E151: Outside Placements with Lisa Parnello
Ever wonder what these "dyslexia schools" are all about? How do you find one? Get into one? How much do they cost? And will your current district pay for them? Today our guest, Lisa Parnello of Parnello education, has all the answers for us (including outside placements that aren't for dyslexia challenges, too!)
Ever wonder what these “dyslexia schools” are all about? How do you find one? Get into one? How much do they cost? And will your current district pay for them?
Today our guest, Lisa Parnello of Parnello education, has all the answers for us (including outside placements that aren’t for dyslexia challenges, too!)
Connect with Lisa: https://ParnelloEducation.com
Dyslexia Devoted Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-74-the-iep-process-with-beth-from-the-iep-lab/id1628010878?i=1000633113014
Shownotes: https://TheIEPLab.com/episode151
Download your Free IEP Process Step-By-Step Guide: https://TheIEPLab.com/IEP
Check out all the free resources through The IEP Lab: https://TheIEPLab.com/freeresources
E151: Outside Placements with Lisa Parnello
Samson Q2U Microphone: [00:00:00] If you have maybe heard rumor about separate outside placements that support students With specific learning challenges, then today we are going to dive into it and talk about these outside placement schools with the example of dyslexia schools, because our guest today, Lisa Parnello, used to be an administrator for a dyslexia school before she turned to one on one tutoring. So stick with us. If you’re interested in how to get an outside placement, how much they cost, and if your school district will pay for one, then stick around because today we’re talking about outside placements.
Samson Q2U Microphone: You are listening to the Parent IEP Lab, the podcast that helps you become an informed parent advocate to get your child supported and learning in school. I’m Beth Liesenfeld, Occupational Therapist, passionate about leveling the school support information playing field for parent advocates using my experience in over 400 IEP and 504 meetings.
Samson Q2U Microphone: The mission of the Parent IEP Lab podcast And also the online courses, workshop, membership, [00:01:00] and summit of the IEP lab is to provide insider knowledge of the school system so that you can formulate informed, thoughtful questions to fuel collaboration and see your advocacy actually get your child supported in school.
Samson Q2U Microphone: 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.
Samson Q2U Microphone-2: Before we get into the podcast today, just a quick reminder that you can download your free IEP process, step by step guide by going to the iep lab.com/iep. And if you are a parent that’s just going through the process, maybe you don’t have an IEP yet, then you can check out all of the free resources from the IEP [email protected] slash free resources. without further ado, let’s get into the interview with Lisa Parnello from Dyslexia Devoted Podcast.
Beth: Hello and welcome Lisa. I’m so excited to have you on the podcast today. Thanks for coming. Before we talk about our main [00:02:00] topic today, I just love to start by having you introduce yourself and your connection to parent advocacy.
Lisa: Hi there. Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to see you and I am Lisa Parnello.
Lisa: I’m a dyslexia therapist, and I used to work at a school for kids with learning differences, and so I was a teacher of kids with dyslexia, and I also was an administrator at the school eventually as I worked my way up the ranks. So I got to attend the IEP meetings for hundreds of kids across dozens of school districts, so I was able to see the way the IEP process works. for many different kinds of families and situations and the way different districts handle the IEP process and helping parents learn how to advocate for their children, because I was more of a neutral party in these IEP meetings, because we aren’t part of the way the district sorts things out with parents.
Lisa: We’re just there to advocate for the kids and the way we see them making progress and what things we think they need best. And it’s up to the parents and the districts to kind of work it out. So I had a unique situation where I was a nice neutral party within it. Awesome. And [00:03:00] what do you
Beth: do now?
Lisa: I’m so glad you asked. So I own Parnello Education Services, so I do one on one dyslexia therapy as the main core of my business, so I work one on one with kids with dyslexia.
Lisa: And then I also have my own dyslexia podcast to help educate parents about it. And then I’ve just started creating courses for parents and educators to learn more about dyslexia because my schedule’s full, but I know there’s so many more people that need to learn about dyslexia, even if I can’t help more kids, I can help more adults to better understand it.
Beth: Amazing. Yes. And so when we were chatting before, I was like, Oh, you’ve worked for one of these outside placement type schools. And I was like, Oh, I need to pick your brain about that. So that’s actually what we’re going to focus on for the rest of the podcast today. So I’ve been hearing more and more.
Beth: And even in my community, I was noticing the other day. I’m like, well, there’s another charter school popping up. Oh, there’s another specific school popping up. I think people are on to the broken system that is, and that we can’t do this blanket like, yep, this is school and it works for everybody. Like, I think we’re coming to [00:04:00] that realization.
