Episode 45: IEP Accommodations and Inclusion with Tim of Action Driven Education
If you've wondered if there's a connection between accommodations and inclusions, you're not going to want to miss this episode with Tim Kretchman! We are diving into what inclusion is, common barriers to inclusion, and how to find appropriate accommodations. Plus, he shares an app that helps parents and teachers individualize education for our students with IEPS!
You and I both want your child to succeed! So today, we are talking about the importance of accommodations and inclusion and their role in IEPs. Special guest, Tim Kretchman, is joining me to share insight on inclusion, barriers to inclusion, appropriate accommodations, and the importance of individualizing accommodations.
Tim Kretchman is a special education teacher and administrator who recognized that there was much work to be done in the area of individualizing education and accommodations for children with special needs. He is now an educational strategist who identifies what is not working in education, finds and develops solutions, and gets them out to those who need these solutions through his company, Action Driven Education.
Be sure to download the Parent IEP Role Cheat Sheet and join my Facebook group, The Parent IEP Lab Insiders, to ask any questions you have. I love connecting with you and hope to see you there soon!
In this episode, we cover:
- Overview of Action Driven Education’s Accomods and Through & Around Mindset
- What inclusion is and its role in special education
- 3 barriers to inclusion
- How to support general education teachers in providing accommodations
- The 3 variables used to identify appropriate accommodations
- The importance of finding individualized solutions in special education
Related Podcast Episodes:
Episode #13: Intro to Accommodations in the IEP
Episode #14: Bonus: IEP Accommodations are for More Than School!
Episode #36: High Impact Accommodations for Reading and Math [free resource alert] with Jenna of Learning Link
Connect with Tim:
Beth 00:01
If you have ever wondered, if there is a connection between accommodations and inclusion, then I definitely want you to listen to this whole entire episode. Because we have Tim from action driven education, who is an experienced special education teacher and administrator, and also has developed an app available to all of us to help us understand what accommodations are actually going to be helpful for your kid. You don’t want to miss this one. Stick with me. Today we’re talking about accommodations and inclusion. Welcome to The Parent IEP Lab podcast where parents of children with IEPs find guidance to effective IEP advocacy without the fight. I’m your host, Beth Liesenfeld, occupational therapist who has attended over 400 IEP meetings. I now help parents harness insider knowledge from the schools process and culture into effective advocacy efforts for their child. Just a reminder that I’m an OT and not a lawyer. And we do not provide legal advice on show or in any of our online trainings. Don’t forget to download your FREE parent IEP role cheat sheet at the TheIEPLab.com/parentrole. That’s www.TheIEPLab.com/parentrole. Now let’s get into today’s episode. Hello, and welcome to the podcast today. I have Tim from action driven education. I’m so excited you’re here. Welcome.
Tim 01:37
Thank you. It’s good to be here with you. And with all your audience as well.
Beth 01:40
Yes, thank you so much. So I am super excited to have you on because you are an expert in accommodations. And we can talk a little bit about inclusion as well. But why don’t we start with you telling us what you do and your background, and how you landed and this amazing business that you have
Tim 01:59
To start at the beginning. To get to what I do right now it’s important to recognize I’m a teacher, special education teacher, been 24 years working in that field, as both a teacher and an administrator. And in doing that role, working to individualize education. For children with special needs, I noticed that there was a lot of work that needed done in the field, especially in the area of accommodations. They’re just misunderstood. And they’re not real clear to teachers. So obviously, that means it’s probably not very well understood by parents as well. So in trying to help to clarify and to do this work, I left the field of education to start my own company called Action driven education, where I call myself an educational strategist, because what I love doing is finding what’s not working in education, and finding solutions, developing their solutions and getting them out there for the folks that need them. So that’s in a nutshell, what I what I do.
Beth 02:53
That’s amazing. And can you tell us a little bit about your product with action driven education?
