Latest / Complex Kids, Simple Solutions / Edwin Egelsee — What Schools Don’t Tell You About Your Child’s Legal Rights

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Edwin Egelsee — What Schools Don’t Tell You About Your Child’s Legal Rights · Complex Kids, Simple Solutions

• speaker-0: Welcome to Complex Kids Simple Solutions, the podcast for parents raising complex and neurodivergent kids who are doing their best in systems that don't always make things easy. I'm Michelle Shoayde, founder of Special Education Concierge, a mom to a complex kid, a speaker, and an advocate. This space isn't about perfection. It's about real life, the hard days, the small wins. the moments where you wonder if you're doing enough, and the moments where you realize you are. Here we talk honestly, share practical insight, and simplify what feels overwhelming. One conversation at a time. You are your child's hero. Welcome to Complex Kids Simple Solutions. Today's guest is Edwin Edlesey, and he is a special education attorney with over two decades of experience fighting for the rights of children with disabilities. Edwin started his journey working hands-on with kids with autism, Down syndrome, ADHD, and other learning differences. In that experience lit the fire in him to pursue a career protecting their legal rights. He's represented families at IEP meetings, mediations, due process hearings, and even state and federal courts. He's also a fluent Spanish speaker who is deeply passionate about serving Spanish-speaking families. Edwin, welcome to Complex Kids Simple Solutions. If parenting feels heavier than you expected, if the questions keep coming and the answers feeling clear, or if you're caring more than most people see, welcome. This is Complex Kids Simple Solutions, a podcast for parents raising complex and neurodivergent kids who want clarity, confidence, and support that actually makes sense. I'm Michelle Shoayde, founder of Special Education Concierge, formerly known as Wisdom for Complex Kids, a speaker, an advocate, a mom who lives this life, and someone who helps parents navigate it. No labels required, no perfect parenting expected, just real conversations, practical perspective, and reminders that you're not alone. Let's get into today's episode. Hi everyone, welcome to Complex Kids Simple Solutions. Today we have Edwin Elosey and I absolutely am so excited to introduce him to you because he was actually Drake's attorney when we went to due process. So Edwin, thank you so much for being on the show. speaker-1: Thank you for having me. This is going to be fun. speaker-0: Yes. So I'll just tell you really quick because we were in a tight spot with Drake and we needed somebody to kind of help us and he was amazing. So I want to put it out there. I have sent many people to him. So he's an amazing attorney, special education attorney. So if this is something that you're looking for, just we will put all of his information on the notes. ⁓ and you can reach out to him, but let's get to the fun stuff. All right. So, you know, I have never had an attorney on the show and I don't know if it was because I haven't thought about it or if it was because like, it's hard to get you guys to sit down and actually, cause you're so busy. So thank you for coming. speaker-1: I hope you just don't bore your audience. Hopefully it's somewhat entertaining and informative. speaker-0: ⁓ for sure. think that there's nothing boring about talking about our kids, right? Especially when it comes to special education. This is something that I really have taken into my heart to make sure that ⁓ my son gets the best special education that he can get. And really with all the other kids out there, like they deserve this. It's their right. And this is how it needs to be. So that's why we have people like you. Okay, so, you know, I think that there's a couple of things that I really wanted to ask you, and we kind of talked about this a little bit. So ⁓ I think that bringing an attorney in to answer these questions makes so much sense because us parents, we really don't know, we really don't understand a lot about this. So I think that the first thing is, you know, what are the most important legal rights? that parents have, actually the kids have under IDEA that we don't even, parents don't even know about. Like, can you tell us about a little bit about those? speaker-1: Yeah, you know, it would take hours to explain your rights, you know, which I always thought was interesting in an IEP. You you go in, you start it, and then they give you this booklet of rights. And then they ask, they don't give you any time to review them or anything. They said, well, do you have any questions? And of course, you're not going to have any questions because you don't know the rights because you haven't reviewed them. OK. And so. what I would advise because with every IEP that is scheduled, school districts usually send those rights to parents. Don't just throw them away or use them as placemats or anything like that. Actually, read them because they are condensed in a way so that you could use them. Unless you know your rights, you're not going to be able to exercise them, right? But if I was to choose something just to talk to the parents because with IEPs, it's an interesting process, especially prior to pandemic when things were in person, I always thought that there was just a psychological edge to IEPs in that there's a room with a team of professionals and they're all around a table and there's one chair for the parent to come in. So it is a daunting process, somewhat intimidating. Okay. That's a lesson with the virtual format, but the, the, the The right that I wanted to emphasize is that the law is clear, the IDEA is clear, that parents