Dana Jonson [00:00:09]:
Welcome back to Special Ed on Special Ed. Thank you for joining me. I’m your host, Dana Johnson and today I’m excited to have April Rarig here with me. April is a distinguished advocate in special education with a career that spans over two decades as a school psychologist, teacher and parent with the public school setting. As the founder of Rise Educational Advocacy and Consulting, April has dedicated her professional life to helping and teaching parents how to advocate for their children with special education needs. Her unique approach emphasizes strength based perspectives, promoting team collaboration and communication to empower parents and teachers across the nation. Today, April will share with us lots of great, important information from her background and her expertise. Hi April, thank you so much for joining me today.

April Rehrig [00:00:59]:
Hi Dana, thanks for having me.

Dana Jonson [00:01:00]:
Well, I’m excited to get into it and I’m dying to know how you ended up in the advocacy position because I know we all have a story, but before we get started, I do have to play my disclaimer, so let’s get that out of the way.

Disclaimer [00:01:12]:
The information in this podcast is provided for general informational and entertainment purposes only and may not reflect the current law in your jurisdiction at the time you’re listening. Nothing in this episode creates an attorney client relationship, nor is it legal advice. Do not act or refrain from acting on the basis of any information included in or accessible through this episode without seeking appropriate legal or other professional advice on particular facts and circumstances at issue from a lawyer or service provider licensed in your state, country or other appropriate licensing jurisdiction.

April Rehrig [00:01:33]:
April, hi.

Dana Jonson [00:01:34]:
Thank you so much for being here. As I said, you’re a parent, so I presume that might have something to do with how you ended up in the advocacy role. Maybe, maybe not. But could you give me some background and tell me your story as to how you got here?

April Rehrig [00:01:47]:
Yeah, it’s important to learn our stories and where we come from and why we’re here. I started out, I’ve always been involved in education since as long as I can remember. My family were educators and so I always found myself in the classroom, so it seemed only natural. When I was a teenager, I wanted to work in education and I was lucky enough to work in a special education school because back then they had a lot more of them and I volunteered there and I fell in love and I was like, this is my thing. So in college I was an undergrad psychology major, but I wasn’t exposed to the idea of school psychology. They didn’t talk about it as an option. It was just, oh, you can work with adults or clinical in a clinical setting So I went on my path and I thought, okay, well, I’d like to work with special education, but I’m going to be a teacher. Because that’s what I thought was the options out there.

April Rehrig [00:02:36]:
So I became a teacher. And sure enough, Dana, I’m sure if you’ve been an educator, the same thing your first year teaching, they tend to give you the most difficult kids. So I got Really, I got 14 boys, four girls in my class. I had a credential to teach EL students. So I got all the students who didn’t speak English. And of course I didn’t get any support. So several of my kids were struggling. And I thought, okay, I’m a new teacher, I know exactly what to do.

April Rehrig [00:03:03]:
I’m going to refer them for an iep. So I got them tested, and many of the students didn’t qualify. The one that really turned me into school psychology was a student who was failing and really struggling. And he was tested and I thought, oh man, he’s going to get an iep. All my problems are solved. And we get to the iep and the psychologist said, april, he is absolutely gifted. He is so smart, and the reason why he’s struggling is because you’re not meeting his needs. And it really turned me on to school psychology.

April Rehrig [00:03:36]:
And I thought my expectations, I checked those at the door. I really did not know what I was talking about when I thought my child needed an IEP or my student. So I became a school psychologist for 20 years, and I found the profession needing a lot of reform if you have a lot of school psychology leaders. And I wanted to kind of continue the education realm. So I found that being a school psychologist, many school psychs are not teachers. And so I found myself struggling with assessment writing and really struggling with reports that focus on the negatives and the deficit based thinking instead of capturing functional academics and really looking at the whole child. So when I was writing my reports, I discovered that there was a better way to work across the aisle. And so it kind of continued to evolve.

April Rehrig [00:04:28]:
Dana and so as I was continuing my journey as a school psychologist, I got married, I had three boys, neurodiverse kids, and I became a mom. And throughout that process of going through the IEP process as a parent of three boys, I started to really hone in on what am I doing here, why are my reports not connected to the IEP and how can we make these meetings better? Right, we’re sitting at the table, parents are in it for the long haul. So I really started refocusing and reframing how I advocate. And I found myself moving into the advocacy realm, even though I was a school psychologist. So I left the field right before the pandemic. I opened my business right. The pandemic hit, and I decided that I needed to write my own curriculum and really help parents understand the process and help parents navigate the process through creating kind of workshops that take you behind the scenes and explain the process and empower families and students.

