Catching up with Liza Meier - Executive Director of Special Edu cation
Aleia Mastroianni: [00:00:00] Have you ever wondered who makes the big decisions about special education in Douglas County? I know I have. Or have you ever wished you had a clearer picture about what's happening behind the scenes? Well, today we unwrap that just a little bit by sitting down with Liza Meier. She's the Executive Director of Special Education in DCSD.
This conversation with Liza was just a beginning. We had tons more topics we would love to talk about and share, but, not surprisingly, Liza had a lot more meetings she had to get to. So I hope you enjoy the conversation we had today.
And feel free to leave us comments if you had any additional questions or more information you wanted us to bring back to Liza.
So let's jump into another one here on SpecialEd IEPs, 504s. Oh my: Conversations with DCSEAC.
Hey everyone. Welcome to our parent- to- parent podcast, where we connect families in Douglas County with real information, real resources, and voices from inside our school. I'm your host, Aleia Mastroianni, and today I'm joined by many of [00:01:00] our awesome DCSEAC board members: Courtney, Kelly, Meredith, Jason.
Today we're really excited to introduce someone whose leadership impacts every student who has an IEP or 504 in our district, and that's our executive director, Liza Meier. Our goal today is pretty simple. We want to let you know who she is, let you know what she's working on, and her team, and what we can expect moving forward.
Hi, Liza.
Liza Meier: Hi. Thank you for inviting me.
Aleia Mastroianni: Thank you so much for making time for us. We know that you're crazy busy. So we are gonna speed through this. First I would love it for parents to understand what is your job? You are the executive director of special education.
What does that mean? How does it impact students? How does it impact decision making in our district?
Liza Meier: Great question. And so as you said, my title is Executive Director of Special Education, but it's not just special education that I have the privilege of working with. So I will start with special education though.
We have, in our central office staff, we have nine special education coordinators who support our schools. We have other coordinators, but those are the nine [00:02:00] core ones. And then we have other coordinators and staff that help support other entities of special education.
Now, when I talk about our system our coordinators all support a feeder region in our district. A feeder would be described as a high school, the middle schools in the elementary schools that feed that high school. And so we have someone that's attached to each of those. And that's meaningful for a few reasons.
One, geographically it makes sense. So we don't have someone driving across the district all day long and wasting time driving. They're able to jump from one school to another. Like, for instance, if you're in Highlands Ranch, you can drive about five minutes and you're at a different school and you can get there very quickly.
And then I would be remiss if I didn't talk about in special education, we have other people who support our data. So right now we have data specialists working on our reports to submit for our count, which federal funding will be based on. And so we wanna make sure we are counting every single student we are serving to make sure we get the funding to pay the staff to continue supporting those students.
Aleia Mastroianni: Data is king [00:03:00] everywhere, but especially in special ed. I wanted to jump back and learn a little bit about you. How did you enter the world of education. And how did you find special education?
Liza Meier: Oh, great question. I do come from a family of educators. On my mother's side there are four sisters and three of them are in education.
One is in nursing. So I would say, you know, everybody's in a helping profession. I went to college and after that and said, I'm not gonna go into education. Like I've seen everybody else do it. I'm gonna do something different, you know? And then of course it turned around.
I tried some different things and was like, none of those fit tried education and I said, yep, here we go. I went in to get my degree in elementary ed and special education, and I didn't know exactly where I wanted to go with it, but then that is the gift of student teaching.
I went to an a fourth grade classroom and taught it, and it was good. You know, I, I was good and then I went to a high school special education setting and I was like, oh my gosh, this is it. This is, this is what I need to do. And that is what I did.
Aleia Mastroianni: So Liza, I get to work with you through DCSEAC, which is awesome, and I know [00:04:00] that for our organization and for the district, fostering those relationships with families between districts and families is a core principle for both of us.
It's something we're both really dedicated to. I was wondering if throughout your career, which was all over starting in New York and coming out to Colorado, do you have an experience that helped shape how you view the importance of the family school relationship or partnership.
Liza Meier: I can, and thank you for giving me these questions ahead of time so I could get some thought into this. I think anybody who's in education, that you have some students and some families that stick out in your head as meaningful in a certain way.
Every student is meaningful, but sometimes there are things that just stay with you. One of these is a student I had and his name was Dylan. He is probably 35 now, so
Aleia Mastroianni: Time keeps going.
