VIDEO: Undivided Learning with Dr. Sarah Pelangka: Back to School

Jason
All right, we’ll jump in. Thanks, everybody for joining us. I'm Jason Lehmbeck. For those who don't know me, I'm the CEO of Undivided and dad to three rambunctious boys. My oldest son, Noah has a rare genetic disorder that presents itself with cerebral palsy, and he is happy to be back in school with his friends. But I would say he and we are a bit frustrated with some of the things that have maybe gone a little bit backwards since the pandemic especially on the AAC side. So I'm selfishly excited to be talking to Dr. Pelangka on some of the key questions you all shared with us in terms of hot topics. I'm here today with Lindsay Crain who heads up our content and community

01:49 here at Undivided. And also we have Dr. Sarah Pelangka, who's an educational advocate and owner of Know IEPs, and lucky for us a frequent contributor to helping us figure stuff out with our families. So we're so happy to have you here. We also have Donna, our community manager manning the, or womaning the chat window, so we don't miss out on any of your questions. And she'll be sharing I think helpful resources as we jump in.

Lindsay
Hi, everybody. I also want to say hi to Yolanda and Michelle, I see you all in the chat as well. Good to see you both. Also, we're going to be live on Facebook every week talking about what's most important to you. So please let us know what you want or you need to hear about. And right now that's back to school.

Jason
Oh, yeah, nothing else out there. Right. Back to school all the time. So, Dr. Pelangka, who we talked to,

02:48 it feels like ages ago, right? Dr. Pelangka when we talked first about going back to school before it started, and we were able to dig in on some of the big issues to keep an eye on, and now that we're about a month in, it's time for a reality check.

03:04 I think the first question that I have, and I know is a hot topic for many families, is staff shortages.

03:13 Everyone's saying this is an issue across the state, I think nationally as well. But what are you hearing? And how is that impacting our families and our kids?

Dr. Pelangka
Right, I think it's definitely,

03:26 you know, it's a significant issue right now across the board, not only with like aide positions, but substitutes. So it's affecting and impacting the ability to hold IEP meetings. Most districts are really trying to hold all of their meetings after school as a result because they can't obtain subs for their teachers, which is understandable. But at some point, you can't fit everybody in in that timeframe, and some parents aren't available at that time. There's obviously staff shortages, and that's kind of been an ongoing thing in certain positions, right, like speech pathologists were already kind of short handed. So it's really a significant concern right now.

04:07 And I think, you know, the two kind of biggest impacts that I've been seeing, in, you know, my clients meetings is really, like I said, just the scheduling of the meetings, the time of day and one-on-one aide positions. It's been really, really a struggle for parents. I know that districts are even contracting out to non-public agencies to obtain staff, and those agencies even have shortages. So it's becoming a really, it's like a ripple effect. It's very concerning, right?

Jason
Yeah, totally. Like, this is a big challenge for everybody involved, and any tips or thoughts on what to do given this situation for our families?

Dr. Pelangka
You know, something that happened yesterday that I found interesting in a meeting out of a district in Orange County is the principal said herself, she mentioned Title One

05:00 funding to obtain a one to one aide for a certain time of day. And I said, Well, why would you consider title one funding, you can access, you know, special education funding, if it's a special ed need. And she said, “Trust me, this is faster, I will get someone in faster. This is the way we need to start. And we'll get it on the IEP at some point.” So I found that interesting and unfortunate, right, you know. But I think at this point, staff are very aware, and they're figuring out kind of loopholes and means to go about getting someone in as fast as possible.

05:37 And that was one creative way, I guess. So she was looking to get, you know, a staff that's already on campus really dedicated to that student, just continuing to reach out to the community in terms of agencies and figuring out what they are able to provide. And really, you know, I think like, all employers, it's not just schools, it's everywhere, it's the whole economy, maybe they're going to have to increase, you know, wages, I don't know. But obviously, it comes down to compensatory time if it's a service that's completely void right now.

