EEA+06292026.

Karen Mayer Cunningham and Tana Dixon from EPIC Educator Academy aim to train individuals involved in 504 IEP meetings to achieve successful student outcomes. They emphasize the importance of thorough evaluations, suspecting missing information in documents, and advocating for necessary testing. They discuss the significance of evaluations in identifying or eliminating disabilities, urging a collaborative approach to help children with exceptionalities. The session covers the criteria for evaluations, including speech and language, and stresses the need for comprehensive assessments to ensure accurate determinations for specialized services. The goal is to equip participants with the knowledge to effectively navigate the evaluation process and enhance support for students with disabilities. Technical issues with accessing materials are also addressed during the discussion. Hey, guys, welcome back to EPIC Educator Academy. So, met, I am Karen Mayer Cunningham, special education boss, training everyone that sits in the 504 IEP table to navigate and negotiate successful student outcomes. I'm here with my co-captain, Tana Dixon, the teacher champion. And we're going to train you on all things great educator. Yes, the great Stephanie. The chat's not open. Thank you. Sorry. It says it's open on my end. It says everyone and everything. Says disabled. So, it looks like only the co-captain. You know what happened, Stephanie? I was just trusting Tana, like, you know, she's young at this. It's open on my end, too. Yeah, it's because you're a co-host, Tana. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. You know what? We're both driving on the wrong side of the road, but it's still going to work. All right. So, it's open. So, that is good. We're good. All right. So, you're going to drop the evaluation in the chat for those of our friends that didn't get it, or didn't get it yet. And we're going to walk through kind of if I was just, if I had, I do a lot of one-on-one training. I do a lot of one-on-one masterminds and how I literally walk somebody through, whether it's a parent or an advocate, just kind of see what I'm looking for and what I'm trying to identify. You know, as advocates, we are auditors. And auditors have sort of a spirit of suspicion. And we suspect that something is missing from the document. We suspect something is missing from the document. And the reason we suspect that is because most people have no idea what the IEP means, including the people that wrote it, or it's not beneficial for the next team that we hand it off to. So, we want to give you that framework of how we look at it. And then as you guys learn to look at it that way, we're just going to become a more unified collaborative team to help kiddos with exceptionalities or disabilities. Okay? So, let's see. So, you guys have the document. It's short, 56 pages long. So, when I come in and advocate for people, almost always I ask for either updated testing, comprehensive testing. But this is a unique situation that I got a new client and a new friend, and the district had done an evaluation, and it was actually comprehensive. That doesn't happen very often, and I got it. And what I tell parents when I'm prepping them is, good news. We're going to get this fixed. This is no problem. All right? And so, looking at the document, it says, not sure what is happening. My dashboard is missing the Educators Academy block. I don't know what that means exactly, Dina. But – oh, are you screen sharing, Stephanie? No. It looks like Judith is. Oh, yeah, we don't want – yes, so let me see. So, Karen, this is Dina. So, when I go to the – because I was looking – the documents weren't attached to my email, and so I went into the Academy to look and see if it – and so when you go into the Academy, there's like your dashboard, and it shows all the different things you can join, and it shows what you have joined, and the Educators Academy is no longer there. The Academy is no longer there? Yeah, it was like the one we're – this one that we're doing. It was there before. It's not there now. Okay, so when you say – okay, so – but you're logged on here right now, right? Yeah, into the Zoom, yes. Yeah, so my manager could be working on it, but we're here, and then everything that we work on will get loaded up into the Academy. But if the great Stephanie can look at that in her free time, we will get that addressed. So I'm going to kind of walk through this slowly. Tonight I'm just going to give you a framework, and then the next time we meet, we're going to actually go through the sections, and it's going to take time, but it's important that we do this because I think once you guys see what I see, you can then go to an evaluation and go, okay, I'm Stacey. I am looking for that OT evaluation, which is not here, right? And so I'm going to walk through the framework of what an evaluation is or re-evaluation. The components that we're looking for so that you guys, when you get a new kiddo, when you're the person that refers the kiddo or you're the person that is the educator sitting there, once the evaluation is completed by the district, county, or city, then you can kind of know what's the point of the evaluation. So I never want to expense districts. There are some advocates that like to drag out meetings and more meetings and do this and test that and complain about everything. That's not what I do. I like to get in, get it done, and get on with it. And so hopefully we'll teach you some of those components to help you see the benefit of why we took all of this time with all of these professionals, with the family and the child with disability to get this information. Okay? So looking at the first page, it's going to say the reason for the evaluation, the evaluation date, and the review of the existing evaluation date. So two things happen. One, your child has an initial evaluation. And whether they are found eligible or not, that should be their only initial evaluation. Right? So in Texas, we would call it an FIIE, F-I-I-E, full initial individualized evaluation. And that solely means this is the first time the student was made available or was in school and the district, county, or city agreed to test the student to see if they may be in need of special education and related services. So when we're looking at that statute, I want you guys to write that down, 300.111. 