Tim 02:58
Sure, we actually have two one of them is a mindset that we call the through and around mindset. And we’ll talk a little bit about that today. The other one is called Accamods as in accommodations and modifications, aka mods, right. And those two products are designed to help teachers and parents individualized education, find ways to make education work for every child, regardless of need. Age, whatever. We’re working to help parents and teachers find those solutions through Accamods.
Beth 03:29
That’s awesome. Okay, so we have not really talked a ton in the podcast at the time of this recording about inclusion. But really, I think that accommodations are a huge piece of what allows inclusion to happen. Can you tell somebody who doesn’t really know what inclusion means what that basically means and what it looks like?
Tim 03:52
Absolutely. In order to understand inclusion, let’s talk just a little bit about what special education, special education by definition really has two important tasks that we work to do. First thing that we work to do is to improve a child’s need in an action driven education, we call that the through that’s an that through and around mindset that we mentioned earlier. supporting a child through their need basically means that we’re working to improve the skills where they’re deficient. So whatever that need may be, we’re going to plan ways to improve their skills. That’s the first thing that Ida the law direct we can do in special education, find ways to improve a kid’s skills. And like I said, we call that through. The other part is the around part of that mindset that I mentioned earlier. And when we talk about around what we’re really talking about doing is finding ways to minimize the child’s need and how it impacts their ability to perform in the general classroom. That’s inclusion. So inclusion is about finding ways to make it that the child’s need, does it impact their ability to perform you In the classroom, we call that around. So by finding ways to support the child around their need, through the use of accommodations, you make inclusion work, inclusion, the ability or our ability to have a child participate in a meaningful way in class and instruction and tests that they take. And all these different things that are involved in the general classroom can be made possible through the use of accommodations. That makes sense.
Beth 05:29
It does make sense and it’s so funny how, you know, special education has so many different terms. And so because I come from the medical world, that around and through, we would call remediation, which is increasing those skills of the kids and really directing that to the skills. And then compensation is the around for us. So we’re teaching them to compensate with some other way so that they can get access to the education without being hindered by their skills.
Tim 06:00
Right. The idea is, the reason why thrown around are these two tiers, and we’re talking about work has to do with the fact that you know, working at child through their need or working to improve their skills it takes time, is ultimately what we need to do to make it that the child’s needs disappear by way of working them to improve their skills. The problem with that is it takes time. That’s not the kind of like you can’t just put a timeout or snap your fingers and make this need disappear. And you can’t just put a timeout and say, okay, stop instruction to improve the needs of this child. And that’s why that second tier is so important. The idea of supporting a child around their need makes it possible for them to keep on keepin on right. Continue learning in the general classroom while we improve their skills.
Beth 06:47
Absolutely, yeah, you don’t want to ever get them encouraged, like they absolutely can’t do it. And that kind of encourages them that they can’t do it. They’ll just do it in different way until those skills increase. Love it. So what are the biggest barriers to inclusion that you found in your own experience? Or when you’re working with schools right now?