should actively participate in an IEP. In other words, that the school district has to create an environment where there's meaningful participation. So in other words, the most important person is the parent. I know it doesn't feel that way all the time. And in terms of decision making, but the parent should have active involvement. They shouldn't be just some passive person that says, Yes, sure, let me sign on the dotted line. You know, they need to be able to assert rights. you know, a couple of tidbits is, number one, always audio record the IEPs. I think that's the best evidence of what was discussed, decisions that were made. This kind of information doesn't wind up in the IEP notes, unfortunately, all the time. All you have to do is, is a written notice 24 hours before the IEP. your intent to to audio tape. I always tell clients, go ahead and just make a note when you're accepting the IEP on the IEP notice so that it's clear that you're going to audio tape. Also, come prepared. know, review the other ⁓ the formal former IEP. Know your your your your sons or daughters. ⁓ present levels of performance so that you know what kind of goals that you're looking for, have a list of that. Knowing your rights in that sense and the process allows you to be able to actively participate. If you don't know the process and you're just going in cold, it's going to be tough because all you could do is accept or reject and not even know why you're rejecting, you know? I would just, ⁓ preparation. is probably the biggest thing for an IEP. ⁓ But also, ⁓ just know those rights so that if you're feeling that they're being violated, you'll know. speaker-0: ⁓ And one thing that I did not know before, ⁓ so we started pre-young with Drake. He was three, right? He had come from the regional center here in California. It's called the regional center. And then you go into the school district and that's how it is in the rest of the country. At three, you go into the school district and the school district starts taking care of all the educational ⁓ plans for the kids. But when we came in at three, I was that parent that had no idea what this what is an IEP? Like what what are we trying to do here? And then, you know, you start learning like you go, OK, well, they're telling me these things. OK, well, they must know what they're what they're talking about. They must know what it is that they are, you know, offering. And so. parents just kind of go along with it. And one thing that I learned a little bit later was that you can actually bring somebody to the IEP with you. You can invite a person if it is, you know, their speech therapist or their occupational therapist or just a friend to hold your hand. So you're not, just you can, you as a parent, you have the right to bring somebody to the IEP table with you. And I think that that made that daunting. I'm still, you know, we were from the time from the time when we met in person. It makes it a little bit easier to deal with when you have somebody there with you. So I, you know, I appreciate that, that we have to be prepared and just so they know that you can also bring somebody in. Yeah. I. when I brought you in, it was like, I don't have to say anything. So it was great. As a parent, I was like, you know what, he's going to be prepared. So I so this is a good way of doing this. You know, I think that another thing that sometimes parents don't pick up on speaker-1: Hahaha speaker-0: are the red flags because we don't know those signs. We don't recognize the signs. So can you go over a little bit of those red flags with us? speaker-1: Sure, there's lots of red flags. think that the number one is, I think that parents just, I have two daughters and we become experts of our own kids. We know when, what's making them tick for the most part. Sure, there's other things that we may not know, but if we're not seeing progress, if you're going to IEP meetings and the team is saying there's substantial progress, they're meeting their goals, but you're just seeing your child doing figure eights. They're going to school, but they're not making any progress. There's no movement. That is the first red flag, that something is missing. Something's not ⁓ manifesting in other environments. Because it could be that at school, they are performing in a certain way, but if the child's not generalizing all those skills in other environments, then it really isn't learned. It's in the moment when they're looking to see whether they're meeting their goals and objectives. ⁓ So the first thing is just keep aware of how are they reading, how are they writing, how are they socializing, how are they speaking, ⁓ all those things because an IEP should be addressing all of that. ⁓ The other thing is, and this is very general, but whenever I hear the word functional, speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: red flags go up because if you're arguing and it's happened to me many times, we're not seeing this progress, but the student's at his or her functional level, whatever that means. The way that I interpret it is they're putting a ceiling on the student. In other words, this is how far they're gonna go. And functionally, they're doing well, so what do you want? so that term, kind of makes me go, let me make sure that we are not missing something. When goals become functional, it means that academics have taken, you know, backburner, okay? And that we're just teaching the student to kind of be as independently functional as possible. Again, these are terms that are used that have this universal thought that, again, I what do mean by that? I, you know, when you're saying that word, what specific skills are being worked on? What specific skills are, you know, are they learning? You