300.111. Okay? The statement, which is the foundation of IDEA, is this requirement, expectation of entities, local education entities to ILE, identify, locate, and evaluate. Okay? So how that usually happens is the parent makes a referral, pediatrician makes a referral, private therapist says something, or the school says something. Right? So hopefully it's the school that says something and the students in the school. And the sentence is really clean. The district has an obligation to evaluate children that we suspect may have a disability and may be in need of special education and related services. That's it. What it doesn't say is what it doesn't mean. What it doesn't say is what it doesn't mean. It doesn't say, okay, well, Libby better show up with, you know, confirmation from her neurologist. Melanie better have, you know, a note from her private OT. Can you prove that? It doesn't say any of that. Right? And so initially under the law in 1975, this was called zero reject, which is literally what it meant, that schools, of course, would evaluate children that we suspect have a disability. It said nothing about that we test children that we know we have a disability. And so when I get into meetings, you know, words can be twisted either way, and I don't think it's malicious, but it's my experience, this is my 30th year, I think probably Stephanie would agree being an advocate, is that schools really, really believe that they have to suspect a disability and that they have to have the name of it. Good news, not true. Right? Because, for instance, we might have a child that every one of you have a kiddo that struggles in reading, and literally that could be for a hundred different reasons. Right? It's just a suspicion. And so we do that because testing does one of two things. If you're taking those, write this down. Testing does one of two things. It identifies or eliminates. Testing identifies or eliminates. And we want both. What you won't identify is an area that you don't test. I promise you, if you don't test for OT, you won't know. Right? So often when I'm in a meeting, I'll have a very passionate paper-filler-outer young person say, I have to know what you suspect. And I don't give that answer. I'm not an evaluator, but I know that when evaluators do their evaluations with normed and standardized instruments, they will have information to make a determination, not a diagnosis, a determination based on state criteria that they can bring to the committee. Right? So Tamara would say, you know, I am the APE teacher for the California district, adaptive physical education, and based on my observations, interactions, and standardized testing with the student, the student is in fact determined to have met the criteria for the need of adaptive physical education. Right? And then those determinations are then, you know, decided finally with the IEP committee. So when we're going through this document, we're looking at eight areas. We're looking at eight areas. And this is the framework that I teach on. It's in the book. I didn't invent it. It's the eight areas that school districts have evaluated. And so remembering that all of us are trained by somebody that went before us, right? A lot of times OTs or SLPs or music therapists are trained in a clinical setting, right, or a medical setting or a rehabilitative setting, which is different than the educational setting. And so we're looking at eight areas. I want you to write these down. Memorize them by tomorrow. And these areas will give you a framework when you're looking at all the pieces of the IEP to lean into. Okay? So the number one area, I mean, like, number one, like, it's the most important. This is in any order. But it's speech and language to include pragmatic. Speech and language to include pragmatic. Now, none of you would probably think I have a speech impairment, right? I literally this last spring, I was so ‑‑ I was devastated because I had had this kiddo for four or five years. And I'm pretty good at what I do. But, you know, I started evaluating her in fourth grade. She had, like, four specific learning disabilities. Didn't have ADHD. Really nice kiddo. But I just couldn't figure out what was going on. And finally, when we did the reevaluations, I asked, let's go back and do full comprehensive and include speech and language to include pragmatic. Now, the district was not happy with me, which happens when I'm in meetings, right? And so because they didn't suspect a language disability, right? She's in seventh grade, like, shouldn't have that. Literally, she met eligibility for voice. She met eligibility for voice. And so that really kind of opened the door to another area that we needed to provide specially designed instruction around. But all of these eligibilities or areas of need are not going to necessarily pop up at the same time. They might pop up differently. And so we don't need to go, oh, well, you know, Gina said he has autism and speech impairment. And we can all agree and see that. That doesn't mean that we don't tease out other areas, right? Because the intervention that Gina is going to do for autism is different than the intervention that Carrie would do for ADHD, right? And so we're not looking to expense the district or wear out teachers. We're just trying to make sure that we are identifying the need and then providing specially designed instruction around that. So the number one, the first area I'm going to request from a district is speech and language to include pragmatic. There are nine areas that you could be eligible in a school education setting for speech and language. I won't go over those tonight. But you want to make sure that you ask for speech and language to include pragmatic. Why? Most SLPs will tell me, Karen, we don't test for pragmatic unless we suspect autism. They're all saying it from Alaska to Miami. So somebody told them that and