Saturday, January 11, 2025

While You Can Write a Student’s Individualized Education Plan. . .

It (Legally) Needs to be Acceptable, Actionable, and Appropriate

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[To listen to a synopsis and analysis of this Blog on the “Improving Education Today: The Deep Dive” podcast hosted by popular AI Educators, Angela Jones and Davey Johnson on Spotify: 

CLICK HERE for Angela and Davey’s Enlightening Discussion]

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[CLICK HERE to read this Blog on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]

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Dear Colleagues,

Introduction

   Happy New Year !!!

   While it is scary to be thinking about the next (2025-2026) school year when it is only New Years and the current academic year is only half over. . . know that your Superintendent, School Board, and other administrators are already framing out the Budget for next year.

   And with, on average, 14% of your students (at least, nationally) on an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) as students with disabilities (SWD), and the federal and your state department of education still grossly underfunds special education and related services. . . know that your anticipated special education needs must be accurately reflected in next year’s budget.

   Today’s Blog provides some legal contexts and definitions—and some practical advice—so that you can begin the needs assessment process, prioritize your students’ 2025-2026 service-delivery needs, and secure your funds, resources, and services for next year.

   To this end, we will focus on the Three A’s. . . the need for IEPs to be Acceptable, Actionable, and Appropriate. . . using three federal special education court cases as support.

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The First A: Annual IEP Reviews and Acceptability

   In the next few months, many schools will begin the “IEP Annual Review Marathon” where every student’s current IEP is reviewed and rewritten for the next school year.

   Critically, as this occurs, each IEP Team—which includes the parents/guardians of the SWD—must consider:

·       Each student’s educational strengths and limitations as related to areas of disability and non-disability, respectfully;

·       Age and grade level;

·       Current IEP goals and methodologies;

·       Student progress, evaluations, and outcomes; and

·       How all of the variables above will be integrated in the IEP goals, services, supports, and interventions for next year.

   Typically, this process is collaborative, collegial, and consensual.

   But there are times when the parents are unhappy (or worse), and they contest the acceptability of important facets of the proposed IEP.

   At its extreme, the parents might reject the IEP, take the district to a Due Process hearing, exhaust the available procedural and legal avenues for relief (e.g., dispute resolution or mediation), and bring the case to Federal Court.

Chris D. v. Montgomery County Board of Education (1990)

   Many of you know that I am involved in many school law and special education court cases around the country as an Expert Witness (see www.projectachieve.info/services/expert-witness-services).

   Four of my very first cases were heard in Federal Court as I helped defend a number of African-American students with disabilities who were attending the Montgomery County Schools in Montgomery, AL.

   In one of these cases [Chris D. v. Montgomery County Bd. of Educ., 743 F. Supp. 1524 (M.D. Ala. 1990)], the issues directly related to a dispute on the acceptability of the IEP.

   The facts of the Case were as follows:

The case Chris D. v. Montgomery County Board of Education involved a 12-year-old boy named Chris D., who was emotionally disabled. Chris’ mother filed a lawsuit against the Montgomery County Board of Education, claiming that the school system failed to provide Chris with a "free appropriate public education" (FAPE) as required by the Education of the Handicapped Act (EHA).

 

The court found that the school board did not meet its obligations under the EHA and ordered that Chris be placed in a full-time residential school to address his needs. This case highlights the importance of ensuring that students with disabilities receive the appropriate support and education they need.

 

1988-89 School Year

The 1988-89 school year was very difficult for Chris. He was placed at Bear Elementary School in regular classes with special support for his behavior problems. Almost immediately, Chris began exhibiting behavioral problems which disrupted his classes and resulted in his frequent referral to the principal's office. He became involved in fights with other students, misbehaved in class and on the bus, used profanity, stole money from school personnel, and beat on the walls of the principal's office when called there for disciplining. The police were called in to intervene on at least one occasion.

 

In November, the school system returned Chris to the Davis Learning Center. At Davis, however, Chris continued to have severe emotional and social problems similar to those he had at Bear. He used vulgar language with teachers and other students, he refused to do his work, and he disrupted classroom activities. Finally, in December, Chris’ mother removed him from the school system because the principal at Davis had severely paddled Chris for misbehaving as two other staff held him down. As a result of the paddling, Chris became distrustful of the staff at Davis and exhibited a strong desire for revenge.

 

In January 1989, Chris’ mother met with school officials and requested that Chris be placed in a residential school where he could be supervised 24 hours a day and could receive continuous behavior training. School officials persuaded Chris’ mother to return him instead to Bear Elementary where he could attend a special education class for the full day. At Bear, Chris continued to manifest severe social and emotional behavioral problems, and the police were again called in to help handle him.

 
1989-90 School Year

The 1989-90 school year was even more difficult for Chris. His mother again requested residential placement, but the school system refused to make any changes in his placement at Bear. Chris’ mother immediately sought administrative review and, when that proved unsuccessful, filed this lawsuit.

 

During the fall of 1989 Chris continued to exhibit behavioral problems at Bear, including hitting other students, which resulted in the police department being called on one occasion. In November 1989, Chris was suspended from Bear. The problems continued after Chris returned from his suspension until finally, on February 6, 1990, he was suspended indefinitely as a result of a severe outburst of disruptive behavior.

 

After informal discussions with the court, the school board and Chris’ mother agreed to return him to the special education class at Bear, pending final resolution of this lawsuit. However, on March 28, less than two weeks after returning to school, Chris became aggressive and disruptive again. An officer from the local police department was again called and, after an unsuccessful attempt to talk to Chris, the officer handcuffed Chris and removed him from school grounds. Charges were subsequently brought against Chris in juvenile court.