know, it's not okay just to give me that buzzword and let's move on. So those are just two things that, you know, are just red flags to look for when you're advocating for your child. speaker-0: Yeah, no, for sure. I, we went through this. It was, you know, ⁓ he's functioning at, at this level. And it really truly is, you know, I, ⁓ I just had an, was talking to an occupational therapist a little bit earlier today and you know, the talking about how do you get the kids to get more into, it's about functional, but it was more like we cannot just allow them to be in one level and be okay with that. ⁓ Part of it is, you know, there's gotta be growth. There's gotta be, that's looking at those progress reports and looking at what they're saying. ⁓ if they're saying just sometimes, you know, they'll just they'll just say, ⁓ it's it's delightful to have so and so in our classroom. And yes. And then, you know, it's like, Okay, well, ⁓ yeah, it's great. I'm so glad. And then it makes the parents happy. But then what is it that's really happening? Yeah, what is it? speaker-1: And you're bringing up a good point. ⁓ Conclusions are one thing, but I want to see the data. If they're telling me that the student is reading at a certain level, writing at a certain level, ⁓ doing things, I want to know what they're relying on to draw those conclusions. It's not okay just to say, well, look, this is occurring. And it's not okay just to say at their functional level. I don't think so. I think the landmark in anything that we do, we want to grow and keep expanding and doing these things. The minute we start to draw certain limits on students and use things like, well, cognitively, that's all they could do. Behaviorally, that's all they could do. We're putting the ceiling on top of them when the whole cornerstone of the IDEA is progress, ultimately, to be as independent. as you can be as an adult. know, when we're in the thick of the IEP process, we got to take a step back and go, you know, we got all these goals and objectives. We got all this data. We have these meetings. We have these documents. We have all this. What's it for? Well, ultimately, it's for the student to progress to so that once they are ⁓ either graduated 18, or go through the functional program or the adult program rather ⁓ to 22, are they ready for post high school life? You know, whole purpose is to make the student as ⁓ independent as possible so they have the best life possible. So if as we're going through grade school, middle school, high school, and we're not meeting those benchmarks, those life benchmarks, then what is it for? You could go to all these meetings and say progress, that we love having them, they're a blessing in the classroom, which are all good things. I don't want to discount any of those things. But in the end, if the student isn't learning in such a manner that we could go in another environment in the community and they're actually utilizing these skills, then really what is it for? speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: So taking a step back and looking at the big picture is always a good thing because when you're at the throes of the IEP process, you kind of get lost in the, you know, in the woods there and you really want to go, wait a minute, what's the bigger picture here? speaker-0: Yeah. And I think that this kind of leads a little bit into the next question that I was going to ask you. And it talks about, Like, how do you like, what do you do when you start seeing this, these progress reports that are just, it's a delight to have him here. That usually means that something is off with the IEP. They're probably either not following the IEP or the goals are not. necessarily individualized for that child. So what can the parents do when you start seeing that the IEP is not quite being followed and that you find out that they're not getting enough speech therapy like they were supposed to? What do you do? What can you do as a parent? speaker-1: Yeah, you know, that's a good question. And this is where ⁓ being a conscientious parent is ideal because ⁓ you can take the position that, well, they're the educators. It's up to them. And sure, that is a position to take. And I'm not talking about right or wrong or good or bad. It's just what kind of advocacy you want to do. But if you don't know where your child functions, you know, where they read, How do they write? All these skills, if you don't know, then if I say, look, in a year from now, we're gonna target this area. And right now, this is where they're at. In a year from now, this is where we want them to be. Do you agree? Now, if you don't know where the current benchmark is, then your opinion as to if in a year from now, that is good progress, you're not gonna be able to answer that. So the first thing that I would advise parents is become an expert of educationally of your child. Know all areas of need so when you receive the draft IEP, and I say draft because I'm going to advise parents, always ask for the draft prior to the IEP so at least you can get an idea of where they're going. But you're going to get an idea of how they see your child in all those areas, academics, communication, social, emotionally. behavior, adaptive skills, you're gonna see where at that given time, this is where we're seeing how your child functions in the classroom. ⁓ And then you could take an inventory yourself and say, well, I don't see that, or I do see that. And if you agree, go, okay, I agree that in this given time, this is where the student is. In a year from now, what's our target? Because those are the goals and objectives. Those are the areas that you wanna focus. So when we're back here in a year, are we seeing that progress or are we not? And