Rapacious Learning: Special Education Consulting

Throughout social media over the last couple of days there have been posts condemning all cops as racists and murderers as well as posts who say that all police officers should not be grouped with those who behave so abhorrently. 

My position is that there are many honorable police officers who should not be grouped with those that are murdering people just for being Black. I totally understand that there are people with a different perspective on this issue, I do not pretend for one second that their thinking is wrong, but I want to share my thoughts and perspective. I have known many excellent, compassionate, well-trained, unprejudiced, and peaceful  police officers and I appreciate how they put their lives on the line for us every day. I do not believe that all police officers are racist.

Having said that, I find it interesting that we see a racist police system as a stand alone entity within this issue, that somehow police officers murdering black people begins and ends with being a police officer. I absolutely believe that our country is a racist country and that there are a multitude of racist systems within this larger entity that feed into this disgusting phenomenon. It is the overall racist society that is responsible for creating an environment where law enforcement can terrorize Black people and it is tolerated. 

Our education system is racist. Our economy is racist. Our healthcare system is racist. Our politics are racist. Our response in a pandemic is racist. Access to food is racist. Our employment structure is racist. This country was built on the foundation of racism and it still exists today; honestly, may be worse today than ever because now we try to act like it’s not racist because of all the “protections” we have in place to make sure it doesn’t occur. Let me tell you, those safeguards have failed miserably for the Black people they are intended to protect. 

As an educator, I think it is best if I break down my thoughts on our education system as that is where I have the greatest perspective. When I tell educators we have an education system that is racist, many immediately come back with “Are you calling me a racist?”. Then I say, “No, I’m saying the system is racist”. That’s not even up for argument, look at the data for Black students in schools. Graduation rates, literacy rates, gaps in achievement, office referrals and suspensions and expulsions, family engagement, the list goes on and on. Am I a racist because I work in a system that is racist? I have certainly worked with educators I believe to be racist; sometimes overtly and sometimes in the shadows; but I have encountered many educators who also believe the education system is racist and work tirelessly to make it better. How do we separate the individual people who work in a system that is racist and determine that the individual isn’t responsible for the racism, the system is?

What I do know is that I do not hear people yelling “F*** the Educators!” in the streets even though the lack of meaningful access to a quality education system is to me the greatest crime that is inflicted on Black people. An excellent education system for ALL is the great equalizer and, by providing an inequitable system of learning, we decide students’ whole life for them based on their race. And, don’t even go there with the “it’s about being poor, not about being Black”. There is an extensive research study (http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/assets/documents/race_paper.pdf) that shows that poor White boys outperform affluent Black boys in this country. An overview can be found in this article https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/21/17139300/economic-mobility-study-race-black-white-women-men-incarceration-income-chetty-hendren-jones-porter and it debunks what many of us have believed for a long time to be true. 

So, I’m not going to believe that every police officer is a racist murderer because they work in a racist law enforcement system any more than I would blame every doctor for our racist healthcare system or every financial planner because our country’s financial system is racist. But, I also think it is imperative that all of us change our relationship with the racist systems we work within, that we go far beyond facebook posts and participation in protests to a place where we say LOUDLY, “This practice we are implementing is going to negatively impact Black people and I am going to fight vehemently and will not stop until we have a different way of doing this work”. 

And, we do this if it makes the people around us uncomfortable, we do this if it puts us at risk of losing our employment, we do this in front of our children and on behalf of all children, we support others who are battling to change the entirety of our racist system, and we acknowledge the pain and suffering  Black people have, and are, experiencing and recognize and support the legitimacy of their anger and despair. 

Additional Note: I went down a rabbit hole trying to determine if I should use the words “people of color” vs. “Black”. After reading many, many articles I chose to use the word “Black”. Here is one of the articles I read that helped me to make this decision https://level.medium.com/we-should-stop-saying-people-of-color-when-we-mean-black-people-29c2b18e6267. 

I have seen this post several times and I so appreciate the thoughts behind this message.

To be totally transparent, the things mentioned in this post are what we signed up for; we know there will be angry folks out there regardless of the decisions we make. Have school on a snowy day or don’t. Cut a program or keep a program. Build a new building or keep the old buildings. Provide services to a student who struggles with behavior or expel that student. Include students with disabilities or provide services in segregated classrooms. Fire the coach or keep the coach.

We are used to, and expect to, make decisions based on what is best for students and we know that the decisions we make will not make everybody happy.

But, this is a whole new arena of decision making for school administrators and school boards. This isn’t about making someone happy or unhappy, this is about making decisions that are directly tied to the health and safety of our students and our families and our staff and our community members.

