LUNCH AND LEARN: SPECIAL EDUCATION ADVOCACY

[Caitlynn Land] 
Hello everyone. I want to go ahead and welcome everyone today to our Lunch and Learn. This Lunch and Learn is being brought to you by collaboration between Oklahoma Human Services, University of Oklahoma Anne and Henry Zarrow School of Social Work, and the Oklahoma Adoption Competency Network. We appreciate everyone joining during your lunch or noon hour. We wanna go ahead and get started so we can make sure to respect everyone's time and the great information being discussed today. First, let us go over a few housekeeping rules for our time together this afternoon. We are recording this meeting. By participating you are giving your consent to be recorded. Help us go ahead and reduce the distractions so that we can all focus and participate. We have muted everyone to make it possible for everyone to hear the speakers. We want you to express your thoughts and questions, though, so please utilize the chat for this purpose. We will monitor the chat and questions will be touched upon during our Q&A during the last 15 minutes of the webinar. We wanna see you, so if you're willing and you can, please go ahead and turn on your video. If you're unable, that's fine also. To receive information about other post-adoption events, please list your name and email in the chat and we'll make sure to add you to our contact list. Go ahead and remember confidentiality. It is vital that we protect confidential information, so we will not use or share specific names, details, et cetera about adoption cases, people or children. CEUs are now available to professionals for this training. Foster parents attending this training will also receive one hour of training credit towards the 12 hours of in-service training that you need each year. Please go ahead and indicate in the chat if you would like to claim this CEU by posting your name and email. We will send you a certificate of attendance and participation. Now, I'm gonna go ahead and hand everything off to Liberty, who is our host today.

[Liberty Daniels] 
Thank you, Caitlynn. Um, hi. I am excited to talk to you guys. Um, I wanted to let you know first and foremost, um, who I am. So let me go back on my screen a little bit here. 

[Slide: Photo of Liberty Daniels, a smiling woman with straight, dark hair. Child Welfare PFR for Education Services. LIBERTY DANIELS cws.education@okdhs.org]

[Liberty]
Um, I am, let's see if it'll start my slide here. So, I'm Liberty Daniels, and I'm a program field rep for Child Welfare Education Department. We've created an Education Advocacy Department, um, for our kiddos, um, the kids that, um, before they come into custody, trying to prevent that from happening, kiddos that are in custody, and then, um, hoping to help post adoptive families as well. So that's why post-adoptions had reached out to me. Um, one thing that I do is I go into the school systems and I, um, sit at IEP meetings and I help advocate for our students to make sure that their educational rights are being, being met, um, being followed. And so I will, here is my caveat to that. I'm not an attorney. Um, I am a child welfare worker who has 17 years experience in permanency planning. And then, um, almost five years experience in education advocacy. Um, and I have participate in, participated in several trainings. My first experience was with, um, child welfare as a permanency planning worker. We developed, um, a group home for children who are developmentally delayed as well as mental health issues. And we were trying to figure out how to get them, um, reintegrated, transitioned back into the school system. Um, when we have aggressive kids, that tends to be scary, safety concerns for the school. Um, and so they are timid about wanting to, um, put them into their, into their general ed classrooms and, um, facilitate that. So, um, I was able to be a part of the team and work closely with the special education department, um, and work on, um, creating plans, creating classrooms, creating goals, trying to figure out how, if we could get these kids into the general ed classroom, get them into the public school setting.

[Slide: "Learning is not attained by chance; It must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence." - Abigail Adams]

[Liberty]
So that's what I wanna talk about today, is what I've learned, um, from my experiences, um, and, um, and try to help with some of that special education advocacy that I'm doing on a daily basis. So the first thing I, I saw was, um, this quote, "Learning is not attained by chance. It must be sought for with, um, ardor." That's a, a, a new word for me, "And attended to with diligence." Um, the word ardor, though, I looked it up and it's, um, it says, meaning great warmth, a feeling, um, fervor, passion, eagerness or enthusiasm. And I thought, when we're advocating for our kids, you know, it's a long road. We're gonna really need to be, um, attending with diligence and we're gonna need eagerness. And that fervor, that enthusiasm to really, um, continue to advocate because it is, it can be really frustrating, but I thought this was a really good, um, quote. And when we talk about, um, when it's a long road, it's a long road of collaboration.

[Slide: Why Is Collaboration Important?]

[Liberty]
So I wanna talk about collaboration first and foremost before we kind of get into some, um, minute details of the law. Um, and what is collaboration? I mean, it helps us to problem solve. It brings us professionals together. It helps each of us learn from one another. It opens up new channels of communication. And those channels of communication are very important. When we're on an IEP team meeting and we're trying to problem solve and really figure out how to help our kids, um, be, um, have positive outcomes and be successful in the school environment. It boosts morale among the team members. It leads to higher retention rates, and it makes us more, um, efficient, um, as a team in order to collaborate.

[Slide: 5 Positive Outcomes of COLLABORATION]

[Liberty]
Um, five positive outcomes is my next thing. Um, and it, you know, it helps teachers brainstorm creative ideas. It provides an avenue for professional growth. It leads to improvement, um, to improved student outcomes, which is what we want. I mean, that is the push, um, this year, especially in special education, that we're not only gonna look at with the State Department of Ed on making sure schools are compliant, but that we are having successful outcomes. That our outcomes are, um, improving for our students. It aids in the success of school and district initiatives. Um, you know, everything, every time we advocate and we're part of a team, it's a stepping stone. It helps that school to learn and improve and figure out what they need to maybe work on or what in new initiatives or what new classroom they might need to develop, um, what new program they might need to bring into their school to help the new population of kids. You know, when we talk about COVID and the trauma that it has caused our kids, we really have a dysregulation problem with those four, five, and six-year-olds. Um, and we're really linking it back to that trauma of Covid. And so these school districts are having to look at new programs of what they can do in order to support these kids, um, figure out what they need. Um, and it's not necessarily that they have a disability, you know, if they've got that trauma, we need to weed out the trauma from the disability. We'll talk about that a little more as far as the disability requirements for IDEA. Um, but what I, but what I wanted to say here is that, um, you know, teachers really need our help, our collaboration, our support, our ideas, you know, what works at home, you know, could help, could hopefully help them at school. You know? Um, so it's all about that information sharing that open communication. 

[5th positive outcome of collaboration is "It decreases Teacher Turnover"]

[Liberty]
Um, you know, right now, teacher retention is really on the all time low. I mean, we are trying to, you know, Oklahoma State Department of Ed are giving, um, you know, sign on bonuses to those teachers that are willing to treat, teach pre-K to third grade, or those teachers that are willing to come back and teach special education. Um, the statistic is that teachers that work with students who are on the autism spectrum may only remain on their job for two years. 'Cause it's hard. It's very diligent work. It's very, um, it's, it's, it's hard. It's, um, so we wanna really make sure that we are supporting our teachers, supporting our schools, making sure that we're at these IEP meetings saying that we're there to support them. We're bringing in outside professionals that are, are already working with our kids, are already supporting our families to those meetings, their ideas to the meetings. You know, we're taking those treatment plans that outside providers already have, and we're providing that to the school so that they can have ideas of what works, what doesn't work. Um, here's some do's and don'ts that I came up with, but the importance is help them and support them. Okay? That's what I really want you guys to take away from that collaboration piece. 