a good question is, how do you know, district? You're saying, you know, when we get to the IEP, there's little boxes. Met, substantial progress, unmet, okay? Those are conclusions. I want to know how did you get there? How did you, so what data did you use to get there? How do you collect the data? Walk me through the process so that I understand when you're getting ready for this meeting, what kind of process underlies you to say, well, this is where the student is and I stand by it. I know, I tested them. It's OK for me to ask how you got there and to know where your student is. And so then you could say, well, no, I want him progressing to this level because I know he could do this. videotape your child doing these things. Bring it to the IEP saying, look, here's the proof positive. Students actually doing this. You guys have a different picture. Look at what he could do. Why can't I get him to do that at home and you can't get him to do it here? Where's the disconnect? And let's fix that. speaker-0: Yeah. I am a big fan of the recordings. I think that, you know, one of the things is, this is what I do all the every week as a mom of a child with an IEP. I do my ⁓ Team Drake email and it goes out to everyone that's involved in his care. It's the school, it's the doctor, it's our neurologist, it's our psychiatrist, it's our I mean, everybody's on that email. And if you don't want to receive that email, then you shouldn't be on my child's team. So what I do is these are the things that we did. These are the things that he's doing. These are the things that I've seen him ⁓ doing this weekend. And so when you when you put that out there and they see it, hopefully, if they're interested enough in your child, they can use that at something speaker-1: Good point. speaker-0: for them to use during the week and expand on during, you know, in the classroom or outside in PE or whatever, socializing or any of that. But I feel like that was one of the biggest things. It's like really staying communication with the school and your providers because a lot of people, they don't. And when you don't, then what you're going to get in an IEP is that are those progress reports that we've been that we were talking about. So you have to show interest. speaker-1: Absolutely. I think communication is very key because usually students have some sort of outside providers, whether through insurance, regional center, you know. So there's other agencies and professionals working with them. To have those people communicate with the school district could only be helpful, you know, because we want consistency, especially with certain disabilities. Consistency is key. So having them work on the same things, if it's, for example, speech and language therapy. If we're working on different goals outside of school than what we're doing at school, the student is going to be like, well, what should I do? And approaches and strategies should be very aligned so that the consistency, we will see that progress that much more. So I agree with you. You know, having that open line of communication ⁓ is key because it can only be helpful. You the goal is your student's progress. And if everybody's on board, then talking about it, being on the same page can only be more helpful. speaker-0: Yeah. Now, since you're here and you're an attorney, if these things are not happening, if progress is not being made, what are, and they're not following the IEP, what are the legal options that we actually have when it comes to this? Like what do we do? What can we do? speaker-1: You know, I think the first thing to do is in line and in the spirit with communication is talk to the school district. Document everything. You know, the days of just being able to walk into school and talk to the person in the front of the office and express your concerns. Well, I don't even know if there was a time for that, but it definitely is over. OK, you got to document everything. OK, and so if there are. concerns, make them specific, don't be vague and say look these are what I'm worried about and name them. What can we do about it? Let's have a meeting. I'm requesting a meeting, you request an IP meeting, within 30 days you have it. You let them know that these are the concerns. School district, what are you going to do about it? Once you make a request, the school district has to answer you. They can't just leave it alone. And per the IDEA, it's through what's called a prior written notice, PWN. And the school district has 10 days to answer you formally through a letter. So whatever requests, whatever ⁓ things that you are thinking are appropriate for your child, they need to answer them. If they say, well, look, no, We're not going to do that. We are the professionals and we think that ⁓ what we're offering meets the students' needs. Here's the reasons. You know, they usually have to explain why we're drawing that conclusion. This is what we're going to do. And in that letter, they do advise if you don't agree, you can file a due process complaint. You're going to have to calculate that because either at one point either you're going to file a complaint or the district they have rights to they could file a complaint to defend whatever program that they're offering okay so that would be your legal recourses if you're requesting something that the IEP doesn't have. If you feel that the IEP is appropriate for your student everything's going well but they're not implementing it then what you could do there is a different process and that is to file a compliance complaint with the California Department of Education because what you're looking for is state intervention saying, look, state, ⁓ we have a good IEP, they're just not doing it. Here's a copy of it, here's