From Simple Solutions to Concierge Advocacy: Michelle Choairy’s New Mission

Michelle Choairy is back—this time launching her new brand, Special Education Concierge! In this episode, Michelle shares her journey from Simple Solutions for Complex Kids to becoming a dedicated advocate for families navigating special education. We talk about what real advocacy looks like, how parents can find the right support, and why early intervention and the right advocate can make all the difference.

Plus, we spotlight Autistic Wings Dance Company, the nonprofit founded by our 14-year-old co-host, Leta Rundell, and their mission to provide dance opportunities for autistic kids in Colorado Springs—especially as funding challenges loom.

If you’re a parent of a special needs child, or just want to hear inspiring stories of advocacy, tap dancing, and a little bit of “tism,” this episode is for you!

👉 Check out Michelle’s website to see if she’s the advocate for you:
https://specialeducationconcierge.com/

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Links & Resources: • Support Autistic Wings Dance Company’s fundraiser:
https://www.coloradogives.org/organization/Autistic-Wings-Dance-Company

• Visit our website:
https://www.letatapstyles.com/

• Join the PodMatch Podcast Network:
https://www.podmatch.com/podcastnetwork/letastapstyles

• Want to be a guest on Leta’s Tap Styles (And My Autistic Life)?
Send Amanda Trisdale a message on PodMatch:
https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/letastapstylesguest

Transcript

0:09

Okay, Leta, introduce a podcast today. that's my mom. That's human. We are Must did the wrong podcast. That's Hi. That is her introduction right now. Michelle, I'm human. you're human. Hi, Michelle. It's not like you haven't been on the podcast a gazillion times and I was like, Hey, we're interviewing Ms. Michelle today, and she's like, are we going to interview or are we gonna chit chat? we did and we already got done chitchatting. So now it's time for recording. It is time for recording. Time for go. Go on. Started already. The intro started already. do you miss the times where she wasn't chatting when you first came on? Well, that's what I'm saying. Like I think that the first couple that we recorded, she wasn't saying much and when she did say something, it was like the, and then you could not, uh, like you couldn't, you know, and now she has hand movements and hair flipping everywhere. Right. And the mis attitude teenager over there. That's what we're getting now. So she's getting comfortable. oh, that can be arranged. Michelle, welcome back to the podcast in case someone is brand new and just stumbling on the podcast. Uh, you know me, I cannot introduce or we get tagged as I am AI introducing our guest. Do you mind introducing yourself? Well, of course. So I'm Michelle Shadi, and yes, I think that I've been here, is it five or six now? I don't know how many times. it makes me wonder what, Le and Amanda having their minds to keep bringing me back. But, I am a mom of what I call a complex kiddo and I am now starting my big business, which is now gonna be called Special Education Concierge. And it's by wisdom for complex kids. I'm keeping the name because complex kids is where all of this started. And so, I'm very grateful for the journey that I've gotten to this point. But yeah, we are like a big advocacy program where there's different levels. I can do it all for you. I can be your care coordinator, I will take care of everything. we also have all the way down to our Thrive program, which is my signature. Program for parents with complex kids. and we've talked about the Thrive many times here on the podcast, Yes, we are going to like link those in the description below. Uh, Leta seems, I forgot to plug in her laptop. That is the insanity going on over there. okay. All right. Well, technical, difficult to happen all the time. it is, while we're recording this, the first week of Colorado gives, it's a soft launch so all technical difficulties are happening this week. Um, we brought you on the show today specifically to talk about the advocacy 'cause we have brought you on, on the Thrive, but the advocacy is something I think a lot of parent. Don't know about, they're not aware of what an advocate can do. Um, we both are in the world. You're in a much more fun part of the world, I think.'cause you get to deal with it before it becomes a huge problem. I'm at it when it's like, how many of you messed up? Okay, sit down, shut up. Let me tell you what, how we're doing this. Mm-hmm. Amanda is the fixer. Like she comes at the end and she just grabs like that mess that has become this IEP, and then she's like, okay, I'm doing my magic and I'm gonna put everything where it needs to go. So. I mean her hogs house is, would like to ignore the, that's even though we all. I wanted it to be slithering.'cause almost all of my friends in politics, they're in slithering. And then I get griffindor. Puff and I wanted Huff a puff, so ha ha. how do you know? How do you get these? Where do I go? I don't know what I am. for a while you could do it on the website, but I got mine from Miss Joe book, so so, sorry to Oh wow. Aw. my mother, so I have been told I cannot go onto the quiz and bomb the quiz just to get a different, I guess you are what you are told when Ms. Joe goes, Nope, nope, I'm sorting at you. did anyways, and my gosh. did. So they haven't watched six or seven.'cause those are the really scary ones. I even, I remember watching it and I was like, who? Like that feeling of scare, you know? So anyway, here we are talking about advocacy and Harry Potter and sorting an advocate with, certain professor or head mistresses during that, book Oh, don't forget her. My knee. Also, the fact that her Harry was annoying, I'm pretty sure he should have been expelled from Wizard altogether. That freaking I hate Harry. Okay. She has opinions. No, she actually dressed up as Hermione a couple of years in a row and I totally made the, costume from scratch. But back to advocacy, because we talked beforehand. I know it's crazy, but we actually I have to make us go down a rabbit hole once in a while. I can't let You have all that rabbit hole fun. hole. She used to not talk for people I know. Go back to the first episode that I was on. PA on advocacy. There are a lot of parents who don't know what an advocate is and what an advocate can do, um, with your advocacy.'cause obviously we're at two separate deals 'cause you don't go in and start yelling at people right away. I, I'm the nice one. by the time it gets to me, I'm like, you've had to talk to a congressman and they've had to fail at it and it's had to get to my desk. So do you know how many government levels we have involved now? yes, for sure. what is an actual advocate and not, hi, I'm representing the entire US Congress advocacy all about. She is laughing in the background because by the time it gets to my desk, I've had, especially this year with all the school districts and states going, you can't have digital stuff in class. The number of accs that I have seen where they're like, oh, we're taking away the a, CC in their IEP. Oh no you're not. