Dr. Latrisha Chattin on Building Trust and Breaking Stigmas in Special Education

In this episode of The Teacher’s Forum, David sits down with Dr. Latrisha Chattin to explore the realities of special education and its impact on students of color. From her personal journey growing up in North Philadelphia (05:09) to her leadership in the field, Dr. Chattin offers deep insight into what special education is (12:18), how students are identified (13:32), and the rights parents have under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)(25:42).

They discuss key distinctions between Individual Education Plans (IEPs) and 504 plans (31:11), the problem of disproportionality (35:38), and the historical roots of mistrust among families of color (39:30). The episode closes with a focus on student self-advocacy, the challenges facing special ed teachers, and reasons for hope in the field.

Whether you’re a parent, teacher, or school leader, this is an essential conversation about access, stigma, and equity in education.

To contact Dr. Chattin vist her website at https://www.sageeduconsultants.com/ or email her at latrisha@sageeduconsultants.com

Join the Conversation:

• david@theteachersforum.org
• @theteachersforum.bsky.social
• X (formerly Twitter) @theforum1993

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:00

Educators, they may not know exactly what special education actually means.

SPEAKER_00: 0:05

Yeah. So I think the place where we need to start, special education is a set of services. It is not a location. You are not in special ed. A kid is not SPED. They can't be a set of services. When we refer to special education, we were referring to a whole menu of services that kids can receive, hours of service that they would receive, location of the service, those sort of details. But one of the things I think is important to note that it is not a location. And that's important because if you think back to the 80s, the 90s, the 70s.

SPEAKER_02: 0:36

Particularly parents of color are very reluctant sometimes to get the testing because they feel that their child will be labeled and identified. The child was broken. Particularly for black families, there is a reason for that. Special education was historically used as a way to segregate students of color after Brown. This is how we can continuously keep you from integration.

SPEAKER_00: 0:59

One of the biggest things I struggle with parents is the idea that their child is less than or broken or a project that needs to be fixed because they need special education services. And I say this all the time.

SPEAKER_02: 1:19

I've seen many students in the best of private schools have learning issues and challenges. It isn't mandated by law, and the services vary. Some schools are much, much better at it than others. That can be a challenge. Can you speak a little bit about the private school kind of around them? What you've seen, the differences, because there are times in my career that I felt this child would be better in a public school.

SPEAKER_00: 1:46

Black folks have not had a very positive experience with the government doing things positively on their behalf. So you think back to Skeege, Henrietta Lacks, radiation experiments of the 60s, the birth control trials of the 50s and 60s, forced sterilizations through the 70s, and people just don't trust that the government has their best interests in mind.

SPEAKER_02: 2:18

Welcome to the Teachers Forum, the podcast that amplifies the voices of K 12 educators from around the world. Join us as we engage in thought-provoking discussions about crucial topics in education, from navigating cultural diversity in classrooms to promoting inclusive teaching practices. Our interviews provide valuable insights from experienced educators who are shaping the future of learning. Together, we aim to create a space where innovative ideas and perspectives merge to shape a brighter and more equitable future for students and educators alike. Get ready to be inspired, informed, and engaged as we discuss the challenges, innovations, and triumphs within the education landscape. I'm your host, David Harris. So let's embark on this enlightening journey together and celebrate the power of teaching. Now let's get to today's show. Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's episode of the Teachers Forum, a podcast dedicated to giving educators a voice. I'm your host, David Harris, and I am thrilled to have Dr. Lich Teacher chat with us today. Let's discuss the first of what I hope will be a meaningful conversation that's teaching about special education. My goal is to help get a deeper understanding of what special education is, how it works, and how it's colours. And I know how very important it is that school supports. I am so very happy to have Dr. Chat with us today. Thank you, for being here today.

SPEAKER_00: 4:36

Absolutely. Glad to be here.

SPEAKER_02: 4:38

So I always ask my guests to begin our show by giving us a little background on their early education, working their way through university and the arc of their careers. Some people oftentimes choose to talk about their home life and their parents and how that influenced them. So my question, of course, would be to give us a little bit of background, answer that question any way you want to. And also want to know what led you to become an educator and eventually just focus on special education as well. Floor is yours.

