Ask DCSEAC: Your Special Education Questions Answered === [00:00:00] Crossover Q&A Kickoff --- Aleia: Hey everyone. Today is a fun episode for me because for the first time, both of the pod's hosts are coming together for a Q & A. That's right. Meredith is gonna be here with me. Usually Meredith and I trade off episodes. She'll host a few. I'll host a few, and that helps us with our work and our kids and all those IEP meetings and all the things like that. But today is our first crossover episode, and we're so excited because it's all about answering your questions that we got from our listeners. So let's jump right in. Hello friends, and welcome back to SpecialEd, IEPs, 504s, Oh my: Conversations with DCSEAC. I'm Aleia Mastroianni Meredith: Hey guys. I am Meredith. Aleia: Today is that special episode where we're both here and we get to have our first crossover, which is super fun for me. Meredith: We gathered some questions from listeners and from parents at the special needs resource event earlier this month, and we're so grateful. Aleia: [00:01:00] Yes. Thank you for leaving amazing questions. We're gonna jump into our first little segment, a few questions that were program related. Let's do this. Autism Team Contact --- Aleia: Question number one, how do I contact the DCSD autism team? So in our district, we have two special teams that can come in and support all behaviors, not just in special education. And that is our behavioral team and our autism team or the ASD team. What's great about these teams is they're all specialists in their field, whether it's behavioral training, behavioral support, ABA, autism, things like that. And this team works as a consultive team. So when a school site needs extra support or they have a student or they're like, Hey, we'd like some specialized programming that might help support something that we're struggling with, the team can come in, evaluate, look at possible triggers or possible supports that might help that kiddo. They're a fantastic asset. A lot of people don't know about them. It's a little bit hard when it comes to [00:02:00] contacting them because typically they're not a parent facing group, so it's not someone who you would typically reach out to. If you wanted a consult from the autism team or the behavioral team, normally you'd start with your school, you'd start with your teacher, you'd start with your coordinator, if if your teacher wasn't responding to that, and they would reach out and contact the team Now, let's be real. We have heard some feedback that the teams are resistant. A specific person was really worried because they wanted the autism team to come out, but their school didn't feel like it was necessary. If you run into that situation, and it's not unheard of because, from a human perspective, these teams are working so hard. They have lots of specialists at their school sites. They're working so hard and to bring in an outside team that's gonna come in and evaluate their practices, what they're doing, and give them feedback. Sometimes that can make you feel defensive. Sometimes it can make you feel like you don't know what you're doing. I would love to [00:03:00] say, I view calling in these teams as an expert, power, legend move. It's saying, Hey, I'm a confident teacher. I know I know how to do this, but this specific kiddo or this specific situation has got me. I'm just not sure. I don't know how to support them. And so, they can call in this team to support them. If you're getting resistance from your school, please know that this is something you can ask for. If your school is pushing back, the next step, I would do would be to reach out to your special education coordinator and we will put in our show notes a link to where you can go find all of the coordinators that are for your specific feeders. And if you're still not getting any movement, you can reach out to the special education directors who will really bounce you back to your coordinator. A little inside scoop, Jennifer Tilley is the head of the autism team, and if you really, really struggling, you can find her email and shoot her an email and Keith Souza is the [00:04:00] lead of the behavioral team. So if you really are struggling and can't get help, first off, reach out to us. We can contact these people. Or these are the leaders of those teams, but the normal process is not to directly contact them because the first thing they'll do is contact your school and be like, Hey, how can we help? What's going on? Meredith: A hundred percent. All right. Next question. Center Staff Training --- Meredith: When does center-based staff training happen? Do all teams receive it? So, at least CPI, that is, crisis prevention intervention. It's done, first course is an eight hour course, and then a yearly refresher course. And it's part of that professional development. The hope is next year for those Fridays that we get that late start on the entire team is going to be having an opportunity to have that additional training and that is including the EAs. Aleia: I agree. Super excited about those Fridays and giving our teams an opportunity to train and work together and talk about the students. It's gonna be awesome. AN Program and ASD --- Aleia: Our next question is, how do the AN [00:05:00] program support students with ASD or autism spectrum disorder? I will try and keep this brief because it actually is a very layered question, but our AN programs is our Affective Needs program. And that is generally for our students who have emotional regulation issues or have disorders like ODD , often ADHD can end up in there. We have three center based programs