On the Call: Escalating Parent Behavior

What happens when you have a homebound student and escalating parent behavior? Even when a parent’s conduct is the roadblock, the district’s obligation to implement the IEP does not disappear, so the move is to change what you can control. Erin and Jeremy review a relevant case from Washington State and share practical tips on when to reconvene the IEP team to consider a placement that can actually be implemented, how to use strong prior written notice, and how to set communication boundaries or campus restrictions without cutting off parent participation. This is a great time to pressure-test your protocols before the next crisis hits. 

If you're looking for more on this topic, we've covered it here: On the Call: Navigating Parent Communications and On the Call: Parent Participation.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

And it's written this is Jeremy.

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Hi Jeremy, we've got quite a situation on our hands. We have a medically fragile student on a homebound IEP, and the parents' behavior has gotten intense. Staff say they're being recorded, threatened, and bombarded with complaints. We've had resignations, and contractors won't go to the home anymore. But we're trying to keep services going, but it feels impossible without putting employees at risk.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Okay, so we've got two buckets here. You have an obligation to implement the IEP. You also have an obligation to keep your staff safe. What have you tried so far as far as like alternate locations, remote options, some other way of providing services?

SPEAKER_01 0:43

We offered to change service delivery, but the parent refused. We've mostly been stuck in a home or nothing.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Got it. Let's put together some strategies.

SPEAKER_03 1:02

And I'm Aaron Wessendorf Wortman. Let's explore today's call.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

So Aaron is we're recording this. We're at the end of the school year. We're both parents of young children, and it's a time to express our gratitude to the teachers that have supported our dear little ones all school year long.

SPEAKER_04 1:25

Dear little ones. I don't know. I love this time of year. I also feel like I limp into summer. I would love to be that parent that joyfully greets summer. I am excited for a new chapter. My kids are excited to have school years done. And I am. I am where did you come from just this morning? I came from field day. Yeah. I did. And I stopped in my kids' class and God love that teacher because you just I looked at her and I went, I am super grateful, and I saw all the gifts and I saw all the love. And you could also just see on all of the teachers' faces that even I passed who were like, We're done.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Yeah. We're done here.

SPEAKER_04 2:05

Michael?

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Yeah. Well, I mean, good for you. And uh all the parents out there showing love and gratitude for what those teachers are doing. Um, but that's not all of the parents, right? And that's that's what this episode's about.

SPEAKER_04 2:19

Well, and it's to be very fair, also, you and I are never called for those parents.

SPEAKER_02 2:25

Right.

SPEAKER_04 2:25

Right? No one is like, look at these parents, all love our staff. And then we charge money for that phone call. And that's why nobody calls us for that. And so we don't always have the best kind stories because it's just what has happened. The facts are what they are when they get to us. So today's episode is more about maybe a more difficult parent.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Yeah. And and in doing this, I mean, this this is a sincere uh kind of disclosure, whatever you want to call it. Um, as Aaron said, we we can have a bit of a jaded perspective. And we know that there are so many parents and school teams that are working really well together and you know, keeping their eye on the prize. You know, what are we doing for this child? Um, and we do when we get into the case, we just know what's reported, and that's what we're gonna talk about. So here we go.

SPEAKER_04 3:14

And also, no one tunes into this podcast for the happy stories where like, give me the tea. Let's do it. So give me the tea, Jeremy.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

Witnesses sworn in, then they joined hands and saying kumbaya and peering over.

SPEAKER_04 3:28

Nope. So what's the tea? What's the black letter law for this guy?

SPEAKER_00 3:30

We'll start there before we get to the fun stuff. So um, you know, when when you're in a situation like our collar where we're having some difficulty with a parent and trying to sort things out, we always have to keep in mind there's not one set of regulations for parents that are kind and supportive and one for parents that are harder to work with. There's one set. So, and parents are are very centered in these regulations. They have a lot of important rights, they are mandatory IEP team members. We need to go out of our way to make sure that they have an opportunity to meaningfully participate in these processes and and document when something's happening that that might prevent that from occurring. Um that you know, that in in the recent years, that's meant a lot of flexibility as far as meeting formats and scheduling.

SPEAKER_04 4:16

So phone calls, virtual meetings, in person, we can be as flexible as a parent needs to be to attend a meeting.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:22

Trying to make sure the best of our ability, if we are trying to get them to attend, we're documenting all of those attempts to be able to move forward based on either your state regs for when, after a number of attempts, we can move forward with what we're proposing in an IEP.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Correct. And as far as an IEP, you know, if we're in that idea world, we know that at the beginning of every school year, we're gonna have an IEP in effect and we're gonna serve that IEP. Again, there are not exceptions if parents are being difficult.

