EP 2 MTA Edit 2

So, I want to welcome everyone to this segment titled, Making it Accessible, Delivering Quality Mental Health Services. It's a pleasure to introduce my co-host for this episode, Leah Davis, the Executive Director of the Riverside County SELPA. Leah serves on various committees of the SELPA Administrators Association and the Coalition for Adequate Funding for Special Education, and she's one of the SELPA System Improvement Leads and Resource Leads in the area of IEP, technical support, and assistance. And I am thrilled to introduce Tamara Clay, the Executive Director, Special Services, SELPA, and System Improvement Leads for the El Dorado County SELPA. Tammy also sits on the steering and other committees of the association and has been my partner as one of the SELPA System Improvement Leads. I am glad to get to share this experience with her today. We are most excited and honored to welcome our guests today, and we are looking forward to some rich conversations around Tier 3 mental health services for students with disabilities. We'd first like to introduce Trina Frazier, Assistant Superintendent of Student Services in SELPA for the Fresno County SELPA. Trina has served as a SELPA Administrator since 2005 and presently oversees special education across 31 member districts and 17 charters. Trina currently serves on multiple committees of our association and is one of our former state SELPA Chairs. Thank you for being here today, Trina. Very happy to be here with all of you today. We are also fortunate to welcome our next guest, Pam Bender, who has worked in the education field for over 25 years. Pam has served as a Special Education Coordinator and Director as well as a SELPA Director for the last 20 years. As Chief Executive Officer for the Desert Mountain SELPA, also known as CA-HELP, Pam provides leadership to 21 LEAs across what is perhaps the largest geographical SELPA in California and Pam operates one of the most robust model mental health programs in the state. We're so happy to have you here, Pam. Thank you. I'm really excited to be here with all of you today. Next, we would like to welcome Dr. Amy Alvina. Dr. Alvina is the Superintendent of Cold Spring Elementary School District located in Montecito, California. Amy has a notable career with more than 25 years in education and a history of improving the lives of students and the quality of the education they receive. She has significant experience with the delivery of student mental health services in small and rural areas and she serves on committees for various statewide agencies. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. I'd like to welcome our final guest today, Veronica Coates, the Assistant Superintendent of Special Education and SELPA for Tehama County. Veronica has provided steadfast leadership to her SELPA for approximately 10 years after having held various positions of leadership in special education and serving as a school psychologist. She is also an Executive Officer of the SELPA Administrators of California. So glad you could be here, Veronica. So honored to be with you all for this critical topic. I'd like to start with you, Veronica, for our listeners who may not be aware, if you could give us kind of a nutshell version of the history of educationally related mental health services or as we frequently refer to ERMs in California and how that came to be under the responsibilities of special education local plan areas or SELPAs. That's a great question, Leah, and a little bit of a history lesson for all of our listeners out there. In June of 2011, under then Governor Schwarzenegger's administration, there was a budget bill, and in that budget bill, there was some reform around the way in which money was allocated for mental health services. Prior to this budget bill, it was allocated directly to county behavioral health departments, and county behavioral health departments, SELPAs, and LEAs had to work together in order to have those services that are on the IEPs delivered. There was not as much cohesion in the education realm around how to adequately serve students and their mental health needs. There had been some advocacy around trying to get that money directly funded to LEAs, but not a whole lot. We all just kind of had this dream around that. Wouldn't it be great if we could have that funding allocated directly to our SELPAs or LEAs and be able to make local decisions around that funding? And lo and behold, in 2011, that's what happened. It ended the mandate to fund county behavioral health directly and then funded SELPAs directly. Fast forward almost 10 years later, there have been programs developed across the state, model programs, that meet the unique local needs of SELPAs and districts, and in a very interesting and ironic turn of events, the budget bill in 2022 did the same thing, except it reversed the allocation to SELPAs directly and instead funded it directly to districts or LEAs. So taking that mandate to pool our money in a consortia to be able to have purchasing power and just fund each LEA directly based on the same mechanics and methodology, instead just doing it with, you know, 2,000 LEAs rather than 140 SELPAs. That's it in a nutshell. Would be happy to dive into more of that if needed. Amy, Veracca gave some background on the statewide shift in funding mental health dollars. Can you talk a little bit, as a superintendent of a school district, what that looks like for your district in terms of the provision of mental health services to students? Yes, I'd love to. So, you know, for a small