Dana Jonson [00:05:30]:
I think that’s wonderful because I think that is one of the harder pieces for parents is to understand what they’re entitled to and what they’re not entitled to. And then once you do, there’s no real instruction book on how do you get it right. So having to go through that with parents, by the time they come to me, things have already gone sideways for so long that we’re in a different place. And I often try to be collaborative with a school district because I have a lot of school districts that can be collaborative and want to fix the problems. Some don’t so much, but some do. But even if every school did everything they were supposed to do and every parent did everything they were supposed to do, I’d probably still have a job because there would just be disagreements over fundamental issues. But when you talk to parents about advocating for themselves, like, where do you start with them? Like, so what would be the primary, the first thing that you. You want parents to understand when.

Dana Jonson [00:06:23]:
When they come to you?

April Rehrig [00:06:24]:
I think the first thing that I want parents to understand when they come to me is that if your approach is not working and right. And so most families that come to me, they’re like, I am stuck in the process, or I don’t know where to start, or I know where to start, but I don’t know how to do it. The first thing I tell them is, you know your child the best, and if you want to have a better experience at the table, then you need to change your approach just like anything else. Right? If we’re driving a car and we’re always getting speeding tickets, if you keep on speeding, you’re going to keep getting the tickets. So you have to adjust when and how you communicate. If you want to have a better experience, you can’t change anyone else at the table, but you can absolutely change how you experience and how you react to others and how you react to others at the table.

Dana Jonson [00:07:16]:
Do you find that there’s a specific way that parents in general, like, very generally that parents do or mistakes that parents do or don’t make in communicating with Their school districts.

April Rehrig [00:07:26]:
Yes. One of the biggest mistakes that I notice, I wouldn’t call it mistakes, it’s more just that they’re not. They don’t know. Right? You don’t know. What you don’t know is that many parents, and this happened to me too, is when they’re concerned about something, they send an email, they talk in person to the school team, or they’re like, I’ve been calling over and over again and nothing is changing. And again that goes back to kind of a top down approach, which is more of a reactive approach to advocacy. So when I work with a family, I train them, you need to be proactive. You need to put things in writing through a parent letter of attachment.

April Rehrig [00:08:04]:
You need to submit a parent report. You need to tell the team, this is what I’m concerned about, this is what I would like you to do. And this is when I would like you to respond back to me. So it’s a very, this is what I’m looking for team. And then the team has to respond back to you instead of man. You know, I told the teacher over and over again I really wanted that kind of assessment and then I got it and I was really upset set. So you have to kind of change your approach and tell the team what you’re looking for. And then it puts the team on notice like, oh, mom wants a test in this or mom wants us to look at X, Y and Z.

April Rehrig [00:08:42]:
So now I know coming into the meeting what the parent is looking for.

Dana Jonson [00:08:46]:
I also love the idea of parents submitting their own, as you were saying, like document, like a parent report. Just as important as the other components of the IEP meeting. Because parents are equal partners. Right. And it’s hard to understand that when you’re like one of 20 people at a table. But they are equal partners. So to have all that information and as you said, puts the school on notice. These are my concerns.

Dana Jonson [00:09:11]:
This is what I’m not seeing. What are we going to do about it? And helps them get those either services or assessments. And when you’re talking about assessments, are you talking about when parents are requesting initially? Do you find the parents come to you more frequently before or after they have the iep?

April Rehrig [00:09:29]:
That’s a great question. Parents come to me at all different parts. Dana. I really feel like a lot of a bulk of my parents come after an assessment and after they’re kind of like, I went through the process, I had my first IEP and either a, my child didn’t qualify and I was shocked or B, they’re qualified. But like I mentioned before, that they’re stuck. They’re like, this is not going well. I have done everything I can. I’ve been sending emails, I’ve been going into the teacher, I’ve been doing this.

April Rehrig [00:09:59]:
And so for me, I feel like I focus on the assessment because I was a school psych. But also, as you know, assessment drives the iep. And so I always go back and look at the assessment and more often than not, an assessment wasn’t done correctly. And what I talk about correct is it’s not sufficiently comprehensive. It didn’t look at all the suspected areas, it didn’t address things. And so that’s one of the reasons why the IEP is failing, is because it wasn’t done correctly and the team didn’t understand how to incorporate that and connect it to develop an IEP that matches.

