MCIE If you've ever been on the parent side of individualized education program meeting, you know how confusing it can be. Our guest this week wants to help.
My name is Tim Vegas from the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education and you are listening to think inclusive a show where with every conversation we tried to build bridges between families, educators and disability justice advocates to create a shared understanding of inclusive education and what inclusion looks like in the real world. You can learn more about who we are and what we do@mcie.org I'm here at the circle of friends coffee shop in Woodstock, Georgia, recording my intros and outros for the month of June so apologies for the background noise. Beth Leeson Feld is an occupational therapist, passionate about providing insider information of the school's processes and culture to parents in order to increase collaboration between parents and school staff. Her company the IEP lab provides online workshops and courses as well as produces the parent IEP lead podcast. Here's what we cover in today's episode, the inequity of individualized education programs, and how they often lead to emotional exhaustion for parents and educators, creating a more collaborative and child centered IEP process and how having a vision statement is key for successful inclusion. Before we get into today's interview, I want to tell you about our sponsor together letters. Are you losing touch with people in your life, but you don't want to be on social media all the time. Together letters is a tool that can help. It's a group email newsletter that acids members for updates and combines them into a single newsletter for everyone. All you need is email. We're using together letters. So think inclusive, patrons can keep in touch with each other groups of 10 or less are free and you can sign up at together letters.com. And now my interview with Beth Leeson, Phil, welcome, Beth, how are you?
Thank you so much for having me, Tim. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you.
So Beth, tell us about the parent IEP lab. Why was it important for you to create?
Yeah, so I'm an occupational therapist by training. And when I started working, I worked in outpatient clinics, and I worked in early intervention and all of these different settings that supported people with disabilities. And I always knew that I was going to get in schools, because my parents are educators. And so I knew I was probably going to land in schools, eventually, the benefit of being an occupational therapist is you couldn't have so many options for where we work. And when I got into the system, I was floored by how complicated it was, because OTS are medical professionals. So we had one class that may be touched on an IEP. So I sat down in my first IEP, and that first year that I worked in schools, and I was like, okay, parent, like, what do you want this IEP to include? And they looked at me, like, Do you not know how to do your job? And I was like, No, I do. But I'm so used to working with parents directly, and getting their input. And so it was just this kind of mess of a first year trying to figure out IEPs. And when I went on maternity leave came back fresh had seven IEPs in one week, because I served, I don't know, like 10 different teams, because OTS or related service providers, so came back had seven meetings in one week. And I was like, there's gotta be something out there for parents like to understand the IEP system to really get a grasp on what this all is, you know, and all the terminology. And to make it less confusing. And there were so many times in that week in particular that I was like, this is the same group of educators in every single IEP meeting. And every IEP is so different in the quality afterwards, like what is happening. And I started to look at the knowledge of those parents, and they knew enough to ask really good questions. They knew enough about the system. They had good relationships with teachers, right. And so they knew enough to ask, but I was like, There's got to be something out there that kind of tells parents about, like the insider information of like, how it works on the inside. And I couldn't really find anything that was the approach that I thought was really helpful. And so I started the parent IEP lab podcast. Oh, you know, I'm in the fall of 2021. And still working a couple other jobs, including working at the schools and then we hit some daycare, rough patches with my own son due to COVID. And I was like, Okay, well, I think this is this is my cue to like, do this full time. So we've been doing the podcast and then resulting like online courses to help parents have For the past year, and it's been really fun.
Oh, wow. So this is this is it? This is your job.
Yeah, it is now.
It is now. That's, that's fantastic. And I love the wanting to give parents inside information. That's a lot of how I felt as an educator going IEP meetings, it always reminded this, This situation reminds me of Are you familiar with the Incredibles movie? Yes. Have you ever say so? Mr. Incredibles goes to work like he's an insurance adjuster or whatever. And the boss is so mad because he's like, how does this person know all the ins and outs of getting around our insurance system? How is that possible? And Mr. Incredibles, I know, a lot of the time, like when you were describing that your situation? I'm like, I can just look. And I think it's so relatable, that every IEP is so different, but not necessarily because the learner is different, but because the team, it's inequitable, right, the way that they deliver services.