SPEAKER_04 4:48

So we can't just say, this parent's absurd. I'm done here. Pause, moving on.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Nobody wants to work with this parent and moving on. No, because it's about the kid.

SPEAKER_04 4:57

But it can also be true. We might be stuck as a student services personnel, special education director, principal, whomever. We still might have a harder job in those moments. There are services we are still required to fulfill, but we might have had ample people behind saying, no, no, I'm not doing that. No, no way. Flight kite, not for any money under the sun, right?

SPEAKER_05 5:19

I mean, we've been through those cases.

SPEAKER_04 5:22

Where student services directors or special education directors like, I've asked every home educator or every related service person I can I can find to do it. I've offered to pay them triple. It doesn't matter. No one wants to do it.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 5:34

Word travels fast.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

It does, especially when people maybe live their lives on social media. I've seen that, right? Whereas somebody's like, they see what this person says on social media. They're not doing that. Oh my.

SPEAKER_04 5:45

But it's also moments when we can have the help. It's not that that information won't be considered in the future by if there's a fight by entities who make that decision in a complaint, due process or state complaint, but it doesn't negate our responsibilities.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Right.

SPEAKER_04 6:01

But how do we consider that if we don't have a document?

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Uh-huh. So we're talking about, of course, everyone's favorite form, your prior written notice, whatever your state calls that. Uh it's it's important that when you're having to do a little bit of the gymnastics of of getting around um maybe some barriers that are being put in your way. Yep. Um, that you're really say what you're thinking out loud. Not all of it.

unknown 6:25

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Just the PG part.

SPEAKER_04 6:28

Are you talking to me or are you talking to our listeners?

SPEAKER_00 6:30

No, I mean, they couldn't see that I was like staring you in the eyes. Um But no, say say the logic out loud. So, you know, if you're doing something that actually isn't what you really want, make sure you've documented this is our offer of FAPE. Here's an explanation of why we're having to do something different, because we just desperately want to do something for this kid and keeping it centered on that child-centered um decision-making, the logic and the documentation.

SPEAKER_04 6:53

Some of that explanation then can also get us around from a liability protection standpoint, a retaliation claim. Right. If we are to say, hey, we need to propose a different way we're providing this service because of, or we need to provide a different way on how we're going to do IEP meetings because of, or parents' communication, ability to come in a building, all of those pieces, having documented reasons why helps to get us around or at least defend any claim for retaliation.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

And that's where we're switching over to 504, right? So, you know, this this case will talk about a child eligible under idea, but but inevitably when there's some conflict, some challenges with parents, uh, always having an eye on what Aaron was just describing. We're not gonna retaliate, we're not gonna discriminate, uh, we're gonna make it really clear that even if, and we'll get into this with the practical pointers, even if we're putting in some some guardrails to try and um protect our staff, protect the process, at the end of the day, not really impacting what we're doing for the kid, because we're gonna serve the kid, period. Um, you know, we're we're being careful to not violate 504 and and we can actually like stumble our way into constitutional issues when we're we're talking about, let's say, restrictions on coming onto campus. There might be some, you know, First Amendment concerns about interacting with your board of education if the public is allowed to do that in your state and your community.

SPEAKER_04 8:13

Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.: You mean putting in certain restrictions based on what a parent may put on the face page?

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Aaron Powell We want to be careful about that. We want to be careful about um providing due process to the parent. So now we're talking about the 14th Amendment, if we're depriving them of some sort of right. I think it's probably a really low bar for us to clear, but nonetheless, it exists. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_04 8:32

And the biggest asterisk to all of it called call your lawyer.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. If you're gonna go down this road, you want you want to have some good guidance on it. So well, we've we've waited long enough. We're pretty excited for it.

SPEAKER_04 8:43

I have excited about this case. I love when you send me cases and you're like, this one's a doozy.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

Yeah, you know, and this one's from like earlier in the season, this is from October of 25, I think. Yeah. Uh and uh pulled this one right away and just didn't didn't get it out. I think it was meant for the post-Memorial Day publication. I love it. People need something fun.

SPEAKER_04 9:01

A little bit spicy. You mean the anti-slap?

SPEAKER_00 9:04

No, that was didn't go for it?