school district, our resources are very limited, and we really rely upon the SELPA to give us support when we need additional resources for those students that need the support that we just don't have in a single school district. So for us, when those students, we've exhausted our school counseling, we've exhausted all the least restrictive environment resources that we can in our district, and we then go through the process through the SELPA to where possibly we need a wraparound services. And what does that look like with a wraparound service, with a referral? And really that is providing intensive counseling to the students, but also more importantly to the parents, right? And so that they're in partnerships, working with the social work support in various settings, so it's the school, the home, the community, all coming around the student to ensure the success of the student. And so we all know that children can't learn if their social-emotional needs aren't met, and so we're doing everything possible to ensure that they're successful by meeting the social-emotional needs of the students. And then we provide that by at least 180 minutes a week that the student gets of these supports for six to eight weeks. And then we monitor those six to eight weeks, we come together as an IEP team to see if our interventions and supports are really truly effective, and if they are, then we celebrate those successes and continue to monitor that student to ensure that they are continued on that path of success. And really, those are the big celebrations that we have. And for, again, for small school districts, the gratitude that we have for our SELPA that ensures the success of all of our students. Thank you so much, Amy. I'm curious, as you talk about those wraparound supports, Veronica talked about many SELPAs have a consortia-type model or look, we call them multi-district SELPAs. Can you talk about the SELPA's role in ensuring, you said you're from a small school district, in ensuring that your district has access to resources, particularly for those students who are coming in with acute trauma, chronic mental health issues, what does that look like and what does the interaction with the SELPA look like? You know, I think that the interaction with the SELPA director and the small school district superintendent is essential. And having that amazing open partnership and being vulnerable and saying, these are the resources that we don't have and these are a need, is there a way that you can come together and support? Because we all want the same thing, we want to ensure the success of our students. And for us, we have a psychologist on our campus two days a week. So you can imagine, what do you do the other three days and what do you do when you have those intense students that need additional support or need maybe even a residential placement, right? And for a small school district, that would bankrupt us, you know, to send a student as a residential placement. And so, to have almost like that insurance policy under the SELPA really protects us, but also, more importantly, helps the student be successful. When we encountered multiple disasters and I did not have the support staff, I reached out to our director, Ray Avila, and I said, look, I need support. It is the fifth anniversary of the January 9th debris flow where I lost two students. And he was on it immediately that next day, sent his team of counselors and psychologists over to give support and push in, in the classroom and be here, not only for my teachers, but my staff, right? So if my teachers are needing the mental health support that they need to feel safe and comforted, and they can do their job as teachers. And I really feel that's the kind of the secret sauce in our success at Cold Spring is taking care of our staff so they can take care of our teachers. I really appreciate you underscoring the idea that mental health isn't scheduled, right? Mental health doesn't happen on Tuesday and Thursday. We don't get to choose the days. It could happen at any time. Pam, I know that Desert Mountain SELPA has a very robust mental health system, and I'd love to hear you speak to what does that look like in Desert Mountain to ensure that students have that access to mental health each and every day at any moment those mental health needs might arise? You know, we have here a contract with behavioral health. And so we developed that because we found that by doing a contract with them and having matching funds with our special ed ARMS funding, we could provide services to more students and that would be able to reach more students. We have about 140 clinicians, so they're intervention specialists, behavioral health counselors, social workers that are assigned to various districts. And what we've tried to do is keep people in the area. So we have very small districts. We have several that are under 1,000 students. And so as we try to have those people that live in those communities actually be the service providers in those communities, so they're actually part of the community. So they're there in the district throughout the day, each and every day. We also have our crisis unit that goes whenever we need it, and it could be up to 15 of our staff members, depending on the situation. We've had a small district that's had significant deaths in their district with accidents, and it seems to happen year after year, and they have a very dangerous intersection. And so we've had our staff out there, and they stay out there as long as they need to. And again, like Amy said, if we're not