E111: Special Education Administration (Coordinators + Directors) [IEP Team BONUS Series]
Welcome to the fanalie episode of The IEP Team BONUS Series! This week we are tlaking about special education administration, which includes special education directors and coordinators. In this episode we discuss: 1) Qualifications of Special Education Admin using Colorado state guidelines as an example 2) The long list of what Special Education Directors and Coordinatiors actually do 3) The reasons why you would want to pull them into your IEP meeting/sutuation, and a few hints of when you wouldn't want them to be involved directly in your IEP!
Welcome to the fanalie episode of The IEP Team BONUS Series! This week we are tlaking about special education administration, which includes special education directors and coordinators.
In this episode we discuss:
1) Qualifications of Special Education Admin using Colorado state guidelines as an example
2) The long list of what Special Education Directors and Coordinatiors actually do
3) The reasons why you would want to pull them into your IEP meeting/situation, and a few hints of when you wouldn’t want them to be involved directly in your IEP!
Download your FREE IEP Process Step By Step Guide
E111: Special Education Admin [IEP Team BONUS Series]
[00:00:00] Welcome to the finale episode of the IEP team bonus series of the parent IEP lab podcast. Today, we are talking about our final role that we haven’t discussed yet the special education administration position, which I’m kind of lumping together and talking about special education coordinators and special education directors as well.
So don’t miss this episode because we are talking about their qualifications and also what their position actually looks like. And some points about if you want them directly involved in your child’s IEP or if you don’t and why or why not? So stick with me.
You are listening to the parent IEP lab, the podcast that helps you get an effective IEP plan for your child so that you can get them supported and learning in school. I’m Beth Leeson, Feld occupational therapist, who started to notice trends in parents who got effective IEP for their kids without having to fight the school.
My mission is to help you learn the pillars of knowledge that I saw these effective parents use in their own advocacy, and also to provide insider knowledge from the school side, so that you have context to turn that into informed, [00:01:00] intelligent questions that actually get you somewhere
with the school IEP team. So let’s dive into the topic today and think about what we can change and tweak to get the right formula for success for your child to learn and grow at school. Welcome to the lab.
If you have an IEP meeting coming up as we are rolling into the spring season, which is typically called IEP season,
don’t forget to snag your IEP process. Step-by-step guide. It helps you figure out what’s next in the process and when to share your parents’ input within that process to get the best chance of being heard and having the most impact on your child’s IEP, the link is in the description, or you can go to the IEP lab.com/iep to get your copy.
Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to the podcast. I’m so excited that you are here, and if you are new to this IEP team bonus series, then you caught the last one. The purpose of the series was to give parents extra context. Into the school staff members that may be a part of your child’s IEP team, including their qualifications, [00:02:00] like what program they have to go to school. If they have to pass a test,
if they are a bachelor’s or a master’s or even a doctorate level professional and to talk about what they actually do, which I think is the most helpful thing ever is to say, this is what it looks like when they’re working with your child, or this is what they do behind the scenes that you’re not going to see.
So this is helpful because then you can have some context for eight who is even available at your school for services. And we talk about this a lot, but we talk about focusing on the needs instead of the, the actual professional. So instead of advocating for OT, you are advocating for fine motor skills that might end up with support with OT, right? That’s that is the, one of the changes that I saw in all of those successful parent advocates on the school side when they came in and they advocated for a need.
And then whoever was best in that team to serve that need was who it was. But it’s so impactful to know that there’s other professionals that. Can specialize in these things that can be available to you as well. And also if you have any [00:03:00] concerns, if you have any, um, you know, if you have a really big team for your own, child’s knowing who to go to on that team for specific things is just so helpful and hopefully helps you kind of not be
as confused when you’re going to your team with some concerns that you know who to go to. So you are at the last one. We’ve made it, we’ve done all of the ones that are really part of the IEP team. So I. You know, paraprofessionals are typically in IEP meetings. So I have a separate episode for those guys. And there’s been a couple of people like interpreters that aren’t necessarily part of the IEP team either, which is really weird to say, right? Like interpreters, like ASL interpreters should be.
But oftentimes they aren’t. So there’s some kind of people that I considered putting into this series that I was like, no, we’re going to stick to our definition of the people that would come to the IEP meeting. And make some decisions there. So if you have another professional that’s on your team or [00:04:00] is involved with your child and you have kind of a question about what their role actually is, and maybe their qualifications.