SPEAKER_04 9:05

Come on, that was enjoyable. This one doesn't have a flow writer quote for it.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

No, it doesn't. It doesn't.

SPEAKER_04 9:10

That's all right. So what happened in the case?

SPEAKER_00 9:11

All right, so it's a Washington uh formal complaint under idea. So uh to their state uh education agency, which they um uh very memorably call, I'm gonna call it OSPI. OSPY?

SPEAKER_04 9:22

No, I like OSPI better.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

OSPI. The office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. So um a complaint was filed in um uh regarding the uh 24-25 school year. Yep. And uh the basic facts, we've got a 16-year-old, we don't have a lot of background. We know in the category of multiple disabilities, there's reference to health concerns. There's reference in the investigation or the complaint findings to prior complaints regarding health concerns and like COVID and not being able to come to school potentially. We know the child at one point was placed on home instruction, but notably the IEP they were operating on in the 24-25 year was from August of 22. And I wonder if that connects to that COVID thing where maybe back then they had some health precautions in place that put the kid on home instruction.

SPEAKER_04 10:12

And maybe there was no agreement to sort of shift it back. But the kid also had a lot of services.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

Yeah, lots and lots of services. Like reading between the lines, maybe, maybe there are like some autistic elements here. There's definitely the health concerns, there's some behavior concerns.

SPEAKER_04 10:26

I mean, at least it's not clear to me. My guess is there was probably some academic pieces as well, but they had PT, OT, SLP, BCBA support, a pair educator sport, parent training and consultation. Like they had a lot of related services in addition to if there were and I'm just unclear, academic or behavioral concerns as well.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, a lot, a lot here. Well, presumably with the BCBA. Well, who knows? They can they can do a lot of magic. Uh, but there I think there were behavior techs as well. So um here we are, and uh basically it sounds like what happened is probably there have been struggles in the past. We know there was at least one complaint in the past. Um and in the fall of the 24-25 year, things quickly escalated. There were some internal complaints filed by the parents and and reported to the superintendent and and the Board of Education. Then in October, there were uh uh law uh complaints to the police regarding um two BCBAs that were working with the child and uh complaints also against their professional licenses, uh notably, and important to say. Um I think uh in a very understated way, the OSPI said um uh that there were no prosecutions and their licensure remained valid or something like that.

SPEAKER_04 11:43

AKA AKA they were just fine.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 11:46

But it was also one where the staff were requesting, right? They were saying that there were staff reports of unsafe working conditions, specifically harassment and threatening behavior from the family.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

And recording everything, although that was interesting too, when you you started to get into the weeds and the investigation. It sounds like at least some staff initially said, Oh, it's okay for you to record this.

SPEAKER_04 12:10

Weird.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

I've thought so.

SPEAKER_04 12:11

Well, because it's in their home. I mean, right? I mean whatever.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

We've encountered that. If you haven't encountered it yet, dear listener, you will, where the home's already set up, like you know, it's like the nanny cam on the fireplace mantle. Yeah. So yeah, things quickly fell apart. And once that I it it seems like the criminal uh or attempt to prosecute these BCBAs, at that point the school said, you know what? While that's pending, we're not coming into your home. Um at some point along the way, and it wasn't perfectly clear, the school was saying, here's other things we're willing to do, though. How about this? What if we bring your kid to this school facility where we've taken into account your health concerns? How about remote services that would address our safety concerns and everything? Family? No, no, no.

SPEAKER_04 12:53

So practically speaking, the kid at some point is not getting served.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

For a more than one point. Oh, basically like October through the end of the year.

SPEAKER_04 13:02

Yoke!

SPEAKER_00 13:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:03

So not getting served, and not because one argument the district probably doesn't think home the homebound services are an appropriate LRE for an appropriate provision of fate.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 13:14

And they have nobody to do it.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Yeah, why not though? Come on.

SPEAKER_04 13:18

Well, if you were gonna threaten me with criminal prosecution.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

No way fifteen staff members resigned, in part, at least due to this family, is it was what was found.

SPEAKER_04 13:29

And um 27 outside providers and companies. Twenty-seven. I don't even know that I could name twenty-seven outside providers and companies in this area. And I mean, we're in Cincinnati, Ohio. There's not Yeah. It's not like we're in the middle of nowhere. Right. Yeah. I'm not saying that this school was in Washington. I don't know exactly where they were in Washington, but I mean, that's a lot.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

Yeah, and they and all 27 said, nope, we want nothing to do with this. Wow. Yeah. So they're in a really tough spot. And um, you know, the the district, though, in doing that again, they they were proposing other ways to try and serve the child. One of those, before we move on, um, and I I say this in no way to make light of it, but just to really emphasize the significance, uh, one of those staff members reported leaving the home and having suicidal ideations.