 

Chris’ mother again requested that the school board be required to place Chris in a residential school. The school board offered instead to return him to the Davis Learning Center. The United States Magistrate who heard the motions agreed with Chris’ mother and recommending that, pending disposition of the Federal lawsuit, the school board should be required to place Chris in a residential school. This recommendation was based on findings that for Chris, "any interim placement must include a behavior modification component" which requires "the opportunity to interact with other students" and that neither individual instruction at home nor individual instruction in an administrative building away from other children could meet this requirement. The magistrate also concluded that Davis Learning Center was inappropriate for Chris. The school board objected to this supplemental recommendation, and the case was tried in Federal Court with Chris’ mother prevailing.

   The implications of the Case include the following:

·       From the formal beginning of the case (the 1988-89 school year), there were no indications that a functional behavioral assessment was done of Chris’ behavior, or that there was any consideration (or use) of a behavioral intervention or positive behavioral interventions and support—consistent with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA. . . which is referred to as EHA above).

·       The use of corporal punishment was completely inappropriate (and emotionally harmful) to Chris as a SWD.

·       Across the continuum of less to more restrictive special education placements, a residential setting is less restrictive than a home-bound setting.

·       As a full member of an IEP Team, a parent or guardian has the right to not accept a new IEP, or to retract an earlier permission. 

If a new IEP is recommending a change in the student’s special education placement or service delivery setting, the current placement or the placement on the last fully accepted IEP must be maintained (this is the “stay-put” provision of IDEA).

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Here and Now Recommendations

   When parents are full partners in the IEP process and the (special) education programming for their child, their acceptance of the new/next IEP during the annual review process is typically routine and uneventful.

   However, as above, when “surprises” arise at the annual review meeting, collaboration and trust can become strained. Such surprises include, for example:

·       IEP goals that have not been addressed or evaluated over the past year;

·       IEP interventions or related services that have not been (consistently) provided;

·       Significant negative changes in the student’s academic or behavioral progress from previous years;

·       The apparent lack of coordination and scaffolding between general education and special education teachers who share the teaching responsibilities for a student;

·       A recommendation of a more or less restrictive setting, by the staff on the Team, which has not been previously discussed with the parents; or

·       A decrease of services and supports—perhaps, because the student is moving from an elementary to a middle or a middle to a high school.

   At this point in the school year (i.e., January), if any of the above (or other) “surprises” are impending for a specific SWD, it is in everyone’s best interest for school staff and parents to discuss the status of a student’s special education services and progress right now. . . well before the annual IEP review meeting later this semester.

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The Second A: Writing and Delivering an Actionable IEP

   One of Jerry Seinfeld’s most memorable T.V. Show moments occurs when he arrives at a Car Rental place to pick up a mid-size car that he has previously reserved. . . only to find that they “have run out of midsize cars,” and only have compact cars left.

   The actual clip from the Show “tells the story” best.

 


   Applying this to today’s discussion:

   “You can write the IEP (and have it accepted), but you have to deliver the IEP.”

   That is, once the IEP is “signed and sealed,” the district and school need to provide—with integrity—the personnel, services, resources, time, expertise, interventions, evaluations, and feedback written into the IEP.

   Moreover, per the film clip above, IEP Teams should not be promising things in an IEP. . . with the hope that their district’s Special Education Supervisor will “bail them out” when the promises are due to be honored.

   The IEP is a contract. And the provisions in the contract need to be Actionable and enacted.

Cory M. v. Montgomery County Board of Education (1990)

   The second of the four cases where, in 1990, I served as an Expert Witness against the Montgomery County Schools in Montgomery, AL. involved an African-American elementary school student receiving special education services as a student with an emotional disability [Chris D. and Cory M. v. Montgomery County Bd. of Educ., 743 F. Supp. 1524 (M.D. Ala. 1990; Civ. A. No. 89-T-1165-N)]. Note that this Case was merged with the Chris D. case above as the lawyers attempted to merge the cases into a class action suit.

   The facts of the Case were as follows:

The case Cory M. v. Montgomery County Board of Education involved a student named Cory M., who was emotionally disabled and claimed that the Montgomery County Board of Education failed to provide him with a "free appropriate public education" as required by the Education of the Handicapped Act (EHA). Cory's parents filed the lawsuit on his behalf.

 

Cory was a 13-year old boy in the fifth grade in the Montgomery County public school system. Since he entered the system as a first-grader in 1983, Cory achieved little academically and exhibited severely disruptive behavior. Nevertheless, he was not evaluated to determine if he was educationally handicapped until 1987, and only began receiving special education in 1989.

 

Cory's parents alleged that the school board violated a number of procedural and substantive requirements of the EHA. The essential dispute in this case revolves around whether Cory was receiving educational benefit from his current placement or whether significant changes in his educational program along with related services were necessary to provide him with a "free appropriate public education" as required by the EHA. Cory's previous schooling and performance were relevant to determining whether, under the EHA, school system officials were adequately serving his present (at the time the Case was filed) educational needs. Therefore, the court turned first to Cory's background as a student in the Montgomery County public schools.

 

Prior to the 1988-89 School Year

Cory experienced problems from the time he entered the first grade at Patterson Elementary School in Montgomery in September 1983. He failed all his major academic subjects and was required to repeat the first grade. Although Cory was promoted to a higher grade after each of the following three school years, he continued to receive failing marks in virtually all his academic courses. Moreover, Cory's conduct grew progressively worse during this period. By the third grade, his conduct marks had deteriorated from poor to failing.