Lindsay
I did want to ask about the compensatory ed, because I've talked with so many parents across districts who, you know, as you said, either with a one on one or with classroom aides, you know, where their kids were supposed to have support going into gen ed classrooms, and there's no one there, they're showing up the first day and a new school, they don't know where to go. And so while we completely understand that it's an epidemic across all kinds of, you know, different areas, education and beyond, what should families do, though, when they're showing up and their kid is not getting what they're supposed to have in their IEP that really denies them FAPE and doesn't allow them to participate in the curriculum? I mean, what should parents do? Is the first jump to compensatory education or, you know, other than calling an IEP, if there's not staff? What can parents do immediately to get it fixed? And then do they look at compensatory ed? And we could talk about compensatory ed after.

Dr. Pelangka
Right, I think the very first thing a parent should do is obviously get it documented in writing and send an email to the case carrier, and the principal, or whomever is their points of contact, depending on the case. And just making sure it's acknowledged and recognized. I mean, oftentimes, I shouldn't say oftentimes, there are times in which it doesn't require an IEP meeting, right, like it's already written into the IEP. And, you know, good quality teams and staff recognize that they're not meeting that need, and they're going to do what they can to address it without having to wait for a meeting, they'll move people around, they'll figure it out. So just getting it documented, sending emails, figuring it out, if possible, without having to hold a meeting, obviously, then the IEP meeting would be the next step, and then just continuing to move up the totem pole. But if it's something that's kind of affecting the child's safety, you know, I have parents saying, like, I don't want to send my child to school, they're unsafe. And that is the case for certain students, if they don't have their aide with them.

08:13 You know, I always say if their safety is in question don't send your kid to school, you need to wait till we have a meeting to figure out how to resolve it.

08:22 Some parents are opting for homeschool or online charter schools. I think it just depends on the circumstance and each on a case-by-case basis, like how realistic is it that the need is going to be met in a timely manner? And you know, like, I have some rural clients, I can't say that word rural.

08:41 There's just nothing. So no, you have to kind of figure out plan B, and waiting for compensatory ed isn't necessarily going to be the answer. You can't just keep sending your kid to school. Right. So.

Lindsay
So when should parents think, because I mean, that's the question. People don't really know, you know, if they didn't get things that were in their IEP last year, if they're not getting them this year, when should parents think about it? And we've kind of talked about it, but we've been back a month, if things aren't in place so far, should they be looking? Should they be taking notes and looking for what's happened this year? Should we be looking back to last year? What should the approach be right now?

Dr. Pelangka
Right, like, like I said, kind of in the last training, first of all, making the designation or the differentiation between, you know, makeup, and compensatory time. If it's just “We don't have a speech pathologist. She'll be back, you know, on this date. We're going to make up those hours,” just continue to log it and keep on them. If it passes that date, and they still don't have a speech pathologist, say “Hello. You know, you said you would have someone, what's going on?” So I've found you know, most districts are on top of it, and they recognize and they're saying, like, we recognize we're not providing this service, we'll be sure to make it up. But of course, parents always want to keep tabs and really document that to make sure all those minutes do get made up. You know, compensatory comes into question when you feel

10:00 that the district, you know, denied FAPE or didn't offer FAPE and failed to allow your child to access their education. And they're not really

10:10 necessarily admitting fault, or they aren't offering that makeup time, or they're saying that they're providing the service and the service isn't up to par. And then you get into kind of that back and forth. So, again, just documenting it, talking to maybe a professional to kind of guide you as to which way to go about accessing those services and kind of taking it from there.

10:33 Jason
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think, I mean, I love you're always on message with the documentation side. And that is, I think, the first step for all of these things like, how do you make sure you've documented it as best you can? And,

10:48 you know, one of the things that clearly goes into this conversation is the importance of reassessments, right, and thinking about given, you know, the lack of reliable testing during distance learning and given, you know, some of these gaps or all of these gaps that you described, you know, how should we be thinking about the reassessment process? And what are the right things to think about in the context of this fall related to that?