almost always they're right. But you can have a pragmatic deficit and have no autism. Right. So we test to identify or eliminate. OK. Number two, number two, medical, physical, medical, physical. OK. And I'm using this because you are the ones on the front line. We're going to see this before anybody else does. Right. Because you're working with said kiddo every day. So medical, physical. So is there anything going on with the kiddo medically? Does he have a medical protocol? Does he have a need for medicines? Does he have a physical need that's addressed either through private therapists, a medical team, those sorts of things? Additionally, under here, if you were doing the evaluation, that's where we're going to pop in. The nurse does a hearing and seeing screener. They do a hearing and seeing screener. Right. And that's exactly what it is. It's not formal evaluation. But if your nurse comes back and says, hey, you didn't pass the screener for hearing, you need to lean into that. The parent needs to lean into that as well as for the other area. So medical, physical. OK. Number three, sociological. Number three, sociological. So paramount that we look at this every year, whether we're testing or not. Did we not learn through the pandemic that there is stuff that's going on at home that impacts kiddos that did not occur at the campus and or during the instructional day? Right. And so those things impacted us. And so we don't always correlate a specific output for a specific need. What I mean by that, Billy struggling with reading in Christina's class. That doesn't mean he has a reading disability. It doesn't mean he doesn't. Right. But it could be a million things. OK. So sociological. I want that. That is what is going on outside the instructional day. Right. Does have parents moved? Have we added a sibling? Have we lost a sibling? Does grandma live with us? Have they lost a pet? And often it's things that the family, the adults are happy about. But it's impacted the child in a way that we couldn't have known prior. And so we're going to make sure that the parents and whatever is set up that is, whether it's, you know, mom and dad or mom and mom or mom and dad and mom and dad or however many moms and dads there are. I would also look at, I would probably have, if they were in daycare, I would have that provider fill something out because they see them year round. If they go three days a week and stay with grandma for three or four hours, those are persons that would know the sociological impact that may be information that the school would need to make determinations and recommendations. So sociological. Number four, a formal cognitive evaluation. A formal cognitive evaluation. Okay. So your cognition are your brain skills. Your cognition are your brain skills. Right. We ask for a formal cognitive evaluation, all seven Gs. All seven Gs. Gs are your brain skills. It's how you take in, keep, use, manipulate, store, retrieve, process, retrieve information. And it is how you are cooked. You kind of, those things are not, there's not usually any adjustment in there unless there's some major medical outlier. But for your cognition, that's how you take in your world and process information. So important that we do this. But you must know that a cognitive evaluation by an LSSP or a diagnostician or wherever you live, it could be somebody else, there is a range of diagnostic tests. I have a book on my shelf that the great Stephanie will drop in the chat. It is 301, the Special Educator's Comprehensive Guide to 301 Diagnostic Tests. And surely you have memorized all those, right? No. And, of course, I haven't either. So often, so let's say, you know, that Dr. Glett says, well, we're just going to do the WISC. And I'm going to press it a little bit and say, great, great instrument. However, the WISC-V has, guess how many tests it has? Say it with me. Five. That's helpful, right? And those are important cognitive skills, important brain processing skills. But you're missing two. You're missing auditory processing and you're missing long-term, long-term memory, which includes long-term storage and long-term retrieval. Have you ever worked with a kiddo that, you know, say he's in class, he's working and working, we get it, we get it, we get it, and he goes home and the next morning we test and it's gone. But he did the work. He was listening. He's working really hard. That is often long-term retrieval, which causes a lot of angst between moms and dads and teachers. I did it, I did it, I did it, right? And I tell them the truth. It would be like if I put everything that I have in here in this drawer, but I can't get it out, right? And so those are real things. And there's no formula how your cognitive profile will present, but it is my wish that everybody in America in public school, when they're in fourth grade, would have a full cognitive profile. That would be helpful for parenting. That would be helpful to what you're going to do for living, right? And so those seven Gs are paramount to get the full information, right? And so let's say that Dr. Gallant says, oh, I'm going to do the WISC-V. I would say, would you be opposed to adding another instrument to add those other two Gs? And almost always they're going to say yes, right? And so if we don't test in all seven Gs, we cannot identify all nine specific learning disabilities. We can't identify if there's a need for all nine specific learning disabilities. Again, the evaluator doing, there's an evaluation called the HELP. And I had to call one of my, I always have to phone a friend. I'm like, is that a real cognitive evaluation? Yes. Is that meets the standard? Okay. Well, the HELP only has two areas, right? And so while it's correct and you've met the standard, it's what? It's insufficient, right? It's insufficient, okay? So you're always going to ask for all seven Gs. So let's say you're getting this evaluation, you're in the meeting, and you see that there's four Gs or five Gs. I might, as an amazing school-based member, say to that evaluator, would you be opposed, would you be opposed to doing an addendum to do the other three or two Gs? And