 

School system officials, however, did not evaluate Cory to determine whether his difficulties in school might be attributable to an educational handicap until 1987, as he was completing the third grade. When a team of special education personnel did evaluate him in June of that year, they considered only whether he might be educably mentally retarded, despite the fact that his test results and school records suggested he suffered instead from an emotional disability. The committee determined that Cory was not retarded and concluded he was not entitled to special education.

Thus instead of receiving special education, Cory was promoted to the fourth grade and attended Davis Elementary School during the 1987-88 school year. Again, Cory received failing grades in most academic areas, exhibited poor conduct, and was held back to repeat the fourth grade the following year. School system officials did not reevaluate Cory that school year and did not provide him with any special education.

 

The 1988-89 School Year

Cory's disruptive behavior grew even more severe in the early weeks of his second year in the fourth grade at Davis Elementary School. During the first semester of the 1988-89 school year, Cory was repeatedly disciplined by his teachers and principal for verbal abuse, hitting other students, and refusing to follow directions, and was ultimately suspended several times for misconduct. Cory also continued to have academic problems, despite the fact that he was repeating a grade.

 

In October 1988, Cory's parents asked school system officials to reevaluate Cory to determine whether he had an educational handicap entitling him to special education. In November 1988, after an evaluation of Cory, a committee of special education personnel concluded that he was educably mentally retarded and recommended his placement in a class exclusively for educably mentally retarded students.

 

In February 1989, Cory's parents told school system officials that they objected to the IEP adopted for Cory as well as to the evaluation.  and placement of Cory as educably mentally retarded. School system officials agreed to reclassify Cory as both educably mentally retarded and emotionally conflicted, but made no changes in Cory's IEP.

 

In July 1989, an Independent Evaluation was completed that concluded that Cory was not mentally retarded, and recommended that Cory be placed in a self-contained classroom for emotionally conflicted children. At the urging of Cory's parents, school system officials re-classified Cory as only emotionally conflicted and agreed to place him in a class designated for emotionally conflicted or learning disabled students for the 1989-90 school year.

 
The 1989-90 School Year

Although it began on a positive note, the 1989-90 school year proved an extremely difficult one for Cory. In September 1989, Cory's teacher wrote a new IEP for him, which was adopted at a meeting among herself, Cory's mother, and a special education supervisor. Like Cory's previous IEP's, the new plan included only broad, generic objectives and vague methods for monitoring Cory's progress. Moreover, despite Cory's extensive record of behavioral difficulties, the new IEP, like those before it, contained no mention of any goals or techniques for teaching Cory to control his conduct. 

 

The absence of any program for addressing Cory's behavior resulted in him manifesting more severe social and emotional problems than ever before. Although school officials made various efforts to control him, including pulling him out of regular classes, locking him in the classroom, calling his parents in for conferences, and assigning him to sit in the office with a special "crisis" teacher, Cory's misbehavior escalated through the second six weeks of the school year. Physical restraints were employed and, early November 1989, school system officials instructed Cory's parents to keep him out of school until further notice.

 

Cory returned to class in January 1990. While his conduct and school work initially improved, it regressed again by Spring. In April 1990, apparently in light of Cory's growing misbehavior, school officials reassembled a "security desk" that physically confined Cory. Overall, Cory's behavior deteriorated in spite of the fact that Cory's teacher had, in February 1990, modified Cory's IEP on her own to include, for the first time, certain general behavioral goals and objectives.

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The Court found that the Montgomery County Board of Education did not meet the educational requirements of the EHA and ordered the Board to create a new Individualized Educational Program (IEP) for Cory and provide appropriate counseling and training for his parents. The issue at-hand was not the quality of the IEP, but the fact that the Board of Education did not have the resources and, especially, the expertise to implement the interventions written into the IEP with integrity.

 

The Due Process Hearing

In December 1989, a due process hearing was conducted, as requested by Cory's parents, to examine whether the school board's treatment of Cory violated the EHA. At the hearing, Cory's parents argued that the board had improperly identified, evaluated, and placed Cory, contrary to the requirements of the EHA. They asked the hearing officer to order the board to pay an independent consultant selected by them to develop an appropriate IEP for Cory and to train and instruct teachers and staff in how to implement such an educational program.

 

Cory's parents also requested that the school board be required to provide them with counseling and other services to enable them to help manage Cory's behavior and contribute to his education. The board responded that it had satisfied the EHA because Cory was receiving "some educational benefit" from his current program. The board also argued that its teachers and staff were already adequately trained and that school system officials had made sufficient efforts to involve Cory's mother in his education.

 

The hearing officer determined that the school board was not providing Cory with a free appropriate public education as required by the EHA. He found that the school system's teachers and staff had failed to identify Cory's handicap in a timely manner or to develop and implement an appropriate, legally adequate educational program for Cory. He also suggested that these personnel lacked the ability to develop a program to address Cory's educational needs.

 

The hearing officer ordered school system officials and Cory's parents to arrange an independent evaluation to be used in formulating a new IEP. Subsequently, the school board agreed to pay Dr. Howard Knoff, the outside consultant retained by Cory's parents in this case, to develop an IEP for Cory.

 

However, the hearing officer did not order the school board to implement the recommendations of this expert in developing a new IEP for Cory, and did not address Cory's parents' requests for training of teachers and staff and counseling for themselves. Cory's parents have brought this action under the EHA challenging the hearing officer's decision.  See 20 U.S.C.A. § 1415(e)(2). As required by the EHA, the court has read the record of the administrative proceeding and conducted a trial at which each side has presented additional evidence.

