Happy IEP season! Today, special education attorney Laura Henneghan joins Lisa Lightner and A Day in Our Shoes to discuss Compensetory Education for services missed due to the global pandemic. She covers what comp ed is, who qualifies, and how to ask for it. You’ll gain tools with which to advocate for your child in your spring IEP meetings.
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You can reach Laura at [email protected]
A transcript of this episode can be found here shortly after the episode is published: https://specialed.law/A-Day-in-Our-Shoes-on-COVID-and-Comp-Ed/
TRANSCRIPT (not proofred)
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
child, services, students, compensatory, school, iep, education, parents, laura, state, special education, provide, question, progress, school districts, address, person, district, goals, attorney
SPEAKERS
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney, Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com, Dana Jonson
Dana Jonson 00:02
Hello, and welcome to need to know with Dana Jonson. I’m your host, Dana Jonson. And I’m here to give you the information you need to know to best advocate for your child. I’m a special education attorney in private practice, a former special education teacher and administrator, a current mom to four children with IPS and I myself have ADHD and dyslexia. So I’ve approached the world of disability and special education from many angles. And I’ll provide straightforward information about your rights and your schools obligations, information from other professionals on many topics, as well as tips and tricks for working with your school district. My goal is to empower you through your journey. So please subscribe to this podcast so you don’t miss any new episodes. And I want to know what you want to know. So like, follow and drop me a note on my need to know with Dana Jonson Facebook page. Okay, let’s get started. Okay, so many of you know, this is IEP season. For those of you who don’t, the springtime is when most schools have their IEP meetings to discuss either students extended school year services or yes why or to plan for the next school year, even for students who may be their annuals in say, December. A lot of times school districts want to wait to the end of the school year to determine whether the child will require extended school year services over the summer and or if they’re transitioning to a new building. A lot of that stuff happens in the spring. You don’t do that too, too early. So this is a busy time of year for us anyway, and then add that we miss IP season last year because all schools are closed, we had no idea it was going on. So this is really hectic. So typically I speak to you or I have a guest who joins me to discuss some special education topic relevant to parents and their world. But today, I’m gonna do something a little bit different. You may remember attorney Laura Hannigan from my office who has been a guest on my show. Well, yesterday, she went on a day in our shoes with Lisa lightner. Now I’m gonna pause for a second. If you are not familiar with Lisa and her website a day in our shoes calm, I really recommend you go check it out. Lisa is a mom and an advocate. And professionally she offers IP coaching and IP advocacy training. But the real treasure trove of information is her website, the resources she has on there. Fantastic. So I strongly recommend you go check out a day in our shoes.com and Lisa lightner. And as usual, I will have all that information in my show notes. So if you’re on the go, please go back to the show notes later and check out our website. Okay, so now Laura joined Lisa yesterday for a Facebook Live conversation and the topic was COVID-19 and compensatory education services. And the content was so rich and relevant to right now because parents are heading into their spring IP meetings, schools are starting to open back up and many of you are looking towards what kind of compensatory education Am I entitled to and what is happening moving forward as a result of COVID even though many of us have gotten vaccinated, you might have noticed that the world just didn’t go back to normal after we got that shot. So there is a lot going on, there’s going to be a lot going on as far as compensatory education. And there’s going to be a lot going on for planning for students moving forward. So I reached out to Lisa and she very generously gave me permission to play the audio for you on my podcast. So that is what we’re going to do today. It’s a little bit long, they go a little over an hour, I think but it’s very well worth the listen. So please, if you’re on the go, just keep popping it back on when you get in your car and enjoy.
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 03:54
Welcome everyone. It’s 12 o’clock. So grab your lunch and join myself and Laura. I’m gonna do a few quick housekeeping items while people are connecting and give us a moment to show up in Facebook feeds. Make sure that we’re there. I know. I’m double checking. Come on. Yep, there we are. Okay, good. Let’s see us. Okay, so we are on our live. So first of all, welcome. We’re here today we’re going to talk about COVID and comp Ed. Our standard disclaimer lar here and I’m gonna give you her bio in a second. She is an attorney. But this information that we provide today does not and is not intended to be specific legal advice, but just for general informational purposes. responses to questions posed does not create an attorney client relationship and individual issues. should always be addressed by an attorney licensed to practice in your state. With me today is Laura Hennigan. Laura is lives in New Fairfield, Connecticut, and she’s an attorney in New York and Connecticut for the past 25 years. She also, you know, watch this walk just like we all do. Um, she has three children. And one has Asperger’s. And Laura, let you say, I was gonna say prior to, you know, getting involved in this, you were a different type of attorney. But you know, you get ended up on the same journey. And so here we are. And I will send out the links. And Laura is going to provide us with some information today, and some OSEP guidance letters and things like that. And I will give you her firm’s website, which is special ed dot law. And her email address, and all that fun stuff of the podcast, which does occasionally with her with Dana Jonson, I will send you out all those links. Make sure that you are subscribed to the email so that you get those links. And I will put them I’m putting them in the comments right now. Okay, and that were being spammed? I will go. I’ll do that when you start. Let me just finish the intro, and then I’ll go get rid of him. So yeah, so we’re gonna go over that today. If you haven’t met me before, I’m Lisa lightner. I run this Facebook page and the site a day in our shoes. I’ve also started recently doing online IEP coaching for parents. And we just did our first group of 18 and went fantastic. And we’re doing more in May. So I will send out that information. But today, we want to talk about COVID and he SY and comp services and all that fun stuff. So Laura, Martin, are you introduce yourself Say hi. Okay.
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 07:16
Good morning. Good afternoon, wherever you are. As Lisa said, I’m Laura Hennigan. I’m an attorney practicing in special education law. And I’m happy to be back here to talk to you about COVID and comp services. I do have three children and my oldest has aside from diagnosis of Asperger’s, a lot of learning disabilities, but he’s about a month away from graduating from college, which makes me very excited and nervous at the same time. I have another daughter in college who has some anxiety issues, and she has a support dog with her to help with anxiety. And then I have a daughter who is a junior in high school. So college process is coming up again. So I’ve been here with you before. And I don’t always have a lot of direct answers. And I’m sorry that I may not have a lot of direct answers for you. But my plan is to give you some general information. So we’re all working from the same place and using the same terminology, and then address some issues that I think would come up if it were just open to questions. So we will take questions at the end. You know if there’s enough time, and if not, Lisa will give you my email and I’ll be happy to respond. I just want to shout out to COPPA, the Council of parents, advocates and attorneys. Some of my presentation I got from a presentation that was done at their conference in March. So thank you to COPPA. It’s a great resource. And they can be found at co pa.org. And are we ready to get into it?
