up a really important point. When we think about education plans in general, right, whether it's 504 plans, IEPs, even intervention plans. That's at least I was a psychologist, and I won't date myself, but it was many, many years ago before they put them on the computer. It was handwritten. That thinking was okay, we're going to write an education plan, we're going to be thinking about what can we do differently for the child. And things were more simple than and that isn't necessarily a bad thing. So in the past 20 years, that I've noticed that because of the laws because of the complications and because school districts are trying to defend themselves. They've made things so difficult and complicated, that it is so hard to read. Even in the past five years, I've noticed most IEP documents for most school districts are about five to 10 pages longer, more is not better. More does not mean you're going to get a better education plan, and we've lost the biggest thing and this is the problem with IEP s is that we forgotten who were writing the education plans for and that's what you want to think about is when you're writing an education plan, who is it written for? If it's written for the consumer, and the consumer or the parents and the child, then we can read frame, our writing the IEP s. And when we reframe that, then we can use Person Centered language, strength based terms. And we're identifying the unique learning needs, but we're really getting back down to the real world, everyday tasks that kids need to learn. So it's not about the data, it's not about getting the most legally sufficient IEP, because legally sufficient does not mean that it's actually a great tip, it just means it means a law. So we've lost that. So I think when parents and teachers come to the table, they really need to think about who we writing this for, what are we talking about? And what are we going to do differently? If you have those kind of three questions in your mind, it's going to honestly make a better education plan that's easier to read and so much better for the child.
I was always, so taken aback by how IEPs are different everywhere you look. So they can differ. They basically differ from school district to school district. But not only that, like when I taught in California, we didn't have I'm dating myself, because I had my first IEP was I could have written by hand, but I opted to type into like a fillable document. So it still wasn't like one of those online IEPs that a lot of districts, you know, and that's just because I hated to handwrite anything I still do, I don't put my handwriting is atrocious. But even that a lot of districts have their own, like IEP online system. Right. Why? Why is it so varied? Across from school district to school district and from state to state?
A really good question. Um, I noticed that too. Tim and I have worked for Ford School Districts over the years. But as an advocate, I've seen IEP documents from all over the country. And what from my personal experience, what I experienced when I worked in bigger and smaller school districts in California is that most IEP s are written. So in California, we have what's called Celebuzz, which are groups of school districts that are together, this Selfoss will purchase the on line version, the right they'll make a purchase. And they'll say, these are the type of IEP documents we want to buy from, there's only I think, five or six publishers in the US that do most of the IEP s face, Sei s is one of the biggest ones. And what you'll find is that what how they structure the IEP is not based on the consumer, which is parents. So case in point, when I was the school psychologist in a very large school districts in LA, I got part I asked to be part of the committee that was responsible for how they allocate the IEP documents. And I said, I want to be on the committee and all my other school psych friends were like, Why would you do that? And I said, because I want to know what's going to be on the document. And I want to have a say, because I don't like how it's structured. And I went to the meetings. And what was fascinating to me, Tim, is that they were like, we've never had a teacher on our committee before. And I said, Well, wait a second. So you guys are writing plans for teachers and staff. But there's nobody on your committee to vet out like the quality control? And they said no, and I thought there's the issue. So your question points out a really good point, Tim, is that they're not written for the consumer. And they don't have to be complicated, and they don't have to be the same because laws do change. However, the structure is not consumer friendly. Another thing I wanted to bring up that's really important to note is that the parent input section in some districts is amazing. And other districts, there isn't even one. And so that is reason for itself for parents to start asking questions and going to the district and saying, you know, what can I be on the committee to formulate the IEP, we really want to have a say and that's where we need to take back, you know, the education plans and get back to what really matters, which is kids and teachers.
