Public school systems are still attempting to recover from pandemic learning loss where students with special needs were left behind. As a Project Coordinator for the Parent Information Center of Delaware, Tina Andrews shares her expertise with caregivers and educators of children with disabilities. Tina defines what a safe inclusive model looks and feels like while clarifying the differences between compensatory services and extended school year. Tina offers stories and countless resources to support listeners in navigating learning loss resulting from the pandemic.
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Public school systems are still attempting to recover from pandemic learning loss where students with special needs were left behind. As a Project Coordinator for the Parent Information Center of Delaware, Tina Andrews shares her expertise with caregivers and educators of children with disabilities. Tina defines what a safe inclusive model looks and feels like while clarifying the differences between compensatory services and extended school year. Tina offers stories and countless resources to support listeners in navigating learning loss resulting from the pandemic.
Get solutions from Schoolutions!
#solutionsfromschoolutions #schoolutionsinspires #schoolutionspodcast
Schoolutions – S1 E19: When a Pandemic Leaves Students with Special Needs Behind, Parent Advocates Are the Heroes with Tina Andrews from the Parent Information Center of Delaware
[00:00:00] Olivia: Welcome to Schoolutions, where listening will leave you inspired by solutions to issues you or others you know may be struggling with in the public education system today. I am Olivia Wahl, and I am so excited to introduce you to my guest, Ms. Christina Andrews. I first had the privilege to learn from Tina attending a panel entitled When Resilience Isn't Enough: Current Challenges in Public Education.
[00:00:29] Olivia: Tina was a guest speaker at this virtual town hall hosted by the Center for Family Involvement and Family Voices. The description for the event that captured my attention read as follows: Our public education system had to reinvent itself virtually overnight when the world shut down in 2020. In COVID’s wake, many students with disabilities experienced learning, loss, and regression. So great that compensatory services can barely make a dent. Educators’ roles transformed and expanded in ways they never imagined. Many of them are leaving the profession.
[00:00:54] Olivia: Over the 90-minute discussion, I took pages of notes and knew I needed to have Tina as a guest to share all of her knowledge with you as well.
[00:01:17] Olivia: Now, let me tell you a little bit about why Tina Andrews is an individual I am going to deem one of my parent-advocating heroes. Tina is a proud mother of five amazing children ranging in ages 6 to 17, who are unique individuals with special needs. She is their cheerleader and ardent supporter.
[00:01:40] Olivia: Additionally, she's a project coordinator, doula, perinatal educator, health coach, and student midwife. In her current position at the Parent Information Center, also known as PICC of Delaware, Tina partners with families to help them find resources and supports for their health and education. Tina has a master's degree in public administration and special education.
[00:02:04] Olivia: She has been a classroom teacher, a special education teacher, and taught in a self-contained middle school classroom with autistic students. Welcome, Tina. I'm so excited to have you.
[00:02:15] Tina: Hi, I'm so excited to be here.
[00:02:18] Olivia: Tina, I love to kick off every episode by asking my guest who an inspiring educator is in their life.
[00:02:23] Tina: Sure. My first inspiration was my mother. Um, she was amazing. She passed away last May, and she really just modeled all the things education-wise that I would like to model for my children. So, my mother had dyslexia and she had ADHD too, which was not diagnosed till she was an adult. And when I was in middle school, my mother went back to school, and I helped her study because it was so hard for her with her dyslexia.
[00:02:59] Tina: We used to record back when you recorded things on a cassette player. We used to record her readings, questions and assignments, and she would play them over all day. And just the dedication she had, even through her disabilities was amazing to me. I knew that I wanted to work with families. I wanted to work with people who, who had similar challenges.
[00:03:28] Tina: And so really she was my first teacher. And then I had a whole slew of amazing teachers in elementary, middle and high school that just reinforce that.
[00:03:39] Olivia: That's beautiful and talk about inspirational. I think as adults when we can model stretching ourselves and taking risks, it shines a light on what we hope for our children.