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 08:49
We are I’m still trying to ban these losers. Um, so Okay. And also, if you’ve been with Laura and I before I’m on Facebook, live history dictates that I will probably lose electricity. Because that has seemed to happen every time that Laura and I get together. But hopefully that won’t happen today. But now at least she knows that she can just keep talking and I can help them today. So she was spammers. So that’s fine, right? Today’s spammers that Okay, we’ll get them. Okay, so let’s start with let’s start with where are we?
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 09:27
Let’s start. So here we go. What is compensatory education. So again, I want to give you a little bit of background, a lot of you might know this stuff, but just in case I want everybody to kind of start at the same level. So we know the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act or the ID EA requires public school districts to provide a free appropriate public education or a faith to students with a disability. And this is usually done through an individual education program, which we call an IEP designed to meet that student’s unique needs. And when asked denied a FAPE for a period of time for whatever reason, one of the remedies available is referred to as compensatory education. Now, compensatory education is not actually specifically named in either the statue with resolutions, but has developed through case law, which has determined that a denial of faith requires what’s known as an equitable remedy, which means a non mount monetary method of making someone whole. And we’ll talk a little bit more about that in a little bit. Because COVID hopefully such a unique thing, there was some thought to not use the term compensatory education, because that is the term prior, prior to COVID that was used for Miss services. And it’s a term that tends to put districts into a defensive mode, because you were telling them that they did not do what they were supposed to do for whatever reason. So there was kind of an effort to come up with other terms for it, but then the US Department of Education used compensatory services and their guidance. So that seems to be the prevailing term. If your district is offended, call it a guava, you know, it doesn’t matter what it’s called, as long as you’re getting what you need, as long as they’re providing the services that a child needs and best. For the purpose of this, I’m going to refer to compensatory services compensatory education interchangeably. So compensatory services are designed to put a student in the place he or she would have been in having not been deprived of their special education and related services. The content of the program for compensatory services needs to be based on that student’s individual level of performance. And I’m going to say this over and over during the next hour or so. It doesn’t necessarily mean a one to one replacement of hours missed. Each child needs to be assessed at where they were when school shut down, or when we went to a virtual mode. And services should be developed by the team based on the present levels of performance for back in school in person services. So if you’re with me last time I was with Lisa, we spoke about documenting your child’s progress, or lack of progress during COVID, including what did work, what didn’t work, what services were missed. This is when that data becomes really important. So school districts are usually responsible for performing and maintaining the assessments of your child. But not being in school, a lot of that didn’t happen. So most of the information which the team will use to inform on the present levels are going to be coming from you the parent. So to receive compensatory education, the school does not have to be found negligent or at fault in any way. It merely remedies a loss of special education services without regard to the cause of that loss. So the loss here is due to COVID forced schools to close type entitled students to compensatory education. Sounds really straightforward, and simple. I wish it was. So I want to make sure we all have a basic idea of how the process works in making and enforcing the laws regarding special education. Because during COVID, there were no waivers to the implementation of the laws regarding special education, meaning what school was in session, students with special education services continued to be entitled to those services, whether school was completely viral in person or a hybrid. That was not the case when schools were temporary, close or temporarily closed. for all students during that short time period. Nobody was just receiving services and schools were not liable for that time period. So we know that laws like the IBA, are made at a federal level. And then states have the ability to make laws which can give people more rights than federal laws, but can’t be more restrictive. So as an example, the Federal timeline on something might be 30 days, where the state requirement is 15 days in that state, the requirement is 15 days, because it’s not more restrictive. It’s giving you more rights. When we provide special education, there’s a process we go through if we challenge it, due process that I’m sure many of you have heard of. And then that decision can be appealed generally to a state or federal court. And just stick with me, I’m not going to get too deep into this, but I just want a general understanding. From that level. You can appeal to a Federal Circuit Court, and the country is divided into 12 different circuit Courts of Appeal. Those circuits can have different interpretations of the law. And the only way the whole country operates under the same interpretation of the law is when that challenge reaches the US Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court makes a decision so specific to special education. Andrew F in 2017, the Supreme Court determined that the standard is an educational program. reasonably count reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress appropriate in light of the child’s circumstances. Great, we have, you know, a standard, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t subject to different interpretive actions of reasonably or progress or appropriate. So prior to COVID, every Circuit Court of Appeals recognized that compensatory education was a thing. It was an appropriate equitable remedy to address a denial of fate. Great, we’re all on the same page. One of the resources I’ll give you through Lisa is a list of the circuit court decisions that refer to competition. So you can look at your circuit and kind of see where they stand. If you don’t know what circuit you’re in, is a quick Google search, you know, what’s what circuit is Tennessee, and you’ll be good. Courts generally, I have two different measures, a quantitative approach and a qualitative approach. So quantitative approach is the our four hour replacement, I lost 36 hours of speech, I get 36 hours of speech. Most recently, courts rely more on the qualitative approach. And instead of looking at the hours lost, they look at the educational benefit last, and then awards should be based on again, individualized assessments, leading to different results, depending on the different needs of each student. Regardless of the approach, the courts agree that when a student is deprived of a vape, because school districts violated or we’re just unable to comply with the requirements of the DEA, the students are entitled to an award of compensatory education. Okay, so we’ve had this little court thing, how does this, you know apply to the real world, we’re not in court that time is that process is timely, it’s expensive, and it’s not the guarantee of success. So we’re in all different phases across the country of still, whether we’re in person or hybrid. And we all need to address these missed services. And my best advice is to start as soon as possible. This may be sending your special education teacher or administrator an email that says something like, I understand Bobby will be entitled to compensatory education for the services missed in his IEP due to COVID. Can we please set up a time to discuss how the team intends to address this, I can provide the data I have been collecting right. During this time, in order to help the team determine the areas in which he lacked progress, or he regressed. And this can be done whether you’re back in person or not, because they all know what’s coming, they This has got to be addressed. And being proactive is only going to help. And here is where all of that data comes in. You can say Bobby missed 36 hours of speech in language. While at home, we observed he’s no longer to do this set of skills, which he was able to do when he was in school in person prior to COVID. And then looking at his goals and objectives. Maybe he made some progress in some areas. And that’s okay, you can acknowledge that there’s no penalty for acknowledging progress in some areas. Are there new areas of weakness that you noted? Or has the school told you previously that he mastered objectives, and now that you’re sitting next to his zoom, you realize that didn’t happen? Perhaps he was getting more support than you realized. For an example, let’s say Bobby mastered a goal of writing a grade level three paragraph essay on a nonfiction subject. At home, he can’t generate two cohesive sentences for you. So what do we do you document this? You bring it to the team’s attention, which should always include work samples have him you know, write out the those sentences and bring it to the school and say, you know, where’s Where are the three paragraphs? generalizing a skill like that, in different domains is part of mastering a skill. So to not be able to do