Yeah, so that you bring up a great point about there not being spaces for parents to put input in some in some IEP documents. And also, how they are written like the language that is used when describing a child can be Well, I mean, you know, you've read probably hundreds of IPs, just like I have read a lot of IEPs and And they're not always the most favorable. When you read them, when you read them, it's like, the person that wrote this must really not like this child, like you can actually feel the contempt in the language. So, do you have any thoughts about like, is it? Is it connected to that IEPs are just so hard to work with, that people feel like they have to write a certain way? Or is it? Is it a mindset issue? Like, what's what's behind that? Do you think?
I think the biggest thing that's behind that, Tim, is that when we are trained, and when I refer to we, it's special education, teachers, teachers, school psychologist, when we were trained, even today, they still use the medical model. So when you think about the medical model, and how you write a medical plan, right, just like a surgeon, you're very precise. And you say, here's the problem. Here's the diagnosis. Here's the prescription, well, that doesn't use Person Centered language, it doesn't focus on the consumer, and it doesn't focus on strengths. And the thing that's missing in many education plans is that when we don't talk about strengths, we don't talk about what the child can do and exactly what you're referring to, it presumes kids are incompetent. And this is a real problem. And the reason why Tim is when I was a teacher, and for many of your teacher listeners out there and admin listeners out there, you get an IEP, and oftentimes, you generally only get two pages to look at, they don't give you the entire IEP, and they say here is the child is going to be in your class. So for example, there's April in your class, she has ADHD, okay, so that already kind of predisposes your mind to think about things. And then she struggles with this, she can't do this, this is hard for her. What does that mean, for me as a teacher, it means I'm going to assume that they can't do things, and I have no idea what they can do. And that is my expectation. So when we only talk about deficits, it doesn't help. And it also promotes seclusion. And it promotes incompetence that you don't know. And you don't know what you don't know. So if we change our mindset, and we focus on strengths, we talk about the child's unique learning needs, but we talk about what they're going to do differently. This is what the business world does. Amazon does not talk about an improved getting a packages to the door by not doing this and not doing that five out of 10 times. They talk about how do we get it from here? How do we satisfy the customer? And how do we make it more efficient? And that's where we need to reframe special education and work on how we write IEPs.
Oh, I love I love that reframing special education. We've had lots of guests, right, lots of guests, whether they're consultants, advocates, teachers, and this theme keeps coming up over and over and over and over again, like maybe even we need to get rid of the term, right, special education, maybe it's, well, there's lots of different ideas. But how do we get there? Because we are so locked in to this system? I mean, it's a systemic problem. How do we get there? Do you have any? Like, is there any hope? Because essentially, it would require a school district to say, we are not going to be creating and facilitating IEPs that are so focused on deficits, we're going to be focusing on strength. So how do you even get to the point where it's a strength based IEP?
Great question. Well, there's a couple of different ways you can do it. In California, they passed an initiative to folk ought to focus on Person Centered IEPs. But they didn't put the teeth in it, meaning it was kind of, well, you could do this if you want to. That generally doesn't work with school districts, that has to be more of a mandate to happen. The bigger change that can happen and can happen one by one and individually, collectively, is that every one of your listeners, every one of your parents, every one of your teachers can go to their next IEP and start asking questions and start saying, Okay, I see what you're writing here, teacher. What about what they can do? What about, okay, they're really excellent with Minecraft. So they're really good with using working on video games and they're really a visual learner. So how can we put that into the IEP? It also takes training. And one thing that teachers can start doing and asking for, and I asked this, and it was really hard, because it was one thing with us, can I have some tie up training, I'm really struggling with this, and you have every right to ask for that. I like some IEP training. I'd like some IEP training from a teacher, from someone who is qualified to teach me I don't want IEP training from an attorney, no offense to your attorneys out there. But I want training from a teacher, I want someone who's been