Preschool Power: Supporting Learning Differences Early - Part 2
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Speaker: [00:00:00] Hi everyone. I'm Aleia Mastroianni and welcome back to SpecialEd IEPs, 504s, Oh my: Conversations with DCSEAC. We had such a great conversation with Lisa Graham, our Director of Early Childhood Education, that we split it into two parts. In part one, we talked about early identification in pre-K, why preschool matters. Also, the emotional side of wondering whether your child may have learning differences. Today in part two, we're diving into whether schools can share concerns about possible disabilities with parents, what the evaluation process looks like and the challenges of preschool suspensions. Yes, it's a thing.

We also talk about the benefits and realities of district preschool programs. Let's jump right back in with Lisa.

Aleia Mastroianni: This one's a little bit harder and there might be an untruth in it, so I wanted to run it past you and see what you thought. It is common among parents for us to say your school can't tell you that they suspect your child has a disability. It's suggested that the school can't say dyslexia or, I think your child might have ADHD, because some [00:01:00] how that obligates the school district to pay for testing or therapies. It's always struck me as odd and kind of yucky if it's true, right? Because it feels like these are the experts, they know so much about education, they've seen so many kids, this is the exact person I want to trust to tell me. So I wanted to ask you, especially since you live in the world of identification and helping parents understand - is it true, can they not share their concerns? And how do you approach this in pre-K?

Lisa Graham: I'm gonna say it's not true with a caveat. 

Aleia Mastroianni: Okay. 

Lisa Graham: So the caveat, educational staff cannot diagnose a student. We are not that person who can provide a medical diagnosis, dyslexia, ADHD, autism. Those are medical diagnoses. We cannot say your child has X, Y, Z in the same way. I would not be able to say, your child has a congenital heart defect.

That is not our scope. So any of that realm is a diagnosis that we cannot provide and do not provide. [00:02:00] However, here's a caveat. What we can and absolutely should be doing is raising awareness with that parent of, hey, we did this universal screener. There's this anomaly. We'd like to look further.

We suspect there might be a learning difference. Our criteria is considered an educational eligibility. In fact, the Child Find legislation is specifically designed, we have an affirmative obligation, meaning a proactive obligation to seek out, identify, evaluate, and find those children, and by children it's birth to 21, who may have a disability that requires specialized instruction because it is our obligation to provide that level of intervention, instructional accommodations, et cetera, in our public school setting at no cost to families.

So that's where it can seem a little blurry, and it may seem like doublespeak to families. It feels awkward just because there is a very clear line between what is medical diagnosis and what is educational [00:03:00] eligibility.

I don't want any parent listening to this to think that you require that medical diagnosis in order to come into the school system and then have that evaluation.

It is not required, hear me say that. I'm just using that analogy as a reference point. So in the educational setting, we'll do a universal screener. We may identify areas that we wanna investigate further. Or let's imagine I'm in a community-based preschool program who does not do a universal screener.

Okay, fine. What they do know though, or what they do hopefully should recognize. I've been doing this schedule, this routine for about six to eight weeks, and I have a little one who still cannot seem to follow that routine, who still melts down on this transition. Who still screams every time we come in from the playground.

That's an atypical response compared to their peers. So it should indicate for them there's something else going on here, because typically the kids within about six weeks are able to follow that general classroom routine. That [00:04:00] should be enough for them to say, Hey parent, let's look into this a little bit more. Let's do an evaluation to get more information. Through that process. Child Find teams might do that initial screening, they might do a full comprehensive evaluation. At the end of that, even with a full comprehensive evaluation, they may still say, you're right, we see that there's some indicators, but it doesn't hit that threshold. It doesn't meet that eligibility criteria. Therefore, they're not in the educational realm identified as a student with a disability that requires specialized services.

But here's your information about these things. From that, often parents may wish to pursue additional medical evaluation in order to access private therapies on their own. It's just not something that in the educational realm, because it doesn't meet that criteria.