[00:03:50] Tina: Yeah.
[00:03:50] Olivia: I learned so much from you in a really short amount of time and something I am bumping up against over and over again in the school districts that I have the privilege of supporting is the learning loss, that term learning loss, learning loss. I fear that education is almost in a state of denial saying, let's not talk about learning loss.
[00:04:13] Olivia: You know, we're all behind. And I, I don't really agree with that. Um, because I think it's not acknowledging a much bigger elephant in the room, especially when it comes to students with needs. What I'd love for you to speak to. is, you know, we have many special education students that were left in the dust when schools shut down.
[00:04:35] Olivia: And your voice is so strong with advocacy. Something you helped me better understand is the notion of an extended school year. So we'll speak to that over the interview. You also illuminated for me, although inclusion is a model I believe in at the core of my being, it's not really safe right now in a lot of places to have inclusive models when it comes to when families should seek legal advice.
[00:05:03] Olivia: That's something I know it's hard to talk about, but you are an endless resource for that. I want to know more about your story though, as a mother and your journey, would you share with listeners what brought you to your current role at PIC right now?
[00:05:17] Tina: Sure. I have five children. They are all adopted from foster care.
[00:05:24] Tina: They were the majority of them were adopted as infants or newborns, and they have a range of assets and challenges. I came to the Parent Information Center in 2009 originally. I was a coordinator for a program called the PIRC (P-I-R-C). Which helped families engage in schools and was not associated with disabilities necessarily with all families and communicating with schools and helping schools to better, uh, support and reach out to parents.
[00:06:01] Tina: And at that time, I had two small children. I was so inspired by the work of the parent consultants and the staff, um, that were working on the PTI side, (the parent training and information side) that I decided to go back to school and get a master's in special education. I have a concentration, a focus on children with autism.
[00:06:24] Tina: Then I taught for a few years before the pandemic, right before the pandemic, I was asked to come back and to be the project coordinator for our PTI. And it was an honor because I was very challenged in the school system by how teachers are treated by the system, the bureaucracies, and the real challenges to getting services and supports for children with disabilities.
[00:06:53] Tina: So, in this role, I can really support families. I can really help educate them and I can really help them build positive relationships with school systems.
[00:07:05] Olivia: How do families know how to reach out to you? I'll obviously put a link in the show notes to the myriad of resources that were shared over the panel that I attended, but how do families know how to reach out in general?
[00:07:20] Tina: It is usually word of mouth. I get referrals from other parents that we've worked with. We do go and do presentations and we're at events. We have tables and we work with different organizations in the state that are focused around certain disabilities.
[00:07:38] Tina: So, the Down Syndrome Association, Autism Delaware, and different organizations. Um, we network in that way as well. I would say it's a combination. Every state has a PTI. A PTI means a Parent Training and Information Center.
[00:07:54] Olivia: Okay.
[00:07:54] Tina: And it's a federal grant and every state has one. Some states have more than one. And some states have community parent training centers, which focus on say, like the Latino community or the deaf and hard of hearing community. So, some have smaller PTIs. I would encourage all of your listeners to find the PTI in their state. The websites are amazing, the resources. And if you are having any challenges definitely utilize those.
[00:08:28] Olivia: Where I live in Ithaca, there's also a special education PTA, Parent Teacher Association, which I think that whole notion of word of mouth for families that feel alone, it's really nice to start there even, and just to hear other folks’ stories of what they're navigating. Again, something you said that struck me is the notion of inclusion not really being safe at this point.
[00:08:54] Olivia: Would you define for our listeners first what an inclusive or inclusion model is in its best state in schools?
[00:09:01] Tina: Yes, so in its best state in schools, you're going to have parents that understand the model. You're going to have teachers that are supported. You're going to have inclusive, um materials and models.