in the classroom, and teachers can start asking for this. And if they start asking to get better training, and to be better prepared, or to be able to go out and get trained, and you know, you can get CEUs as a teacher, you can do this, okay, I want to go to this training, I want to do an IEP training, there are people out there who do IP trading, I do high up training, actually, and to work on these skills. And so it's going to take one by one, asking questions and putting it into the IEP itself. One of the biggest challenges as a school psychologist that I found is that we were trained as school psychologists to write deficit centered IEPs and deficit centered assessments, we were never trained how to connect our assessment, to the report to the IEP. And that's one of the biggest gaps. And that's one of the reasons why teams struggle is because they don't know how to make the connection, they aren't given the right tools and train. And we when we reframe that, and we offer tools and training, and we give people the skills, then they are able to perform. And that's what it comes down to is really demanding training, seeking out training and for your own education plans, working on it little by little. Yeah,
yeah. Are you familiar with the phrase? Kids do? Well, if they can, it's like, from Dr. Ross, screen familiar. So I was having this conversation with our CEO. And I think that I think that, in general, families can get upset, frustrated at teachers, and school administrators, because they're not doing the things that they think they should be doing, meaning like string space IEPs certain kinds of behavior supports. And I was like, you know, what, if teachers and educators are doing the best that they can, right? Like, what if they are they just, this is how they were trained? This is what they were doing. There's no like, there's no ill intent. It's like, they just don't have the skills. Right? So I was like, what if it's teachers do well if they can? Right? And so how do we get to the point where they do better? And it's through actually giving them the skills? So how do we give teachers the skills to facilitate IEPs that are strengths based? How do we facilitate? I mean, how do we give teachers the skills to reframe some of the challenging behaviors that they that they encounter, so that it's not just get this kid out of my classroom? Right? So in these in the training that a teacher would have to learn about how to how to do a strengths based IEP, what are some? What are some things that they would learn in, in this training?
That's a great, that's a great question. So when I teach parents and teachers how to write an IEP, we talk about what is the function of an IEP? What is it supposed to do? And like I mentioned earlier, it's about how do we do things differently? So when you structure the IEP through language, you really need to think about, okay, what are we doing, what are we working on? And what do we struggle with. So in the present levels of performance, which is actually the most important part of the IEP, you can structure your language and when you restructure it, it's going to kind of impact the rest of the education plan and reframe it into a strength based instead of a medical model. So when you look at the language, you'll always want to start with strengths. Strengths have to do with what the child can do either what they're able to do already, or what are their assets. Assets can be something like I said, visual processing, or it could be something they're able to complete or they already know. This would be embedded into the accommodations, accommodations and modifications are actually based on strengths. And then we look at such strengths, then we look at weaknesses. weaknesses are not deficits per se, they're actually the child's unique learning needs. This is what they struggle with that should be coming from the assessment that should be coming from the previous progress reports on the IEP goal, then we look at opportunities for learning. This is one part that's really missing on many IEP s and has to do with, what are we going to do differently? Now we know that baseline, which is the unique learning needs, we know where we need to go, right, that's a strange, well, we're going to get there, the Dow is the opportunities for learning. And then the last thing we talk about is the threats robotic called barriers in the business world to have what's called SWOT analysis, it's been around for years. I, when I do IEP trainings, I use this analysis. And that's how we reframe the language, we put it into the four quadrants. From there, we can write the rest of the IEP, whether it's goals, whether it's accommodations, whether it's services, because we've restructured the language, we're using the strengths to get us to where we want to go with a goals. And we're using Person Centered terms that are sensible, relevant and useful for the education.
April, can you give us an example of what this might look like in a, in a child's IEP, you know, you can change the name or, you know, change some of the details?