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Or, um, 'cause I mean, lead is autistic. So this, um, podcast is about autism. I'm autistic, it's about autism, but I get to do it across the board like you do. I have seen so many IEPs in the last two years where parents are going, hi. They told me that my child can't have their cell phone that controls their pump for their insulin. me it was three. told me I was crazy. Your IEP. You don't have an IEP because I desperately No, I meant for the whole install pump thing and the thing for people who have type one diabetes, and the same for most every single human being, child in school with medical issues. And children who can't speak that need the computer to speak. Mm-hmm. But the number of parents who have come to me going, well, the teacher said this counts as an electronic, and I'm like, mm, Yeah. the bad guy. they, I don't, and I'll be honest with you, Amanda, like, I don't even think that the teachers know. What's right and what's wrong. I don't think that they know the law, and that's, that is, I think probably one of the worst things is that, you know, they are, they're, they go to school to become teachers and then they get specialized in special education, so they're gonna go and they're gonna do extra things to become a special education teacher. Then some of them become administrators, some of them don't. some of the administrators come from somewhere else and they get put into the special education world. But let's be honest, unless you study, unless you know what the law is, you are not gonna be able to help somebody. And a lot of times these IEPs are written really. Just to fail the kids because they don't like, they put no effort into it. They don't even know how. Like, I'll tell you the they go to chat. G-P-D-G-P-T sometimes. Yes, yes. But you know what, if you know how to go to Chad GPT and actually ask it the right way, you might actually get a good answer. But most of the time they don't even know what the questions are. and you brought up a point with, because you're in California, so I think in certain school districts it's mandatory, but not all that you have to have that special ed in all 50 states. It is not a requirement for your child's special ed teacher to have any special ed training. That's awful. So you're talking, so wrong, uh, it's. And I will sit there and go, hi, dunno if you're aware of this. And they're like, oh, I've never heard of that. I've left IEP meetings. The one we did with her where her Montessori preschool teacher was in there, her Montessori preschool teacher left and went, how much training do they have?'cause she thought they had a lot of training. And I went, oh, in the state of Florida, the head of the SPED department here has had zero training in special ed. And not a single one of the teachers in this district has had more than two weeks of training in special ed. awful. And how are you supposed to write an IEP for a child when you don't have any kind of training on it? Well, and like you said, um, when she was doing her IEP. There are two different versions of autism, which is always fun because parents don't know this, and I don't think teachers know this. We have the educational autism and the medical autism. The schools do not have to accept the medical diagnosis. Correct. the only one where they do not have to accept the medical diagnosis. Because she couldn't speak, the school system refused to acknowledge that she was autistic. Then they put them in speech and language, right? Under speech and language? Sometimes, no. What did they do? Uh oh. Mm-hmm. What? No, it just saying Turn it on. Did you want me to Turn it on. Well, I badly wanna bring up that one fun story about my teacher from that school. No, no, no. we're not doing that. Turn off your mic before you bring up that story again. Um, any. No, they were offering her one 20 minute group session a month. And I knew Tricare and because they weren't offering what her developmental pediatrician wanted, it kicked us out of the school on to, because she was in private school. If she'd been in public school, this couldn't have worked. But because she was in private school, I could go, I'm sorry. She just doesn't qualify under what the public school's willing to do. And her developmental ped was sitting there waiting to tell our insurance, you've gotta make it right. So she's gotta have, he wanted five. I talked to him down to four days a week of speech, 'cause I need a life. Um, but she also got, it was like, I want five days a week speech. I want five days a week per ot. I want five days a week. So you want her in therapies four hours a day? day. Yes. And you also want her to take preschool in the morning. PT one made sense since, I dunno, I could barely walk. PT wound up being tossed to the orthopedics and they're like twice a week. She can only handle twice a week, like any adult twice a week. Um, but I had the added benefit of, I had been doing it for 13 years, I think before I walked into an IEP meeting and her teacher had done fewer IEPs than I had done. Yeah. It's crazy. they're just not trained and, and really, like I, some of the IEPs that I've gone through too, when you look at the goals and you look at the present levels and you look at everything, it's like. Oh, she is great. She loves to do this. She is a great student. She is a delight to have in our classroom. How is that present levels when you're talking about education? Right? So, and that's the majority of present levels when you're looking through IEPs and when you look at IEPs, if you don't have good present levels, how do you make goals? if you