the violation, they're not implementing the services, whatever it is, you know. And say, look, state, make an order for them to do it. They're out of compliance. So those are the main vehicles that you could use. to make sure that the IEP is meeting the child's needs. speaker-0: Yeah. Have you seen, do the states actually reply? Do they intervene when you, that state complaint is made? speaker-1: They do. They do. It takes a while, you know, unfortunately, and in the current political ⁓ environment, it could take a little bit more just because of the lack of personnel. However, that ⁓ they do. It usually takes about two months is the problem. OK, so that's the difficulty. could take long, but they do ⁓ respond and they respond in writing. And it's a corrective order. And they do an investigation. They look to see what is the violation, what did the district do or did not do. And they'll either find, are you in compliance or are you not? If they're in compliance, they explain to the parents, hey, look, this is what we investigated and this is what we found. And you could appeal that. But if they find that the district was out of compliance, they do a corrective order. They issue that and say, Hey look, you need to do this because this is what the IEP says. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. You know, I think that some of this, actually kind of leads into the next part of that I was going to ask about, which is compensatory services. Right. So once you find out that the IEP is not being followed or you made a state complaint, what's next? speaker-1: Yeah, well, compensatory services, you know, with any legal matter, you know, you file a lawsuit, you got to ask the court for something. You're asking for a remedy. under depending on what under what law you sued under, there are remedies that the law provides. Now, under IDEA, there typically isn't money damages, okay, that look, you screwed up this bad, you owe this much money. What there typically is are remedy are equitable remedies. Remedies that are in the spirit of fairness. So if the school district denied a student a fee a free appropriate public education then there's been some educational loss. Okay. So that compensatory education services is making up for that educational loss provide services above and beyond of what the IEP is offering. to make up the time that you screwed up or you sat on your hands or you just didn't do the right thing. And it could be in the form of certain tutoring, certain reading programs, writing programs. If there was a denial of faith in speech and language, it could be services, occupational therapy, social skills. There is no exhaustive list. It is more in line with, look, because of what you didn't do school and district, student is now affected in this way. So you're going to have to make up for that loss. And that's what compensatory education services are. speaker-0: Yeah, we, ⁓ we, we went to, we had an ADR and we did get some compensatory services. This was before I had found you, but it really, the interesting thing is that even with that, it still didn't help. So that's why we went, we came to you, right? It was like, okay, you guys are just, okay, what, this is not working. He's not learning. And what are we doing? you're doing the same things over and over again, without changing the way. And so we got some, it didn't work. And then of course, we ended up with you anyway, which is kind of sad to think about that. know, I think that compensatory services can be a great thing. We just need to, as a parent, we just need to make sure that it's the right thing. for the child. speaker-1: Right. And that goes back to, you know, knowing what your students' needs are. Because if you're, you know, providing a service just to provide is not going to do anything. But if it's going to remediate an area of need, you know, now we're talking. Yes. You know, so if it's, for example, a need in reading, make sure that the reading curriculum that is being implemented is really to affect change in whatever ⁓ getting in the way of your child reading proficiently. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and you know, we really a lot of times I feel like Parents we have to become this expert in so many things So we can make sure that this this is followed and I think and I feel bad because there are so many families out there That they're not they just kind of yes. Yes. Where do I sign? Yes, you know and and and they could have, and unfortunately the school districts don't do, they don't give everything that they can give to a child a lot of times. And that's really sad. And that's one thing that, you know, it really, saddens me to see some of the kiddos out there that are just going along. speaker-1: just walking away. is. And, you know, to your point of becoming an expert in so many areas, my joke with clients are, you know, I went to law school and had contracts, constitutional law, that kind of thing. I never was there special ed law. They never taught us how to read IEPs. These are things that along the way, once you choose your area, you know, for me, it's the only area of law I've ever practiced. is you do, you have to learn all these certain areas, psychology, a little bit of speech and language, occupational therapy, and what all that means. My advice is always make it a little fun. It doesn't have to be arduous all the time, but learn a little bit of everything so that you know what your child's needs are, but really what's out there to help. speaker-0: ⁓ Yeah, for sure. ⁓ you know, we, as parents, we need to, we need to learn, we need to do this. And that's, that's why kind of where I'm at right now, I'm doing these, you know, the podcast, like this is, this is me trying to