[Slide: Do's and Don'ts]

[Liberty]
Um, some do's and don'ts. I have families that you really wanna build rapport with your school, you know, bring cookies, bring snacks, bring drinks. You know, we're really there to sit down and talk about the long haul of what your kids need. Um, and we wanna collaborate with the school. And we don't want it to be meetings that are like, oh, well, we set this for 30 minutes and we're getting, bing- banging out, and we're gonna move on. You know, we need to, as advocates and as parents, um, really ask those good questions, really hold those schools accountable about, we're really gonna sit down and diligently talk about this and brainstorm and really work on what this child needs. And if that means setting up another meeting, making sure that we talk to the school and get another meeting set up before we ever leave the room so that we can really make sure that we're doing diligent work in order to help support these kids. So, invite your support systems. Invite the outside professionals working with your student. Ask lots of questions. I mean, I ask questions, um, until I know what's going on. I wanna get the full gamut of it. You know, we go into, um, a meeting where they're talking about evaluations and that evaluator wants to run through their evaluations, wants to run through those res-- results 'cause they're busy and they've got things to do. And I really stop them and slow them down and say, okay, "I wanna know about this test result. I wanna know what's normal, what's not normal." Like, let's really like, go through it and really understand why they came to the conclusion that they came to, why the result was, what the result was. Um, so making sure that we, you know, are asking lots of questions. Um, provide likes and dislikes about your student. I mean, the school needs to know, you know, what, what's happening? Our kids are always evolving and always changing. So what happens at home? What they like, what they dislike, you know, that, those are important pieces of information to be providing to the school. Provide, provide information about, yeah, what works, what doesn't work, make school, make sure the school has all the legal participants that they're supposed to have at the table. So, um, you know, they're supposed to have that general ed teacher. They're supposed to have that special education teacher. They're, most importantly, they're supposed to have that school administrator. And sometimes they bring in a school administrator, um, and that school administrator is like, "Well, I'm here. I'm, I'm stepping in for so and so, or, I'm, or I'm the assistant principal, but I'm not the principal. So I really can't make that decision. I really can't decide." Now, we need somebody who comes to the table who can make decisions immediately, who can just, who can really help us to say, "Yes, we can do that," or "No, we can't do that." Um, so I think that's very important. The one thing I wanna say that I really came up with was only like, do not bring an attorney or threaten with attorney. Um, what I'm gonna continue to say is collaboration, being kind, working together, respecting one another. You know, you get more, um, you know, you what, what's the, what's the term? Like, you get more, um, with sugar than vinegar --

[Malia, off-screen] 
You get more with honey --

[Liberty] 
than -- there we go. There we go, there we go, Malia. Help me out with that. Um, and that is so true. Once we say, we're gonna bring an attorney, or I'm gonna get my attorney, or whatever, then they're gonna go, okay, well, we're gonna reset this meeting and we'll bring, we're gonna bring our attorney, right? And so now we've held up the process, and now we're kind of at, you know, a standstill, or we're gonna start battling with each other and we're gonna start putting those walls and barriers up. And we don't wanna do that. Um, there's lots of ways that we can, um, address the school and work together and be collaborative. And then I'm also gonna tell you ways though, that we can involve SERC, facilitation, mediation. I mean, there are other avenues and other steps to take if we need to do that. Um, but I just want you to be really cautious of that, of really going at them with kind of that, um, with, with that attorney threat. Um, and then legally, I wanna tell you that when I go to, you know, the rights law trainings, they give a lot, um, of good information. But one of the things they say is, you can legally record the meetings. Now, I will tell you, you can legally record the meetings. However, once again, they're going to say, "Okay, we're gonna postpone this meeting and we're gonna get our attorney." Okay? So I mean, that's, I, what I would advise is taking notes, um,
making sure we bring supports. It's kind of like when you go to -- it's exactly like this, okay? We're, we're dealing with our own trauma, right? Of trying to make sure our child is, is successful. And so we're already kind of coming in with that barrier, and we're kind of fogged in the mind on that, like when someone's diagnosed with cancer, right? That's frightening. That's a trauma. That's something that happens to us. And so we need a support system to go to the doctor with us to really hear what we don't hear, you know? And so I would always encourage anyone to bring their support system, bring those outside providers, um, so that they can take notes and they can hear it. The other part of that is, after every meeting, they are supposed to write a written notice to the parent, to the team, lining out what the team discussed, what they agreed upon, what the next steps are. So, and they need to provide that to you to,
for you to review that. 

[Slide: 5 Positive Outcomes of COLLABORATION --> Slide: Do's and Don'ts]

[Liberty]
Um, I think I jumped backwards, sorry. Um, so if they're not doing that, make sure they're providing you with the written notice so they can, you know, outline what you guys talked about. So then you can go back and say, "Oh, no, what about this? Or add this, or make sure that's in there." We are all a team, and the team is one that makes the decisions, not an individual person. You know, we talked, we talked about, you know, that, um, provider who's gonna come in or that school psych, who's gonna come in and talk about the evaluations? Does your student qualify or not? Um, and that is, they're, they are going to recommend and make recommendations of whether that student, of what, and tell you what their test results say. And then they're gonna recommend a category of disability, but they are not the ones that decide whether the student qualifies or what that category is going to be. Okay? The team makes all the decisions, and you as a parent are a big weight on that team. So, um, the other thing I wanna say too is if we have a difficult, and we'll, we're gonna get there, I think I'm probably gonna repeat myself a lot, um, but with these slides, but I, I wanna make sure that you guys get 'em, the other part is, um, parents get discouraged because it's like, this is, "I don't agree with this. This is not, doesn't sound right. I don't wanna sign it because I don't agree with it." Don't hold up the, don't, I wanna tell, this is my advice. Don't hold up the process by not signing the document. Sign the document and then also check the box that says, "I disagree, I disagree with what the outcome of this meeting was, and then I'm gonna write in my concerns." And you can hand write that on the paper that they have you sign. Um, they can ask you to type something up and send it to them. Um, they might wanna type something up. And the one thing I caution you about that is they tend to paraphrase. And so you might want them to read it back to you specifically what they typed up that you said, and what your concerns are to make sure that your words are being heard, okay? And that those are documented. Because once a team decides, then it's very hard, if a parent agrees, then it's very hard to go back on that and to find, you know, do like a mediation or a facilitation, or do a dispute when you as a parent have agreed with the process, because it's a team decision and they want you to agree, um, and be on board, they should want you to agree and be on board. That is, that is the law, so. 

[Slide: Education for All Students. A pyramid with IDEA 1990, 2004 at the top. The middle section is Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (1973). The bottom section is the Every Student Succeeds Act (2015), No Child LEft Behind (2001), Elementary and Secondary Education Act (1965)]

[Liberty]
So IDEA and Section 504, I just wanted to look at these really quick, just to let you know, um, that, um, the difference between the two, they're governed under two different laws. Um, and then I have this lady who is fabulous about, um, talking about that. And I, I think this is pretty short, so, oh, let me know if you can't hear it.

[Video: IEP vs. 504 Plan: What is the Difference Between IEP and 504 Plan? Video plays, unintelligble]

[Liberty] 
Can't hear it?

[Particpant, off-screen] 
No, we can't hear it, Liberty.

[Video stops. Return to Education for All Students slide]

[Liberty] 
Okay. Okay. That's the other thing I should have checked. Sorry, I thought I checked it, but on my side, I was by myself checking it through this. So, um, so let's go back. So IDEA is, um, an education is, is governed under an education law, okay? 504, Section 504 is governed under a civil rights law. So in telling you that the civil rights law is to protect people with disabilities. So we have like ramps and accommodations, smaller drinking fountains. Um, so in the educational setting, it would be like a bigger pencil, a calculator. Um, we're going to a classroom to like, for quiet, for quiet space or whatever. Um, a 504 can be written right away, right away by a counselor, okay? Um, IDEA is the IEPs, okay? And that is governed under the education law. And you have to have one of 13 categories in order to qualify. You also have to one of those, those 13 cate-- So we're gonna look at that. 