Dana Jonson [00:10:36]:
Yes. And that, that I think is hard for parents to identify in that. How do you link those evaluations and the recommendations? Because a lot of times school reports don’t say what the recommendations are.

April Rehrig [00:10:48]:
Right.

Dana Jonson [00:10:48]:
That happens at the IEP meeting. So how do you. How do you help parents to understand that better? Like, how do you take those scores or components that the school has assessed and then turn them into an iep? That makes sense. That really does address the needs of the child.

April Rehrig [00:11:07]:
I address this when I work with families because I train them. One of the courses that I offer, it’s called Understanding Reports and it trains parents how to read a report. But typically, if you go to one of these trainings, and I was, went to many trainings, like as a school psychologist, and they’re like, we’re having a report training. What do they talk about? Here’s what a standard score is, here’s what a report is. That’s not report training. When you look at a report, you need to start at the beginning. And so any good assessment starts from the reason for referral. And what you want to look for is kind of, there’s three main components of an assessment that are the most important parts.

April Rehrig [00:11:47]:
So when I train parents to read a report, I’m like, you don’t start at the beginning, you start at the end. And the reason why is you want to look at the recommendations and see if they’re meaningful, useful and relevant and how those recommendations are there. Then you back it up and go to the referral reason. Why was a child assessed? What are the suspected areas of need and what’s a suspected disability? And then you look in the middle is, how did they push that out. How did they cross validate those standardized test scores with functional academics? And that’s one thing that a lot of the IEPs are lacking in, is really understanding what is the level of mastery, what are the underlying and performing conditions that can make that happen? Because we all know that the function of the IEP is to talk about, you know, what are we going to do differently, but also what are we going to do it and how. What are the startups needed to make the child successful? And that’s where we really struggle with connecting the reports to the IEP is determining the setups and embedding them based on a child’s strengths.

Dana Jonson [00:12:54]:
Yes. And when I was talking about recommendations, what I mean is at least where I am, when we get school district reports, the recommendation is to discuss it at the IEP meeting. So when we get out of district reports, like private reports or independent educational evaluations, those tend to have them more outlined in, in their recommendations. So the I or the evaluations that you’re using, do you find that you usually have those recommendations are already in there? Or when you say look at the recommendations, are you talking about looking at where did they determine the weaknesses and the strengths were?

April Rehrig [00:13:29]:
And this is a real hotbed issue in the land of school psychology. Dana, for years and years when I was a school psychologist, we had many conflicting reports. I had directors that told us flat out, we don’t give recommendations. That’s illegal. I had other directors that said, you need to give recommendations because actually your report’s not sufficiently comprehensive if you don’t, which is true. And then others that would say, well, you need to give generic recommendations. So the truth of the matter is that any assessment report needs to have recommendations, but the recommendations need to be reviewed and considered by the team. So that’s where you need them, specific and relevant and meaningful.

April Rehrig [00:14:13]:
And then the team needs to see those and then say, okay, let’s talk about it at the meeting. And that’s one of the biggest issues, is that there’s no recommendations or there’s a laundry list, and then it’s, oh, we have to use those, or wait, how do we connect those?

Dana Jonson [00:14:30]:
And I like that you talk about using the child’s strengths too, when you’re making those connections is how do we incorporate those strengths? Because I think we focus so much on the deficits because that’s where we get the services from. Right? So we’re always, you know, at least from my perspective, I’m always touting what the child’s deficits are because that’s the area that we need to address. So focusing on the strengths as well is an important component, because all children have strengths and weaknesses. Right? It’s not just one or the other.

April Rehrig [00:15:00]:
Yeah, that’s. That’s correct.

Dana Jonson [00:15:02]:
When you’re connecting those pieces to the iep, how do you work with parents on that component? In that, you know, I’m a former teacher, so I do have a sense of how goals and objectives are supposed to be written and what they’re supposed to look like and how you’re supposed to get information out of them and progress reports. But I find a lot of times that the team will ask the parent, well, what do you think? And the parents are like, I don’t know. I’m not the expert. So they might say, you know, I always say, go with your gut. If it doesn’t feel right, it’s not right, probably on some level. And so a parent might be saying, I don’t. I don’t think this is right, and I don’t think my child is making progress. But I don’t know how to incorporate the goals and objectives.

Dana Jonson [00:15:43]:
So how do you bring parents along with. With that component as well? Because I agree with you. It’s really. No one’s getting in line to advocate for your child. Right. You have to be on top of everything. You have to learn all these components. So that’s a critical piece.