[00:09:17] Tina: You're going to have an environment, a classroom environment that supports that. And what we're seeing now or what I'm seeing, I can say specifically, is the opposite of that. Which is where you have teachers that are overwhelmed already. You have parents that have no I.D.E.A. what's happening in the classroom and when they try to find out are being ignored, blocked, placated, basically,
[00:09:44] Tina: And you have classroom, uh, environments that are not set up for inclusion. What I mean by that is there is 30 students in the classroom. There is limited wheelchair accessibility. So of course schools have to have wheelchair accessibility, but that does not mean the classroom is set up so that that student can fully integrate into the lessons, the activities, et cetera, right?
[00:10:11] Olivia: Yeah.
[00:10:11] Tina: So, a student being in the back of the room in their wheelchair is not inclusive, that's not inclusive, right?
[00:10:19] Olivia: No.
[00:10:19] Tina: So, which is what we see and truthfully what we saw before COVID, but has increased.
[00:10:27] Olivia: The other notion that you pointed out is because so many special educators are being asked to cover multiple roles within school systems, often people are illegally, let's just put it out there, being pulled from their one-to-one, perhaps, or from the students they're supposed to be supporting in classrooms, and then it's not safe because the student doesn't have the supports they need to be included and to be their best self in that environment.
[00:11:00] Tina: Well, in a special education classroom, you're going to have a certain staff. You're going to have your teacher who can be embedded in the classrooms. Here in Delaware, that's called TAM. So that's a teacher that is duly certified. Certified in general education and special education.
[00:11:18] Olivia: Okay.
[00:11:19] Tina: Sometimes you'll have two teachers, one in general, one in special. Sometimes you have a TAM teacher. That's a challenge because then you have this teacher who is handling all the students and so then you usually have paras (paraprofessionals) in a classroom. Paraprofessionals have training, but they are not special education teachers. They are not the ones that are supposed to be assigning work.
[00:11:46] Tina: They are not the ones that are supposed to be evaluating work. They assist. They support the student. Okay. So, paras can act as one on ones for students and a lot of parents want a one-on-one because then their student is engaged all day and there's somebody that is bringing the student back to task that is focused on their I.E.P. goals.
[00:12:10] Tina: But what we're finding is that paras are being pulled first. Students do not have that support, even though it is in their I.E.P., even though it's been proven that it's necessary. And let me just say that the job of a special educator is overwhelming anyway, right?
[00:12:30] Olivia: Yes it is.
[00:12:30] Tina: In many school districts, the special educators are not supported effectively.
[00:12:36] Olivia: It's not even just that they're not supported, they're often the last folks that are included in professional development. Right? And so, a lot of the school districts I work with, it's critical to make sure that special educators are receiving the same training as general educators. And I think it would also behoove us to have general educators trained in a lot of special education.
[00:13:01] Tina: Oh, yeah!
[00:13:01] Olivia: …. practiced. Because they're best for all children. Would you quickly define too what I.E.P. means for listeners?
[00:13:08] Tina: When I.E.P. is an Individualized Education Program, okay, that means that it is individual to each student. And there's a whole process by which a student is eligible for an, an I.E.P. We have a lot of parents that will come to us and say, I'm noticing X, Y, and Z.
[00:13:29] Tina: And I think that an I.E.P. Or might need special education. And that opens up a whole realm of possibilities. First, they have to notify the school that they want their child assessed for special education. In that process, usually, if a child does not qualify for an I.E.P., what that means is that the child, um, does not need specially, uh, designed instruction.
[00:14:00] Tina: Okay. They will usually be considered for a 504. That is a different law. That is a different act, right? So, a 504 is going to make accommodations so the child can be successful. But the expectation is that if a child has a 504, they can be successful, they can meet the grade-level standards.
[00:14:24] Tina: With an I.E.P., they need specially designed instruction and accommodations and modifications to do that. And the reality is that sometimes they're not going to meet those grade-level standards, but that's the goal, right? Here's what we know is that all children can learn. All Children can be successful and that parents want that for their kids.