[Slide: Purpose of IDEA "To ensure that all children with disabilities have available to them a free appropriate public education that emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs and prepare them for further education, employment, and independent living." 34 CFR § 300.1(a)]

[Liberty]
Oh, those 13 categories also have to show that they, um, that that disability is affecting their education in a negative way. Does that make sense? So it's not just that they have this disability, they can have this disability and it, and it being negatively affecting their educa-- their home environment, but if it's not negatively affecting their educational environment, then they may, then they're not gonna qualify. If that makes sense. But what I wanna show here on the purpose of IDEA is that we wanna assure that all children with disabilities have available to them free and appro-- appropriate public education. And that free and appropriate public, public education we're gonna talk about is FAPE okay? We're gonna talk about that a little bit more when we're talking about kids being removed from the classroom, um, and when they're being educated outside of the, uh, outside of, um, their, um, that public school setting. Um, because we wanna make sure that, that free and appropriate public education means that they have to be appropriately educated based off what their needs are on their IEP. So if it's not meeting their needs, for instance, you have a child who has, um, you know, has, um, reading disability or has a low IQ and they wanna send them home virtually, and the student doesn't know how to utilize that virtual program. You know, they need handwritten assignments. They need somebody to read something to them. You know, that's not going to be appropriate to send that child home virtually. We need other supports. Okay? So we'll talk about that a little bit more. The other thing I wanted to mention here is that this is not only for their education, it's also to further, to further their education throughout their life and their employment and their independent living skills. Okay? So yes, we want them to get a diploma or to graduate, but IDEA says the purpose of IDEA, and the plan, is for them, um, to meet their unique needs and prepare them for further education, employment, and independent living. So if you have a student, um, that is 14 or in ninth grade, whichever comes first, we need to make sure they've got a good transitional living program, that they've got an ICAP, a good transitional plan that's really geared towards them and their needs, their developmental level of how we're gonna work. The school's gonna work with them appropriately to make them, um, to prepare them for further education, employment, or independent living. Okay? So that's just something I wanted to touch on.

[Slide: Child Find
The school district is responsible for establishing and implementing an ongoing Child Find system to locate, identify, and evaluate students suspected of having a disability.
This system applies to students, birth through 21 years, who may need special education regardless of the severity of the disability. 
The Child Find system includes all students within the school district's geographic boundaries.]

[Liberty]
This is Child Find and Child Find under the law says that, um, we need to identify, okay, on here, locate, identify, and evaluate students suspected of having a disability. So I want you to note, it's not students that already have been diagnosed with a disability, have already had that psychological evaluation, but somebody who is suspected of a disability. If there's a perceived disability, we need to identify and evaluate that student so that they can be properly assessed and ruled out. If they are, if the school is aware that there is a perceived or a suspected disability, that student qualifies under IDEA, under the IEP law, until ruled out. So if they haven't started the process, but they're aware that there's these perceived disabilities or these disabilities and concerns, and they haven't ruled them out yet, that child still qualifies under that umbrella of IDEA and under that protection, such as
regarding disciplinary measures, informal removals and those things. So that's a big part there. SoonerStart is who, um, takes care of IDEA for children zero to two. Okay? Once they turn three, children 3 to 21 are the responsibility of the local school district. So the local school district needs to be assessing those students and regardless of enrollment, so they can provide speech, OT, PT, all those services if that student needs it, um, even if they're not enrolled in school yet. Okay? Do I have any questions so far? I guess we're supposed to wait at the end, aren't we?

[Caitlynn] 
Yes, but someone does have a question to know what ICAP exactly is. So maybe...

[Liberty] 
Okay, so, and I, I, and, and I guess I should have, um, looked up the actual, like, wording of it. But an ICAP is a plan that all high school students have, um, in order to graduate. So what is their career gonna be? What are they interested in? Um, you know, what are, what are their steps for their future? And so an ICAP is for all students, not just students on IEPs and 504s. But what I would encourage for students on IEPs and 504s is that we're having a meeting to really sit down as a group to really lay that out and discuss that, and really have, um, some very specific plans. When they are, if they're on an IEP or 504, um, typically their junior year, um, the schools will start that application for, um, for, um, the voc rehab program, um, in order to look at helping them to kind of explore some careers and things that they might be interested in. Um, but we, but, and then also I wanna say, um, we really want the students to be in charge to learn how to advocate for themselves to be in charge of their own plans and their own meetings. And they can, and I've experienced that too, where teenagers will come in with their own PowerPoint to their own meeting and say, "This is what I want, this is what I need," um, and help and have the school and the team help them to accomplish that. Does that, did that help a little bit? Oh, there we go. Individual Career Academic Plan. Thank you so much, Sarah. See, I'm not the expert on everything, on all those, there's a lot of acronyms you'll know with special education. 

[Slide: Eligibility Categories
Developmental Delay (IL, 3 to 9 years old)
Autism
Cognitive Impairment (Intellectual Disability)
Deaf-Blindness
Deafness
Emotional Disturbance (ED) (Anxiety, Depression, PTSD, Bi-Polar Disorder)
Hearing Impairment
Multiple Disabilities
Orthopedic Impairment
Other Health Impairment (OHI) (ADHD)
Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD or LD)
Speech or Language Impairment
Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
Visual Impairment
See 34 C.F.R. Sec 300.8]

[Liberty]
Okay? So here is the 13 cat-- qualifying categories under IDEA. If you look at these categories and you're an adoptive parent, or you've had a child that was in foster care who has, um, trauma, they, you know, this emotional disturbance category, anxiety, depression, PTSD, um, it's a pretty common category that you know, you're gonna look at and go, "Okay, well, if we have a suspected, you know, diagnosis of this, or we already have diagnosis of this because they're on medications for those things, then we need to make sure the school is evaluating and receiving that information." Does the school have a list of all your me-- all your students' medications? Because they should, they need to be in the know about your student and what's happening with them so that they can make sure that they're creating the right plans with you in order to address those needs. 

These categories are disabilities, but these categories will help us identify some needs, but not all needs are the same, right? And we wanna make sure that we are addressing needs because needs, identifying the needs, because needs is what drives services on an IEP in your plan. Okay? Um, developmental delay is a category that is used a lot for, um, children 0 to 10, they can use that. Um, I, I always kind of push the envelope on that 'cause it usually comes with, um, they don't usually do a full scale IQ with that category. There's a lot of testing that's lacking when they're utilizing that category. So I kind of tend to push the envelope a little bit and see what we can do. But some schools are developmental delay schools, non-category schools, and other schools are specific category schools. So I don't, that, um, that's just a little tidbit. Um, we wanna make sure, even though the category is established, that we still have all the child's diagnoses written on the IEP. 'Cause they can, they can, they're gonna pick the most appropriate category, but they also have other diagnoses that we wanna make sure the team is aware of and addressing the needs. And that comes into play when kids are being, um, removed from the classroom as well. Um, I was trying to think if there's something else on here I wanted to talk about. Disability categories on that very first page of the IEP, that big paragraph at the bottom should tell everything about your kid so that school knows, um, about your kid and what services he needs. And those disabilities, remember, the disability must adversely affect their education in order for that student to qualify. Okay? So those disabilities alone don't qualify them, okay? It's gotta adversely affect their education. 

[Slide: Timeline: Initial Evaluation
Day 1: Request evaluation in writing
Days 1-10: School responds to request within 10 days. If NO - you can appeal. If YES - school has 45 school days to complete the evaluation
45 Days: Student MEETS criteria - IEP generated. Student DOES NOT meet criteria - NO IEP - can appeal]

[Liberty]
So when we talk about the first process, we need to make sure, and I put this in here because I'm sure a lot of your students are probably already on IEPs, but I still wanna reiterate the fact that anything we do with the school must be in writing. If it's not in writing, it didn't happen. Okay? So if we have a dispute or something comes up and we didn't put it in writing and we talk to somebody, they can always say they never heard that, that didn't happen. We always need to put everything in writing. Um, one thing that I did provide, so this is, I've got a, a kid with a suspected diagnosis, a perceived diagnosis. They're on medications for something. I want to reach out to the school, let them know that, I wanna, um, I put it in writing. Here's my concerns. Um, they've got 10 days to respond. If they say no, you can appeal that. We could talk about that a little bit. If they say yes, then they've got then, and here's kind of the part where we, they say yes, right in that 10 days, but then that is not when the 45 days starts. I just wanna say that. So the 45 days starts when the parent signs the release for the evaluations. 

