The Questions Parents Must Ask About Alternate Curriculum

Full event transcript: I'm Lindsay Crain, and I head the Content and Community teams at Undivided. With me today, we welcome back Doctor Caitlin Solone. Doctor Solone is a teacher, educator, and faculty within UCLA Disability Studies department. She's also an inclusion consultant to school districts around California. And as we just discussed, she's a sibling to a fabulous soul who happens to have CP. Hi, Doctor Solone, welcome back. Hello. So good to be back. Be on here with everybody. So we're talking about alternate curriculum and it can mean different things to different people. So, Doctor Solone, how do you define it? Just to ensure that we're all on the same page today. Yeah. Great question. It does. It means different things to different people. Some people have no idea what it means. Some people talk about it in a way that isn't always what it actually means. And I can definitely fall into that. In the past, I definitely used to do this because it didn't fully understand what the differences are. So it's really important to understand what those differences are, and also to recognize that your child's IEP team, their educators, may not may not always have the right language to be talking about what it is they mean when they're talking about certain forms of curriculum. So to back it up a little bit, I want to just kind of set the stage so that we can understand what we're talking about here. Our kids have access to the gen ed curriculum. They're required to by law. In Edina, all children, no matter how significant their support needs or disability, have access to the general education curriculum to measure student performance in the general education curriculum. The states have developed state testing, right? And we test at certain grade levels and for students who are traditional students, they're taking the regular state test that measures general education, content standards assessment, evaluative standards. Right. And then so they're taught curriculum that's aligned to the general education curriculum and content. And those evaluation, those assessment standards. Children who have more significant support needs still have to, by law, be educated using curriculum that's aligned with the gen ed curriculum. So whatever grade level chronologically, appropriate grade level curriculum, for that student. So say a student's eight years old, maybe they're in an SCC class. They should still be exposed to the third-grade-level general education curriculum. Right? It can be modified to meet their needs. But when it comes to testing, kids with more significant support needs, more significant cognitive disabilities oftentimes take the alternate assessment, which has alternate achievement standards. The alternate achievement standards are still aligned with the gen ed curriculum out of a need for a curriculum for students. Right. Students who are taking that alternate assessment can either receive a modified curriculum to the gen ed curriculum. So it's modified to be at their level, but it's still aligned with the base gen ed curriculum like the law says. Then alternate curriculum is something that is a curriculum that is designed for students with the most significant disabilities, that is also aligned with the alternate achievement standards, but oftentimes has a different book, comes out of a box, doesn't always have content in social studies. Science doesn't expose kids to all of the different content standards. Sometimes people talk about alternate curriculum and mean modified curriculum, and I fall into that category by my past self. Right. So you want to be mindful of that. There's a lot of controversy around alternate curriculum, because sometimes what happens in classrooms is that students then get this out of the box curriculum. Maybe it's just a reading program, maybe it's just a math program, but then they're denied access to the general content standards that are aligned with the grade level curriculum in other areas. That makes sense, yes, but do you use modified curriculum and alternate curriculum interchangeably? So pass me did right? Yes. But if we're really kind of clarifying our language and disentangling and really getting specific, we can just call a modified curriculum modified curriculum to keep it simple. An alternate curriculum then could mean using these alternate programs that don't always align to that the content standards, the standards. However, sometimes the alternate curriculum like Unique Learning Systems, Unique Learning Systems is a curriculum that LAUSD uses for sure, and it is aligned with the gen ed standards. However, there are and it has social studies. It has science, it has ELA, it has math. However, it's in grade level bands. So you have like K through two and everybody gets the same thing essentially differentiated a little bit. Then you have three through five, etc.. And so you're missing out on some. So the way that that if we're being really specific and talking about alternate curriculum, we're talking about curriculum that is designed for students with the most significant disabilities. That is not it is not an adapted gen ed curriculum necessarily. Okay. Got it. And we'll today we'll be talking about both. We're going to be talking about alternate curriculum then. So I will because I, I use them interchangeably as well. So all these two if I so please correct me if I say it wrong. So we're going to talk about, you know, both alternate curriculum and modified gen ed curriculum. Yeah. And so what you're saying is for alternate curriculum, these out-of-the-box, you know, curriculums, they should only be for students who are on an alternate assessment. Zacharias. That's correct. And can but just because a student takes the alternate assessment does not mean that they have to be on an alternate curriculum. No, but it most likely means they're on a modified curriculum. For me, it feels like a modified curriculum then gives families correct me if I'm wrong a lot more freedom to make, you know, to make sure that they are getting access to everything across the board the science, the social studies, and that everything they're doing is hitting along with those Common Core standards. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. And I also think that we you know, we definitely because I think people get nervous, you know, when they hear, you know, even modified curriculum. Right. Like because we know that there's implications, you know, if your child has a heavily modified curriculum. But I also think it's really important to talk about, the importance of modified or possibly alternate curriculum. You know, I'd love to hear what you think about that, but especially as it applies to access. Can you explain that a little bit? So if students are performing far below grade level and we've tried implementing different access accessibility features, text to speech, speech to text, different things like that, and they're still far below grade level, then it might be more appropriate to give a student modifications for curriculum so that they can be working at their developmental level on a curriculum that is aligned with the gen ed curriculum they might be in, you know, the same lesson that their peers are doing, but their achievements, standards, the way there were measured, measuring their progress as educators is not the same way we were measuring their, say general education peers' progress. They have different achievement standards that they're working towards, but within the context of the same subject matter. And what should a modified gen ed curriculum look like? Because I think, like you said, a lot of these words get thrown around for parents. And it isn't just, hey, here's this out of the box. No alternate curriculum. And then there's this, like modified gen ed curriculum, right? There's also a lot in the middle, which is no curriculum and even well-intentioned, but sort of made up ways to teach students or ways that, you know, teachers have many hard years into figuring out what works for their students as well. I mean, it can be anything, obviously, anything in the middle. So what should a modified curriculum look like? In an ideal world, the modified curriculum would be curriculum that's designed to provide students with disabilities with more significant support needs, access to the general education standards and curriculum. Right. And all the whole continuum of standards. So but at their level, at their developmental level. So ultimately they would be I mean, ideally in an inclusive classroom, but not it doesn't have to be. And they would be learning the same lessons, but they would be learning something that's more developmentally appropriate. So say, say their peers are writing a five paragraph essay and that's their achievement standard. And that's the standard they're working on in class. Maybe another student might be writing a one paragraph essay. If that's more developmentally appropriate, they might be, dictating a one paragraph response or essay. Right? They might be at a level where they're labeling. Right. If it's a personal narrative, they might bring in a picture that is from an event that they went to or something exciting they did, and they might be labeling that picture and that might be where they're at, but it's still aligned with what the class is working on with, which is a personal story, a personal narrative. And while the class may be working on five paragraphs, a student with more significant support needs to handle on what their needs are and where they're at. Could be doing a number of different things. And that's what makes it really tricky, is that there's not yet a systematic implementation of a modified curriculum. And luckily we've got a more systematic approach to understanding the benchmarks needed to get to the overarching gen ed standards. And we'll get to those in a minute with the Common Core connectors. And so luckily we have that, which helps us a lot in figuring out how do I tailor this assignment or this lesson to this student or this unit to this student? But because we don't yet have a uniform way or we don't have curriculum yet, gen ed curriculums that have modifications or, you know, modified components to them, it makes it really tricky. And that's why this whole conversation is so important and also so complex is because as an educational system, we haven't quite figured out yet, and the alternate curriculums are nice because they're systematic. They provide you with data. You know, you have a systematic approach to teaching a certain content area. But again, they don't always cover what you need it to cover. Oftentimes, they teach rudimentary concepts that don't always push students to their highest potential. And so for like the ALC curriculum, like if we take unique as an example, I mean, I know LAUSD, that's something that, you know, that's frequently used. They're everything there, like you said, some rudimentary skills sometimes. So it's not necessarily, you know, aligned with the state standards are aligned with general education standards, for sure. They really are. And they have but you're we couldn't call it modified curriculum because it's not curriculum that's modified like the classroom curriculum