SPEAKER_00: 5:08

Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, I was born and raised in North Philadelphia, which for those who are familiar is a traditionally under-resourced, low socioeconomical area of Philadelphia. But back in the 80s, when I was growing up, it was also just a place full of love. It didn't matter if you were blue-collar, white-collar, had a job, or a street pharmacist. I mean, we were a community, we looked out for one another. And that's what I remember most about raising and my rearing was just that I can go to any neighbor and get a cup of water, use their bathroom, get a meal, and they would watch out for me and we would do the same for theirs. In my neighborhood, I had a local school, which was right around the corner from me, walking distance. All my cousins had gone there, the whole neighborhood went there, and it was great. But I just by first grade realized that it wasn't serving me in the sense that I was getting what I needed academically. And so I spoke to my mom, single parent. My father died when I was seven, and he said, you know, I really don't feel challenged at school. We're doing the same stuff that I already know how to do. And so she went to the school and they were willing to have me a first grader attend third grade classes. And that was all well and good, except that I was already young for my grade. I started kindergarten at four. And so we're talking about being in a grade with kids who were two years older than me, missing time with my age-appropriate peers and doing things that, you know, a seven, six-year-old should be doing. So the only solution was to then be a part of the desegregation program in Philadelphia, which bust me from my neighborhood school. I literally had to walk to my neighborhood school where all my friends were going to school and then get on a school bus and travel two hours to a school in a predominantly white neighborhood, which was deemed better and more academically rigorous. And I did that from third grade to eighth grade. Now, I'm not gonna lie, I really did get challenged there. The school had way more resources. I was in talented program, I was in the district band, had so many experiences that made me who I am today. However, it was not lost on me that I was the only kid from the neighborhood who wasn't having those school experiences with my neighbors. And to this day, when my friends talk about people growing up, I have no idea who they're talking about or events that happened. I didn't know because I wasn't a part of that culture. And so that experience really made me take a vow that no kid should have to leave their neighborhood to get an appropriate and rigorous education that fits their needs. Why should you have to be bused two hours one way, getting on the bus at 6 a.m. and getting off the bus at 5 p.m. just so that you can have your needs met at school? And then when I became an eighth grade, I had a school counselor. We had school choice back then, and you were allowed to apply to whatever high schools you wanted to. And my school counselor decided that I did not fit the qualifications to apply to the magnet schools or the college prep schools. So he didn't send my materials. And I didn't know he didn't send them until everyone was getting their letters back saying whether or not they had gotten in their acceptance letters, and I didn't get anything, not a denial or an acceptance. And so that's when I found out that he did not submit my materials. And so at the last minute, we scrambled. I had a tutor at church who said, I heard about this competition you're doing for scholarships at this private school. You should apply. And I took the test. And out of 200 students, I was one of four to receive a full scholarship to the William Penn Charter School in Philadelphia. And so that began my entry into independent schools. Fast forward, I then go to this random school in Iowa, Grinnell College, I knew nothing about, but it's one of the top schools in the country. But I didn't know, right? And it's in Iowa. Like, who wants to go to Iowa? But they had flown us out three times as students of color to really get to know the area, get to know the campus. And I honestly fell in love with the small campus and intentional teaching that was done there. And so then I came back home after school and went to graduate school and started working in nonprofits and working in suburban schools and charter schools. And, you know, my career has taken me all across the country. But at the root of it, in the end of the day, I went back to get my reading specialist degree and my special education degree because I was in classrooms where I was serving students that I didn't know how to teach, if that makes sense. I had all this education. We went through all these years of teacher training, but they don't teach you, even in elementary education, how to teach reading. They teach you how to teach the manual, but they don't teach you how to teach reading. So I had to go back on my own and get those certifications. And so that's really how I got into special edits, just realizing that there are kids who are in classrooms with teachers who don't know how to serve them and they are expected to succeed.

SPEAKER_02: 9:46

That's interesting. And when you mentioned Grinnell, I laughed because, of course, you're coming from Philadelphia. I was in Chicago and in the Midwest, it's well known it was always a popular place for students to attend, has a very good reputation. So when I saw Grinnell, I said, Oh, how does Philadelphia girl get out of there?

SPEAKER_00: 10:02

Don't worry, I asked myself the same question.

SPEAKER_02: 10:06

Good, but it also shows the you know, at that time, the intention of some of those institutions of attracting students of color. Of course, we could have a whole conversation about what's happening now. But that is how you got there and open up doors for you in many ways. So one of the things I wanted to talk about is some of the terminology as we get into it because I want to be correct. Uh terms, you know, when I was growing up, I'm sure even you're younger than me, but the terms were not not yet, right? I know educators in my own family use the term the person with flow, right? Now when you think about it, it's probably the person with special ed or had particular issues. So some of the terminology I wanted to make sure we define neurodivergent. Where does that come from? Because it seems I've been teaching 31 years. That is a more recent term. Correct me if I'm wrong. What does that actually mean? And do we apply that generally to all students in special ed? Or how does that work?

SPEAKER_00: 11:01

Yeah, no, it is typically not broadly used to describe all kids who are receiving special education services. Neurodivergent really means that your brain doesn't act typically as your peers. And so what we're typically referring to in the systems are kids with anxiety, ADHD, kids who are on the autism spectrum. Even those terms have changed recently. We no longer have ADD, it's just all ADHD, and you either have attentive or inattentive type. And now we say kids are on the autism spectrum because it's a whole variety of things that go into being diagnosed. So you're not autistic or have Asperger's now. You're on the spectrum, you're somewhere on the spectrum. So neurodivergency really just means that kids they literally think differently than what we would expect a typical child of that age in that developmental frame to how they would behave or how they would interact with others.

SPEAKER_02: 11:59

Okay. And I probably should have started with the definition of special. Let's do that now and let's define what that actually means. Because I think maybe for our listeners who are not educators, they may not know exactly what special education actually means. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 12:18

So I think the place where we need to start, special education is a set of services. It is not a location. You are not in special ed. A kid is not SPED. They can't be a set of services. When we refer to special education, we were referring to a whole menu of services that kids can receive, hours of service that they would receive, location of the service, those sort of details. But one of the things I think is important to note that it is not a location. And that's important because if you think back to the 80s, the 90s, the 70s, kids who were receiving special education services were literally placed in a room in the basement in a dark corner, never to be seen again. And so that's where I think a lot of us have our framework of it's a place. But it is not. It's a set of services that really benefits a number of students, even some of those that we don't think of.

SPEAKER_02: 13:07

I like that idea, the concept of is services, not necessarily the location. And that comes from, you know, the 19th century when, like you said, kids were locked away for whatever reason or just called something was wrong with them. They were disciplined because they couldn't read and so forth. So we have evolved on that. So I think the next would be how do we identify students who might be in special ed?