Dana Jonson [00:15:57]:
How do parents do that? How do you teach them and help them in that area?

April Rehrig [00:16:03]:
There’s so much data out there. When you look at the assessments or even the iep, it’s hard to know what to look at. But when we think about kids and how they’re functioning, so many people are like, it’s all about the data. It’s all about the data. When reality is, the data doesn’t mean anything unless you make it relevant and useful. So we really need to restructure the IEPs in terms of organizing our language into a meaningful way and then embedding it into the iep. So when it comes to IEP development, I kind of quadrant it into four different areas, very similar to the business model called swot. So the first area we want to target on the IEP is strengths.

April Rehrig [00:16:44]:
Where do we find strengths? The accommodations. Accommodations are based on a child’s strengths. That’s what they can do. Then you look at the weaknesses. That’s unique learning needs. So this is where they’re struggling. Right. So that would be the present levels of academic achievement, functional performance, skill, areas of deficit.

April Rehrig [00:17:02]:
Then we look at opportunities for learning. So this is. Right, we’ve got the baseline now we’ve got strengths and weaknesses. What are we going to do differently? And then we want to focus on the barriers. What are the barriers that’s impacting the child. So when you kind of embed those four different areas and the present levels of performance, then you’re talking about where are we at, where are we going to go and how we’re going to get there. And that’s why you want to see goals that say baseline, projected area and how. Right.

April Rehrig [00:17:32]:
The underlying performance conditions that are going to be the how. So in that present level section, you want to see accommodations, you want to see projected goal areas, you want to see suggested services. Basically everything you want, like your cake and eat it too, is in that present levels. And that’s why so many IEPs are not working, because they don’t have the setups in there. And so then the goals are based on a couple standardized tests and really not capturing the entire essence of the child.

Dana Jonson [00:18:02]:
Yeah, I can’t tell you how many present levels of performance I’ve seen that are practically empty. And, you know, we just got a new form here in Connecticut, which I think is. Is going to help because now we list the present levels.

April Rehrig [00:18:14]:
Right.

Dana Jonson [00:18:14]:
With the goals. So if you know the goal is math and the present levels have to be right there so you’re not missing them. Before, they were a separate component in the document. I know everyone has a. Or most states have different formats. We have to have similar information in the document, but they’re not necessarily structured the same way. But before, I used to see a lot of empty levels of performance or areas that said, you know, close to grade level or something like that, which isn’t giving me the information I need to program for that child.

April Rehrig [00:18:46]:
Yeah, that’s exactly the case. And I think this brings home one of the reasons why I like to work across the aisle and work with teachers is that teachers and many of your teacher listeners out there, even for school psychs, we don’t get the training that we need. We don’t get IEP training. That’s just the reality. We get training on, don’t do this, don’t do that. We don’t really get the training to. How do we write this? And we absolutely don’t get the training on. Here’s our report.

April Rehrig [00:19:16]:
How do we connect it to the iep? I really feel like if schools take the time to adjust how teachers are trained and then really working on meeting at the table. Right. Getting more productive Meetings. How is those team meetings going? Are you guys talking before? Are you collaborating? How was this service? Because when you come down to it, parents and kids are the consumers and education is a service. So if we really look at that aspect of IEP development, it won’t make it perfect, but it’ll certainly make it a lot better.

Dana Jonson [00:19:49]:
Sure. Yeah. No, that makes sense. And I think you’re right that it is in some ways, you know, almost business model. And you are looking at this is, you know, the parents are looking for these things, these services for their child so that they can do better with present levels and including the strengths. How important do you think it is to incorporate those strengths into the goals and objectives? I mean, you were just talking about that in the present levels. But when we talk about the goals and objectives, because I find that’s another place where we struggle a little bit because we are so focused on the negative component for children, because the goals and objectives are addressing the deficits, to be fair. But where can we and how can we incorporate some of a child’s strengths into those goals and objectives so that they’re not quite as painful for the student?

April Rehrig [00:20:38]:
When you think about in the business world, and I always go back to the business world because IEPs, we feel like we’re just so separate and we’re actually not. Right. Because it is a service. So if you think about the business world and if you have an evaluation, or let’s take Amazon, for example, if they’re trying to innovate something, and that’s very similar to creating a goal. Right. What are we going to do differently? How are we going to get there? We have to identify the setups. When I talk about setups, underlying performance conditions is kind of what are the prompts needed? What are the queuing? And if you think about any child, just like any adult, everybody has their thing they’re good at, and everybody has a thing that, yeah, that’s kind of not so good. So if we base our goals on what they can’t do, you won’t be able to achieve it.