SPEAKER_05 14:17

Right? What is happening in that home?

SPEAKER_00 14:19

I I I don't know, but there was a lot going on here. Um, also, somewhere in the fall of 24, the family requested an independent educational evaluation. That's not a big part of the complaint. I share it only because it's notable to me. The school, you know, you get to pick your F-word. We have other episodes on that.

SPEAKER_04 14:37

Found or file.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Um, the school filed.

SPEAKER_04 14:39

They did.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

And the family withdrew the request.

SPEAKER_04 14:42

Which is just there's a little bit of lack of clarity there in this decision as to was it just they withdrew it or was there a deal struck? We don't know.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

I really I think that they withdrew it because um the family, uh, if you're that bad to all these professionals, I can't imagine there's a lot of attorneys lining up that want to work with you. And I think the family, when they realized, oh crap, we have to actually do something. And and why I believe that is this, what we're talking about, is not a due process complaint.

SPEAKER_04 15:09

It's a state complaint.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

It's a state complaint.

SPEAKER_04 15:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

A lot easier to do on your own.

SPEAKER_04 15:12

100%.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

So I wonder, I wonder if there's something there. That struck me as an interesting thing I want to come back to in the uh practical tips.

SPEAKER_04 15:18

Well, and then they'd have to also find a medical professional who would work with them. And my making assumptions, I am making guesses again, fine, go back to the caveat at the beginning of the episode. If we are this unpleasant to school officials, my assumption is we are equal treatment to a medical professional.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

Yeah. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 15:36

Just saying, just making I'm making certain guesses and assumptions. I have no information otherwise.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

You know, sometimes you can use uh dollars to really kind of to measure how unpleasant someone is.

SPEAKER_04 15:47

Well, and so we're not providing services, kids not getting served, parents won't agree to these other things. It sounds like there might have been an attorney, or at least the district had an attorney to say, hey, enough is enough. We're gonna go ahead. How do we say we need to resolve this? We know we have a problem. We know this. Here's what we would say to resolve this to go away.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

$125,000 on the bone. It was gonna be like a lump sum payment, too. It was fantastic.

SPEAKER_04 16:18

For services, not for anything else, right? For education. Yeah, but that's a lot of money.

unknown 16:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:23

And also, I mean, the kid had a lot of I mean, uh, services aren't cheap. He did a lot, he, right? He I think so. I sorry, I'm making an assumption. Um, but he has a lot in his IP, so maybe it valued out cost-wise, because that's what it said in the in the decision. They valued out the cost of the services and the minutes that were missed and all of the things, and they assigned a dollar figure to it. Here you go.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:45

Your opinion is also this is no really go-away money.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

Yeah, absolutely go away money. So and this is before the complaint was filed. Okay. $125,000 is offered, and the school said through their attorney, by the way, um, I it I imagine how it worked out is the family was unrepresented, making some guesses. And they heard $125,000, and they were just envisioning like Ed McMahon showing up at the door of the giant check.

SPEAKER_04 17:07

I thought you were gonna go Scrooge McDuck.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

Scrooge McDuck.

SPEAKER_04 17:11

Swimming in it? No, sorry.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

Ed McMahon McMahon.

SPEAKER_04 17:13

Man, generational. Publishers clearing how it's very different. I'm reminded often, you go with that, I go with Scrooge McDuck. Wow. Or maturity. It's either generational maturity.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

I know six of one half doesn't know another. But so they offer this, and when the family says, okay, uh, it sounds like kind of like, all right, we're interested, and then it turns like, great, here's here's what it'll look like. And then it just hasn't just normal like boilerplate, like, hey, you're gonna waive claims looking backwards because that's what we're doing. We're compensating. Correct. And the family lost their mind. No, no way. I shouldn't say they lost their minds. They said no.

SPEAKER_04 17:43

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

And then that's where we end up with.

SPEAKER_04 17:45

So then they file a state complaint.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 17:47

And the state complaint says it was a reasonable offer from the district.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

Aaron Powell Yeah. I mean, there were we both ended up highlighting the exact same parts here, right? I love this.