learn. And I learn every time I have somebody on the show and we meet so many amazing people, but And this is me making it fun. I'm just letting you guys know. So I love doing this. Okay. So I think that I have more questions. Of course. have a lot of questions. So let's talk about IEEs, the independent evaluations. Can you talk to us what that means? When can we request it? What time, like in the process of the IEP, like speaker-1: I know it's great. speaker-0: When is this available? Why do they make it available and how? speaker-1: Yes, yeah, you know, there's a lot to IEEs. First of all, school districts have to, you know, the whole process, even from eligibility moving forward, is driven by evaluations. Before a student is even eligible, the school district has to evaluate. And just to summarize very quickly, you request an evaluation, the district provides an assessment plan, they have 15 days from your request. You sign it, school district has 60 days to ⁓ do the evaluation and hold an IEP meeting to review it. And so there are legal standards on what those evaluations should look like. They have to be sufficiently comprehensive. They have to evaluate in all areas of known or suspected needs. If we think there's an issue, the district should explore it with these evaluations. There are certain, there's components. There's record reviews. In other words, the examiner needs to review records. They need to do interviews, interview the teachers, service providers, parents. There's informal measures, testing that they could do, but there's also formal testing measures that they could do that are nationally ignored. In other words, it comes with a testing manual. and the examiner needs to adhere to how the test is supposed to be administered within the manual. So there's all these components that go with an evaluation. If the district does not comport with those standards is when the evaluation could be deemed faulty. And then at that time, you can say, look, ⁓ respectfully, I don't think you adhere to this point. you didn't interview me or you didn't do a record review or ⁓ you only administered half of that instrument and you didn't do a good job and as a result it affected the conclusions and the findings. So therefore I'm requesting an independent evaluation which really is kind of like a second opinion. You know I want you to pay for somebody else to take a look at this outside independent of the school district and then we're going to review that evaluation and it should be at your cost because you should have evaluated appropriately to begin with. Okay. There's a couple of key things I just want to point out is you have to make sure that the evaluation was properly conducted. You can't just not agree with the conclusions and I think that's where parents, some parents get into some challenges. is they don't like the conclusions. They request an independent evaluation. And what I said before about the PWNs, the prior written notices, once you request something, the school district has to respond. And in that PWN, that prior written notice, I've seen it happen too many times that they say, well, look, we did this in this evaluation. It is appropriate. So we stand by it. We deny your request for an IEE. And if you don't withdraw it, we're going to file against you to defend our assessment. And then we get these calls all the time that's like, ⁓ my gosh, I got this complaint and I think I'm getting sued. What do I do? So I say that not to ⁓ get you nervous, but to impress upon you to really look at the evaluation and make sure was it done correctly. Don't focus so much on the conclusions. I know that's where you want to go, which I get it. And you can add to it. Go look, and that's why I don't agree with it. But what I would suggest is just look it up on the internet, on whatever you look at to look for information. What are the standards of a school district evaluation? And then compare, did the district do these things? So then you can specifically say, I'm requesting this because I don't agree. Here's why I don't agree, and here's where you screwed up. speaker-0: Yeah, I am. We got an IE because the the parent interview that they said that we had was a ⁓ one page questionnaire that I received from the school district. Nobody called me. Nobody asked me. We had no conversations and it was just this one page. ⁓ questions that I received from the school psychologist and we were able to get the IEE. Still in the IEE. ⁓ environment if I can say it that way. ⁓ you so they always provide you a list of their people right can you talk to us about that? speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. You know, the list means, ⁓ well, I'm going to speak in general terms, but the list means is that the school district has contracts with those individuals. The evaluation, the IEE, the district can apply their SELPA standards, special education. ⁓ local planning area. This is like a world of acronyms, right? Yes. We say it like the word self. Don't you know what self means? on. ⁓ know, it's a special education, local planning area, which is the regional, ⁓ local planning area of a school district. Depending on, each school, what their self is. So there's guidelines that they can say, look, we're going to give you this IEE, but speaker-0: I'm worried enough! speaker-1: they have to adhere to these guidelines. So the school district can have a list of people that have already adhere, you know, they're responsible for those guidelines and there's a financial agreement with them. Like if we use you, how much are you going to charge us? And that there's an understanding, okay? And so there's some ideas that, I never want to use those people because they obviously have to be on the side of the