SPEAKER_00: 13:32

Yeah, so the process now is pretty clear thanks to IDEA, which is the Individuals with Disability Education Act. And that falls under the federal jurisdiction. But it's pretty simple in that schools are supposed to be using multi-tiered systems of support, which is shortened to MTSS. But really, what that means is it's a process of intervention services. There are three tiers. The first tier is general education. Everyone is in tier one. Tier two needs a little more support, and tier three needs extensive strategic support before we enter what some people add a fourth tier, which is special education. Students who are receiving those services. And so ideally, you want to be in a school where students are receiving increased interventions as teachers are going through the child find process, which is the process of identifying does a student have needs that aren't being served or met in a general education classroom? Are they having difficulties doing things that their typically developing peers are able to do? And if so, then we slowly and incrementally increase those interventions. Generally in the six to eight week periods, we're collecting data and then we're looking at that data and deciding on whether the intervention is effective or not effective, and if we need to continue with interventions or if we need to go ahead and push that student to the next tier. So once a student works through all three of those tiers, they're usually recommended for a special education evaluation. And that evaluation does have a time frame, thanks to IDEA. And so schools really have about 60 days to get those kids identified or evaluated, I should say, which may result in identification, and then back to the table with the parents to discuss what the findings of the evaluation were. You know, when we talk about special education services, we're talking about kids with autism, deaf blindness, deafness, developmental delay, which is usually up to age eight. It's very general, in which, like we're saying, we see something's not quite right, but we don't know what it is yet. So we're gonna keep an eye on it. And then after age eight, we'll be more in a place to say what it is. Emotional disturbance, hearing impairment, intellectual disability, multiple disabilities, orthopedic impairment, OHI, other health impairment, which I think is a big one that mostly impacts our families of color because it includes asthma, attention deficit, hyperactivity, diabetes, epilepsy, heart condition, hemophilia, our babies that have sickle cell, lead poisoning, leukemia, all the things that people don't even take into consideration. And the reason why these are a consideration in special is because they do impact how students learn. So when we're looking at that and specific learning disabilities, speech and language, and traumatic brain injury round out the things that could qualify a child for an IEP, when we're looking at that, we're really looking for a discrepancy in what our testing says that students should be able to do and what that student is able to do. And if there is a discrepancy, then we want to go ahead and see if they would benefit from special education services.

SPEAKER_02: 16:39

Under the special ed, does it classify students within special ed to be of average and above average intelligence? Or it would it be anyone on the spectrum of? And I don't like to use the term not average intelligence or whatever. I don't know. You can help me with the exact term, but I think you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_00: 16:58

Yes. So in this evaluation, it's going to bring that out. And the thing I love about special this evaluation, we won't just call it special education evaluation because it is an edge psych evaluation. It can actually identify kids who are gifted in one area and need support in others. And we call those kids twice exceptional kids. So it is possible for you to need an IEP. And I've had kids who have qualified for both an IEP and a gifted IEP because they are exceptional math students, but they are really struggling with the science of reading. And then it depends on what state you're in. This is when we get down to state level, some states will allow you to receive services in both areas, but most states will require you to choose an identification, either a typical special education IEP or gifted IEP due to funding and funding sources that you can't draw from two pots at the same time. So it really does cause parents to have to pick which is most important for their child, gifted services or special education services, which seems a little unfair. But to your original question, yes, it will point out when a kid is above average or average in an area and then other areas where they have a deficit. And it gets really specific. Like it would be things like your child is below average in fluency, meaning that they don't read at approximate rate that we would expect a child their age to read, but they are above average in making sense out of nonsense words. They're phonetics, they can put that together. And so it gets really specific. And as a parent, I really recommend that parents find people like me, consultants, educators who can break down those tests for them so that they can really see what all that jargon is about.

SPEAKER_02: 18:41

Yeah, because even as I'm listening to you and I've been in education for many years, it's like, wow, this is a lot for I think a parent or even educators sometimes to kind of take in and understand exactly what the services are and what it all encompasses. Because you said something that was really interested, the gifted IEP. I'm not sure I even knew there was one. Explain that a little bit more. So what would that look like? Because when I think of IEP, I always think of a kid who is not reading well, is having trouble with comprehension, maybe Asperger syndrome or something like that. And I hadn't really thought that one could get an IEP for gifted.

SPEAKER_00: 19:19

Yeah, I mean, and it depends on the state that you're in. Some states call them G IEP, some states have a whole different terminology for them. But really, it's a great way to look at the special education services continuum, because in reality, we are going from remediation to enrichment. And so if you think about that spectrum as it's not just serving kids who have a deficit in an area, but it's serving kids who need some acceleration in an area as well. Then I think that takes away some of the stigma that's on that train. Now, the thing about gifted education is it is not served under IDEA, which is why most people don't combine those two things together. And in some states, there's not even funding for gifted education. It's mandated that you have it, but schools don't get any additional funding to resource it. So that's a whole other podcast.

SPEAKER_02: 20:06

Exactly. And then the term gifted oftentimes is thrown around, right? And you'll have uh kids tested in kindergarten or whatever. Now they're in the gifted school. And I'm thinking, who who knows if you're gifted at five years old? But you're tracked in a particular way. So that term is used and thrown out. So it's just kind of interesting. How would you define gifted then under the umbrella? What does that actually look like?

SPEAKER_00: 20:32

See, that's a whole other area, that's a whole other area of expertise, but really it means that you are above average intelligence, usually identified by a quantitative IQ score, or that you have talent in an area. You're a gifted writer, you could be a gifted musician. And in a lot of states, and I've lived in quite a few, so I'm familiar with their qualifications. You can qualify for gifted because of your musical skills and not necessarily your academic IQ. Which event, depending on how that state services those kids, you may be put into gifted reading classes, even though you're a gifted musician. So when I was in Georgia, I had kids who had gotten a gifted qualification based on social studies, but then that tracked them into the highest math and reading classes, of which they were not prepared to be in because they were gifted in social. I'm not really sure still how one is gifted in just social studies, not research skills, not writing, not analytical skills, but social studies. But they got there, and just like you said, by eighth grade, they were really struggling to keep up.

SPEAKER_02: 21:36

I want to ask this question what do you think are some of the biggest misconceptions that you encounter about special education from teachers, parents, and even students themselves?