SPEAKER_04 17:58

Well, because the parents are saying, look, everything was false. This was false. Yeah. Everything about us at claims against us were false. And the state of Washington was like, look, it's unreason I love that they couch this in such the kind way. It's unreasonable to say that such claims are false when the district has documentation of numerous private providers declining private services and at least 15 staff resigning from their jobs stating they resigned, and at least partly due to having to work with the parent. Like Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Ospie has to believe the staff who have expressed this placement uh that they would file grievances and leave their jobs. And they also said very specifically in ordering the district to pay the amount they'd already offered to pay, in ordering that um they said, by the way, this release of claims that is not necessarily contrary to idea. Rather, such a release of claims seeks to limit individuals attempting to collect multiple remedies in a dispute. So you know, they're like, no, this is totally normal, and that's why we're gonna order this thing. Um and then I thought it was really interesting uh that they they brought in Andrew F on this one too. But what are so for our Andrew F listeners, you all know that you're gonna make uh an offer of FAPE then in an IEP that is reasonably calculated to enable a child to receive educational benefit and that is appropriately ambitious considering the child's circumstances. What were the circumstances here, Aaron?

SPEAKER_04 19:26

The parent. The parent. So what was reasonable progress in light of the parent being absurd? I just not absurd. The parent fighting for their children's rights, sometimes in a way that f a number of other entities found offensive and would no longer engage in an interaction with that parent.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Yeah, and and that and that's exactly the right way to frame it, too, because then the OSP said that um because of that circumstance um for this child to receive FAPE, you need to talk about other placements. And they ordered the district to do what it had been trying to do, which is convene the team and talk about a different placement.

SPEAKER_04 20:01

Aaron Ross Powell Which is why I So at the end of it, really when I look at this case, I go, okay, Jeremy, the district was ordered to pay the money, it was already required to pay. Not required, offered to pay, sorry. It was required to pay what it already offered to pay. And they were required to convene an IEP team meeting to talk about placement because this clearly wasn't the appropriate place.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Which they'd already tried to do.

SPEAKER_04 20:21

Which they'd already tried to do.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Who won? I don't know. This this is the batter battle of uh Bunker Hill uh for our Revolutionary War. You know, in honor of the upcoming 250th anniversary. The Brits won that thing, but by all accounts, historians and military historians look back and say, what a loss.

SPEAKER_04 20:41

Right? I mean, this is a finding. It's not really I look on its face. If someone picks this up, they're like, oh, the district is ordered to pay $125,000 and have an IEP take. They must have done something wrong. That seems to be a finding against the district. But it looks when you read it for all intents and purposes, you're like, no, that is not a finding against the district. This is a finding hopefully assisting a district in providing fate to a child. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

And they practically give them the script for the IEP meeting, too, because they point out families express concerns about health, and that's why they won't send their kid out of the uh the home. They they drop in a footnote. We had a prior complaint from this family, and it was in the COVID era, and back then we ordered this. We did not mean that to be a permanent placement. And then in the main part of the decision letter, they say, you know, the parents express these health concerns, but notably we've learned that the family travels out of state for summer services and for private evaluations.

SPEAKER_04 21:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

I love it.

SPEAKER_04 21:39

Tee it up on a silver platter, right? I mean, if you can have a moment when yes, who wins at the end of the day, fine. Hopefully it's the kid. Hopefully it is the kid because the money is going to go to help give services and supports to the child. And hopefully placement is then equally changed to say that the school district can now educate the kid. Like hopefully at the end of the day, that is really where the focus is. It should be. Otherwise, no, I think this is an appropriate outcome for kind of the really junky circumstances. Welcome to episode two where I didn't cuss. You're welcome. Thank you. I am really trying.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Well, so then let's let's take the lessons from this case and think of, you know, while this is interesting to read, fun to talk about, um d our callers, our listeners don't want to find themselves in this situation. Are there some lessons we can draw? And, you know, I think part of it is uh kind of yes, you need to protect the safety of your staff and attend to that, or you end up where this district did, where no one will go in.

SPEAKER_05 22:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

But you need to do it in a way that you're also protecting as best you can fidelity of implementing that IEP or 504 point.

SPEAKER_04 22:44

It's not throwing our hands up in the air when we're faced with a difficult parent or guardian and saying, I can't do it, nobody will do it, I'm just done. We don't have that. It's not written into IDEA to say, oh, well, you know, here's your prior written notice. Give notice when the parents are being too difficult that you're not going to provide fate. That is not a category on your prior written notice.