taking care of the adults, they can't take care of the students. And so we have found times where we're having to have people out there to provide the support to the students, but also to the adults, and make sure that we're out there and available when they need us. So we do have counselors that are assigned to school sites, assigned to districts, so that they're there each and every day. Can I add to what Pam just shared? We have a program similar in Fresno County, and actually Desert Mountain helped us get started. And so North PAMS is set up exactly the same way, but the services that we provide from the clinicians and case managers are Tier 3 specialty mental health, and so it's your highest level of care. The ERMS dollars, what it allows us to do, it's sort of the Tier 1 and Tier 2, a lot of the preventative mental health, prior to them reaching that Tier 3. And without these dollars, there's a lot of needs that are going to go unmet, because the program that we have is the absolute highest tier, so they have to get to that highest tier before they get those services. Pam, I'd love for you to expand a little bit more in terms of just how have mental health services for students with disabilities specifically changed over the last decade? Veronica gave us a little bit of a history of funding shifts, but what has that actually materialized into with regard to services for students? I think that the services every year get better and better for our students, actually allowing us to look at all the gaps that exist within our systems that we've created. You know, initially, when the dollars did shift from Department of Behavioral Health to SELPAs, we sat down with our 32 LEAs, and we came up with a plan. What are their needs? What would they like to see? And what will that look like? And, you know, we identified that they would like a behavior intervention team to go in. We determined they'd like an ERMS team of professionals to go in. They really needed assistance with NPS placements, those types of things. And so over time, we've been able to evolve, look at the gaps where they exist, create a centralized referral process, and really where all students with special needs have access. And I think that's the important thing, whether you're large or you're midsize or you're small, you still have access to those services in the system that we created, and I think that's really, really important. I'm thinking as I hear both Trina and Pam about the robust services and also the time that we spent and effort in building those interagency agreements and just those communication pathways. So with this shift, what does that look like in terms of the agreements that have been built or the services that have been built through interagency or multi-agency approaches? Can you talk a little bit about that? Yes. We actually, in Fresno County, last year had to dismantle our ERMS program because we needed to meet that March 15th deadline. And so we either needed to give layoff notices or reassign the staff. And what it's meant for us is that, you know, we had this continuum of care, and now who it's really hurt are our small and midsize districts. You know, by the funding shifting, they will receive funding, but it's not enough to hire staff and it's not enough to provide the services or have an entire team who comes in to assist them. The larger districts, you know, they will get an amount that's going to be large enough to be able to provide or hire staff and provide those services. But it's really our small and our midsize and our rural areas that's really going to feel the impact of these dollars. Amy, I see you nodding your head. I'm wondering if you have anything to add to that as a small district superintendent. I wanted to say thank you to Trina for mentioning that because she is 100% right on, and that's in all areas of special ed. You know, at Cold Spring, I have a blind student, a deaf and hard of hearing student, emotionally disturbed student, autism, and we have 192 students, right, but yet the funding for low incidence is $6,000. I'm like, that's not going to buy me anything, right? And so it can bankrupt a small school district where you're just spending 25% of your budget on special education, right? And so going back to that partnership is so, so important. And you know, when I hear some of my colleagues talk about, oh, well, I'm going to do it on my own. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Let me help educate you and let me help you understand that the support that we get from the SELPA is invaluable. And like what Trina was saying, the access, most importantly, access to exceptional resources, right? So it's not just support, it's you want to make sure that you have the best of the best to support the kids that need the best. And the way that the vehicle that actually gives us the best is the SELPA. And without that support at the small school districts, which are 60% in the state of California, we'd be drowning. Thank you for mentioning that. Can I piggyback off of that as well? First, I want to just thank Trina for being honest and really authentic about what is happening in her SELPA and the difficult decisions that LEAs and boards have had to make because of this one decision and how impactful it is to students. And some of my colleagues have heard me say this before, and I'm going to continue saying it. Your zip code should not matter, the level of service that you get. And that's what's happening based on this decision. So I'll offer a little contrary standpoint as Trina had to make those