[00:14:44] Tina: They may not be able to express what they want, but they want them to be successful. So even if your child is in special education, does not mean that they won't be successful.
[00:14:58] Olivia: Yes.
[00:14:58] Tina: It may look different, but they can learn. They should be learning. And years ago, there was a case called Endrew F. in the Supreme Court that basically said that your child should have vigorous instruction.
[00:15:14] Tina: Meaningful instruction. What we were seeing was that I.E.P.s-the same goals and objectives were being used. Students were not learning. They were not progressing the teacher should be designing instruction for them and at the end of the year you should see progress made. It's not going to look like the same progress, but it's going to be progress.
[00:15:37] Tina: We work with parents to make sure: Is your child progressing? Is the instruction quality vigorous? And if not, then that's a problem. That's a problem. That has been what we've seen during COVID.
[00:15:51] Olivia: That's where I'd love to move to the notion of compensatory services. If you could define that and then the difference between compensatory services and extended school year, because that was mind-blowing for me to understand that.
[00:16:04] Tina: Yes. So compensatory services are what's offered by the school district to make up for services that were missed. It used to be that compensatory services were offered say if the speech therapist at the school left and your child missed five sessions of speech, right? Compensatory services were offered to make up for that because in your I.E.P., they have the days, usually in minutes and the number of occurrences a week of therapies-related services.
[00:16:40] Tina: So, if your student did not receive education, instruction, then that is a compensatory service. During COVID what we saw is that not only were students with I.E.P.s not receiving services, all students were not receiving services, right? But your students with disabilities, because it is in their I.E.P. and it is part of I.D.E.A., the Individuals with Disability Education Act, they, those have to be addressed.
[00:17:10] Tina: During COVID, I.D.E.A. did not change. So all of the timelines, all of the, the policies, regulations, laws, are the same. If you request a eligibility meeting, the school has a certain amount of time. In Delaware, you have 90 days, 45 school days or 90 calendar days, whichever is first for them to respond. That did not change.
[00:17:39] Tina: And what we were finding is that parents did not know that. So, they're thinking, well, COVID, you know, the school has more time. No, they don't.
[00:17:47] Olivia: That’s fascinating.
[00:18:02] Tina: They're on the same timeline. Okay. And the same with compensatory. So if you say to the school, my child did not receive speech services all last year when the school was in session.
[00:18:02] Tina: Now, if the school is closed, that doesn't apply. But when the school is in session, even virtually, that's, that's what we're talking about. Then the school is going to say: Here's the compensatory services we're going to offer. Now, be careful because sometimes they're going to offer a lot less. As a parent, think about what that means for your child.
[00:18:23] Tina: Can your child, um, handle additional compensatory services. What is that going to mean? That's going to mean after school. That's going to mean missing some other subjects. That's going to mean summer potentially. So, think about compensatory services and talk with your I.E.P. team about what makes sense for your child.
[00:18:44] Tina: Because I know one of my children, 15 minutes of direct instruction is difficult for this child. So, adding on an hour is not going to be useful. It's not going to be useful.
[00:18:56] Olivia: Oversaturation.
[00:18:58] Tina: Now parents get confused between compensatory services and extended school year. Extended school year has always been a part of I.E.P.
[00:19:09] Tina: What happens is usually here in Delaware in March is about when decisions are made for extended school year, and there's certain guidelines. With extended school year, it has to be proven that your child, over large breaks, Christmas break, spring break, summer, that they lose skills. At the beginning of the year, you can ask at the first I.E.P. meeting you have, please monitor my child for learning loss after breaks, because then it's on their radar.
[00:19:45] Tina: Some other criteria for extended school years is if your child is in the middle of a critical learning period. So, if you took an extended break, like summer, then they would have to restart it. For example, in my self-contained classroom, we had students who all year would work on certain skills. So, hand washing, toileting, all kinds of different skills.
[00:20:11] Tina: If they took an extended break, we would have had to the beginning.
[00:20:18] Olivia: Start from scratch.