   In the end, the Federal Court sided with the parents, and ordered that (a) the IEP that I wrote be accepted; and (b) I be hired by the District for 18 months to train, coach, and evaluate the personnel responsible for implementing the IEP with integrity.

   [Parenthetically, the District extended my contract for another 18 months without a court order, and I was asked to train a number of additional schools and staff in multi-tiered social, emotional, and behavioral interventions.]

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   The implications of the Case include the following:

·       The school system did not assess Cory for special education eligibility in a timely way. In today’s terms, a district cannot use its early intervention RtI/MTSS process to delay the assessment of a student for special education eligibility if someone (including the parents) believes that the student is not succeeding due to a disability.

·       Beyond the fact that Cory was originally misclassified and misplaced as “educably mentally retarded” (this term has been modified to “intellectual or cognitive disability”) his initial IEPs did not have social-behavioral goals despite the ever-present “emotionally conflicted” disability classification.

·       Critically, if or once present, these goals should have focused on teaching Cory the emotional awareness, control, communication, and coping skills that he needed. . . rather than only specifying what would occur when he was emotionally out of control.

·       Even though, early on, the parents accepted Cory’s IEPs once written, the lack of Cory’s academic and behavioral progress in school—per his IEPs—demonstrated that they were not appropriate in that the district did not have the expertise to either identify appropriate interventions or to implement them.

·       IDEA permits parents to request an Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE)—which Cory’s parents used to demonstrate that he was not educably mentally retarded.

·       However, IDEA does not have a provision whereby parents can request (and receive at the district’s expense) an Independent Educational Intervention Consultation, which could be employed when everyone agrees on a student’s disability classification, but when parents disagree on the services, supports, and interventions being recommended by the district for the IEP. 

Currently, the case law defers to districts as “the educational expert,” and IDEA states that districts must “consider” the recommendations of an outside expert—but are not bound by them.

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Here and Now Recommendations

   Clearly, relative to the implications here, districts and schools need to evaluate—right now—the current status of all SWDs and whether the personnel, services, resources, time, expertise, interventions, evaluations, and feedback written in their respective IEPs are being delivered.

   Then, they need to project these students’ needs into the next 2025-2026 school year so that budget process that, as above, has already begun for next year, is appropriate.

   All of this is focused on ensuring that the IEPs that have been accepted by the parents of SWDs will be fully actionable.

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 The Third A: IEPs Need to Result in Appropriate Progress

   FAPE—a “free and appropriate public education”—is one of the most-common reasons why parents of SWDs bring districts to due process or to court.

   Thus, at this mid-point in the school year, it is recommended that districts and schools analyze the IEP-driven progress monitoring data being collected for every SWD to gauge whether she or he is receiving an appropriate education.

   IDEA’s definition of “appropriate” is largely defined by the case of Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District (137 S. Ct. 988).

The Endrew F. Supreme Court Case (2017)

   The Endrew F. case, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2017, involved a student with autism, Endrew F., who was educated in Colorado's Douglas County School District. Endrew F.’s parents sought reimbursement for private special education services, arguing that the public school program did not provide an appropriate education. The Supreme Court's decision rejected the "de minimis" standard that had previously been used to determine the adequacy of an IEP.

   Instead, the Court held that an IEP must be reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress appropriate in light of the child's circumstances. This decision established a higher standard for educational benefit under IDEA, with a greater expectation that IEPs be appropriately ambitious and challenging. 

   The facts of the Case were as follows:

Endrew, a child with autism, attended school in the Douglas County School District from kindergarten through fourth grade. By the fourth grade, Endrew's parents believed his academic and functional progress had stalled, leading them to remove him from public school and enroll him in a specialized private school where he made significant progress.


Endrew's parents sought reimbursement for the costs of the private school placement by filing for a due process administrative hearing. They argued that the new placement was necessary for Endrew to receive FAPE. The administrative hearing decision found against the parents, concluding that the public school had provided Endrew with FAPE. This decision was upheld by a federal district court and the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that an IEP is adequate under the IDEA if it is calculated to confer an educational benefit that is "merely more than de minimis."


However, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected this standard, stating that an educational program providing a child "merely more than de minimis" progress from year to year can "hardly be said to have been offered an education at all." The Court held that the correct standard of FAPE is whether a school district has presented "an IEP reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress appropriate in light of the child’s circumstances."

 

This decision emphasized the importance of the unique needs and abilities of the particular student when assessing the adequacy of the individualized educational plan of that student. 

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   Relative to the implications of the Case:

·       The Endrew F. case has had a profound impact on special education law, requiring educators to understand the differences between minimal progress and meaningful educational benefit as they work to serve students under IDEA. 

·       The Case has also highlighted the need for more specialized IEPs that focus on facilitating students’ academic and functional skills and progress, driving educators to design IEPs with specific, measurable goals that are linked with appropriate interventions. 

·       Finally, the Case requires special education practices, whereby SWDs have access to instruction that meets their unique needs and promotes their mastery, motivation, and success. These practices must facilitate meaningful educational benefits through individually-tailored services, and appropriate progress monitoring.

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Here and Now Recommendations

   Consistent with the implications above, districts and schools need to evaluate all of their SWDs right now to validate that they are making appropriate progress and receiving the educational benefits consistent with their specific disabilities, the severity of their respective disabilities, and the outcomes outlined in their IEPs.