So here's, here's one little thing I wanna touch on. If a school psychologist says there's, "I'm sorry, there's a waiting list, we haven't gotten to you yet." Immediately let the special education director know that concern, because that is not a thing. There is no waiting list. Now, they probably have their own list of kids that they're evaluating, and you know, you can only have so much time in the day and you're trying to get through this list of people. But the law says they need to meet with the parent, go over the evaluations that they're going to do, the proposed assessments, okay? The parent signs the release, and that 45 days begins. 45 school days. The law says 60 days. Oklahoma has said we'll do it in 45. Okay? So, um, from there, then when, then after the 45 days are up, we meet to have a meeting to discuss the criteria to discuss that the child meets criteria for that IEP. They don't meet criteria. Then we can appeal that anytime the school says no. 

[Slide: IEP Road Map: How to Seek Out Special Education Services for your Child. A tall, vertically structured infographic titled “IEP Roadmap: How to Seek Out Special Education Services for Your Child” appears on a white background with a thin purple-to-blue gradient bar at the very top. The title is large and bold, with “IEP Roadmap” faintly in the background and the main title text in dark purple. Below the title, a short paragraph explains that getting an Individualized Education Program (IEP) may seem complicated but can be understood through a few key questions.
The main body of the infographic is a flowchart with connected boxes and arrows in blue and purple, supported by explanatory side panels in green and gray.
At the upper left of the flowchart, a signpost graphic labeled “START” points right toward a dark blue box that reads, “Send your school a written request for an evaluation for special education.” A downward arrow leads to a lighter blue box asking, “Did the school approve your request for an evaluation?” From this question, two vertical paths branch downward: “YES” on the left and “NO” on the right, both in purple boxes.
Along the left margin, informational boxes provide context. A green-outlined box explains that a school-paid evaluation includes testing, observations, and interviews, and that parents are part of the process. Below, a gray box states that in most states the evaluation must be completed within 60 calendar days after parental consent. Another gray box explains that parents must be given time to review the evaluation report before eligibility meetings. Farther down, a green box titled “Eligibility requirements” states that children must have a qualifying disability under one of 13 IDEA categories and that the disability must adversely affect education. A gray box beneath lists common categories such as specific learning disability, speech or language impairment, and ADHD under health impairment. At the bottom left, a green-outlined box defines the “Individualized Education Program (IEP)” as a written plan tailored to a child’s needs. Many kids with IEPs spend most of the day in general education classrooms.
Following the “YES” path in the center, the flow continues downward to a blue box stating, “A school team gives your child a free, comprehensive evaluation of her needs.” Another box asks whether the child meets eligibility requirements. If “YES,” the path leads to a large blue box describing how to work with the school to create an IEP, listing components such as individualized instruction, accommodations (like extended time on tests), modifications (like shortened assignments), related services (like speech therapy), and assistive technology.
Following the “NO” path, the flow moves to a purple box labeled “Consider your options,” which branches into several options on the right side. These include gathering more information and submitting another request, paying for a private evaluation, or asking the school to pay for an independent educational evaluation (IEE). Additional boxes note that the school may either conduct its own evaluation or proceed to an eligibility determination meeting. Further options include seeking dispute resolution (such as mediation or filing a complaint) or requesting a 504 plan, which provides accommodations but not specialized instruction. Under a 504 plan, schools may be requird to provide accommodations, modifications and, in some cases, services to students with disabilities.
At the top right, a gray callout box advises that strong evaluation requests include clear evidence such as schoolwork samples, time spent on homework, and lack of progress in small-group instruction or other kinds of interventions.
Arrows in blue and purple connect all boxes, clearly guiding the viewer through the decision-making process and possible pathways. At the bottom, the “Understood” logo appears with the tagline “for learning and attention issues,” along with a website link for more resources.
This slide has the top portion of the image. The full image is attached to the card for this video on the "Competency Network Events" page of OKFosters.]

[Liberty]
Here's a document that I provided to you. The top of it says "IEP roadmap, How to Seek Out Special Education Services for Your Child." I provided it to Sarah, and I believe she's gonna provide it to you guys after this, along with my PowerPoint and, um, Special Education Policy and Procedures handbook that is written especially for parents in Oklahoma. Okay? And we're gonna go over that a little bit too. Um, but this roadmap, um, it looks kind of crazy and long when you see it, but if you zoom in on it, it tells you, you know, I've asked the school, if you look at here, I've asked the school to do an evaluation. The school said, "No," I have all these other options to consider, right? I need to gather more information, I need to get more facts. I need to really, you know, work at that longer. And it tells you what those options are. And if the school says "Yes," okay, then we're gonna go down to the next step of, um, you know, did they qualify or not? 

[Slide: Does your child meet Eligibility Requirements? (Bottom half of IEP Roadmap image)]

[Liberty]
And this is where I talked about, you know, um, whoever completed the testing with the child will explain, will have to be the one who goes over those evaluations with you. If it's the O-- if it's OT, the OT specialist has to go over it. If it's PT, the PT specialist has to go over. Whoever did the actual testing, is the one that has to go over those evaluations with you and those results, and make sure you slow them down and understand what each test result means.

Um, I think I might get to this a little bit further, but here's another caveat. I want you to know that testing is done on a bell curve. Um, and, and what that means is that if you think 70 is a C, right, in education. On a bell curve, 70 is not a C. Okay? 90 to 110 is a C, is the normal range, right? So anything below 90 in the eighties category is gonna be borderline. Seventies, I mean, all that is then if you are going below that, those are extremely concerning. Okay? So I just want you to be aware of that 90 to 110 is typically the normal range, um, for the tests that the schools are, um, that the, that the schools are giving to these students. Um, if it says no, um, that they, that they're saying no, they didn't qualify for services, it didn't adversely affect their education, then you need to be collecting, you know, information from the school. Look at their report cards. Are they failing their classes? You know, how are they doing? Are we making sure that regardless of whether they qualified or not, are their educational outcomes progressing? Are they doing well? Um, you can also, um, reach out and, um, seek dispute resolution, mediation, um, facilitation with SERC, and I'll, um, talk about that a little bit more too.

[Slide: Least Restrictive Placement in the Continuum of Services. A large, multi-colored pyramid centered on a white background. The pyramid illustrates different educational placement options for students receiving special education, arranged from least restrictive at the bottom to most restrictive at the top.
The pyramid is divided into five horizontal layers, each a different color that transitions from blue at the base, through green and yellow, to orange and red at the top.
Bottom layer (blue):
Labeled “General Education with no Direct Special Education Services or Supports,” representing the least restrictive environment where students participate fully in general education without additional services.
Second layer (green):
Labeled “General Education within class, Direct Special Education Services and other Related Services,” indicating students remain in general education classrooms but receive support services.
Third layer (yellow):
Labeled “Pull-out Special Education Services and other Related Services for a small portion of the school day,” showing that students spend part of the day outside the general classroom for targeted services.
Fourth layer (orange):
Labeled “Special Classes with Mainstreaming Opportunities in Academic and Non-Academic Classes as Specified in the IEP,” indicating more specialized classroom settings with some inclusion opportunities.
Top layer (red):
Contains multiple lines of text listing the most restrictive placements: “Day Schools,” “Residential Clusters,” “Hospital Schools,” and “Home Bound.”
On the left side of the pyramid, a vertical arrow pointing upward is labeled:
“Move this way only as far as necessary,” indicating that more restrictive placements should be used only when required.
On the right side, a vertical arrow pointing downward is labeled:
“Return this way as rapidly and feasible as possible,” emphasizing the goal of moving students back toward less restrictive environments when appropriate.
Revised 09/29/2011.]