it when the teacher isn’t guiding each step does not master remake? So, as I said, schools are going to have to individually assess where each student is, at their present levels of performance, which should be a familiar term, what services have we missed, and how that has affected each student? That sounds really daunting. And I think it is. And I think unless politely pressured, it will be easy for schools to just kind of march along and act as though everything is fine. One of the arguments I anticipate hearing is every student Miss educational time, so we’re all in the same place. Why? Why would we have to make up you know, anything, everybody’s behind it to an extent there’s validity to that argument. Were it not for those pesky laws regarding students with special education services. There’s no equivalent for general education students. So a student with an IEP has certain goals and objectives to meet in a certain period of time. that are developed in their IEP. The whole purpose of the IEP is to provide individualized services to a special education student to address their specific needs. Again, they will equivalent in the general education world. So the general radio services may be helpful. They don’t take the place of compensatory education and making up for those last COVID closures and distance learning skills. So, as a parent, you also might be asking yourself, Well, you know, my Gen Ed kid is really falling far behind. They’re not a grade level anymore. The experience of virtual was horrible, refused to participate shut down, or we didn’t have access to the internet for a period of time or whatever it may have been. To that I would say that child may now need to be assessed as to whether they would qualify for a 504 or special education services. We all know that anxiety and depression amongst students has skyrocketed during this time. And that in itself can cause students to now have different needs. So if your general education student is now struggling, put in a referral to special education for an assessment. I anticipate pushback on the where we’re meeting, remediating everyone, we’ve got to plan for everybody argument. But I always say this, you know, your child better than anyone. And it may be that your child was barely compensating with their skills, and those skills are now not sufficient. So there’s no doubt there’ll be gaps of all sorts at all grade levels. Some of these might be able to be remediated, others might not. Secondary education institutions, whether they be academic, or trade, or whatever, you know, the next step after high school is, are well aware of this. And they realize that students coming in during the next probably few years, at least, may have a different school skill set than those previous. This isn’t necessarily good or bad. It’s just different. And I think we kind of need to all adjust to a different way of thinking about it. Does it matter that Bobby missed third grade unit on community? Yes or no? And in the big picture, the answer is probably more likely No. As he’s got other ways to learn about his community and what it presents. Does it matter that Bobby sister missed most of her algebra one class, and is missing those skills in a subject that builds on itself? Again, Maybe yes, maybe no. If she likes math, and will continue to take it, those holes will have to be addressed. And as they are discovered. If she doesn’t like math, and doesn’t continue with it, it might not be a big deal. So I’m in no way discounting the skills and time of in person education that were lost. And just stating, we need to maybe adjust our thought process around it and see where are the really important pieces that we need to focus on? So one of the questions I anticipate is, Will all children with IPS be entitled to compensatory education? And if any of you have seen me before, I rarely enable am able to give a direct answer. The answer this is no. In some instances, I’ve been hearing my kids doing great, they love this virtual education, their social anxiety totally disappeared. that enabled them to learn better than they have before. And this is great. If that’s the case, maybe compensatory academic services aren’t needed. But a lot of these students now are challenging going back to school. And that may be where you have to focus your efforts. Since every student with special education services needs to needs to be individually assessed, this should all come to light and be addressed appropriately. So many students may only have issues in certain areas. So after being individually assessed, you’re looking at those areas. As an example, I have a client whose mom is a literacy specialist, and the student has dyslexia. And during the COVID period, when she wasn’t in school, her mom was able to continue her reading instruction throughout the pandemic. So while she still needs remediation in other areas, she continued to make appropriate progress in reading. Now, progress is another one of those terms that I think is subject to different interpretation depending on the school or the parents, because it is a subjective term and their interpretation of what progress is might be quite different from yours. And hopefully, you’ll end up somewhere in the middle. The next thing I anticipate kind of a big question is or an issue is schools arguing that they have reduced funding because they had a bi PP they had to clean they had to you know, do all these things and they may be financially strained in reopening after the closure. The rights of a student with a disability to a vape is an entitlement under the federal law, school districts are free to opt for a more economical alternative, provided that it meets that standard of faith. a shortage of funds is not a valid excuse to fail to provide a favor. And we’re not sure what’s going to happen, you know, in the coming months, but there’s billions of federal dollars are in the process of being allocated to schools for many different reasons. It’s unclear at this point, whether certain funds will be tagged for special education, I would imagine at some point they will, and how all that will work is unknown, but your state and local agencies will likely be communicating this to you. And I would pay attention to that and see where the money’s going. Because as is typical in special education, the squeaky wheel is going to get oiled. And I suggest doing it in a collaborative, non hostile way, proactively suggesting solutions always get you further than just complain that you don’t have something. The question that comes up a lot is, you know, okay, summer’s coming, we have two and a half three months are we going to be able to remediate some of this loss? There, it’s probably a different answer in different districts, different states, there’s a lot of theories floating around as to how this all gonna happen. There, there’s only so many hours in the day. And teachers generally are under contract for what they have to provide, both during the school year and during the summer. And those are negotiated union contracts to a great extent, and you can’t just say everybody’s gonna work this summer. So we can’t necessarily expect that summer will serve as an overall catch up time. I have heard districts talking about offering a more robust Academic Services. As we’ve seen in the regular extended school year services, they’re generally fairly limited in scope and time. So it’s definitely an area you want to discuss if the school says we’re going to make things up during the summer in your ESXi. But they offer you the same three hours a day for four weeks, that’s not going to cut it because that’s what you would have had before. And this is where, you know, a good opportunity to be proactive comes so we’ll go back to Bobby, you can locate a private provider who can give Bobby their speech and language services and requested the district pay for it. This is what he needs to remediate this loss. If they say no, you document your efforts, and their alternative suggestion, which might be that ESB program. And this is where I think state complaints might actually come in really handy. Because there’s a clear violation of missing service hours, you’ve provided the district with a legitimate solution of private services, and they disagree. If you file a state complaint over that, you may get an answer to it. You don’t need to be a lawyer and advocate necessarily to do that. And some of these issues, as I said, will be pretty straightforward. The less straightforward issues, you still have the same dispute resolution mechanisms that were always available, in addition to the state complaint, mediation and due process. So I kind of looked at where legal decisions have been falling so far, supporting compensatory claims. And we know when this started, and we moved to remote learning, there was kind of a skill set to provide to the greatest extent possible or make every effort. And again, these are subjective terms. in a 2020 state complaint in Wisconsin case, they found that a district through remote learning provided specifically designed instruction in math and reading but failed to the greatest extent possible, which was the catch all, to have tests read aloud to the student and hold weekly meetings with the student and the teacher as was required in the IEP? This seems like such an easy thing. Great One, you know, they said this was this was a violation. What’s the remedy? The remedy from the state complaint was go back to the IEP team and discuss the additional services required to remedy so we’re kind of back to that collaboration and cooperation. So don’t necessarily think I’m filing a state complaint, they’re gonna tell them they’re wrong, they’re gonna fix it, you might end up back at that team meeting, trying to figure it out.