   For students not making appropriate progress, there is still time this year to re-evaluate the services, supports, and interventions they are receiving so that mid-course corrections can be made.

   For students who are making appropriate progress, analyses can begin to determine what services, supports, and/or interventions are most responsible for their success so that these can be carried into the 2025-2026 school year through their next IEPs.

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 Summary

   Even though the academic year is only half over, district leaders are already working on the budget, initiatives, and activities for the next, 2025-2026 school year.

   Moreover, as most districts, on average, (a) have 14% of their students on Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) as students with disabilities (SWDs), and (b) do not receive sufficient special education federal or state funding, this Blog discusses how to organize the needs assessment process so that SWDs’ service-delivery needs are appropriately prioritized, staffed, resourced, and funded for next year.

   The needs assessment and budgeting should be organized around the annual rewriting of each student’s IEP, and “The Three A’s.”

   Specifically, each new IEP needs to be written such that it is (a) Acceptable—to the parents of each SWD; (b) Actionable—such that IEP services, supports, and interventions are actually delivered. . . with integrity; and (c) Appropriate—so that each SWD makes the progress that is consistent with their disability-related circumstances.

   Three specific, precedent-setting special education court cases are described to demonstrate the importance for each of the Three A’s. . . two of which personally involved me as an Expert Witness.

   In the end, separate Action Steps are recommended in the Three A’s. . . steps that districts and schools should seriously consider right now.

   With these steps and the needed budgeting, districts and schools will be (a) more prepared to maximize their services and supports in the coming school year; (b) SWDs will make greater academic and behavioral progress; (c) parents of SWDs will remain full and collaborative partners with their respective districts on behalf of their children; and (d) districts will more likely avoid the due process or court litigation that results when IEPs are unacceptable, unactionable, and inappropriate.

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A New Podcast and Professional Development Resource for You

   While I hope that you had a great holiday season and break. . . schools have reopened and there is a lot of work to do.

   Over the break, we engaged in a new partnership and developed a new resource for you.

   The partnership is with popular AI Educators, Davey Johnson and Angela Jones. . .and the resource is their Podcast:

Improving Education Today: The Deep Dive 

   For each bimonthly Blog message that I publish, Davey and Angela will summarize and analyze the Blog in their free-wheeling and “no-holds-barred” Podcast. . . addressing its importance to “education today,” and discussing their recommendations on how to apply the information so that all students, staff, and schools benefit to “the next level of excellence.”

   You can find the Podcast at the following link:

Improving Education Today: The Deep Dive | Podcast on Spotify

   Davey and Angela have already created a Podcast Archive of more than 35 additional and separate podcasts reflecting involving all of our 2024 Blogs (Volume 2), and 14 of our most-popular Blogs from 2023 (Volume 1).

   The Podcasts are posted on Spotify, and you can “Follow” the Podcast Series so that you will be automatically notified whenever a new Podcast is posted.

   Many districts and schools are using the Podcasts in their Leadership Teams and/or PLCs to keep everyone abreast of new issues and research in education, and to stimulate important discussions and decisions regarding the best ways to enhance student, staff, and school outcomes.

   Of course, if you would like to follow a Podcast up with a free one-hour consultation with me, just contact me and we will get it on our schedules.

   I hope to hear from you soon.

Best,

Howie

 

[CLICK HERE to read this Blog on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]

[To listen to a synopsis and analysis of this Blog on the “Improving Education Today: The Deep Dive” podcast hosted by popular AI Educators, Angela Jones and Davey Johnson on Spotify: CLICK HERE for Angela and Davey’s Enlightening Discussion]

Saturday, December 28, 2024

Education’s 2024 Year in Review

The Themes that Captured Our Time, Attention, Concern, and Consternation

[CLICK HERE to read this Blog on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]

 

Dear Colleagues,

Introduction

   Today’s Blog closes out my 10th full year of writing these bi-monthly Blogs.

   Over the past 231 Blogs—with topics ranging from research to reflections to rants—I have tried to analyze current topics, reports, and practices in education, psychology, and organizational change, emphasizing effective practices that improve student, staff, school, and systems-level outcomes. 

   I have done this in the spirit of “paying it forward”. . . and while it may result in a keynote invitation or a workshop presentation or a needs assessment or on-site consultation. . . the time I spend thinking about and writing these pieces really is the best “compensation.”

   The world has dramatically changed over the past ten years. . . our country has seen significant challenges and advances. . . and education—in its widely diverse areas—has selectively experienced innovation, inertia, stagnation, and regression.

   Rather than review an entire decade, let’s reflect instead just on the past year, and the “top areas” that caught my (and, hopefully, your) attention.

   Below, I have clustered (with some reordering) all 24 of this past year’s Blogs into organizational areas. While each cluster has a brief introduction, I will leave it to you to personally and professionally reflect on these areas. . . perhaps, revisiting a full Blog message or one that you missed.

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This Year’s Blogs: Themes and Clusters

   While some Blogs could have been clustered into more than one theme, and the theme titles below are broad, this year’s 24 Blog messages can be organized in the following areas:

·       Theme 1: School Improvement: Changing Thinking, Processes, and Practices to Change Outcomes

·       Theme 2: Choosing Effective School-Wide Programs and Practices: Avoiding Media Hype While Facilitating Staff Consensus

·       Theme 3: Students’ Engagement, Behavioral Interactions, and Mental Health

·       Theme 4: Improving Multi-Tiered and Special Education Services: Bridging the General Education and Special Education Wall

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Theme 1: School Improvement: Changing Thinking, Processes, and Practices to Change Outcomes

   Districts, schools, and other educational agencies or settings must continually evaluate their student, staff, school, and system outcomes—especially in the continually changing social, political, economic, and demographic world that we live in.