Yes. And I'm sure you've had this experience, too. Like sometimes at the end of an IEP meeting, you're like, oh, my gosh, I'm so like, elated, I'm so excited to implement this IEP, like, this is gonna be awesome. And then some of them, you're just like, emotionally drained from feeling like you're fighting the whole time. And it just doesn't have to be that way. I think parents get, you know, like, they get defensive. And then they make the school's defensive, not knowing how to be collaborative, and they have some rough personalities to deal with sometimes on both sides. And so it just doesn't come out the way that we want it to. But there's some simple things that we can do on both sides to really help that collaboration and just keep it child centered, and just be like, have that elated feeling of helping this kid and problem solving and figuring out how we can get this kid learning. Like, it's not that hard. But all of this legal stuff gets in the way. I feel like
what are some of those things that you that you talked about the how we can be more collaborative and IEP meetings?
What are the things that get in the way?
You said, there are some simple things that we can do? Yeah, too. I'm just kind of following your lead. Because I was like, that sounds great. I like that.
I mean, one of those things, is just having a vision statement. And I think when we're talking about inclusion, specifically, that vision statement is key. Because inclusion is such a big topic. And it can be implemented so many different ways. And it depends on, you know, the resources of the school, the training of the school staff, you know, what parents see inclusion as being right. and vision statements are just you can have a long term or short term vision statement. And a long term one is like, Okay, this kid when they graduate, or when school services, and these are the skills that we want them to have, right? This is what we envision them doing after and short term is like, okay, in a couple years, what do we want their school to look like? Do we want them to be included, as much as possible? Do we want them to build these skills, and that just helps the team and the parent be centered on the same mission, right, and it brings a lot of that conflict out, because all of a sudden, we're focused on the same thing. And I do have a really good example of this, there was a middle school parent that came in with a vision of her child, eventually going to this post secondary program for children who had intellectual disabilities, super cool program, had a checklist, which was so incredibly important and helpful to the school team, that she needed to have these individual skills to get into this program. And so we were, you know, in middle school, and she had shared that with us. And all of a sudden, instead of like peeling away services, because we didn't really know what we were doing, right. So many times, as an occupational therapist, you're like, I don't want to take them from core classes, because I don't know that I'm doing much help here. Like, what am I doing? All of a sudden, the vision statement came out, and I was like, Oh, she needs to be able to write in order to do this. Okay, I have a purpose now, right? Like that's on me. And then as far as reading goes, it's like, okay, well, we want her to be included. But as the parent, you know, asked questions about how do we get her to this vision? And What skills does she need to do, but we still want her to be included, the parent actually came up with this ha. So I want her included as much as possible. But in order to really build her skills in math and reading and these core subjects, we do have to do small group for her, you know, we can't necessarily do that in the general education classroom. So there was this balance that came out of this IEP meeting with the parent being super informed about the decisions that she was making, which was so cool. And all of a sudden, we all were on the same page. And we all were like, Okay, we know our role in this vision, we know where we're going. And yeah, we might have to change the plan, you know, when things come up, but we were all just centered on this vision. So I think vision statements are like so, so helpful, and so incredible for just getting everybody on the same page. And that's the first thing that I love to talk about, obviously,
do you have like a template, or a vision statement, or some examples maybe on your website that you'd like to point to? Yeah, so
I actually have a podcast on the parent IEP lab podcast, and it's number 41. It's episode number 41. And but I'll talk about just the general ways to do it here. And that's just kind of a brainstorm, right? Like, we start with that long term vision statement, because we're like, where do we start? Like, where are we going? Right. And if it's super hard for parents, or educators to think about that, and I think maybe even, you know, elementary, educators alike have a hard time thinking about their kids graduating, right, it's such a long way away. And it's the same thing for parents, right? Super young children, it's really hard to think about the future. But the cool thing that's happening right now is that with social media, and all the connections that we can make, you can actually get connected with individuals that are adults that have the same disability or delays as your child. So you can kind of get some context, right, you can connect with those people. And so if you start with that big broad vision statement of where you want them to go, then all of a sudden, you can break that down into what are my priorities, like, what, what do I think is most important here? And so many times as educators, when we look at that list of challenges, we're like, Oh, if we address, you know, self regulation skills, and self advocacy skills, all of a sudden, our learning goes up, you know, there's certain skills that if we address those first that were like, oh, okay, that would make learning really easy. If they learned how to self advocate and say, I'm confused right now, you'd be like, Oh, okay, we need to figure out how to say this differently, or teach them differently. So there's skills that influence just other skills that we want them to learn as well. So starting with a broad picture, and then starting to narrow down on those skills that they need to get there. It's really the process. And then I mean, I can go on about this forever. So Episode 41, on the podcast, longer version of that.