April Rehrig [00:21:22]:
Just like in the Amazon world, you’re not going to say, oh, well, we’re going to deliver this Amazon package with a truck that has a flat tire. So in order to get those inflated tires and in order to get your truck back on the road, you got to work on what’s going right? And that’s where the strengths come in. So when you work on the setups for the goal, you focus on identifying those accommodations that are working. So what would this look like, this would look like developing a goal that for example, many kids and boys in particular love video games and they love gaming. So let’s take a child who really struggles with reading. So if we focus on using those strengths, right, they maybe they read about a gaming design or they read about the new thing in Minecraft, then the goal would be to use those strengths, their visual processing in the area of, of their strength and then embedding that into the goal. So with this and this supports, the child will be able to read this number of minutes in this particular setting. So you’re basically creating and crafting those how to setups in a very systematic way.

April Rehrig [00:22:35]:
You’re not saying someone will read this in this amount of minutes because you can’t measure that, right? You absolutely can’t measure something that you don’t know the conditions. Hot read, cold read. So you’ve got to be really clear on those setups by incorporating the strengths, presuming the child is competent and capitalizing on those strengths.

Dana Jonson [00:22:57]:
And that’s what I think when you talk about strength based IEPs. Right? Is that what you’re talking about?

April Rehrig [00:23:03]:
Yes. And I’m also talking about reform in terms of the language. So many parents and teachers definitely will be nodding their head when I say this. But if you read through an IEP in general, just the present levels of performance and this happened to me as a teacher is you’ll see John is not motivated to do this. When John wants to, he’s able to complete this. If I’m a teacher and I see that Dana and I get five minutes to look at the IEP as most teachers do, I’m going to presume that John can’t, can’t, can’t. I’m not going to see that John perhaps is 130 IQ. I’m not going to see that perhaps John is able to do all these other things.

April Rehrig [00:23:46]:
I only know what he can’t. And so how can I work with him if I don’t know his strengths? So it really works on when it comes to IEP development is those strengths presume kids are competent and honestly we get better results in terms of goal achievement, goal attainment and inclusion opportunities. Would we use strength based language in the iep?

Dana Jonson [00:24:10]:
I love that because you’re right. I mean we again focusing on the deficits because that’s what we’re needing to address. It’s easy to get caught up in them and then just focus on the negative and that doesn’t help the child. As you said, if we’re skipping over the things that they’re really good at. And, you know, one kid might be really great at reading, and the other kid’s really great in art, you know, and we need to incorporate that in some way to get the best performances out of them. We talked a little bit about parents being the equal partners, but parent participation in the creation of the IEP is so critical. And we know that they’re not all teachers or experts. So there’s a lot that they’re starting from zero on.

Dana Jonson [00:24:56]:
And it does frustrate me when teams look at a parent and say, well, do you want to use the assistive tech or do you not want to use the assistive tech? Well, what qualification does a parent have to make that total determination without much more information and input? But they do need to be participants. And I think that being a participant is so much more than just talking in the meeting. So how do you advocate for your parents or teach them how to advocate so that they are participating so that they are equal participants in the process?

April Rehrig [00:25:32]:
That’s a great question, Dana. And this is one of the biggest reasons why I feel like that teams really struggle at the table and why there’s so much disconnect. And honestly, why, if you think about it, when you’re at the IEP table, the relationship between the parent and the school is very much like a marriage. And whether we get divorced or whether we stay together, you’re in it for the long haul. So unless you get a divorce and sever the relationship, you gotta be able to communicate. And so one of the biggest things that I work on with parents is, first of all, telling them that they make the best advocates. Just like you touched on earlier, Dana, so many parents are told, well, we’re at the table, and I am, you know, an occupational therapist. I am the expert.

April Rehrig [00:26:17]:
I don’t train my parents to say, okay, well, I’m a parent, I know more than you. But I do train my parents to understand why they make the best advocates. And there’s several areas reasons why. The first one is that they’ve been on the team the longest. So if you look around at the IEP table and you’re sitting with your child at the meeting, you realize you’ve been there longer than anyone else. Even if you’ve had a paraprofessional by your side, you’ve been at every meeting. That gives you a lot of power because you know what works. You also know what doesn’t work.