in our district, but the ASD or the autism program is very, very new. There are only six locations. They're all elementary at the moment, and so it is not serving that wide population. Most of our students who have ASD don't go to an ASD Center program and don't necessarily need to. A center program is a more restrictive environment and it's usually for kids that are more on the moderate side, not the mild side. And then our SSN program, significant support needs, and usually our students here are gonna have an intellectual disability as [00:06:00] well. What this means realistically is that our AN classrooms are often a mix of students who have ADHD and emotional dysregulation disorders, and some of our moderate students with ASD. And why this matters is you support them very, very differently and these students can crash up against each other and really annoy each other. The types of manifestations of their disability sometimes rub up against each other. Though it may not feel like the perfect answer, it's worth knowing that the student is in the center program because they need that support. But there might be that mix. And so the question then becomes how do you support ASD and how do you differentiate it from the level of support that you're providing for your students with emotional dysregulation? And this comes down to individualization, which may not be a satisfying answer, but it means that the teacher should be aware of the different diagnoses of the students in the classroom and should individualize the types of support that [00:07:00] they have. For a student who has ASD, you might have more pictures, you might use less language and you might write the schedule out. You might give choices if you're dealing with a little bit of pathological demand avoidance . If you have ODD, structure, more rigidity is really important. Understanding the explosiveness against authority and how to not react to that and not build that problem more. The good news is that we have, within our district, we have bought different curricula that support each. I know the one for ASD is called Star, so if you have real specific questions about this, I would go to your team, really happy and warm, it's not a gotcha, but say, Hey, I, you know, AN is so complicated. I was wondering, how are we using ASD supports, not necessarily emotional dysregulation supports. You could ask for the autism team to come in. Often it's the behavioral team that comes in to AN. So again, you might wanna be specific about [00:08:00] that if your child has an ASD diagnosis and really work with the team to create a program that's individualized to their needs. So, no great satisfying answer, but it is, Hey, talk with your team. Work with your team. They'll be very aware of that difference. Meredith: Absolutely. I agree. IEP vs 504 Explained --- Meredith: So what is the difference between an IEP and 504? This is a question that gets asked all the time. An IEP is a specialized instruction for a learning need. There are 13 specific disabilities. They'll do an evaluation and kind of see, and within that disability, they require specialized instruction to learn. And so this is where you're getting those goals that are measurable and specific services. And so that would be like your speech goals, your mental health goals. This would also be, the pull in and pull out for, additional support for reading with your specialist or doing small groups for math. It's that specialized instruction and so you have to meet within one of those 13 criteria that they [00:09:00] evaluate for. A 504 provides equal access to the life of the school. Parents or staff can complete the referral. Medical diagnosis is not required for either of these, by the way. And even if there is a medical diagnosis if it doesn't show at school, they don't qualify. And so that's true between IEP and 504. And so the 504 is a team decision. And the accommodations are related to aids and services and modifications to the school. So the eligibility for 504, does the student have a physical or mental impairment? Does the impairment identify it substantially limit the student in major life activities? If both of those are a yes, then we move forward with talking about a 504. And so that third question is, does the student require section 504 services and accommodations to ensure students' needs are met the same extent as other students. And so these modifications can look like speech tech devices for dyslexia. Those are kinds of services they can provide. Sometimes it's just a break from the [00:10:00] class to go regulate for a second. So those are the modifications, but regardless, for a 504, if you did still answer yes to those first two questions, they still qualify under the law to not be discriminated against for their disability and their needs. Additionally, with this 504 law we talk about this in other podcasts, but just remember, if your student is missing school due to medical, mental health needs, this also qualifies under the 504. This is a conversation you have to have with the team to talk about like, Hey, we're gonna have all these absences. You don't wanna be truant. And they need to make sure that their education is accessible to them even when they're in the hospital, if they're at home and they have any medical diagnosis that might, like headaches that just prevent them from going to school. This 504 ensures that you are not getting in trouble for truancy and that the student's still accessing their education. So that is also a distinct difference between the two because an [00:11:00] IEP, they need to be present at this school. You can have both