What about for educators who have an inclusive mindset, and this was, this was my experience. Sometimes parents are not as excited about inclusive education and inclusive placement in an inclusive classroom, but the educator is, and the educator sees the possibilities and the potential of the learner to be included. So what are educators? How can educators use this idea of a vision statement to maybe advocate for their students? Yeah, I
love this idea. I love this idea. Because as, as a person who had like 80 people on my caseload a year, right, I covered everything from Child Find, up until the 18 to 21 program, because I was in a rapidly growing district, but still a relatively small district. And what would happen is, I would see a new kid on my caseload that was on the younger side, and I'd be like, Man, this kid really reminds me of this kid that I have in middle school, right? And so you can compare a little bit and see those skills and see the potential and be like, oh, yeah, they can totally do this right? inclusive setting is going to be so helpful for them because of this, this and this. But sometimes the parents don't have exposure to that, right. And so us as educators, we're like, oh, yeah, we've seen this before. Like, we've seen these challenges. You know, it might be different from this learner versus that learner. But we have some reference point, right. And so I think that educators can absolutely write a vision statement and fishing statements aren't huge, right? They're like one or two sentences. But if you take the time, because educators probably already have it in their brain of like, oh, yeah, they can totally do this, this and this skill, or we can totally get them to participate in this way. And this is going to be good for these skills, right. But taking, you know, the minute or two minutes it takes for you to actually type it out or put it on paper is amazing. And I think sharing that vision statement with a parent and saying, Hey, I've actually seen this happen, I think we can get there I think we should try is really helpful. But yeah, I've seen that too, where parents are very hesitant to do an inclusive placement because they think that they need more one on one support, or they need more intensive support, or they need a program. And I think educators do have a lot of power to say, hey, like, let's try this. And this is why my business is called the IEP Bab right, because I think there's so much pressure put on that one meeting, and we need to realize that this is a process, right? Yes, we have that one meeting. We come out of that meeting saying yeah, I think this is the best plan that we could come up with right now. But then and progress reports at, you know, es y and all of these checkpoints along the year, we need to be saying like, is this working? Or is this not working? Can we try something different. And I think there's just so much pressure to put it on that IEP. But, you know, educators writing a vision statement, sharing that with a parent sharing the potential that they see in their kid, that's really empowering for the parent to know. And if you're like, hey, this is all one big experiment, we're gonna figure out what works and what doesn't, then I think some of that pressure of having to have it perfect comes off. And some of that tension comes off from that relationship, too.
I think what you're talking about is really, parents and educators being collaborative, right, because that doesn't happen all the time. I wouldn't say, I wouldn't say that the, I think the majority of time, the majority of the time when I was an educator, it was pretty collaborative. Right. But there, there were instances where there was miscommunication and mistrust. And I'm thinking specifically around the the cases where a parent was pursuing inclusion, and the district was didn't see didn't see the vision.