that the class is getting. It's not modified in that way. It's a, it's it's out of a box or online. Right. And it can be a really great tool. And as a teacher, sometimes I would look through that and see if there were certain things that were aligning with units that were coming up in the gen ed class that maybe I can pull from, but there was a ton missing. And that's the problem with unique is that there is quite a bit missing. And so you can't easily then adapt that necessarily to a generic classroom or the curriculum being taught in those classrooms. If the school district comes and says, we want your child on an Alt curriculum like unique, just because that's the example that we're giving right now, can a parent decline and say, nope, I want a modified curriculum. Yeah. Absolutely. Right. Yeah. Okay. And to really know the difference of like in the modified really working on the same things that their peers are on at, you know, at whatever level they are that makes it accessible versus something else that you know, is it a one size fits all kid. The things within unique or in all curricula know the individualized they are differentiated within unique. Okay, there's three levels. I think it's three levels per grade level band, right. Can you use times you would then be at this sometimes students that are at the same level from year to year. Got it. And can you use an alternate curriculum like that in a gen ed class? So if a student has more, you know, significant, cognitive disabilities, can they be on us on an Alt curriculum while in an inclusive gen ed class? Theoretically, yes. They can, but it's going to be disjointed. So again, like I mentioned, you having access to it for teachers is nice. Sometimes, depending on what you're using it, it can be really helpful because it can save a lot of time if you find alignment, especially in things like, math, right where it is aligned with the gen ed curriculum, but it's at different levels that you can then apply, but it still only works for pieces of math. It doesn't work for the big picture. And, you know, all of the types of standards that are in a math curriculum and different in a given grade level. So let's then talk, because that's when we kind of talk about modified curriculum. That's really what we're talking about. Right. Really taking those standards. Your you know what every what all of the other kids in your grade are working on and figuring out how it works for each child. And so we we received a lot of examples from parents, you know, from parents saying, well, what about this in or this scenario? So we thought we'd, you know, walk through a scenario and you can really tell us, you know what what this, you know, can, should look like. So we would love, for you to give us an example of a modified reading goal for a fifth grader who has intellectual disability reading on a first grade level, and is in a gen ed class. So a fifth grader with an intellectual disability reading at a first grade level in a gen ed class. What is the reading goal like that look like? Yeah. So and I would adjust our language a little bit and not call it, modified reading goal. I would just call it a reading goal that is, shaped to meet the child's needs and aligned with the gen ed curriculum. So that would be better, better language to describe it. Reading goal that's aligned or connects directly to the curriculum, but that is at the student's developmental level. And so the best path to determine a goal like that is to use those Common Core connectors or something called a dynamic dynamic learning map, which brings in those Common Core connectors. I mean, I think probably everyone's heard of Common Core State standards, but a lot of people don't know that a core connector is an essential. Understandings are also a part of Common Core State standards. So if you could explain what those are. So the Common Core connectors are basically a bridge. I like to think about it like a bridge. You have a general education standard and then you have a connector, which is a skill you need, right, in order to get there. And there are essential understandings which help us understand what a student needs to know before they're able to to master, a standard or get to the next step. And so we can look to the Common Core connectors, and we can find a grade level standard on there. And so say we're going to fifth grade. And we wanted to look at this standard that says you determine two or more main ideas. And a text of a text and explain how they're supported by key details and summarize the text. Right. So the student would be expected to determine. And the two main ideas and explain the evidence that supports that. Those are the two main ideas. And then summarize that text. So a Common Core connector, if we broke it down, would be that a student would need to determine the main idea and identify key details to support the main idea. That would be the bridge. That's what a student would need to be able to do before they'd be able to get to that Common Core state standard and master that. If a student is not yet at that level, if that's not their developmentally appropriate level. So we don't want to go there yet. We're not quite there yet. Maybe, they're still working on identifying the main idea of a text. Maybe they're still working on, a couple other things. Then we can break it down even further and look to the essential understanding, which says, a student will identify the topic of a text. So then an IEP goal might sound something like, you know, by February 10th, 2023, Johnny will, after listening to a story read aloud, Johnny will identify the topic of a story from an array of three choices. And so that is one example of how, a student with significant support needs, the significant disability can access the general education Common Core standard or just the general standard, but at their level. So they're working towards meeting that goal. They're not they're there yet, but it's aligned right. It's connected. And when parents are going either reviewing the goals before an IEP or thinking you know, of what they want and what they want their kids to accomplish, how should they use them? You just gave a great, a beautiful example, but how should they use those core connectors to think about what they're going to be suggesting? Because a lot of us get the same goals, you know, every year, or there's a little bit of. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Well, this this year she's going to learn 20 sight words when it was 15, you know, whatever it might be in that IEP, how can we use those common connectors to really make sure that our kids are getting the robust education that, that they deserve? Yeah, really great question. And I first would say just to pause and and know that you don't need an IEP goal on every single standard. However, that doesn't mean that your child shouldn't be taught every standard, right? IEP goals are not a child's curriculum, and that is something that often times gets confused. IEP goals are not a child's curriculum. Just because they don't have an IEP goal related to a certain standard does not mean they shouldn't be working on it. They absolution. But to determine IEP goals, what we want to do is we want to kind of take a bigger step back. We want to look at these common core connectors and essential understandings, and that the standards look at them, read through them, and just think more broadly about what are the most important skills for my child to learn to thrive in their life? What skills will they be able to work on throughout the entire year, not just in one unit, right? If we have a goal on fractions, but the class a general class, for example, is only working on fractions for, you know, ten weeks or something, then we wouldn't necessarily want to put a fraction goal in an IEP. But what we could do is think more broadly about what are the other standards that involve fractions while adding subtract, like knowing how to identify what operation needs to be, utilized to get this or the answer. So really kind of taking a step back, what are the skills that are going to really add value to my child's growth and progress? Sometimes we can get so like micro, right? And we zoom in too far. But when you're trying to decide what are the most important goals for my child, it's important to step back. And then what are the things that I can build upon, right. And really watch my child grow and what matters, right. Sometimes, sometimes, you know, in education you get so used to certain types of goals and get used to writing a certain style of goal or for certain certain standards and not others. And I really just encourage you as parents and anybody else who's on the call to, to get creative and think differently rather than just sticking with the same old, same old. Right? Think of your kid. Right. Is that's, that's the compass, right? There's all of this, you know, we can read everything we can look at, you know, all of these standards and want all of them to happen, which they should be, like you said, in their environment. I think that's really important. Like, the goals are not the curriculum, which I'll touch on in a minute. But obviously that is not always the case, especially in some special ed classrooms. We did have a quick follow up. IRA said the example that you gave about the topic and giving options, would giving options be considered an accommodation or modification? Yeah. Giving options is an accommodation. It's not a modification. So if all your child needs to thrive is a few options. Three, four options. Or if all your child needs to thrive is a word bank or something like that, that is an accommodation child should still absolutely be on grade level curriculum. For that specific example, I also want to note that students can also have a modified curriculum for reading and language arts and not math, so it is absolutely possible for them to have differences depending on the subject matter too. How how is that student included on a daily basis with books that might be beyond our current skill level as written? I mean, how does she talk about concepts, write essays, and do group work? You kind of touched on that a little bit, but what are her days look like? You know, really like when we're thinking about a curriculum, and she's in a class like how I think a lot of parents have a hard time imagining how how that can be made beneficial for their child. So if you can sort of just, you know, eliminate and let us know, really kind of bring alive like, what does that class look like? Yeah. I mean, when I'm thinking about topics, topics can be scaffolded too, right? So if I think about it like an inverted triangle and you have kind of really broad topic, and then you get down and narrow it down into a more specific topic, more specific topics, like for example, if education is my broad topic and then special education and then, you know, breaking it down even further to different topics within that, right, we can think about then, you know, you can identify a topic of any text so a student can listen to a novel that their fourth grade class, fifth grade class is reading, listen to it, have exposure to pictures or relating to it, conversations about it. They can listen to it and and then identify