at the same time. Accommodations are a part of that IEP for a student, it just covers more things. Aleia: Totally. I love to think about the difference, and this is so Uber simplified, Meredith's answer was better, but an IEP is when you need specialized instruction that you're gonna change the way your education's delivered. With a 504 you get the same instruction as everybody else, but there's different accommodations that will help you access that same instruction. Meredith: Yes. Aleia's definitely broke that down the Barney style. So her answer is more of that, let's make sense of that, instead of this technical jargon. Speaker 4: I'll link it into our show notes, but we have a fantastic multi-part podcast that goes over all the details because it is an incredibly complicated process. After School ADHD Support --- Speaker 4: We're gonna shift over a little bit into the home life where we got a question that so many of us can feel, and it's how do I support the extreme ADHD behaviors after school [00:12:00] when those medications wear off? And yes, if you have a child with ADHD, if you have ADHD yourself like me, you understands there can be a rebound effect once the medication wears off and you can feel extreme hunger, almost some manic feelings, extreme energy, it can spike. And some families aren't doing medication at all. It really is what fits for you and your family. I can give a little, a few tips and tricks. If we're gonna stay on the medication side, a lot of families that I know and I've done myself, is they'll give their child a booster midway through their day. For one of my kiddos. It was hard because then you had to go to the office and take it and that didn't feel good to her. She felt like it made her too noticeable. Now that she's older and she can take it herself, 'cause she's in high school, she's back to taking it because she's old enough to notice her brain where she's like, I cannot focus midway through school. To take one tiny step back. For those of you that are [00:13:00] worried about medications, they're stimulants, they're your focalin or dexmethylphenidate, Ritalin. These are often medications that are used. Sometimes it's controversial. People want to medicate, don't want to medicate. The one thing I can say about this medication versus any type of mental health medication or SSRI is that they metabolize quickly, and that's why you're seeing that rebound. Because when you take it, it goes outta your system in about six hours. So trying the medication isn't as overwhelming as if you were to start something like Zoloft or you know, anything for mental health. Those medications take weeks to show their efficacy. Very frequently, almost all of them can increase suicidal feelings in teens, which is right when we're using it. Those ones I hate changing because it's a lot of trial and error. At least with the ADHD meds, it's fast. You know, right away, you know, from the first day you take it, is this helping me? Is it not? And if you hate it, if it makes your kid feel like a zombie, you just stop and it's out of their system in six hours. But it does mean [00:14:00] it's out of their system by the time they get home from school. So that little half dose is an option. And then beyond that, it gets down to the hard stuff. It's creating a lot of the structure that you have in school, but still giving their brain time to relax. And so it's about setting structured expectations at home. We're gonna do this for this amount of time. I need these three things accomplished. It's giving them enough room to bounce and burn off all that energy, but also with some of the structures you might see at school. So you might do a visual schedule, you might limit the amount of verbal instructions you're giving or have the same routine, which is absolutely how in the world do we do that? It's impossible to have the same routine every day. You can reach out to your school and look at some of the things that they're doing at school. I call it using the same language so I can use some of that same language at home. And sometimes when my daughter was younger, even use that same PEX board where we're using the same [00:15:00] images so that it feels familiar and some of that structure and routine that they get from school, they can also get at home. But it's hard. I might be real. It is hard. Meredith: I agree, and there's other things out there that you can do. They always, you always hear the term regulation, and so co-regulation is huge. That's where parents regulating at the same time as their child. And so, you know, that can be hard because you're triggered by what's going on with your child. And your child might be triggered by you. But it's just finding those things that help regulate you. So if it's for me and my family, it's like we're building magnets together and that's a regulation for us and others like coloring. So just finding those co-regulation and talking about it out loud this is how I'm gonna regulate. It's just calming that nervous system down with that structure. Additionally, I think you know, making it fun with those chores I have read ADHD is Awesome with By the Holderness. It's kind of a great book. And they made a kiddo book, but it's, it talks a little bit about some of those tips. So it's this like timed tasks, right? So you [00:16:00] have a fidget spinner, maybe you can just spin that spinner and then see how quickly they can get the chore done within that structure. So there's things you can do to maybe make it more fun within that time. And then just allowing those breaks and you know, running off the energy. So like Aleia said, definitely