Yeah, it's absolutely collaboration. Because if we, again, if we have this shared vision, then we're all working together to get that in there. Right? You're saying, Okay, well, they might be doing fine at school, but they're coming home and they're melting down? Well, we need some sort of communication setup, right? And we also just need to have a shared mission and vision. What is it like, sometimes when you have, you know, an enemy, right? That really forms cohesion between teams, right. And if we think about the enemy as being like lost opportunities for this kid, then that should be able to bring us together, right? If we have that shared positive vision, though, I think that's so helpful for us being on the same page. And really, and really seeing that, but it's so interesting, because I've seen even a case manager, a special education teacher really go to bat against the district against the special education coordinator and director because she understood the parent's vision, right. And so you want everybody to be on the same team, if at all possible. And so yeah, I mean, collaboration is so helpful. And I think that's what makes us all jazzed to implement that IEP, right?
How has your thinking of inclusive education changed or evolved? You know, since you were in the medical field, and then the school in the school setting? And and now you have your business? Take me through that? Yeah.
So I think we're all in school and like, really excited to start our careers, we have this like, perfect idea of what it's going to look like, oh, inclusion is just like, they're just part of everything, like they're in the fabric of the school. And they you can't really tell the difference of who has an IEP or not right. And I think going into the schools and seeing all of the barriers that come up to the inclusion part, I think that a big one that I see is just general education, teachers not understanding about how to do that, or being nervous to include that. And I think that all comes down to that, that conflictual nature that sometimes we have with IEPs two of just being like, this is all an experiment, like jump in and try it you love kids, like let's figure it out. But there's just so many stressors with, you know, the school staff being understaffed, and, and resources, and just people like people not being able to be in seven places at once. Right, he had an experience of a middle school who did an amazing job at inclusive education. But then when COVID happened, and there were so many parents out, she ended up having to pull everybody in her classroom for days on end, because she just didn't have staff to get them in the classrooms they needed to be in. So I think there's an ebb and flow with gosh, I would love to have it be so inclusive, and just everybody having friends everywhere, right? And understanding that everybody's needs are different. But it just seems like the system is set up to create these barriers, and I wish that they weren't there. So you know, I do think that the other thing that I think is really helpful for educators, and you can jump in on this, too, is when I was sitting on, you know, 10 different case managers, teams, a lot of the times they would you know, we'd be in a team meeting or something. And they talk about, oh, man, I really want to include this person, or this parent really wants this kid included in class. And I just can't figure out like, what am I supposed to do? How do I adapt things? And I'd be like, Oh, you need to talk to this other teacher in this other school because they're doing it this way. And it's working really well. But teachers don't have that opportunity to connect with each other either. And I think that's a time limitation too. So I think there's a balance. I think that vision statement really helps bring people together to like, what is practical, and also what gets them to that Didn't statement were okay, we want these skills to be belt, but we also want them to be included and, and really feel like they're a part of the school community that they're not separate in any way. So I definitely think it's different in each individual school, depending on admin and and the case manager, right how, how much is that a priority for that educator to make it happen? Right,
and how much they're going to be supported. So even if a an educator is pro inclusion, pro inclusive education, if the if the administration is not supportive of their efforts, then it it doesn't matter, in my experience, anyways. Oh, yeah. The other thing about, there's a, there's a family that I know here in Georgia, that had a lot of disagreements with a with their school district, because they wanted authentic, inclusive education for their daughter. This was early, early elementary, and the district said, or their their kind of position was, well, you can either work on skills in a self contained special education classroom, or you can work on social learning, social emotional learning, and behavior and, you know, in a regular education classroom, and so they just they refuse to accept that as it being an option, like it's an either or situation. Their position was, why can't we work on skills in a regular education classroom? Like, what what is it about the services that this learner requires? That can't be done in a regular education classroom? So I don't know how, how do we navigate that as a, you know, how do we navigate that as a family? Who is pursuing inclusion?