don't have a good eligibility, a real true eligibility, how are you gonna look at how you provide services? So all of those things are so important, and this is what an advocate brings into play. So when you look at an advocate, I actually had this question in my head. I didn't know what an advocate was, and I always thought an advocate. Was kind of like a lawyer that you kind of needed to go to law school for, which is not true. That's not how it is. But your advocates should know the law. They don't have to be lawyers, but they should know the law. You know, for you to go and hire an attorney to attend IEPs, I think that you're gonna be a little bit disappointed a lot of times because they are good at due process. They're good at defending and getting your case heard in court. But when you find a good advocate, they care about your child, they care about you, they care about the family, your little guy, your little girl, right? Because. A lot of them, and not all of them, some of them like me, I'm a parent. I'm a parent first and foremost. And I think that that makes an advocate, um, how do I say this? Like we, we have that empathy. We understand where it is that you're coming from and how you're feeling. There are advocates out there that come from, you know, sometimes there are special educators that just left and they got tired of special education and they decided to go to the other side and actually get things done. there are people that come from all over, you know, all different things. So speech and language therapists that come in and they become advocates and there's lots of different ways of becoming advocates, but there's not a certification. There are, Classes and some certifications, but you don't need to be certified. So just be careful with the kind of advocate you're going for. Sometimes lower price is not the best Do a little research to make sure, Yes.' cause there are some advocates out there who have higher prices and have the names. But if you talk to the lawyers and everyone who has a good track record, we're kind of rolling our eyes at them going, well, yeah, they make lots of money, but, Mm-hmm. um, and it is like you and then you have Amanda on the other side, right? The ones that are charging very little, and of course they don't have a lot of experience. they come from, you know, and I would hope that if you become an advocate that you want to help. You know, but sometimes it's not always that way either, but, um, just, And, I don't know. the law does get funky. Yes. I I would not suggest any parent, try to figure it out.'cause you've got the I-E-A-I-E-D-A act. Um, I guess we're now calling it by the letters instead of idea, like I grew up crawling it. Um, you've got the a DA stuff that comes in, but that's not, that's covered under other stuff and not covered necessarily under your 5 0 4 and IEP. But you can bring it into your 5 0 4 and IEP when you get someone like me going, hi, I wasn't asking if the child could bring their wheelchair to school. I was telling you the child That the child needs the wheelchair. Yes. Um, the number of schools I've, I can't walk. can't walk. I mean, I've also remember That's the whole reason anyone would have a wheelchair. I've also had, uh. Meetings where we've gone into and they're like, well, could the child just try to like a pair of glasses to see if that will cure their blindness? Okay. That only works for my father My Or, you know what I love? And also I think wrong part of the spectrum of blindness since technically my father is legally blind since he needs glasses. So I think if he can't use glasses, wrong side of the blindness. But you also have like, and I'm sure you're starting to hit it, Medicaid. Cover certain stuff, but depending on how you get your insurance, depends on how Medicaid can cover it in the school system. And the school system will try to push you towards Medicaid and then you'll find out, oh shoot. Especially if you're with the I got Medicaid extended coverage and I wasn't allowed to do that. Now I've gotta get my, or I have to repay all the money, but I wasn't the one who got the money. The school system got the money. isn't that awful? So I started telling my clients to not sign the on the paperwork. Like, no, we don't do that anymore. The other thing that I heard too, Amanda, is that as soon as you sign that on the IE. The kids' names go into some kind of a, and I don't know what it is, but with their, all, the whole entire social security number just out there for the world to see, which, you know, I'm not a conspiracy theorist here, but when you put it out there, it's probably not the best thing to have when it comes to, it's not the whole world, it's just all medical researchers who would like that information. there you go. And you can become a medical researcher somehow, can't you? Yeah, I'm like, because people, uh, I'm not sure I trust the CDC with some things or the NIH some days it's like they're human. Yeah. We are all human. That's true. I've seen some really great researchers I know accidentally leave a, uh, subject's name in a research paper when they published it. Oh my gosh. Yeah. We are human, we are, and you know, I can say the word, but shit happens and I get it, but we can prevent certain things. But I think that the biggest thing here to understand that is that advocacy is not easy. It's not something that comes second nature to people. And one of the things that happen with parents a lot of time is that the parents are so emotionally linked to the child. And so you go to these IEP meetings and I cannot tell you how many times I would just cry. And because I wanted something, I knew that Drake needed something and I couldn't vocalize it the way that I needed to say to them I couldn't make them hear how important that was because I was so emotional. and what happens is that because of those emotions, because of the way we feel about our children, we can be good advocates, there's no doubt about that. But sometimes we get so involved that we need somebody else with us. And one of the great things about IDEA is that you play a role in the IEP table, right? The IEP team, like you are, they cannot do an IEP without you. Let's. Okay. You know, so you are like, yes, they're not Exactly, that's what, that's why I put it in quotes. And if you were, if you're just listening, you didn't see me doing the quotation marks right there, but