Tim 07:07
challenging question to answer. I think that probably the first barrier that I see is that one size fits all mindset. Honestly, when you consider education, when when our current education system was founded, was kind of founded back in a factory model. So Henry Ford in the Model T, the assembly line, and we’re trying to roll off these cars that are all the same, and they all can perform. Well, that’s where education was found that as well. idea that children sit in straight lines, facing forward with a pen in their hand writing down everything the teacher says is this factory model, where we’re basically trying to reproduce an education in every child. And by doing so what we’re trying to really do is find an efficient way to do that. And that’s where this factory model of education came from. Well, almost every teacher that’s in the field, first of all grew up in this model. But secondly, they were educated, meaning we were taught to teach to work this way, though this one size fits all mindset really permeates the field of education. Well, what happens when you have a child that comes into a classroom that this doesn’t fit? That’s where individualization matters, and that’s where that system is not serving the child in the right way. Basically, they have a need. This need is as diverse as the child is from any other person sitting in that room. But something’s causing them to not be able to participate to meaningfully become engaged in class. But the one size fits all mindset says, Well, I guess you’re just going to have to deal with, you’re just going to have to struggle, trying to break that mindset is a systemic thing. It didn’t happen overnight, and it’s not going to go away overnight. So our work, what we’re trying to do is break down that one size fits all mindset, in the sense that what we want teachers to recognize is when a child is struggling with a need, there’s something that they can do. It doesn’t mean you have to throw everything out and start all over again, it just simply means that we need to make some kind of tweaks to make it possible that education works for that child. And that’s where accommodations come in again, right. The first barrier that I’m going to say that I’ve noticed, probably the biggest barrier is that one size fits all mindset. The second one is we don’t take the time to really recognize others perspectives. The law directs that when we meet in an IEP meeting, that we’re supposed to all have a voice to be able to say what we see gen ed teachers are supposed to be invited to the meeting. And it’s, especially with people, anyone who’s involved in the child’s education has a voice. But we don’t always take the time to see that other perspective. And what’s interesting about that is we need to realize that a social studies teacher might see a need or might see the child’s need impacting them in one way, where a math teacher might see an impact seeing the child in a different way. So by recognizing and seeing the other’s perspective, what we can do is we are then actually doing exactly what we’re supposed to do with the child for the setting. And what I mean is we’re individualizing, we might say, Wow, I need something in social studies, individualized, that’s different than what I’m going to use in math class, individualized. So oftentimes, by not taking the time to see one another’s perspective, we think we’re talking about the same thing, or the same need, when in reality, it might be something entirely different. And I can give an example that may be a little bit later. But that brings me to the third, I’d say, barrier, and that is that acknowledgement or recognition of a need. Way too often, people get focused on a grade, or the child getting an assignment done or something like that. And they fail to realize that they may not have performed as well as they could, because of a need. They’re not recognizing that there’s a barrier or a need that’s actually impeding the child’s ability to learn. Sometimes gen ed teachers get a bad rap, by parents or even by colleagues, who think that they’re being defiant or not willing to make changes, when in reality, they may not recognize the need, they may not see the problem that’s in front of them, because it’s not their area of expertise. So these barriers, I think, are probably the three biggest one that one size fits all, recognizing others perspectives. And then thirdly, our ability to recognize a need when it’s presented in a classroom.
Beth 11:45
That is super interesting. I agree with you, I think that general education teachers probably get the worst rap when it comes to accommodations. And yet, it’s really hard for the parent to understand that all of this falls on the general education teacher with the support of the special education teacher, and the support of the principal, because the principal kind of sets the tone for the whole school, really. But who is it that leaves the IEP meeting first, all the time. It’s generally the general education teacher, because they have to go get their kids. And so whenever I’m in a meeting, and I know that they’re not going to be there for the whole meeting, like we at least need to get to accommodations, what are you doing already that you don’t even realize you’re doing? And what do they need? And then have that discussion about what they need? Because so often they leave, they’re not there.
Tim 12:35
All right? One thing we mentioned earlier, Accomods, that systems that my company has developed, the one thing that we noticed when I’ve worked with Gen Ed teachers is it’s not that they’re resistant. Often they don’t know, they don’t know what they could be doing. I may recognize the need, but I don’t know how to support the chatter around that need, right. In other words, I’m not an expert on accommodations, and the thing that Accamods is designed to do best is designed to guide a teacher in finding and implementing an accommodation. The idea is, it’s kind of the let’s take the high road here, right, let’s not think that a teacher is refusing or being defined in their willingness to implement an in combination, let’s assume that if they can find the right accommodation for their setting, that they would use that accommodation, and help them to find that right accommodation. That’s what acting was designed to do. Guide that teacher to find the accommodation and then also implement the accommodation with the positive notion that if the teacher is understanding that they can do something, and they have access to what that something is, then they’ll implement it. So that’s what Accomods was working to do to give the gen ed teachers that idea that they need to support a child around their needs.