Yes. So let's do this example, Tim, using creating a goal, okay. So most goals, actually, every goal I've ever seen ups for the past 20 years, is structured the wrong way. What I mean by the wrong way is they the goal, the reason why you achieve the goal has to do with date and percentage that is not strength based. And actually, that's not what the business world is they don't talk about by next year, someone will have 80% accuracy. Nobody does that in the business world. We need to use real world words that make sense. So when you structure a goal, you say, with you start the word with you don't talk about dates with something and that has to do with the underlying and performance conditions. Underlying is the perhaps the stuff you need before. And the performance conditions is the strength what you need after, right. So with these tools, that's how so and so we'll be able to achieve blank in this scenario. So based on that scenario, using X, Y and Z and four out of five trials by x date, so you're restructuring the goal, you're starting with the baseline, you're showing that the how tos which are the setups for the goal. And then you're showing the tools that's needed to achieve that. This is one of the reasons why so many goals are not attainable is because they don't talk about the how tos. There's no accommodation for the goal. There's no modifications, there's no underlying performance conditions, someone cannot learn how to read without having the right setups. Amazon packages cannot come to your house without having the right setups. That's why most goals are not achievable. We need to talk about the how tos and the setups to make them happen. And that's using strikes.
I'm thinking back to IPS I've been in and the discussion of the team, particularly on the school district side, saying we can't talk about how we're gonna do this in the goal. Has that ever come up in an IEP? Or am I making that up? Like, because I think that from the school districts perspective, if I were, you know, let's say I was like a director or something something and I'm sitting in the IEP, I would say, well, that is in you know, we talk about methodology, or like we're not going to talk about methodology. I'm not going to talk about particularly particular tools in the IEP. What, what would you say to that?
Great question, Tim. And I've gotten that before as an advocate. And I've also seen that often, and the reason why that's brought up is because there isn't again, the right training and people don't really understand the content of an IEP and what it does. So if someone says, oh, well, we don't talk about methodology. That's actually not true. Now, in a goal, for example, you cannot name a program, you cannot say I want oh gee, in my goal, that is very much true, but methodology is absolutely something you could talk about. So what What I do when I get in those situations is I ask a lot of questions. And I'll put someone on the spot by saying, Okay, I see what you're saying. So I'm a little confused. Can you explain that to me? And they'll say, oh, yeah, we can't do that. Say, Okay, I understand. Well, let's go back to the assessment findings. What is the assessment saying, Oh, the recommendation is talking about the someone really benefits from a cold read when they're being evaluated. They have benefit from doing a cold read. Can't see us? Yes. Okay. Teacher. Now, did you give this assessment I gave a cold read. Okay. So it sounds like this is something we want to work on, right? Yeah. Okay, well, how about their behavior? What's happening? Is their behavior often having so many meltdowns? I really don't know what to do? Oh, okay. Do you? Would you like some training on that? Yes, I would teacher, I would really like to training. Excellent. Let's capitalize that teacher, thank you so much for letting us know, you need support and training. Now we're gonna add training as one of the services, thank you so much for bringing this up. We're gonna be using this to help you, we want to give you teacher the tools that you need. So instead of demanding X, Y, and Z for a service or a goal, I went back to the assessment. I asked questions, I reframed what we were talking about. And I capitalized on what the needs were to get the services or whatever it was into the IEP.