you are a part of the I-E-T-I-E-P team, right? And so, but the one thing that people don't tell you is that you can bring whoever you want to an IEP and sometimes bringing a friend or bringing an advocate or bringing whoever you want on there, like it helps you. I will tell you some advocates are great and they're gonna do the job, and they're gonna get the job done. Other advocates are not gonna do it. they're just gonna rile everybody up. And you're going to get, you know, you're gonna hear some, some bad words with, there's just gonna be a fight. And that's not usually the way to go about it with the school districts. Um, the last few that I've worked with, I have found that really, truly, they just didn't know. And when you open up and you start asking questions and you, you do it in a different way, they open up to you and at the end they're like, okay, how should we write this goal? And I look at them, you're the teacher. You should know how to write a goal. But you know, you, you ask so many questions that they're just puzzled and they go, okay, how do I do that? And that means that they don't even know they're trying their best, they're doing what's, you know, but they just don't know. And so you need somebody. Who knows, and that's when you bring in an advocate. I almost think you should probably think about bringing in an advocate or at least getting one on retainer so that you have someone who knows what you're doing. Because I came from within the community, um, I had no idea what my IEP looked like as a child. I have since tracked it down to see what my IEP you We play I got. That's why I would say, I mean, we have for one Um, but no, I literally know the superintendent and I'm like, it's my record. I wanna see it. And he is like, okay, we'll track it down and we've got it. And I'm like, OMG, these have not gotten any better and the last 40 plus years. Um, and he is like, yeah, there should have been a few key things on here that would have made a few of my life things easier. Mm-hmm. were they legitimate things to put on on IEP? Probably not. But it like, do not forget you have this student when she's in speech. What would have been nice to put on my IEP? You know, Amanda, you know what's interesting is like, I don't, I don't know how old you are and you don't have to tell me, but my, so I was just talking to my brother, uh, two days ago. My brother was that kid in school. He was the little shit in school. Right. He got in trouble all the time and it, when I say all the time, it was all the time he got expelled. From what? Like my whole entire family. We went to this private, uh, baptist school in Brazil. We were not Baptist, we were Mormons growing up. But we went to the school, which was very, very interesting that my parents. Wanted us to go to that school. Like it made no sense. But he got in trouble every single day of his life. And back then, I don't think that people realized the issues. It, it was, everybody thought that he was a choice. Everybody thought that he was choosing to be the little shit in school, that he was choosing to not listen. And I think that up to this day, sometimes, and, and of course, you know, now, he, he, he was late diagnosed with autism. Um, he always had a DHD. But you know, back then it wasn't something that really people looked for. And so anyway, besides all of that, when you look at some IEPs today, they try to still to this day, blame behaviors on kids that have special needs. On they wanna do, when they want to do this, they're gonna do it when they don't wanna do it, they don't want to. and it's like, no, this is part of their disability. This is how they respond to things. and if you don't catch that on an IEP, you are missing out on a whole behavior intervention plan that you should probably have to make sure that you're not getting to the behavior at the end. And that things just, you know, put things in place. So this kid is not the little shit. Right? Sorry I keep saying this, but it's, it's just, you know, that I was me, child. Just work around politicians, developmental oh, and don't forget that you let me around them. When I was technically not non-receptive and then none of you knew. I was receptive because it didn't show on my face because I wasn't give a damn about your people. So, as you know, doctors, especially as you get to neurologists and developmental pediatricians and behavioral psychiatrist. Their behind the scenes language may not be the most appropriate. apparently none of them knew that. and so we didn't know. She grew receptive and she was still hanging around all of us and none of us were watching our language.'cause why watch your language around the kid who has no ability to understand what you're saying. She learned curse She, I, I just oh yeah. those people, I just couldn't understand them at four. Right. I apparently gave receptive at four and none of them knew. No, like, so I'm 44. My first IEP was in kindergarten and some of the stuff that I still hold against those teachers, no, they couldn't have written into an IEP, but if they'd understood how the childhood brain works, like I had speech, this sounds really stupid, and this is where like sometimes I think an advocate can come in and explain things to the school. Even for the child. I had speech therapy while they were doing the letter of the week. And so every Monday we would come in with, you know, I'm old enough, we had like newspapers and magazines delivered to our doorsteps. We would cut out something that began with that letter. Everyone would tape it up on Monday. And when I was in speech on Friday, they would draw a name for which student got to take the letter of the week home, because I was in speech. They forgot to put my name in the drawing. Oh, no. They didn't remember until one of my friends, like at the end of the school year was like, you know, Amanda's never gotten one of these letters. Oh, I got a pity letter that week and Ms. Anderson's like, oh, well I guess you get the letter this week, since we've already gone through the class and people are getting, and they were getting like doubled up letters and yeah. And the superintendent's like, uh, now that you're mentioning that, that might be something to put in if you're doing something special, when you know that student is always gone during that special thing. Make sure. So one of the cases I was working on, they actually