Yeah, that's a really good question. And I have seen that kind of either or situation. I think the big key, and you probably talked about this a lot. I think the huge key is paraprofessionals, as well, right? I think I was a paraprofessional, before I was an OT. And I think those are some of the most influential people and some of the most amazing tools to be able to work on both. But that requires so much training to that person. And that person needs to understand how to, you know, change curriculum and modify curriculum and, and know how to facilitate that just right challenge, where they're not helping too much. But they are breaking it down. So it's attainable, right. And that's a skill. That is such a skill that I think that we don't, I think we value our pair educators, but I just think that we need to value them even more and invest in more in their training, right, from a district level, for sure. But I think that's the big missing piece here is like, That person needs to be able to figure out how to present those skills and facilitate those social interaction skills, right. And I've seen so many parents be just a natural at it. And they're amazing. And really, I mean, like, just like you said, it comes down from administration to of, hey, we're going to figure it out. And yeah, I don't know, if it comes down to like staffing and resources and having the skills and the can do attitude, I think of the of the school staff, which is so hard for parents to navigate. I mean, that situation you described just breaks my heart because they wanted to break through and make changes. And and man, if you just have that administration, that's so against it, it's so hard to fight against, right?
Yeah, you know, and we're like, let's, we're going to assume, like positive intent on both sides here, you know, the family has a vision for their, for their child, and the district, and educators that work for that school or district also want the best for that learner. So it really is creating a shared understanding of what inclusive education actually means. You know, and I think there's a misunderstanding, and you bring up a great point about paraprofessionals, because I think a lot of districts say, Oh, we're inclusive, we have a million paraprofessionals. And, and everyone's included, although i Although Okay, to be fair, I don't think I've seen a district actually actually implement this effectively, because what ends up happening is you have a large number of paraprofessionals. But they're kind of glued to their, you know, learner, and it's not really authentic. Right. But there but but there is a way to do it authentically. And I think I think part of it, you know, part of the missing pieces, like you said, training for paraprofessionals but also another piece is specialized in stuff Action, and who is delivering that specialized instruction, because in our experience, many people don't understand or realize that a general education teacher can provide specialized instruction, it just has to be under the direction of a special education teacher. And so if special education teachers actually had time to collaborate with their general education colleagues, I think that that would make a big difference.
Yeah, I think so too. And I think, you know, even getting time for paraprofessionals, to have extra training, getting general education teachers empowered that, you know, like, they're going to know their curriculum best, they're going to know how to modify it best they're already. And one thing that really made me mad so many times is our professional development days, would never really have anything to do with special education. Yet, this was a huge barrier, and huge frustration for a lot of the general education teachers as they didn't know what to do. It didn't have an example, they didn't feel like they had the skills to do it, which they absolutely did. But instead, the special education teachers would have to go to PD professional development that really didn't pertain to what their kids needed, either. Like there wasn't this, like surveying the whole school and saying, what kind of support do you guys need? And then deciding the PD on that it was like this curriculum that we're using, like, we need to have training on this or whatever. And that's just really frustrating. Because there was there was such a need for everybody to be on the same page, like how cool would it be to have special education teachers leading a PD day about how to do inclusivity in their classrooms? And what resources are out there? Like your podcast, and you know, all of these things that they could, they could seek out and listen to? Right? Just awesome. Yeah,
yeah. Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit more about the IEP lab. Now that this is your it's your full time gig. So what's your dream?