As a school administrator in a large district, it is agonizing every day to try and choose from what are often a list of pretty bad options. What we need to do to start up school and keep everyone safe is a task that appears to be, quite frankly, undoable at times. But, we also know that we HAVE to get to a place where children are learning and are both emotionally and physically safe. And, that is ALL children, from our most medically fragile students to our students who want and need to engage in activities and learning opportunities that are well beyond what can be offered via a computer screen to our students who may have significant learning disabilities that require many, many services from multiple providers.

I appreciate the kind thoughts and words and especially appreciate the compassion encompassed in this post. I have often felt unmoored within this crisis and it is the compassion and empathy we give and receive that anchors me again and again and I am so grateful.

So we begin another school year. And, once again I am making a commitment to blogging more!!

After 28 years of doing the beginning of school thing I realize there are many constants this time of year. Some are really good and some things need to change if we are ever going to make this thing called school successful for ALL our students. One of our biggest challenges is to know enough about students to make sure supports and services are in place when they arrive the first day and to not know so much that we already determine they can’t be successful.

Here is what I know for sure…

• When we know what works with a student we need to provide that starting day one. 

• We can do a lot of things for students, even those elementary things we don’t traditionally do at the middle school, and the middle school things we don’t usually do at the high school. 

• There are some things that need to look different as students get older.

• IEPs from other districts do not always reflect who a student is and what they need.

• We determine how we think about each and every aspect of our lives, including our students. Choose to think positively. 

Although I believe students attending their home school in a regular classroom is best for most students, I do recognize and appreciate that some students need a different setting than their home school and the general education classroom. I assert we should assume that a student will attend their home school and be in a regular education classroom and work to more restrictive services from there. We should not assume the more restrictive setting and believe that a student must prove her/his way to the regular classroom setting. The decision to pull a student from their home school is a huge one and an even bigger decision is to place a student in a classroom or school setting where typical peers are not present. It is hard to learn appropriate behavior, language, academics, etc. without role models present. Access to the general education curriculum and peers should always be at the forefront of the decision making process.

Here is what I am asking from educators this year.

• Allow every child to walk into your classroom/school with the adults truly believing that they can be successful.
• Have high expectations for all students, regardless of what you already know about them.
• Make contact with parents before there is an issue and, when you do call them with a negative issue, ask for their help before you tell them what you are going to do.
• Be an advocate for students who have no one, see a future for each and every child that is amazing, and engage parents/guardians as an expert on their child whose input you need. 

I end with this, my favorite quote that has guided every day since I first read it over a decade ago. You are so powerful. You are dream makers and that is the most important career anyone can have. 

What if reading difficulties manifested like behavior problems in the classroom?

First of all, let me be clear that I don’t have a problem with demanding parents. Parents should be demanding of us, it’s their job to insist their child gets what they need. I think we all need to take a minute and really reflect on what it is like to be the parent of a child with special needs. What it must feel like the first time they realize, or are told, that their child has a disability. It is absolutely not okay to shut down a parent who just wants what is reasonable and necessary for their child to receive a free and appropriate public education.

That being said, I have had parents that certainly rise above what anyone would consider reasonable behavior on behalf of their child. Although I only play a psychiatrist on TV, I would venture to say that these most difficult parents were likely dealing with their own personal mental health issues. So, how do you manage an out-of-control parents while continuing to make sure that the parent’s rights are being secured at every turn?

I think the best way to address this in a blog format is to go behavior by behavior (all of which I have experienced at least once) and talk about strategies for managing that particular behavior.

The IEP Meeting Destroyer Parent: I have experience several situations where a parent became very disruptive in an IEP meeting; using profanity, making threats, yelling, etc. When this happens I immediately tell the parent that we will not continue the meeting if they are going to be this disruptive and ask them if they would like to take a break and maybe talk to me in a smaller environment. Be very clear that this behavior will not be tolerated. On a couple of occasions, I did shut the meeting down and we had to reschedule the meeting at a later time.

The Over-Communicating Parent: I have experienced the parent that calls the school mulpitle times a day, sometimes up to 10 times a day or more. This parent would call multiple people at the school and would then yell at the secretary when she couldn’t speak to someone immediately. The staff that worked with her child were extremely upset by all of this as her communication was very negative and demanding. Our first move was to create a communication plan and gave her one point of contact, who was me. When she then moved to calling me obsessively, we moved to a set time to talk two times a week and she could also email me. This is a totally defensible action, but should only be done when you have documented that the excessive communication is disruptive.