April Rehrig [00:26:50]:
You also have a lot of information. So many parents will come to me and say, you know what, Dana? I was so frustrated because we had all this outside therapy and nothing got talked about at the meeting. And so that’s where I train parents to write a parent report. You can talk about. Here’s what I’m doing at home. Here’s the number of therapy sessions we’re going at. Here’s the data that I’m taking when we’re doing homework. All of that valuable information is stuff that you’re seeing every day, and that is so much weight, if not more than a standardized test score.

April Rehrig [00:27:26]:
So I promote advocacy in the terms of parent empowerment by. You have so much valuable information at the table, parents. All you have to do is know how to communicate that and then how to talk to your team about that. And that gives you so much more value and makes you feel so much better when you’re sitting at the table with everyone else.

Dana Jonson [00:27:47]:
Yeah. Yeah. And I think I love that idea. As you said, like the parent parent report. What’s going on? It shouldn’t be just one sentence, and it shouldn’t be just because the student spends more time out of school than they do in school. Right. Just as a practical matter. And life doesn’t take place in school.

Dana Jonson [00:28:06]:
So we have to incorporate what’s going on out there. And I think for parents to be really informed members, as we’ve also talked about, they have to understand the process and the components. And one thing that I always recommend, if parents really need it, if the school is doing something with your child, whether it’s maybe a behavior plan or some form of structure that you really aren’t familiar with, parents can make that request for parent training. That can be a related service. And I know that I’ve had some parents who. Where the schools are sending them to. To professional development because they wanted to understand more about how the school’s approach was working so that they could be better participants in the process. But as you said, they also need to know how to make their voices heard and make sure that they are being heard.

Dana Jonson [00:28:59]:
And then from my perspective, making sure they’re triggering the responsibilities of the school district, because, as we said, if it’s not in writing, it never happened. What are the other components for IEPs that you think are important to maintain? Because, you know, there’s the parent participation. There’s everything comes from the evaluation and the present levels. But what other pieces for the IEP do you train your clients on?

April Rehrig [00:29:25]:
I really focus on the accommodations. I feel like this is sort of an undervalued area. And so when it comes to the accommodations and the supplemental. Right. Instruction and all of that, I really feel like that a lot of times when it comes to the IEP table, the team doesn’t really understand how to identify the child’s accommodations. And again, it goes back to the assessment. And so they either do where they pick from a laundry list or they have. Some of the districts I worked in, they actually had like pre checks.

April Rehrig [00:29:57]:
And so it was literally like every box was checked.

Dana Jonson [00:29:59]:
Yes, I’ve seen that.

April Rehrig [00:30:01]:
Yeah. And the challenge with that, Dana, is that it’s not tailored to the child’s individual needs. And then because you’re not offering the right accommodations, you don’t get the right setups in the goal and the child has less of an opportunity for inclusionary things in the classroom. So what I’m talking about is many times when I see kids failing and they’re not doing well, they’re not achieving goals or they’re getting poor grades, the team will meet and say, well, we need to recommend this SDC class. We need to recommend a more restrictive or a pull out placement. Instead of saying, huh, maybe our instructional methodology needs some tweaking. Maybe we need to adjust the accommodations. So one of the things that I like to train parents on is identifying what are your child’s strengths.

April Rehrig [00:30:51]:
And then when it comes to the table, having your child come to the meeting and say, you know what, this really helps me. When you do this, teacher. This really helps me. And so when you think about it at the IEP table, you know, every year we’re like, oh, well, how did that go? What are the progress monitoring? Well, we can also progress monitor accommodations. And we can also take a look at are these working and are they not working? Let’s work on these first before we look at changing the goals or changing the search.

Dana Jonson [00:31:24]:
That’s a great component when you talk about the student and the student being there. And I agree with you, the accommodations are very important. And I have seen those checklists where it’s like, well, they have ADHD, therefore they must need these 10 things that every child with ADHD needs. And it’s like, well, not necessarily. I think it’s really important for children to learn how to advocate for themselves because at the end of the day they will be the ones advocating for the or for most students, students will be advocating for themselves at some point. So when we’re just using a template or generic accommodations, we’re not really teaching the child what their needs are and how to seek out the services. Or supports that they need. How do you incorporate the student into your training with parents? How do you include them? Because it is all about them, as you said.

Dana Jonson [00:32:15]:
And I know at a certain age they’re supposed to be invited to the IEP meeting. As long as the parents hold their rights, they don’t have to come. So a lot of times when I’m getting involved, I don’t usually recommend the student be there because we’re in a dispute. And I don’t think it’s helpful for a child to necessarily be there and listen to the dispute. There have been situations where it is appropriate, but rarely is that the case. However, students do need to learn the process as well. So where do you incorporate the student into the process?