talk to your team, talk to you at school talk and they can provide you resources. Talk to pediatricians. And I know sometimes you are already doing this and you just aren't feeling heard. But sometimes it just takes therapies . And school can't provide those therapies. But sometimes that's where it is. CBT might be best. DBT might be another one. Family therapy could just be another one. So sometimes those therapies can just help them learn more skills for that regulation. Aleia: Lots of amazing therapies. If your child has the cognitive ability, I love how Meredith mentioned actually talking about what their brain is doing with my kiddos, it's given them language to explain what they're feeling. It's given them compassion to understand and I'm able to use [00:17:00] that language back and say, Hey, I'm overstimulated right now. At least with my family, I found that labeling things, helping them understand why their body's feeling crazy or dysregulated, or why they suddenly shut down, it demystifies it. It makes it less scary. Suddenly I'm hearing less comments like, oh, I guess I'm just stupid. You know, the things that come when you just feel that you're not like everyone else and you're like, you're not like everyone else. You're really cool. But here are the cool ways that we support ourselves in these moments. So if your kiddo can understand just talking about it, I, I'm not afraid of labels. I know different people feel differently, but I think understanding what your brain is doing is so powerful. Alright. Finding Parent Community --- Aleia: Let's switch over into finding community. That's us finding community with each other and it's so important. It's sort of this podcast is that whole concept that we've gotta do this together. Uh, but it can feel hard. It is very isolating to have a child with special needs. Especially if you don't have anyone in your family or haven't had experience, there's [00:18:00] mourning, there's sometimes feeling shame or that your kiddo is so ill behaved and everyone's looking at you. It's really helpful to meet people that are going through a lot of the same stuff. So we'll try and jump into that. I'll address first the DCSEAC of it all. So we run support groups and we've had a little bit of shift in our support groups. We normally had a mild mod support group, an SSN support group, and an AN support group, and we've had that for several years. But there's been a shift. So with our mild mod support group, it was Meredith, my lovely co-host's idea to start a podcast, to find a way to catalog and create a space where all this information can exist and people can access it whenever they need to. Especially because mild mod is so broad. If you come to a whole support group, and all we're talking about is dyslexia. Your child doesn't have dyslexia, it doesn't feel like a very useful use of your time. But if we record it as a podcast, you can just not listen to that episode 'cause it doesn't relate to you. So a lot of our [00:19:00] mild mod has shifted over into our podcast as far as a place to get information. SSN, this one's a heartbreaker. I love the support group. I attended this support group. We lost two in a row of our wonderful, amazing board members who ran this support group. And we haven't restarted one yet this school year, which is very sad to us, especially because there's so much information that's very specific to SSN that has to deal with waivers and Medicaid and hospitals and high level medical needs. So for those SSN parents out there, I want you to know, I am recording a podcast next week with Rachel Walker from Developmental Pathways, where we're gonna get into a lot of that waiver information and have that all captured in one area. I'm also planning an SSN night, like one big night that we're gonna do in April, so stay tuned for that where we can get together, talk and share. And moving into next school year, DCSEAC's sort of shifting. We want to build this community. We want a chance for parents to [00:20:00] not just come and listen to us talk to them, but to come and meet each other and talk and socialize. And so we're gonna try and have an every quarter DCSEAC special education night where we just get together, we'll bring some light snacks, and it's a place to ask questions. We can present any information, but really it's just a chance for us to walk around, talk with each other. We'll try and do something similar to that in April, but starting next school year, we're really hoping to create these social nights for this exact reason, this sense of community. And how do we find it? The AN group, which I host is still running strong. I will link it in here. It's the second Thursday of every month we do it via Zoom. All the Zoom information is out there. I had a parent ask if they could attend the support group if they don't have a child in AN, you can. Absolutely. We'd love to have you. I am someone who loves all information. I like to hear what people are talking about and see if it, I can learn something from it, which I always do. It might not all apply to you, but, I love it. It's my favorite night [00:21:00] of every month. I love meeting with my AN support group. They're amazing families talking about really complicated, real life problems and wonders, and we all support each other. So you're more than welcome to drop into that one if you'd like. Even if your kiddo's not in AN it if you feel like it'd be a waste of your time, you don't have to come, but everyone's always welcome. Alright, I'm gonna jump over to Meredith, tell us more about how we can meet people in the community. Meredith: Yeah. I think it's this