SPEAKER_00: 21:47

One of the biggest misconceptions I've encountered is, and I want to start with parents, because parents struggle. I'm a parent of two students who had their own special education needs. My son has an IEP for speech and language, he struggles with receptive and expressive language, which then impacts his ability to write. However, he would be considered a gifted math student. And then my daughter has a five of four. She struggles with anxiety and impulsivity, but she would be identified gifted across the board. Her vocabulary comprehension is off the charts. However, if you can get her to output anything, if she can focus, it'll be a miracle. So it's, you know, we have kids basically on two different extremes of the spectrum. But I think one of the biggest things I struggle with parents, especially the younger students are, is the idea that their child is less than or broken or a project that needs to be fixed because they need special education services. And that to me is just where I would like to start with parents is, and I say this all the time your child is not broken. And just because they receive special education services doesn't mean that they are going to be fixed. What it does mean is that they're going to have their needs met in a classroom that is meant to not frustrate them, but support them and also help them to be able to achieve. And I think what I would want for teachers to understand about special education is that, and I've seen this evolve over the past 15, 20 years, it's an all hands-on approach. It's the caseworkers' kids. Those are the special aid kids in my class. They sit in the corner and someone comes in and works with those kids, or someone pulls them out and works with those kids. No, we're all responsible for these kids. And I've seen in a lot of schools and states where the teacher of record for students is no longer the case manager, it is the general education classroom teacher. And I think that's one of the best moves we've made in terms of special education because it makes that teacher of record have some ownership and onus over that child's education and not just push them into a corner to be forgotten about. Because now your evaluation, your classes, achievement scores are going to also include that student. And so now you have to roll up your sleeves and put some elbow grease into making sure they also have some success this year.

SPEAKER_02: 24:10

I'm trying, as I think about these misconceptions, even being in the classroom. And one of the things that comes to mind is well, how do we overcome them, right? How do we, you know, educate ourselves to, like you said, not to see our kids as broken or particularly, and we can segue into you know, we've been talking about public schools in which you have the IDEA and then you get an IEP uh of 504, and it's mandated by law. Uh in private schools, it's very interesting because I think many of us in the past of private schools have learning issues and challenges. It isn't mandated by law. And the services uh vary, right? Some schools are much, much better at it than others. Uh that can be a challenge. What you've seen the differences because I, you know, there are times in my career that I felt uh the child would be better in a public school, right? Because they would get the services that are mandated by law. But the parents, and you know this, uh don't want anything to do with the public school because they feel all of the other issues that exist. So, yeah, can you speak a little bit about what you've seen in that? Because I think there is a difference, and yet their kids are there and they need to be serviced in one way or another.

SPEAKER_00: 25:34

Right. And I think the answer to that question, I would start with you know, what do public schools provide that private schools aren't able to provide? And then public school, you have procedural safeguards, right? IDEA promises parents that they have the right to be a part of the IEP team. You have a right to an evaluation. If you disagree with that evaluation, you have the right to an independent evaluation. You can go to a private therapist or psychologist to do that evaluation at the school's expense if you don't think that the school properly diagnosed your child. You have to be informed of any changes in your child's diagnosis, evaluation, services, or placement prior to anything being changed. So they can't just pick your child up out of one classroom and move them to another one without telling you first. You have the right to consent or refuse services. They can identify your child with everything under the side and you can say, thank you for that information. We're not going to do anything with it. You have the right to confidentiality. You can see your child's records at any time, and no one else is supposed to see your child's records unless they are directly involved in that child's education. So just because they teach on the fourth grade team and your child's in fourth grade, they're not supposed to know anything about your child unless they actually teach that child something. In public school, you have the right to due process. So if you dispute anything, you can go to court, you can have a mediator, and that's at the school's expense as well. Public school requires fake, free and appropriate education. And so anything your child needs to be successful in school, the school is supposed to provide it at no additional cost. If they need a headphone with a mic in order to speech the text, their papers, then the school has to provide that headphone. My daughter needed, because of her occupational needs, she needed a mouse. She couldn't use the trackpad on the laptop. They had to provide a mouse and a keyboard for her to be successful at school. A few more, least restrictive environment, they have to make sure your child is in a classroom or a setting that is the least restrictive, meaning just because my child has ADHD does not mean you get to put them in the class for kids who have behavioral issues. That it may not be the appropriate setting for my child. And then timely services, everything has a timeline. You can't drag this out for school year. You can't drag this out for even 30 days. Everything has a timeline. And then the most important one is that you have the right to have everything presented in your home language. So the school has to find an interpreter to hold meetings, to translate documents, and they still have to do it within that timeline. Whereas in private schools, none of that applies. Like literally, private schools don't have to do a thing. However, they do have the opportunity to interact with home district that the private school is in. So even if the kid is traveling 40 miles to come to your private school, they would receive services from the district that the school is located in. And most schools do a service plan where the public school district does child fine, and child fine is just a fancy term for figuring out if a child needs more interventions, if they need more services. Every school is responsible for providing some sort of child fine, which is why you see a lot of private schools that are doing standardized testing that they don't actually use for anything, or they'll, you know, administer some sort of phonics evaluation at the beginning of the year. It counts as the child fine. It counts as something that we did to see if there's any discrepancies. And then the private schools may offer a service plan, but they literally don't have to provide anything. The services are limited. The district, if the private school allows, can come in and do speech services, or they might come in and do occupational therapy, or the private school might allow the child to leave for part of the day to go receive those services at their local public school or somewhere else. But when parents place their children in private schools, they're doing it at their own expense and they're giving up a lot of protections under IDEA. It may be in the child's best benefit. We have schools that are explicitly designed, private schools that are explicitly designed for special education and children who need more distinct services. But what I found in my experience is that for the most part, these private schools, what they're able to offer are smaller class sizes and more humans, which tend to make a lot more of the difference than the services that are being provided. And so I've had conversations with public school providers who wanted to reevaluate or renew a child's tuition for our private school, and they Asked, like, what are you guys doing that we can't do in public schools? And my honest to God answer is you can't provide a classroom with 10 kids in there and two teachers. You can't. And so that's gonna at the end of the day make all of the difference. But when a parent puts their child into a specific private school for special education services, they can seek tuition reimbursement from the school district due process. So basically you go and sue your local school district and you have to prove that the school district failed to provide fate and that they didn't provide services for the child's needs. And then if they find in your favor, then you get at least a portion of that tuition paid, if not all of it, but you'll have to do it every year. So it does become a bit of a pain because your child could get that for fifth and sixth grade, and in seventh grade, they decide nope, we're not paying for it. And then what do you do?

