E130: Summer Moves (Schools, Districts, States!)
Moving schools? Moving districts? Moving states? It may be a pain, but you actually have a clear advantage of moving from one situation to the next (even though it may be scary, too!)
Moving schools? Moving districts? Moving states? It may be a pain, but you actually have a clear advantage of moving from one situation to the next (even though it may be scary, too!)
In this episode we discuss:
1) The typical process of records exchange from one school to the next
2) How to set the tone with the next school to create an atmosphere of effective parent advocacy
3) The imporantace of making sure you understand what’s in your child’s IEP paperwork
4) Knowing what questions to ask the new school/district to make sure the transition is as smooth as possible
Need some personalized support this summer? Take advantage of 20% off the NEW 1:1 Advocacy Power Hours! This is 60 minutes of focused sessions to get next steps in your advocacy. It includes a recording of our session and a PDF session recap. Check out more information and schedule your time at www.TheIEPLab.com/PowerHour
Snag your FREE IEP Process Step By Step Guide: www.TheIEPLab.com/IEP
E130: Moving with an IEP (Schools, Districts, States!)
Samson Q2U Microphone: [00:00:00] In the quest for finding the exact right setting for your child. A lot of moves can happen and you might have some moving going on as a family to different states or to a different district. But I’m also seeing a trend in people moving schools from a charter school back to the regular public school or trying to find a good charter school from being in a public school.
So there’s a lot of moving going around, and this is actually a really great opportunity to take advantage of this switch and this change to start off on the right foot and to get ahead of the system a little bit so that your child starts off this, move, this switch with a really, really solid plan moving forward.
So stick with me today because we are talking about moving districts, moving states, or moving schools today, and what you can do in your advocacy to make it as smooth of a transition as possible.
You are listening to the Parent IEP Lab, the podcast that helps you become an informed parent advocate to [00:01:00] get your child supported in learning in school. I’m Beth Liesenfeld occupational therapist who started to notice trends in parents who got effective IEPs for their kids in over 400 IEP meetings
collaboration was the cornerstone of the successful parents advocacy, and that’s what we teach here. Coming in forceful may feel like you won. But I’m here to tell you that it’s only a temporary victory and there are definite consequences behind the scenes with this popular strategy. But you are here because you aren’t scared of a little bit of work and you realize that you can harness the power a parent has to not only help your child get what they need, but also to help fix this scrambled system and get its priorities back on Track One School i e p team at a time
in the process of growing your own advocacy skills, you will find your child learning how to advocate for themselves along the way. My mission of the Parent IEP Lab podcast and also the online courses, workshops, and summit of the i p lab is to break down barriers to being able to advocate with collaboration.
And the main way we do this is to provide you insider information from the school side [00:02:00] so that you’ll have context for what’s happening and create informed intelligent questions for your I E P team to feel like you have more say in your child’s plan. We also highlight guests that are specialists in certain areas so that you have connections to resources to find what you need for your specific situation.
We are about being real around here. We only highlight strategies and information that is actually helpful so that you can take action to make some serious headway in getting your child supported.
So let’s dive into the episode 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.
Samson Q2U Microphone-2: So speaking about specific situations, I realize that everybody’s move means something different for everybody, right? You may be thinking, well, I am switching from this to this setting. What do I need to do? And so this summer is just a perfect time to reset and get some personalized one-on-one coaching to [00:03:00] get you set up with the next steps so that you can take advantage of the situation that you’re in, what your goals are for your advocacy and.
What to do next? Have a clear action plan. So this is why I have just introduced our one-on-one advocacy power hours.
And for this summer only, I’m offering this introductory rate so that you get 20% off for the summer. These are focused 60 minute sessions with me where we have a clear outcome and give you next steps for your specific situation. And it comes with a PDF recap of our session and a recording of our session as well, so that you can share it with somebody else at your team or you can watch it over again so that you can actually process the information that we talked about in our Focus 60 minute session.
So check out more information and take advantage of 20% off for the summer by going to www.theieplab.com/power hour. And that link is also below this podcast in your podcast player. Now let’s get into the episode.
Beth: This week’s [00:04:00] episode, we are talking about moving, we’re talking about moving districts, we’re talking about moving states. And as an OT who served a district that doubled in size in the five years that I was there, I saw a lot of parents come in from both neighboring districts and.
Bringing their kids with IEPs to our district from just a couple minutes away to people moving across the state to people moving all the way across the country from places like California and Mississippi and Connecticut came to this district because of its reputation for special needs services.
So we are going to talk about the patterns that I saw in parents bringing their children to a new district. What works really well to make that transition super smooth, and what opportunities you have as the parent to really establish that relationship upfront. Huge opportunity here that’s sometimes missed.