Liza Meier: Yeah. Okay. He was a high school student and he came into ninth grade. He was a student whose mother would leave me a voicemail every single day.
She was asking a lot of questions and worried and concerned. So, I was watching him and I'm seeing him in classes and helping support him. And I'm like, [00:05:00] okay, you know, he's navigating ninth grade pretty well socially. He's got a bunch of friends, you know, looking at it. And I could have taken that two ways.
I could have said, mom is calling me every day, let the kid, you know, navigate ninth grade. Or I could have said, okay, what's going on? What are we missing here? And so I did take that second route and decided, let's figure out what's going on with her.
And really the crux was, she said, I've been, banging this drum for years and he can't read and nobody's listening to me, and he's in ninth grade and I'm not gonna stop fighting for him. And she was absolutely right. We had a ninth grade student who could not read, and he did a great job of masking it. And he was going to classes, he had friends, like none of those were issues, but he couldn't read. And we had, we were at that point, if he didn't do anything after high school for special education, we had four years to get him in a place. So we did work together and get him the specialized instruction he needed in order to increase his reading levels. But you know what, if that parent hadn't called me and hadn't persisted, I worry, [00:06:00] you know? But that might not have been caught. And so sometimes those are the hardest pieces, but you gotta listen.
Kelly Mayr: And I think that's a story that actually will resonate with a lot of our families. You're right, students are really good at masking and then
we get to a point, of how to teach reading when you're past early elementary. So thank you for finding that student. Thank you for listening to that family.
Aleia Mastroianni: It was like the perfect relationship between a parent who kept advocating and they finally ran into the teacher that was like, well, what's going on?
Yeah. Let's actually listen. And just a self plug, go catch our podcast where we talk with Lyni, our dyslexia specialist. Our district is doing a great job of focusing on trying to bring literacy to kids who have made it to secondary and how completely different it is to teach it at that level.
Liza Meier: I do have the privilege of supporting Lyni and her team and they are doing such great work. It is a small but mighty team that is getting out there to schools and doing what needs to be done in order to get the information and the learning into the educators that are working with the students every day.
Mm-hmm.
Aleia Mastroianni: Liza, I'm gonna move our focus into [00:07:00] you professionally and what DCSD looks like today within special education. You're the captain of a huge team, a huge ship. With so many people that you're supporting, I'm wondering what are the goals and priorities?
In your own words that you share with your team, that you guys talk about. Hey, this is what we want, the principles of special education in Douglas County to be.
Liza Meier: Yeah, that's great. This year we have three tenants that we are focusing on as we are building our strategic plan and long range planning.
The three things right now that our core special education team are working on: one is consistent communication and collaboration. When you have a vast system like we do and a huge amount of schools that we are making sure our communication is consistent. Whether you're in Highlands Ranch or you're in Parker or Castle Rock, you are hearing same messages. Could I say that we are a hundred percent, no. That's a lofty goal and a big system, but that is something we're committed to so that parents have similar experiences and that they're not in a completely different place because of where they [00:08:00] live.
Kelly Mayr: I love that you brought that up.
That actually comes up a lot with parents who interact with us at DCSEAC, they are looking for consistency from program to program and geographic region of our district. So thank you for making that a focus.
Aleia Mastroianni: Parents talk to each other and it is confusing when we're like, this happens at this school. Well, my school doesn't do this well, my mm-hmm. And then it can be a source of frustration. For parents out there, I want you to know that our district sees that as well, and as they continue to implement. And it has grown over the years, and now there's professional development, monthly, with all educators, which means the district pays to bring everyone together to try and get them on the same page.
I've seen this in action and I'm really excited about it. So Yay. Parents, they're listening to us.
Liza Meier: We are, we are. It's hard work. But we're, we're committed to it because it's the right work.
Aleia Mastroianni: So what's our second focus?
Liza Meier: The second is working on relationships and that is relationships across the board, whether you're talking about our central staff with our school teams our administrators, but most importantly with our families. I believe the basis of some of those hard conversations [00:09:00] and getting to a mutual point that everybody can live with or agree is building a relationship and getting to know where the other person's coming from. If you don't listen, then you don't understand that other person.
And a lot of times families have information that is happening at home that we need to listen to. Because sometimes students, believe it or not, look different at school than we do at home.
And then the third one is embracing change with openness and a commitment to continuous improvement. One great example right now is we have six schools that are consolidating for next year, and that is a ton of change. We are working with families, we're working with staff in order to embrace that change and figure out what we can do to make that better.