decisions, not Trina, but her board had to make those decisions. Our SELPA made a completely opposite decision. The moment this was even thought about as an idea, our SELPA board got together and said, we want nothing to do with that. We want to vote right now unanimously to continue our model however we can. We don't really care how the money is flown. We want to flow it right back to the SELPA to ensure the access that Amy was just talking about because all of my LEAs are under 2080A, and to Amy's point, that's 60 to 70% of the LEAs in California, which would not be able to purchase one clinician with the amount that they will be allocated in this new model. So there's been decisions made in a snap rather than the thoughtful process we usually go through in developing programs or transferring programs. So I think those are two examples of two very different SELPAs that had to make decisions that have impacted students. Veronica, I'm really glad you brought up that dynamic of decision-making and governance within the SELPA structures. We have the opportunity to have a conversation about that in another podcast. I'm curious specifically to Trina and Pam and Veronica, how do you handle it or did that happen where, as you were making decisions about how to leverage these dollars within the governance structure, maybe one district did want more psychologist time and one liked the idea of a behavior intervention team. I find that, at least in my SELPA, that happens a lot and people often don't understand the facilitative role and how we have conversations moving towards those decisions. So can you share a little bit about what that looked like? I can share because I'm right in the middle of it right now. We've had the last three governance board meetings have been all about ERMs. We've talked about what does it mean. We have gone into the weeds as to what each district would get. And I broke it down into this is how much you're getting and this is how many services you get right now. This is how many counselors that you have right now. This is what you would need to, with the money you're getting and with the services you're providing, this is the number of counselors that you would need. And so it's worked out. I have five very large districts who also support our smaller districts, which they have to, but I do have a situation where they were very nervous. We have a lot of new board members in the school boards and so they don't understand the history of the Desert Mountain SELPA and so how we support each other and what does that mean if I'm supposed to get almost a million dollars and you want to just transfer it back. The superintendents are feeling like they have to be able to give a history lesson to their boards during their board meetings, so we're working on that right now. We're also working on, we have our one superintendent who is really just looking at the money, brand new board member who doesn't know the culture of the area. And so it's been a struggle and we're still working on it and we're still working on what does that look like. If one district decides to pull their money out, what does that look like for everybody else? We also have a little bit of a fee for service from our larger districts to help our smaller districts and so that cost would go up. So there's a lot of, you know, unfortunately I probably had like four special board meetings this year to be talking about the ERMs and where does it go. It feels like everybody is kind of on board but I have one or two that are constantly asking those questions so we're having to get more and more information. I brought people in. I brought, you know, Dr. Ron Powell who is the former administrator here for the SELPA who was the one who implemented the contracts with behavioral health to be able to give a history lesson to everybody. So it's been a struggle and we're still struggling and we have another special meeting to talk about ERMs again and really look at the specifics of what does that mean for each district if one district pulls out. So we're really struggling and, you know, Amy, I so agree with you. I have a small district who has two students who are residentially placed. They don't get enough money, funding, to even pay for one student who is residentially placed and so that district will really, really suffer if we end up going that direction. SELPAs are like an insurance policy. I mean we have small districts and it really isn't about large districts supporting small. It really is that we have small districts that have paid into the SELPA for many years and then all of a sudden they may have an NPS placement and then it will be covered. So it's not necessarily that the big support the small. It's everyone supporting each other so that all have access. And I think that that's a really important distinction. I think that that's exactly the way it is and that's how our SELPAs are set up if you're a multi-district SELPA. And also the quality of service, right? As a former mental health practitioner, it is the one service that is so person-dependent at times based on the student's mental health needs. And if we're divvying up every little piece of our pie and you only get this small sliver, you may only be able to purchase or hire a half FTE. With the consortium model, you have a plethora of people to have at your will to be able to meet the needs of the child. It really gives that opportunity to say, these are the needs and we have this whole pool of resources and what best fits the student? Because as Amy mentioned earlier, that could be parent