almost always they'll say yes, okay? Again, we don't have to know or confirm something in this area, but I would say, I think Stephanie would agree, the most under-identified learning IDEA eligibility, in my experience, is specific learning disabilities. It's specific learning disabilities, okay? All right. And if a child doesn't meet any eligibility, that information from the cognitive evaluation is everything, right? And your cognition is stabilized at 10. What does that mean? Your cognition is stabilized at 10. There's very few instruments I can give a kiddo for an evaluation, but whatever their evaluation is at 10, you can take it to the bank, that's what it will be when they're 50, right? All right. Number six, I mean, number five, formal achievement. Formal achievement. So I always say that your cognition is like a file cabinet, right? I've got a file cabinet. It's brown. It's got silver handles. It goes back three feet. It holds this many files. It locks. It's just how it's made, right? Achievement is what I can get out of the file cabinet. Like I've done it, it's in there, but can I retrieve it and use it, okay? So for formal achievement, almost always the school district is going to do reading, written expression, math. Reading, written expression, math. Perfect. And then we're going to ask them to add on two more, OE and LC. So reading, written expression, and math. And then we're going to ask them to add OE and LC. That is oral expression, which is an SLD, and listening comprehension, which is the SLD, okay? I mean, you're educators, we want the most information so we can make the most informed decision, and that's the point of testing, okay? Number six, a formal, and you might notice I keep using the word formal because I'm allergic to screens and consults because I'm allergic to wasting time. The law didn't say anything about doing a screener, did they? They didn't say anything about a consult, okay? So we're asking for a formal psychological or a formal emotional behavioral wherever you live in the United States. So depending on what state you're in, they call it a formal psychological evaluation or they call it formal emotional behavioral, okay? How many of us have behaviors, right? It doesn't mean, Lee, did he go to the office? Has he been suspended? No, we all have behaviors that show up as we're in this world, right? So we're looking to see if there is a behavior that impedes his learning or the learning of others, right? And so that could include consideration for autism, consideration for ADHD, the three types, ADHD inattentive, ADHD hyperactive, and or ADHD combined, and then emotional disability, right? And so we have to do robust evaluations. We're asking for normative standardized instruments. We're asking that the parent or parents each individually fill out a rating sheet because that's fun. But more importantly, we're asking for the evaluator to actually have an interview with the parent, right? Sometimes those sheets are always, never, sometimes. We're asking for two teachers to fill out the rating scales. Oh, well, Karen, they're in kindergarten. Good. I bet they go to PE. I bet they go to math. I mean, not math. I bet they go to music. I bet they go to arts, right? So there's at least two adults working with them weekly. And then when it's appropriate, we're asking for the student to be interviewed. You know what students are? Really smart. They'll tell you stuff, right? And we need that information. So formal psychological could include any of those three educational eligibilities, rating scales, interviews, and then based upon what that evaluator finds, she might then further do a functional behavioral assessment, which then might develop into a behavioral intervention plan, counseling as a related service. Okay? Number seven, formal adaptive behavior. And these are the eight if we're doing an evaluation or re-evaluation. These are the areas. On an initial, we're required to do all eight. Okay? So formal adaptive behavior, how much do I look like other peers my age, right? How much of a seven-year-old does his playtime look the same, the way he communicates, his academics, his leisure? I think that's always funny, that word leisure. But those sorts of pieces. Can you see there's a gap in between that kiddo? Okay? And then number eight, related services. So IDEA says that we test kids that we suspect have a disability who may be in need of special education and may be in need of related services. In Texas, we call them related services and instructional services. Why? Because we have to be different. Okay? So depending on where you're serving a kiddo, related or instructional services. Okay? Those are additional services that would benefit a student with a disability that require services by a professional in that space, IEP goals, and service minutes. What you don't have to do is be failing in your IEP to have a related service. And, again, there's just a lot of misinformation, but people are pretty committed to that sometimes, and you don't have to know whether or not they're going to qualify or not. Okay? So we're going to stop here, but these are the eight that I want you to keep as your framework. So number one, speech and language to include pragmatic. Number two, medical physical. Number three, sociological. Number four, formal achievement to include all. So formal cognitive, all seven Gs. Number five, formal achievement in reading, written expression, math, oral expression, and listening comprehension. Number six, formal psychological evaluation or emotional behavioral, whatever you call it in your state. Number seven, formal adaptive behavior. And then number eight, related services and or instructional services. So now that you have this evaluation, which is done very well, pre-Karen, I want you to go back and find those eight areas and identify them in the evaluation, and then we'll build from that in our next training. Let's see. Looking at eight areas in any order. Oh, did you just write those out for me? That is so smart. All right. What did you want to share around this as we're looking at it as an evaluation? I think sometimes when teams come