[00:20:18] Tina: So that was part of the challenge of COVID as well. Because a lot of students, especially those with disabilities, did not do well in a virtual environment. And their parents were tasked with becoming like their paras.
[00:20:32] Tina: And the parents were not prepared for that. And some were not able to do that. And so, you had these children who basically lost not just academically, but life skill wise, in a lot of things in counting money in toileting in feeding and self-regulation. There were a lot of different things which set families back a lot. I want to say this, I'm not against school systems.
[00:21:00] Tina: I worked in a school system. I think that school systems are also overwhelmed and under-resourced. And I think it's a bigger challenge. I think it's a crisis that people are not recognizing. And it's going to deepen as we have teachers leaving, as we have more students coming back into the school with some of these years of loss.
[00:21:26] Olivia: Yeah. When does the extended school year take place? It sounds like it's just an extension on at the end of June. Is that the case?
[00:21:34] Tina: It can be. But in I.D.E.A., it is not written that way. Extended school year can happen any time of the year. It can happen during breaks. It can happen at the end of the school day.
[00:21:48] Tina: But most school districts will try to put it in the summer because that is when they have time. Their related services providers don't have other students, it's easier then.
[00:22:03] Olivia: You shared so many amazing websites, resources over the panel. What I'm going to do instead of having you speak to each of those individually, I'm going to put all of those links in the show notes so folks can explore those based on their needs.
[00:22:17] Olivia: But a conversation you and Erin Croyle, a fellow advocate and colleague had was around. When is it the time to reach out for legal assistance. I remember Aaron had said it should be the last step in the process. You pushed back on that and said, no, no, no, we, we need to rethink that a bit.
[00:22:38] Olivia: So would you share your thoughts around that? And then when is it the time for families to reach out?
[00:22:46] Tina: We work with a lot of families. My whole job is to help families realize I.D.E.A., the law, how it's applied and their safeguards. There are parental safeguards in I.D.E.A. That means there are avenues that parents can take if they feel that they're not being listened to, that the I.E.P. team is moving on without their consent.
[00:23:10] Tina: I have a lot of parents that will come and say, what are my legal options? I totally understand that because they're frustrated because the communication has broken down. We always first try to talk about the communication. Where is that breakdown? Can we fix it at that level?
[00:23:29] Tina: Because once you move into state complaints, due process, then that changes the dynamic of the relationship. And your child will probably still be going to that district, still be in that school.
[00:23:44] Olivia: And potentially impacted. by a breakdown in relationship.
[00:23:47] Tina: They're not supposed to be, but we know reality.
[00:23:50] Olivia: Yeah.
[00:23:50] Tina: We always try to work, but sometimes that does not happen.
[00:23:54] Tina: So sometimes, um, willfully, you'll see school districts that are disregarding timelines that are saying things to the parents that are not true, that are against the law, et cetera. What I said to Erin was, please don't discourage parents because there are some situations that are so urgent that a parent needs to act.
[00:24:17] Tina: So, for example, if it's a bullying situation, if it's a situation where your child has been hurt, if it is a situation where there's a manifestation determination. A manifestation determination is a meeting that happens when a student with it. I.E.P. has missed 10 days of instruction. Okay. And it's triggered.
[00:24:40] Tina: It has to happen by I.D.E.A. Okay. By the law. In that case, if there is a suspension, if there's expulsion, if there are things happening legally, you are going to want to consider state complaint and a state complaint is an administrative complaint. A state complaint is for procedure, right? If the school didn't send you a prior written notice, documentation that they have to send you within a certain amount of time, then you would consider filing a state complaint.
[00:25:16] Tina: What's going to happen is that if the finding is in your favor, the school will have to remedy it and then they will get education for their teachers, for their staff around why it's important, but there's going to be very little benefit to you, except that that problem is fixed at the school. Due process is different due process is a court case.
[00:25:40] Tina: There's a hearing in front of three individuals, and you have a lawyer and the school district will definitely have a lawyer.