counseling, right? What if you hire the counselor that says, that's not in my repertoire or doesn't have time because you can only purchase 10 sessions with your little piece of the pie? So it isn't just big versus small because the bigs will have access to more people as much as the small. And if we go to a worst-case scenario, I do want to go back to Amy's point about it could bank... This could actually bankrupt small districts. This is not a fear tactic. We aren't saying that to scare people. A placement or students who have excess costs in this area could literally bankrupt small districts if they do not have access to a pooled service model. And Veronica, it really is about that consortium creating that economy of scale. That's what we're able to do, look at where all the needs are and where are all the needs creating that economy of scale to be able to provide those services. We've heard some great comments about the importance of the SELPA consortia. Some have said that that consortia concept can still continue if ERM's funding shifts from SELPAs to LEAs and that LEAs will have the option to work together, facilitate discussions among one another, and ensure that the consortia concept continues. Any responses to that idea? Sure. It can continue and it will continue for some that have voted to continue that model. There's a lot of different avenues or ways that folks can continue the consortium model. But I guess my question back is, what problem are we trying to fix? And if something isn't broken, why are we trying to fix it? I think we get into the mistake of making more work for educators when we already have enough work already that takes away time from services. So is there a way to do it? Absolutely. Will we do it? Absolutely. It will require every SELPA or every LEA to make those local decisions. In my own SELPA, we will be writing this in our local plan to ensure that we have a three-year commitment to continue this model because we believe that your zip code shouldn't matter and you should be able to get service wherever you live and the same quality of service in every boundary of our county. We don't want to have to go through this every year. So we will be developing this in our local plan and approving that within each LEA board to ensure we have that commitment of shared responsibility, shared risk, and shared service. I think other SELPAs in the state are each looking at what fits their model the best. Some may be going towards an MOU yearly model. Some may have only partial consortia agreement and may be pulling that way. I think it is going to be – it's going to look different in many different regions. And I think what a lot of people are forgetting is the SELPA guarantee, right? That MOU that you just mentioned is that guarantee of services. So if you're a district and you enter into agreement with another district, there is no guarantee. So there is no – you know, so what happens if they don't have a placement or support, you know, for that district for me if I need it, right? I don't have a guarantee like the SELPA gives me. So that is a scary place to be in. And I think people aren't necessarily thinking about that. And that to me is the most important aspect in it all, especially that you're going to – we talk about dollars and cents. You're just opening yourself up for a lawsuit there. And you're like, well, I don't have the services. Well, you don't have the services, so you don't have a guarantee anymore. Veronica, you mentioned, you know, what problem are we trying to fix? Do we know what problem we're trying to fix? Do we know what problem we're trying to fix? I think we could be trying to fix a misperception problem. So perhaps a perception that SELPA is the big bad SELPA that takes all the money and hides it away and doesn't release any of the funds. So I think there is room for doing an additional study to see that many of us are overexpending these funds on the very students that they are intended for. But I do not know what problem we are trying to fix. I'm just very concerned about the impact that it will have on our students with the most vulnerabilities in the state of California. And I agree with you, Veronica. I think that if there is that perception out there, then let's fix the perception. But let's not create winners and losers and make it so that students don't have access to the services they need. I think one of the pieces that continues to come up for me is wanting to understand what this will actually look like for students. And I guess maybe it's worth going back and asking each of you within your context. And Trina, you did talk about it a little bit. I think it was you in terms of the March 15th notices and really having to disassemble programs that had been put together over years to support students. Amy, I think you talked about it as well. So what do folks who may not understand how SELPAs work and the shared governance models, especially multi-district SELPAs, but what would you want people to know about this shift from SELPA funding to LEA funding, especially if it's signaling additional shifts? How would you want what would you want people to know about how that impacts students? What I would want people to know is that, yes, we will make it work, as Veronica said, we always do, but it's not going to be as easy as that if you've had to dismantle a program. You know, just for our rural districts and our small districts, they're not going to be able to find the staff to do this. They struggle now to find the staff to be able to do that. We know the shortages