into initial evaluations, they do, in their minds, have predeterminations. In areas, we are really, on this side of the table, good at presenting that. And, again, not to try to miss anything, but try to get services as fast as we possibly can. So oftentimes we will head in the direction that we for sure see that there probably is a deficit, but oftentimes don't evaluate the full gamut of things that are going on. I will also say on this side of the table, a delay that happens for teachers is if in the initial request for evaluations, you have permission to evaluate certain things, but yet you get into testing or you see results, then you have to go through that permission again, typically. And so that is a long process when the kids, it's an initial referral. And it's really hard because really good teachers will start trying to do things prior to it being in the paperwork. And teachers struggle with the timeline just as much, I will tell you that, because they don't get to get in to give them initial time. Something that's really important to know is nowhere under IDEA, the Individual Disabilities Education Act, does it say Melanie has to know the child's suspected disability. And so teachers are amazing. They take 30 kids in a year. None of them are exactly at the same level of anything, right? Humans are on a continuum. Their acquisition of learning is on a continuum. And, you know, teachers are superstars. They mold kiddos for a year who may have zero acquisition in the content area. And they're proficient in the year. So often teachers want a little more time and a little more time and a little more time. And that's completely fine that we do that in tandem. But we don't want to wait because as amazing teachers as you are, we don't know what we don't know, just as a parent or an advocate. And then that formal assessment will identify or eliminate those areas that need determinations, okay? And so I don't know how it works in your district, city, or county, but it's my experience that most educators are not really supposed to go, hey, let's have Mr. and Mrs. Smith do an evaluation, right? Probably not that way in your district. We're not referring kids all week long. But it is our responsibility as educators to refer if you suspect there is a disability. And so often people will say, well, I just think he's behind, right? So if I was an educator and my leadership was not excited that I was referring somebody or that I had to do 78 weeks of MTSS, SST, RTI, which is a training for another day, you're the first one in educational need that's going to see the child for seven hours a day, right? You're the one that's providing the expectation. And so I don't know how that works in your building, but let's say that Melanie is the principal or whoever, I would say that to Melanie in person. Whatever Melanie says back, either way, I'm going to follow that up with, hey, Melanie, it was great to talk to you today about Billy Smith. I think that a referral for special education testing will give us more information. So then you've done what? You have written it down, right? People are busy. Things are going on. And it's not about covering yourself. It's about just doing what we're called to do, which is do things that are right for kiddos. Because almost always the teacher sees the deficit or the difference in her classroom. All right, questions. Stephanie got the head tilt. That was so good. You're doing so good, Stephanie. Her face isn't red because they haven't started reading. I was prepared, too. I was like, oh, I'm going to live it again today, I told Kendra. Be prepared to catch me at the end of tonight. The people, I mean, it's just a question. Those that are participating. So, Tana, you're gargling. Your modem might need to be closer to you. It just gargled. It was beautiful. But could you tell us that in English? Now she's muted, which is another form of English. What is this like? Okay, we can hear you now. You're saying one word every three seconds. So good. So, do you want to write in the chat what you were going to ask our great educators? Can you hear me now? Yeah. The question is, do they realize there are things that they can do during that timeline of waiting for evaluations? During that process, there are interventions that you can do within a classroom. Yeah, people are nodding their heads yes. Okay. People that are not inside or oftentimes they assume nothing is happening. But there are things happening even in the wait. And so I just want to make sure that they realize that they have skills and things that they can do in that process. Elizabeth asked, can you give us some examples that you're referencing? So, for example, you know, if you're in a general ed environment, and you know that there's a student struggling and they're going through the process of evaluations, there are interventions such as, I mean, really minute things like small group instruction that you can set up your classroom to accommodate students that are struggling. There are things in your classroom that you can do such as that. There are ways that you can break down information within your classroom. And I'm not telling you to turn into all of a sudden a special ed teacher in a general education environment, but there are ways that you can approach learning differently as that student, so that student isn't just hanging out there in the process. So there are different things such as that. There are things that we like to use the term walking interventions. So we monitor different levels for students, even if they have an IEP, whether they do or they don't in schools, and we group them for learning, just so that you can meet their needs where they are in the process. Perfect. That's good. So sometimes we hear kind of yin or yang to that, that I have to do 700,000 years of RTI, and then I give it to Cindy, who gives it to Jerry, who tells us this is not a relay race, right? Certainly keep teaching, keep supporting, and nor is it something like you couldn't give them support by giving them additional help that sets out kind of general ed. Nobody's going to say, I can't believe you gave her an extra