But, I would encourage any parent, and they have a child, I'm gonna say in any setting, whether it's in a district setting at any grade level or a community-based program that they're in, and they're hearing from any staff member that they need a medical diagnosis [00:05:00] before they can do any kind of an educational evaluation to let us know so that we can correct that misunderstanding that they may have. You know? Let's check that because again, a general education teacher does not typically study special education law as part of their teacher preparation program, and so they wouldn't necessarily know or recognize that nuance. And so there may very well be those individuals who have that misunderstanding, that think, oh, I can't say this.

What I can say to you is, Hmm, you might wanna look into this, but I can't tell you that you might wanna look at those kinds of things. Yeah. That does feel a little squirrely because it is a little squirrely, but that teacher just may not know that information isn't accurate.

Courtney Nagle: And for the sake of clarity, no one on staff is intentionally trying to diagnose or try to reach this imaginary number of labeling children.

Lisa Graham: Well, it's not like we win an award for the most kids that we have in our classrooms that have IEPs 

Courtney Nagle: . We're talking about misinformation and you know, how [00:06:00] rumors go out there.

Aleia Mastroianni: Or even on the reverse side where I've heard, they don't wanna bring a child on, or evaluate them because it costs money too.

I'll repeat one more time because I think it was an important one. If you feel like your child might have a disability that is interfering with their ability to learn at school, you don't need to go get that official evaluation from your doctor, go to your school first, start there and you can say, Hey, I'm starting to worry and wonder about this.

They're like, awesome. Let's look at the behaviors and see if what's happening is preventing your child from learning. And if so, we'll create a plan to help them. And there were a bunch of reasons to get a medical diagnosis, and a lot of it will tie in to social services. So every family will make their own decision, but many families do end up deciding to get a medical diagnosis.

It will help you access Medicaid and waivers and many, many important things. And you can bring that diagnosis and testing back to your school that can help inform your student's file, their understanding of your kiddo. But it is not a [00:07:00] requirement to start special education services.

Courtney Nagle: Especially if you find yourself on one of those never ending wait lists. Your staff will be able to help. 

Lisa Graham: Let's also be clear, let's say a parent did go and get a medical diagnosis of autism. You bring that in and request an evaluation. That medical diagnosis does not automatically transfer into that very high bar of educational eligibility criteria. So just having a medical diagnosis does not automatically mean I meet eligibility for special education. But it is very confusing because we're sort of talking about the same things. Autism spectrum disorder is a diagnosis, autism as an educational eligibility is different.

Aleia Mastroianni: Can you explain how early intervention under IDEA part B works so that children can receive speech, occupational therapy or specialized supports sooner rather than later?

Lisa Graham: I'm gonna broaden that just a bit and say it starts with Part C which is early intervention, which is the zero to three year olds, IDEA, [00:08:00] part B is the three to 21 year olds. Gotcha. And so, even though it's technically beyond my scope in my current position, I think it's important for families to know that early intervention is birth to three.

Aleia Mastroianni: Yeah. It starts at birth. 

Lisa Graham: It does. Mm-hmm. 

In my world, the deaf heart of hearing is since the early 2000s, we now have the newborn hearing screenings and those pieces that come into play before a child even leaves the hospital, they're often getting hearing tests.

And so those services are available and accessible to families at birth. So I don't want any family to think it's Yeah, too early. It's never too early. And the earlier the intervention, the greater the level of success. So either way, the referral sort of starts the same. It's just there's different agencies involved with that referral process.

So any Part C is infants and toddlers, zero to three through early intervention. And that goes through, it's called a community center board. Our CCB is Developmental Pathways. 

And so Early Intervention Colorado, it's a single source. Parents would make that either phone call or email to reach out to [00:09:00] request a screening or an evaluation.

Early Intervention Colorado funnels that to Developmental Pathways and similar to the Part B process, they would do an intake process with the family. Tell me more about sort of the why. What, what are you seeing? What are you noticing? What's brought this concern up?

So there's that through Early Intervention Colorado. So part B is three to 21, but I'm gonna limit it to the scope of just preschool.

It does not require that your child is in a Douglas County School District preschool program. It is any child who is three to five. Some children are at home with their parents, they're just not in school yet. Some of them are in a community childcare center. Some of them are in, it's called a family friend, they're licensed as a family, friend, neighbor, facility that might be in a private school, a faith-based school, a charter school. Any child age, three to five, a parent can submit a request or a referral for a Child Find assessment or evaluation.