11:17 Dr. Pelangka
Right, I think reassessment is huge right now, particularly for the students who either had a triennial or re evaluation due at some point during, you know, the virtual distance learning period last year, and/or were due for it immediately in the fall, or there's change of placements being recommended. And we don't really have to date up-to-date data. So I kind of said in the last training, I recommend letting your child kind of sink in for the first 30 days, really get acclimated to being back in school, because most if not all kids weren't for a consistent period of time. And then really looking at getting that valid assessment. So I've been telling families, if you feel that your child was evaluated within the last year and a half, and you don't agree with the data, or you feel that it wasn't like, complete, you know, there's certain pieces that couldn't be done, do like social pragmatics, autism, FBAs.

12:12 Be sure to follow up and make sure that those pieces are added or revisited. And obviously, if your child was due for one in the beginning of the fall, I think now's the time, most kids have been in for at least 30 days, they should be pretty acclimated. So it should be pretty validated at this point. It becomes difficult again, if you're one of those children who aren't able to go to campus due to you know, medical reasons, primarily, you're on independent study, or you're on home hospital, it's kind of you're going to be in the same boat as you were last year, and it's not really going to produce valid results.

Jason
And even for the kids that are back in school, we're still in this kind of challenging environment, right of wearing masks, you know, all the protocols that are there for obviously important reasons. So, yeah, how to think about, I mean, obviously, if there's a concern, and you want to do the reassessment, seems like you gotta get in there and at least make the case and make the request. But any tips or tricks on how to make sure these reassessments and still pandemic times are as effective as they can be?

Dr. Pelangka
Yeah, I think just ensuring that the staff are getting in there and they're really observing your child in their natural classroom and school campus environment. That's really the big piece that was lacking last year. And even when they did conduct those observations, it was half the amount of students on campus at any given time. And that can pretty significantly impact a student's behavior, particularly those students with an IEP because they may be distractible or what have you. So having the full classroom is going to be a huge difference, right? So really making sure that's happening, that now they're able to observe the peer-to-peer interactions, that's a huge piece, again, that was lacking. One-to-one aide assessments, that's a big one that they weren't able to do. Again, even if they did it last year, now your child has double the amount of students in the class, so the needs are probably going to be even higher. So really revisiting those. As far as the validity given the masks and all the other PPE stuff, we don't know how long that's going to be in place. So at this point, I think we kind of have to assume that that is like the natural environment.

Lindsay
14:34 And Sarah had a question I see in the chat window that once you have these assessments, and we see if there's been progress, you know, what are the baselines? Has there been regression? She said, I'd like to know what the school's obligation is to address progression or lack of progress for services such as OT, speech, PT, and APE. I don't mean compensatory services. I mean, addressing regression related to COVID closures.

14:59 Dr. Pelangka
Yeah, I think that's a tough one. And that's one that I think a lot of parents are using as the basis for compensatory ed. Like my child regressed, my child didn't receive all their services. And a lot of schools and districts are saying, well, all students regressed, all students were under the same circumstances. I think, again, it's on a case-by-case basis, you really have to look at the whole picture. I mean, who's going to be able, there's so many confounding variables right now, putting my researcher hat on, like, who's going to be able to say COVID is the reason your child regressed and that's why they regressed this much? Like, that's really impossible. So I think parents have to be mindful of that and really have all of their ducks in a row in terms of what data do they have from the time, you know, COVID hit throughout that time to now like, were they tracking data? Were they looking? I mean, were they taking videos of their child at home if they were completely refusing to participate? It just takes a lot to really prove that argument.

15:59 I think the biggest concern that I see and that I've had is, if that regression is now leading to districts saying your child needs a more restrictive environment, and I'm seeing that become a trend. And that's unfortunate, because, you know, so many students, gen ed or special ed didn't have access and are, you know, plateaued or a little bit behind. And it's not fair to say now they belong over here. We need to encourage the system to do a better job of figuring out how to get them back to where they were and the placement that they were in.