question sometimes one I had when my child was younger and I had parents that had neurotypical kids and they're, just do this. And I'm like, my child can't do that. And so you just feel really alone. And definitely I think in those younger years, like preschool and kindergarten, it's a really hard find those connections and you just feel really lonely. And especially with the unified kindergarten now being a thing, at least before a unified preschool, most kids that were in the preschool at the school were ones that needed services who had those IEPs, and so you can kind of talk to those parents and you know, kind of grow those relationships that [00:22:00] way. But now unified pre-K, you just don't always know. So you just kind of meet the parents through just talking like, oh yeah, I have that. But I think that's still hard especially when you have children who are mild, moderate. So it, I think those connections has really come with conversations. I'm introverted so I'll say I still struggle with connecting with parents. So DCSEAC has been where I've found some of that community where I've talked to people, where I've learned, but there's other things for, you know, more of our significant folks. There's Unified Sports, Special Olympics, and if your child has gone through like a clinical diagnosis process, they provide a lot of resources and within those resources, they provide a plethora of community support groups that you can join. Some of those are online. And then again, like Aleia said, we're gonna do some more events where we can meet people. But, I'm not super big on social media, but I do know there are probably several support groups within there that parents are trying to set up. I don't have the best answer for that because [00:23:00] I'm still trying to figure it out. 'cause I'm introverted and I'm like, how do I have more mom friends? But definitely you wanna find those ones with special needs because you just need a place to vent and have someone like kind of understand what you're going through, where you can get full empathy. Aleia: A hundred percent. I love the talking about how hard it is on the parent too. 'cause I'm aware as we're talking about this, it just makes that emotional burden, that burden of tasks that's placed on mom or dad, just bigger and bigger and bigger. And the social anxiety's real. It's a real thing. And I think that many of us with neurodivergent kiddos or neurodivergent ourselves are finding our diagnosis later through our kids. And it is a lot. So be kind to yourself. It brings to mind one of the saddest qualities of autism to me: a need to be alone paired with loneliness, and it's such an unfortunate, hard thing to balance that you want friendship, but the process of friendship is too overwhelming. But then you are left [00:24:00] with loneliness and it is a push and pull and same thing. Putting a label on it sometimes is helpful and to find friends, that's why us neurodivergent people find each other, to find friends who get that, who get that, I love you so much, but I'm not "peopling" right now. And things like that. The struggle is real. It really is. Meredith: I agree. And I think dads need a support group. You know, moms go to all these support groups, but I think dads need a connection. So if anyone is out there, connect with us and then we'll connect that resource with you all. Aleia: Yes, we've tried several years, DCSEAC, to create a dads group. It is really hard. The dads are very lonely too. There are less opportunities for them to connect and just the way that so much of our social structure is set up, that prohibits them being open about it as well. If there's a dad out there that wants to start a dad special education group, we will wholeheartedly support it. IEP Advocacy and Goals --- Aleia: We're gonna move on to IEP advocacy. We have two little questions within this bubble that we'll answer. I'll let Meredith start. Meredith: Yeah, how am I a part of [00:25:00] the IEP team if goals are written before the meeting and could there be a pre-meeting parent input form? So, you are a part of the team, you are a huge part of the table. Those goals are typically drafted up as a talking point, and then you are 1000% more than welcome to ask the questions, put your input in, and make sure that you're trying to be collaborative. And coming at from, you know, I'm trying to be coming from this parent lens. This is what I see. I think this goal would be better and just work collaboratively with your team. And you'll probably get huge success with seeing that those goals are written together, but they're typically drafted just to kind of help flow of the whole meeting because, it's time constricted. So don't feel like you're not heard. And then could there be a pre-meeting, parent input form? Definitely. I think when they send out the IEP meeting invite, ask and say, can I fill out the parent section and input for this meeting ahead of time? And they should be like, heck yeah, that's great. If not, [00:26:00] reach out to your coordinator. Those conversations can definitely happen. So you are more than welcome. You're totally part of the team, and if you do feel extremely not heard, follow that effective flow of communication. Aleia: I agree, this is a little hard because different teams work differently, so know that you're never overstepping and IEPs are stressful. They're really hard to write. They take a long time to write. They're trying to schedule all of these meetings. There is a parent input section, you can write an entire like thesis, about your child, which I have been doing. Which is really, really helpful because