SPEAKER_02: 30:49

Then it would be an issue. I think too, in some private schools, parents are willing to pay the extra money for extra tutoring, for the special services that might be given under an IEP. I found that to be the case too. Before I segue into the issues around black and brown and students of color and special and the 504, what is the difference between the 504 and the IEP? I was reading some stuff and I was like, these sound basically the same, but what exactly is the difference? Because I remember you said your daughter had a 504. So what would be different if I said, well, my son has an IEP? What would be the difference?

SPEAKER_00: 31:27

So man, try to put it in layman terms because often people feel like the 504 is the consolation prize for an IEP. You didn't qualify for an IEP, so here's your 504. And that's not really what it is. A 504 one really is for students who need accommodations to be able to engage in a general education setting successfully. So let's say you have ADHD, but there is no discrepancy with your academics. You may be completely gifted, but you can't sit still. And you need to be able to walk around every 20 minutes, you need a break. You need a wobbly school, and you need your teachers to provide notes to you written because you probably weren't able to attend to what they were saying and take notes at the same time. So you would get a 504 that would have those accommodations in writing so that you could participate in the academic portion of your day. IEP is more that there is a discrepancy in learning. And that it gets a little hairy when you get into OHI because that has some other qualifications. But it really basically is saying there are other things competing with this diagnosis that is not allowing the child to be fully successful in a genetic classroom. And we need to provide hours of service, we need to provide an occupational therapist, we need to provide very specific things to help them out. And so some kids can really be successful with just a 504, but it is not, I can't reiterate this enough, it is not a consolation prize.

SPEAKER_02: 33:02

Okay. So some of those accommodations might be sitting in the front of the class, it might be extended time on testing, those kinds of things, right? Because I've seen them under an IEP too.

SPEAKER_00: 33:12

Yes, yes. The accommodations could be exactly the same. And so the difference is not in the accommodations, it's in the reason for the accommodations, whether you get an IEP or 504. Qualify. I shouldn't say get, it's not a prize. But I was also going to mention that a 504 travels with you through college and the workplace, whereas an IEP ends in 12th grade. You can't take an IEP to college with you. So a lot of families will in 11th and 12th grade start to transition into that 504, at least get one written so that they can hand that over to student services at the college to help their student continue to be successful.

SPEAKER_02: 33:49

Okay. Right. Because you can get some of those services in, or many of those services in college as well. And I think a lot of time people forget that, but that is. So, you know, I wanted to let me just give you a little background. I have found in my many years in public-private and charter that when it comes to special edit, particularly parents of color, uh, are very reluctant sometimes to get the testing because they feel that their child will be labeled and identified. And I think like you were kind of said earlier, I've got the term you use now that it the child was broken. And for particularly for black families, there is a reason for that, right? I have been reading that historically used to color after, right? So it's interesting. And I also was looking at it depends on the students of color. I heard that students are underrepresented, whereas African Americans are over-represented. And then we, of course, we start about the language barriers and so forth that to all of that. And I know you've done a lot, a lot of work on this. What is your take on why these discrepancies continue to exist in 2025? Of course we have black more likely to be identified with emotional disturbance or intellectual disabilities that wow, what is actually going on? I certainly we could be you could say it's systemic racism, but that's just one part of it, I'm sure. But what do you think in your studies and everything you've seen over the years? And is it getting any better? But that's the last question I have for you. But anyway, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00: 35:36

Well, I mean, and what you're discussing and defining is disproportionality. And disproportionality is really the over-representation of students in a specific class or subset of special education services. And so we've learned that black students are typically overrepresented in emotional disturbance or intellectual disability. And it's problematic because they receive more restrictive placements. The, you know, the harsher your emotional disturbance, or if you're considered so your IQ is so low that you couldn't possibly be in a gen ed classroom, then we have to take you out and put you in a self-contained classroom where then you do start to see kids, especially as they get older, with that stigma of being in that classroom where they stay with the same teacher all day and they don't move. And what that results in is kids dropping out of school, not wanting to come to school because they don't want to deal with that peer pressure. Disproportionality usually happens based on a bias and referrals. We don't have culturally responsive teachers in our classrooms. And so you kind of alluded to this a little while ago with our English language learners. If I'm coming into the country and I'm just acquiring English skills, no, I'm not gonna be able to write your five-page paper. No, I'm not gonna pass the spelling test. And now you're gonna say that's because I can't. When really, if you gave it to me in my native language, I would do just fine. And so we have that bias in referrals, the bias and discipline policies where, and I've seen this firsthand, our schools are run on a middle class white value base. And things that are acceptable for our students and their home culture is not acceptable in schools. And then what happens in schools is that we start to criminalize those behaviors, right? Kids are wearing hoods in the hallway. That's disrespectful. They're gonna be doing something wrong. So, therefore, if you wear a hood, you're gonna be suspended. You get suspended. Now you've got an attendance issue. Now your parents have got to go to court, and now you're gonna repeat the grade because you couldn't come to school because you were suspended. And so these are cultural issues that just sort of feed that school to prison pipeline and kids and their parents, because we have parents who also had these interactions with the school growing up. And so they are not trusting of the school and their intentions. And then you have it just continues the cycle and perpetuates the cycle. And so that increases the overrepresentation of our students in certain special education categories. And I've seen firsthand what many of our students didn't belong in. They were placed in these restrictive settings. One, because someone didn't want to do the labor to find out whether it was a language issue or whether some their behavior record was accurate, or had a child just been labeled as a bad kid in second grade, and every teacher after that decided they were a bad kid. It's a problem. And it's going to become a bigger problem if IDEA goes away.