I have seen [00:05:00] this process go so smooth. It’s just amazing, and I’ve seen some parents really latch on to the opportunity that is changing districts and getting a whole new fresh set of eyes to help your kid. It’s really quite an amazing process, but then I’ve also seen it go really badly, and part of that really is communication and expectations, and also not knowing what to ask of the new team to know.
What to ask for in turn and to know where your child is really going to be best supported within that new district. So with that in mind, I’m going to first talk about the general process of what happens when a child transfers into a district and then. I will talk about what part you can play in this process to make it so much easier for everybody involved.
And then we’re gonna tell a couple stories about how it went really, really well, and a little bit of a [00:06:00] story about how it didn’t go well and how you can avoid having that happen to you as well. Let’s talk about the process first. So if you’ll remember from pretty much every episode that I’ve done, schools are archaic.
That’s like the best term that I can think of, how to explain it. They are slow to change. They have legal processes and procedures that they go through that make them really clunky and slow. They’re riddled with getting permissions and going through these particular systems and ways of doing things that aren’t efficient and don’t work well anymore, and that is very much highlighted in the transfer process.
As a parent, again, you have the opportunity to cut this line and cut through all of the permissions in the systems. And it’s a pretty easy shortcut, so I can’t wait to share that with you as well. So let’s talk about what happens when you first move to a place or you’re going to move to a place, and what happens then?
So when [00:07:00] you’re moving, if you’re buying a new house in the new district, typically they want you to be able to at least have a contract on a house that you can share with the district so that they can see that you’re actually going to be. Inside of their district now, if you’re renting, it’s the same thing with a lease.
So you have to provide some sort of intention to move into the district before they’re really going to take you seriously and know that you’re coming. So at that point, you can then start the registration process. Now, many of these districts have online information systems by now. You can go and find their website and then find their application and then enroll your student online.
It’s pretty easy, pretty great. You can upload documents so that you don’t have to make copies and bring it in, and all of these things. Some districts, you still have to go in person to the school to register, and that’s okay too. You just have to make time to do it, and you have to make sure you know what paperwork you need.
So either way, you’re gonna find their website, you’re gonna find out what you need to bring. You are going [00:08:00] to either register online or in person. The next step from the school’s perspective is that on that application form, on that registration form, they generally have a checkbox that says, does your child have a learning plan?
Do they have a 5 0 4? Do they have an i e P? And it’s really funny sometimes we’ve had parents not understand what this means at all, and they have checked the boxes like all three of them, and then the district reaches out to them or their former district and they ask for that paperwork. And then the parents might say, oh, I didn’t know what that meant, so I just checked it.
But they actually don’t have that. That’s actually not a big deal. Right. So somebody reached out and they had to say no, they don’t have anything on file. Not a huge deal. Right. But the thing is that it happens the opposite way too, where. Kids have an i e P, they have a 5 0 4, they have a read plan, and parents don’t know that they need to pay attention to that box [00:09:00] and that that box is really important.
So what happens if parents miss that box to check is that nobody in the school knows that your child has a 5 0 4 or an i e P. Your child starts in that school, they start having some problems in the classroom, whether that’s behavior or they’re just not growing at the rate that’s expected because they’re not getting the supports that they need.
Right. And then the staff start to put them on the MTSS track, or they start to try to problem solve or put them in interventions. They start at the beginning of the process and they might reach out to parents at that point and say, Hey, have they ever had a plan before? They’re new to us. Have they had these struggles in the past in other districts?
And at that point, usually the parent will be like, oh my gosh. They have a 5 0 4, oh my gosh, they have an I e P. So you don’t want that to happen because that’s just very frustrating for you, very frustrating for your child. And then obviously your child isn’t [00:10:00] getting what they need, and the staff is really confused on what’s happening.
So you definitely wanna check that box. And if there’s no check box on that application, then you need to put it in the notes somewhere. Usually there’s a little box that you can write something in. Make sure that you communicate that they have a plan. Now after you check that box on the I E P or the 5 0 4 registration form, then the notification goes to either the school psychologist or the special education teacher of the homeschool of where your child is being enrolled.
And that notification also gets sent to the special education department. Now, in the districts that I’ve worked in, there’s like a secretary. That works in that office specifically, and their job is to reach out to the former district and request records to be sent to them. Now, you would think that this day and age, you could have that happen [00:11:00] within 24 hours, right?
But as we talked about, the school system is incredibly archaic, so sometimes it takes them two weeks to get those records in and you think, oh yeah, like I told them that they have an i e P, like they should be able to get it. Yeah, they’re probably trying to get it. It depends on the district, on the other side, it depends on if they have to have permission from you to sign it.
