Rapacious Learning Consulting: Helping Districts Transform Special Education
In November of 2022, I retired from my position as Special Education Director for the Cedar Rapids Community School District. I did not retire because I was ready to quit working, I retired because my very recalcitrant liver no longer wanted to work. Flash forward to November of 2023 and the above-mentioned disobedient liver was “retired” and replaced with a new-to-me liver piece donated by my son, Zachary. Since then I have been steadily improving and feel more than ready to get back into the special education game.
Although I want to support special education, I am not interested in going back to full-time administrative work in a district. What I am very interested in is taking the wealth of experiences I have lived through and using that knowledge to support those working on the administrative front lines in districts. I have dabbled a bit with this in the last 6 months and feel ready to add to my list of districts who could benefit from my services.
There are several reasons why I think I can help districts with improving special education outcomes.
- As a building and district leader at West Central Valley, Newton, and Cedar Rapids I lived through the staffing challenges, the compliance issues, due process, staffing shortages, and the constant nagging voice in my head that asked, “Are students better off when we staff them into special education?”
- As an AEA Special Education Director for Prairie Lakes AEA I oversaw services for 46 public and private schools and got a first hand look at what rural districts face when attempting to fulfill every IEP obligation with extremely limited resources. Oftentimes in smaller districts an administrator gets special education as an “add on” and the person does not have the knowledge or experience to manage the more difficult parts of the position. I also question whether the services we provided from the AEA were the services districts and students needed to get results
- I have spent several years developing a special education program review process where we do an intensive audit of a district or building’s special education services to determine what services are getting results and need to be prioritized and what services look and feel good but don’t get us to the results we need for our students. In this process we determine what questions you have and use multiple avenues to find answers including walk-throughs, focus groups, and a deep dig into the data.
- With the current status in Iowa with the AEA system there is a critical need to determine what supports your district needs to continue with the AEA, what supports you need from the AEA that are not currently offered, and what services you need to provide on your own. With over 25 years experience as an administrator in Iowa (4 of those years as an AEA Special Education Director) I believe I have the knowledge, experience, and willingness to question the status quo to help guide you through these decisions.
- Although it is unsettling to be in the times we are currently in with education in Iowa, I also see this as an opportunity to shed some of the special education shackles we have been locked into for a very long time.
To be totally transparent, I am not looking to help any district; I want to help districts who are willing to ask the hard questions, analyze the data and dig deep to find the root cause, have a true desire to get better outcomes for students with IEPs, and are willing to take risks in order to achieve those results. There are no magic bullets, it is going to take hard work and will require us to kick over some long standing sacred cows.
The supports I am offering include…
- Special Education Program Review process at the district or building level
- Use of paraprofessionals
- Co-teaching
- Achievement/Growth
- Before and after entitlement
- Title 1 vs SDI
- Achievement/Growth gap
- Achievement/Growth during transitions to new buildings
- Behavior
- Behavior data before and after entitlement
- Percentage of referrals for students with IEPs
- Suspensions
- Restraint/Seclusion
- Special Education Budget
- Staffing Resources
- IEPs
- FBAs and BIPs
- Goals and Progress Monitoring
- Alternate Assessment
- ESY
- Sample report
- On-call consultant services
- Phone/Virtual calls to answer questions
- Attend difficult IEP meetings
- Attend problem solving meetings
- Assist with due process situations
- Provide professional learning
- Crisis intervention
- Coaching for administrators around special education
- Face-to-Face
- Virtual
If you are interested in connecting with me to learn more about the services I am offering and how we could work together you can email me at wendyparker9533@gmail.com or fill out the “contact me” section at https://rapaciouslearning.org/contact-me/. My resume can be found at Wendy Parker Resume.
Before you contact me, you may want to watch my video and read some of my blogs at https://rapaciouslearning.org/. I am not seen as a conventional thinker and the work I choose to do can be seen as outside the lines of the usual special education world. I like to think of myself as results-oriented, risk-taker, student-centered, and transformative. If that’s what you are about and you need some help with special education, reach out to me and let’s see what we can accomplish together:)