SPEAKER_02: 38:27

So there seems to be, it's interesting because on the one hand, you've got this overrepresentation, particularly if we're talking about black and brown kids, or particularly black children. And yet, on the other hand, you have parents who don't want to have their kids label or get the special services. And so it just doesn't matter. You don't necessarily want to quite die. I could get all these parents because I have some upper middle class, but the upper middle class white parents. I don't want to overdo it. If that kid has gonna get their kids labeled for that, or any possible way to help and help that kid get those services. And we don't necessarily maybe see it, let's say, with black families. Why is there this difference here? Because you've got black parents who don't really want their kids labeled, who are resistant to getting the services, and yet we have an overrepresentation.

SPEAKER_00: 39:19

I'm just gonna say it's rooted in our experiences with the government. And black folks have not had a very positive experience with the government doing things positively on their behalf. So you think back to Tuskegee, Henrietta Lacks, radiation experiments of the 60s, the birth control trials of the 50s and 60s, forced sterilizations through the 70s, and people just don't trust that the government has their best interest in mind. And as you mentioned, back to Brown v. Board, like they really didn't. And so we are still living in this dichotomy of black folks not trusting the government, not trusting schools. And then when you're interacting with teachers who you can see have already prejudged your child from the time they walked in the door, haven't provided any real supports for them, haven't communicated with you prior to this IEP meeting. And now we're sitting down at a table and you're asking me to trust your evaluation of my child. When I probably had a negative experience in school as well, this is why we have parents who are so reluctant to have their children even participate in the identification process. But I was on social media recently and saw a meme circulating that it said, you know, IEPs are not embarrassing. What's embarrassing is ignoring your child's needs because of pride, pressure, or fear of judgment. And I think that that's really important for us as black and brown folks to put that at the front of our mind. At the end of the day, if your child had cancer, you wouldn't tell the doctor, no, don't treat them because I don't want them to be bald. You would go ahead with the treatment that they needed and monitor and adjust as things were happening. And that is my recommendation for black and brown families that, you know, listen to what is being said and then go seek a second opinion. And that's why representation matters. We've got to get more black special ed teachers, we've got to get more black principals and teachers in the schools. And I mean, it shouldn't have to be this way, but I found from my experience that families are more trusting when I say it than when someone else says it, because at least in their mind can eliminate that you're not being a racist. So maybe there is some truth and justification of what you're saying. But we, you know, we've got to get more special education teachers that speak the native languages of our students, and so that they can be able to talk to parents in the colloquialisms that they're familiar with, but also to sort of eliminate what's cultural versus what is academic. And so we just have to increase that representation, really.

SPEAKER_02: 41:47

Yeah, that was the my follow-up question was, you know, how do we rebuild trust? I don't even think I would use the word rebuild, how do we gain trust? Because I don't necessarily know if the trust was ever there. But I think this may be harder, you know, let's say for our white listeners. I probably think, you know, I'm not racist or anything like that, but there is a difference. I've seen it myself where I had a spend a number of years ago and I just told some other one. It needs to be tested. That's great. I finally went on and did it. Because there was a level of trust, so we can't overlook that and how important that is. Bring something else up, which is important. I think that's there is a teacher shortage in general. There is a real teacher shortage of text of color. And there is a real teacher shortage. Okay, some changes need to be made here. But how do we address that? I mean, I know that's a big question. And if I could figure out how we could do it for the teacher, well, first thing I'll just say, I know you're gonna agree is pay. But I can only imagine the stress it can be in some of these schools with special ed students, and then you have a shortage. That cannot be a fun gig.

SPEAKER_00: 43:21

No, it's so complicated because special education for as much money as it is costing schools, districts, and governments, it's still not enough. So it's severely underfunded. And you will find in some unscrupulous places people who will cut corners with identifying students properly because that's gonna cost us too much money. And we don't have that. Like, how can we say a child needs this service and that's gonna cost us$50,000 a year? Where are we getting that from? So we're not gonna say they need that. We're just gonna write this IEP differently. They'll never admit to that, but that happened. And they're also under-resourced. We are losing special education teachers who were committed, one, because it's overcrowded. There's too many kids. So that goes back to that over-representation, right? We're identifying everyone as needing an evaluation or needing an IEP instead of putting them properly through that MTSS system. And as we talked about before, you know, if MTSS is done correctly, you should have 5% of your kids needing tier three, not 95% needing tier three. If your whole school needs tier three interventions, then something's not happening right at the basic level of instruction. And so we need to go back to that. And so because these schools are under resourced, you have too many kids on a caseload. We have special ed teachers who are not only writing the IEPs, having the meetings with parents, but they're also having to do the service hours. And so I worked in a school once where, you know, a teacher had 30 kids on their caseload, and each one of those kids had 35 hours a week of special ed services. Well, how is one person supposed to provide all those hours to those kids? It doesn't happen. And if it does, it's because you've grouped them together, which you can't do depending on how the IEP is written. And so the teacher is literally walking around going, How do I split myself? They get frustrated and they walk away. Or you have kids who are violent in classes and teachers are being expected to teach regardless, and they're getting hurt and they're walking away. And so, in a lot of ways, the school's hands are tied because the IEPs have to be written. You have to stay in compliance, or you lose your IDEA funding, or you end up in court, and nobody likes that. But it's just this cycle of things that are impacting one and impacting the other, and that's why people are walking away. And how they're resolving these issues, I don't even know if it's a resolution, but the band-aid is won by bringing a lot of teachers from outside of the country. So they will literally recruit from Jamaica, from China, from Singapore to bring in teachers, which is great. Bodies are bodies, diversity is lovely, but for some of these teachers, English is not their first language either. So now we have kids who have academic needs being taught by people who are learning the language, and we just have a bigger gap forming than we do a gap closing.

SPEAKER_02: 46:04

And the cultural differences as well.

SPEAKER_00: 46:06

And the cultural difference, right? And so, you know, a lot of those countries I mentioned, their educational culture is different. Kids sit in the seat and they look forward and they listen to teachers. And so you have a kid who's not raising their hand and they're out of their seat, and the teacher is writing them up, sending them out, it's starting the behavior referral process. And so it just causes more and more of that overrepresentation happening.