Normally they don’t, but there’s just all kinds of red tape that makes this much slower than it has to be. So let’s say it takes a week or two, then they get records, and then that secretary uploads the records into kind of a, a login system or some kind of document management system inside their internal special education department.
And then they can send out a notification to everybody who’s going to be on that i e p, like if there’s OT listed and the OT is. Me at that school. Then I would get an email that says, Hey, you have a new student on your caseload. And then at that [00:12:00] point we can log into our platform where the paperwork is, and then we can read it, we can see what’s in there, and we can see how much service minutes they have, what their goals are, that kind of thing.
The interesting thing is when you guys think about how important it is to have your paperwork documented correctly, this is exactly the point where you want everything to be super accurate and thorough in that document. Even if you’re not thinking about moving. It’s the fact that staff changes. People leave over the summer, they move positions, they move schools, um, they move themselves over the summer because that’s just.
The natural time to do it when you’re a school teacher or a therapist, so you really wanna be careful that everything in the IEP. Is really detailed and we talk a lot about the present levels of performance, how that really needs to paint a picture of who your kid is, and this is why, and I have come in at the beginning of the year and had new IEPs to [00:13:00] me.
And that present levels is missing an essential piece of who that kid is. And it took me weeks to figure that out, and that’s just weeks of inefficient intervention because I just didn’t have the right information from that i e p. So as you think about your i e P for your kid, just make sure that that present levels of performance has a really good picture of who they are, what they like to do, what they don’t like, that your parent information is in there as far as your priorities for the year and things that you wanna advocate for in the next year.
So, Those are all super important because even if you’re not moving, like I said, you might have a new staff member who looks up that paperwork and really the paperwork is all they have until they start seeing the kids when school actually starts. You can see how this would just delay a lot of the information transfer between the last school in this school.
Your school can call the former district. And ask about what [00:14:00] services your kid was getting and how that was going. Now, here’s the thing that I’m gonna be really honest about, and you might not wanna hear this, but if you’re listening to this podcast, you don’t wanna fight, and you don’t wanna be that pitbull of a parent that comes in and is just biting people’s heads off and being super aggressive and strong.
You wanna find a way, a balanced way to do it where it doesn’t suck all of your emotional energy and you get what you need for your child. This is one of those times where this is super important to have the right approach and the middle of the road approach because parents that are extremely strong and their advocacy, this is shared over the phone.
That former case manager can say, yeah, they’re a really hard family to work with. And doesn’t that just stink that your reputation could follow you even if you’re moving across the country, that could be set across the phone and [00:15:00] you have no control over what they say. So yes, you can combat that by making a good impression on the next team.
And you don’t have to be anybody’s best friend. That’s not what I’m saying. But if you set up expectations that you really want this and this for your kid, you’re worried about this and this, if you come at it from a really genuine place that’s going to be met with some team members who really wanna try to support you, and I don’t want you to feel like you have to come on too strong because it didn’t work out in the last district, or you were super frustrated with that district.
There’s ways of communicating that that doesn’t. Burn that bridge or put the new team on defense day one. So I just want you to be aware that they can call the other school. They will get records from the other school. They probably won’t get therapy records or school records as to like what lessons looked like for them.
So the new team is gonna have to figure that [00:16:00] out themselves. But there will be some information that is shared between districts as far as. Were they in a specialized program? What did that look like there? What’s a good match for fitting their needs in this district? Some of those problem solving things have to be done between schools and so they can talk to each other, so they don’t necessarily need your permission to do that either.
They can just do that. That’s just kind of a part of the system. Here is a story of a parent. Actually, this has happened several times, but just one particular parent that took the initiative and did a really great job of advocating for their child in the right way and just skipping all of this. Process slowness, archaic ness that happens in the school system.
What she did is at the same time, she did her registration online, turned that in, hit send done. She checked the box that said that they [00:17:00] had an i e P, and so that went off to the district and the district worked on getting records, but right after she submitted the registration form, she found the email online for the principal and the special education teacher.
And this will depend on who services your child. Maybe it’s a speech language pathologist that you need on the email that totally depends on what, what your kid’s I e P looks like. But then she wrote an email to those two people and she said, Hey, my name is blah, blah, blah. I’m Jade’s mom. I just registered her for school.
And she will start at, you know, whatever elementary school on such and such date. So many people change in the middle of the year. And so that start date is gonna be different if you’re starting at the beginning of the year because this podcast is coming out in June. Then you can say they’re starting in the new year, so, And you can give a little summary.