I mean, I think that with the IEP lab, what I'm trying to do is really facilitate an understanding for parents, and a safe space, a safe space for parents to ask questions that they might feel like are silly. So that we can really give insight to like this process, because the process because I've seen, you know, the process for early intervention, and then I've seen schools, and I've seen outpatient therapies, this whole IEP process is really kind of cool when it works, right. So you're supposed to start with like, all of this information and boil it down to like the priorities and make goals for that. And then who's going to support those goals. And it's like a funnel, and I love talking about that piece of it. And so I just really want to make a safe space for parents to come and to learn about the IEP system, so that they're not afraid of it, and that they have enough information to ask incredibly intelligent questions and informed questions of their special education teachers. And also, it's just there, because special education teachers do not have time, they would probably love to sit down with their parents and explain how this works. And kind of give them insight on what's the most important thing for their kid to learn right now. But they don't have time to do that. So it's also just to help special education teachers have a resource to be like, hey, like, there's this episode on eligibility categories. And this is how it works. And this is your parent role in this whole thing, like go listen to this resource that you have, so that they don't necessarily have to take the time and energy to do it. Because it's a lot of work, actually, to break down the system. It's, it's insane how many pieces and how many questions parents have about this system. But I just want to make a place where everybody can come and get some information about how this is supposed to work. And to be able to ask questions of their individual teams. That is just includes everybody. Right. And it, it breeds collaboration from there. So that's, that's my vision for it, for sure.
Is there anything that you want to leave educators with? Like, from our conversation?
Yeah, I think the biggest piece is, I think a lot of especially young educators coming in, you know, that anxiety that they have about that IEP meeting, it's felt doubly on the other side by the parent, right. And I think that that case manager has so much power to really include that parent in the IEP meeting, and to bring in their vision for their own kid and see if you match, right? Just have an honest conversation about where they're at. Don't sugarcoat things, right? Just be honest, have good relationships with your school with your parents, even if you have a ton of them. It doesn't take a lot of time to just make them feel comfortable in this process. Right. And again, just that shared vision of what you think this child's potential is what you think that they are capable of what you want them to work on, and really taking the time that extra like 10 seconds to explain why to parents really helps them understand where you're coming from. And I think it dissolves a lot of that tension and that nervousness that's felt on both sides, right? Don't think that legal processes like the IEP process and education go well together. It's kind of how the system works. But again, having that, let's try it, and we can change it later and actually being genuine about that, like, yes, we can actually change it later through an addendum or another meeting, and taking the time to make them feel comfortable. It, it just makes your job easier in the end to I think,
yeah, I think that if you are, if you're talking if the first time you're talking about, I think if the first time you're hearing the parents input about goals and objectives that's in the IEP meeting, I think that's too late. I love that.
I love that. And actually one of my courses, we put together a parent input plan, which is just like, okay, like, you know, take them through the process of determining priorities and strengths and challenges. That's like, my number one pet peeve is like, don't start with challenges. Don't start with strengths. And just put the parent on the spot. I know, you're like trying to be helpful, but not giving them a heads up that you're going to put them on the spot for the first question when you're like, what are the strengths of your child? That's so intimidating and such a hard way to start a meeting?
Right. I know, like everyone's at their computer and be like, Okay, so tell me about the challenges. Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah, that's yeah. Yeah, it's, it's so just circling back to what you said before the IEP process. Like, if you follow it, it's actually it's actually pretty nice, right? It's, it's robust. And certain, you know, certain states probably do it better than others and have different regulations and stuff. But the actual law, it's, it's pretty good, even though I think there can be some improvements. Yeah. But once you, you know, once you get down to it, it's not a user friendly process at all. It's not for anyone, for anyone. So as educators and families can get through the get through the process, hopefully being collaborative, it should be more like, a discussion instead of something really sterile. You know,
yeah, it should absolutely be a discussion. And I think parents being, you know, if you just shoot an email to your parents, you know, before the IEP meeting and say, what are your priorities? Like? What are your input? What are your concerns, you know, you can direct them to write a vision statement if you want to, but I think coming to the meeting with that, that shared vision is so important. And yeah, it should be just a discussion, I think, the time limitations that we're feeling the time stress that we have definitely impacts that have like, Okay, we got to get through all the things that we legally need to get through in this meeting. And I don't want to reschedule this, I don't want this to drag on. Right. And that's such a time pressure. And I think that's a detriment, but really, yeah, it should be a guided discussion using the IEP, what works, what doesn't work, let's eliminate some of these 110 accommodations that we have, because we probably can't implement all of those. And are those all really working? It? You know, there shouldn't be like an ego in the room that should get checked at the door? Because we're all just focused on the best plan for the kid.
idea. Yeah, or, you know, accommodations or goals. You know, sometimes learners have, like, 100 goals, or there's just no way. Absolutely no way. And, and, and then nobody feels successful.