Lindsay
Yeah. And how should parents react? If they're, you know, if they're coming back to school, it's been a month, and they're like, we should change the setting to address that, in one way that could sound maybe appealing. But on the other hand, if the family's like, No, you know, we want our child to be able to, you know, to get to where they are, and you need to meet them where they are, and then get them where they're supposed to be, what should parents do?

Dr. Pelangka
Yeah, again, I would say, saying that, like, hold on, my child hasn't been in school for a year and a half. And now all of a sudden, after just, you know, 30 days, or however many days you're recommending this, like give them some time to acclimate. Have we considered a one-to-one aide or a classroom aide or an extra parent in the room? Have we looked at, you know, if there's behavioral needs, like looking in or introducing a behavior plan? Have we looked at accommodations, like, there's so many layers before you get to a change of placement legally, like outside of COVID? Right? That's just the process. And, you know, 9 times out of 10, those are overlooked. So it's hard because parents don't necessarily always know what to ask for. But just knowing like, that's their right to really question the district like, well, hold on, what have we tried? First, let's look through, you know, this checklist and make sure that this is the right move.

Jason
This is such a critical topic, like you identified, it seems to be happening more frequently in the last month, and I just asked any parents that are listening in, if this has been brought up from your team for your child, but let us know we're going to be doing some research and trying to build kind of knowledge around this within the Facebook group and beyond. So feel free to note it in the chat or we'll follow up with our families as a follow up. But I think those kind of steps that you laid out, Dr. Pelangka, are helpful to think about and engaging in that conversation in a way where many of us have advocated and fought for those more appropriate settings for our kids, and to have it slip back, rounding on top of all that we've talked about already, like, it's just a it's a tough thing to stomach, I guess.

Lindsay
Right. Jason, I also wanted to throw out next week, we will be talking to Dr. Catie Solone, who will also we can be you know, she's very committed to least restrictive environment and inclusion setting. So we can also talk to her about ways where the district might be saying, “well, this is what we need to do, we need to place them in a more restrictive setting,” and she can really give us ways, you know, we can talk to her next week to about like, Okay, this isn't what the family and a child, you know, thinks is the most appropriate setting. So what can we do to get them up to speed here? Because I know like you said, Dr. Plunkett, it's hard when the district saying “but we can provide this, this, and this here.” And so many parents don't know what to come back with other than like “That's not what we want.” But you know, it's hard to know what to say and how to combat that. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to talking to Dr. Solone and listening to what you say and then yeah, and hearing from parents. And so hopefully, we can get some good dialogue going so parents know, you know, what they can come back with.

Dr. Pelangka
Absolutely. Yeah.

Jason
Just to pick another fun topic, like what are you seeing in terms of issues, big issues persisting around the mask protocols and implementation of that?

20:00 Dr. Pelangka
Yeah, I think the development since the the training or workshop we did is a lot more parents advocating for the masks versus I think before school started, it was a lot of,

20:14 you know, concern surrounding my student who can't tolerate a mask, you know, what am I going to do? Is my child going to be denied access to school because, you know, he has sensory issues and he can't tolerate a mask or whatever the reason. And now there's a lot of, you know, I'm sure everyone has seen civil suits across the country for the flip side, where my child is medically fragile and immunocompromised, too young to be vaccinated, and your child not wearing a mask is putting my child at risk. So

20:42 to date, you know, every state that's had a civil suit has lost, meaning, you know, Florida's against the mask mandate was flipped and reversed. And the circuits are really supporting that everyone needs to wear a mask for the benefit of others. And it's a civil issue, right. So I haven't so much now seen parents having trouble with getting the mask. The other thing is there are mask exemptions in every district, you can get an exemption. I think that was we were unsure of that too, before school started. And parents haven't really had too much of an issue getting access to those, it's more just when students aren't wearing the mask, and if there's too many, and my child is at risk, what do we do?