Go ahead and hop into the Facebook group. The link to join is below this podcast in your podcast player and the description. And you are more than welcome to come in there. You know, say what your concerns are, what you’re curious about. If I missed one, but of course I’m going through the list of Colorado state’s, qualifications for special education people in order to make sure that I don’t miss any. So hopefully I didn’t miss any.
So if you are like, oh my gosh, this is great. I want to go find the other episodes in this series. They came out every Thursday for the last several months. So that started at episode 79 and every odd numbered episode from 79 to today’s episode, which is one 11. Is going to be part of that IEP team bonus series. So you can also go to my website, the.
The IUP lab.com. And if you go to the podcast page, there’s kind of a menu on the right hand side, or if you’re on your [00:05:00] phone, you have to click the menu button. And everything’s tagged. So if you click the tag of the IEP team bonus series, then you can find them all in the list there as well. If that’s helpful to you.
And so you’re welcome to do that. So if you’re wondering, like, Hey, I need to know more about what an OT does, or I need to know more about what my special education teacher actually does. Then you can go back and find that episode number as well.
I am based in Colorado. So just for simplicity sake, I do reference Colorado’s qualifications. For an example, all of the states are pretty similar as far as what we have to do to be qualified in our respective positions. But if you really want to know your own state specific qualifications and you can’t find it in Dr.
Google, then go ahead and happen to the Facebook group. And you can ask that question. We’ll help you search for it as well.
So today for the finale, we are talking about special education coordinators or directors. And so it’s just kind of labeled special education administrators, because I know that Texas.
Texas has [00:06:00] different names for these people. And also charter schools can have different position titles or names for these people. But what I’m talking about here is the top of the ladder when it comes to special education administration. So most often I’m going to refer to a coordinator or a director in the districts that I have been in the director is like the top person, almost like a.
Assistant superintendent in ways. And then the coordinators help the directors kind of get boots on the ground and really help their teams in the trenches. So even if your term is different for who this person actually is, I hope you can glean who this actually is in your own district, who we’re talking about.
So first let’s talk about their qualifications and then we’ll get into what they actually do and a discussion about when it’s time to pull them into your IEP meeting and why you may or may not want them there as well. So qualifications, so master’s or higher level degree in special education or school psychology [00:07:00] from a regionally accredited institution.
And then completion of an approved program from a regionally accredited institution for the preparation of special education directors, that includes a supervised field-based experience. Which just means an internship. And then the third one is two or more years. Full-time experience working with students with disabilities. And then the last one is passage of the Colorado approved content exam for district level leaders. So those are the Colorado qualifications for being a special education administrator.
So either. A director or a coordinator or whatever it’s called in your state. Right. They might have slightly different qualifications for that as well, if you’re in a different state. So let’s talk about what they actually do. So they do everything. They do a lot. They’re scheduled can get quite fall and they can be quite busy people. That doesn’t mean that they’re not approachable most of the time. I think most of them kind of miss that one-on-one interaction with kids for the most part, [00:08:00] but really they do everything. So let’s kind of detail out that a bit.
So they manage special education budgets. And they are in charge of IEP compliance. And they oversee all of the special education staff. So, you know, if there’s a problem that they’re seeing in IEP compliance, like they’re getting a lot of things in their system that they’re catching that, that like, man, we have a lot of kids that are qualifying for special education.
In the area of speech and language impairment, and it seems to be a little bit high from normal. So what is happening here? So then they’ll go back to their staff and their kind of problem solve and they’ll figure out like, oh, okay, like let’s do a deep dive into this and, and kind of make sure that that compliance is on point.
And then they manage special projects and initiatives and the programs, of course. So if they’re, you know, making a new autism program or if they’re doing, you know, a certain social, emotional learning, or if they’re, you know, doing Dr. Green’s work and bringing that into, um, the education, then they will [00:09:00] be kind of ahead of those special initiatives as well. And then they help in developing new supports or programs within the district, which I just kind of said, didn’t I.
So I gotta head myself. And then they do attend IEP meetings. If there is a conflict, if there is any question about placement internal or external. So like, oh, we’re going to be able to ask for uh, residential day treatment program. That special education director is probably going to be there for that. If it’s an emotionally charged situation, they will come. If it’s a family that has been litigious in the past. So there’s been due process complaints where, you know, there’s been due process filings or state complaints with this family, then they will come just naturally to those or.