Yeah, exactly. Well, I love to compare goals to like New Year's resolutions, like, how many new year's resolutions Can you have in a year, and be successful at all of them? You know, usually we have like one or two. And if we have some accountability, and somebody's teaching us, like, we can totally achieve that one or two, but 15 We're gonna lose track of what they all are. Right? That's really hard. So yeah, I agree. goals. Goals, sometimes are really hard to. And that's what comes down to like those priorities, like what skills build on other skills? Can we work on this skill that naturally lends itself to building this other skill? Cool, let's do that. And then if it doesn't work, let's come back in three months, and after progress reports come out and say, This is really working? Well, we're making progress, or I don't know what's going on. Like, let's have a discussion about what's going on at home. What's going on here? Like, what's the barrier for them being able to build this skill and just have a discussion about it? And no egos? Right?
I like that. I like that comparison to New Year's resolutions. I like it a lot. I'm thinking like, what if I had 100 new revelations? I'd feel pretty bad about myself.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I feel like some of those goals need to begin there because of the category that they're qualified under or, you know, some of those requirements, I understand. But with those that have 15, I'm like, can we make that into an overarching goal and have some objectives underneath it? Or can we change it in a way that makes more sense to everybody? to work on, and so everybody can remember it. We can take good data on it, we can actually see if it's working, you know? Yeah, just concentrating our efforts, I think is, is something that's so important and so helpful.
Yeah, well, okay, so one more thought that popped in my head about goals. That I think I think fans, sometimes there's a misunderstanding. It can be either or on the educator or the the family point of view that I need to make sure that this is a goal, because if it's not a goal, then there's no proof that it's being worked on. Right. Yep.
Yeah, I see that all the time. I think you're right spot on with that, too, that there's like, again, this like mistrust that comes sneaking in, because they're like, are you actually doing this? Or are you not? And I think an easy way to just make sure that's at the forefront too, is just having a communication system. Like, when you were an educator, how many kids on your caseload actually had like a back and forth book, or some time type of like communication? log
all of them? That's great. Yeah.
And did you lead that discussion?
Well, I mean, everyone had one, some had different ones, depending on what the family, you know, was requesting, but everyone had, I mean, at every level that I taught, everyone had some sort of folder, some sort of communication log, some sort of something.
Yeah. I think having that guidance, like you said, like, they can be customized, and you can say, Okay, well, you know, you want to make sure that we're tracking this, okay, like, let's put that on a line item on your communication log. But so many parents don't even know that you can ask for a communication log. Like there's some basic things that are just getting missed. And I think when I was there, I gosh, I think maybe 10% of the kids that I had had a communication log that I wrote in, write the case manager might have had one, but I didn't communicate in that. And that's, that's just unacceptable. And I think it relieves some of that, like, are you actually working on this? Because then the parent can write back like, hey, you know, we're going to work on this. We've been working on it at home, like how's it going at school, and you can have that, again, just that discussion about how it's going. That's helpful.
It's so important. And, and I totally get the feeling that an educator may have been like, I don't have time for that. Yeah, you know, I don't have time for that. But it's kind of like, oh, this is a bad example. But it's kind of like not brushing your teeth. You know, like, if you don't brush your teeth, it's a bad news for your teeth, your teeth are gonna rot and you're gonna have to go to the dentist, and I've had some bad dentist experiences lately. So I'll just leave it at that. But it's all it's not necessarily preventative, but like you're you're maintaining a relationship with your, you know, with your families. And if you neglect that, that is such an important part of it. It kind of it can derail everything. Mm hmm.