You can say she has an I E P for math and reading and get support for emotional regulation. I’m attached to [00:18:00] her last evaluation report and current i e p. We’re excited to get to know you. Please let us know if there’s an opportunity to tour the school and meet the teachers before she starts so we can meet you and talk about her needs.
Cool. Right. Super short email. You can attach those i e p and former evaluation report or just our current i e P. It doesn’t really matter. Just some sort of paperwork so that they have something to look at and they also have. Your contact information, they know that you’re requesting to come in and talk to them.
They know that you’re probably gonna be easy to work with because you’re, you know, the system and you’re taking the initiative and you’re starting this process and making it easy for them. Pretty darn cool. So if you’re worried about sharing those really private IEPs and evaluation reports, you can always send an email and just say, I have her current records.
If you wanna see them, let me know. I just wanted to make sure that I had the right [00:19:00] person before I attached them to an email. Normally the principal will see them. That’s a good person to CC regardless. And there might be two special education teachers there, or they might be considering a placement in different school or something.
If you have a child who has been in a specialized program with maybe higher supports and you’re kind of wondering if they’re going to land in this homeschool that’s in your, in your district, or if they’re going to be in a specialized program, then I would just go straight to the top and write an email to the special education director and say the same thing.
Say, Hey, they were in a specialized program. I’d love to talk to you about where they might be placed and what their needs are and what their strengths are. So that I can enroll in the right place. And you can always do that as well. And normally you get a really nice email back from them. They’re busy.
But that is kind of what they’re there for, is to field those really high level parent questions. So now I’m going to talk to you about what happens with a [00:20:00] transfer inside the same state. And just briefly, what happens if you’re switching states, like what you can expect? So if you are staying in state, then everything should pretty much transfer.
In some cases, you might have a little note that says they’ll accept and amend the I E P and they might amend it for 10 minutes of service time to be changed, or some little tweaks that don’t necessarily need a meeting. So, You can call for a meeting to have these changes, but most of the time they’re gonna just ask you for a quick amendment, which means that you don’t have to meet and you’re just agreeing to like these small changes.
And if it’s no big deal to you, then you sign and then you send it back, and then they’ll amend the I E P. And then you’ll get a copy of it afterwards. The eligibility category doesn’t have to change because you’re within the same state. If you are changing states, and we’re just gonna go through this really briefly, then most of the time the school will have to reject the I E P and reevaluate, even if it’s something that’s [00:21:00] super clear.
Like if you have a child with cerebral palsy and they’re under the O H I label, which is the other. Health impairment label, that’s pretty standard across states that they’re gonna qualify for that and that explains their needs to whatever district or whatever state they need. But some districts have to reject that I e P go through the reevaluation process, even if they’re just reviewing paperwork or the last evaluation from the last district, and then they will be able
to determine the right category for that state. Now every state has different checklists for categories.
Those checklists are gonna be available online. You can check ’em out beforehand, but just don’t, don’t be surprised if they say We’re rejecting this i e p if it sounds so like final and abrupt. But actually it, it happens all of the time. In the meantime, while they’re doing their reevaluation, they have to continue with that former i e P, they set up like a transfer or a [00:22:00] temporary i e p in place, and that is based off of the last i e p that came in.
It might not have all the goals in it. It might not have. All of the accommodations in it are something weird. It might not be totally complete. It might be a little bit scary to see that it’s not complete. But what they’re doing is, is they’re still servicing that person and they’re doing their evaluation as quick as they can.
All of the services should stay the same. It should look the same. They’re just doing that to be in the system and to have something in the system that they’re following, and then they’re trying to get the evaluation done so that they can get a new i e P in place. And it might be really similar to the last one.
They might wanna do some changes depending on their experience. It just really depends. And what they’re seeing as well when they’re evaluating. Now the last thing that we’re gonna go over before I just summarize everything that we’ve gone over is that sometimes this process goes wrong and. More often than not, it’s an expectation and a communication thing.
And it’s [00:23:00] also, I’ve noticed this trend that it’s, most of the time people coming from educational services or districts that were not very well equipped to have kids with disabilities in their district. We all know it to be true. We don’t want it to be true, but some districts are better than others at incorporating kids with needs into their district.
And some states have better. Services, better training for their staff, just a better quality of special education services in their state. This is pretty common knowledge that there’s better or worse or different, right? What I’ve noticed is that parents coming from a really low resourced state into a higher resource, State often don’t even know what questions to ask.
So the one example that I have to tell you, and I’m, I’m gonna try to not give too much detail, but there was a kid who transferred from [00:24:00] the south, into Colorado, and the parents had done all of their research. It was amazing. They, they knew the area, they knew where they wanted to be.