SPEAKER_02: 46:29

So we've got teacher shortages, we've got districts that aren't equipped, we've got overrepresentation and all of that. What's a parent to do in that situation, you know, because it leads us to that question of advocacy. And I know you work with families as a coach, and you know, what does advocacy look like for parents? And we can also talk because one of the things that I found and it's uh been sometimes frustrating, but I understand why. Some of the don't have that stuff advocated. I had a couple years ago, I had a scared thing because I have to I need this upstairs. I can't take this fine off going to the I have to have what's on it. She didn't let me do anything that was not in her interest. That's rare. It's very, very rare. So, you know, that's been the thing that I would love to hear. As I go into the school year, what can I do to help students self-advocate for themselves? Tell me what you need from me. I always say that to all kids. Please tell me what you need. And most of them are like, I don't know what I need. Aren't you the teacher? You figure it out.

SPEAKER_00: 47:44

So I will say that I worked at a school for students who learn differently. And that was the number one thing that they did better than any other place was teach kids how to advocate for themselves. My own children attended the school as well. And I can tell you that they've walked away with some of those skills with the I need a quiet place. Can I have noise-canceling headphones? Can I have an extra 10 minutes to work on this? And just being able to say that. But as a parent, and this is now that my children are in a different school, they're starting a new school this year. My job is to go in there before school starts on day one and have a sit-down with my child's teachers and say, this is who my child is. This is where they're going to struggle. This is how you can support them, and here's how I can support you because we're a team. I think when you go in with blinders on, and you know, my child is perfect and it's you, and nothing's wrong. And why aren't you doing? Why aren't you doing? Why aren't you doing? We are setting our children up for failure because the real world is not going to acquiesce to all of our kids' needs. They have to be able to do that advocacy piece for themselves. So back to the school where I worked, one of the things they every child graduated with was basically a portfolio of their learning style, when they were their best self as a student, and when they recognized they needed help and what that might look like. And they were able to present that to their ninth grade teachers and say, you know, here is what called it a learner profile. Here is who I am as a student. And from all the students or schools that we sent students to, all of our receiving schools, that is the number one thing they said was these kids come in knowing who they are and what they need, and that helps us to be able to support them. So parents have to help teachers who aren't on that wavelength to get on that wavelength. Like, do you want to struggle? Do you want to go head to head with this kid all year? Or can we figure out a plan that will help everyone not have as many gray hairs and the child be more successful?

SPEAKER_02: 49:43

Those are some good points. I have to ask this question because I know we talked about under-resourced and underfunding. So we know that the Department of Education is being cut. I think there were 1,400 workers. I think now there's 600. And I know some of that funding, not as much as I think we think comes from the federal government, but does come from the federal government to help fund special ed. But given all that's happening with the Department of Education, the civil rights enforcements of some of these laws and dismantling of that department. So what particularly do you see happening in that area?

SPEAKER_00: 50:19

Actually, most of our funding comes from the government. States supply a limited amount of funding. Of course, they don't have as much to give as the federal government does. But IDEA funds are critical because with those funds comes a level of oversight from the federal government that protects special education law, that requires schools to have data on student outcomes, discipline, and disproportionality. Every school has to report their discipline. How many black kids have you suspended this year? How many girls? How many boys? How many second language learners? And that is public information that you can go and look up as a citizen and see which schools are doing well in those areas and which schools aren't. It requires schools to use those funds properly. They're very specific and very line itemized about what you can use money on and what you can't use it on. And IDEA also protects those parent safeguard procedures. So it protects parents' rights. If IDA goes away, I am very fearful for our United States citizens who live in states that are not special education friendly. Because now what this means is how your child gets identified may change if they get identified. How they are supported in the classroom could change. A state could decide, you know, we've decided that kids with dyslexia, they don't need any additional support. They can go back into the classroom and they just need to read better. And you're gonna be stuck with that. We can decide that kids with ADHD don't have any real issues. They just are misbehaved. And so suspend them and get them out of the classrooms and put them in alternative schools just like everyone else. So right now, those only safeguards are IDEA. Without IDEA, there is a reduction in funding. That money goes away from the federal government unless they have some other mechanism for providing it, which means that some states think of your Louisiana's. Like, where are they going to get money to support students with special education? So either our state taxes are gonna go up or services for students with IEPs are gonna go down. And then it also concerns me that we may have weakened parent rights. Like who protects the parents' right to say, to dispute outcome, to say my child isn't being serviced, to get those compensatory hours. Even without IDA parents in private school, you will most likely have no right to having any services for your child in a private school. So I am concerned that, you know, if the Department of Education is dismantled, IDEA is next. And then we're gonna have a mess on our hands. And I find that the people who are, like you said earlier, most likely going to be blamed by them. Are those parents who are quick to get their kids an IEP and quick to have them identify with services? And those are gonna be the parents who are gonna be losing out because as you already recognize, many of our black and brown families aren't using those services as much anyway.

SPEAKER_02: 53:13

That is a challenge to get parents to go ahead and do that. As we kind of wrap up, this is the question I'm asking, depending on the guest various form of it. Which is do you think that the current system of education adequately serves students, particularly students of color, and we can talk about special ed? If you think it does not, you think the system needs some sort of reform, or does there need to be a radical approach to how we're doing things? I know that's a big question.

SPEAKER_00: 53:46

It is a big question. And it's so hard to paint it with a broad brush, right? There are school systems that are doing great. There are school systems that are absolutely failing our students and their communities, and then there are people who are trying despite the odds. When everything's set up against you as a principal, and I've been a building principal for 10 years, you know, it's hard to find success when you have funding threatened to be taken away because you have children failing the standardized custom was never meant for them to be successful in. And so, and you have parents who are, you know, adversarial about things that are non-essential when we're in here worrying about whether these babies can read. And so I think it's hard to answer that question broadly, but to sort of speak in general terms, the last time I felt that education worked in my lifetime was when it was more localized and that the power was given to local superintendents and even building principals to make decisions for the population of students that was in their building. Because you and I know that you can have a school at 12th in Maine, it'd be drastically different from a school that's at 20th in Maine. And so, what do the kids in those two buildings need? And how are we empowering teachers and principals to give that to those students? And that's why charter schools work because those leaders can make those changes immediately for the kids that are in their building without having to go through a whole bunch of red tape, wait three years, change it for 14 buildings. It's for this one building. And I know that seems so simple and almost naive, but it is one of the easiest things I think we can do is to go back and allow buildings to make the decisions for the children in their building and the staff in their building that they need to make.