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 29:30
It’s funny, cuz I just did a session on that a couple of weeks ago, and I said to people, the parents and I don’t want you to feel deflated about these state complaints. But a lot of times, you’re not going to be happy with the recourse or the remedy because a lot of times it’s either a staff training or go back and figure it out.
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 29:47
Exactly.
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 29:48
So
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 29:50
and I mean, that’s, that’s through due process hearings, hearing officers, or applying a standard requiring parents show on material or something nificant gap between what was written in the IEP and what was provided? Again, there’s no definition of either material or significant. There was a case in Nevada in 2020, where the school announced and across the board reduction in service. So this week, you know, everybody’s getting reduced services. And that was not okay, because that was a violation. How many times have I said individual, you know, during this, that was a violation of the parent’s right to meaningfully participate, and they did not consider individual students circumstances. In that case, the parent was awarded reimbursement for in person tutoring, and private ot. So remember, early on, I said, the remedy is equitable. In that case, they did pay for stuff. And that’s true. But what the student got is the services not money. And that’s the difference, the parents can earn a windfall of cash in an equitable remedy, but money can be spent by the district to provide those
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 31:00
services. And even if you do even get a comp Ed fund in the normal circumstances, it usually has a whole bunch of strings attached to it as far as what qualifies and what doesn’t.
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 31:10
Absolutely, you usually have to provide documentation proving that the services were provided and all of that. So it’s not a simple check to you for, you know, missing stuff. As far as court cases, nothing has really come up yet, because a we’re still in a pandemic. And the court cases take a long time to percolate up through the system. And it’s actually a good thing, because I think as attorneys, we need to be really cautious. And bringing cases too soon, because they are going to define how these issues are resolved. And just as an example, there was a 2020 case with New York, where a lawyer filed a suit on behalf of more than 100 students with disabilities, most of whom did not live in New York. And this was problematic for a lot of reasons. The, the lawyer filed for due process for these families in order to get into the system without having ever met these families, and took away the family’s right to pursue their rights. So it was dismissed for a variety of reasons. And it was just poor lawyering. And again, that reminds us that the I DEA, you can’t have a class action for an individualized service. So you know, Congress did not jump in, and nobody waived responsibility of the school districts to provide faith. These arguments were continue in the ways I’ve outlined in complaints in hearings, and eventually court cases, the people hearing them hearing officers at the at the kind of low level, they’re regular people, and they’ll be left to decide whether a district made their best efforts during this time. The more procedural violations, so timelines, notice things like that, the more likely they’re not going to be penalized. Because a it wasn’t possible to follow some of these normal procedures, and be procedural violations before COVID. Were not very strong on their own. So the good news, and there’s good news is that, you know, the slack schools have been getting cut for the pandemic is likely to end, they’re coming back in person services are being made available. And they’re going to be held more strictly accountable. They’ve got to realize that in person services can happen in a variety of venues and shouldn’t be limited to the school building while trying to remedy some of these things. And there’s an expectation that the federal government will give some guidance on compensatory education. What it will entail is not unknown, but it is far more likely to favor students with disabilities than it would have several months ago. So that is good news. Yeah. Another big issue that that’s come up is, you know, my child was due to be evaluated or we needed an initial evaluation, and that hasn’t happened. It’s another non concrete area. But there are there are very few evaluations that can be done accurately with validity in a virtual setting. So that really did set back a lot of things for valid reason. Many of these evaluations rely on personal interaction, facial expression, interaction, you know, Converse, conversing between the participant and the value evaluator. And things like that as a part of the assessment are not conducive to being done virtually or even with masks in person. That being said, states are issuing some guidance on this. I know here in Connecticut They basically said, Do what you can make an eligibility determination from the information you have, and then reassess when evaluations can be completed. And this is an area again, where maybe some of those private providers will offer in person services sooner than your school district. So if you can find an in person evaluator to do your cyclic, oh psychoeducational, or your speech language evaluation, approach your school and ask if they’ll pay for the evaluation, if they decline document that you were providing them with a solution. There are some screeners or different scales that can be done based on when the student was last in school, if you’re just looking for information. And that may have to go back to last year’s teacher because this your teacher may not have actually met your child. As a parent, you have more knowledge probably than you ever had on your child’s skills while being educated. And you need to use that in in these discussions because you are an equal member of this team. So masks are a big thing, too. Especially as we start going back in person, vaccines are becoming more readily available. If you’re in a state where masks are not mandatory anymore in person, you may be afraid for your child’s health. And this is a tough one. Especially I’ve heard, so some districts who are going back in person are ceasing their virtual option. Because the teachers get balanced, both is what they’re being told. So if you don’t participate in person, you’re not going to be educated. until some guidance comes out at a state or a federal level, this will probably be decided at a district level. And I think a good comparison is to pre go COVID times is when your school had a lice infestation. So somebody at school has lice, the parents were notified that your child had been exposed, they needed to be checked and remediated before they could return to school, maybe some kids were given work at home, maybe not depending on the school, and potentially the teachers, if the school is not offering a virtual option, because they’re open in person, unless you can agree with the school on some individual parameters. It’s just like the lice issue. You know, they’re not obligated to provide virtual or out of school. If your child is medically fragile, you may have stronger argument. But again, I think you have to go back to pre COVID. There still were other issues that your child may have been facing, how were those handled then, and try to address them in the same way. The other thing I see pop up a lot on some of the Facebook groups is either the school wants to retain my child, or I want to retain that child, because they’ve missed so much. And yet again, no definitive answers, but a couple of suggestions. But unless it’s a really young kid, like preschool, maybe kindergarten, you it’s generally advised against retaining. And part of the reason, especially pre COVID was if the school is going to do the same thing over again, is there really going to be a difference. You should be programming to your child’s abilities, not necessarily the grade that they’re in. Everyone did experience loss. And this is kind of where that validity comes into that argument that the conditions are different for everybody, the expectations are different for everybody. And education, this next year is going to look a little bit different. So instead of focusing on the grade, focus on your child’s skills, and the goals and objectives based on those, hopefully that makes sense. So I bring up potential