[Liberty]
So when we talk about least restrictive placement, we always wanna work our way up, or work, work our way down, right? On this scale, because the blue is general education, and we want all of our kids to not be discriminated against, but to be in that general education classroom with their peers. They do better with their peers. Peer modeling, seeing what's right, what's wrong, what the rules are, what the expectations are. And that's the right that your child has, is to be in their general education classroom. Whether that means, you know, with supports or not supports, but we wanna get them to where they don't need any supports, right? Where we have a problem is when we start moving up that scale and we start, um, putting them outside of school or shortening their day, or now they've got a full-time para. What I wanna say to you is, if a student is not, um, in school all day, or is has a one-on-one para, those are the most restrictive environments that you can have. So I know a lot of parents are like, "Well, if my child had a one-on-one para," you know, the, "I just don't understand, the school won't give them that one-on-one para." You have to understand, I know some schools will say, "Well, we don't have people," um, or, you know, they may think it's a money issue or things like that. They also have strict standards by the State Department of Ed of qualifying for that para. So they have to qualify, okay? They also, you know, it's not fair to our students to have somebody follow them around all day. You know, that's not least restrictive. That's the most restrictive you can have, um, in the school setting. Okay? So we need to be really cognizant of that and making sure that we're really looking at other avenues and other things we can do in order to support our student and meet those needs.

Um, okay. The other thing is, if we did ask for a one-on-one para, the school does have to show active efforts on obtaining that para if they qualify, you know, putting an ad in the newspaper, um, those kind of things. And we're also gonna get to, you know, um, a little later, but I guess I could address this now, you know, if they are, um, saying they don't have one, then we need to really talk to them about what they do have. If you, if this is the need that they have and this is the service that is going to help them, but they don't have it, then what other services are going to, um, help this, help meet that need? What other things can we look at doing in order to support? If we have a student that is not in school all day or is not in their least restrictive environment, okay, I'm talking, um, I wanna make sure. So it's really these shortened day kids and these kids that, um, are maybe not in school and we need to work to transition them back into school. I would say as an advocate, I would not let that go longer than a month. Even if the school says to me, "Well, we need to observe them in this plan for four to six weeks." You can observe them in that plan for four to six weeks, but we can still have a meeting to discuss how that plan is going, if that plan is working, what we think about adjusting that plan. And if we need to, I wouldn't go longer than a month. I push schools to meet back in a week, meet back in two weeks, um, but no long-- don't let 'em go longer than a month, okay? Because things can go by the wayside. And we need to really stay on top of and be diligent. Remember that diligent work, um, with the school and helping to support them in order to get our child back into school, back to full day, mainstreaming, moving to that general education setting. Um, are we doing an FBA? Are we doing a BIP? Um, and we'll talk about that I think a little bit more here. Okay? 

[Slide: Discipline: For up to 10 days, school personnel may suspend students with disabilities who violate the code of student conduct to the extend that such suspensions are applied to students without disabilities. The school still has to provide a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) or opportunity to make progress in general education curriculum and towards IEP goals.]

[Liberty]
So now we're gonna talk about discipline. According to the law, children on IEPs or 504s can be disciplined up to 10 days the entire school year, but up to 10 days as their normal peers are disciplined if they are violating the conduct disorder of, um, the policies and procedures of that school district, okay?

[phone chimes]

So, I'm sorry. Um, so if the student is sus-- um, is at, here's, here's the other thing too. I have a lot of schools say, "Well, they were not suspended, or they're not expelled, so we just ask them to go home." Or the parent here's, they, what they try to do, "Their parent has decided that that child was having a rough day and needed to come pick them up." It was the parent's decision to pick them up. I'm telling you right now, if the school calls you and there is a behavioral problem with your child and there is a reason you need to come pick them up and they want, you know, to have this discussion with coming to pick up your child, ask them, "Are you asking me to come pick up my child?" If they're saying yes, they need to write down why they are asking you to come pick up their, your child so that you have documentation of that. Okay? They can do that for up to 10 days. After 10 days, so you wanna keep track of how many days they've sent your child home. 'Cause once you hit 10 days, then you, they have to have a manifestation meeting, okay? And the manifestation meeting has to take, take place within 10 days of the 10 days. But, um, where they are going to discuss the incident that occurred, was it a result of the student's disability? If it had to do with the, with, if it was a manifestation of the child's disability, then the child needs to return back to school. Okay? Same day, same environment. We're gonna work on, you know, a functional behavioral assessment, which is collecting data on that child to find out the antecedent to the behavior. We're gonna work on a Behavioral Intervention Plan. We're gonna exhaust all measures, um, all resources before we talk about, you know, changing placements or environment for that student, right? Um, they also, if the student is sent home or is not at school, we need to talk about FAPE. We need to make sure that if they're being sent home, what are we doing to educate? Because they still have to have appropriate education. 

Um, the only thing that supersedes that manifestation law is three things. If the incident involved a weapon, if the incident involved an illegal substance, so I wanna say tobacco's an illegal substance for a student, right? Underage, um, you know, got the marijuana, the alcohol, an illegal substance, okay? If it involved an illegal substance or if severe harm came to somebody at the school by your ch-- by the hand of your child. Severe harm, in my mind when I think of like, um, severe harm, and I think of like life insurance, it's like life or limb. So if it's, if it if severely harming somebody that it's changing, um, like the trajectory of their life, like it's, you know, had that kind of effect. So it's a pretty severe, severe injury. Okay? 

[Slide: Timeline - Manifestation Meeting. 
Day 1: Incident(s) occurred resulting in a removal of 10 days or more
Days 1-10: IEP Team holds Manifestation meeting within 10 days. If YES - Student returns to same environment next day. If NO - Discipline upheld and student is provided FAPE
Re-Occurs: Stay in place - returning next day. IEP team reworks FBA and BIP]

[Liberty]
So. Um, okay, that's where, so that's at that manifestation meeting. They have 10 days in order to, um, have that manifestation meeting and talk about if the manifestation, if it was a manifestation of their disability, if it was a manifestation of their disability, the team decides this, right? The not the school, the team decides. They go down the series of questions, they answer them, they decide as a team if it was a manifestation of his disability. Some of the districts will say it's a manifestation of their category, their disability category. I want to note that if the, if the category say, okay, for instance, the category is special learning disability. That's what the school decided on. But the diagnosis that that child has is OD, um, DMDD, um, so like Oppositional Defiant Disorder, like all these other things, um, ADHD with just impulse control, you know, and that's not the category, we need to reassess with the school and pick the right category. Make sure the student is being served under the correct category. Okay? Um, so if they say it's a manifestation, they return to their same environment, we can put a safety plan in place. We can do a threat assessment. Um, lots of things we can do, um, hav-- create plans. Um, but they need to go back to back to school that next day. If they say no, then that discipline is upheld. Okay? Now here's what I wanna say: if they, if the incident occurs again, and it's a similar incident, that's when stay in place comes involved, because we know that this is an incident we're working on through the BIP, through the Behavioral Intervention Plan. And so that child needs to, he can le-- like leave for the day, but he needs to come back to school the next day, or he needs to stay at school and not be removed because we're already working on this plan. 