And for the opposite reason, if the director has a really close relationship with the parent and the parent asks a lot of really good questions that the director doesn’t feel like he, or she should have the staff kind of answer those questions and they want to be more involved in the questions that [00:10:00] they have, then they will come to those meetings as well.
So, you know, in any question about resources, right? Because they are the manager of that budget and they can see from a big perspective, like, yes, we can make. Make that happen or, Hmm. I’m going to have to think about how to make that happen. And what they’re doing is they’re kind of figuring out in the budget.
Where they can kind of take that from, right. So big resources about like technology or policy changing items, or if there’s a question about qualification, that’s not super clear, they will come to everything that is kind of. You know, requires a certain level of education and like somebody to call the shots like the buck stops with them. So a lot of times they will come if there’s, you know, this question of like, if the staff is like, I don’t, I don’t know what we can do. What can we do in this situation? Um, the directors and the coordinators both have more experience in just being in a lot more of those meetings and just having more of an insider’s knowledge about the resources across [00:11:00] the district.
And what’s happening in their district. And also like what’s going to be a good fit. So placement options there, they’re really involved with some of those as well.
They will also be involved in training for special education staff on their jobs. So initially when I came into the several districts that I transferred to, um, they would have, you know, Additional meetings. Gosh, I think we went twice a week for at least the first two or three months that we were employed.
And we went to learn the special education software, like the IEP software that we were using. And so that was also an opportunity to mentor us, to answer any questions that we had about just our jobs in general. And so they do that initial training. A lot of the coordinators will do that. And then they will also, you know, manage the related service providers. So I think I mentioned in the principal’s episode that it was very much the trend that special education teachers.
We’re supervised by the principals. Like they were in that [00:12:00] building. Right.
And you any one of us who were itinerant, meaning we are in multiple buildings, or we were definitely a special education staff. Like some of the school psychologists, even if they weren’t in multiple buildings, they were supervised by the special education coordinator or director, or sometimes they would switch off.
So that means that they would come in and they would do observations of us. They would make ratings on us. They would. You know, talk to us about our jobs, do support. See if there was any additional trading that we needed, as far as that goes, and then. They would also be the support if we were like, oh, Hey, we need to order this evaluation or we need to.
I don’t know, we need to go to this training. Can we have funds to go do that? They would do that for us as well. Um, and then just a little bit of a note in smaller districts, these special education directors I have many hats and sometimes they are almost like an assistant superintendent at times with additional projects and responsibilities on top of that. So for example, like some of the anti-bullying campaigns we’re done [00:13:00] by the special education director, which.
Isn’t exactly related to special education, but you can justify it. Right. And so some of those kinds of things kind of fell on his lap and also until they broke out this one special education director’s job into more parts as they grew. He was also managing like the counselors, which aren’t necessarily special education staff.
Um, and then they brought in somebody else who has had a mental health background take that off of the director’s plate. So it really kind of can shift and grow as a district is growing. So. In a huge district. I’m sure there might be things that I’m missing, but most of the time they’re, you know, involved in some of them are involved in legislation by the state. And just keeping up with that.
They are. You know, the liaison between the district lawyers. So if there’s any kind of legal heads up that somebody has done a state complaint or something, they’d manage that as well and producing documentation for that, and kind of managing that as well. So, Um, [00:14:00] it’s a lot of administration, as you would guess.
And hopefully that helps you understand when they attend an IEP meeting, it can be like a good thing and it can be a bad thing too. So we’re going to talk about that next. So let’s kind of break it down first, before we get to that in what a coordinator does versus the director.
So. And very small districts. You’ll just have a director. And then as the district gets a little bit bigger, you’ll start to see coordinator or coordinators underneath that. So they are an assistant to the director. Oftentimes they’re more boots on the ground. So that director kind of shifts to the really big cases. It shifts to, um, you know, policy and big projects and legislation and kind of that kind of thing. And then the coordinators are the ones where most often.
They would be the ones coming to our weekly special education team meetings. So if you think about it, This is, this is actually, Hey, behind the scenes thing here. This is [00:15:00] actually why I feel like I have a lot of knowledge, like more than somebody else who works in a school is because I was on so many teams at once. And so if you think about it, um, the special education coordinators didn’t really come to the preschool team meetings.