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 38:57
loss because a lot of parents, one, and a lot of parents want to retain and I say the same thing, if you’re going to do the same thing, what’s going to be different this year, same thing, when you’ve just opened that gap more in addition to what they you know what the experts say it can be psychological and emotional damage, because they feel like a failure, even if they don’t say it out loud, you know, all their friends
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 39:20
moved on. And they did not? Absolutely, I mean, there’s a lot of studies, especially when you hit like third grade, that there’s no benefit to retaining a child, you’ve really got to just focus on the skills. So those were kind of like the big areas that I wanted to cover. And I know that was a lot of information in a short period of time, and I probably talked really fast. So I’m sorry.
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 39:43
So before we get into the questions, um, yes, we’ve been hit hard by spammers on the page. And I did have a couple of people say we’ll just ignore them. But that made it very difficult for real folks to ask questions, but we’ve been reading through and I actually quickly texted my virtual assistant so can you please hop on and help me ban these people? Because they just, they just showered the page with spam? Unfortunately,
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 40:09
doesn’t pay or thoughts people have better things to do?
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 40:13
I guess not? I guess not. And thank you, Dana, for helping out. Damon’s on answering some questions in between there. Okay, so let’s see. Let me get. So here’s a question from Michelle. What if the special ed teacher admits that they did not even bother to address a goal that was in the IEP? I have a meeting next Monday where I want comp services and time for the times they didn’t even address that goal.
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 40:45
So typically, your answer, it depends. It depends what is the goal was the goal regarding social situation and school which didn’t happen that was potentially unable to be addressed and may have to be a goal that was carried over? If it was something that could have been addressed in whatever form your school was in? It’s, you know, definitely something that should be looked at for compensatory education? Which again, we’ll probably come back to a team decision on how to address. Okay,
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 41:18
here’s a question from a school based OT, and she says our district is discussing comp and Recovery Services for Students this summer. One area we are having difficulty deciding is about attendance and participation during virtual learning. Can we offer compensatory services for students who could have made progress virtually, but for a myriad of reasons, the student the student did not sign on?
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 41:44
Yes, absolutely. It’s, you know, we’re not looking at faults here of the district or in a starless student, there were a lot of students who weren’t able to participate virtually for, again, any number of reasons. And that does not disqualify them from having the benefit of those Miss ours being made up. So yes. And I’m glad if you can provide those ot services in school.
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 42:11
Good. Okay, let’s preview this. I know you went over it earlier. But for those who joined late derrius, is asking how does a parent self advocate for compensatory and
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 42:22
so hopefully, during the, the pandemic, when your child was home, you were keeping data relating to the program your child should have received, what they actually received, and how they did with those services? Did they make progress? Did they interact, you know, the way that they were supposed to be? Did they make any progress on those goals and objectives, and you are the holder of that data at this point, because you’ve been, you know, zooming next to your child, for the last however many months, so you, you need to walk in with the data to show where the holes are. And again, if your child may progress in some areas, it’s okay to acknowledge that all Kansa did not lose ground in every area. But the areas that they did lose ground in should be, I hate to say compensated because I don’t mean money, those services need to be made up for. So, you know, it’s just go in with the data, as we said earlier, and make your argument and your your position may be that your student didn’t make any progress. And the schools may be that they made some progress. And hopefully you can find that middle ground and determine where you know, you should spend that time.
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 43:42
Okay, another one from God. And I know how I’d answer this, but I’ll see how you answer it. We chose remote schooling for my child in his IEP, he has 270 minutes a day of a parent support. I have provided that 100% during this remote schooling and was told this could not be provided. So I did. And her question is, are they receiving extra funding for that?
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 44:05
Well, how would you answer that, at least
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 44:06
in my mind would be Who cares? Like, that’s not to me, that’s not the right thing to focus on and keep the focus on your child and their progress and what they needed. You know, hindsight is always 2020. And you perhaps could have done a 10 day notice saying, I will provide these parents services, and I’m going to build the school. But I don’t know, you know, what legal grounds you have to stand on a year later and say, well, I’ve been doing it for a year now reimburse me.
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 44:36
It’s been pretty clear that parents are not in a position to be paid by the district for services that they provide to their child during the pandemic, whether that’s right or wrong. That’s that’s kind of what’s what’s really come out.
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 44:50
Yeah, so I wouldn’t even I mean, it’s not my job to monitor the school districts checkbook. It’s my job to make sure that my child’s needs are met. So I’d say keep the focus on your child with They need Where are the gaps are, what gaps got larger during the pandemic? And you know, what, what does he need to move forward.