district because the district's offering. And that could be, but it's not necessarily. I really look at the who and I know that I'm at an advantage here. I usually know who these experts are. Yes. And I've worked with them in the past. So I go with their character and integrity and see what kind of work they do. So if they're on the list and I know who they are and I trust their work, that actually is a benefit for me because the district has already used them and there's already an open contract so that we could move that quicker. But you're not bound by it. And school districts kind of use that influence on parents that here's all we use. And the parent goes, OK, well, I choose this person. I don't know who else to choose. And it doesn't have to be. You could do your own due diligence and find people. Say, I've spoken to so-and-so. They've worked with your school district in the past and they've worked with these school districts. Here's who I'm asking for. And you can bring somebody to the table. speaker-0: Yeah, I my the person that we went to for Drake's IEE years ago, she has truly become a friend because she she knows Drake inside and out the amount of time that she spent with him during his assessment after his assessment. Like to this day, I still call her for questions every once in a while about his, you know, his his educational plan and all of that. it's, she's amazing. And so really, and we didn't go, she wasn't through the school. She was not on the school list. But the one thing that we kind of ran into was the problem with the contract, right? Because if you go outside of the ones that they give you, they're probably gonna charge more. And so you have to, they would have to agree to the price and it gets very complicated. But we figured it out. she's, IEE, it just, made a humongous difference for Drake. They saw, she saw Drake in a different light than what the school district was looking and trying to make us see. speaker-1: You get a qualified, talented ⁓ expert to come in and do their, and when I say magic, I mean that in the terms that they do things that you didn't know were available and around. And they come up with ideas. They bring a heightened level of expertise to the case. ⁓ It can make all the difference in the world. I'll give you an example that I use a lot. I had a case years ago and it was a student that had a superior IQ. ⁓ This kid was brilliant. Just had a lot of behavioral issues, School district wanted to place him in a ⁓ behavioral-based special day class where the students were not even close to his level. So he'd be bored, right? The argument was that because the behavior, you know, we can't, you know, we've had AIDS, we've had these things. What do you expect us to do? Which to a certain degree is a legitimate question. What do you expect us to do? And so what we did there is we brought in an extremely talented board certified behavioral analysis, a BCBA. And she did nothing short from magic. She evaluated him. She figured out what is really triggering these behaviors in this environment, develop a plan, a real plan on how to intervene. And what I mean, intervene is get involved before the escalation because it escalates. mean, that's it. You're not going get them until it's done, right? key was, and this is where I learned this, that's the importance of the antecedents is intervene at that moment so you don't have the behavioral escalation. And not only did she develop the plan, she trained everybody. And before you knew it, left the case because everybody was properly trained, students. The time was like around third grade. So this started first grade. We finally figured out third grade. ⁓ By the time we went to middle school, there's no more behaviors. There's no speaker-0: Amazing. Isn't it incredible? speaker-1: Yeah, and that's why I use the term magic because she brought to this case something that they just couldn't unlock and she unlocked it. And so I use that example because that's such an easy example to look at. Getting the right people is key. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. There's no doubt. There's no doubt. So I wanted to ask about due process because I feel like we can as parents, we can use it as a threatening thing. ⁓ I'm you know, we're going to take you we're going to take you to my lawyer or however, you know, we want to see it as parents. But really, can you explain that process? Because it's not an easy process. It's not in the ⁓ best thing to do if you don't have to go down that road. But tell us what that road looks like and ⁓ what it looks for the parents. What should we expect if we do go down? speaker-1: Yeah, you know it's interesting because we grow up watching legal shows Or movies so we have an idea of what a lawsuit looks like, you know in court the dramatics and I Just watched devil's advocate with Keanu Reeves and ⁓ my speaker-0: Gosh, that's such a great movie. speaker-1: I love it. I love those movies. you know, it's not always so dramatic that way. in all honesty, it is a lawsuit. know, when you file due process, you're challenging the appropriateness of what the district's offering you. OK. And so this is federal law. And so what the feds do is they don't want everything in their federal courts. So they establish administrative processes. That's not just an education, it's an immigration, it's in employment, ⁓ it's in social security. And so our court right now is the Office of Administrative Hearings. And what are the way it works is that ⁓ the California Department of Education has to contract with a certain agency to hear these cases. And for, let me see, since 2004, I believe, it's been the Office of Administrative Hearings. used to be another agency before that. ⁓ And they're the