ten minutes. Nobody's going to say that, right? Right. Because we're making adjustments and seeing if it makes a difference. But RTI. RTI, yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. RTI, if you're using it. Yeah, you're right. If you're using it successfully in the process, you can come to the table and say, hey, guess what? This is working for the student. And it would typically align with the evaluations that you're giving. So when you put those things in place and you're actually monitoring that, you can present that to the IEP team at the table, and it's very successful when it happens. Can I ask a follow-up question? Yeah. So I teach math, right? And I will put those kiddos who are struggling in MTSS in the meantime that we're waiting for things to happen. And I feel like I'm always doing what I think is best. But you know how we don't know what we don't know? Do you have any ideas of how I could do what I think the kid needs, but I want to educate myself more on that and there's not PD coming my way about it? Is there a resource that I could use to educate myself on just different interventions? Yeah, MTSS, you can easily, to be honest, you can easily Google MTSS strategies pertaining to a certain situation or whatever you're teaching, and they will give you ideas that you can implement. The thing with MTSS, and you're asking that, it's not a one-size-fits-all, and that's the problem. Teachers often want to say, if I do this, but yet this didn't work, right? Because it's a process of elimination in RTI. It's a process of figuring out what kind of works in my teaching style. Oftentimes, we like to point as educators towards the student and what they do in their learning, but it's usually what I'm doing in my teaching. And so when you think about that, what can I do differently, not so much what are they doing? And in that informational piece, you can have those conversations with your students, and they typically will tell you, like, that's too much on the page, or that's too much information all at once for me, or have the conversation. They will tell you. That's good. And remembering, and we're going to unpack this in our next session, just like there are five stakeholders at an IEP meeting, there are five stakeholders at minimum in an evaluation. Parent. General education teacher. You might have a child that will never see a general ed teacher based upon the acuity of their disability, right? Special education teacher, even if they're not already in special education. And then evaluators, right? And so many people have information about your kiddo that may not teach them a class, right? I have a son that was in special ed. One of his best interventionists and support was a principal that I abducted, because I do that with people. And I was like, you're going to be with James for high school. And like a week before he graduated, he goes, you know, Miss Cunningham, I was at his principal. I said, you were? He goes, no. Oh, well, you did a good job. He got James, right? And so it could be the registrar. It could be the people that do car drop-offs that see a child that may necessarily not sit inside of their schedule. And so everybody at the campus that provides them an educational benefit has information that the committee should be able to look at. Okay? Great. And I was also going to add to Elizabeth's question. One of the things that I love to do as a special ed teacher is to find the gen ed teachers that they do have and partner with them, even if it's like 15, 20 minutes on a Friday after work or have lunch or something. After so many years, the strategies just kind of seem natural to us. And so partnering with them is like, oh, yeah, I didn't even think of that. And so that's been our biggest thing last year was having that collaboration between the gen ed and special ed teachers. And it's been wonderful because the gen ed teachers have started keeping data that they see happening before they even suspect something. And that's so good, Stacey. I mean, there might be somebody that would never be delivering specialty design instruction. You're probably going to have a specialty design instruction from your art teacher. And one of the things that you said is what Channa and I talk about all the time. For me, when I wrote my book, I was like, oh, so uncomfortable. You know why? Because I just do it. If somebody wanted me to write down what I do, I give them the Karen. It was so weird to write it down. And so you guys all perform magical outcomes every day. And so kind of, Stacey, what Stacey said, if I'm a teacher, I would just get another teacher to say, if you were reading my obituary, what would you say about my teaching, right? Because other people can see what you're doing because it changes kids' lives. But we're often not ready to have that conversation at a table, right? So, Christina, can you tell me what you do with Billy? He's sweet. And she's not able to necessarily describe what she does naturally because it's what she's called to do. That's good. Well, and when you do it, when you teach in a way to try to reach all students, which is what special ed does, it's hard for Gen Ed who sometimes is scripted teaching based off content. And so that's a little different. And so how do I teach that content individually, like to present to all students? Because this is what I used to say to Gen Ed teachers all the time when they were struggling. None of us learn the same. It doesn't matter whether I'm special ed or not. None of us learn the same. So for me to reach all of my students, I have to adapt my teaching for all my students. And that has nothing to do with special education. So when you teach that way, if I'm not just teaching one form or one method to try to reach students, then, you know, I can get the gamut of all of my students included in the learning. So good. You guys are rock stars. So Carrie says, I try to let the student staff know that we are building a highlight show of portfolio that includes tasks and resources that are and have been used in being successful. This is a live collection of work. Not only does this allow the student to see what