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 45:09
And, you know, I would go back to pay attention when the budgets are being talked about because it’s all being masks, evening on buses, we’re not running for months, but then cleaning how to be crazy. And then it Nothing is going to align the way that an accountant probably would want it to all line up nice and pretty, including all of these service hours. So but I agree, I wouldn’t I wouldn’t focus on where the money went. And let’s look at how we get the services it. If you were able to provide those services, then you’re probably not entitled to a compensatory, you know, remediation, if some goals and objectives weren’t met, because your child was not in school to receive those services. That’s the point that you’d want to hit.
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 45:56
Right. Okay. And Wendy is asking about home instruction. I’m assuming she I’m assuming she means homebound. She just wrote, what about home instruction? I mean, homebound is a placement change. And that is one of the most restrictive placements.
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 46:10
So yeah, I see this coming up a lot to people are like, this works. So great. I’m keeping my child home from now on, and, you know, do your thing, make your own decisions, but there’s a lot of things that kind of go into that decision. If you chose to kind of homeschool your child during this time, which a lot of people did. And now you want to go back into the school district. You may be starting over if you if you remove your child from the public schools, you may have to go back in as a new referral. If you kind of worked with the school on what was being done at home, and you still have your child enrolled, you weren’t technically homeschooling. Now, I know some some people, especially with like medically fragile children, for people who were very concerned about some of the health parameters want to keep their child home. I think that the result is going to be this homebound instruction that Lisa mentioned, which is very restricted, very limited. I mean, three hours a week, maybe of you know, kind of tutoring services, your child is not receiving an education. But if you are agreeing to that you’re kind of waiving those rights. So I’d be very careful just in making those decisions. Yeah.
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 47:33
And again, I will send out I have a wonderful spreadsheet that someone compiled for me of all the different state records for all 50 states, but the homeschooling laws vary to some states do actually provide related services, if you choose to homeschool, some do not. And then there’s about a dozen or two dozen states that offer the public public cyber charter option. In which case those schools are considered public schools and then you your child is entitled to faith. So it can really vary a lot. For all the family, some of the
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 48:11
the I can think of the word the schools where you learn to trade, you know, there’s probably there too, because kids weren’t able to be hands on with anything. A see one of the questions, how can we change the law, so kids enrolled in school during COVID can extend their educational career until 22. Instead of 21. It would be great if we had the opportunity to say okay, let’s just give everybody an extra year, it’s gonna have to be through a legislature, Connecticut recently changed the law and actually not to do with COVID. To extend, it used to be that the year your student turns 21, they could finish that school year. And now it’s the day they turned 22. They’re out. So there was a little bit of an extension of time. But again, it had nothing to do with COVID. And unless the federal or state government comes out with some type of, you know, solution to that, and that that would be your answer. Talk to your legislators, talk to your board of education, talk to, you know, the powers that be to see if there’s any access to change that.
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 49:19
Yeah, and I you know, I’m very much in touch with all my legislators and other legislators in my area, because I do a lot of lobbying. And I can tell you that I’ve been told directly from senators offices then in this current Congress. So this is the Congress that will be in 21 and 22. It is not at all on their radar to do anything with ID EA. It’s not a priority for them. Don’t expect to reoffend that would be the type of thing that would typically be included in like a beat that big reauthorization and not separate legislation. I know here in Pennsylvania, I did a Facebook Live last year around this time. I’m with one of our state legislators. And he was just trying to get something pushed through that for last year because we were so naive last year at this time when you think about it. But he was trying to push through that every child with an IEP qualified for ies Why? In order to get them he is why for last summer because of what had been going on, and you know, he couldn’t even get that pass through. And then of course, we see that that was a band aid at best. Yeah, compared to the bigger picture, we’ve, you know, what has ended up happening.
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 50:33
And I have heard that some, some schools are going to offer EFI to students who would not otherwise have qualified for EFI. But again, don’t fall for that extra compensatory services unless they are working on those specific skills. Because I find that as why programs are usually pre determined both the hours that they are and what’s going to be done during that time. And again, you know, teachers are contractually obligated to work somewhere or not work this summer. And they unless something changes, there’s not going to be a whole lot more staffing to these programs, which to me means less of an ability to really address some of these individualized issues.
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 51:19
Right. Okay, sure. All the question is, there was no attempt, no attempt was made to provide the one on one therapies with teachers during the spring. She’s saying that is not necessarily Oh, time wise, they want to give all students six hours of CCS during the time that was supposed to be ies Why? So I guess she was just asking for clarification, and that they do not schools do not owe us our for our
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 51:48
No, you know, some, if it got up to the courts, some circuit courts may look at it through that lens. But for the most part, it’s we’re looking at educational benefit lost, not ours lost. So if your student did not regress and was able to make progress, there’s not going to be compensatory services owed.
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 52:10
Okay. Let’s see, Rebecca. An evaluation was requested before the shutdown, but it wasn’t provided until last December. So December 2020. Need was found, but the services were not provided until March of 2021. So basically, because of the shutdown, it sounds like her eval, and her entire process was back a year. And meanwhile, student unable to learn successfully without services and fails to meet his GPA to continue with the magnet High School. Can I use comp ed to keep him there?
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 52:45
Um, the short answer is possibly. And
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 52:52
I do that too. I’m like, well, maybe
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 52:56
this is where I think, especially when it comes to high school students that you might have to think about about those post 12th grade years, that in a case where your child missed a considerable amount of time and was not evaluated and Miss services, just because they hit 12th grade, they don’t have to exit the special education system they have until they’re 21. So you have to talk about transition services in your state, depending on the age of your child, but usually by 14 or 16. So you’re going to be talking about those services now. And that’s where I think you can address these deficits that first, they’ve got to be identified. So obviously, the the testing has to be done and the needs have to be determined. And just know that you do have some extra time. But I would say yeah, that’s that’s absolutely. You weren’t able to get evaluated. Therefore, you weren’t allowed able to determine what services would be services maybe even more now, because now we’ve had a year so I would definitely use that as an argument to seek compensatory services. Yeah.