The other piece is we have a number of schools moving sixth grade, from the elementary school to the middle school. In some schools in our district, they're like, oh, we've been doing that. No issue. But for some families in schools, that's a huge change.
Figuring out how we can help with those adjustments, especially for center programs students, we are not having one grade level, but two grade levels move up to the middle school and what does that look like, what do we do for programming? Do we expand program?
Do we have capacity in a school? [00:10:00] And we do. We've looked into that and we do, so don't worry.
Kelly Mayr: Okay. Yeah. But it is a lot of change and that brings a lot of anxiety. So I think it's good that we talk about it, right?
Meredith Daly: I'm coming from one of the consolidating schools. I'm coming from Saddle Ranch. And so, you know, this impacts my kid and I've heard the families and so I know it's just really appreciated that, you know, that is a focus.
Liza Meier: Absolutely.
Aleia Mastroianni: For our parents to understand that with embracing that change, all of the changes are coming with the intention to improve how education is delivered to the students.
That's really hard, especially for our consolidated schools, because the most is being asked of them. But the ultimate goal is to improve programming and the education opportunities.
Kelly Mayr: We've spoken a little bit about it, that there's a consolidating schools that are impacted, and even the schools in the general area around that. Where are these kids with IEPs landing? 'Cause sometimes they chose not to land in the consolidated school. That's kind of a moving target for you and a lot of work.
Liza Meier: It is. And talk about data, you know?
Kelly Mayr: So much data.
Liza Meier: We are trying to project and it's always difficult with open enrollment. And just making [00:11:00] sure that we are aligning staffing. Then we have teachers that we wanna make sure we are letting know where their positions are and what their options are so they're making right choice for themselves and their families. So there's a lot of impact to this.
Aleia Mastroianni: I love how you talk about the impact on our educators. You know how special our educators are, especially our special education educators, and that these decisions are made, but that our teachers are also considered, they're not collateral.
They're very much thought about in these decisions, which I think is important to maintain a strong district.
Liza Meier: Case in point in that, from some of those consolidated schools, we've heard from families that say, wherever our teacher goes, we're going because that's so meaningful to them. That tells you ...
Kelly Mayr: That sure does.
Liza Meier: Volumes.
Aleia Mastroianni: And just to flag up for our parents who might be listening who are on the complete flip side of this, we also, with our very diverse district, have people saying, Hey, I'm moving to an area and there's no schools in my area. The challenges facing our district and our special education team are so very different to what we're facing in the north of our district and the south of [00:12:00] our district.
With this large district, what is something you're proud of?
Liza Meier: I would definitely say our asset is our educators. All of our, teachers, our support staff, are incredible. I happen to be in a classroom in one of our center programs yesterday, just doing an observation, and
it was incredible. It was, I just, I, it was masterful. The teacher, the EAs, everybody was working together. The students were supported, and people were consistent, going back to one of our major tenants. Those are the moments that you're like, this is working. And this is what matters.
And how do we continue to support this.
Aleia Mastroianni: So looking ahead: where do you want special education to go? What are some of the biggest priorities you have as you build and grow?
Liza Meier: Continuing our professional development is huge for me because things are evolving and making sure we're getting the latest research, the latest strategies into the hands of our educators, so they can stay informed and up to date. And a lot of times they'll ask for things. Like dyslexia is a great example. They say, you know, I'm a secondary educator. When I went through [00:13:00] school, I never learned how to teach phonics, for instance. So bringing some of those resources to those teachers and saying, we can help you and we can do it in a way that's not gonna be overwhelming.
Let's look at our students with autism. There are a lot of strategies out there. There are a lot of things that work, some things that don't work. And making sure as our population of students with autism increases that we are meeting their needs and making sure that the people working with them every day feel confident in meeting those needs.
Kelly Mayr: Can I piggyback on that a little bit? As we know, the vast majority of our special education students are in general education. So is there a collaboration between special education and special educators? And general educators?
Liza Meier: We are working on that collaboration and that falls into one of the
tenants: consistent communication and collaboration. I'm gonna go back to dyslexia - we are working with our curriculum instruction team to make sure that we are consistent in the interventions. Not all students with dyslexia are identified for special education.
Let's talk about the universal screeners. We will actually be rolling out [00:14:00] ahead of when we have to, so we are actually gonna be starting that next spring with our kindergartners.