Beth 13:52
That’s amazing. I love it. So often, I see parents coming into Facebook groups, parents emailing me with a, hey, my kid has this in this diagnosis. What accommodations should I ask for? So this might be another explanation of your app. But if you answer this question with an explanation of your app, can you tell us how parents would access your app how they would access resources to get an idea of what their kid might need?
Tim 14:23
Sure. I’ll tell you right up front. I mean, I told you earlier, my background is special education. I specialize working very hard and accommodations. I have no to my team. That’s the expert on ot accommodations. So I can cite examples and answer your question but I want to say I’m much better at talking about like a reading disability or an autism diagnosis or something like that. But the idea is that first of all, we identify the appropriate accommodation by using three variables, strengths, need and degree of need. Okay, now, this is a whole nother conversation for another day. And I can give you We’re linked to a course that we actually put together designed to help you identify those three things. But in summary, strengths are used as leverage. In other words, what’s my kid good at, that I can use as leverage to support them around their needs. So give you an example. If a child likes using technology, then I might find an app that they can have on their phone, that would be able to read a text to a student, because they like using technology, I’m using their strength as leverage against their need. Their need, obviously, is, like I mentioned earlier, that in this case, would be reading or in need than an OT would maybe identify or be able to help the parent to recognize, but that’s the second piece, it’s necessary, what’s the need. Now the third piece, the degree of need is the data. That’s why when you sit down at IEP, the very first three things you do right or identify strengths, the things that child struggling with, and we talk about them, the degree that performance level. So for example, again, reading side of things, if I’m talking about a reading fluency need, I’m going to want to know is the child’s reading fluency, 25 words per minute, or 65 words per minute, understanding the degree of need, and then I can identify an accommodation. So for example, a child’s reading a 25 words per minute. And I might just simply say that we should read their tests to them, because that’s pretty slow reading rate to print off and understand that particular test, versus 65 words per minute might just mean the child needs extended testing time. See, both of those accommodations are designed for a child with a reading fluency problem. But one is more intensive than the other. I like to tell the story, we made a little parody of the Goldilocks and the Three Bears story, the point of Goldilocks and three bears as what finding just right? Well, that’s kind of the goal with an accommodation, I identify the strengths that I’m going to use to support the child around an identified need. But I need to find the accommodation. That’s just right. It’s not too intensive, doing too much for the child, because that’ll cause a dependency. And it’s not too easy or too soft, meaning that it’s not doing enough to support the child finding just right. So it’s hard as a third party, someone like in a Facebook group or something like that to say, Well, someone else use this acombination. So I should too without also identifying those other two variables. But by thinking of those three variables, it can guide the conversation about what’s the just right accommodation for the child. Again, Accomods is designed to help find that, we can put out 15 accommodations to help a child get a good copy of class notes. So if they need to take notes and social studies class, there’s 15 accommodations in there that help the child to get a good copy of notes. Which ones just right depends on the other two variables, strengths, and degree of meat. So Accomods is designed to help guide that, and through the system of checkmarks. And some of the things that we help teachers and parents to recognize. We’re guiding that conversation through the presence of options to find just right.
Beth 18:12
That was amazing. I’m learning so much from you, and you have such great stories to tell.
Tim 18:17
I like to tell stories. I mean, I think that they make things meaningful. And honestly, the story, the details of a story are what make the child and the situation individual. It’s what makes it unique. We have to always remember that the purpose of special education is finding individualized solutions, we often jump too quickly to the just jump on Facebook and go into a group and see what some other parent maybe had. And we have to recognize that that’s not necessarily the right way, it’s the way to get started. Sure. But by recognizing the details of the story, the child that I’m working with right now, my child or a child is sitting in my classroom, by knowing the details of the story. That’s how we develop that real solution. Otherwise, they’re examples of where we can start. But the details that are in the story are what make it the real solution presents itself. That’s why I like stories.
Beth 19:16
Yes, you know, when we look at the present levels, as well in every IEP that should read like a story, and should have those numbers like the reading rate that you were talking about the fluency number, but it also should have a story of what support are they getting? What does that look like? How much are they getting? And so it should read like a story in that present levels. And so much of the time that doesn’t there’s pieces missing, or suddenly later in the IEP there’s information on a goal or an accommodation that wasn’t mentioned in the present levels. And so I really like thinking about that story part as being in the present levels as well.