were not sending homework home with the child because She was out of the classroom during the time that they would put all the homework in the backpacks, like any kind of the paperwork that would go home with all the gen ed kids. She was in a gen ed class with pullouts. but she wasn't there when those things were happening. I'm in the IEP and I'm looking at them and I'm like, she should be getting this. And then they look at me and they're like, yeah, she should. And I'm like, do you know how wrong this is? Like, it is wrong so many levels, but they don't think about it. unless you bring this up, unless you have an advocate to remind you that they have the same rights as the other kids, then it's just gonna continue to happen. it will continue to happen. You get rights as a child. Yeah. she gets to hear about all the bad IEPs, but no, like, and when you used air quotes earlier on, parents being involved, I don't see my parents' signature on the IEP at all. Mm-hmm. Um, and it's like, I thought I wasn't diagnosed with dyslexia until sixth grade and being 11, and it looks like they knew in first grade and they were just gonna hold me back until the dyslexia went away. My gosh. So you, you have like the people that would just hold you back, back then, right. They would be hold back and now it's like, just push them through. They're gonna be in six or in high school and they can't read. But that's okay. Right. It's like the, it's it, it's how it was, how things are. Now it's, can we find something in the middle? Can we help? there's a fine line with dyslexia and dysgraphia, especially when you get to the more severe end like Leta is. Yeah, sometimes you have to figure out how you accommodate the dyslexia. And yeah, maybe that means she's using voice to text to write her stuff. Maybe that means she's reading on audio books. But even that going into, 'cause she doesn't have her IEPs, but I've been into IEPs with severe dyslexia and the teachers are like, well, doesn't that just mean the D's and the B's and the P'S and the Q'S flip? And I'm like, well, you just described dysgraphia, not dyslexia. And they're like, what is dysgraphia? You just graduated college in the last five years. You should possibly have heard of this thing. you heard college professionals? we say words for me please. You would like them to teach dysgraphia and gonna say, have you heard college professors this last century? There are still bad. the high school professors are surprisingly not as the kindergarten professors, and surprisingly, the kindergarten ones have gotten a little smarter. Well, there's been a few completely wrong in the head Once. But, um, she has opinions from hearing about all this. I just think teachers are stupid. I am also surprised why we keep giving them pay raises when they don't show why we should get them respect anymore. Like I feel bad for the teachers because I actually had respect. Can you tell she deals with the bad ones or hears me Talk about the bad ones. Um, you heard about the Harvard grad who graduated valedictorian at her high school and at Harvard, who is suing now because she can't read or do math, Isn't it crazy and that's graduating at a college level. But all of her, I mean, the accommodations, they focus what? And IEPs, that's another thing I think advocates know to pick up on those behavioral issues because some of those behavioral issues or due to, and some of them you don't need to, uh, fix, just live with them. yes. Um, if it's not disrupting the class, Leta had it happen at dance, but I've had it in IEPs where teachers are like, well if the child has a silent seizure, we're going to take X, Y, Z from them. And I'm like, hi, no offense. But they didn't decide to have a surprised yeah, it's like A choice. It's crazy. somehow alive. alive. She had, and I've told you this before, she had dance teachers who would yell at her over it. And I'm like, that's called a silent seizure. But, um, oh well they're not participating in class and then they're acting groggy and disoriented after they quit participating. We're going to need to take recess from them or, you know, call the school nurse 'cause they just had a seizure in your class. Which one are you picking? You gonna help her or you're not gonna help if you want to Ugh, if you want to teach corpses, you could just say, so why don't you just go dog? Why cemetery? If you want dead children, why don't you just go ahead and work at cemetery? Actually, no, I take that back. I fake the souls in that cemetery might curse you for life. Also probably take your stool. Oh. Like the one from Princess Man gets taken by his friends from the other are definitely. Oh my gosh. She loves the rabbit holes. And she gets to hear all of my really bad ones. Like we've had, I've gone into, they're 10 more, 5 0 4, uh, on it where I've got kids with juvenile diabetes and the teachers are like, well, when their blood sugar's low, they just need to wait till break in the school's day to go get, uh, insulin. And I'm like, that, that wasn't really a, I, I'm sorry, no. You can't time that. And the, uh, parents get labeled as the bad parents if they're advocating the way someone like you or I can come in and be the bad guy and kind of protect the parents in a way.'cause we can redirect all the badness on us. Mm-hmm. We can be the mean guys. and when I say that I'm the nice one and you're the mean one. Like I don't mean it like that. I can't be mean because, oh, trust me, my type AA can come out and I can be mean I just try, get to this in the beginning, like you were saying, I try to get in the beginning of the madness and so if I can fix that, then you don't get the madness and the mess at the end. But sometimes you always start with, you know, cooperation. And really one thing to keep in mind that I felt for many years with my son is that. Sometimes it gets to a point where as a parent you feel like they are against you, that they're picking on your child. that, because you are that parent that's asking questions, asking for extra services, asking for things. Because of that, you become that parent and becoming that parent makes you feel like you are butting heads with the district. And so it, you know, it's like us against them. And so especially when things get that way, that's when you need somebody in the middle. But I, um, so my son has, a. Very rare genetic disorder. He is one out of like 200 and a