21:27 Jason
Right, yeah, we had when we posted about this event, that was a hot topic of kind of every which way of how this has been implemented. But, you know, there was, I forget who brought it up in the group, but just even the, like the mask protocols in the classroom and then you go to a crowded lunch room, and everybody's got their masks off, sit next to each other.

Dr. Pelangka
True. I mean, I can imagine like classrooms where, like a special day classrooms where there may be students who really need the masks to be safe themselves. And then in that same room, the students who have the mask exemption, so it's like, I don't know how, you know, it's interesting, there is no like, there's not going to be like a one size fits all approach. But you know, we just have to do the best we can do to keep everyone safe, I guess.

22:24 Lindsay
You all are stimulating my nervousness. But I have to say, I have to do a slight brag on my daughter, I didn't know what it was, we have kept very, like, you know, isolated because she has underlying health conditions. I didn't know what it would be like all day wearing a mask. And she has been like such a rock star. But we build in the mask breaks. And we had built that in, you know, to make sure that everybody was fine with that, she can safely have breaks, but it is scary. I'm sure a lot of people can identify with that. I did want to say a quick, I see Lisa just joined. Hi, Lisa. And I also wanted to give a quick shout out to Tracy, who was saying hi, Tracy was a fabulous California mom who’s now in Texas. So now you get to brighten up Texas, Tracy. But we received a couple questions ahead of time. And I think this is a really good one because I can speak from my experience, maybe some other people can identify with this, getting back is a little bit hectic, right, for the teachers, for the administration. Everyone's kind of trying to figure out how this works again, and how does it work with COVID protocols and everything else, everyone being gone. And so Iris had asked how can we make sure that everyone from the gen ed teachers, special ed teacher, resource teacher, aides, and providers are all on the same page? Like when everyone's just trying to kind of get by through the day to try to figure out the schedule and how things work, how can we really start building the team all working together again, when it still feels like things are a little bit in chaos, even though everyone's trying to find that common ground?

24:02 Dr. Pelangka
Sorry if my dog barks in advance.

24:08 Lindsay
I'm waiting for ours to start going.

24:13 Dr. Pelangka
Again, I feel like that's an issue even outside of COVID, right, like figuring out particularly for students who are primarily like fully included and mainstreamed and even more so for students in like middle and high school where there's such a vast team of gen ed teachers. I think it's just a matter of, I love the vision statement template you guys have, I forget who made that but it's my favorite I've seen thus far. So really front loading teachers and the team like before the first day of school or on that first day

24:41 with, I always say brief, concise, to the point material so as to not overwhelm them and have them think “Oh no, it's this mom or this dad.” Right? But showing that like, you really care and you're going to be on top of it. And these are the priorities for your child for the year.

25:00 I think that's an excellent way, you know, even sending like that IEP at a glance, because I'm going to be honest, and I'm sure most of you already know, especially gen ed teachers, because they don't get training and how to process it and digest it, they don't often read the IEP, and they definitely don't read it in full. So pulling out the key components is really critical. Obviously, if you're seeing glaring issues, call a meeting and specify who you want to be in attendance, it may not be legally required for certain, you know, members to be there, like you can't have every gen ed teacher there at the same time. You can do, you know, parent conferences, but the parents who stay on top of it the most, unfortunately, those students are going to be the ones who are going to be getting access to what they should be getting. And that requires a lot of emailing and requesting data and reading through the data and nitpicking at the data.

25:52 It shouldn't be that way. But it is, it's a demanding task. And you can invite the aides to the IEP meeting as well.

26:00 Lindsay
Well, that's that's news. Yeah. Because I know a lot of people are told they're not allowed, right. And I have to say, I was only laughing in the beginning, when you were saying you don't want to be that parent.

26:12 I don't know if you recall, but raise your hand, if you're sometimes known as that parent.