I love that comparison with Dennis. Because it doesn't have to take that long, right? I mean, yeah, that's true. Yeah, yeah. And I'm just I'm loving, like voice texting right now. So like, you can set it up however you want, as long as the parent is okay with it. Like, how is it easy for you to get it done? And is that okay with the parent, you know? So?
Yeah, like, like, communication, hygiene.
That's funny. Okay. Love it. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about? Anything that we missed?
I don't think so. I think we covered you know, I love vision statements. I love that we talked about it from an educators perspective. And this, I would encourage, you know, educators to just involve your parents a little bit more like make them feel comfortable, because it does pay you back in droves. It will make your life easier, I promise.
I think that's kind of the theme here. You know, I think that's the theme like in this conversation that, you know, the vision statement, especially from an educator point of view, you know, when you reach out to a family and say, let's get let's get a vision statement going right for this learner, it really builds that trust that builds communication, and it builds collaboration between the family and the school team. Really, it means making it a one team like it's supposed to be.
Exactly, yeah. And if you are all on the same page about what inclusion, what they want it to look like, and then your practical like, this is kind of the reality of how it works in this particular school, then you kind of have a collaborative combined vision statement of like, okay, so we're going to try it this way. And we're going to figure it out. And we're going to see if you're comfortable with this, and this is what I'm going to do like it just it naturally falls into a plan right? Which I just love.
Okay. Anything you want to plug so any, you know, any courses, any particular resources on the website, any podcast episodes?
Yeah, definitely check out the parent IEP lab podcast. I actually have Have a lot of educators that listen to it as well. I think they've learned a lot about like how the process is supposed to go from me breaking down, you know, eligibility checklists as examples and things like that. But that vision statement episode is number 41. And that is so helpful. You know, if you're an educator, and you're like, I have this really hard kid that I can't really figure out, like, let's write a vision statement for him and start there. That's number 41. That's so helpful. And then we had a parent IEP Advocacy Summit this year, just a couple of months ago. And I republished a couple of my favorite talks from that summit. And so episode 70 is overcoming barriers to inclusion with Kathy brill, and that one is pretty amazing. So
definitely be Abril.
Yes, definitely check out that episode. Because I think for educators, it's like, oh, like this parent had to go through a lot. And she, you know, talking about how she overcome came those barriers and how she approached the school. And it just gives so much insight to how much commitment parents who advocate have to have, and just how we can help them advocate and reach their own vision of what inclusion looks like for them. So that's episode 70. And it's amazing. I definitely recommend it.
Yeah. And in that episode, Kathy talks about being collaborative. Yes, and how much and how much she was, you know, trying to build relationships with the educators of her child. So that just reinforces everything that we've been talking about. Absolutely. Yes. Beth, Leeson failed. Thank you so much for being on the think loser podcast.
Thank you so much for having me.
Thinking cluesive is written, edited and Sam designed by Tim Villegas and is a production of MCIE Original Music by miles credit. Attention school leaders. Did you know that you can team up with the Maryland Coalition for inclusive education to promote inclusive practices in your school or district regardless of your location. MCIE has partners in Maryland, Illinois, Virginia, Arkansas, and Oklahoma in more joining in this work. Our goal is to expand partnerships in every state in the US and beyond. The first step is to start a conversation with us. Visit our contact page at mcie.org/contact and let us know that you want to transform your educational services to be inclusive of all learners. Also, please mention thinking inclusive and your message to let us know how you found out about MCIE We can't wait to hear from you. A special thanks to our patrons Melissa H joiner II Pamela P. Mark C. Kathy D. Kathleen T. Jarrett T Gabby and Aaron P, Paula W and Carol cue for their support of thinking cluesive Thanks for your time and attention and remember, inclusion always works