they are capable of, remind them of shiny moments, also used during meetings and the journey while waiting in limbo. This can be shared with Gen Ed teachers to showcase that student did, in fact, complete a task. When you ask what I can do differently, it may document the student stood at a desk for math and completed this or student didn't complete the warm up but made the exit to SLP. The flip portfolios matter. Yeah, I have an amazing school district that didn't love me at the beginning, but that's okay. But they love me now. And their platform, I think it's Pasco County in Florida, is that they make, we have the IP, right, we have the IP ahead of time. And they do this, like, colorful slide show, and I'm, like, getting a tissue. Because a child's never paperwork, right? They're certainly not that. And they go over the components, but it's just, like, it's, like, an award show. He did so good. And so that is a great modality that they've used to celebrate this kiddo who's really struggling. And it makes the parent feel so good, right? When you have a child that struggles in school, you have often parents have shame around that and guilt and blame and try to fix it or stop it or tutor it, right? And so we're trying to close that gap between, you know, data is just data. It's not good or bad. It's just information that we need to move forward. Yeah. Good. Anybody have questions, comments? Dr. Collette, you have, I'm just going to steal everything that she wrote now that I've said it. It's legal. So good. Did you have anything you wanted to share? I may be new to this part of your meetings, but I watch you every once in a while out in California when I hit you at the right time frame, you know? But I've sat in on over 300 or I've canvassed over 300 different IEP meetings, and I have literally fought the district on several. But I make sure that as soon as a student comes into the district or into the classes and I see that there's something amiss, I'm making sure that my eyes are on that student and I start talking to the parent at the time so that the parent doesn't go into an IEP meeting with strangers, that I'm there supporting them. And I have some of those kids that are now 50 years old, and they, you know, they still e-mail me. The parents still. So it's the relationship we build along the way so that it doesn't become a conflict between everybody. And I've had some major conflicts that I did not win that I would love to have taken to court. Kids never forget the teachers that enjoyed them, right? Nor do we forget the teachers that did not enjoy us, right? And your kids, whether they're 30, 50, they will talk about that teacher that they really liked, right? You know why? Because they enjoyed them. And so these are all really good questions. Stephanie, did you want to add anything? I thought you were going to ask was I going to add something to the bookshelf. Yes, I'm adding the new book. I'm going to send that over to you and Stephanie. Perfect. Did you want to add anything verbally? She's muted, which makes her talk really fast. She's muted. Oh, I was saying great things like channeling. I think one of the things from a parent's perspective and actually something that Christina and I walked through today is really knowing, right? I mean, she's here every single week in the academy, but there's things that you don't necessarily see as a parent or as an educator. It's always going back, having your reference documents and knowing what to ask and referring to those on a consistent basis. It's very important, even me as an advocate, right? I need to make sure that if I'm serving families and we're doing it on a consistent basis, that we're going back to those and we're checking ourselves, if you will, to make sure that I'm continuing to do things with fidelity and I'm always keeping that student and their success in mind and making sure that in the evaluations we're checking all of those boxes, not in a checking-the-boxes way, but in a fidelity way, making sure that we're serving them to the best that we can. It's good. Good, good, good. Okay. So we are going to stop there because people say I talk a lot. I don't know what that means. And so and I want you guys to get this. We are and you guys are new. This is a new academy that we've rolled out this month. So thank you. We had our five weeks in June. We're crushing it. Tell your friends and then the other people, too. We have we've had Special Education Academy for five years. You're always welcome to join that. The first month is free. That's also a great resource that you might get benefit from as well. For us and our company, we take this next week off. So we will not have any trainings next Monday night. So you can enjoy your holiday and celebrate 250 years of a great America. And then we'll be back on the 13th and pick this up. And we'll make sure that the academy did not evaporate. I have a manager she's always working on. She calls them the gremlins, the technology gremlins. And I don't say anything because I don't want to put something in the chat. So I hope this is beneficial to you guys. If you have questions, send those in. And then at the end, the great Chana will read them. We have a few minutes, Chana. Did you want to read any that you had, even if those academy members aren't here? So she's gargling again. I just want to say that she just moved into a new house and has 72 stories. But it's in a city. I'm gargling again. You're gargling again. Yeah. We will de-gargle her. And so by the 13th, she will have her own modem, like three or four modems. Just go outside and tell the kids in the neighborhood, get off the Wi-Fi. Give me your stuff. Yeah. So any questions you have, e-mail them to Chana. Chana is going to put her e-mail in the chat. And she will also tell us in non-gargling what her e-mail is. I'm going to try. So the docs that you originally started with, I have not been able to pull them up, because what I did, it cut you guys off visually. So is there a certain way to pick that up? I mean, I understood what you were talking about. Yeah. Stephanie, can you put the documents in the chat? So we're starting with