that we face across all of our programs right now. It's going to be very, very difficult. And when you look at the survey that was done of the SELPA directors, I mean, we're talking about nearly half have some sort of regionalized program right now or some sort of cost sharing method. And so we're talking about a lot of lives. And I think that there are a lot of complicated things that we're going to have to deal with, just trying to get for the federal dollars, the $1,600 or whatever it is, the wet signatures for staff that turn over yearly sometimes. And there's a lot of complicated pieces to this that I don't think have been thought through fully. I would agree with you, Trina. We aren't even fully staffed, so I can't imagine the districts trying to find staff to be able to provide those services. So it makes it, you know, very scary for kids getting their services. The other part that because we're right in the middle of getting all of our notifications right now is when kids are not getting their services and CD coming down. And now we're going to be penalized and having to do corrective actions for them because we didn't provide those services. And it's not fair. It's not fair to kids because we can, as a collaborative, we can provide that. And I think it's going to really hurt, especially our small districts, our rural areas, I'm very concerned about because they have a hard enough time finding people. And so I think that's going to be a significant issue for our more rural areas. I think it also sets districts, charters, LEAs, SELPAs, all of us up for unnecessary dispute. Any kind of lead into that. If these programs are dismantled, yes, it impacts students directly. They won't and cannot receive their same level of service. But it also then puts this imbalance of power between superintendents sitting at the SELPA table and perhaps handshake deals. And that doesn't feel good to me. That's why the SELPA model does work. As Amy said, you have a neutral playing field. It doesn't matter who's sitting in the SELPA chair or who's sitting around the table. When you start taking those things away and pitting people against each other, the only people who lose in that are our youth and families. Katrina, talk a little bit more about fiscal reporting and our obligations that we as LEAs and SELPAs have to the state. But I'd love to hear a little bit more about what this looks like logistically for folks. We know there's going to be harm to students. We've definitely identified that piece. But just in terms of workload, what does this look like? So currently, the funds flow to our 140 something SELPAs, and if these dollars flow directly to our LEAs, that means that for the federal dollars, they are going to have to collect a wet signature for each of them. And we all know what turnover is like in our districts. And so they're going to be sent probably to the wrong people in the district. They're not going to get them back. So not only does it create all this additional work for our LEAs, but it's also going to create additional work for CDE. To me, it just sounds like you're creating a lot of work for no reason. I can give a tangible example. So our Juvenile Justice Center has a total ADA of 14 students. I'm throwing a number out. And that entity, who doesn't hardly have any real staff, right, they contract everything out to the SELPA, county office, etc., work with multiple LEAs, multiple counties, will have to track down and get signatures for these forms for $1,100 is what it comes down to, right? So do you think that CBO or that person they've contracted out to have this workload, when she sees that $1,100 expenditure form, is she really going to track it down, get it to the right person where they've never had to do this before, never been trained to do, don't know the process, and get it back to the state of California to get the money back? I also think millions of dollars are going to be left on the table because of this issue. And a logistical issue that potentially puts districts at risk of not receiving their funds. Correct. So that's a good segue to the next question, which is really about the training and support that the state is offering to assist SELPAs and LEAs through this transition. I mean, you've described really dense mental health programs, robust reporting, and fiscal responsibilities. Can you talk a little bit about what has been provided by the states to help prepare for this transition? Well, for me, I could say nothing. I can say that my support has come from the SELPA directors. You know, just really trying to figure out what direction do I go. Being new to a multi-district SELPA, I was kind of at a loss and what direction do I go? How do I go about this? And, you know, all of the support from within the SELPA organization is where I've relied on finding my information and being able to talk through, what about this? And the people in our organization have been there to help us. So being able to go back to my superintendents and talk with them, I've not had any specific conversations with anybody from the states, from my perspective. And I'll piggyback on that one. I have the same, right, for small. I don't think this is even on, they're probably the radar, to be honest, of a lot of small school districts, right? They have, their plates are so full, especially if you're a superintendent and principal and you're doing both and you're just working on those 21 plans we have to write. But, you know, when it comes to professional development, you know, I was thinking, Tamara, a piece that the