[00:27:50] Olivia: Yes.
[00:25:50] Tina: That is a bigger process, right? But with due process, you can get compensation. So, for example, if your child was suspended multiple times throughout the year, you were not given notification, you missed school.
[00:26:07] Tina: Or you missed work, this you would talk to a lawyer about I am not a lawyer. But you can receive compensation with due process. Also, changes can be made. For example, in due process, it can be decided that your child is going to go to a private school and receive the services that they did not receive and that the school district will pay for it.
[00:26:30] Olivia: Wow.
[00:26:30] Tina: So those decisions can be made through due process. Not a state complaint. There are two different things, right? Parents should be careful. Everything is not going to be appropriate for due process, but some things are, and then you can consult with a lawyer here in Delaware. We have the disabilities law program.
[00:26:54] Tina: As far as I know, every state has a disabilities law program. It might be called something else, but it's four families of of children with special needs. Usually, it's free for the families. They do not take all cases. Obviously, they couldn't. They have a paralegal who goes through your documentation. But the consult is also valuable because they're going to tell you legally what they think of your case.
[00:27:23] Tina: What remedies could happen. They're going to give you a lot of information. I tell parents a consult is great, too, because you're going to get a lot of information that you need to move forward. We support our families through all of these processes.
[00:27:40] Olivia: I think we both can agree that most people are trying to do their best, and the school systems are stretched so thinly right now that it feels almost impossible in some places to have the services in place the way they ideally need to be.
[00:27:56] Olivia: To wrap our conversation, because we could speak for hours, I learn so much from you every time I listen. What would you say your biggest hopes are for the public education system moving forward? What can we do right now to start to remedy this gap?
[00:28:15] Tina: I think that school districts need to listen to their parents.
[00:28:19] Tina: What I'm talking about is actually saying: How can we reenvision this process so that our parents are involved, our families are involved, and also that we are meeting the needs of our students? Part of that is focusing on your special educators. Is focusing on students with special needs in the school system because the reality is that there are a lot of students right now that probably would qualify for specialized instruction and for special education.
[00:28:54] Tina: And it is the one area that I have seen pilfered more than any other area in the school system. I do want to say as a former special education teacher for parents, please do not lash out at your special educators because a lot of times they are the ones caught in the middle That this is their job. They cannot tell you what they think.
[00:27:20] Tina: They can't recommend things that the school district will not support. I know. I was there. Overall, they want to support your child to the fullest, but they don't have the resources. They don't have the time. And a lot of times they're told they can't, which is why a lot of special educators are leaving because it's too hard. It's too hard.
[00:29:44] Olivia: It is. Some of the bravest educators I know right now in the field are showing up every day because of kids. And we have to think of how are we engaging with every single child to let them know how they're getting smarter every day.
[00:30:02] Olivia: Students should be able to speak to that. All students, sometimes we have to be their voices for them. Tina, what you offer is hope, hope that there are resources. We are never alone as parents of children with disabilities. There's a lot of children struggling with mental health issues as well right now. I was working with teachers this week that are piloting different ways of helping students recognize when they're stressed and de-stressing in the moment instead of letting everything unravel.
[00:30:34] Olivia: So, it’s parents, it's advocates like you that are propelling our work forward and I'm grateful for you. Thank you for taking the time to chat today.
[00:30:45] Tina: Thank you. I love to talk about it. I love to, um, to educate parents and I, I do have hope and also just think about your words because these children are going into schools and they're hearing that they're not doing great.
[00:31:03] Tina: They're not doing as well. So just be careful about how you frame it because they are doing amazing. They are handling all of these changes, all of these things, and they get up every day and they go to school. And the same with the teachers. So do keep that praise and that recognition onto your children that COVID changed a lot of us, but they are strong and they will be successful, um, because they will.
[00:31:32] Olivia: I agree. Resilient, resilience, resilience. Thank you, Tina.
[00:31:37] Tina: Thank you.