Beth: Can you tell me a little bit about what the school was and how it was different from a regular public
Lisa: school? Absolutely. And I’m in a unique place where we actually have three local schools for dyslexia. And so everybody has their own slightly different spin on it, but I can give you a good overall picture of what many of these schools look like.
Lisa: And so what happens is kids with dyslexia oftentimes are in a situation where the curriculums at their public schools don’t help kids with dyslexia learn how to read. And so, they’re at these schools where the curriculum does not teach the kids how to read, even their intervention program. I just got an email from a mom last night with a picture of a book and says, This is what the reading intervention teacher sent home with my kid.
Lisa: They can’t read anything. They’re just reading the book by looking at all the pictures. And they can’t read a single word in the book. And, I’m really helping parents learn how to advocate for better curriculums and things like that, but change is really slow and kids need help right now. So a lot of times kids will go somewhere else to a different school because the schools that they’re currently placed in [00:05:00] don’t actually know how to help a kid with dyslexia be successful.
Lisa: So when they go to these special schools, typically it is in a classroom that tends to be smaller class sizes or they have two teachers in a room, depending on the way they set it up. So a lot of times they might have 24 kids in a class, but two teachers, or the school that I was at, we actually had 12 kids in a class with two teachers, or sometimes, um, just one if it was middle school and they’re older kids because they can work a little bit more independently.
Lisa: And then. Different schools set it up differently, but generally they do specialized reading groups that are at the level of the child. So even if they are a sixth grader, they might be reading at a different level than that. So all the kids are grouped based on their reading levels, not on their grade levels.
Lisa: So a lot of times they have groups that are based on what they need to learn, and the curriculum that they use is based on skills, not grade level. So a lot of times there’s a curriculum that is an Orton Gillingham based program, and it’s based on different phonics patterns that the kids need to learn.
Lisa: So it’s hard for parents sometimes to [00:06:00] understand that it’s like, well, what grade level are they reading at? I’m not teaching your kid based on a grade level. I’m teaching them based on what skills they need to learn. And that’s the way these schools are built. A lot of times it’s usually through group, just because it’s so expensive to do one on one services, but if they can group kids well, they can learn all of their phonics patterns they need to learn, and they can use different books based on what age level they are, for whatever’s most appropriate for them.
Lisa: And then because they’re a specialized school, then all the accommodations are built into the classroom. It becomes very normal.
Lisa: And so because these curriculum, uh, is already made for kids with dyslexia and all the teachers know how to help a kid with dyslexia, all accommodations are fully built into every classroom every day. So it’s not something the kids have to fight for. And the biggest thing that I see is the stigma is gone.
Lisa: Kids see that there are other kids just like them. They are no longer sad or embarrassed that they’re struggling because they see that there’s other kids struggling even worse than they are. And they see other kids needing accommodations and using them every day. So they are no longer the outlier. [00:07:00] And that is actually the most powerful thing I’ve seen for the kids is to see, wow, I’m not the only kid who’s having a hard time.
Lisa: Wow, there’s other kids who are struggling with the same stuff I am. Great. We can all work together. And there’s also this really lovely thing that happens socially where, because they’ve been the kid who’s the worst one in class, whenever a new kid joins the school, they are so welcoming and greet them with such open arms about how, you know, I get it.
Lisa: My last school was terrible too, but this one’s really great. And it’s really nice to see the kids encourage each other and to help each other out and to just have so much more compassion with one another. And it’s nice because it’s this happy little bubble where all the kids get the support and services that they need.
Lisa: And it’s really to see them get the correct interventions that really teach them based on the skills they need to learn. That is
Beth: super cool. Yeah, and it’s like infused through everything. And then of course, dyslexia is the example we’re talking about today. You’re like, Oh, well, what about math? Well, but there’s reading involved [00:08:00] in math, right?
Beth: Like reading itself is inherent in pretty much everything that we teach in the school. So that makes a ton of sense. And then I’ve seen, you know, programs here and there, like. Kind of within the schools too, that are like for emotionally challenged or, or for some different learning disabilities, um, that what isn’t necessarily reading.
Beth: And I see the same thing. Like, it’s like, oh, okay. Like this is my little bubble. Like I see that person’s having a hard time today. It was my turn yesterday. It’s their turn today. Kind of that understanding. That’s amazing do you want to talk a little bit about how that impacts, like, the math and the other subjects in the school as well?
Lisa: Absolutely. Because the school was set up, the way we had actually set up our elementary program was that all the reading classes were at the exact same time, and all the math classes were all at exactly the same time. So therefore, we can swap kids between classrooms, actually. for both subjects. So they could be in a really high math group and a really low reading group or vice versa.
