Season 2, Episode 1: How To Effectively Organize Your Child's Records with Guest Attorney Jill Hornig.

Speaker 1: 0:06

Welcome to the podcast. Let's talk sped law, a podcast dedicated to discussing special education rights of children with disabilities. I'm your host and special education attorney. Jeff forte. Now let's talk sped law.

Speaker 2: 0:27

Hi everyone. This is attorney Jeff forte with another edition of let's talk sped law. I'm so happy to be doing our second season of let's talk sped law based on the great response that we've gotten. We're now a national podcast in all 50 States with thousands and thousands of listeners. Welcome to the second, uh, second season, first episode. In this episode, we have attorney Jill Hornig from Connecticut on the call with us to talk about how to effectively organize your child's school records. Okay. Uh, Jill happens to be a attorney at my practice. She just came aboard with forte law group and she graduated from pace university school of law magnet colada in 1992. And she has an amazing story to share with all of you as a fellow parent of children that are on the spectrum and how she as a parent, as well as a lawyer that wasn't practicing special education law before her, um, children were diagnosed, had an entire journey, both personally family-wise and professionally, where now she is one of the top attorneys, um, in Connecticut, along with my practice where we represent families that have children with disabilities. In this episode, we go through the binder process, how to actually organize your child's school records from IEP to evaluations. We talk about what FIRPA means. We talk about how to effectively work with your school team and how to keep yourself organized as a parent through the labyrinth of school records that you're going to experience during your child's educational tenure with your special education team. So let's jump right into it, everyone. This is Jeff forte from Les talks, sped law, and we are back now with our very first episode of our second season of let's talk sped law. And our podcast is really growing. We're so humbled to have all of you across the nation, listening to the important information that we provide to parents that are interested in learning more about their child's rights to special education and how it affects your child's schooling to kick things off for our first episode of our second season is my privilege and honor to have attorney Jill Hornig, who is the owner of Hornick law, and also of counsel as an attorney at my practice in Connecticut forte law group, uh, here with us to kick off our second season. The title of today's show is how to effectively organize your child's records now, uh, Jill. Hi. Good morning. Welcome. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 3: 3:29

Good morning. Thank you. Happy to be here.

Speaker 2: 3:32

Thanks, Joe. Uh, we're here on a kind of rainy day in November, but, um, uh, you know, it's, it's great to have you on the show and, uh, uh, I'm so excited and honored for you to be part of the forte walk, route practice as well. So welcome aboard. I'm honored as well. So, um, so Joe, you know, I would like to put into context for our audience, your experience and, you know, both personally and professionally, how you got into special education law. Um, I know we've been colleagues and friends for, for quite some time, uh, but, but can you kind of walk moms dads through how you, you not only practice special education law, but how you actually got into it?