the topics that are going on. I don't if I the topic of that text, different topics of the chapters, different topics have certain, things happening throughout the text. And so it really is when we start thinking this way, it really is, you know, if we can get strategic and and creative, you can align anything throughout the day to meet the needs of any student in the class. I don't want to sugarcoat it. It does take a lot of extra effort. And it takes, a, a it's it requires a skill that evolves over time. So if a teacher's trying this out and really, you know, doing their best to make these modified, the modified curriculum include students in classrooms. It might not be perfect at first. It never is it. Every single year you get better, you learn more. And so even after like ten years of teaching, you're still going to be learning, still going to be growing, still going to be improving and changing and shifting. And so I don't want to sugarcoat it and say it's as easy as that. And you're fine. It is, much more complicated than that. But as parents, you can help your teachers by printing out the common course, connectors document by having already gone through it and taking a look and highlighting or, you know, digitally highlighting the things that are really important to you or have a conversation with your child, depending on their age and and abilities, through whatever modality they they communicate through and see what matters to them and see what areas you think are going to really set your child up for success in the future. And if you're thinking, how the heck am I supposed to know? Think about your own life. Think about what's mattered for you. What are the skills that you couldn't live without that are really essential to your ability to get through and get, you know, manage your life and thrive in life and and start there. Everything you just said makes so much sense. And I think it gets harder as kids get older for parents, definitely districts. But even parents to sort of imagine it for the same scenario that we just gave. What about a student who's in ninth grade or 10th grade, who's maybe reading at, you know, a first or second grade level? How how does their how does their day look and how does their experience look. And that English language class, I want to start by saying that so often we like part of the problem is the expectations we have for kids. So I've heard a lot of folks who would say, oh, they're not going to get anything out of reading this ninth grade level text, right? Or, or this or that. The reality is, that's not true. It's not true at all. And you know, kids are are just amazingly adaptable. And they will they will grow as much as we allow them to. And it might not always look like what we think it should look like, or the expectations that we got so ingrained in our brains about what somebody gets out of something or what, you know, what their engagement in that topic or subject matter looks like. But there is no reason why a child who's reading at a first or second grade level can't still listen and get much from a ninth grade level text. In fact, they should have opportunities to be exposed to classics and important literature and things that are culturally relevant to them. And, not that all of the classics are at all culturally relevant to children, but you get my drift. But what it can look like is, you know, we're doing a novel study, say they're reading one of the classics, Shakespeare or something like that. Shakespeare's tricky though. Maybe, let's just not use Shakespeare as an example. And I think more and more classrooms are getting away from that. I can barely understand Shakespeare. Yeah, I remember reading Cliff notes, in middle school. Yeah. Which is a really great way for kids to also access. So you might listen to it read aloud, you know, the Shakespeare version. Then you might have an adult or have a digital version that they can read aloud as of the cliff notes. And that is wonderful. They're getting access and exposure to the content and. Yeah, or even dial down a notch from that. Right? I mean, you know, and whatever, whether they're reading that or whether they're listening to it, we've all we've all participated in our own version of Cliff notes somewhere, you know, somewhere over time, we have all needed that. So really it isn't it really isn't different. It feels different because the system is set up to feel like this is how it is, and anything else is different, but it really is. Right. And in any, novel study, again, just going on that example, every story has a story arc. It has a, you know, topic. It has, a problem, a solution. Right. Different things like that, different skills that, hey, kids work on from kindergarten all the way through high school. And so we just build on those. And if you really take a look at the, the, the standards they build on each other. So you see that. Okay. And ninth grade reading standard is not that much different from an eighth grade reading standard that built off of a seventh grade standard, etc.. And so they all build and grow on each other. And so that makes it nice for us and to be able to align with many different needs of students. Exactly. And if people are saying I'm sorry, like, well, isn't it a waste of their time? If the class is reading aloud, you can give students different things to read during that time, not alternate things, but like, say they're listening to that story and if they have adult support in the classroom, they're bringing pictures in and, identifying different pictures as they listen. Or, you know, maybe they're listening to that story with the class as it's