If they're in a [00:10:00] licensed childcare facility, whatever type it may be, if any of those childcare providers start to have a sense or indicators or any recognition that there may be a cause for concern or a need to investigate further, they can also submit that referral to us in our Child Find department to do that initial outreach screening.

We typically suggest if you are a community-based childcare program and you are going to send that referral to us, please communicate with the parent about that. Yeah. Because the last thing that a parent wants is a phone call from us, whom they don't know, that says, hey, your community-based program sent us a referral for an evaluation.

Would you like to consent to that? And the parent's going, uh, what, who, who are you and what is happening? And you want me to sign what? To do what? And it breaks that trust. And that's not what we want. That's not what they want. So that process is, the referral can come either from a parent or from a licensed facility or anybody. It could come from their pediatrician. Our [00:11:00] team then will go through and do a screening, they might refer for a full evaluation. They come in, they come to one of our, uh, evaluation locations. The parent is there with them in the room. I don't want you to think we're gonna go take your baby behind closed doors and we'll bring 'em back in an hour.

That is not what happens. We have other staff members who are engaging with their child in play-based activities. They, we have tiny little climb up these stairs and slide down the slide, or play with these dolls, or they engage them in a variety of different activities to see and probe a little bit into fine motor, gross motor communication, cognitive development.

All of those areas to get that comprehensive body of evidence, that picture of their child. And then from there they will hold a meeting with a parent and it's the eligibility meeting. It is the whether yay or nay, right? That fork in the road is either yes, they met the educational criteria, or no, they did not meet the educational criteria and here's your information.

Parents again, at that meeting involved in that process. At that point, then the parent has another choice. [00:12:00] Do I want to continue to the next step, which is developing an IEP on behalf of serving my child in your DCSD early childhood program, or do I not?

And some families opt out at that point. Perfectly fine and acceptable. That parent may say, I'm gonna take this information. They are in a community-based program. They've got a great relationship with that teacher. They've made friends. My neighbor can take 'em to school.

It's all good. There's nothing that says you must come to our preschool unless you want to access the services for free by us. That's the benefit of that is any of the services that we are recommending on behalf of providing these interventions or accommodations are free to families in our settings.

Aleia Mastroianni: To clarify, if you're gonna have an IEP and continue to receive services like speech and OT and whatnot, that has to happen at a DCSD preschool.

Because it has to be implemented by DCSD, it can't be implemented in your faith-based school or your, well, charter schools do this [00:13:00] as well,

Lisa Graham: Not at preschool, 

Aleia Mastroianni: Thank you. Not at preschool. Once they're gonna go into that 3-year-old age where the state then provides those services is in the preschool setting. And that is a big transition depending on your family set up and work life.

Lisa Graham: Families may continue to choose and say, thank you so much for that IEP. I still wanna keep my child in my current setting, wherever it is, if it's in a charter, if it's in a community-based program. And even though those programs can't formally implement the IEP as written, they still wanna know about it. Because it still gives them a lot of great insight into who that child is and how they can then perhaps accommodate for the learning needs of that child in their setting. 

Courtney Nagle: How long does the IEP follow them? Because let's say little Johnny gets this IEP, but his mom works a full-time job, so she can't do the part day program. So he has to do a different program. But then he transitions into first grade in one of our schools. What does that look like? Does the IEP follow him when he comes back? Does he have to [00:14:00] start the entire process all over again? 

Lisa Graham: Sure. So if a parent were to choose to not implement the IEP in one of our settings, and they stay in the current setting that they're in, at the point that they re-enroll in a DCSD program, either kindergarten or first grade, wherever their entry point back in is, one of the questions on that enrollment is, does your child have an IEP? That the family could mark yes. That they did have one. What that school then will do is they will still have to reassess that student to reestablish that eligibility and so they'll do that evaluation again.

If they are eligible, then that team will create a new IEP with the family and that current team and those current providers. And so then that would then be the IEP that gets implemented. They won't automatically implement the preschool IEP, because if it's been a year or two, it's no longer valid at that point.