They, they weren’t there unless we ask them to be there. If there was a certain thing that we needed their help with,
but otherwise, if I would cover four or five buildings, then we would have four or five weekly meetings with that special education team at that building. And the coordinator would always come to those meetings. So I ended up knowing our coordinators and actually our special education directors. So well, because they w I would just have more face time than everybody else. So a special education teacher, that’s in one building, they would have, you know, one hour with the coordinator or special education director per week. And if you think about it, then I was exposed to like four hours a week of being in [00:16:00] meetings with the coordinator and the director.
So I just really observed a lot and asked a lot of questions and understood. What it meant, because an answer would be slightly different building to building, to building, depending on how the team operated in that particular building. It was really interesting. And my sociology background kind of kicked in with
just observing the dynamics between the teams and how the coordinator came in and interacted with them as well. So that’s actually where all of my knowledge comes from. There’s just kind of gleaning from these really good coordinators and directors, how the system works on the backend and what kind of things they were considering to make decisions.
So. That that’s kind of a hint for you there. Um, and so the coordinators would also, answer questions, advise on procedures, but there was often times where they would say, Hmm, that is a special education director question. That’s over my pay grade. And so they would monitor concerns. They would really be aware of trends that were happening across the [00:17:00] district because they had a lot of touches with a lot of different staff in there as well. And so it just, it was really interesting that they were more boots on the ground and the director was more like
high level, um, addressing concerns across the entire district and assessing trends and kind of looking at where the holes were and where they needed to be better as a program. Right. So let’s talk a little bit about when you want them in meetings. And also why you wouldn’t want them in your meetings too. So.
If you feel like you are getting the run-around from the staff, if you feel like you’ve accidentally hit a nerve in the staff or your personality, doesn’t mesh with a special education teacher or somebody else on the staff for that matter. Um, you know, it might be helpful to go up the ladder and we talk about this
and the ultimate parent IEP prep course, too, of like who, who is this ladder? And I have this really cool little chart of like, who is the administration for principal, like general [00:18:00] education concerns and who is the next person to look for in the special education concerns. And we talk about that in the prep course, because if you have an issues, you might end up going up the ladder.
And so the top of the special education wrong. Is the special education director. So if you feel like, you know, you’re just getting the run-around, they’re saying that they don’t know what to do. They’re saying that they need support, but it doesn’t seem like they’re bringing in somebody above them to help. Then you can definitely reach out to the director and say like, Hey, this is happening.
And the staff is saying this and it’s not happening. These are my concerns. Like, can you help? Um, most of the time they are at night, I haven’t seen any that are super unapproachable, although. So I know from the parents again, in the prep course, when we do coaching calls that there definitely are some directors who are not very approachable. So, um, you know, you might feel better going to a coordinator instead.
Usually the coordinators are people who are in that position of having a lot of contact with people on [00:19:00] there. They’re more people, people they like to, um, you know, help and they have more boots on the ground. So that might be a more approachable person too, as well. But it just kind of depends on your situation.
Um, if you have placement concerns, if your child is putting into a more restrictive environment and you don’t want them there, or if the reverse is true, like whatever is happening. Um, if there’s placement considerations or it doesn’t seem quite individualized, then you definitely want to pull in that coordinator or director because they have more power to say.
Yeah, you’re right. We don’t want to deny fate, blah, blah, blah. Like if you drop some of those keywords, like FAPE, Which is the right to a free and appropriate public education. If you drop some of those words, then they understand that you are an educated parent and they will pay a little bit more attention, which is sad to say, but it is very true.
Um, and then if you are considering a legal action, like a due process or a state complaint, um, you might want to have them involved so that they can [00:20:00] handle that before you feel like you have to file a due process or a state complaint. And why I say that is really because. And I don’t want to discourage you from filing due process or a state complaint. If one needs to be filed, like I am in full support of you doing what you feel like you need to do, but here’s the thing, like you only have so much emotional energy to be able to advocate and your kid probably needs a lot of your emotional energy at home.
And you’re the only person to who can provide that. Right? So if there’s any way that the school or the district can fix what they’re doing, or, you know, really bring attention to it and give them like every opportunity to fix it before you do a two process or a state complaint. Then I would make sure that that special education director coordinator is there and they’re aware.