Speaker 3: 4:21

Sure. Um, so I'm in a lawyer for a very, very long time. I graduated from law school in 1992. Um, you know, uh, as many young lawyers do, I started out in a large firm. Um, I was practicing, uh, insurance coverage, very exciting. Um, and, uh, I was doing environmental insurance coverage. So think, you know, toxic cleanup sites, um, large product liability litigation, um, that, you know, toxic torts, those kinds of cases, just huge amounts of information that had to be managed and, um, cold and examined and, you know, organized. Um, when I had my first child in 1998, I took a break, um, intending, you know, take a year off, spend the first year with my first baby and a year turned into two and then turned into three with two kids. Um, when my oldest child was four, we, um, we saw that he was a little different, we had excellent, excellent preschool teachers who spent some time, um, sort of showing us the ways that he wasn't typical. Um, so we started the process of, you know, checking with his pediatrician and talking to his preschool teachers and talking to other people, um, that sent us on a journey to a developmental pediatrician who diagnosed him with, um, at the time pervasive developmental disorder, not otherwise specified otherwise known as PDD nos, which is a form of autism. Um, the, you know, categories have changed a little bit over the years, but, um, you know, so that sent us on a huge journey through school districts. You know, we had to get the PV, the developmental pediatrician recommended a full psychoeducational evaluation. I said, what's that? I had no idea. Um, you know, he was four, so he wasn't even in school yet. Um, you know, he was in preschool. So our first fight, if you will, um, you know, we contacted our local elementary school and the speech therapist did an evaluation and he had, um, some definite concerns with, um, speech pragmatics, which for people listening is the, the social aspects of speech. Um, he could speak and articulate, but he couldn't, um, respond appropriately to questions. He didn't take turns. He didn't, um, share attention with other people or look at someone when he was talking to them. He was often looking at other things and wandering while he was speaking. So those are, you know, sort of the reciprocal, social aspects of speech where he really had some significant delays. Um, so they were okay. He needs speech therapy. Cool. So we, you know, we're bringing him to the elementary school for speech once a week. Um, and then the school psychologist who was in charge of the sort of process of meetings and, you know, yes, you are entitled to speech therapy. I, and I said, well, what about, you know, the pediatrician said, we need a full psychoeducational workup. Oh, okay, well, let's do an occupational therapy workup. Let's check his fine motor skills. So we did, and he had delays. So we come back to the meeting and it was just occupational therapy. I said, what about a full psychoeducational workup? Oh, okay. Well, we can have a meeting to discuss that. I'm like, well, we're having a meeting right now. Why can't we discuss it right now? I guess we can only consent. Okay. I consent. Um, you know, it was just, and these were all new things to me, but it just made no sense that it would be a delay. And I just had no idea why long story short, we got our first bull psychoeducational workup. The psychologist eventually agreed with me. She said, okay, you were right. Um, and he absolutely needed services. So he was, we moved him to the integrated preschool, which was, um, you know, in, in public school, districts, towns often have a public preschool that combines children with special needs, with typical typically developing students to have that mix. Um, so he started in the preschool and it was just, that was my introduction. And it seemed crazy to me how it was so long and obstructive. And why can't you just do what I think you should do? Um, so yeah, that was my first introduction into special education and public schools

Speaker 2: 9:57

Right. In throne. Right. And, you know, it's interesting that you mentioned that, you know, obviously as a parent, you know, your, your children best. Right. Um, but also that your pediatrician right. Was one of your first, first kind of go to clinicians and this rites of passage with, with diagnosing your son, um, on the spectrum. And, you know, that's why it's so important to have number one, a pediatrician for your, for your child. And then two, if you're really sensing something that not might be non neuro-typical pediatricians are, I guess, um, what I'm saying is they're, they're taken for granted sometimes, but they could be a tremendous catalyst for empowering you when you're looking for answers. Um, about your, about your child's ability.

Speaker 3: 10:52

Yeah. And I mean, don't overlook preschool teachers because we were so blessed. You know, my son was in a, the preschool that we had chosen for him was, you know, uh, just a regular threes fours. Um, and it was through our church. Um, his preschool teacher was so amazing. She had been doing it for years. Um, and she was just, she, you know, I started asking questions because someone had said something to me and she was so patient and kind and lovely. Um, you know, she invited me to spend some time after I dropped him off so that I could observe him. And she stood right next to me and pointed things out, okay, look at what these other children are doing. We have, you know, planned activities every day and these other children are participating and talking to each other and playing together and doing these things. And now look at your son and see, he's not participating. He's just walking around the room and touching things and not really engaging with the toys and not engaging with the activity. She just w she really took the time and was so patient and pointing these things out. But in just a really kind way, you know, there was no judgment involved. There was no, uh, look, you know, there is, she was just so kind about it and just factual. And very matter of fact, just look at the differences. And that was enough for us to really start on the journey. But, you know, preschool teachers are unsung heroes because they absolutely see it all. And they, um, you know, they have a really good sense of who might be showing some concerns. Um, and, you know, as a parent, I was open to it. I was open to that learning particularly with my first child. And I think as parents, we really have to be open to hearing that feedback, even if it's not what we want to hear, because that's what serves our children, you know, it, wasn't what I wanted to hear. I didn't want to hear that my oldest child was not typically developing that his behavior was not typical. You know, that there were concerns that I did have to start on this journey. Nobody wants to hear that. Um, but I had to be open to it because ultimately it's what served my child. It's what was best for him. I couldn't ignore it. I couldn't hide my head in the sand. I had to confront it. And it was not a fun process. It was not emotionally great. Um, I didn't handle it well at the beginning. Absolutely. I'll I'll own that. Um, you know, and I just, I had to be kind to myself and forgive that, you know, just forgive that bad, those bad moments that I had when I didn't handle it well, and pick myself up and say, you know what, it's it's I have to do what's best for my child. This is not what I want. This is not what I planned on. It's not what I dreamed of, but it's what is, it's what I have. So let's just get going.