I'm able to just say it point blank. And then they take my words and just copy, paste it into that parent input section. So whatever it is that you want about your child can be part of the IEP. I will agree that the teams don't generally reach out and say, Hey, what goals are you thinking about? Because that's sort of their job. Their job is to say, what do we think we should be working on to try and give this student access to their education. However, [00:27:00] if that's something you want to be part of, just let your team know in a super collaborative way when you see that it's coming up. Say, Hey, I, I had some thoughts about goals and things that I would love for us to be working on, sort of like you might do with your private therapies. And if they know that, generally they're gonna be like, oh, cool. Yeah, tell us what, what are you thinking? I think it's helpful if you can have that conversation with them before the meeting. 'cause the meeting is so time impacted. So many different professionals have to sit down in that meeting and most of them, they're trying to shove it into an hour. There's so much information, so as much pre-work that you can do, but I think it needs to be you reaching out to them, because they're not generally gonna be hounding you for, Hey, could you give me some more input? Unless it's your three year reeval, so you're gonna wanna jump in yourself, which is, again, hard. It's more work for you. But if you wanna be part of that process, raise your hand and jump in. Meredith: Yeah, and I think also that goes into that is they're coming from a training of like [00:28:00] specifics that need to happen within those goals. And so still be maybe part of that collaboration ahead of time and ask the questions like, why is this the goal? And then how to tweak it that way. But typically they're writing it so that way it's that measurable annual goal to provide that data that they're supposed to provide by law. Aleia: Exactly. There's a lot that they have to put in there, that we don't think about necessarily as parents. I'm gonna move on to this next one, which came obviously directly from you guys. And I had a really great conversation with this parent. It is a little delicate, but I think so valuable and worth talking about. And she asked I, she said, I don't like my child's IEP goals. I felt pressured into accepting them. What are my next steps? And within our conversation, she also let me know that in that IEP meeting, she was using language like, I don't feel like these are measurable. I don't feel like these represent my kiddo. And she didn't feel like she got a response from everyone or they just sort of looked at her and she left the meeting [00:29:00] feeling unheard, frustrated, maybe a little gaslit. 'cause she felt like, Hey, these do have to be measurable, little sensitive situations. So let me jump in and tell you the advice that I gave and hopefully it would be helpful for any of you who might feel this way, who might say, what if I don't like what they wrote down. First off, hopefully they provided you with a draft. Unfortunately, just with the nature of how incredibly busy they are and how hard these IEPs are to write, often you're gonna get the draft 24 hours before your meetings. Sometimes it can be earlier again, if you want to look at it and review it, maybe communicate with your team, Hey, I'm really interested in seeing that draft. Is there any way we could try and get it a week beforehand. If they know you're waiting for that, they'll probably put that higher on the to-do list because they know that, oh, yay, we have a parent that actually wants to read the IEP. Then within your meeting, yes, the IEP goals should be measurable. That is by law, they need to be measurable. Here's why it's delicate. There's really no way to say to someone, I don't like the goal that you wrote without [00:30:00] triggering some level of defensiveness or worriedness, or, they did a lot of work trying to put this together and it definitely is a criticism which is okay, but we want to handle it delicately and politely. If you had the luxury of getting your IEP early enough, hopefully that's something you could talk with them about before you're in an entire meeting. But if you have like this situation where you really feel like, Hey, this doesn't even match my, my child, this isn't my understanding, and you feel like you're sort of brushed off or not heard, what I would do is I would go back to my teacher first. But I would do it completely separately. I would email or ask if I could meet them and I would say, Hey, I've really been thinking about the IEP and I'm just really uncomfortable. I, I know that we said this and this, but I was wondering if we could tweak it and make some changes. And they can amend the IEP, which is what they will definitely prefer. 'cause you don't need to bring the entire team together. But what I would do is I would come with example [00:31:00] goals. Now you don't write IEPs. How do you do that? Thank goodness sometimes for the internet. There are great websites. I remember why I was trying to write IEP goals for someone that wasn't academic at all, and it was entirely mental health related, and I just didn't have as much practice with that. I was like, how, how do I even write a goal that supports this? I typed it in and they gave me 50 ideas that I was like, oh, this works, or That doesn't work, or I could tweak it this way. So think about what it is you want your child's IEP goal to be and how it should be measurable. And then if you come to the team with several of those examples, also AI could help you if you wanna chat GBT it or whatnot. That really is great at generating these types of goals. And then it will give your teacher a much better idea of what it is you were looking for, what you feel like was lacking, and sort of communicate with them and see if you can amend the IEP. You as a parent have the right to call an IEP meeting at any time, as many times as you'd like. It will probably take several weeks to organize it. 