Courtney Nagle: But they don't have to worry, oh, it's not in my back pocket. I don't have to come first day of school.

Lisa Graham: And part of that is the [00:15:00] family again, has to indicate that that child has an IEP. Some families, they don't want their child to be labeled in any particular way. They want 'em to have a fresh start in kindergarten and we did all this stuff, and so no, they don't.

Okay. Then that school, having no knowledge of that, would just respond to that student as they would any other student coming into their setting: if they do a universal screener and if they see flags, they're gonna do the same process again from the very beginning with that parent. 

Aleia Mastroianni: So I'm gonna ask a question that seems like it might be not related, but it a hundred percent is related.

Suspensions and preschool. It's not something that I think most people think go together. Shockingly it does.

Lisa Graham: It does. 

Aleia Mastroianni: The data is insane about the number of preschool age children who are getting suspended. Please give me some context. Why is this happening? What does this mean and how do you guys address that here in DCSD? 

Lisa Graham: So, you're right, the statistics are shocking that preschool age children are suspended up to three times more than students kindergarten [00:16:00] through 12th grade.

And if you imagine the kindergarten through 12th grade realm, as to how many students are in that environment, to think that a 3-year-old or 4-year-old is being suspended, or in some of our community based programs, expelled, kicked out, we can no longer serve. It's astronomical.

Part of it is training. Part of it is that knowledge and education. Children demonstrate a multitude of what feels like incredibly challenging behavior and that is developmentally appropriate for a two and three and 4-year-old. That is how they are trying to learn the world around them. And they're doing it in ways that as an adult, I find not to be appropriate, but for a 2-year-old and a 3-year-old, incredibly appropriate.

Yes, you have a big emotion and you are upset and frustrated that somebody just came and took your toy and you are going to scream and try to reach out and grab that toy back, or you're gonna throw a block at them because you're mad that they took your toy. That is all very developmentally appropriate [00:17:00] behaviors for a two and three and 4-year-old. So some of it is just the recognition of what is developmentally appropriate for this age group. I think of our community-based programs where they have 24 children in a room and two adults. If you have three or four of them who are consistently having these explosive reactions, I can understand why that would be really challenging to manage in that environment.

Without having alternative means, we call them alternatives to suspension, without having those in place or a facility that can provide that support to you, the adult in what you need to make this work, to make this happen, to make this be successful. And hear me, it doesn't mean putting more adults in the room because that can often lead to even more chaos.

It's recognizing developmentally appropriate responses from children and allowing soft starts or allowing choice in, and I'm gonna do a circle time and I'm gonna have it be really engaging. But if you choose not to come over right now because you wanna stay over in blocks right now, fine.

Pick your battles. Yeah. [00:18:00] And you're picking a battle with a three-year-old, you are not gonna win that battle. 

Aleia Mastroianni: Short anecdote for me as a parent. I had three kids, I knew nothing about school or how to send them to school. I just sent them to a local preschool that was near my house.

I, I literally never even thought of the school district. I was like, oh, you go there when you're in kindergarten. For my first two kids, we did private preschool.

But with my youngest who was identified very early, she was much more serious. I was like, okay, what is this Child Find saying, what is DCSD preschool? And I brought her here to this building and I had that, like buyer's remorse for my other two kids. I was like,

Lisa Graham: not about the children, let's be clear. 

Aleia Mastroianni: No. I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. It was exactly what I was looking for.

I wanted something that was education and research based. I wish I had known.

And to circle back to suspensions: and I don't wanna come at private preschools because they are a private institution. They can do whatever they want. This is their business model. And if they have one child who's biting or pulling [00:19:00] hair or whatever it is and is causing distress to other students, it is absolutely their purview to say, you know what? We can't serve your child. And that can feel awful and yucky.

And I wish, that they could communicate to those parents, this doesn't mean your child's bad. I wish they could use the term your child has needs greater than we can serve at this location. And here are some resources that might help.

And so if you're in this position, if you're like, why is my kid doing this?

We love to say, all behavior is a form of communication. They're trying to tell you something. And it might be that, like you said, that you have two people in a room with a bunch of children. They don't have the training and the expertise or necessarily have a mental health provider or a speech path or someone to recognize that.