That you are on the verge of filing something because all of a sudden something can get done. If they are feeling like, oh no, no, no, we don’t want you to do that. We want, we can fix this [00:21:00] and you kind of want that to happen as far as the situations that I’ve seen too. So. Let me give you an example of when it’s actually really good to have them in meetings. So I think I’ve told this story before, but there was this great parent advocate and she, and she actually had our special education director on speed dial it seems like. So.
There were things that they were working through. There was definitely changes that needed to happen from the school side to be able to support kids like hers. So she wasn’t just a good, advocate for her own child, but she was a great advocate for everybody who is coming after her. And so she wasn’t mean at all.
She was very intelligent and her questions and her points, she was just very clear and she knew kind of the system enough to know when she was talking to somebody who couldn’t actually make the color, the changes that she wanted to inquire about. So what happened was the special education director just always got invited to their meetings and which they do anyway, but [00:22:00] sometimes they have a designee come for them. And I, I think I mentioned this in some other episode, but.
Um, so they would come, the director would come to every meeting with this parent and it wasn’t like it was contentious. It was just because this parent had really good questions. That the director knew that after the IEP, if they didn’t go to the meeting, that they would probably get a call because she probably had a really good question that they couldn’t answer, needed his expertise. So.
Um, I think that’s why he just always came to the meetings is because he just always knew that there was going to be a question that he needed to jump in with. And it was very frequent that he ended up jumping in and saying, Oh, yeah. We have a program for that somewhere else or, Hey, yeah, you’re right. That is a whole.
And let me figure out how we can provide that service. So it was just like a thing and special education teachers just realize that, um, she did call him directly and have conversations and like, it wasn’t against them [00:23:00] necessarily. It wasn’t because they weren’t doing their jobs. It was just because
um, they had a good relationship and she had some really good questions and she figured just going to him would be more efficient, which in all honesty, it really was. So, so that happened.
And then here’s the thing, though, if you really don’t jive with their personality, um, what can happen is they can get quite defensive, just like we talked about in the principal’s episode, they can get kind of protective over their staff. And especially right now, when staff is just so hard to find and they want to be able to protect their staff and feel like their staff is in a good working environment, and they want them to feel supported.
Sometimes they are going to be there and, and. Kind of make it into a meeting that feels more us versus them. As far as like the parents and the staff goes because they’re trying to protect their staff. So they’re hearing probably just one side of the story, right. And so they are going to really try to protect their staff, especially to protect them from [00:24:00] burnout at this stage in the game as well. So, um, really, you might not want them to be there.
Because it does bring some contention with it when you have somebody of that caliber at the meeting. So when you have somebody that high up and admin at the meeting, It can kind of take away that personalization and kind of make it more formal and more like nerve wracking a little bit and less like a conversation.
So that’s the reason why you wouldn’t want them at your meeting so, um, hopefully that helps you kind of outline what a special education director or coordinator or whatever they’re called in your district. Actually does that the district and when is a good time to pull them in, I would say if you feeling like you’re hitting a brick wall with your advocacy at any point,
I wouldn’t hesitate to reach out to the coordinator or the director to just ask some questions and be like, oh, I’m a little bit frustrated. This is what’s happening. Can you really tell me if this is possible or not, or whatever your situation is because you know, sometimes just going up the ladder rung can really help you understand what’s happening [00:25:00] and also kind of be that mediator between you and the school staff. If maybe you’re feeling like there’s a little bit of.
Um, contention there as well. So. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I’m very excited, but I’m also really sad to end this IEP team bonus series. I’ve heard a lot of feedback that this was helpful. So. If you have a suggestion for another bonus series that you would like to hear me do, I do have an idea for one, which I mentioned last week on the podcast. And that is to kind of break down these big, vague terms that we have, like inclusion or.
Like progress in goals and like what that means and, and kind of do my best to define those. But I am going to take a break. For a little while so that I can focus on the membership that’s coming out later this month at the end of February, and also, um, do a little bit of edits and revamps for the pet course too, and get ready to update that course as well. So thank you so much for listening and yeah. Join us in the Facebook group. If you have any comments about [00:26:00] this and.
Don’t forget to rate and review the podcast so that other parents can find this podcast easier. If they need it. If they’re looking for information, if you found it helpful, I would appreciate you rating and reviewing it, and don’t forget to subscribe as well. So I will see you again on Tuesday. For our weekly episodes and super excited to get that into your ears as well. So have a great one and I’ll see you. Same time, same place next week. Thanks so much. Bye.