This district had a great reputation for special needs services, and so they picked this district specifically. Now in the other state, he was qualified under a certain category, and they expected that to be the same when they came here. So they did all the right things. They had the right paperwork, they shared it ahead of time.
They came in and met with some of the special education directors, and those directors said, oh, yeah, looking at his paperwork and then meeting him in person really briefly, we think he would be best fit in this particular program. But the problem was the paperwork wasn’t complete. It didn’t have all of his strengths in there, which ended up being
a frustrating point from the parent’s perspective later on in this process. So they came in, they started in [00:25:00] this particular program. They got comfortable in that program, and the reevaluation happened at that same time. Now, what happened is this person wasn’t found eligible in that same category. It was found that.
They had some great strengths that meant that he was not being well served in that particular program and that he needed to be somewhere else that better fit his needs and better played to his strengths. And this was really frustrating for the parents. And understandably, you know, you move across the country, you think this is gonna be a great experience and then.
It ends up not being what you expected and you end up feeling like you’re rejected from this program or, or this school. And it’s really just because when the paperwork isn’t great, they don’t have anything to go off of. So again, this is the importance of really knowing your paperwork, even though you’re a parent, and that’s not necessarily your job to write it.
You should be able to look [00:26:00] at that present levels and know what information should or shouldn’t be in there. And really the more information, the better, and the present levels for this reason. So what ended up happening, they transferred. They went to a different program. It ended up working out really well as far as I know.
Again, it was just really frustrating because that kid got really comfortable in that program, even though it wasn’t a great fit. And then mid-year they had to switch, and that’s not the best service. That’s not. The best situation for their kid and it ended up working out okay. But I’m sure that they weren’t very happy with the district.
I’m sure that they weren’t. And I don’t want that from you. I want you to know what questions to ask. I want you to know, hey, they were in this type of program before. What do you have that’s similar? Can we tweak it? What happens if this happens? What happens if this happens? So that just comes from knowing other people’s stories and what they’re coming at.
That comes from having a network of parents that you can ask that happens when [00:27:00] you can really have resources. Similar to this podcast and the amazing resources that we have out right now that you guys are seeking out, you are, you are listening to this podcast, so you’re already so far ahead. But really knowing what to ask, really knowing the system better so that you know how to work the system and make it work for your kid just does wonders.
It’s just amazing. So let’s go over a summary of. What it’s like to move between districts, between states within the same state and outside of the state, and what you can do to make this process so much easier on you and your family. So moving is a pain in general. It always can be, but it also can be really exciting and a super positive experience as well.
It’s a new adventure. We covered in this podcast what the process is when a district receives that registration that somebody is new and coming in with an i e P, and we also talked about how you can [00:28:00] shortcut that system and not make it so long. You also have just a great opportunity to be on the offensive and to be proactive so that your priorities are the first thing that that district staff reads.
And if you are proactive and you’re nice about it and you’re professional, then it’s just gonna make this great impression on this new district. Not that you have to be best friends, but I do want you to be conscious that the more effort you put into making this transition really nice for your kid and for the staff.
And the more you present yourself as a resource to really explain who your kid is and get them to understand who your kid is a little bit better, the more amazing your I E P plan is going to be and the better communication you’re gonna have upfront. We also kind of talked about how to make it better and also some pitfalls to watch out for, and that just comes from knowing the process.
So you’re in the right place, you are doing the right thing by listening to podcasts and [00:29:00] looking up. More resources online. Whatever you can fit into your busy schedule is always going to help you when it comes to these situations.
Samson Q2U Microphone-3: Now, I definitely don’t want you to listen to this and say, oh my gosh, like I don’t understand my child’s i e P paperwork. I need some help with this, this, this, and I don’t know where to go to. So this is exactly why we introduced the one-on-one advocacy power hours, because if you want somebody to take the time to explain the i e P to you, if there’s any missing information that is.
So easy for me to point out in your i e P. And so in the power hour, if you’re interested in this, we can share the screen. It records everything, including the screen, your questions, my answers, that kind of thing, so that we can actually go through the IEP together and you can learn how to explain it to the new district or wherever you’re going to or switching to.
And so you can really understand what’s in there and so you also understand what questions to ask the new situation that you’re transferring to, so that you make [00:30:00] sure that what you’re looking for in that switch actually gets implemented and you know those questions to ask for your specific situation.
So again, the link to check out more information about those power hours is below this podcast in your podcast player, but it is also just the iep lab.com/power hour. Thank you so much for listening this week, and I will see you same time, same place next week. Thanks so much.