26:17 Dr. Pelangka
You don’t want to be referred to that parent, right? Like, oh, it's that parent. And I'm not saying you're wrong, but I always try to kind of counsel my clients, like, let's tone it down a little. We don't want that first impression to be overwhelming. Because unfortunately, even subconsciously, it creates a stigma, right?

Lindsay
Well, but you said, you said this to me before, right? Like, keep it concise, do this. And I was channeling you when I did this.

26:44 As I was very tempted to write a five page like thesis, on my daughter, so I was channeling you about don't overwhelm.

26:55 Thank you for the reminder.

26:57 Jason
And I love that. I mean, another thing that's been a hot topic in our Facebook group is like, what are the three things to bring into an IEP and that you bring into an IEP, and one of them is brownies. So I think that's, that's another way.

27:11 But I think that the idea of like short and sweet, I mean, we're all busy, we all have a lot of things going on. So we recognize that that's the same case and some of the challenges folks are facing as important.

27:23 As we jump to the next question, I just want to remind folks who are listening in and feel free to fire in with any questions you might have. We have a couple more minutes here with Dr. Pelangka, so happy to happy to bring those up, as you'd like.

Lindsay
So, Jason, Charmaine, I have to call out Charmaine, who just made a comment, Charmaine, we will get a shirt that says, I'm that parent, but with a smiley face on it, right? So I feel you, I'm with you, in a good way, right? We need to change the language around that parent and what that means.

28:00 Jason
Another question that came in was around, so at their school, the child's new RSP teacher has stopped doing pull-out services. He's now doing push-in for everyone. But he often only observes and doesn't provide direct intervention. And the question, Is this allowed?

Dr. Pelangka
No. Absolutely not. I had an IEP yesterday where, long story short, another thing you'll see is when it's push-in SAI, it tends to be like the para and not the actual credentialed teacher, which unfortunately, under the supervision of the credentialed teacher is permitted. And we found out that this para, who's supposed to be providing SAI, was going with a child to PE. And then the teacher said, she just sits there. And of course, if other students have questions, she'll help them but then she'll go back, but she wasn't working on anything. So you really have to be clear with the team. When there's push-in SAI minutes, the purpose of that is to be working on the IEP goals.

29:01 So what goals are they working on? If there's no goal related to PE, then why is that person going to PE? I mean, if there's no social goal or something that would make that make sense, right, which in this case, there wasn't. And I call them out, like you're really utilizing this person as an aide and not an SAI service provider. So all of that is going to be made up. But that push-in service, you know, those minutes should be provided and dedicated to and attached to those IEP goals. Again, if they're social, or if they're academic, they should be going in. Another thing that often happens and shouldn't be is let's say the child has math goals. And the SAI provider is going in when the whole class is doing like reading. And so then they're over here in the corner working on math and everyone else, you know what I mean? So it should also be in line or aligned with what the class is doing if you're pushing in. You know what I mean? It shouldn't be that they're getting their own segregated little piece of instruction. So just being mindful of that and

30:00 and really making sure that all of those minutes are being accounted for.

Lindsay
Sarah, can you request that in your IEP? Because I'm sure that is probably the case for many, many parents that, like your example that you gave, like everyone's reading, and then they're doing like math in the corner or whatever. I mean, can you ask that the push-in services are part of the natural environment of what's already happening? Can they say no? Because I think a lot of people here are told “Well, they have a ton of clients, you know, they have a ton of kids to serve, and they just have to make their schedule, and whatever works for them.”

Dr. Pelangka
Right. And that's not your problem. Right? It's resources. So “Oh, I'm sorry, the only time I have available is to go in, you know, from 12 to 12:30, which is whatever time,” so absolutely. You need to make it clear and make it written as such in the IEP that if they're pushing in, when is, you know, because oftentimes, students have both, like ELA and math. So what time of day, have the schedule attached to the back of the IEP when the provider is going in and making sure that they're following that schedule. And there's usually a comment section in the services, or if not, you can write it you know, every district has a different format, but it can definitely be written as such, if it has to be in the accommodation section, wherever that template allows for it.