Speaker 2: 14:14

You know, it's such Jill, it's such a encouraging story for parents. Um, you know, w we have cases together where, you know, your children are now much older, right? How much, how, how old are your two, your three boys?

Speaker 3: 14:32

Um, my oldest is now 22. Yep. So the child that was diagnosed at four is 22 years old. He has graduated from college with honors. He is working full time, he's living on his own. Um, my ability to confront what we were faced with when he was four allowed, you know, basically me humbling myself and asking people for help and just, you know, really confronting that this, you know, my child was not typical, allowed him to get the help that he needed to get the services that he needed. You know, it's been, it hasn't been smooth sailing. It hasn't been as straight upward trajectory. There were bumps, no question. Um, but he is such a huge success story. You know, unlike when we dropped him off at college, you know, a lot of parents when they drop their first born off to college and they cry. Um, I cried not gonna lie. I cried. Um, but not because I was gonna miss him, which I was because I was just so proud. You know, he, he worked so hard to get there and he's doing great. I mean, he just, I'm so proud of him for really just putting in the work. And he's just, he's awesome. Anyway, so it's amazing. Put aside the tears for right now. Um, you know,

Speaker 2: 16:07

Your other son who I had the privilege of representing when, uh,

Speaker 3: 16:12

Yes, he's still every time he hears your name. Thank you so much. Um, my youngest son, I have, I have a 19 year old, who's a sophomore in college who is not on the autism spectrum. He has, you know, he has some, some issues, but they're not spectrum issues. Um, my youngest son, when he was two, he was diagnosed with autism, much more significantly impacted than my oldest. Um, he has progressed and grown. He's now 17. He is a junior in high school. He has his learner's permit and he's driving, which is scary in and of itself. I have had, um, to tap into Wells and Wells of patients driving with them, but he is a very good driver. I have to say, he's very much a rule follower. Um, compare our trucks with each other sometimes. Yes, yes. He has. He has a pickup truck for very, very specific reasons.

Speaker 2: 17:18

Right, right. Um, so it's just amazing to share this, right. Because when we talk to parents that are just starting this journey, um, to have gone through it, you know, even with, with my son, who's on an IEP for dyslexia, and you're noticing that certain milestones are not, uh, happening at the, you know, neuro-typical age of development. Um, you're, you're empowered to genuinely want to share your experience with other parents to tell them it's okay. Like, you need to accept this journey and, and pivot because it is a child at the end of the day and you want to do what's ambitiously appropriate for them. So, so now, you know, at what point did you become an expert putting on your legal hat and, you know, doing insurance defense work for, and by the way, for all the parents that don't know what insurance defense work is, it's essentially representing companies as a defendant in lawsuits. And I used to do that work as well. And it's heavy, heavy on discovery and finding that kind of smoking gun to help win your client's case. Um, at what point did you start to apply that, that rigor and that experience, um, as a lawyer into not only both of your, your son's school records, but also, you know, within your special education law practice.