her beautiful boy, Garrick's evaluation, which her and her husband requested because there were additional needs. And then after that, Stephanie and I fell in love. And I said, let me just go in and fix this. This is going to be so easy. And I think the first year for one child, we had nine IEP meetings. I love you. I don't want to see you, any of you, nine times in a year. The not getting stuff done and dragging it out, I'm allergic to. But sometimes that is a modality by a district to make it miserable for the parents. Most of us that have a job or lives could not take off nine multi-hour meetings and tell your boss, is it going to finish now? Is it going to finish now? And so this is a unique setting that we worked really hard to get it done, and we did. But it was a very long pregnancy. So we'll resend up those documents. Stephanie, I think you had all of them. I think Stephanie Marie had them all in the attachment. Is that right? I haven't seen the attachment that Stephanie Marie has sent out. Okay. So if you would have her also add all the partners to the EEA, then we can all see that. That would be great. Dr. Gallett, if you will right-click on that FIE that Stephanie did, and it will show a download. And I did. I already hit the download, and I'm writing it all down. I'm writing Channa's information address down. I'm writing the PDF down. I just don't want to do anything else. Well, let me give you some really fun information. Let me give you Channa's date of birth, her blood type. More important, let me just give you my cell number. So my cell number is 713-269-9751. 713-269-9751. You are welcome to text me, send me chat me. You'll get a recording. From a text? Just kidding. She's trying to be funny. That's okay. You know, anyone that receives a lot of e-mails and materials needs to have that recording. Yeah. So if you guys need anything, if you can't find something, always reach out to me, and then next week we'll put Channa's home address and her social security number and all of her phone numbers online because she thinks she's funny. One last question. It has nothing to do with tonight's information. It has to do with your meeting last week for the special education department being turned over to health. You went to a ñ and I submitted some documents and some information that I was told by, I think, Annette that you might be able to read, but it didn't get to you in time. So I just wanted to make sure that you received the information that I wanted to add to your ñ Is that for the press conference? Last week. Last week I had a press conference. Was it for Houston ISD is moving 5,000 kids to a segregated campus, which I helped stop that. Good girl. It's what I do. They threatened me with police in the parking lot, but when I approached them, they got in their cars and rolled the window up. Is it me? Will you send that to me, Dr. Nolette, so I have that? We have many meetings coming up. Do you want to tell us what your question was or your input? Well, I started this whole journey with my brother before federal law even came into place. It was institutionalization. So I watched it from the very beginning. I just watched my parents become pioneers in the servicing of special education. I don't like to call ñ according to the law, it's not special ed teachers or special ed place. I service students through special education. So, you know, I've seen it all the way through and received my doctorate along the way, too. So this is important to me. This is a journey I've taken off because my mom said when Steve was born with Down's, any time that there is research to be done, we are going to participate. So I have done that all the way along. So that's who I am. Awesome. Will you send that to me? I get 8,562,000 emails a day, but that would be important. That's okay. I get to be in certain rooms and certain conversations. People listen to my input. And so good news about special ed is we always have work to do and improvements to make. And so I think that one of the benefits of the pandemic is it sort of forced us to look at special education and forced us to look at general education. So I just believe that every day we have an opportunity to get it more better. But thank you for sending that to me. And then we have for that, for youth and ISD, we had about an hour before the press conference, they called my parent and said, okay, okay, okay, we'll let your child stay, no problem. And so my client, who's very brilliant, she went to college and graduated, she said, should we cancel the press conference? No. We don't trust liars. Right? And so it seems that they've stopped it. TEA is coming in and doing a full audit monitoring starting August. So, you know, what about her one child? It was about 5,000 children, right? There's a lady there who says, well, the principal said I have to go. I said, no, no, you tell him, can't wait to see you, first day of school. And I said, what does your IEP say? What is his next placement? She goes, the same campus. Good news. That's the document we follow. And so, you know, it's so unfortunate that it's so easy to move a group of people because they trusted you that are unethical. Not many people that do that. But, you know, I have a big mouth. I'm going to run it. And hopefully we help equip parents, educators, and advocates and everybody serving kiddos to get the truth so they can serve kids at the highest level. Yeah, I've been pushing that information out. Definitely it's something that has to be watched. We don't know what's happening, you know, behind the scenes. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. So just in case you guys don't know, my name is Karen Mayer Cunningham, several husbands. Or you can just put in your phone Karen swimwear model, whichever seems more appropriate. And then I'm going to do RTI with Janna on her gurgling. All right. Well, thank you, guys. If you need to, let us know. Remember, we're taking the week off. We are coming from vacation, so enjoy your week off. And then we'll see you again Monday, July 13th. And pick this one up. All right. Thank you, guys. We'll see you then. Thank you very much. Yeah.