few, I kind of lost track, but I think we're like two hundred thirty, two hundred and forty in the world. When he was first diagnosed, he was one out of 40, I think he was number 42. And, um, one of the things that I've noticed and that I applaud the parents for doing this is that, first of all, we're catching this earlier, right? So genetic testing is being done sooner. And so we're getting these little kiddos, like some of them are even less than 1-year-old, and they are finding out that they have this disorder. and I think that genetics is coming to a place where people are finding out sooner. And so what's happening is that some of these parents are going right away and they're getting an advocate. And this is probably the smartest thing that you can do. If you know your child has a genetic disorder or anything really, like as soon as you get some kind of a diagnosis outside of school and you know that they're gonna need some kind of special education, get an advocate and start it off, right? Start the IEP process in the right way. Make sure that the assessments that they're doing are the correct ones for your child. Make sure that when they do these assessments, you can get that information and develop that into a plan for your child and start it out, right? Instead of waiting until your child is not making progress in any way, shape, or form to come back and say, I need help because my son is not progressing. They've had the same goals for the past three years. So why, you know, why didn't you start three years ago? and I'm not trying to make a parent feel guilty because they've done this, because I have done it. and sometimes we just get scared. We don't know what it is that we're really supposed to be doing. And to be honest, like I didn't have any interactions with advocates. It was mostly Um, speech therapists and you know, some psychologists and things like that. And I did what I could with what I had in my hand. But there's so much more that a good advocate can do for your child. So like, don't be scared, like get it started right away because you know, it all goes back to early intervention, right? That is the best thing that you can do for your child. Early intervention. Advocates know the Language, at least the good ones, so they can also minutes. Thanks. They can catch she's becoming the little producer too, Yeah, I can tell. They can catch things. Like I'll be talking to someone from a school system and automatically know they know absolutely nothing about special education or about whichever thing we're discussing because I'm using terminology the community uses and they're not, um, a good advocate depending on how much they've been in the community themselves. There are a few speech therapists that I would like to remind them that maybe they should go back and redo their a SL training because I've had to walk away at the dance studio 'cause I hard of hearing my, I grew up around people who spoke it fluently in the HOH community and parents at dance will do signs that I have to walk away.'cause if their 3-year-old did it, it'd be like, oh, that's cute. You messed up and used the wrong word. When they're doing it, I'm like. Who taught you? And they're like, oh, the speech therapist at the school taught me. And I'm like, hi, um, I'm gonna walk away and have my like full on rolling on the floor laughing at you moment. And then I'll come back and tell you what you just signed. Because what you just signed is not what you think you just signed. And if I didn't know you. could mm, mm eh, it not to four olds or five year olds, no less things that don't need to learn size for reproducing. no, they're, uh, assigning things that are very, Oh, okay. gotcha. and they are so close to not adult words. What I think means cherry ain't mean. Right. Let's stop there. But it is very. Very close to what a little kid would say, like there is a very fine line between no more and something a child should not be saying. you know how we figured out, like how we learned sign language was through, um, was it YouTube? I can't remember. I don't know if it was YouTube back then or whatever was, it's like the, you know, the teach the dancing people and. Apple and milk. That's what we knew. Like I am telling you, like if you got anything above that, what was there, like, there was just not, I just didn't, you think a few of the speech therapists may have also learned from there. Oh, for sure. And so you get, I mean, it's really easy to get signs wrong, right? It's easy to do that. Everybody knows what the sign for Okay. Is it's just universal, right? had to fix a few. Right. The Right. Because the sign for, okay, you learned because I'm in the HOH community. A few of the parents have been signing it as normal people do. And I'm like, that is just a thumbs up and know it's thumbs down. That's easily, and I don't know, it's literally in the middle. So this one's a funny, and it's, uh, from my childhood on teachers just don't know. One of my friends was almost completely deaf in school. And, um, we had a long-term substitute come in, didn't know my friend was on an IEP. Granted this was the eighties, but I'm not a hundred percent sure. All the teachers know their students are on IEPs nowadays. Mm-hmm. the teacher gave her the speaking worlds universal sign for. Okay. When she was handing back the test, my friend had gotten an A plus on the test. We are third grade. She thought she got an F on the test because the universal sign for Okay happens to be sign language for F Oh, okay. instead of like thumbs up, which you know ev it's this and it's like, and she broke down crying'cause she was a straight A student. How dare she get an Do you know what this is in Brazil? I'm guessing something totally different. It's an FU. So like it's an F, the U. That's what it is. So when people, when they get there and they start doing the okay signs, it's actually really funny. We've gone through that quite a few times. Oh yeah. it's, and that's another thing is IEPs need to be culturally sensitive. I mean, they don't need to have DEI, but they need to be culturally sensitive. Yeah, I think that some, and one of the things too, Amanda, you know, we can talk about culture. We can go down the rabbit hole because there's so much there to unpack when you talk about IEPs. But parents who are here in the United States, not all of them speak English. So they're going to these IEP