   Education is not a “one size fits all” undertaking. It needs to be responsive to many different stakeholders, constituencies, and consumers, and yet it also needs to be effective and efficient.

   Strategic planning, needs assessments, resource analyses, and formative and summative evaluations are conscious, continual processes that are essential for school improvement and success.

   But these processes need to be grounded in innovative thinking, evidence-based blueprints, and proven practices and strategies.

   Our 2024 Blogs in this area were [CLICK DATE to Link to Blog]:

·       November 23, 2024 School Improvement Requires Changing Thinking, Not Just Changing Programs: The “Moneyball Thinking” Needed in Education

Using the movie “Moneyball” as a metaphor, we suggest that many districts and schools are locked into antiquated data analysis and school improvement thinking. We advocate that they use “Moneyball Thinking” to rethink and revolutionize their thinking and practices, applying these to linking Needs Assessment results to more successful strategic planning and action.

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·       July 13, 2024  The Seven Sure Solutions for Continuous Student and School Success: “If You Don’t Know Where You’re Going, Any Road Will Get You There” (Part I)

This Blog discusses the Seven Sure Solutions to school improvement and students success as significant numbers of students continue to academically under-perform and demonstrate social, emotional, and behavioral challenges in the classroom and across their schools. Too many schools still focus on how many students “pass the state test.” While they avoid school improvement status, millions of students are not proficient and unprepared after graduation.

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·       August 10, 2024  Will Your School “Win the Gold” for Your Students This Year? Why the U.S. Women’s Gold Medal Olympic Gymnastics Team is a Model for All Schools (Part III)

This Blog discusses the courage, characteristics, and conditioning that educators need to consider so that their schools are successful for all students—especially as a new school year approaches. This Blog uses the Gold Medal-winning Women’s Olympic Gymnastics team—at this year’s Paris Olympic Games—as a model and analogy of what schools need to do to “Win the Gold” in these three areas for every one of their students.

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·       October 19, 2024  Speed Counts When Making Successful Changes Across Your District or School—When to Go Slow and When to Go Fast

This Blog emphasizes that the success of a district or school’s change process or initiative often rests on the speed of its implementation. We review ten variables that help determine if a change process needs to be implemented slowly or quickly, and provide two Case Studies that apply these principles and practices.

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·       November 9, 2024  Delegating Duties and Decisions in a Shared Leadership School: Avoiding Staff Reservations or Resentment

This Blog discusses the significant benefits of having a Shared Leadership structure and process in every school across the country. The structure is defined by seven research-to-practice components evident in all successful schools. These are aligned to six school-level committees—each responsible for their part of the school success operation. The process is defined by describing the different ways to make school and schooling decisions, and the importance of staff training in this area.

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·       January 13, 2024  While Grades May Be Meaningful, It’s Still About the Skills. “Resolving” to Recognize that Report Cards are Less Meaningful than Student Mastery

This Blog reviews a major study demonstrating that high school grades across the country have been inflated from 2010 through 2022. At the same time, it emphasizes that grades are less important than the mastery of specific academic skills when predicting success in the next course, the next level of education, or a graduate’s performance once employed.

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Theme 2: Choosing Effective School-Wide Programs and Practices: Avoiding Media Hype While Facilitating Staff Consensus

   Anyone can buy a website, garner some testimonials, collect some “data,” post a TikTok, and claim that their “new and improved” curriculum, intervention, application, or product has “changed the life” of a student or school.

   That is not research. It is marketing.

   In our quest for educational innovations that work, we need to apply sound, objective social media and product evaluation principles and skills to cut through the hype and get to the heart.

   We need to recognize and reject the fads, and embrace the fact that success in school takes time, resources, training, and persistence. . . and that it does not often occur immediately or without periodic challenges and temporary setbacks.

   It takes at least 12 to 14 years to educate a qualified high school graduate.

   Surely, we—the educators—can invest the time to validate the approaches that we select and deliver to these students. . . to ensure the optimal readiness for their post-graduation lives.

   Our 2024 Blogs in this area were [CLICK DATE to Link to Blog]:

·       March 16, 2024  Helping Schools Pick and Implement the Best Evidence-Based Programs: Avoiding Mistakes, Best Practices, and Pilot Projects (Part II)

Continuing this two-part Series, this Blog Part II discusses the evaluative criteria used by the What Works Clearinghouse and Evidence-Based Practices Resource Center to rate the validity of curricula and approaches in educational settings. We then summarize the five “mistakes” that educators should avoid when choosing evidence-based programs, and explain why education should change the term “Best Practices” to “Effective Practices,” and “Pilot Projects” to “Field-Testing.”

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·       September 7, 2024  How Fad or Flawed School Programs Increase Poor Teacher Morale and Resistance to Change: When Education Keeps Adopting the Same Shaky Stuff, It Will Keep Getting Repeated Rocky Results (Part V)

This Blog reviewed and integrated recent articles reporting that (a) teachers’ job satisfaction and mental health worsened last year, as did the need for student supports and interventions; and (b) districts and schools continue to adopt unproven programs and practices as part of a fad-driven decision-making process. . . with no end in sight. An analysis emphasized the need for data-driven decision-making, and suggested that ineffective practices negatively impact teacher morale and create a resistance to future practices that will effect change.