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 54:08
Okay, so Christy is asking, Can we request summer school for a child? I don’t know if you mean he is why or actual summer school and he is why of course, you can always request it. My philosophy on EFI is, is evolving. And I would say, you know, no kid wants to go to school in the summer, disabled or otherwise. So if they are going to go to school in the summer, let’s make it meaningful. Um, and a lot of ESRI programs are crap. And all I can say that I’m because I’m a parent advocate. They’re just junk and they’re still going on that de minimis expectation where as long as they provide the minimum amount of something for us why that’s ies Why? So, um, you can request it but keep it focused on your child’s needs. And again, don’t just automatically take the hand program. If It’s not what you’re trying to do.
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 55:02
And I would expect that a lot of private providers are going to try to put a product out there for the summertime. Whether it be you know, reading camp or social, social and emotional, which is a huge issue with a lot of, you know, social groups, any of these, these things are potentially able to be used as a summer school, and you request that your your school pay for it, in order to compensate you for kind of these last services. Now, when you agree to something like that, I’m just going to, you know, lawyer up for a minute because it chances are, they’re going to request that you sign an agreement that says, You know, I agree that I’m waiving all my rights, because they’re providing me with this service. That’s a thing where you want an attorney to look at, because unfortunately, schools are not always straightforward in these agreements and can result in you’re waiving more than the rights do you think you’re waiving. So if you can come to terms with your school, on what they will provide, if they ask you to sign any kind of settlement, have somebody take a look at it, it may be that you simply need to, you know, submit your receipt for the camp or whatever the summer program is, and they reimburse you for it. So I’m not trying to complicate things, but it’s a sorry, it’s impossible. streamsong means it’s my daughter.
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 56:38
No, but like, yeah, it’s always have an attorney. I always say that, you know, if you want to do the whole thing yourself, do it yourself, but have an attorney read that settlement agreement, because I’ve seen parents like not even think of things like transportation, and then not be able to take advantage of the service that the district agreed to, because they couldn’t afford transportation couldn’t figure out the transportation and things like that. So absolutely. And
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 57:02
an attorney, I would look for an attorney and special education if you have a friend who’s a you know, real estate attorney or contract. Settlement Agreement is a settlement agreement, but a special education is so just twisty turny, that there’s a lot of really tricky pieces to it. That being said, a lot of the attorneys will review something for legal purposes, you know, you agree to the terms, and we’ll we’ll review it to see if the legal pieces are okay. So you’re not incurring a large fee? to have somebody look at it, and it’s gonna protect you in a lot of ways.
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 57:41
And treat this question, I think, is probably the probably a lot of parents having trouble wrapping their brain around this, like, how do they determine what to ask for? And I get that a lot? Like, how do I know what to ask for?
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 57:53
Yeah, I, the thing that pops into my head is buying a used car where you want to like, start high and negotiate down or you can easily if you need a place to start, you can start at the one to one hour, my child lost 57 hours of you know, one to one tutoring, that’s what I want. They’re gonna have to go through and assess where your child is based on the skills that we’re trying to be addressed. And if there are deficits, then they may say, Well, we, you know, we can’t do 57 hours, but we will offer you blah, blah, blah, and it just kind of becomes a discussion. There’s no real answer to it. And the thing is, after whatever you agree to, if your child is still not remediated, then you need more. So it’s not if you if you decide on 25 hours, that’s it, you’re done. If your kid is not caught up, then your kid needs more at the same time. You there’s only so many hours in the day. So you need to be realistic at the same time. So if I had to give kind of a general, I’d say start at the one to one hours and see what the district offers to you. And then you know, kind of work your way from there and continue to track what you think your child’s progress is. And when you’re going into the IEP meeting, pre think that what what would have made my child me think that my child made progress. It could be as simple thing as words per minute, or one of these really, things that can really be measured. It might be a totally subjective thing that you think is one thing and the school thinks is another thing and you just have to have the discussion. Yeah.
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 59:47
Okay. Here’s probably a common one. If a student is still making progress, is there any chance for comp services?
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 59:55
There’s always a chance to say that because there’s a lot of different Skills involved. And now going back into person, maybe your child is going to have a deficit in some areas that were not realized. So if you have an IEP and your child was able to participate virtually, and make progress in every area, you’re not going to have a very good argument for compensatory services, because you don’t need them. That’s the thing. You’re you’re trying to put your child where they would have been had the last year basically not happen if your child was able to continue to flourish and to learn. You don’t need them. Right.
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 1:00:37
I’m Audrey and I kind of know Audrey, I think we answered your question already about a parent being reimbursed as the parent so might need to backtrack a little bit on three play. Angela says, I’ve been in discussion with my school, they are trying to push Summer School, which I know doesn’t address combat concerns, what do I tell them so I can get more appropriate services?
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 1:00:56
Well, I would deep dive into what do they expect to provide during those summer services? Is it their normal ESP program where they give three hours a day, four days a week for four weeks? What are they going to address to make up for the individual services that your child best? If they have the ability to have more staff in and they can address those things? Great. You know, then I would go for it. But I would really kind of nail down what what it is that they’re looking to offer? And I would definitely get it in writing. I’m remoteness question
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 1:01:32
and I can answer that one briefly about social skills. Short answer is that first of all, in ESP districts are not required to provide LRE because they cannot require the non disabled students necessarily to attend during the school year. That being said, if your child’s issue and where they lost this past year with social skills groups, and you found a social skills group or a camp or something like that, that meets his needs. Yes, I absolutely would ask for that. A grade.
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 1:02:07
And those are the opportunities to me you’re looking for, you’re looking to walk into that meeting with us.