Lisa: They could be in our highest reading group, but then our lower math group. So we actually had a [00:09:00] lot of kids with other learning differences such as dyscalculia or ADHD because dyslexia and ADHD go hand in hand very often. Okay. And then our campus was very unique. We were actually part of a larger nonprofit organization.
Lisa: So we also had a different school on the same campus, which was a non public school for kids with emotional challenges. And so because that one is a non public, when schools didn’t have the services to help a child, the school district actually paid for students with the more struggles with emotional and behavioral, troubles that they were going through.
Lisa: They would actually go to the non public school over on campus on the other side of the building. So they had their own different way of doing things that was still within that non public system of doing things when the school districts didn’t have the resources available for a kid who really needed it.
Lisa: That is
Beth: so super cool. And the only thing that I’ve really heard similar to this that I saw in one of the elementary schools, it wasn’t everyone, but they did flex scheduling and say a similar thing happened where everybody in that grade [00:10:00] level though. So it was limited to the grade level would have, you know, LEA or like reading at the same time, everybody would scatter to like these different classrooms and they would, again, be grouped by skills instead of by reading level quote unquote, and, and they did that but it wasn’t across grade levels it was kind of within that grade doing it so this is just like a full immersion of that process.
Beth: This is so cool. Okay, awesome. Um,
Lisa: It’s one of those things where it depends on how many kids you have. So it depends. So like I’ve seen the two different dyslexia, two different dyslexia schools in the area, one does cross grade levels and one does it within grade levels because one has more kids. So they might have multiple classes per grade level at the other school versus the school I was at was very small and it was a much smaller grouping of kids.
Lisa: So in order to meet everyone’s needs, we cross grade levels a lot more. And so it’s one where each school finds whatever works best for their population and the size of their population. But it all goes with the same idea of kids get the kind of help they need at the level they need when they need it.[00:11:00]
Lisa: Ah,
Beth: that is so super cool. Okay, so at this point, I think we probably have a lot of parents being like, Okay, so how do I get into that? How do I find it? What is the process? How do I get qualified for it? So, take us through that process.
Lisa: So there’s a few different things. If it is a non public school, then a lot of times you can do directly through the school district, and the school district can fund it.
Lisa: That is a very rare instance, though. A lot of times schools will do anything they can before they give you that option. Um, most of the time it is private, and so when it is a private school, then you apply for it Through your own means, meaning that the parents fill out an application. There’s usually some sort of parent interview.
Lisa: And what is something that is very different is there’s also a shadow day. So the student will come visit the school for a day and they will be immersed in the classroom for one or two days. And so that way the school gets to know them. And there’s usually some version of testing when they get enrolled into the school, but it’s very different from like, I’m trying to get into this college prep kind of school testing.
Lisa: It’s more about, we already know [00:12:00] you’re failing. We want to know what areas you’re struggling the most at, so we know how we can help you. So a lot of times there is some sort of interview and testing process, and it’s more to make sure that they have the kind of services that that specific child needs.
Lisa: So every once in a while, we would have a kid with a much more significant impairment than we had the resources to help, such as we didn’t take kids that needed one on one support. But most kids no longer needed one on one support if they just had, you know, reading at the right level. And so we meant more of like, The kids who just really couldn’t handle following basic directions with those kind of kids, that was part of what the shadow process was for.
Lisa: A lot of times tuition is very expensive, so just be prepared for that.
Lisa: But one thing that is really great is a lot of times you’ll see the tuition written down, and you look at it and you say, there’s no way I could ever afford that. But a lot of times schools do have financial aid available, and a lot of times I’ve seen them give up to 50%. of what it costs to go there.
Lisa: So sometimes you can get it that way. And then another way that I’ve [00:13:00] seen it done, which is when they resolve an IEP out of meeting, and the school district will give a confidential settlement and will reimburse for going to the school. So this happens a lot of times when a lawyer has been involved in the IEP process, and the school has gone years without helping a child be successful, and the parent has privately Place them somewhere that is finally making progress and then they can sometimes apply to do a legal settlement to get some sort of reimbursement for some of the cost of the schooling.
Lisa: So that’s always through lawyers and I’m usually never privy to that because it is confidential for how they do it. Um, but I do know it is usually settled out of meeting and they usually have some sort of non disclosure agreement involved because they don’t want to publicize the fact that they’re paying or going to another school.
Lisa: Yes.
Beth: And I, I know it’s probably different because you’ve been out for a couple years, but can you give me us like a, a range of what it costs to go for a year?
Lisa: It depends on where it is, because I’ve actually done some research since [00:14:00] I have listeners on my own podcast that are all across the country or out of the country.
Lisa: And I’ve had to actually look up some of the research because I’m in the Bay Area, which is very expensive. Yes. Um, so what I’ve seen is it’s usually anywhere between 30, 000 to 55, 000 a year. So it’s the cost of college. One other really important factor that I think everyone needs to hear is a lot of times kids don’t stay there forever.