meetings without translators and like, what is happening? How is an IEP being conducted? When the parents, one, they don't know that they can ask for a translator. Number two, they're going into the meeting and really understanding maybe. If lucky, 50% of it, you know, and then they go at the end and they say, sign here. And then they just go and sign it. So same things with like, you know, the low income kids. There's there like the parents have to work so they don't go to the IEPs. So the IEPs are gonna be whatever it is that the school puts down, whatever the copy and paste that they did. and that's it. So you need, you need that advocate, you need that advocacy. You need to learn and you need to know, like you need someone who knows the law. yeah, I've done IEPs where it's been, uh, parents who have, are visually impaired and they didn't bring a braille version or the braille version they did was letter for letter, which is not how Braille goes. And so the parents were trying to figure it out. I mean, braille just like a SL has its own grammar and text Oh yeah. I would never even know how to even start doing something like that. Seriously. But they do. They have their own, yeah. I've been in meetings where the parents are deaf or hard of hearing and whoever they've brought in as the interpreter is trying to do word for word and I'm like, do yes speak a SL. I'm sorry, word for Word for word. again. Or again, annoyed enough that they move their lips and do the handy hands at the same time. Me with both. Like Leta, they're translating word for word where there's a lot of skip in a SL Mm-hmm. They work. A SL is more like, uh, you know, you get. It's the gist of the conversation, right? If I'm not mistaken, like it's a, and I really, I'll be honest with you, this is an area that I am not scholared on its own language. Completely and totally. So it would be like, uh, or when you've been in, um. IEP meetings where they did bring a Spanish interpreter who's interpreting word for word Spanish grammar doesn't follow our, uh, English grammar deal. So I trying to understand it when all the words are outta place. But yeah, a SL it's not necessarily the gist, it's just there's certain words that you can just drop off because you know that word's supposed to be there, Mm-hmm. Yeah. but that's where it's like, at least know the culture of like a SL. If you have a deaf parent or a hard a herring parent, bring in someone who can actually interpret.'cause it's the law, So this is right on my side right here because I, I'm not Amanda, I can't like, quote off of this stuff, but I always have it right here. And you can see that it's all marked with like, my little markings of what it is and, and things that we need to know. But this is the law. And even though it gets gray sometimes you can get different versions and different things, but I feel like the law is the law, right? And a lot of times, and you talk about culture, culture. Within the school district also happens. And they think that certain things that they're doing is the right way because it's been done for so many years, but it's not the right way. And so a lot of times I quote from here, or I read actually, 'cause I don't quote, but I read from here because this is where advocacy comes from. Like this was created for the kiddos that need it, for our kiddos, for our complex kiddos. Parents don't have the time to sit down and try to figure that out. And each individual state, 'cause you're in California, California has a whole different set of rules and regulations versus like Colorado, I am not a hundred percent sure that we will be having special ed next year looking at our current budget suggestions. Um, 'cause I looked at the current budget and it's either all going to be Medicaid and general education and nothing else, or we're gonna have to cut a whole bunch of stuff. I, you know, that's why, politicians like that, you know, that is something we need to really become advocates in different ways also, like by voting, by, you know, participating in communities and things like that. And that's something that I've been trying to do more of lately because I truly believe that, I mean, we make a difference. Like it makes a difference. We have to make a difference and we have to look at it for the future. We need to look out for the future of our kiddos. Right. And what's gonna happen, really, it's scary where we are right now with all the stuff that's happening. You know, the partner of education, bye-bye. Like it's gone. So where do we go from here? Like, what do we do? How is it gonna be? Is it gonna be under the Department of Justice? Where is this gonna go? Right. Those are all things that we need to think about and it's scary. as someone who's been doing this at the higher, everything gets effed up level. I would love for it to go under Department of Justice and would be awesome. because I can tell you how many times I had Department of Ed in the office saying, Hey, this is it. And I'm like, did y'all forget to bring your lawyers?'cause uh, the lawyers are talking now and y'all didn't read it right. Um, 'cause we would have Department of Ed go, this one is once more. You need an advocate 'cause you can have a 5 0 4 and an IEP.'cause they talk totally different things. They're not related. Uh, there's a Venn diagram where they kind of overlap, Yeah. but. and those are things that people don't know. Like they just don't know what they don't know. And you need to find somebody who knows what you don't know. And I think that that's one of the reasons why I'm so excited that I have stepped into this world because I see the difference that I have made through the years. I see how knowing what I know has become something that has helped a child, you know? And so it makes me happy. I love doing this. you know, my. It's interesting. I've been doing my day job, my medical sales career for 20 years, and I haven't been this excited about something in a long time, and this really makes me happy and it brings me joy to know that what I'm doing is going to help somebody. And Leta is falling and I think that she is trying to tell us that it's I was about to wrap it up. And so. have been talking. I am so excited. You're in this arena now. I think we need more people like you who are advocates because they love helping other people. Where can people get in touch with you if they're looking for an