Speaker 3: 19:11

So anyone who, who has a child with special education needs, um, you know, things are a little bit different now just because things are more electronic. Um, but you know, back in the day you would go to a school meeting and you would get, you know, maybe some drafts, a draft individualized education plan for your child or an IEP. Then you go to the meeting and you get reports and you get, you know, a report cards and progress reports. And I mean, it's a very paper, heavy paper, intensive process. You know, if you have one or two meetings a year, that's couple, you know, three or four versions of the IEP, um, you know, you've got progress reports four times a year. Those are again, you know, 10 pages, eight to 10 pages, each, um, notices and emails and, you know, letters and report cards, like, what do you do with it all you want, you need to save it. So how do you say that? Where do you save it? What do you do with it? Um, you know, particularly when you have, for my youngest, fairly intensive education needs, um, you know, we were just inundated with paper between multiple IDPs and multiple evaluations. And we had, because of his autism diagnosis, um, he had some behaviors that had to be tracked, you know, so behavior, data that they're taking and I'm getting reports every month for, um, so having come from a, you know, discovery, intensive legal background, it kind of fit my natural organizational tendencies. Um, I just started organizing it, you know, Oh, let's keep all the IEP is together. I started making binders. I have, you know, um, binders for days in my house. I have banker's boxes downstairs from all the old stuff. Um, so what I did was I would create a binder for every school year. So each school year, you know, you're getting ready in the fall, you're getting ready to for school, start a breakout, the new binder and label it for the school year. Do you know the separate dividers? So I separated everything into categories so that I could bring my binder to meetings and I could reference something right away and find it immediately. Um, and that's just, you know, again, I'm sort of naturally organized, so it was a good fit. It was a natural fit for me to, and you know, the other part is the first piece of advice that any parent usually gets is put everything in writing. If it's not in writing, it didn't happen. So, you know, you have these conversations with people on the school team, with the teacher, with the speech therapist, um, you know, people have conversations and they say, Oh yeah, I'm going to do that this, but then they forget, or you forget, or somebody forgets and it doesn't get done. So every meeting or every conversation follow up in writing, and I keep that, you know, I keep a copy of that so that I can refer back to it and say, Oh, on this date, when we talked about X, you said you were going to do Y has that happened yet? Can you tell me how that went? You know, just that kind of specific follow-up to just keep everybody, I don't want to say honest because not implying that people aren't honest, but you know, things fall through the cracks. And so it's my job as my child's parent to kind of oversee and manage this team of people and make sure that everyone is doing what they said they were going to do. And, you know, that's how I keep track.

Speaker 2: 23:13

So, so you mentioned an annual binder, right? And, um, for those that are, you know, techie, you know, they do their annual binder could be, you know, a folder on your computer or on your server. Um, but getting more granular, right. And keeping it simple for folks that may not be as organized as, as you are, either as a mom or as a lawyer that has had significant, you know, discovery litigation experience. Right. If you, to kind of a numerate and list what some of the folders or tabulated sections should be within a three ring binder or within a electronic stored file, what would those be and how would you organize them?

Speaker 3: 24:05

Um, okay. So the basic sort of tabs or dividers or sections would be you'd want one for your IEP, your individualized education plans. Um, for almost any kid you're going to have at least one per year, perhaps too. Um, you know, if things are not going great and you have to, you're having multiple meetings, there might be three or four in a school year. Um, I organize them chronologically. So, and on the computer, when I name them, I date them first. So it's year, month, day, and then IEP. So this way, my list in the computer, in my folder under IEP, yes, I can see starting in 2016, every, you know, 2016, 17, 18, 1920. So from top to bottom is chronological. So then I can see the, the progression, if I need to refer back to one, I think I'll go to it immediately. Um, and not just that, it's kind of, that's the way my brain works. So that's how I organize, um, for people whose brains don't necessarily work that way, you can organize them by grade, you know, fifth grade IEP and just by month or, you know, purpose of the meeting annual review, um, programmed review, or, you know, plan and evaluation. Um, so I EPS obviously those that's what drives education programming for a child with disabilities. So that's arguably the most critical, um, I have a section for evaluations, so that would be, you know, annually or, uh, the, the least tri annually school districts are required to evaluate a student for eligibility and, you know, determination, whether they still qualify for special education services. Um, so I keep those evaluated, the school district evaluations in one folder and again, chronologically, um, and I'll label them based on type speech and language evaluation, occupational therapy, evaluation, psychological evaluation. Um, and then we've had occasion over the years to retain private evaluators. Um, there are times if you don't feel like the school district is heading everything observing or seeing everything or testing everything, um, you know, we've a couple of times hired an outside specialist to do, to, to fill in some gaps. You know, the school was not testing my son for adaptive behavior. That means sort of how is he functioning on a day-to-day basis compared with other children his age, you know, in the home and the community and the school, um, you know, is he doing age appropriate skills? Is he brushing his teeth by himself? Is he, um, you know, washing by himself? Um, so our private evaluator filled in those gaps because the school was not testing those. Um, so then I keep private evaluations again, sort of in a separate folder and based on date.