And so your child's behaviors might be misinterpreted or just be seen as, this doesn't work with the whole. And then you're kicked out and you feel awful and you go into the shame spiral. It's not productive. A beautiful thing about Douglas County preschools is they take everybody, every single child is welcome. It is not [00:20:00] the last resort. I wish parents knew that this is 

Lisa Graham: the best resort. 

Aleia Mastroianni: That's exactly, I was gonna say, like, in my opinion. I'm sure some parents go to amazing preschools that are kicking it, but my experience was I was blown away with what my daughter got at this school.

I just want parents to know that there is somewhere to go and it's not like oh man, I have to go to this. I'm like, no, you are so lucky you're getting this gift of this school that has so many resources and so many experts that are gonna pour right into your child.

Lisa Graham: Frequently when we do get referrals from a parent of a student who's been enrolled in a community-based program, it's because they've been kicked out of two or three other settings.

And so it becomes the last ditch option. What do I do? I'm at wit's end, I don't know what to do. They're being kicked out. And so we'll do an evaluation. Our staff undergo a significant amount of training and we have a much lower ratio in our programs. We have a one to eight ratio instead of a one to 12, which is [00:21:00] the state level ratio. We have an early childhood instructor or teacher, depending on if they're licensed.

And a special education assistant in every classroom full-time, all day, every day. And we also have a cadre of specialists. We have speech language pathologists, occupational therapists, early childhood special education teachers who come in throughout the week to serve and support those students with IEPs.

And each of those specialists cross train all the other adults in the room about the child's IEP and specialized services, their goals, their accommodations, their instructional interventions. We operate in what we call a transdisciplinary philosophy, which is basically every adult works with every child.

There's not a, these are mine, those are yours in the classroom. The reason why they cross train is, for example, if I'm an OT and I'm doing a motor activity, or I'm doing an obstacle course with a student, I still wanna know in the back of my head, oh, this child is also working on expanding language, answering questions the articulation of the FF [00:22:00] sound. So as they're crossing this balance beam, I'm gonna ask them if they can pick up the fish from, so they can help reinforce those speech goals while they're doing an OT motor activity with me. So specialists will address each other's goals and the teacher and that special education assistant.

When those specialists of that discipline are not in the room, we still wanna make sure that those adults are helping to generalize those skills and reinforce those activities to support that child. Because heaven knows we do not have all five of those adults in the room at the same time.

That would be chaotic. And so it does allow for that cross training. And then they do site reviews every week and they participate in collaborative teaming conversations about the needs of students. What did you notice? What worked, what didn't work? And it benefits again, those students who are not identified.

So little one coming in, never having been in a preschool setting before. I speak Russian at home and I do not know English. And so I [00:23:00] don't have the language. I don't necessarily have a disability that requires specialized services, but I'm struggling in this classroom to communicate and to connect. What are some strategies I can use to incorporate, to benefit and support that child?

They're not on my caseload, but I have that pedagogy and that knowledge and that expertise to help support. And so we have visuals so they can point to a picture, those kinds of things to allow all students to be served by whatever adult is in the classroom. And here in Douglas County, all the students call any adult in the classroom teacher.

So even when I go into a site visit and I'm in the classroom and I'm just sitting on the floor playing with the blocks, I'm just teacher. So every adult is teacher, so that they don't think, oh, I only see Miss Jenny for speech on Tuesdays. Everybody's gonna be working on speech with you.

Everybody's gonna be working on your OT goals with you and addressing those needs with you. So I think that's what sets us apart and helps us to stand out. We also have behavior specialists. We have school psychologists, we have social workers. We have a variety of additional supplemental team members available [00:24:00] to bring that expertise and that support and that collaborative brainstorming.

Aleia Mastroianni: So what Lisa's just described is a highly organized, highly educated, highly trained, thoughtful, and precision team.

Lisa Graham: It's our pit crew.

Aleia Mastroianni: Exactly. 

Courtney Nagle: I mean, top notch. 

Aleia Mastroianni: Absolutely everything is meaningful and 

Lisa Graham: Intentional. 