Kelly Mayr: Excellent.
Liza Meier: We have actually just finished training all of our kindergarten teachers in the district of how to administer those. And that is our kindergarten teachers, but we're also having our support staff knowledgeable about what's going on, so then we can figure out what next once we have the data.
Kelly Mayr: Oh, that's amazing.
Courtney Nangle: I love that you just touched on the kindergartners 'cause when we got to meet with Lisa, she was talking about the early identifiers that they use and the different strategies. And also to educate and make the parents feel a little bit more at ease because there is so much confusion. So much gray area. And where do I go? How hard do I advocate? How often do I call my teacher every day? Does that actually matter?
So the fact that you're kind of hitting on these things. I think will really make a big difference.
Liza Meier: That's awesome. And that does fit into our collaboration. Our early childhood teams, who are amazing, we are collaborating with our special education team, especially for those students on IEPs in order to make sure we have smooth [00:15:00] transitions from pre-K to kindergarten for those students. And Lisa and her team do amazing work in getting our students ready. And we're continuing to work on early childhood too, but that's a whole different podcast.
Kelly Mayr: I think it's important is another thing we hear from parents a lot is transitions are very scary, whether it's from preschool to kindergarten or into middle school or into high school.
So the fact that you're talking about that is so incredibly powerful. Dyslexia is a great example of collaboration. My own youngest child, uh, they came to me and they said, we're a little concerned. He doesn't know any letters or sounds. And I was like, whoops. And they weren't sure what to do and I was able to bring in some dyslexia specifically to preschool information.
And I just worked with him over winter break and they're like, what did you do? He came back and he knows it. 'Cause he doesn't actually have a reading disability. But he just wasn't getting it. And then he did.
'Cause he needed explicit instruction. So sometimes it's that simple.
Liza Meier: Yes.
Kelly Mayr: But if we can empower parents, as you were saying, or empower general education teachers, we can get some kids. 'cause we know early intervention makes the difference so that we [00:16:00] don't have to remediate in high school.
Liza Meier: You got it. And that collaboration is huge.
Let's talk together and figure out what we can do on both sides - when you're at home and when they're in the school.
Aleia Mastroianni: Since you've joined Douglas County School District, what are some common challenges that you see families run into as they're trying to access special education or continue their services?
And how has the district responded?
Liza Meier: Yeah, I think one of the things is knowing communication wise, who to reach out to. We have resources on our website that help support this. But essentially it's you're talking to your case manager, you're talking to your school site, your administrators.
We've done special education training with administrators so they're aware of some of the nuances to special education and then we have those coordinators I talked about earlier are the next step and they can help. They are administrators specifically for special education, so they're very knowledgeable. Sometimes families feel that there's something they need addressed.
And so we have levels of support in order to make sure we're meeting those needs. So make sure to take a look at our website. We actually now [00:17:00] have the photos of our people on it as well, so that you can actually get a face with a name, which I always think is huge, like, you know, who am I talking to?
Kelly Mayr: Absolutely. So helpful.
Liza Meier: And I think we have a little bios with them.
Aleia Mastroianni: And I'll link this in our show notes for you guys as well. And you also have a phone number and an email for your coordinator and feeder. And those coordinators are really there to help you.
Even though parents have called Liza every single day when she was a teacher, don't do that. She is gonna send you to that coordinator. But, if you have those questions, you're not sure, it's a fantastic asset to help you when you hit those challenges or bumps. Start with your school site always, but if you feel like you're not getting the traction there that you need, the coordinators are another great option to help.
Liza Meier: Thank you for inviting me and I'm sure this is not the only one that we'll do. And, I look forward to talking as things develop and we go out throughout the year.
Aleia Mastroianni: I think that sounds fantastic.
Thank you so much for joining us today, and we have a truly heartfelt thank you to Liza Meier for sharing her time and her insight and her openness with our parent community. It was valuable [00:18:00] to hear your perspective on how things are working in special education and how we'll be moving forward.
Thank you for prioritizing relationships with our families and community. And thank you everyone for listening. If today's conversation resonates with you, please share it with another DCSD parent who might need to hear that they're also not alone. You can always find more episodes, resources, and upcoming events at DCSEAC.org.
I'm Aleia Mastroianni and this has been SpecialEd, IEPs, 504s, Oh my: Conversations with DCSEAC. Until next time, we're here to help you navigate special education together, one conversation at a time.