SELPA is just so valuable to for small is the professional development component and all they have to offer teachers, administrators, parents. I mean, it is a wealth of information. It is so valuable to districts. Veronica, would you mind expanding a little bit on the type of expertise and leadership that SELPAs bring to the state, bring to our member LEAs when it comes to mental health advocacy? Sure, there have been a number of committees and work groups that SELPA administrators have sat on relative to mental health. The ones that come to my mind right away are those that were integrated around the Continuum of Care Reform Act, around how foster youth are placed in short-term residential treatment centers. We sat on work groups around the education piece of that to assist the state on how those youth are integrated into our schools and how mental health supports positively impact them. We've also done some work around the 80-20-83 interagency MOU requirement between behavioral health, child welfare, education, and mental health supports in schools. Some of us sit on the California Mental Health Advocates for Children, youth where we're advocating alongside parents and advocates as well as practitioners. We have been leading a webinar series around supports for students with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder as a result of some legislation passed. So we're always looking at how to support not just our own member LEAs, but how can we support the state of California in general and in a big-picture way on best practices, evidence-based practices, model programs for students, youth, families, and our practitioners. I agree, Veronica. You know, California is facing a mental health crisis and COVID has only exacerbated the problem. And we are seeing more in our schools right now the need for mental health services than we've ever seen, that I've ever seen in my career anyway. Amy, I think about what you said because we talk about the dramatic impact that this will have on students and programs. You had highlighted that this isn't on many small district superintendents' radars. They're not even aware of this. And it's not for a lack of interest. It's just with so much going on, staffing shortages in our area, power outages right across the state, fires and plans. For those people out there who might be hearing this information for the very first time, but who want to make sure that students with disabilities are getting the quality services they deserve, what would each of you want to suggest? What do we do now for those people who want students to get the services they're entitled to? You know, for me, I think especially if you're a newer superintendent out there, which we have a lot of new superintendents, I think a hundred, a little over a hundred, right? Reach out to your SELFA director and really take time to, like, understand what the SELFA does for your district. Because I think if you're a small school district, you may be in that, like you just said, survival mode your first years. And you're just trying to put all the pieces together. But if you're not forward thinking and you're not thinking about your students with disabilities and the mental health crisis that we are in right now and how you're best going to wrap around to give support to your students and to your teachers, then you're going to fail, I mean, as a superintendent, right? And so I think it's so important to also reach out to your partnerships with ACSA and Small School Districts Association. I think they're working really hard on advocating for the needs of our students. I would say to continue advocating for local control. I think that sometimes we think that the policymakers aren't really hearing our voices. And I think then that propagates that myth. The more that we can speak out and engage with our local representatives, whether that's your assembly or senate, whether that's the state board, whether it's your own local school board, whatever that venue is to educate, as Amy said, there's folks out there that don't even know this is happening, let alone the impact. But it's so important to get that word out on how it will impact our students and families. Advocating at the Advisory Commission for Special Education, the state board, the governor's office, I think the more we can show that we are standing up for our families and our students, that's what's going to ultimately make change. Veronica, because I think you're so right. We have to tell our story, the great work that we are doing. And I think sometimes we shy away from that and it is not bragging, it's like showing, look, this is what we're doing, this is how we're meeting the needs of our students. So if we don't tell our story, they're going to tell it for us, right? We all know that. And I agree with Amy and Veronica. You know, selfless were the first local control. We really were and we are. I think before we make huge decisions like this, we really need to understand what the ramifications are going to be and not act on someone's perception. Like to really gather the facts, learn about it, and don't make it based upon the perception. And if there is somebody that's not doing what they should be doing, then let's address that issue. But let's not, you know, let's not do something that's going to affect the lives of our children and youth and our families based on a perception. So there is a mechanism in EdCode and also in many SELPAs called program transfer. And that actually does play into this conversation about the shift of mental health funding that