That sounds like a really powerful strategy. And I think that for teachers, too. I think teachers don't know how to navigate how to advocate for services for their students, I would guess, because this is how I was that I really, I went into an IEP thinking, Yeah, this student probably needs this kind of service, or this kind of goal or this, you know, something in, in their mind, not necessarily predetermining. Right, but just like, you know, the student, you know, the family, you know, what would be beneficial? And so you get into the IEP. And you're like, how do I? How do I advocate, right? Is that even my role? Is my role to be an advocate? Like, how do you see teachers navigate the role between between being an educator and an advocate? That's
a great question, Tim. And it brings up a really important point, someone like myself as an advocate, it's, it's assumed that, okay, we're the only ones that are trying to get the kids help. And that's just simply not true. And to to assume that it's us against them at the table. This is the biggest problem in special education is that we pit each other against each other. When we reframe the process and talk about strengths base, we remove ourselves from what's called a position based argument. So when you're a teacher, you're a lot of times many teachers are actually being told, and this happened to me all the time as a teacher. Okay, well, April, you're coming into a meeting. So we're not going to talk about this. This is what we're going to be offering, right? And then so the, the administrators were saying, Okay, we can't do this. And so as a teacher, you're like, yes, I want this service for my child. But you're being told to not do it. That's not the way and that's not the intent of Ida law. And that's not how teams work. So when we kind of pull back and think about, okay, it's not us versus them. It's not this against that it's not you versus I, it's we and us, we refrain from position based arguments, which is you are the advocate, and you are the teacher and teacher, you can't be the advocate, too. We are all in this together. And we are going to work on this. And the IEP is actually a negotiation. It's actually a negotiation, negotiation is not a bad thing. In the business world, team meetings are filled with negotiation. That's the part of the game. So negotiation and having some disagreement is not necessarily a negative, it can be a positive, and that's where teachers, providers can be empowered. They can be advocates, and they can help their child. And if the school district is gonna say no, well, they're not gonna fire you. We all know, to the union rules. You're not gonna get in trouble for saying my child is really struggling. And actually, Tim, I worked with many teachers, especially my last few years. They bless their hearts were so awesome is an advocate for their students. They got a lot of blowback, but they were like, well, this is what the kid needs, and their kids got help and the parents were like, thank you. So teachers can absolutely be advocates. And we need to reach across the aisle to reform the process. Honestly simplify education plans as best we can.
Yeah, I love that. How can we simplify? How can we simplify those documents, and it would make everyone's life easier. Let's go back to IEP meetings. And some tips. Let us know if you have some tips to keep the students needs front and center in those meetings, like we just mentioned, right? There's a lot of positioning, the, you know, maybe you have a supervisor, a special education supervisor there, because it's a quote unquote, high profile meeting, right? Or maybe you have a parent that really wants something at a meeting. And the district knows that. There's a lot of competing interests. But how do we keep the the really the students needs front and center in IEP meetings?
That's a great question. I read a lot of negotiation books, Tim. And some of them were from from Copa, and then others are actually from my husband and other people I know that are in the business world. And what's fascinating to me is getting to guest getting past No, all of those kinds of negotiation books, they all focus on what we're doing APA table, and how we're discussing things. And so using the right language, asking questions, pausing, waiting, and rephrasing things is actually a helpful thing. So if teachers or parents are getting blowback and they're trying to get let's say, the end goal is you want 30 minutes of speech, your question is not going to be my child needs 30 minutes of speech that's going to get blown out. It's not about the 30 minutes, it's how do we get there? Where do IEPs come from IEP s are based on the foundation of assessments. So you're not going to be asking for 30 minutes of speech, you're going to go back to the assessment report, what is in the assessment report, or what is not in the assessment report, and what is in the child's needs. That's why say the present levels of academic achievement, and functional performance is actually the most important part of the IEP. So if you want to get the 30 minutes of speech, you need to go back to the present levels and see what's written on there. So if the child is struggling with joint attention, what we used to call I'd say we used to call social skills, understanding how to read the room inferential learning, all of those kinds of things. You capitalize on that need. Again, you're going to use the strengths to get there. And then we talk about, okay, this is a real struggle for April. She's really struggling with this. What do you think teacher April needs? How can we work on this for April? You're asking a question. You're rephrasing it, you're asking someone's opinion, then the teacher will say, okay, April is really struggling with this. I really have a hard time with that. Okay. Do you feel like that it would be beneficial to target this area and the goal? Yeah, they're really struggling with it. Excellent. Let's target that in the goal. Okay, who's going to be monitoring the goal? Well, maybe I will. Sounds like this is really related to you know, specially designed instruction. It might be more related to speech pathologist of his speech pathologist. Let's put you on the goal. Okay, speech path. How long do you think it'll take the goal? Well, it's going to take a few months, so it'd be about 30 minutes a week? Yeah, it's about 30 minutes a week, excellent. 30 minutes a week of speech. That's how we got there. So you didn't start by asking for the service. You didn't start by asking positions you started by need. And then again, you're transferring the IEP to needs based in person centered instead of classroom and placement oriented?