Lisa: Because they are not a public system, the goal is to get them up to par and then they leave and go back to their regular system. So the typical turnover is actually every three years or so at the school that I was at. Our goal was to remediate, give them interventions, give them the strategies to advocate for themselves, teach them how to use accommodations, teach them how to advocate for their accommodations.
Lisa: And then let them go back. So a lot of times kids left every three years or so. So it’s not like you have to think they have to be there for eight years. Some kids, they stay, they’re happy. They’re in a good place. They don’t go anywhere. But then there’s other kids that a lot of times our average amount was two and a half to three years that kids would stay.
Beth: Oh, that’s such good information that [00:15:00] it’s like, Oh, this might not be for forever. Like, that’s awesome. And that you guys had the bent to say, Okay, we need to layer advocacy in there as well. That’s awesome. Okay, so now, okay, a parent is coming into this thing. Okay. Yes, we do need that. We might not be to the point where the school district can reimburse, but maybe we have a couple of ideas of, you know, somebody helping us out or something.
Beth: Where do they even start to look for a dyslexia school or any other specialized school for that matter in their areas? Is there like a list of them? Are there certain keywords that are helpful to
Lisa: know? You can actually look them up. There’s a directory list of all of the schools in America. There’s a private school list that you can find.
Lisa: The best option you can do is be a part of your local decoding dyslexia branch. That is a grassroots movement of parents and educators who are really working to build up advocacy for dyslexia and they have branches all across the country.
Lisa: So it’s called decoding dyslexia. And then the other option is [00:16:00] the local. Um, International Dyslexia Association branch, also known as IDA. They also have branches all around the country, and they usually have board members who usually are people like me who work with kids with dyslexia directly, and they will know who in your area has a good school for kids with dyslexia too.
Lisa: So there’s options, and then there’s actually been a few programs that have started popping up online as well. Um, so that is another thing to look for, is to see if there’s any places that have online support services as an option, too, because sometimes they, the world of COVID had some downsides, but some good sides are, some schools learned there is a way to help kids remotely with dyslexia.
Beth: Yeah, I totally agree with that, for sure. Yeah, and so it sounds like if, if somebody’s listening and they have a different thing going on than dyslexia, it’s the same kind of thing, like network with your local places, your organizations, that kind of thing, make sure it’s a good one. Right? Because there’s some like tricky organizations out there.
Beth: Um, but network with other parents, see what’s helpful, come into my Facebook group if [00:17:00] you want to ask the Facebook group, um, of my community too, um, and kind of figure it out through networking, who is good. Sounds
Lisa: absolutely. Usually when you can get through your local decoding dyslexia branch or like around here, we have our own like little Bay Area dyslexia parent group that is on Facebook.
Lisa: And so see if you can like. Type in Dyslexia and, like, the name of the closest big town to you, and that would be another option to see some local Facebook groups and things like that, because usually people in the area be like, Oh, yes, we tried there. It wasn’t actually all that great. Or like, Oh, this place is amazing.
Lisa: You should check out this. And so that’s another really great option is to type in Dyslexia and whatever area you’re in. And a lot of times you can find some stuff.
Beth: Perfect. That’s amazing. Okay. So thank you so much for coming on the podcast. This is just when you mentioned that you had worked there. I was like, Oh, you need to share this information because I never actually worked at one or I have that experience.
Beth: So thank you so much for coming on and teaching us about your experience there. I know some parents are going to want to connect with you and see what you’re offering. So where should they go to do that? [00:18:00]
Lisa: You are welcome to come visit me over at parnelloeducation. com and on there you can see all the things that I have such as my podcast or the courses or if you have a specific question for me you’re welcome to email me at lisa at parnelloeducation.
Lisa: com and that’s something where I am eager to help as many families as I can to learn more and more about dyslexia.
Beth: Awesome. Thank you so much. We’ll link all of that stuff on to the show notes and the link for the show notes is below this podcast in the description. Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on.
Beth: I appreciate it. Lisa. Thanks for having me. See you next time. Okay. Bye. Bye.
Samson Q2U Microphone-3: A special thank you to Lisa for coming onto the show I hope to pick her brain on a lot of things in the future. So I’m so excited to have her on. In order to connect with her, check out the links below this podcast in your podcast player and in the show notes to connect with her and her services and also her online courses coming up.
Samson Q2U Microphone-3: And also check out the link where I was interviewed on her podcast. And then get hooked up with all of her amazing resources over there as well. Thank you so much for listening today and we’ll see you [00:19:00] same time, same place next week. Thanks so much.