Tim 19:51
When we talked earlier about death through and around the two tiered thing that is special education. That’s the data to when we talk about out through what data are we showing that President levels? What data are we showing? That’s showing the child is improving their skills, some of that data will show that. But then other things should show Look, they’re doing well in class, they’re still performing their exam grades are doing fine. They’re, they’re getting good marks on their assignments that did turn in those on the around things. And we should show that story on as to tiers. Where are we doing well, and where do we need to continue to improve? And if we see in there, they’re struggling? Maybe it’s in the round part, and the accommodations aren’t doing what they should be doing? Well, then we know that because we have that data in the president levels. All that’s what makes inclusion work, and special education work?
Beth 20:40
Absolutely. Is there anything else that you want to share with listeners that we didn’t cover as we start to wrap up?
Tim 20:47
Oh, my there’s, there’s always a bigger, a bigger topic. But honestly, I think that the one thing that I want to stress is that in special education, when we talk about a child, we’re talking about an individual. When we talk about the individual, we need to then extend that back to the folks that we’re talking to. In other words, we need to recognize that the gen ed teacher that’s sitting there has is an individual as well, there might be an accommodation would work really well in their class, that might not work down the hall, by recognizing that we’re first trying to serve an individual, aka the child. But we’re also working with individuals to achieve that. So what can we do for the individual child and the individual teachers classroom to make things work well together? Far too often, I know accommodations are not implemented, because they just don’t work with the system, or the methodologies or the things that teachers doing in their classroom, because they just don’t fit. So by working in an individual method, individual student, with an individual teacher, we are able to find accommodations that will likely fit better and therefore will be used. And that will make it work that will make inclusion work that will make the student find success. And that will make the teacher find success in on an individual level. So I want to stress that because that’s what we’re supposed to do very well in special ed. And sometimes we forget about that second part of the fact we’re working with an individual teacher to and by giving them their voice and their perspective, we’re able to start tearing down that other barrier, which is that one size fits all mindset, that we show them that we return to them that they are an individual to work with them and help them to find a solution for their classroom. So that individual word cannot be emphasized enough.
Beth 22:42
I know a ton of parents are going to find want to find out more about you. So as we wrap up, where can parents find out more about you and your business, and how to connect with you.
Tim 22:54
So again, my name is Tim Kretschmann. My company name is action driven education. And you can find us on the web at www.actiondriveneducation.com . We’re also very active on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram, we’re working to continue to bring this message out there, we have our product Akamas, which again, parents can subscribe to. And we also have a course that we recently launched, which you can find it in the professional development tab on our website, we’re looking very soon to turn that course into a parent’s specific course. So if you subscribe to one of our channels, when we launch that website, or that course, of course, you’ll find that out. But in the meantime, we’d love to hear from anyone that knows that would like to collaborate and move forward with this project that we’re working on. And we really appreciate you guys and what you’re doing, put this message out there. So keep up the good work there.
Beth 23:44
Fantastic. I’ll link all of your website and all of your social media up on the show notes at parent friendly ot.com. Tim, thank you so much for coming on. So appreciated our conversation.
Tim 23:54
My pleasure. Thank you guys, thank you very much. And I hope everybody thinks something out of this they find useful, keep working for those kids, I always end almost every single conversation email with thanking everybody for what they do to empower and effective education for all children. So that’s what I’ll do here too. Thank you.
Beth 24:15
I hope you got so much value out of that conversation with me and Tim from action driven education. He is such an amazing resource. Now, if you didn’t catch his website or his app name, and you really need to see that all spelled out, just know that all of those links and resources are in the show notes. If you go to theIEPlab.com/episode Four, five, you will find all the links available in that page for this particular episode. Thank you so much for joining me this week on the podcast. I will see you same time, same place next week. Thanks so much.