read aloud. And then when it's time to work independently, they're then listening to the modified version of the text. There's tons of modified books out there these days. We have as a community of, I think special educators really built up a nice library of modified books. And we don't have them all yet. And they're not perfect, but it's a starting place, a way for students to, you know, listen to the actual grade level text, but then also to see a different version of it that's, adapted in different ways. And I think that also brought up, an important point of, you know, if you're listening, you're still getting something out of it. We want to make it meaningful. It's not just sitting there breathing the same air, right? Which is what we always say. But it's really important to point out that a modified curriculum doesn't mean that you're in a gen ed classroom, and then you're going into a corner and doing something different. No, no, no, no. That's like old school mainstreaming. It's sometimes hard for teams to figure out when do I intervene? Like when do I provide this child with the reading intervention that they need? If they're going to be engaged with this novel study and depending on the school structure, you can embed it at different times. For some students, it might be appropriate to just do a quick, you know, five minute reading intervention during silent reading time. Right? Or during another natural time, maybe first start of the day instead of like daily morning review or daily morning work, which oftentimes is just a filler activity to get kids into the classroom, calm, settled, and have a routine, you know, get creative about the times that those interventions can be happening because those are very important as well. The reality is, well, first off, that many Sped classrooms, like we said, they have no curriculum, right? They're either skills based or they're goal oriented, but they're without a curriculum. And inclusion has similar barriers. You know, most district schools classrooms are not properly trained or staffed to provide a meaningful, standards based curriculum. Modified curriculum, I should say. They just they just don't have experience doing it. It's not malicious, right? They just they don't have the experience with the modeling around them. And you've worked in lots of districts throughout the state. So in schools with no co-teaching, no inclusion specialist, no system wide inclusion efforts like where Sped teachers are manning their own class all day. How can we make inclusion work for kids who require a modified curriculum? Yeah. It's it's tough. Honestly, the reality is it's it's really tough. If you don't have those supports in place, the reality most likely would look like what we were talking about earlier, where you would just physically share that space. Unless you have a teacher that's committed that gets it. You know what I'm talking about. Like, that just is one of those teachers that that just gets it and is committed. It can be really, really tricky. Again, I think the baby step and a really helpful step from parents and something that I'm sure a lot of parents think that your teachers already have is just sharing those Common Core connectors, the essential understandings, sharing those documents with your teachers and your teaching team so that they can release so much pressure because you see, okay, okay, I get it now. I see what they should be working on or what they can be working on. If, if, when we're working on these standards, that's a step in the right direction. I would also say, really thinking about accessibility and thinking about those accessibility supports, if things aren't modified perfectly, does the student have access to be able to listen to their stories, even if it's just the grade level text? Do they have access to ways to get their ideas down or even just, like, like, do they have a binder that has a bunch of bubble maps where they can, have a picture in the middle and be labeling it? And that's a really easy thing to adapt if that's where the student is and if they have a one on one, they can pull from that. And so a binder of resources can be a helpful tool. And baby steps. Pick one small thing to try to push forward at a time. And I know that's hard to even say out loud, right. It's hard to it's hard that there's not a perfect solution. What are things that parents can request in an IEP to ensure that if they if they do want their children included? You know, you know, if they require a modified curriculum or maybe even an, an alt curriculum, but what are the things that should be in place in an IEP? I would really concentrating on on your IEP goals? Which sounds obvious, but really concentrating on those IEP goals so they can actually be practiced and worked on in the gen ed setting. And you can do that by looking at those Common Core connectors and making sure they're aligned with those. If you have goals that are, are not aligned, that are wrote rote things or many you can transfer over, but some definitely are more difficult to work on in a general classroom. So first and foremost, make sure your goals are aligned with the gen ed curriculum and can be worked on in multiple contexts. And then thinking about to what supports does my child need to be as independent as possible? Do they have access to access assistive technology? You can ask for an assistive technology evaluation from your school. If your child has mobility differences or, uses a communication device or doesn't yet and needs one. Definitely. If you haven't had an assessment and your student has, access needs like that, then definitely getting an