Speaker 2: 27:45

So we're talking about having a couple of folders IDPs for sure. Yeah. Evaluations, um, evaluations, both school evaluations and private evaluations. And yeah, this is all useful information for parents because when you go to need, if you need an attorney or you need an advocate, um, you know, there's, there's an expense and time that the professional needs to review all of this stuff, obviously. And if it's already organized right out of the gate in a way that, um, can tell a story, uh, you're, you're essentially, uh, being not only efficient, but highly cost effective in organizing your child's records in advance of anticipating some, some level of representation or engagement.

Speaker 3: 28:41

Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, and it's, you know, it definitely takes time. I mean, I'm not going to lie. It definitely takes time. And if you don't, if you're not doing it contemporaneously, right. So as you get Nicky email that has the IEP, if you're not saving that right to the folder with the date, you know, you're going to have to reconstruct it. You're going to have to go back through your emails, find those attachments, put them in the folder, make sure their names. So, you know, if you do it yourself, whether you're doing it at the time, or you're doing it in anticipation, or, you know, you know, you need help and you want an advocate or attorney take the time to do those steps and to organize your documents. Because then, like you said, it's going to save your advocate or your attorney time, and it's going to save you money. Um, you know, as an attorney, when I have to go through a file, not going lie, I can take hours to go through as particularly if it's not organized to go through and kind of make it, tell a story, right? So if you have three or four school years, you want to know what's happened in each year, you want to know in what year did they do evaluations, which evaluations did they do? What did the IEP say in that year when they did the evaluation? So going back through and having to reconstruct that chronology is, is very time consuming. And, you know, for parents, if you do that ahead of time, you're saving yourself hundreds of dollars in attorney or advocate time.

Speaker 2: 30:23

I often give Joe parents and analogy, especially for parents that may have, uh, you know, a business that they run as an owner, right, as a, as a, as a small practice, or if they have their own business, you have to save all your business receipts, you know, dinner, invoices for tax return purposes. And, you know, they're, they're scanning there's apps. There's, there's electronic ways to do that. And any, you know, accounting firms is going to tell you, well, if you don't organize this at the end of the year, it's going to be incredibly expensive for your accounting, for your accountant to do it themselves. And that's even if you have the receipts. So the, I guess the analogy is just like, you would have to provide the rigor for your company or your side business, your hobby, um, you should put that fidelity and that rigor towards what, even more important than that. And that is your kid's education, right? Yes. Um, you know, we we're, we're talking about folders here. Uh, some other ones that I think come to mind would be, um, you know, we talked about IEP evaluations, uh, data collection, um, progress reports, report cards, standardized testing. Um, but it begs the question though, Jill, right? How do parents get these records? How, how for parents that are, are listening to this, and they're, they're saying, wait a minute, how do I, I don't even have copies of this. How do I actually get copies of my child's records in the way in which we're talking about during the show?

Speaker 3: 32:05

Right? Um, well, there are a couple of ways, um, on an ongoing basis, you can ask for stuff as things come up, right? So you have an IEP meeting you're legally supposed to get a copy of that IEP. So if you don't get a copy of the IEP within a certain amount of time, you know, right. To right to the teacher, right. To the school psychologist, right. To the case manager, send an email, Hey, I didn't get a copy of the IEP. Can you please send it, um, to, to sort of get everything all at one time? Um, and I'll let you expand on the legal implications or the, you know, the, the niceties of it. Um, there's a statute called FERPA. That's the family education rights, privacy rights, privacy act. I, cause I always forget the

Speaker 4: 33:04

There's too many acronyms in special education law.