31:19 Otherwise, why are you pushing in? Then pull them out. You know what I mean?

31:26 Jason
Right. Well, if there are any other questions from those listening, and you can put them in the chat, otherwise, we

31:34 let everybody get back to their Friday afternoons. One or two more minutes. Sarah, was there any other hot topic that you're hearing or seeing in your work that we missed?

Dr. Pelangka
Something I just forgot to mention, and I didn't want to interrupt you. But going back to the compensatory, also requesting service logs. So this just happened with a client this week too. OT had to make up minutes, we requested the service logs, and there were literally like, Sundays written in there. So sometimes, you know, just simply looking through that with a fine tooth comb and being able to say, “Hold on, this is like a Sunday” or that she said that he missed a session.

32:23 At least at noon, he was supposed to show up at 1:30. So requesting the service logs and looking through those can help you, and if they don't have service logs, then they can't prove that they provided the service, so they have to make it up.

Jason Yeah, that's great, too. Yes. Looks like from Lisa, any thoughts on the home hospital program? Are you seeing anything on that side?

32:46 Dr. Pelangka
Um, that's a broad question. But home hospital is pretty much the only option for our students who can't be successful in independent study, which is pretty much all of our students, right.

33:02 And it's unfortunate because it's very limited. Something some families are running into is the district is saying that it can't be virtual, it absolutely can. Because most students who need home hospital, the whole reason is they're not able to be in person. So if the district tells you, they can't provide it virtually, yes they can,

33:22 and they don't necessarily have to shorten the service minutes, even though the SAI minutes might be less. So, I mean, those are a couple of things to be mindful of. It's not like ESY where they're automatically like, oh, it's half the day so I'm going to do half the minutes. That's not the case.

33:40 Lindsay
And then we just had another question from Christine, how do you get past the school saying the aide can't attend the IEP? I mean, yeah, I don't know if I've ever talked to somebody where the aide was able to, so yeah, I would love to know the answer to that.

Dr. Pelangka
Yeah, had multiple meetings where the aide is present, you state that they're one of if not the most informed member of the team in terms of being familiar with your child, and they have a lot of valuable information. A lot of times they'll try to say, “Well, if we pull the aide, then we're breaching the IEP because then they're not with your child while we're holding the meeting.” So you can request to, depending on the situation, reschedule and have them have a sub at that time or schedule for after school.

34:29 Jason
Yeah, that's it. I like that idea of and one one idea, obviously, if it's possible is maybe you have the kid in the IEP, right.

34:41 Dr. Pelangka
Yeah, I would, as long as it's okay. Sometimes it's really hard for them to hear, you know, again, case by case basis, but absolutely that can be an option. You can give consent depending on if you're okay with it for your child to not have the aide for those few minutes. Of course the aide doesn't have to stay for the duration of the entire meeting. you can ask for them to come in just, you know, to ask some questions.

35:06 Jason
I think everybody should take a run at that, we should share some of those ideas, Lindsay, out to the community, because I know that is a big pushback that we are constantly, so it’s gonna be helpful to think about how to overcome that.

Dr. Pelangka
The other thing though, too, they may say, if you try to hold the meeting after hours, they're not on contract. So be mindful of that. So you may want to really push for it to be during school hours.

35:35 Because they're not salaried. Right.

Dr. Pelangka
Right. Yeah, that's right. All right. We got I think we'll go with one more question here. Everybody's warming up. Thanks for submitting in the questions. This one was from Christine.

35:49 I think I know what you're gonna say, but let's get out there, how to get past a district saying he doesn't need compensatory time?

35:59 Dr. Pelangka
I mean, again, depending on the situation, but you have to have your ducks in a row, you have to have the data to prove that your child does in fact need compensatory time. And, again, compensatory time and makeup time are not one in the same. So you're basically making an argument that, you know, what they provided didn't benefit your child, or you know, what have you. So you have to be able to prove that. And you have to throw out a number, and that number doesn't have to be minute for minute, it's what you feel would get your child to where they would have been, which nobody has a crystal ball, right? So if they deny it, you know, and you really continue to feel that he or she needs it, you can always file for mediation, go to due process, so on and so forth.