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·       February 24, 2024  What Super Bowl Commercials Teach Education About Media and Product Literacy: The Language and Process that Helps Schools Vet New Products and Interventions (Part I)

Metaphorically using the commercials at the Super Bowl as a guide, this Blog emphasized and outlined (applying the goals and questions within a sound middle school Media Literacy program) why educators need to be both Media and Product Literate when reviewing and evaluating the marketing materials or on-line reviews of new products or services.

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·       March 30, 2024  How Cognitive Biases Affect Student Perceptions and Educator Decisions: Making the Unconscious, Conscious and the Implicit, Explicit

This Blog defines Cognitive Bias, discusses how eight specific biases affect educators’ positive and negative perceptions of students, staff, and systems, and then address how they similarly impact judgments at the individual, grade, and school levels. We especially focus on how to understand, prevent, or address the implicit or unconscious biases or explicit and conscious biases that interfere with or undermine productive interactions and objective decision-making.

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·       April 27, 2024  Social Media and the “Double-Edged” Sword of Damocles: Survival Rests on Humility, Self-Control, and the Principles of Public Relations

This Blog discusses Social Media as a “Sword of Damocles”  that hangs above us with the power to enhance or destroy those who use it. We can control the power by (teaching) self-control, humility, common sense, and the ability to honestly self-reflective before making a social media faux pas.

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Theme 3: Students’ Engagement, Behavioral Interactions, and Mental Health

   A clear post-pandemic theme—that persisted through 2024—involved issues related to (a) students’ chronic absenteeism and “quiet quitting” of public schools; (b) classroom disengagement and inappropriate behavior toward teachers; (c) social media addiction and peer-to-peer bullying; and (d) mental health concerns—including real concerns about school and personal safety.

   While these issues need data-driven analyses as to their root causes and multi-tiered solutions, easy-fix Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) solutions are continually cited. . . even as virtually any solution is touted as an “SEL solution.”

   During this year, we addressed the SEL bandwagon (and most of the other issues above) head on. . . we discussed the root causes. . . and we detailed the prevention, response, and intervention approaches needed.

   If you are amazed that 2024 is over. . . you understand the importance of time.

   We need to make sure that every school and schooling moment is well spent.

   Our next generation of leaders are in our classroom seats today. We don’t have time to waste on generic suggestions, self-serving frameworks, and unproven practices.

   Our 2024 Blogs in this area were [CLICK DATE to Link to Blog]:

·       January 27, 2024  Strategies for Safe, Productive Classroom Conversations on Race, Religion, and National/World Events: It’s Not If, It Should Be When

Many challenging, controversial, and emotional social issues have impacted the climate and interactions across students, staff, and schools. To ensure that discussions around these issues are safe and productive, staff need to be trained to teach and guide students in the necessary discussion expectations, ground rules, and conflict prevention and resolution strategies. This Blog describes seven phases to accomplish this, providing specific guidance and examples. The Blog also includes a YouTube video of a recent Education Talk Radio interview summarizing and extending the discussion to the next level.

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·       August 24, 2024  Students' Health, Mental Health, and Well-Being Worsens Over the Past 10 Years: Summary of the August 2024 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Report (Part IV)

This Blog summarizes the CDC’s national 2013-2023 Youth Risk Behavior survey results for high school students. Detailing the shaky emotional status of our students, the Blog asserts why students need multi-tiered services and supports, and that an evidence-based social skills program—based on cognitive-behavioral and social learning theory research—should anchor the core preschool through high school universal instruction.

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·       July 27, 2024  Are Schools Really Prepared to Address Educators’ Biggest Behavioral Student Concerns Right Now? “We’ve Got Serious Problems and We Need Serious People” (Part II)

This Blog discusses the significant classroom and school social, emotional, and behavioral challenges demonstrated by students this past year as identified in a recent national survey by K-12 school leaders. Using three quotes from a national presentation, short- and long-term solutions are recommended that will result in real and sustained success.

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·       May 25, 2024  Increasing Student Engagement: The New School Year Begins Before this “Old” Year Ends. How to Prepare and What Needs to be Done

This Blog discusses the importance, need, and how to identify, analyze, and plan interventions for disengaged students before the end of the current school year so that the re-engagement interventions selected can occur either during the summer or immediately at the beginning of the new school year.

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·       June 22, 2024  Does Your School’s SEL Program Teach Social Skill Behaviors, or Just Talk About What Students “Should Do”? If We Taught Reading the Way We Teach SEL, None of Our Students Would Learn How to Read

This Blog discusses the building blocks needed when teaching students—from preschool through high school—the social skills they need to be successful. Described are the specific skills, teaching steps, and scripts—using the Stop & Think Social Skills Program as an exemplar—to help students learn, master, and easily apply their social skills to real-life situations.

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·       June 8, 2024  Revisiting Title IX’s Sexual Harassment Requirements While Avoiding Secondary Victimization: A Procedural Primer. Why Do Too Many Districts Not Know (or Abdicate) their Responsibilities?

This Blog provides a detailed overview of the federal Title IX Sexual Harassment law—describing definitions, required procedures, and sample district policies in specific areas relative to responding to and investigating allegations. It also discusses the psychological impact of sexual harassment on school-aged students, and the importance of avoiding secondary traumatization.

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·       September 21, 2024  Research Teases Out the Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences. . . But Many Educators Still Don’t Understand Social-Emotional Screeners, and the Limitations of ACEs-Only Assessments 

Given the school-related challenges since students returned from the pandemic, this Blog discusses (a) the characteristics and concerns with social-emotional screening, and with only using an ACEs tool; (b) how to interpret a recent ACEs study that found ACEs correlations for young students’ social-emotional status, but not for their academic performance; and (c) the serious limitations with ACEs assessments’ validity and ability to causally explain students’ social-emotional—and, especially, trauma-related—difficulties. We identify many reasons (beyond traumatic events) that explain students’ significant social-emotional challenges, and discuss Tier 2 and 3 interventions available to help.