So we're gonna have another manifestation meeting because we've already had one before. So he's already been outside that 10 days and talk about it. But the, in the meantime, the child is going to stay at school and continue to receive the education that we've all been working on, um, until we have that manifestation meeting. And then if the manifestation meeting is ruled as something different, that it wasn't a manifestation, then we'll take a different turn. But -- I hope that is, makes sense. Um, but yeah. So the IEP team needs to work rework the plan, needs to do an FBA needs to do a BIP, needs to think of, bring in those outside providers, look at other services. If it's upheld and the student is suspended, we need to make sure we come together as a team to have a very good plan, uh, very good integr-- integration plan. And, um, and that we have a very good plan on how we are going to appropriately and free, in a free sense to, um, properly get them educated, okay? Appropriately meet their needs through that IEP, regardless of their suspension or expulsion environment. Okay? I've gone through all that really quickly. 

[Slide: Frequently Asked Questions and Concerns
OSDE-SES Policies and Procedures 3.24.2023.pdf (ok.gov)]

[Liberty]
So here's what I wanna do. Now, before I go to these Frequently Asked Questions, which were kind of your burning questions that I got from, um, the adoption team, from Sarah and them, I want us to look at... where are we at? Oh, we're at 40 minutes. Oh my goodness. Okay, I want us to look at this really quick, if I can pull it up here. Um, right down here is OSD's policies and procedures. And as a parent, I want you to go to this. Let's see if I, maybe I might have to stop this share to pull up this share. Now I've lost it here. I'm gonna put this right on top of this other one and see if I can do it this way. Open. Share. And I wanna share this one. Okay? So I want you to see this, oh, sorry,
you probably can't see it yet 'cause I didn't hit Share. Okay? Um, what I want you to look at here is, this is the Policies and Procedures, oh, sorry, am I, what's happening here?

[OSDE-SES Policies and Procedures 2023 document. Since this document has been updated since this webinar, the 2024 document is now linked on the card for this video on the OKFosters Competency Network Events page]

[Liberty]
Policies and procedures manual, right? The State Department of Ed, um, works every year to make sure they're updating this. Um, um, and so it's comes from the IDEA law, but this is in like layman's terms so we can kind of understand it, put it into practice. And it's geared towards Oklahoma, the Oklahoma State and districts. So I want you to look at chapter 10 is behavior, okay? And we're gonna look at, there's multi-tiered systems of support. Um, you know, all these, this is the, this will explain the Functional Behavioral Assessment. That FBA, that Behavior Intervention Plan. It talks about that Behavioral Threat Assessment that needs to be completed, crisis plans, um, minimizing the use of restraints, punishments, things like that. But shortened day, the appropriate uses of shortened day, the inappropriate uses of shortened day. Um, and in there it says, if you're shortening a day because of behavior, um, that's not allowed. So we need to, I really want you as parents to have these resources and know where you can go and find these things. Informal removals versus formal removals. So an informal removal is like, "Well, they're not suspended, but we're just gonna like, change their environment, their education environment, and send them home, home bound." But we're not suspending them or expelling them. That's an informal removal, okay? And that is something that the state of Oklahoma, since Covid happened, it has been a big problem. And we're really trying to crack down on that and make sure we're holding districts accountable that that's not what we're doing. We're not doing these informal removals. Um, and then those formal removals are gonna be the, the expulsion or the suspension kind of thing, but just know the requirements. And then the requirements for FAPE is right here. 

And then as you go to chapter, um, 11, that's Dispute Resolutions. So it's gonna talk about Oklahoma SERC, which is the, um, Special Education Resolution Center. They've got mediators, they've got facilitators, they've got attorneys. They love to, you call them and they'll answer questions and they love to talk about cases with you and help problem-solve. Um, they, um, so very helpful. Love, uh, love the SERC. It's OklahomaSERC.org and I'm gonna give you the contact for that. But it talks about facilitations, mediations, state complaints, filing that, um, and then due process, which Oklahoma, um, SERC can help with those attorneys can help with due process, but it's not something we really, a road we wanna go down. That's a federal... anyway. It's a little bugaboo, but, okay. 

So let's go back to my presentation. Really just wanna make sure I'm addressing these concerns really quick. And then I want you guys to be able to ask me questions. Um, it's really about brainstorming, problem solving, bringing in, um, the right outside supports. State Department of Ed has a lot of resources to outside supports, so the schools can be reaching out to the State Department of Ed for those supports as well as you guys can, you know, the other thing that Sherri Coats says, who's the Director of Special Education at OSDE? Give us a call. Ask us questions, you know, we can help find supports as well. Okay? Let's see if I can, can I bring this back up? Share. Stop. This. Let's see if this happens. Okay, I'm gonna share again, sorry. It becomes a little tedious with, um, okay. Oh, share.

[Slide: Frequently asked questions and concerns]

[Liberty] 
Okay. Can we see this now? Um, these Frequently Asked Questions. Okay. Yes, we see 'em? Okay, just wanna make sure. I've also lost my chat box somewhere. So, um, okay, so the first one that I have on here is, "The school is calling me every day to pick up my child." Okay, we talked about that. Um, we wanna make sure that we've got the written notice of why they're helping -- pick up your child, that kind of thing. Um, we wanna make sure that they're not putting it on us. Like, oh, the parent really wanted to, you know, pick up their child. We wanna really talk about how can we help, how can we support, I have work, I can't pick up my child every single day. Like, what can we do to support the school
to really help you guys to work with my student so that he can, um, come regularly. Um, what I wrote was, okay, "Behavior is communication." The behavior, is the child trying to get a need met? Okay? We need to remember that. Let's figure out and, uh, and figure out what the need is. What is the child trying to tell us? What is the need that they're trying to meet? And if we can figure out that, then we can maybe figure out how to help that student and come up with creative ideas in order to meet that need in a, in a different way. The need needs to be met in a very quick, responsive way. A way that they don't have to think about it. They just know that they can get that need met. And that's where behavior comes in because they don't know how to get that need met other than what they've already been doing, which is possibly a negative behavior, right? Because that's when somebody paid attention to them. That's when they got that immediate reinforcement. That's when everything happened for them. So we've gotta change that. We've gotta pull back on that behavior and give them something else positive that works faster and better. Okay? Um, we can request a meeting at any time. Um, invite the people, um, that know my kiddo the best so they, they can help with creative ideas. Um, we need great ideas that can help support the school. We can't just rely on the school to come up with everything, 'cause they don't necessarily know our kid that well. You know, we might, we're gonna know them better. We are the experts of our own lives and of our children, right? So, um, so get a writ-- get a written notice as to why they asked you to pick the child up. Um, they can only do this up to 10 days, 10 total days. And then we're gonna have that manifestation meeting. Um, also ask the questions, have we done an FBA? Have we done a Behavioral Intervention Plan? You know, what are we doing in order to, um, prevent this student to, um, from having these behavioral things to where we're sending them home? Um, that, that behavioral Intervention Plan too, I wanna say is a living, breathing document. We can always work on it. We can always change it. We can always, is it working? Is it not working? Come together as a team and really talk about that. Even if they leave the school that day, um, they should be able to come back to the school the next day, brand new day, start over, refresh. That's the kind of environment they need to be stepping into. We need to make sure that we are allowing our children to find success, feel success instead of the negatives. They can't do this, they're not doing this, you know, and it's very easy to get stuck in that 'cause we're frustrated working with them. But we really need to talk about the positives, the good things, and set them up for success. Give them things that are achievable. We wanna make sure that, um, we're creating goals that meet the needs. But those goals need to be, and I had this, I thought I had this in another slide presentation, need to be SMART goals. 