Speaker 3: 33:09

So what that basically what that law does is it talks about the privacy of education records, but it also gives parents the right to obtain, to view and obtain a copy of their child's education record. That means that you can ask your school district for your child's education records and education records include IEP. They include school conducted evaluations. They include private evaluations that you've given to the school. They include, um, uh, you know, agendas for meetings that are distributed to the team. They include data collection, right? So my son has autism and he had some, um, mallards at what they call maladaptive behaviors, behaviors that interfered with his ability to access his education. Um, and so he has had behavior plans for years, and a key tenant of those plans is to collect data and that's sheets, you know, blank tally sheets that had the behaviors that were being observed and targeted. And his, you know, he had a one-to-one paraprofessional who was with him all day. And she would, how many times did he scratch from a TV show? That's repeating words and praises from a TV show. Um, he had a period of time where his anxiety was so bad that he was pulling his eyelashes out and his eyebrows out and the hair in his head out. So they were tallying watching for that behavior and tallying how often in the day he did that, those worksheets, um, you know, I had monthly meetings or they would present me with a graph. So those worksheets that the paraprofessional took that data every day, handed it into his case manager who then inputted the information into the computer. And I got the, you know, the cute little chart. Um, but those data sheets, you are entitled to those. So I, you know, once I submitted my letter to the school district saying, Hey, I want my son's records. Um, I got, you know, the banker's box full of documents and every single one of those daily sheets. Um, you know, so what I choose to do with that information is, you know, it depends on what you're talking about, but it was my son's, it was part of my son's record. So I was entitled to, to get those and to look at them.

Speaker 2: 35:54

So let let's peel that back a bit, because we talked about the, we talked about this acronym called FERPA, F E R P a, which stands for family education rights, privacy act, and some parents, um, or some special educate cation attorneys can actually take the FERPA compliance for granted because as lawyers we expect and anticipate full compliance from a school district, right by way of FIRPA compliance, um, often times when a parent may be requesting records, they may not very well get everything because they don't know what everything is. Right. And what you just mentioned, Jill is such a critical component to any FIRPA compliance. And that is data collection. Your, if you're a child, like for example, with, with, with your kids, if they have a behavior support plan, uh, there should be daily data collection points that are being taken on a daily basis on a hourly basis, perhaps, um, to figure out how much your child is remaining within the goals and objectives and the interventions that are being put into the baby behavior support plan. Similarly, if you have a child let's say that has dyslexia or ADHD, um, let's go with dyslexia for a moment. There should be daily data that is logging your child's, um, speech and language prosody, or their literacy competence, their ability to spell, read, and write with certain tests and assessments. Um, and if there's not that daily data, then that's a problem.

Speaker 3: 37:54

Right? Right. Because that, I mean, when you ask for your child's records and you get them and you're expecting to see something that's not there that says one of two things to you as a parent one, they didn't do it or two, they did it, but they didn't give you the documentation for it. So your first step at that point is to say, Hey, where is this documentation, you know, for a child with dyslexia, where are the running records, which is the, um, when children are learning how to read the classroom teacher or the literacy teacher will have a copy of the story that the child is reading. And we'll be every error that the child commits while reading that and keeping track of how quickly the child is reading and how fluent they are. Did they stop and start? Did they, you know, that kind of record, and that's going to be a written record, right? It's called a running record for a reason, right. And that sheet, all those sheets, and it happens multiple times in a school year, they should all be in your child's education record. And if they're not either, that means you didn't get that record and you should re ask for it and say, Hey, I didn't get this. Or if they say they don't have it, then that's a whole nother problem. That's a whole nother situation that you're dealing with. Right. And I, I just a real quick thing. I want to go back to the behavior data. And the reason why it's so important is because, you know, I would get these charts and, you know, they would have trend lines and Hey, look, it's trending down. What we're doing is working. And yet I would look at some of the particularly low days, you know, days where, Oh, he didn't have any bad behaviors today or any maladaptive behaviors. And I'd look in the school calendar and it'd be like, Oh, it's a half day. So those just little tiny discrepancies where there, it looks like a really low behavior day, but he wasn't in school for half the day. So that mess, you know, that alters your trendline. And so they're presenting a picture of look at how well this is working and I'm looking and saying, it's really not working that great, because some of your data points are not entirely accurate because you know, you didn't account for half the school day.

Speaker 2: 40:17

Right. Right. And, you know, to, to be, to be fair to schools, right. Um, you know, we're not, we're not trying to mobilize our listeners to the podcast to say, okay, you should be doing an internal audit and investigation of subpoena power, uh, you know, abilities to get your child's records. But under the law, you're entitled to them. And if you're going to be having a real, authentic conversation about progress, parents will often say, well, my teachers are saying my child's doing well, and we're so happy to have him in class. And that's the, that's the summary of the PPT. Well, what, where's the data on that, right. If you're looking at an Excel graph, um, for those of you that are techie and know Excel, and you get a chart, right. Are you going to take the chart for what it is, or are you going to ask for the supporting metadata that numerically supports what the chart is portraying it to be, and that's under FIRPA you have that. Right. Um, right.