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·       February 10, 2024  Michigan Mother Found Guilty of Manslaughter in Her Son’s School Shooting: Should Schools Lean-In to Hold Parents More Accountable for their Children’s Behavior? 

On February 6, 2024, Jennifer Crumbley was found guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter for allowing her son to bring a gun to school where he killed four and injured seven others. This Blog analyzes the case and asks schools: Will this decision move the pendulum toward greater parental accountability when schools recommend outside supports to address their children’s significant health, mental health, and wellness needs; Will the threat of litigation motivate these parents to take timely and effective action—consistent with the recommendations; and Will schools become more assertive in their interactions with parents, especially when there is a documented threat of student, staff, and school violence?

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Theme 4: Improving Multi-Tiered and Special Education Services: Bridging the General Education and Special Education Wall

   The research has continually demonstrated that most “students with disabilities” do not have pervasive educational challenges. . . they have “niche” areas where their disability impacts their academic or behavioral progress.

   As such, these students are more typical than atypical, and their instruction is best guided by general education teachers in the general education curriculum in their general education classrooms.

   At the same time, special education teachers are important and needed. . . as consultants to their general education colleagues (and vice versa). . . and as direct instruction co-teachers and teachers for students with more strategic or intensive multi-tiered needs.

   But there should be no general education-special education “divide”. . . there should only be an educational “continuum.”

   Our 2024 Blogs in this area were [CLICK DATE to Link to Blog]:

·       December 7, 2024  Improving Special Education Services for our Students: What the New Administration Must Do on this 20th Anniversary of IDEA 2004

This Blog uses the 20th anniversary of the signing of the last reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA 2004), and the coming second Trump administration to analyze, critique, and make recommendations on how to improve special education services in our country’s K-12 schools.

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·       October 5, 2024  Breaking Down the Wall Between General and Special Education Teachers in Our Schools: How Organizational Missteps Create Classroom Barriers

This Blog discusses the institutionalized wall between General Education and Special Education Teachers that has existed since Students with Disabilities were fully included in our nation’s public schools in the mid-1970s. Organized in five “columns,” the Blog identifies bricks that need to be dislodged (i.e., changed) so that the Wall can come down. Many of the recommendations focus on changing staff and administrative beliefs, policies, procedures, or practices.

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·       May 11, 2024  When a School’s Multi-Tiered System of Supports Needs Support: How Do You Motivate Educators and Avoid Educational Malpractice?

This Blog discusses the multi-tiered systems of support process, how to best prepare for MTSS Case Study meetings using six “First Things First” activities, the implications—through a Case Study—when these activities are not completed before an MTSS meeting, and what to do when staff refuse to prepare and participate in the MTSS process with intent and efficacy. The Blog asks, “Should school staff be cited, like doctors and nurses, for ‘Educational Malpractice’ when they have consciously and egregiously violated MTSS protocols and harmed students?”

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·       April 13, 2024  Laundromats, Lawyers, Learning Loss, and Life: An Autobiographical Day in Education 

This Blog described an autobiographical day in the educational life of a school psychologist who works nationwide as a consultant. He reflects on the harsh and sometimes fixed realities he observed in a laundromat, on a special education due process conference call as an Expert Witness, and during his work in a rural school district with barely enough staff to address its students’ complex needs.

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Summary

   Once again, today’s Blog closes out my 10th full year of writing these bi-monthly Blogs. Over the past 231 Blogs, we have tried to analyze current topics, reports, and practices in education, psychology, and organizational change, emphasizing effective practices that improve student, staff, school, and systems-level outcomes.

   The world has dramatically changed over the past ten years. . . our country has seen significant challenges and advances. . . and education—in its widely diverse areas—has selectively experienced innovation, inertia, stagnation, and regression.

   Rather than review an entire decade, this Blog reflected instead just on the past year, and the top areas that caught my attention. To do this, we clustered all 24 of this past year’s Blogs into organizational areas:

·       Theme 1: School Improvement: Changing Thinking, Processes, and Practices to Change Outcomes

·       Theme 2: Choosing Effective School-Wide Programs and Practices: Avoiding Media Hype While Facilitating Staff Consensus

·       Theme 3: Students’ Engagement, Behavioral Interactions, and Mental Health

·       Theme 4: Improving Multi-Tiered and Special Education Services: Bridging the General Education and Special Education Wall

   We hope that this analysis will help you to personally and professionally reflect on your year in Education. . . helped, perhaps, by revisiting a full Blog message or one that you missed.

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   Meanwhile. . . . as 2024 turns to 2025, and our students and colleagues return from their Holiday Break, I hope that your break was restful and filled with much cheer and joy.

   The “second half” of the school year gives us all an opportunity to rededicate ourselves to excellence and effectiveness. . . to improvement and success.

   If you experienced success during the first part of the school year, I hope that you continue to go “to the next level of excellence.”

   If you were not happy with your success—or need assistance with your next challenge, know that I am always available for a free “check-in” Zoom or conference call with you and your team.

   June will be here in six months. . . one way or the other.

   If you have a choice to act now or in June to improve your school or educational setting on behalf of your students or clients. . . which one will you choose?

   I look forward to hearing from you.

Happy New Year,

Howie


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