total time: 2.53 minutes
total words: 223
[Lisa Kingsley]: Well, hello. For today's installment of Coffee Chats with the Kingsleys, two points I'd like to make. First, I'm joined by my husband, David.
[gT4_C1uPttA_SPEAKER_00]: Hello.
[Lisa Kingsley]: Second, this is the only time that we are both drinking real coffee. Inquiring minds have been worried about what's in my children's cup, and I can assure you and everyone out there that it has been, in fact, water or seltzer.
[gT4_C1uPttA_SPEAKER_00]: But today- There's our own natural source of that, yeah.
[Lisa Kingsley]: But this is the real thing today. All right, what do you want to ask me about improving oversight of special education?
[gT4_C1uPttA_SPEAKER_00]: This is going to be hard, so the kids threw you a lot of softballs. I want you to start from the beginning and tell us, what is special education?
[Lisa Kingsley]: That's fair. I take for granted that It's something that everyone's aware of, but no, special education is actually based on a federal law called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. And what it is, it's the procedures and program that's required for us to give any student, regardless of their ability, a free and appropriate public education. The other kind of, so that means all kids get to go to school, no matter who they are, and that it needs to match their needs. It needs to be appropriate for them. and that they are entitled to make what's called effective progress. Now, I've been to seminars about what effective progress means. It doesn't necessarily mean grade-level work, but it means students make progress that should be expected from their profile.
[gT4_C1uPttA_SPEAKER_00]: And the way that schools and families sort of jointly determine what that means, right? It is a conversation, and I think that takes place on that thing called the IEP that we keep hearing about.
[Lisa Kingsley]: Yes, so the individual education plan is the document that is kind of the foundation of individual child special education services. So the individual education plan is something that the team, you're right, it's the family and the school, writes together as partners and it outlines the specially designed instruction, which is The learning that's a little extra or different than just the standard curriculum that any student who's on an IEP requires. That's part of being eligible is you need to be taught something that's a little extra different. And it also outlines any accommodations or tools students use to access learning or modification or any changes to the expected content the student's going to learn. He's playing coy. We've sat at all sides of the IEP table, and the process is one that, like anything that's legally mandated, there's a lot of rules and compliance and timeline around it, but foundationally, the point of it is an instructional tool for families and schools to outline to meet every individual child's needs.
[gT4_C1uPttA_SPEAKER_00]: That can vary wildly, as we've experienced and we've talked about over the years, depending on what the process is in the community at the school level, at the district level, right? I'd love to talk a little bit more about the intersection of that with school committee and why it's a part of your platform, but we're getting a little bit long here.
[Lisa Kingsley]: Okay, so that might have to be part two. It's our first two-parter. All right, see you soon.
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total time: 2.53 minutes total words: 223 |
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