assessment, because once those supports are in place, tile can be so much more independent and has what they need to at least start to do, you know, engage more independently in their environment, things like an adaptive mouse or an iPad for communication and or an adaptive keyboard or voice to text, text to speech features on, on a computer. Or if your child doesn't have a computer and in and of itself is something you can ask for, which helps with access quite substantially. I mean, in your IEP, if you do want your child included, I mean, it is really tricky sometimes with districts and, you know, kind of strong-arming parents and making parents second guess themselves without having way too often. But you can you can ask for an inclusion specialist. You can ask for different supports like that. And if your district doesn't have one, then parents can hire, you know, sometimes can can well, especially if you've gone through, the legal process can hire somebody else to fill that role. I paused, because another thing I was thinking is that sometimes in an SDC classroom, you might have eight students with significant support needs. Who? And you might have three paraprofessionals in that classroom. If all of those students were included in a gen ed, you would need significantly more paraprofessionals, most likely if they were students with more significant support needs. So thinking about strategically writing things in the IEP, that and I pause too because we want students to be independent, we don't always want them to have an aide. Sometimes an aide is not the best option, and we want them to be as independent as possible. Sometimes a shared aide is a better option. So that they can, you know, learn how to, to navigate through more independently. If you're thinking about pushing for inclusion and you have a student who has behavioral support, needs, needs significant support to access their curriculum, like needs help opening the computer or, you know, needs help get going to the right. Navigating to the right pages and things like that. Then, Thinking about steps towards maybe more adult support so that once you so it doesn't become a barrier to inclusion. Yeah. Again, I hate to say that because I'm not a proponent of it. So I'm I'm truly not. I think in a lot of schools I see aides where they shouldn't be. And kids have aides and don't really need them. I mean, I can speak from personal experience. And then, you know, my daughter is able to access, you know, gen ed classes with a modified curriculum, with an aide. Otherwise it would not be realistic. And instead, I mean, she's having a completely different experience that she never had in her special ed classrooms. You know, she's experiencing a full curriculum and she needs those supports and is, you know, pushed to independence, you know, whenever she can and definitely asks for that as well. And, you know, but it is... it's not a crutch. It is a huge point of access for her, obviously, and for a lot. So but what I'm hearing you say two goals access supports and write those supports into the goals. And I definitely know a lot of parents who their schools say, well, you know, and realistically they can't do it. They don't have an extra special ed teacher. They don't have somebody to come help. Because the other big question is who is going to modify that work? And if they don't have someone, you can ask for an inclusion consultant, right? Because the we don't have that is not as as everyone knows or should know, right? With your IEP. That's not a valid excuse for your child not to get what they need to access the curriculum. So if they don't have a support, then they need to find it, even if that's outside. And then also then asking for, you know, if you are making steps towards more inclusion, more inclusion, more time for your child to spend. And Janet, just making sure that somewhere on your IEP, I've seen it where there's literally zero time in general education and and that is very against what Ida with the law says kids should have. It's that the law says kids need to be included and learning with their non-disabled peers to the greatest extent possible and have access to the general education curriculum and and that includes activities, etc.. So if there's nowhere in your child's IEP where they're engaged with gen Ed, where if they're not going to specials like music or art or P.E. with the general education grade level, chronologically, appropriate classroom, then that would be definitely a great step forward. Thinking about what are the classrooms where my child can be included and it's not going to be, required the curricular adaptations that may be cost prohibitive or a challenge for the district and justification as to why I talked to an attorney. Right. Because we kind of had this conversation. We said they can't, you know, I mean, they can't say it. And they're and he said they're usually not going to say this costs too much, right? They're going to find a way, a reason why it's not appropriate. Right. But as we all know. So it could be very coded talk. And the ideas can you ask like for OTS and other services to be embedded in the classroom instead of always being pulled out and being alone? Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. Doctor son, did you want to say anything about that? There is no I mean, I have never seen a reason why OT needs to be a pull out service. Personally OT skills, the things that kids work on in OT out there, things that that they need in the classroom and that actually end up supporting more than just students with IEPs, but other students in the classroom too. So, absolutely. You can ask that there's a push in services. So rather than pull out, you want push in, for speech. Push in is also great for articulation. Pull out truly is is better for articulation. But if you're doing pragmatics, social skills, all of that push in is, is is it's great is appropriate sometimes with scheduling because our speech therapists have and OTS have such huge caseloads. Scheduling can be quite tricky. But but not all parents ask for this. So guys, start somewhere. And the more the more culturally. And I'm saying culturally, like I said, special education as parents and our, you know, this culture as much as we can kind of if we start asking for the same things and the more of us that keep asking for it, the more pressure is put on schools, districts, states to start to transform the way that we're providing services to students and and funding. Is there any reason that a family like if the district is coming in saying your child should be, you know, our recommendation is that your child should be on an Alt curriculum? Are there are there any situations, like when does a family say no? Like other than that that, that they don't want to but like are there are there like red flags of like oh yeah. Yeah. If your kindergarten first second grade. No. Like that is wafer way too young for us to be determining what a child's going to be able to do, even if a child doesn't speak, is in a wheelchair, doesn't have mobility, still doesn't mean that we should have those expected or shouldn't have the expectation that they're still going to be able to meet the grade level curriculum. Is it going to be trickier to evaluate learning? Yeah, but technology is is advancing. We have, I guess, like there are many different things that we can do. I would also have a little bit of pause if it's like in like second grade going into third grade right before state testing. And I would question whether a district or school is trying to get them on an alternate assessment right before the state testing. So I would ask, would you, you know, would you feel the same way if we opted out of testing? You know, if that's a factor, you do have a right to opt out of state testing if that's going to be something. I know schools can only have a certain percentage of their students who opt out. But you know, that's not really your problem as parents. So if it's going to help to keep your child on generic curriculum, that's an option. And I would just ask, have we tried every exhausted all of our options around accessibility? Oftentimes kids go on an alternate curriculum because we haven't yet figured out how to tap into what they know. We haven't really figured out how to evaluate their understanding of certain things in a way that actually is a valid measure for that child of what they can do and what what knowledge they have. And so I would ask if the team has exhausted all accessibility options and access points before moving forward. So what have you tried to give them access to? That Ela language arts curriculum? Do they have access to listen to it? And then, listen to the comprehension questions and choose options. Right. What have we done to ensure that we're not just giving up right. And it's not giving up either, like some kids absolutely modify curriculum is appropriate and is better for some kids because it allows them to work at their level and it allows them to, really have that tailored instruction that allows them to grow rather than be faced with curriculum. That's overwhelming and frustrating, right? So for some kiddos and students, it's it is a really great option. But I would never want to see a child put on an alternate curriculum. Certainly not in kindergarten, not in first grade, but sometimes in second grade maybe, but very rarely. And we don't want alternate curriculums being thrown around for convenience. Right. This out of the box curriculum. So then we don't have to figure out what a modified curriculum looks like in a job class, right? That's I think, a huge part of it too, right? This is this convenient thing that can be done and, you know, in a classroom and like you said, that that could be that could be great for some kids, you know. But what we don't want is it being being used for kids where it's not appropriate because it's convenient. And the last thing I have to say is just because your child, maybe, is on an on a modified curriculum or an alternate curriculum doesn't mean they can't. You can't change that later. I had a student who was on, a modified curriculum, and in ninth grade, it was more about access points and access needs. And in ninth grade switched back to the generated curriculum, graduated with the diploma. That's not always going to be the case. And honestly, in some cases, if that's okay, it doesn't. You know, we don't not everybody needs to get a diploma. And, you know, there are many people who don't have disabilities that also don't have diplomas. Right. But we also don't want to limit students just because we don't understand or have the ability to tap into their full potential. Again, on a personal note, modified curriculum has really been, a major access point for my daughter. So, you know, but getting it right isn't easy. So if fighting for practices, you know, that might exist in your child's school or your district, it's hard. So if you want or need deeper support and a one on one guide, our undivided navigators would love to help you through it. And to find out more information on how we can support you in getting a standards based curriculum for your child, check out our free 30 day Kickstart. Our mission is to support you so your children can thrive. Period.