Okay, SMART goals. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-based. Okay. If a child is kicked outta school, we're, we're getting, we need to have very specific goals. The other part of that is observable goals. Something that we can visualize, that we can visually see. We can actively see the change in that child. We can talk about, then we can come to the team and really readjust those goals. You know, if he's not, oh, he has to meet, um. Like say we have a child who has sexual out acting out behaviors or visit who was sexually abused and says sexual, makes sexual comments, we're gonna say to that chi-- somebody says to that child, "okay, if you can stop saying those sexual comments--" Uh, oh. And this child has ID right? IQ's below 70, processing is slow, but they're gonna, but one of the goals is, okay, if they can stop saying sexual remarks for four days, then they can come back into the classroom. It ha-- that's not achievable for a child with an IQ below 70. Or it may not be achievable for your child who has impulse control issues. We need to make sure whatever goals we are choosing as a team are achievable. Okay? But we also, we wanna make sure we are pushing that envelope on their educational goals, um, in order to have successful outcomes. So those SMART goals too, and that might have been in here. 

"The school is recommending changing my student's educational environment." The team makes that decision, not the school. They need to do that threat assessment. They need to do that safety plan. 'Cause a lot of the schools will say, well, "Safety issue, we need to change their environment. They need to go home. They need to be home." Okay, we need to talk about that. We need to do that threat assessment. We need to do a safety plan. We need to work on that. If those don't work and we really do have to send that student home, and the team agrees with that, then what are the goals? Are they specific? Are they measurable? Are, what's the timeframe? When are we gonna revisit this? Don't go longer than a month. We need to make sure we're writing really good goals and we're really working with that school to get that kid back in for an hour, two hours, half day. We do not want a student to be out of school more than a semester. Like that's crazy. We need to be working and pushing those outcomes. Um, let's see. Yeah, I think once I, again, I said the team, um, makes decisions, not the school un-- unilaterally coming together. We talked about it. Once again, has there been an FBA? Has there been a BIP? Have we exhausted all measures, all resources? Um, have we done that threat assessment? 

Okay, what's the third one? Um, "What accommodations and services can I ask for?" The sky's the limit. I love that about my job. I have a hard time staying in a box. I wanna ask, I mean, ask for anything. If they say to you, "We've already done that," you know what, try it again. You never know. How many times have you tried that? Um, we can't do that. Well, why can't you do that? Um, so if you can't do that, could we do this? You know, if the you're constantly getting "No, no, no," then maybe as a parent we should go, "Okay, can I come to the school and observe what's happening with my child and what the environment is so I kind of can visualize? 'Cause maybe that, I can help you come up with some other ideas, then." We want to support the school. We don't wanna leave them hanging figure-- that they have to figure it out. We wanna support them. You know, maybe we could find a professional who's already working with them, who could come in and who can observe and work, work with that environment, with that teacher. But the sky's the limit on accommodations we can ask for. Um, no bad suggestions. Communication is behavior. So we need to really try to identify what their need is, what they're, what need they're trying to meet. We talked about this a little earlier. If they don't have the resources, um, they don't have the one-on-one para. They don't have the behavioral specialists, the ABA support. We need to reach out to SERC. We need to reach out to, um, Oklahoma Parent Center, um, the State Department of Ed. Um, there are, there are avenues, there are supports. There is, you know, there are ABA therapists. One of the providers that I'm gonna show you, um, that I've got into slide two is Pervasive Parenting. And that's an advocate who is in a really rural area like LeFlore County where there's not a lot of services, but there's services. There's services and supports where you are. So, um, reach out. Oklahoma Autism Center, they have the MESA program for children who are on the spectrum that they could come in and bring people into support. There is, um, there's grad students that need hours. They'll come in and they'll help do behavioral supports. Um, lots of ideas. But the school has to reach out to Oklahoma Parent Center and make that referral. Um, what was the last I had? "I'm frustrated with the school. We cannot agree. I think my child's rights are being violated." We need to reach out to Oklahoma SERC. We need to get with the Oklahoma Parent Center. Um, they have advocates and mentors to help support, to help you navigate that next meeting. Um, they know what the resources are in the areas. Um, we can reach out to the State Department of Ed.

[Slide: Advocacy Links
OSDE-SES Policies and Procedures (linked on video card) Chapter 10 Behaviors and chapter 11 Dispute Resolution and Removals
Special Education Resolution Centr (SERC) - Oklahoma Special Education Resolution Center (okserc.org) Facilitation and Mediation
Oklahoma Parents Center (https://oklahomaparentscenter.org/) - mentors and trainings
Home (pervasiveparentingcenter.org) - Kodey Toney - Partners in Policy making graduate 2013 - Helps families in Sequyah, Leflore, Cherokee, Haskell, Adair, Latimer Counties.]

[Liberty]
Um, okay, so these are the advocacy links and supports. Um, it's that Policies and Procedures, the Oklahoma SERC that I talked about. These are links. You're gonna have this PowerPoint, you can click on the link and it'll bring you right to it. They do facilitation and mediation. Oklahoma's Parent Center does mentors and trainings. That's Kodey Toney is the one that I was talking about Per-- with Pervasive Parenting. And he helps families outta Sequoyah, Leflore, Cherokee, Haskell, Adair, and Latimer Counties. 

[Slide: Resource Links
Oklahoma Autism Center (autismcenterok.org) MESA Program (https://autismcenterok.org/mesa-program/)
Oklahoma Mental Health and Substance Abuse - MTSS, BISS programs (https://oklahoma.gov/odmhsas/treatment/children-youth-treatment-services/systems-of-care/school-based-services.html)
Sooner Success (https://soonersuccess.ouhsc.edu/)
Oklahoma Family Network (https://oklahomafamilynetwork.org/) - Supporting Families of children with special needs]

[Liberty]
And then the Oklahoma Autism Center, um, the Health and Substance Abuse, they are providing, um, therapists in each of these school districts, wraparound services, they're really trying to help support the school districts with mental health issues. Um, Sooner Success is a great resource for a parent with a child with disabilities or anybody who has somebody with disabilities in their home. Sooner Success is really good on Oklahoma City, Enid, kind of that side of the state. Um, and then Oklahoma Family Network is, uh, really good about helping support, support groups, helping families really navigate things, um, and find resources kind of in that Tulsa area and that, and then that kind of side of the state. 

[Slide: "Don't raise your voice, improve your argument." - Tutu]

[Liberty]
Um, "Don't raise your voice, improve your argument." Ask questions. Ask questions. Ask questions till you kind of get the answer you want. You know, reword it. Re-figure out, "Okay, maybe I need to reword this question or reword this idea." You know, it's all about, it really does take a lot of work to advocate for your kids. Um, but I think it has a lot to do with, um, kind of fi-- discovering the need, discovering the right services, discovering the right resources. And everything is not quick. It's trial and error, right? So we're gonna constantly have these meetings, working to support each other, working in, to bring in new ideas and new providers. Um, and your right as a team member is to, you know, agree, disagree, um, and really advocate for your child and make sure they're getting what they need. 

So, okay. Questions? Do I have any time for questions? We got like four minutes. I'm so sorry. Let me stop.

[Caitlynn] 
We do have a few questions in the chat that I'll kind of start with, um, just 'cause they've kind of been in here for a little bit, so I wanna make sure that we get to them. Um, Kim asked, "If a child needs an academic IEP
and they're in the third grade, does the Child Find allow them to move on if they don't pass the third grade reading test?"

[Liberty] 
Okay, so, so yeah, what I would say is it'll, here's the other, okay, so there's a couple of ways that it kind of routes my mind. Okay? I wanna make sure that we are not retaining our children because when they go to high school, if they are 15 in eighth grade, so they're like 16 as freshmen, 17 as sophomores, you know, we're jeopardizing the likelihood of them graduating. They're gonna get frustrated. "I'm 18, I wanna be done." But they can't be done 
because they haven't been there to fail. So then they can't do the credit recovery. So be very, the school should not be retaining children. The school should be providing services, creating plans, putting in a 504. If they don't have a diagnosed disability, but they're struggling, the counselor can write a 504, they can address the needs. A 504 plan is just as good as an IEP plan. You know, as long as the needs are being met and the right services are put in place, a 504 is great and a 504 you can put in right, right away. Okay. So does that, did that answer the question? Supports. Ask for more supports. So tutoring, I mean there's all kinds of avenues of things and the, um, school should be helping to provide that.