April Rehrig [00:32:48]:
And this is something that’s really important to think about when I work with families, and I did this with my own kids too, is we’re so focused on the annual iep. We’re so focused on the now that we kind of forget where we’re going. And so when I work with families, we do what’s called a vision plan, which is where we’re mapping out, right. Five to ten years out. And it sounds crazy, but you need to look at the big picture, because on the IEP team, they’re just going to look at the annual. So, for example, one of my clients was a student, and they did not want to have a para with them anymore. They’re in middle school, and they’re like, I don’t want my para. Like, I am done with that, right? So we sat down with the student and the parent and we said, okay, you don’t want the para, so what do you need to do differently? Oh, okay.

April Rehrig [00:33:32]:
And so this took, you know, not just one session, several sessions. And after a while, they were like, okay, this is what I need to do to get there. So we had them come to the meeting and they were like, okay, I know what I need to do for this next annual iep. And they sat there and talked about, I want this, I want that. And so we incorporated the student to come to the meeting. We gave them a copy of their accommodations and said, now you’re going to be working on these. So if you can adjust these, then you’re going to know you’re ready for the next level and that you don’t need to have a para looking over you because you’re like, I did this myself. So they understood the goals, they understood the accommodations because they knew what it took to get there.

April Rehrig [00:34:14]:
Another great way to incorporate students is that no matter what their developmental or physical or intellectual ability is, is that all kids can tell you their life’s preferences and interests. And so if they really understand from the beginning, oh, I’m going to resource or I’m getting help with speech, this doesn’t need to be something that’s hidden. It’s something that’s helping them. I need this. This is hard for me. It’s really going to help them from the beginning. Instead of like, oh, well, we don’t want to tell them they have autism. And that is a very personal and a very, you know, individual choice at the same time.

April Rehrig [00:34:54]:
From my perspective, it’s like we look on kids as like, sure, they have this, but this is not them. They are their own child. And so knowing your strengths and weaknesses is going to help you when you get to high school and you get that teacher that’s like, yeah, I’m not going to give you the accommodation. And then you can pull out your accommodation page and say, actually, you know what, this would really help me. Can you do this for me? This is really hard for me. How empowering is that?

Dana Jonson [00:35:20]:
That’s awesome. And I agree with you again, completely that, you know, at some point they have to be seeking out their own needs and they may be in a situation where there is no one there to advocate for their iep. And as you said, if they don’t know that they require this component because it helps them or they’re not comfortable expressing it to somebody, then that needs not going to get met and that will impact their work and their program. Right, Exactly. I often have just, you know, when I’m, as I said, when I’m involved and there’s a dispute, I don’t really like having the kids there for it. But a lot of times what we’ll do is maybe have the child come for 10 or 15 minutes at the beginning or end to talk about their program. Like, as you said, what they like, what they don’t like, what’s going well, what’s not. And then we sort of say, you know, thanks, and then we go on, we discuss our disputes or whatever those components are.

Dana Jonson [00:36:09]:
So there are ways to always incorporate the student. Do you find? I’m just curious if you find. When children turn 18, I know that when I’m involved, nine times out of 10, they want to sign something and have their parents continue to do the IEP meetings for them and stuff. They’re just like, yeah, that’s fine.

April Rehrig [00:36:25]:
I think.

Dana Jonson [00:36:26]:
I don’t, I don’t want to have to do that? Do you find that, or do you work with students to say, no, you’re now the advocate and you have to sit in the seat?

April Rehrig [00:36:34]:
So I find that the latter. When I worked in high schools and then having my own three kids, one of the biggest areas where I felt like that teams weren’t really trained and that parents didn’t really know is that when you graduate from high school, let’s say you graduate with a diploma and you want to go on to post secondary school, there really isn’t a lot of information out there for parents to say, oh, my gosh, the IEP does not transfer to college, or, oh, wow, we’ve got to map out what are we going to do if my child wants to go to post secondary school. When I was working at a high school, Dana, we would come to the annual iep, we’d come to the annual iep, and then we would have kind of the final iep. That’s the way we called it in California. And so all of a sudden, I got the same question at every meeting. Okay, like, what do we do when we go to college? Like, how do we transfer the iep? And then the student was like, well, where do I get my iep? Like, what? What’s on my iep? And they didn’t know. And so these poor families were really stuck kind of figuring it out the last couple months of senior year. And I really felt like, wow, like, we need to really train teachers better to understand how to kind of take those things to post secondary schools, if that’s what’s on their transition plan.