The I Change My Mind All The Time Parent: The parents I worked with in this category were parents of students with pretty significant issues and it was necessary for us to meet and change the IEP pretty frequently because the student’s data warranted changes. Meetings with them would take forever and it would be a very arduous process to come to consensus. We would be relieved that we had a good plan in place and then the parent would call the next day and say they don’t agree now and want another meeting. This is a really hard one to deal with because how do you say no to a meeting request? Then we would meet again, come to consensus, and then the parent would decide they didn’t agree again and want another meeting. My suggestion here is one I have learned from the lawyers I have worked with on these cases. Make sure you send the parent a prior written notice that details the decisions the IEP team made ASAP. Then, if the parent disagrees and you have already met at least one additional time to hear the parent’s concerns, tell the parent they need to file due process on the decision made in the PWN. In this way, you can actually implement the plan the IEP team agreed to and you can begin to move through the complaint procedure that is there exactly for this purpose.

The I Disagree with Everything Parent: I have worked with parents who are unhappy with everything we do. The complaints jump from topic to topic and, once you think you have one list resolved, you have another new list to tackle. In my opinion, this is the parent you want to go to due process with because they have to identify what they are complaining about. What issue/decision are you unhappy about?

The I Want My Child to be More Disable Than They Are Parent: This issue is addressed in an earlier blog of mine entitled “Munchausen Syndrom by Proxy, Special Education Style”. The main action you want to take in this situation is to make sure you are an advocate for the child and that you keep the child safe. Do not allow a parent to push you into giving services to a student that are not warranted. Unfortunately, I have had more than one parent that exhibited this kind of behavior.

The Professor Parent: This is the parent who reads everything they can on special education and comes to meetings with lists of curriculums and diagnoses and educational stragegies that they want you to use with their child. Be respectful and listen, but make sure the parent understands that methodology generally doesn’t go into the IEP, that the school determines how to reach the goals and what methodologies will be used to meet those goals. This puts the responsibility, rightfully so, on the school to show that what they are doing is working:)

The It’s All About Me Parent: I have worked with parents who really want the IEP meeting to be about them. This is a strange one, but the best deterrent to this is to continually remind the parent that the meeting is about their child and this really isn’t an appropriate place to talk about what went wrong with their own school experience. I also had a parent who would fake seizures when she came in to see me in my office. After I realized they were fake, I just ignored them and would go about my work and then she would eventually get back in the chair and talk to me again. Seriously, I can’t make this stuff up, I’m not that creative.

The I Come to School and Disrupt Parent: I have had this happen a few times. As the administrator, I asked them to leave the premises because they were disruptive. On two occasions the parent refused to leave and the police were called and the parent was charged with disorderly conduct. A restraining order was issued in one of the cases. This is certainly only done as a last resort and does not absolve a parent of their rights; we still had to involve this parent in the IEP process and we would do that by meeting via a conference call.

The bottom line is that these parents are exhausting and exasperating for school staff. Provide support and relief for the staff that are most impacted by these tough individuals and make every attempt to minimize the amount of disruption that occurs because of the behavior of these adults. Also, be especially empathetic to the children who live with these parents and take extra care to be that student’s advocate. If it is difficult for us to have to deal with these parents, think what it is like for their children.

(October 18, 2015)

It has recently become clear to me that I believe that the special education system needs to be transformed, not reformed. To reform something means to make it better, to transform something means to change it into something completely different.  Although there are good people working hard in the world of special education, I believe it needs to be changed into something that looks very different from what it looks like today.

As I speak my message of transformation for special education, I am pleasantly surprised by the enthusiasm I get from both AEA and LEA folks with this message.  There truly seems to be a consensus that the current state of things is not meeting the needs of students, that this is a system that is terribly flawed at the core.  In some ways, I think it might be easier if I was getting more push-back on this message; I am completely comfortable and articulate when I am engaging in discussion about the many failures of the system we currently have in place.

So, once I have done my dog and pony show to the choir, I am staring into faces asking a common question.  Yeah, the current system sucks.  So, what are we going to do about it?   Well, I know one things for sure we aren’t going to do about it; we aren’t going to keep doing things the same way.

Transforming schools, and particularly special education within a school system, appears to be a nearly impossible task.  I would respectfully argue, that even those that preach the word of transformation, find ourselves participating in a culture that ultimately promotes the status quo.  We can reform, but we don’t allow ourselves to transform.  The beginning is always the best.  As educators, we are brilliant at laying out the problem, brainstorming solutions, and action planning.  I have seen time and time again how the train leaves the station (and we love to say things like, “The train is leaving the station, you either get on this train or you aren’t on the train at all”) and there we are, on the new track with all our believers, traveling down the line we laid ourselves, to a transformed future.