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 1:02:16
Let’s see. Alright, let’s try darious. Again, just naturally high intelligence not making any progress. related services pull out providing minutes. Um, so for derrius, and I would say humeri. It sounds like your IEPs need a really good deep dive. And I would say, always start at present levels. If you’re a parent advocate, look at that present level section. And that’s the section that drives the IEP, that’s the section that they use to develop the goals. And then the goals are what you know, begin to determine what supports and services and interventions your child is going to get. So start at present levels, because you may need to ask for more evaluations, different evaluations. But it should have good baselines as far as where your child is, and their potential their strengths. I mean, it’s it should be really complete and accurate picture of your child. And if it’s not, then the rest of your IEP is going to be junk, you know, if that if the present levels isn’t accurate, then your goals aren’t gonna be accurate or solid or meaningful or appropriate. So I would say for both of you, I would start there. And I would just add to
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 1:03:35
that, we talked a little bit about the standards of faith, which right now are determined by a Supreme Court case. And I will send this along with the kind of resources that I simply set to share me, but you know, it’s basically three parts and IP has to be reasonably calculated to enable the child to make progress appropriate in light of that child’s circumstances. And that child’s circumstances are not everyone in the world being in a global pandemic. So second, all students are entitled to the chance to meet challenging objectives. And third, for students not fully integrated in regular education. The IEP must be appropriately ambitious, in light of the child’s circumstances. So to kind of go back to your point, your child was always ahead of grade level, they’re now at grade level. And you hear this a lot from schools. There’s no issue your child’s at grade level, if your child was always above grade level, and now they’re not their circumstances are showing regression. And it’s it’s a harder argument to make, and I would print out the legal, you know, standard and I would bring it with me and say my child circumstance is that he is now behind where he was. progressing. This is where if any of the information is chargeable, I love a good chart, you know, that shows my kid was at this level and then and then all of a sudden, you know, now they’re here, whether that’s reading or math or whatever the skill may be. Is our
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 1:05:22
Okay, she froze up. Kimberly, that’s a good question. Um, oh, is there any argument for the fact that goals were minimally changed from 2021 year or from 1920? year because there was no future data to write the goals? I think suppose you’re given a lot of leeway with this, don’t you? I do. I
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 1:05:45
think there’s gonna be a lot of carryover of goals and objectives that you just weren’t in the right place to address them. So yeah, I agree.
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 1:06:01
Okay, can summer camp for sports be used for phys ed combat? I mean, yeah, anything’s possible, but you’re gonna have to really demonstrate why your child went from, say, like a half hour a week of Phys. Ed to why they would need all day, every day of camp.
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 1:06:16
Yeah, and I think you’ve got to check your state requirement for what your child is supposed to receive for phys ed, because if it’s just a class that your kid really did well on and really liked and needed to burn that energy and was missing, that’s not necessarily something you know, that they’re going to compensate you for. If it’s because, you know, legally, their policy requires that your child was receiving because of their special education needs, not just because they’re a student in that school, it’s got to be because of their individual special education needs, and then you’ve got an argument for it. And they don’t pay for the full amount of camp, maybe they pay half of it. So, you know, keep keep your options open when you’re when you’re talking about these things.
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 1:07:00
All right. Okay, Benjamin to be entitled to combat, is it enough to fail to make progress? Or do you have to have lost ground,
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 1:07:08
you have to fail to make progress. So I mean, that’s the whole thing. Your child is supposed to be making progress toward mastering those goals and objectives. So if they have not made progress, or they have regressed, you should be entitled to compensatory services. Right? Yeah, like straightforward one.
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 1:07:30
Okay, let’s do one more, because we did say an hour and we’re a little bit over schools offering a Gen Ed 16 day camp instead of EFI. They have invited my daughter to attend. Is there any guidance? I mean, school has to offer? Yes, yes. Why if they have children who qualify? Right, or students? Yeah.
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 1:07:48
They’re offering a general education the 16 day camp instead of Yes. Why? I mean, you you as a parent are always welcome to not attend the school offered us why. So I’d say if if you think there’s going to be benefit to your child in attending a Gen Ed, maybe it is social issues. It’s kind of it’s kind of up to you, you don’t have to accept the schools as why, if you don’t, you can’t then say you didn’t give it to me. So no, I think this is probably a decision based on which one you think is better off. But I would, I would get specific information information as to what is going to be offered and make sure that it’s not putting your child in a situation where they not going to have the supports that they may need during that time.
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 1:08:34
Right. And again, you know, kids don’t want to go to school in the summer. So please make sure that it’s meaningful if you know if that’s what you’re going to do. And you know, if you can, there are always other options, whether whether you do ask the district to pay for a camp, because it’s appropriate for your child’s goals and what they’ve missed. You can always ask, you can always write to a lot of these camps for scholarships, and things like that. You know, and then there’s things like Vacation Bible School, you know, which I mean, I know around here, you can go to a vacation Bible school every week, all summer long if you wanted to at a different church. And some kids are just happy for the social outing, you know, without the without the pressure of school. So there are a lot of different options out there. Alright, learn any final thoughts?
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 1:09:21
Well, I just saw a question that I do want to address. Okay. What if the regress regressed on a skill that wasn’t an IEP goal? And I did the hit this kind of in my talk, but I know I said a lot quickly. If you notice that there are now skills that your child lost or you realize never had but the school assumed that they had, those are things that now you need new goals and objectives to address those. So that’s not necessarily a compensatory services issue, because they didn’t have goals and objectives there. That’s a wait a new IEP that addresses these skills that my child does not have issue.
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 1:10:00
Okay, um, okay, let me see if there’s anything else that we just had any points that we haven’t hit before we sign off.
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 1:10:10
And again, feel free to email me if we didn’t get to your question and I’ll answer it as you know, generally, but specifically, bye.
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 1:10:20
Yes, this replay will be on the Facebook page, I will email out the link to if you’re on my email list. Um, Laura is going to email me some information and I will actually put my email sign up. Right now it is just now the last comment. Hopefully, you can sign up for email and I will make sure I will wait till this evening to send that out to me to give folks a chance to get on it.
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 1:10:47
Yeah, I see somebody’s asking for my email.
Lisa Lightner, ADayInOurShoes.com 1:10:52
Yeah, okay. Well, great. Well, thank you so much, or you’re very welcome. Always a pleasure
Laura Heneghan, Special Education Attorney 1:10:55
to participate with you. Thank you, everyone.
Dana Jonson 1:11:03
Okay, wow, that was a lot of information. I hope it was helpful and that you gain from tools that you can take with you to your spring IP meetings to help advocate for your child and get services potentially compensatory education services for your child for services missed during the COVID closures. At the end, there was a lot of talk that Laura’s email address, but it didn’t quite make it live. So if you need to contact Laura, her email address is Laura la Ura. At special ed dot law, that information will be in my show notes. Please feel free to reach out to Laura with any questions and we wish you all the best in this IP season. Thank you so much for joining me today. Please don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast so you don’t miss any new episodes. And if there’s anything you want to hear a comment on, go to our Facebook page and drop me a note there. I’ll see you next time here on need to know with Dana Jonson have a fabulous day