Yeah. Oh, wow. Great, great tips there. Great tips there. And, um, something popped into my head as you were talking. I just, you know, replay it's like, it's like this. It's like videotapes in my head, like replaying all the IEPs I've ever been in. And I was recently at a I was recently at a conference not COPPA where I heard someone say the reiterated kind of an old saying that, it just rubbed me the wrong way. So I'm gonna say it. Where districts will say, well, we can't offer like the best education for your child. We only can offer offer what's appropriate. Right, and then they use the old. I'm sure you've heard it about the cars, you know? Well, the Cadillac or the Tesla version versus the Ford, or, you know, I don't know, I don't know. I like I mean, I've owned a Ford. So it's not a big deal. Like, you know, that kind of distinction. It's like, well, you know, how do you like it? Is that something that you still hear? You know, that this, you know, the best versus appropriate? And what are some tips for educators and for families when they hear that? Because I know that I know that it happens.
It does happen. And Tim, yes, I hear this all the time. And people are like, well, that's a Cadillac, and we can't offer that Cadillac. And so when I hear that, I, first of all, I thank someone for saying that. Thank you so much for letting me know that this is really important to you. Thank you so much for letting me know. And I don't try to be rude about it. I'm just like, thank you so much for letting me know. So we were talking about what's child's needs? Are we talking about the child's needs principal? Yes. We're talking about the needs. Okay, great. Let's get back to the needs. Thank you for telling me about the catalog. That's great. Let's get back to the needs. So let's take a look here. They're getting called out a class all the time they're going to the office, they're really struggling principal. Are they in your office every day? Yes. They're in my office every day. It's driving me crazy. Thank you so much for letting me know. So principal, do you want them to be in your office? No, I don't. Okay, so a special education teacher? Would you like to be able to kind of work on this? Yes, I do. Okay, so let's formulate some type of services. What do you think teacher would help you? Okay, this would help me. All right. Principle. What do you need to get there? Okay, I really need this are really driving me crazy. Okay. Let's work on this together. So principles sound good to you. Teacher? Does this sound good to you? Okay, let's put this together. Do you see how I asked questions? I asked for someone to give me their opinion. I didn't focus on the possession. I use negotiation, positive statements and kind of ignoring things that were like, I'm not going to do this to getting to yes, you're using negotiation tactics. You're not pitting people in a corner, and you're asking questions, and you're using we and us and not I versus you. It people don't like to think of it. But honestly, IEPs are in negotiation. And that's not a bad thing. Because it's a team meeting. business, the business world, people use negotiation all the time. So it's about reframing. It doesn't mean it's perfect, but it certainly means you're going to have less tears when you leave a meeting.
Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Thank you for walking through that with you basically did that twice for us? So I think that, I think that whoever's listening, a big takeaway here is, is try to remove the positionality and the power dynamic, right? Because it can be very intimidating. But if you ask questions about either your student or your child's needs to get to where you want to go, that's what I'm hearing you say, Right? Is, that's a very powerful way to negotiate what you think is, you know, best for your child, because it's so it's so difficult. It's so, so difficult when you're in the meeting, and there's so much pressure.
And there's a lot of personalities involved. And it's, it comes down to people, right, just like human resources, human capital, whatever you want to call it, running a business, you're working with people and people are not perfect, and people have bad days. And some people are easier to work with with others. And that's part of it's part of the process. And so IEPs are absolutely a process. If you go into an IEP expecting for 30 minutes of speech for your child, you're going to be disappointed. And that's because again, you're focusing on the possession instead of the journey to get there.
Yeah, April, I know that you have a number of resources and guides and you've got, I think, something on teacher pay teachers, could you let everyone know, what could be useful for parents, families, educators that are listening?