But, then, undoubtedly the conversation on the train becomes horribly bogged down in the minutiae.   We begin to move off course, become frightened that our train is moving too fast, the destination might not be what we thought it should be, the seat covers aren’t really what we wanted, we left someone important behind and we need to go back and get them and listen to what they think we should do, we didn’t pack the right supplies, the letters on the tickets aren’t clear enough.  So, we stop the train and we decided to re-think the plan, focus on the little details, mire ourselves in the barriers.  And, before you know it, we are back at the train station, off the train, and doing pretty much exactly what we were doing before we go on the bus.

To transform the world of special education, we need to get on the train and leave this station even if we don’t know where in the world we are going.  It truly is an “anywhere but here” phenomenon.  We may need to visit other places before we make a decision about where we want to go; we may take several different tracks to get there, and we may pick up and drop folks off along the way.  I am absolutely OK with that, as long as this train leaves and doesn’t come back:)

Posted on this blog are five things you can start doing tomorrow as a teacher, an administrator, or as an AEA support person.  Yes, there are things we can do differently tomorrow; without training, without additional funds, without changes to the law, and without everyone participating.  These are my ideas, and I know you have more, so please post them to share.

(August 30, 2013)

Tomorrow is my 50th birthday. This means I have lived half a century and, most likely, have lived longer than I will live in the future. This doesn’t scare me or make me sad, but it does make me incredibly impatient. I have decided that I no longer have time to wait, to bring people along slowly and kindly, to hope that the next people who are in charge will make the right decisions. Although I have seen many great things happen for children in my career, I have more often seen stagnation and back-pedaling and excuses and meandering and blocking. So, I need to change my approach because time is running out for me to see all the things changed that need to be different.

Here are my promises for my post-50 life:

• I will speak the truth. Even when it is not popular. Even when it hurts the feeling of others.
• Although I understand we need to honor the past work of others; I am no longer going to take time to pacify others with speeches that honor the flawed history of our work. Yes, you worked really hard and had good intentions; we all did. I am going to make a blanket statement today that I honor all the work that has been done in the past and let’s move on from there. We need to stop grieving our past practices and hard work; we cannot continue to honor past practices simply because it is hard for folks to let go.
• I am going to push myself, and others, a lot more. “What is going to happen tomorrow as a result of this work?” “I know this is going to be difficult, but we are going to do it anyway because it is what our students need to be successful.” “What specifically will each of be doing to move this forward in the next month?’
• I am going to be even more particular about how I spend my time. I will not be afraid to get up and walk out of a meeting if it isn’t going anywhere.
• My focus will be on solutions. I think I have admired our problems sufficiently in my first 50 years. I am keenly aware of the issues we have with poverty, and parents that don’t care, and teachers who aren’t well trained, and paper work that is cumbersome and meaningless, and politicians who don’t support us, and horrible instructional practices, and on and on. I don’t want to talk about our problems unless we take the time to focus and implement real solutions.
• I am going to invite more people into the process. I have sat at the table with a lot of the same folks for a lot of years and there is a critical need to purposefully solicit new folks to the work.
• I am going to spend more time with school leaders walking through classrooms. We have to be realistic about what is happening if we want things to get better; mentoring of leaders is the most critical piece of the puzzle, in my opinion, and the best way to mentor leaders is to walk side-by-side observing instruction.
• I will take more time to tell the awesome people I know that they are awesome.
• I am going to work to provide services to districts that are desperately needed; particularly services to students who have the most challenging behaviors.
• I am going to spend more time talking to students. If you really want to know what will work for kids, ask them.
• I am going to get more proficient with technology. I need to spend less time on the road and more time engaged in meaningful work and technology can make that happen.
• I will be a better advocate on social media.
• I will spend more time with people who challenge me, who make me think in a totally new way.
• I will spend more time with people who say yes and less time with people who say no.
• I will choose to be around people who are positive.  I no longer have time to listen to people complain and moan when they have no interest in a solution.
• I will embrace risks and failures. Nothing will change if we tread lightly, afraid to fail. We need to take big risks to make big gains and that means there will be some big failures.
• I will find time to exercise. My ideas, my motivation, my health, my humor, my ingenuity, and my stamina depend on this.
• I will wake up every day with optimistic anticipation. I choose the way I feel and I don’t have the time or energy to have a negative perspective.
• I will have the hard conversations and I will not shy away from conflict. If we are to move forward, we have to by okay with conflict.
• I will laugh more in the future than I have in the past; be more irreverent, and probably use a little more profanity:)

(December 28, 2013)