Aleia Mastroianni: Thank you. There was a word I was looking for. That's the word. Everything's intentional. And you have this benefit that your children are being observed. Even if your child is a gen ed, typical student, they still have the benefit of all of these experts being with them and really guiding their brains during this absolutely magical time.

Lisa Graham: We're very proud of our quality programming, our staffing. We have amazing staff who are incredibly dedicated. The minimum requirement is 15 hours per year of professional development and our teachers get probably at least three times that. And the curriculum that we chose and all of the tools that we provide, we use creative curriculum from teaching strategies as the [00:25:00] comprehensive curriculum.

We also have the social emotional learning. We use early learning, which is from Second Step. We have Haggerty for early literacy, Handwriting without Tears for fine Motor. So there's a variety of tools to address all those different domains for students in our programs.

Aleia Mastroianni: I wanted to ask about the complication for many parents, with DCSD preschool versus private preschool or a daycare center because the hours are really different. Most families have two working parents and getting to the program when most of them are half day and even if their whole day, aren't obviously a work day. We're not sending preschoolers to school for 40 hours a week. What are some of the ways that we work through that?

Lisa Graham: We provide UPK, that Universal Preschool from Colorado. Three year olds access a 10 hour program. Four year olds access a 15 hour program. And for certain students that meet the UPK eligibility criteria for 30 hours have access to a 30 hour program.

But I recognize right, if you work 40 hours and school is 30 hours, what ya gonna [00:26:00] do, right. I absolutely recognize that as a hardship for families. And we've had families say, yours is better, but I need the full day, 50 hour program just because of my work schedule.

And I recognize, and that is a choice that families have to make. Some of our families have access to a variety of creative options. We encourage all of our teachers to share a phone tree with the families of kids that are already enrolled there so that they can start connecting. We have 66 classrooms throughout Douglas County in 41 different buildings. We have one early childhood center. This building that we're in right now in Castle Rock that has six classrooms, but all the rest of them are embedded in an elementary school.

And so that start time aligns with the AM bell schedule for the three year olds in the morning and the four year olds in the afternoon, their end time aligns with that pickup, that PM bell schedule. So we try to maximize those pieces. But it is that midday pickup or the midday drop off that is often challenging for families.

And so I don't have [00:27:00] a magic wand to do a quick fix for that for families. I do recognize the challenge and the barrier that that presents for families. 

Aleia Mastroianni: It's kind of a universal problem though, right? I think it's not only specific to pre-K or disabilities. I think all of us parents are like, 

Lisa Graham: childcare, okay, 

Courtney Nagle: childcare's hard 

Aleia Mastroianni: childcare.

How do we get you from here to there? 

Lisa Graham: And to navigate that and for our families. You both have multiple children, right? 

Aleia Mastroianni: Yes, exactly. 

Lisa Graham: So having to coordinate that, even if you didn't have a child with a disability. Or even if preschool weren't a factor to navigate an elementary and a middle school and a high school pick up and drop off with their schedule.

It's a lot to coordinate, it's not only preschool, but I do recognize that the way our preschool is set up creates an additional layer that feels a little inaccessible for some families.

Aleia Mastroianni: I think I'm correct in saying that there's lots of daycares or preschools that, do busing to preschool sites to like pick up or drop off kids. 

Lisa Graham: Some do. I can't say lots. I can't quantify how many, and it's not all of them for sure. If your child has an IEP and are then [00:28:00] eligible for transportation as part of that IEP, transportation could be one of those services that is considered on behalf of that child. And that one is sort of that last resort. You have to really exhaust all other available options for your child because it is a parent's responsibility to get their preschooler to school.

You would not send your child out in the world and go, good luck. Hope you get there. Okay. Uh, it's down the block. You wouldn't do that. It, it is a parent's obligation to get their young child to school, but let's go with our four year olds who were a PM program, if they're in a childcare setting in the morning and your child has an IEP that requires transportation in order to get them to access their services in this setting, then you would have that conversation with the IEP team to have that conversation about getting their child from that pickup of the daycare location to school.

We can tell those kiddos that go to a morning childcare center that then transport to us for the afternoon.