Speaker 3: 41:34

And the other thing is also, I mean, here's, here's that I think of point to make, um, you know, my, my child had a village around him. He had a, a substantial team, you know? So there's the classroom teacher. There's a special ed teacher. There's the speech and language pathologists. There's the occupational therapist. There's the, um, the paraprofessional, there's the behavior specialist. Who's overseeing all of this. Like we had a robust team and there's the school psychologist, everybody, I will absolutely admit. They all worked really hard. You know, this is not to malign any of the school district personnel, but when you have such a big team, you know, there's a lot of moving parts. And my feeling was always, I am legally, I'm part of the team, right? So as my child's parent, I'm part of the team and my input is critical. You know, my participation, my active participation in this process is critical because nobody knows my child better than I do. Nobody is going to advocate for his needs more than I will. You know, the school team is fantastic, but he's not their only child that they are working with. So, you know, my active participation, my ability to understand and really ask questions of the team, okay, you, you're saying this, what does that mean? Can you explain that to me? Not in an accusatory way, and you know, I'm coming out this as I want to learn what you're working on and how you're working, because anything that you're doing that successful, I want to replicate at home. So please educate me on what you're doing and how you're doing it so that I can participate knowledgeably and maybe do something similar at home. So we can have success all across the board. And that's really, you know, I've always come at it from a collaborative approach and understanding that this is not my specialty. So please help me understand your specialty so that I can be an active partner with you. In my son's educator

Speaker 2: 43:54

Know, you mentioned something that's really critical right there, Jill. Um, and that is that in, in your son's examples, they had a village, right? They had the support and for some of the listeners, they may say, well, you know, FIRPA compliance and getting a binder and organizing it with folders is great and all, but I don't necessarily need to do it because I have such a great team. And, um, I'm, I'm, I trust them and they're open and honest with me. Um, I wanted to add though that while that's all great, that's even more of a reason to be memorializing and organizing your child's school records. Because like you said, in the beginning, you are as a parent, the forever remaining, uh, advocate of your child at IEP meetings, all of the other players are going to change through the school.

Speaker 3: 44:55

Yes, yes. You're the only person that will be at every single meeting for the entire time. So too. And I think your point is well taken. You want to memorialize successes because then, you know, your child is moving from grade to grade. Your child is going to move to middle school. Your child is going to move to high school and you don't want to have to restart the process. And believe me, I've had to, you know, I've had documentation of successes, right? Moving from NAU, you know, this very well. Moving from eighth grade to ninth grade for my son, eighth grade was hugely successful for him. We had a process that worked. We had a plan that worked. We had programming that worked, and we had a, an entire transition plan that went eight months. We had the high school team come to the middle school. We had, you know, doubling up so that all the people in the high school could see what the eighth grade team was doing. And I mean, it really hugely complicated, hugely involved, eight months of planning, the high school team, you know, did all this training. And, uh, like day one, literally day one of ninth grade in the high school. And it entirely fell apart. And we had to start all over because some key members that should have been there for training, we're not, you know, people leave teachers, retired, teachers move on to other positions, you know, same thing with related service providers, speech therapist, and occupational therapist. And your team might be the best team, but you're not going to have that team forever. So what you have to memorialize that success, you can get then give to the next team and say, this worked, can we do this please? And that just can help ease the transitions. Right.

Speaker 2: 46:49

Right. Right. Well, Jill, thank you again for being on the show. I think it's such, such an important piece to talk about just the routine practice of keeping your child's records organized to effectively advocate and if need be at some point in the future, being able to hand over an organized file to, um, to a lawyer or to a special education advocate. I'm so excited to have you on the show and, uh, yeah, it's awesome. I, I saw it's so great to have you, and it's so great to have be part of the practice in which I'm doing as well. So really honored to have you aboard.

Speaker 1: 47:31

All right, everyone. So thanks again for listening. Stay tuned for another episode of let's talk sped law. We have lots to talk about this season. Thanks a lot. And thanks for listening.