Yeah. So like I was mentioning before, Tim, I really feel like if we're going to reform, special education, we're going to reform the IEP s. It cannot be us against them. They can't be advocates against teachers against parents. That's not going to get the change we're looking for. So we have to work together. So I when I crafted rise. I wanted to work with teachers. As parents in schools, and so a lot of times as an advocate, people have come to me and they're like, how do I do this? Can you show me how to write a letter? Can you show me what I need to do to get this. And so I've created templates, toolkits, and do it yourself online courses for a reasonable price, because people want the tools that they need. And like we talked about with Amazon, and all these other things earlier, if you have the tools, you can do it better. And so I have a teachers pay teacher's store that has templates on how to request for testing, how to get through a meeting, a meeting toolkit, a fiber for a guide, and then I have Do It Yourself courses. So if parents are interested in advocating for their child, teachers are interested in understanding how to write IEP is that our strength based and admins are like, I am tired of having meetings like this, I want a better way. Anybody can take our courses, you can go to RiSE educational advocacy.com You can follow me on Instagram at rise at advocacy or go to our teachers pay teacher's store at Rise educational advocacy.
Awesome, and and, uh, we definitely follow you on Instagram, and you have you make great videos. It's an inspiration I. I'm trying, we're trying our best to get with the video program. So hopefully, hopefully, we'll be putting out more soon.
Someone really young. That's what I discovered. If you hire someone who's young, they're like I can edit this YouTube video, you know, you don't know what you're talking about.
Oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh. No kidding. No kidding. Yeah. So that definitely check out the teachers pay teacher's store. And there's even some, some free resources on there. And they look fantastic. So definitely check that out. Any final thoughts that you wanted to impart to educators that are listening? Yes.
You don't have to go into meetings, being frustrated, you don't have to have tears after meetings. If you want to make things better than you have to do things differently. And educating yourself and empowering yourself at the table can be anything you want to but if you don't like it, you have to make a change. And so that's what I want to empower to teachers is that you can make things better, but you have to educate yourself and start by doing things a little bit differently.
What do you consider is the most important piece of furniture in a house? On the bed? Yeah. You want to expand on?
So you're sleeping in it every night? Yes. Okay, you are either alone or with a significant other. Yes. Your relationship with yourself and your significant other is the most important thing and has to do with health, wellness, rest, and finding happiness and hopefully love. So if you don't have a great bed, and I'm not talking about expensive, I'm talking about one that is comfortable, it feels safe to you. You're not going to go anywhere. So your bed is like your house. And that's why I feel like the bed is the most important piece of furniture in the home.
Oh, wow. I really liked that. April, I think I think I'm going to think more highly of my bed now. TempurPedic so well, that's a whole other thing. The match, you know, like, what kind of mattress and all that stuff? Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. I definitely need a new mattress. Sorry, honey. Okay, so I would say so I was thinking the dining room table and I think that along with the chairs and everything, because we we like to have family dinner. So I have a family of five of three kids. And we don't always we don't always sit down for dinner. But I think that it is such an important part of what we try to do is still have family dinners and like, have conversations and then also we play games on the dining room table. You know, like board games. Ticket to Ride is just you know one of them where you need a lot of space. My youngest daughter is 11 and she loves playing life. You know the game of life like I grew up playing life. Um, it's just, it's just really important when we have people over. So I would think you got to have a good, nice large dining room table, in my opinion. April rehrig, thank you so much for being on the thick inclusive podcast we appreciate your time
that's it for this episode of thinking inclusive, thinking inclusive is written, edited, sound design mixed and mastered by me in Vegas and as a production of the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education. Will we see you in Annapolis, Maryland, on August 6 and seventh for the MCIE Summer Institute 2024. We have two fantastic keynotes, Jordan Zimmerman, and under Tetra Fitzgerald information will be in a link in the show notes. Check it out. There is a special price for Maryland attendees so make sure to check that out if you live or work in the state of Maryland. Three more episodes of season 11 Thank you so much for listening. Remember to check out our sponsor DCMP dot o RG the described captioned media program and thank you for listening to me ramble without a script today. Original Music by miles credit. Additional music from melody. Thanks for your time and attention and remember, inclusion always works.