[Caitlynn] 
And then we've got Erica, Erica asked, "If a child is behind by years and the school has not suggested an IEP, what happens to the school?"

[Liberty] 
So we're working on outcomes because right now, state Department of Ed has held them to compliance. And so that is the big push is we're working on outcomes. I don't know what happens to the school. I know that we as parents need to be requesting evaluations. And if they're not evaluating, then we need to be reaching out to SERC and doing facilitation and mediation and reaching out to -- reaching out to Oklahoma Parent Center and making sure that the school is evaluating. I will tell you this, they are supposed to, they are supposed to advertise Child Find, okay. To those, um, to those littles in the community. Um, they don't do that. They put it, they put it in the paper, they do other things. They are very overwhelmed. And they will even have, Special Education Directors I've heard will say, "Well we," kind of will say, "Oh, well we don't think they're gonna qualify. Are you sure you want us to do that assessment?" As a parent, yes, I want you to assess anyway. Even if you think they're not gonna qualify, I still want you to assess and we need to have that in writing. And when you have it in writing, then those timeframes legally matter. The other thing too is on Oklahoma, um, on the state website, um, Oklahoma State Department of Education, they have a butterfly. It's a yellow butterfly with an A in it. And it says, um, something about concerns, having concerns, have a problem, something like that. They really want parents to be, um, clicking on that site. It's on the front page and telling them what their educational concerns are. If it's special education, if it's not special education, they really wanna investigate and evaluate and see what's happening out there. So I would encourage you guys to do that. And please don't be anonymous, 'cause then all they have to reach out to is the school and that's not very helpful. Okay. Sorry, what was the next question?

[Caitlynn] 
You're good. Kathy asked, "What is the school's responsibility for providing education to parents on how a child, how to get a child evaluated or how to see accommodations?"

[Liberty] 
Um, the school's responsibility in that, um, I, I don't know that there is one. Um, I, they should be doing, working together with you, doing their due diligence, helping everybody should be working together, have open communication in order to be doing those things. So yes, they should be helpful and informing and co-- and collaborating. But I will tell you that is why there's Oklahoma Parent Center. That's why there's me as an advocate. There's why there's all these entities, because unfortunately parents don't know what the law is. They don't know what to advocate for. They don't know what to ask for. And um, and they really need the support in doing that. So I would, um, encourage, Oklahoma Parent Center has, um, trainings on their website. Um, they've, they do all kinds of trainings all the time and I would encourage you, um, to reach out to them for support. Um, but yeah, that's why I'm giving you, you know, the policies and procedures manual so that you know what your rights are, um, so that you can know how to advocate for yourself and, and, and reach out to these other entities to help you advocate as well. Because it is, the world of special education is vast and it is tough to negotiate and navigate. And all the school districts are not governed by the state. They are governed by their own Board of Education and their Board of Education takes federal law and state law and they interpret what, what those laws say and they write their own policies and procedures. So the school's boss is the Board of Education, their own Board of Education, if that makes sense. So, um, we need to understand kind of what the school's policies and procedures are too. 'cause they're all different and there's 540 districts and they all have different policies and procedures. So, but the State Department of Ed tries to help them with developing those and give guidelines, but they're not their boss. So they're only there to help provide funding, if that makes sense.

[Caitlynn] 
Awesome. I think we've got one more, and if I say your name wrong, I'm so sorry. Um, Yaneth asked, "Advice for working with schools that often get upset when kiddos' rights are brought up, such as BIPs, 505s, IEPs. And I had a superintendent say that he does not want us in these meetings because it can cause issues."

[Liberty] 
Doesn't want the parents in the meetings? Or maybe a ser-- service provider in the meeting. I would reach out to Oklahoma SERC and I would ask for mediation or facilitation, um, if you're having those kind of problems. But here's the other thing that I also say --

[Caitlynn] 
It was a [unintelligible]

[Liberty] 
Oh, okay. Here's also what I also say to schools. And as a parent, I wanna encourage you to say this, or a provider, we need to encourage them, right? We need to pat them on the back, beef 'em up a little bit. We need to, I had in my slide somewhere, I, I don't know if I skipped it or not, but, um, where my key things that I say to the school is, "I know we're, I know we're here all here for this child. We all want this child to be successful. We all want the same goal. We all wanna help this child and we are so thankful for what you guys are providing and we wanna support you and we're here for you and we wanna help you and not make you feel like you're on an island." Because they are very, we have teachers who are not supported by their administrators who don't understand IDEA and special education law, um, who don't understand trauma and the effects of trauma. And yet they come in and they're like, "Well, they're gonna stay in my office and I'm gonna be the one to take care of them today," when they don't, when they're not trauma-informed. So we, we need to help the schools and understanding this child, understanding the therapy modalities that we're already doing, the goals we're already working on. 'Cause those goals and therapies should be the same goals at school. Should all be working on the same things collaboratively. And so maybe having a different conversation with the school, we just really need to befriend them and get them on our side and really work well with them. I think that's what really benefits us all. And if we can't do that, then if we've gotta bring in, call SERC, brainstorm with them, do a mediation, do a facilitation, um, if we've gotta make a state complaint, you know, we can do that too. So.

[Caitlynn] 
Well I think that is all the questions

[Liberty] 
Is that it?

[Caitlynn] 
that we had in the chat, so we wanna just thank everyone for joining us today.

[Liberty] 
Thank you.

[Caitlynn] 
In the chat you'll find a QR code that will take you to the Adoption Competency page on OKFosters.org. There you will find resources and links to our next events that are wrapped around supporting adoptive families. If you are needing a training certificate, go ahead and let us know and we'll email you one shortly. Also complete the survey at the link below to provide feedback over the session. And it looks like that's already posted in there as well. We just wanted to thank you so much, Liberty, you did an amazing job, very informative and I'm sure everyone really appreciates getting to know a little bit more about what they can do for their kiddos.

[Liberty] 
SERC is also doing, um, a training tomorrow to tell what SERC is and the difference between their facilitations, their mediations, and then more collaboration stuff. So I would encourage you guys to be on that tomorrow, it's Wis-- Wisdom Wednesday and I think it's through the State Department of Ed. I think I sent the link to Sarah so she could send that out to you guys too for tomorrow. And so I, it's a Lunch and Learn, so.

[Caitlynn] 
Okay. Awesome.

[Liberty] 
Alright.

[Caitlynn] 
Thank you so much. Thank you guys. Everyone.

[Sarah Antari] 
Thank you Liberty. You did amazing.

[Liberty] 
You're welcome. It's a lot of information. I tried to throw it all in there for you guys. So thank you. Bye.

[Caitlynn] 
Bye.

[Slide: Virtual CE: Special Education Advocacy Tuesday, March 26th, 2024
FOR THOSE SEEKING CE CREDITS
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[Slide: Virtual CE: Special Education Advocacy Tuesday March 26th, 2024
WE WANT TO KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS!
Please use the link or scan the QR code to complete a short, online evaluation. 
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[Sarah] 
Megan, are you on?

[Megan] 
I am.

[Sarah] 
When everybody hops off, can I chat with you for a second?

[Megan] 
Yeah, absolutely.

[Sarah] 
I was gonna call you and then I thought, "I bet she's on here."

[Megan] 
I am!

[Sarah laughs]