They are exhausted. It is a long day for them. They might hold it [00:29:00] together in that morning setting because I can do circle time once in a day. Yeah. But by goodness, when I get to you at 12:30, you want me to do circle time again? I've had it. I'm done. I'm tired, I'm hungry, didn't get a nap. That's hard for little ones. And so for families to recognize, that's part of what has to weigh into their decisions. Are the services, while amazing and extraordinary and beneficial, sure. You have to decide for your child. Is that transition from one program to a very different program to having what we call continuity of care for the whole day. Can they stay with their peers, have a nap time, have a snack, do sort of a lighter afternoon.

Would that set your child up emotionally to be more regulated throughout their day than to have them disrupted by coming to another program? So it's a double-edged sword. It's amazing and it's beneficial and it's valuable to have the services for free for your child, but it does come at a cost, are they able to sustain energy [00:30:00] and stamina and fatigue just as being a tiny 4-year-old human on earth?

Are they gonna be successful in that environment? 

Courtney Nagle: I love that we talked about this, 'cause my boys, they both have that autism diagnosis, however, you're talking about polar opposite. My oldest, he was able to do the classroom setting where he could do the structure. My youngest, there was no way he could ever operate in that setting. And to be able to recognize, okay, this child, yes. Even though you have that label, that label doesn't necessarily look the same even though they're brothers.

Lisa Graham: Right. They could be twins and that's, that's an interesting factor for parents. Well, they're identical twins. Okay? They are still completely individual, unique humans separately. So you may think of them as a singleton unit. They are two different creatures to us and they will respond very differently.

Aleia Mastroianni: So basically it's hard to be a parent. Hot take.

Lisa Graham: Kids don't come with an instructional manual. Boy, don't we wish they [00:31:00] did. 

Aleia Mastroianni: Scheduling is hard. From the second you're like, have a newborn to how do I get you to college?

It's hard and we love to be filled with guilt, so I hope that what you got from what Lisa was saying is we all also have to live in the real world. We all wanna give our child every support in the world, but we also need money. We also need jobs. We also have to have food. You will find the balance for your family. The district can say, here's how we can provide and serve. But also, you are going to walk your own path and have to make decisions that's good for your whole unit. And that can look vastly different for different families. So don't judge yourself by what someone else is doing. You are making the best decisions for you and your family.

Lisa Graham: And even if our programs aren't for you, that's okay. I want for you whatever is best for you and your child and your family, I can simply share with you the pros, the cons, here's what we've got to offer.

If it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. And no judgment either way.

Aleia Mastroianni: And even if you end up not using DCSD services, the resources are [00:32:00] there. The evaluation or just even going in for the referral. These are all state funded programs. They're free to parents.

So even if you're like, I think I am going to stay at wherever, childcare, whether it's at home or wherever it is. But I'm interested, I wanna see, let me get the information that's available. 

Courtney Nagle: Knowledge is power. 

Aleia Mastroianni: Right, exactly.

Courtney Nagle: I hope you found some encouragement and some support because this is a journey that you don't have to walk alone.

Lisa is full of amazing resources and knowledge and experience that she willingly shares. The amount of compassion and pure unwavering love that she has. Don't walk this road alone. Let her walk it beside you and help you ' cause you got help.

Aleia Mastroianni: So as we come to the end of our amazing conversation, Lisa, what is one thing if distill this, all of this crazy knowledge we just talked about, one thing or possibly just the first thing you wish parents would know about preschool in Douglas County?

Lisa Graham: It's free and it's amazing. 

Aleia Mastroianni: Perfect. That's the [00:33:00] soundbite. And I, I concur. It is free and it is amazing.


Aleia Mastroianni: Lisa, truly from the bottom of my heart and from Courtney as well, thank you so much. You are amazing and you share your wisdom and your heart for our youngest learners and I, and I think your ongoing mission to share all of this insight with the community, with parents, and just giving selflessly of this, it means so much to me. You're a rockstar.

Parents. If you have any more questions or if you'd like more information about early childhood education in Douglas County, I'm gonna link in our show notes, the district pages about preschool, about Child Find.

This has been amazing. Until next time, we're here to help you navigate special education together. One conversation at a time. We'll catch you on the next one.


Aleia Mastroianni: Bye bye. We did it. Thank you all.