SPEAKER_02 23:04

Right.

SPEAKER_04 23:05

We still have to find a way, or in the least, document all of our offered attempts and then have meetings to discuss is the still appropriate placement if what is happening, that placement, and the involvement of a parent or guardian or other entities at that placement is preventing us from providing fate.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

How far would you go with what the uh OSPI did where they said part of the child circumstance was that people won't go into the home to work?

SPEAKER_04 23:29

I think that's an absolute appropriate thing to consider because it now has become a part of that child circumstance. We can't ignore it. And if Washington would have ignored it, I think that would have been a really big problem because it it's just it it's what it is. A child circumstance is just what it is. You might wish it to be different, but it is what it is.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Well, and and another kind of proactive step that can be taken is putting up some guardrails with communication and um you know, no contact or stay off campus. We have a prior episode where we go much more in depth on that. We'll drop it into the show notes. So if you want more on that, but I think just generally speaking, be aware that it's okay. You need to be very cautious about the timing and the appearance of retaliation. You want to be very kind of narrowly tailored in what you're doing and consider steps short of something very um uh explicit, known to everyone. You could do things internally with technology where you're kind of channeling communication one way the parents don't even necessarily need to know, as long as it's being monitored and responded to. You could filter emails and things like that.

SPEAKER_04 24:34

Well, but I also think it's to go to the point of and I think in one of the notes you had indicated don't let that homebound inertia sink in, right? From when we've had a difficult moment and now we're just homebound. Having the check-ins, is this still an appropriate placement for this child? If it whether people are agreeing to go or not to provide those services, is this still appropriate or have circumstances? Health, wellness, all of that changed. If our people are refusing to go in because of some of the interactions with recordings or criminal charges filed by the parents, those are all circumstances we need to sit back and be able to say we need to consider them. We can't only rely on kids on homebound, I don't have to worry about it.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

Yeah, not set it and forget it. Correct. Definitely not. You know, a couple other things that jumped out to me. One is if you're in a situation that's truly unreasonable, first of all, I hope you are working with legal counsel and they can help guide you to picking the right fight. I think it's very interesting that this district chose to f uh file to defend the appropriateness of their evaluation in the fall of 24 when this was all blowing up. I think what they were trying to do was just send a message of, look, we work together, you're not in charge. You do not have, you're not the supreme commander of this IEP. It's a team thing. It didn't work. No. But it was a reasonable fight to pick, I suspect, given the circumstances. So finding the right ground to have that battle on can make a lot of sense if it's inevitable. Um and you know, going back to the communication piece, giving guardrails to the parents, but also giving guardrails to your staff, meaning that it worries me that staff members in this circumstance agreed to be recorded. They needed to have kind of the fortitude, the backbone to say, uh, look, you're gonna need to refer that to my supervisor. Well, and that way that person's saying no.

SPEAKER_04 26:22

And I think with that yes and, right, it's the setting expectations. Do we have district expectations that are communicated to families and to staff for when homebound instruction is going to happen? Not home instruction that we do at the library, or maybe even for that, but you're gonna be on time. If you don't show up for a meeting, it will be considered offered, right? Versus then we also are not gonna allow you to record. We would really prefer it to be in an authentic environment. So parent, guardian, whomever, we would like to be in a room with your child. We don't need you sitting there helping direct. Having those expectations that are communicated in advance to both staff and to parents or guardians of the families where this is gonna be provided, I think helps set the stage for a better relationship moving forward.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

Well, with that, let's return to the call. So we've got this homebound student, we have escalating parent behavior, and even when a parent's behavior is a roadblock, like for the call or like in this case, the district obligation remains to implement the IEP. So uh what you need to do is change what you can actually control. Convene IEP team meetings, discuss placement, document these kind of decisions, document them knowing that a claim of retaliation is a pretty foreseeable outcome, write it with that purpose in mind, and then make sure at the end of the day, whatever other guardrails and things you put in place, your staff understand that you are appropriately protecting them while keeping your decisions child-centered. And before you find yourself in this circumstance is a good time to test out your protocols and systems to protect against this sort of crisis. Thank you for tuning in to On the Call. If you have found value in our discussion and think your educator colleagues would as well, please share this podcast through text, word of mouth, staff meetings, chats, and teachers launch. Your support is what drives this podcast.

SPEAKER_04 28:21

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SPEAKER_03 28:26

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SPEAKER_00 28:36

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SPEAKER_04 28:46

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