advocate? Um, is there a certain specific state you do versus other states? So, you know, the federal law is the federal law, and there are other state laws that need to be addressed, but California is my hometown. It's my home state. So this is where I am the most comfortable, especially in Orange County here where I'm at. But you know, we help all over the country. We really do. And you can find me on special education concierge.com. And, um, I am on all social media and I've been on your podcast about six times and my winning, by the way, did I win I haven't talked to Kristen. I think you won today. Uh, but now I'll probably get a deal from Kristen going, hi. Would you like to be on the show? So anyway, you can always find me with Amanda also because they are just amazing, Amanda in Leta but yes, special education concierge.com. That's where you find me. You can find my thrive information in there. My wisdom for complex kids, everything's still in there because that is the heart and soul of special education concierge. But we are just getting bigger. We are just doing more right now for the parents, so, Oh, and as soon as Autistic Wing dance company has that studio space, with that nice little place, we can have parent meetings. We're gonna have to fly you out here to do an in-person lecture for everyone. I better be the first one. So. well, at least the first five, let's just say that the first five and I will fly out there and I will be so excited to be there because I think that the work that you ladies are doing is so important and I wish that there was a place around here that did the same thing, because I think that a lot of kiddos need this. as soon as we get our ducks in a row here, and I'm sure I've mentioned this, we are planning on expanding across the country, Yes. And then we're gonna come out here to California and Orange County and I'm gonna help you out with the stuff out here, so it'll yeah. Orange. Orange girls in California now. No, for the studio, we're gonna have to put this out across the country. I would like to get our studio IEP figured out before I send it out to close is LA what an IEP is. there? Orange County no, I said How close is La Tap Fest to Orange County, Hollywood Tap Fest? Tap Fest. Orange That's just south. That's where we went to go get your shoes that one day That's what I would. There you go. and it gives you an excuse to go see your great grandmama. Well, thank you for coming thank you. have you on again. Next one might need to just be IEP Central. I think that that would be great. we can talk about, there's a lot to talk about IEPs, so thank you for having me as always. It's always a pleasure to talk to you. Well, thanks for coming on. Bye. Bye. hi, it's Amanda from Lead US Textiles. And my, uh. Autistic life. Um, I wanted to hop on real quick because if you have been following latest tap styles, if you have been following our nonprofit autistic wings dance company, you probably know that right now, November, 2025. Into December 9th is Colorado, gives month. It is a huge fundraising effort where you can help join the wave of generosity and donate to some of your favorite nonprofits here in Colorado. Um, we have the incentive fund that is part of this. For every dollar we raise, we get a part of the million dollar incentive fund. There is a leadership board and the. First and second place in the three categories, small, medium, and large nonprofits. And they get 10,000 and 5,000 respectively. There is right now, as I'm recording this on November 4th, a matching grant where if you start donating a new monthly donation of up to $100 a month, the Colorado Gifts Foundation will match your first month. That means your first month this month. Actually, uh, November, when you donate, instead of donating $20, it'll be $40. Instead of 50, it'll be a hundred. Instead of a hundred, it'll be 200, which made your money is instantly doubled. We are participating because, as you might know, Lida started a dance studio called Autistic Wing Dance Company. It's for autistic dancers, ages three to four. We do level one, level two, level three, a SD. We've got kids like Spencer who are level three. They have to have private lessons for. Reasons he needs that one on for, um, Dale, one, Spencer, two, four teachers I know. Amazing. Uh, Dale here, two of them are his parents, so we're not paying at least two of them. Unfortunately we have outgrown our current facility and we need your help raising $5,000 in monthly donations. Um, I will link to the video about it below, along with, to the website where to give, if you are able to give this season, we would be grateful if you can ant we understand if you can also, you know. Comment on our, social media post. If you can share them, if you can follow autistic wings over on Facebook and, Instagram and TikTok and YouTube to help get the message out, we would appreciate it. if this is not November, 2025. up to December 9th, 2025. You can still give, the link will be active year round. It's just the incentive fund and the fun competing against each other is only active during that timeframe. But your gift of any size is helpful year round. We do not charge our dancers what their classes are worth. It's costing me $290 an hour to put on classes right now. We charge them significantly less. Thank you for all of your support of Lead US TAP Styles over this past year, and thank you for all your support of Lead Us. A dream to have an autistic dance studio and to start it here in Colorado Springs and then send it out into the world. We want to have campuses in la. We wanna have campuses in New York, in Las Cruces, New Mexico, where Alita and I are from, we want to have campuses in London and Paris, in Toronto, in Brisbane. Australia, we wanna have this go worldwide and there to be an autistic wings dance company within an hour or so. Drive of every dancer who is autistic out there, who wants to be involved. And to do that, we gotta stay nonprofit. I mean, we could make money on this. That wouldn't be fair and that wouldn't be changing the world. That would just be making money. So if you can give this holiday season, go to www.coloradogives.org. Search for autistic wing dance company. Check out the links in the description below. Thanks again. Enjoy this week's podcast. Okay, well thank you for watching the podcast and please subscribe and also look at the Adorable, don't you like it?