previously going through the SELPA structure supported programs. Talk a little bit about first what a program transfer is and how this shift might impact program transfer. When we think of program transfer, there's education code around this to protect students and services, but also to protect staff. The program transfer law is linked heavily with personnel. If there are decisions being made about, you know, different pots of money and changing them all over the place, how would our staff ever have confidence that they have a job next year? So there is program transfer law within education code that LEAs and these consortiums, i.e. SELPAs, are supposed to go through to make these drastic changes to ensure that during this transfer of program and services that not only are student services being discussed so there's no lapse in service, but also to protect the staff who are currently in the program that's being funded. So this disbanding of programs that is happening around the state based on a funding shift is actually breaking program transfer law all over the case. And that's essentially what I told my own board is, even if we want to do this, we employ these people, we are serving over 100 students and families, and we can't just disband this without going through program transfer. This is what's in our local plan. This is how we handle program transfer, which got them thinking about that in a different space, not just the student services space, but also, oh, wow, yeah, you employ 10 people. We can't just lay them all off and disband that because what if we all can't collectively capture all of those folks to serve in each little individual district? So I think when we think of program transfer, this has blown that up, and we really need to consider how that has impacted not only the students and families, but the staff and the level of confidence they have in being able to work in an industry that is at a credit shortage right now. I'm really glad that you highlighted the staff piece because that is a substantial consideration. I mean, clearly that was contemplated in the development of that Ed Code. Another contemplation that I wonder about that's so clear is really students' rights and entitlement to the same level of programming and service that they received before and as part of that parent input to ensure that parents and other stakeholders are involved in the conversation. So when you think about all of those rights that come through the program transfer process, it highlights a lot of the very concerns we've discussed, which is how will those quality programs continue to be offered if offered in a totally different LEA, and especially given the economy of scale we've spoken to several times. So thank you for highlighting that. As we wrap up, there's a couple of themes that have popped out today, one being that whole idea of economy of scale, as well as this whole idea of the codes not determining what student services are. We talked today a little bit about the fact that mental health service need has increased drastically. And so really the obligation of us as educational leaders to ensure that those services are available to students whenever they might need them educationally. I'd love to just turn over the mic to each one of you and for a couple of last words or just something that resonated with you today. Let's start with you, Veronica. I'm just honored to be with this group today and to listen to my colleagues and fellow leaders in a space that is really advocating for student rights and the right to receive service no matter where you live. I think, I guess I just would say we have to continue advocating for what we know is best. We are the experts and we need to continue advocating for what we know is best. Pam? I think it was so helpful to have Amy here today from a small school to really hear from a superintendent of a small school district, really the impact this is going to have on her programs. It helps me to understand my small districts even more so. And just really appreciated that. And just my colleagues that were all in this together and, you know, fighting this together and working with each other together to try to figure out the why. Why is this happening? Sina? I'd just like to thank you for this opportunity and thank you to my colleagues. You know, we talk a lot about this and we say all the time, you know, when you've seen one SELPA, you've seen one SELPA because we're all so different. But thank you for the way you advocate for kids. It was a pleasure being here with all of you today. Wonderful. Thank you for being here. And Amy? I'm just leaving this conversation just feeling like so blessed to meet, like, we're all amazing, strong women leaders here. I'm looking at this call, I mean, to make new friends with Trina and Pam and Veronica and not knowing you ladies and, you know, sometimes as a small school district, you feel very isolated and alone. I'm leaving this conversation just so empowered by your strength and you're doing what's right for all kids. Right? They are all of our kids. And at the end of the day, we serve all kids and that's what equity is about. Thank you, Dr. Alvina. I actually have goosebumps and a little bit of emotion, but thank you. You're absolutely right. They're all our students and that is the true work of equity. To listen to more podcasts, see SELPA-produced videos or learn more about SELPAs in general, visit us at www.selpa.info and like us on Facebook at SELPA Administrators of California. Until then, keep making it happen, each student, every day.