SPEAKER_02: 55:40

And that makes sense. And I've read a number of articles and books about Finland and the Finnish system, and that's what exists. I mean, there is a lot of local control. What is good for my school and who knows better than the people in that building and the principal. So that's a very, very good point.

SPEAKER_00: 55:56

Now, I do I would be remiss if I didn't add this though. That doesn't mean that I am for taking away federal oversight. Because as I mentioned before, we still need someone who's keeping states accountable for serving our most vulnerable students. And we can't have 50 states with the transient population that we have doing 50 different things, and there's no thread that's running between all of them.

SPEAKER_02: 56:23

And the federal oversight does that. Yeah. What gives you hope?

SPEAKER_00: 56:26

Gives me hope. Both public and private schools, I have seen over the last 20 years, are stepping up and providing more. There was a time in which private schools said we don't take kids who have special education needs. They can't come here, find somewhere else to send them. And now I'm seeing less and less of that. Now, where schools draw the line differs, but a lot of schools will be very accommodating to an point. And public schools really, I've been very impressed with as they are stepping up and accepting what was once considered radical programming, right? They're providing Orton Gillingham for students, colored overlays for students with dyslexia, allowing students to have accommodations even if they don't have an IEP or a 504. Like, what do you need to be successful in this classroom? Let's just do it. Down the flexible seating, schools that are still doing SEL initiatives, check in and check out. Let me check in with my friends on the way in. Let's do restorative meetings, let's do circle time. Those sort of things are giving me hope that we are seeing students as more than test score, more than an IEP diagnosis, but we are recognizing that in order to serve students, we have to be able to see all of their needs. In special education world, we're seeing more push-in and pull-out services, more time with your typically developing peers. You will see kids who are somewhere on that autism spectrum dotted all throughout the classroom. And they don't have to have a special 45-minute period where they're pushed into their typically developing classroom. And then again, like I said earlier, just it gives me hope that we are saying that these are all of our kids. It's not the special education caseworkers' kids, it's not the resource teacher in a private school's kids. These are all of our students. What are we all doing to make sure that they're successful?

SPEAKER_02: 58:12

Thank you for that. So I have 10 other questions, but we unfortunately we have to end the interview. But this has been great and certainly a good overview of special ed. And I learned a lot, so I really appreciate you coming on. Always conclude my interviews by asking guests to tell me about a teacher who made a significant difference in their lives. So I'm anxious to hear who you are gonna name.

SPEAKER_00: 58:36

Gosh, I have so many. I mean, every teacher contributed to why I became a teacher. Miss Shirley Johnson was a special ed teacher in my elementary school. I was not in special ed whatsoever. But a lot of my friends were. She would allow us to come in, hang out in her classroom, have lunch with her. She taught a sign language class during lunch recess that we would all come in and do together because sign language was something that everyone could be successful in. It didn't matter what your IQ was, right? And so what she really did before it was even popular was to remove that barrier between special education and general education students. And she was all of our teachers, even though she was literally just a special education teacher. And then in my private school world, John Dover, he was my biology teacher in ninth grade at Penn Charter. And he was also the dean of students for the upper school. And I know Mr. Dover, God rest his soul now, but I know he fought battles for me that I wasn't even aware of. Went to bat with teachers, made sure my financial aid was straight. Even when I graduated, he was like, Letricia, you have your license. And I was like, you know, I'm in Philly. We don't do licenses. And he was like, You will get your license before you go to college. And thanks to John Dover, I got my license before I went to college. I Mr. Dover said, I gotta get it. I gotta get it. And you know, it was just a matter of having a proper state ID, having the freedom to travel, but he realized those little My lucia was gonna help me have more freedom in the world. And so, educators, I mean, we don't give them enough props. They really do shape our students in ways that parents cannot. And I'm so thankful for having so many great educators in my corner.

unknown: 1:00:14

Great.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:14

Well, thank you for that. Uh, those are some inspiring stories. I loved hearing about the special head teacher who wasn't your teacher who took everybody in. That's a beautiful story. If people want to get a hold of you and learn more about this, I know you're Sage Consulting. How can they do that, Latricia?

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:30

Yeah, absolutely. So if you are interested, I do have a website under construction.sageeded you edu consultants.com. And if you want to reach out to me, I'm just latrecia at sageededuconsultants.com.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:46

Great, great. And I'll be sure to put that in the show notes if people want to continue this conversation or reach out to you. Thank you again for coming on for an introduction to a very, very important topic that I think a lot of people need to know about. Because as we've been talking about, even let's say in terms of autism, there has been an increase in the numbers, even though they're thinking it's perhaps because we're better at diagnosing it. But these your children and individuals who have these issues, parents are dealing with this, and it's something that I don't believe talk about enough. So thank you so much for coming on and doing the show on this topic.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:23

Thank you for allowing the platform. Like you said, I think it's a very worthwhile conversation to continue having.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:28

Great. Have a good one.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:29

You too.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:41

Thank you for listening to the Teachers Forum Podcast with me, your host, David Harris. I hope you have enjoyed today's discussion. You can reach the Teachers Forum on Twitter at the Forum 1993 or by email to David at the teachersforum.org. Let me know what you think or if you have an idea for a future podcast. Don't forget to check out all the links and resources in the show notes. That's all for this episode. To everyone out there, thank you so much for taking the time to listen. And to my fellow educators far and wide, remember that to teach is to make footprints in the sand for an eternity. Peace.