'cause all of those members [00:32:00] then have to be there. It's a lot of staff, but you can truly say, I want a new IEP to bring this up. I highly recommend just go into your teacher first trying there. If it doesn't work, if you're really feeling that some resistance and they're not being heard, then like Meredith said, you go up that flow of effective communication, which we'll link as well. And that is, you go to your coordinator, try and talk to them about what's happening. If you can't solve it at the coordinator level, you can go to the director level, you can talk with us. But hopefully, if you're coming in as a super collaborative person and, and try and be sensitive to the fact that, that it is a hard thing that you're saying, and that doesn't mean it shouldn't be said, but that it is hard. But if you approach it with sensitivity, I would hope that your team would respond to that. And if they don't, you got the other steps to take. Meredith: Right. I love that you said that. And like Aleia said, like, reach out to DCSEAC. 'cause we can also help make connections to some of the district staff and ask them questions and help bring [00:33:00] more conversations when you really don't feel heard, even when you're trying to go through that effective flow of communication. So definitely utilize us as well after you've done all the amazing things that Aleia recommended. Aleia: We love to help. It's, it's why we're here. Unified Sports Access --- Aleia: We are at our last question which is a more targeted one. I love it. It was a really cool question about unified sports that I did not know the answer to. Take it away, Meredith. Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'm probably gonna have to ask again 'cause you did the research on this one. So can students placed out of districts still participate in unified sports at their homeschool? The answer is yes. However, you need to contact the people who are responsible for unified sports at the homeschool to let them know you're interested. And I think Aleia did get some more information on this, so if you wanna provide the little bit of research that you did to answer this question. Aleia: So it is a little bit of a niche question because this is for our students who are placed out of district, and most of you, that won't affect you. We try not to do this. It's for our students who have needs that are extraordinary and beyond the capacity that [00:34:00] we can support in one of our neighborhood schools. We try not to do this. We have our centers, we want to keep all of our students in our district, but there are some students that are placed out of district. If you're in this situation where you'd still like to come and be part of Unified Sports, which by the way is joyful and an amazing place for community. So I absolutely understand not wanting to lose that resource, like almost all of our answers, sorry. Just communicate with your team. Let them know, especially if you can, during your transition process, during your IEP creation at that new school site. Because it's just logistics at that point. Like whoever runs unified at your homeschool will need to have your email to know and invite you to the different events and if your child needs any specialized support, it would be good for that conversation to happen ahead of time. Wrap Up and Next Episodes --- Aleia: I did wanna mention right here at the end that we had two additional questions that were so awesome and complex that we're gonna dedicate an entire episode to each of them. So for those lovely [00:35:00] people who left these questions, I want you to know your answers are coming and the first one was about the ODD diagnosis. It's layering with ADHD. ODD is oppositional defiance disorder. There's questions about it. What does it mean? Is it a real diagnosis? I have lots of strong feelings on this. I'm really excited to jump into this. We're excited to bring the mental health team in on that one. So that is coming up. And then one that affects so many of us, so many on our board as well, is what are the care resources over breaks, especially over summer break when BASE programming, which is before and afterschool care, is not always available to kids with special needs. It's a layered, complex, big question, which is why we're gonna dedicate an entire podcast to it. So that one is coming up as well. Okay. We made it to the end, Meredith, I absolutely love that we both got to do this together today. Meredith: Oh gosh. Me too. We're so grateful to everyone that submitted their questions. Aleia: Thank [00:36:00] you. We're gonna keep trying to seek questions from you guys. If you have questions, you can leave them as comments wherever you listen to this podcast, or if you're watching on YouTube, however it is that you do it, let us know. We absolutely want to answer questions that are meaningful to you. Meredith: If this episode was helpful, please subscribe so you don't miss upcoming conversations. And if you know another parent who could benefit, share this podcast with them. That's how we reach more families who need support. Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening, and as always, we're in this together. Aleia: Yay. Bye bye.