36:51 Yeah, that's, helpful, I think. I mean, sometimes I think when we talk about this, it's helpful to just talk maybe, if you could spend a minute or two on collecting the data, because sometimes that might feel overwhelming, or that's that's a big thing. I mean, obviously, it's something you have to do consistently. But what does that look like?

Dr. Pelangka
Yeah, so service logs, again, looking at those, making sure. I'm kind of like the data queen. So making sure that the baselines match the measurement and the goal, and that the goals form of measurement is actually measuring what is intended to be measured. That's huge. And there's a lot of cases in which that is not happening. So if you know, if the data is not valid, then that could be an argument for compensatory time. If they're not measuring the skill that they're supposed to have been measuring, that's an automatic argument for compensatory time.

37:55 If obviously, a service just wasn't being provided, and then you come to find out, that's not an obvious one. If you're looking at progress, and you're not seeing any progress reports, always ask for the data, by the way, like whenever you get a progress report, ask the school for the data that was used to provide that progress report data, and cross compare it. You can't imagine how many times it didn't match, you know, what they were putting on that progress report. So if it doesn't match, that can be an argument. If there's no data, you're gonna get compensatory time. So it's not necessarily that I'm saying you need to be tracking number data. What I mean by data is like getting all the paperwork from the school to prove what they're saying is factual or not, you know what I mean?

Lindsay
Yeah, yeah, I'm a data nerd, too. So that really spoke to me.

38:50 Jason
All right. Well, I think it is time to wrap up, I want to first thank you, Dr. Pelangka, for your continued guidance. It's just been so helpful and supportive over the past year and a half to hear from you and in these critical times. And one thing I'd like to just note quickly for those who are listening, and we are for people who sign up for a 30-day trial with Undivided, we are offering a 30 minute session with Dr. Pelangka to go into specific areas you might want to go deeper on. So Donna will share a link in the chat.

39:26 If you're interested in that. And I know Dr. Pelangka would love to meet you and talk to you one on one if you're up for that.

Lindsay
Yeah, a huge thanks to Dr. Pelangka, always I know every time we speak, I learn more. So if I could, you know, if I was eligible for the little 30 minutes, I would steal it.

39:48 But we also wanted to give a shout out to all of you for all of the incredible knowledge that you're sharing in the group, like Jason mentioned before. I love the answers. I have to share these with you Dr. Pelangka. We asked the three things that you bring to an IEP and it's a simple question, but all of the responses were so unique. And I said this in my answer in the thread, but we have some fierce parent advocates among us, so you should definitely check it out. Donna can share the link for you in the chat. So I've seen some of you here today, Yolanda. I think Heather was here. Anyway, there we had a bunch of awesome suggestions. Also, as we talked about, keep an eye out for details for our guests next week. On Thursday, we're going to be talking to Dr. Caitlin Solone. She's the one actually that did make the vision statement template that you talked about, Dr. Pelangka, so she's gonna be talking about why vision statements and strengths-based IPs are more important than ever right now. And we'll be talking to Dr. Vivian Wang on Friday about motivational strategies for our kids. And guess what, she says they can work for us too. So thumbs up.

40:52 Jason
Great. And so just want to thank everybody for stopping in here on our first session of Undivided Learning. Our goal with these sessions is on a weekly basis to bring some Undivided attention to topics our families are losing sleep over or are really thinking about, and we hope that you all found this this first session valuable and as always, please share your feedback on how we can make them more valuable for you and your families.

41:20 Thanks, everybody. See you next week. Wait, Dr. Pelangka, who's the dog? What's your dog's name? We need a name.

Dr. Pelangka
His name is Koa.

41:29 Linsay
And our special guest Koa. Have a good weekend, everybody.