April Rehrig [00:37:52]:
And then starting back at middle school or even before of like, okay, we were kind of interested in going to maybe looking at a college, so we’re going to do college prep classes. So what do I need to do? Or what do I need to put on my transition goal where I can look at, oh, here’s my iep. Oh, okay, this is my accommodations. All of those kind of tasks can be incorporated into the transition plan because that’s a vocational need.

Dana Jonson [00:38:19]:
That’s a great point, because too often I think that gets overlooked if teams think that the child is college bound preparing for college in that regard, in as far as being able to advocate for themselves and their accommodations, because they’re not going to get an iep. I mean, there are some colleges that are more geared towards students with disabilities and they definitely have more supports, but they still aren’t getting necessarily an iep. Right. So we have to teach the students, how do you identify your strengths and Weaknesses and how do you get them? And I know I always refer. It’s not on my floor. I just looked because usually it’s sitting on my floor. But I have a book, there is a college book that talks about different schools that are better for children with learning disabilities. Right.

Dana Jonson [00:39:06]:
That have services and what kinds of services and how supportive they are and whether they’re built into the program or not. And I think those are pieces that need to be really taken into consideration for children who are finishing high school with IEPs, because school’s a whole different ball game. And I mean, at school, college is a whole different ball game, and they’re going to have to be much more independent in obtaining any supports that they need. So making sure that they go to a school that actually has those components. Right. Do you help parents with that component as far as getting to post secondary, or do you just work with parents for the special education component? I’m just curious.

April Rehrig [00:39:46]:
Yes. So I do work with parents. I have a guidebook and I do trainings all the time where I help parents understand the difference between high school and post secondary disability services, how to understand ferpa, for example, and how that changes. And then really to train either the IEP team or parents themselves. On here is what it looks like in college. Here is kind of the steps that you can take, and here is what you need to do to prepare your child and what your student needs to do. So, yes, I do work with families. I don’t work with families to, you know, interface with them directly for saying, okay, for example, you got denied those accommodations.

April Rehrig [00:40:27]:
That’s something that I don’t do. But I definitely train parents, teachers, and schools how to transition those services. What are the steps to access the services and how do the services look different?

Dana Jonson [00:40:41]:
I love that. Yeah. And I think that’s another piece that not every student or parent understands either that they can have those transition goals that are going to help them through the high school years prepare for when they get to college and. Or that those services aren’t there in college. So I think those are all such important components. We have covered so much. April, am I missing something? Is there. I feel like we’ve gone through pretty much the whole process that parents go through that.

Dana Jonson [00:41:08]:
That you advocate for and that you help parents advocate for and learn how to in the process. Am I missing something? We missed something?

April Rehrig [00:41:16]:
No, I don’t think so. I mean, I think we covered, like you said, a lot of ground, and I think we’ve kind of championed parents and students and Like I said before, it’s. To me, I feel like that the reform that’s needed in special education is really empowering parents at the table and really kind of bringing back home of what are we doing when we’re capturing a child’s needs at the IEP table and why does the child need an iep and how can we make it better?

Dana Jonson [00:41:44]:
Absolutely. So for the parents who are listening here and they’re saying, oh, my God, I’ve got to find April because she speaks my truth and I need to be trained by her. How would they find you? Where would they reach out to you?

April Rehrig [00:41:57]:
So they can reach out to me on my website, riseeducationaladvocacy.com if they want to sign up for a free consult, it’s riseeducationaladvocacy.com contact or they can follow me on Instagram at riseedadvocacy.

Dana Jonson [00:42:13]:
Wonderful. And I will have all that in the show notes. So if you’re on the run right now, if you’re out on the go and you don’t have a chance to write this down, just go back to the show notes when you get there and all of the contact information will be there and the website, which has a lot of good information on it itself, and you can find April and reach out to her through that. So thank you so much for joining me, April. This is so important for parents to know.

April Rehrig [00:42:36]:
Thank you, Dana. I had a great time.

Dana Jonson [00:42:38]:
Thank you so much for joining me today. Please don’t forget to follow this podcast so you don’t miss any new episodes and leave a review when you have a chance. If there’s anything you want to hear about or comment on, please go to my Facebook page, special Ed on Special Ed, and find me there. I’ll see you next time here on Special Ed on Special Ed. Have a fabulous will stay.

Disclaimer [00:42:57]:
The views expressed in this episode are those of the speakers at the time of the recording and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer or company or even that individual today.