courts. They're administrative law judge. They're well versed in the law. And so once you file, the ultimate thing you're requesting due process, what you're requesting is a hearing. You're requesting a hearing before a judge to say, hey, judge, they didn't do their job. Give me an order to fix it. OK? but there's a lot of layers before that. Once you file your complaint by law, there is what's called the resolution session. The law said look within 15 days, hold a meeting, and see if you can resolve this, okay? Which is really a settlement conference. One side is being, know, it's the parents, district, hey, these are my complaints, this is what I'm asking for, can we settle this? ⁓ If that doesn't work, then the next stage is, next formal stage, is a mediation. And that is like the resolution session, a settlement conference, but an administrative law judge is running the meeting. Now, they're not running the meeting as a judge. In other words, they don't have decision-making power, but they're there to try to bring the sides to a resolution. If that doesn't work and the lines are drawn in the sand, that we're moving forward a trial, then a due process hearing for all intents and purposes is a trial. It's what would be called a bench trial because there's no jury, because we're dealing with kids, minors. ⁓ It is one judge making the decision. ⁓ They apply the law, and you have to show your evidence. So there's testimony, there's documentary evidence, and you establish your case. what I advise parents if you're gonna, because a lot of parents do it on their own. And that is, that's phenomenal. I just say, my gosh, if you think you do this stuff, because you know, I'll tell you why. Because the district's gonna get attorneys and their attorneys are very smart. They're well versed. deal with them constantly and have lots of respect for most of them. And so, you know, they're gonna, speaker-0: Gosh. speaker-1: have representation. So I would advise parents, if at all possible, get representation, have somebody guide you through this. Ultimately, the parents make the decision unless it goes to hearing and the judge has to make it. But having an advocate or an attorney take you through this process to advocate for you, I think is key. speaker-0: Yeah. I think that this kind of leads into like what does an attorney actually do? What is this? Because, you know, in my mind, we came to you when I couldn't figure it out anymore. You know, I had tried the things that I knew how to try. And so, and I think that a lot of times that's when you get the parents, even, you know, like when the shit hit the fan, right? That's when you get, that's when you go and you get an attorney. So talk us through what you actually do when you get these and they come to you and the parents come to you. Like what, how do you, how do you lead the parent? speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, and it could be different for, you know, ⁓ different offices. The culture of the office could be different, but I'll give you my point of view. I think that it's incumbent upon an attorney not only to be a legal advisor, but to understand a few things. Number one, we're not dealing with widgets here. We're dealing with kids. And as a parent, I know how I feel about my daughters. You know, I my joke with my clients is I'm objective about everything except when it comes to my girls, my daughter. And I feel it worth the turn because I'm dad. And so I don't see that objectivity. But that's my job is for parents not only to be a legal advisor, but to have a certain level of grace and compassion and understand that we're dealing with parents and we're dealing with kids. and we're dealing with a family in crisis, okay? Hardly or never, if I'm to be definitive, do parents call us because they're having a great time at school and they just want a second opinion. know, usually they're in crisis and something, like you said, the shit hit the fan. What do I do? So I think that to understand the subtleties there, the emotional subtleties there are just as important as having ⁓ a well-versed knowledge of the law so that you can guide a parent. You got to know what you're dealing with here. So I think that you got to do your due diligence. You got to review everything, the documents from the school, everywhere to understand the student's needs. And then hear the parent's side of it and go, okay, tell me what the problem is. And then say, well, look, I read everything and this is what I think that we could do. And it might not be everything that the parent wants, you know? you know, I think, and you do it respectfully and you do it gently. And sometimes you have to say, you know what, I'm sorry, we just can't do that. But let me tell you what I can do. I think that the law does ⁓ is in our favor on these issues. These are the issues that I think that we could prove and that we can move forward. And let me tell you, if we achieve these, ⁓ how I think it's going to help your child. and then just walk them through. think that that's what an attorney does. Now on the day-to-day things, we file the complaint, we establish the dates. One thing is, and I think that you would agree, I have the greatest staff, so they take care of a lot of things that I'm just not available to do. And so we have a team here to handle the issue. ⁓ If there are letters to write, we do it. If there's motions to be drafted or to respond to, we do that. ⁓ I think that, ⁓ again, if you want to get into this area of law, you do whatever you need to do to provide high quality legal and emotional assistance. Again, we're dealing with kids. We're not dealing with inanimate objects. or contracts. Well, I guess we are dealing with that. But, you know, at the heart of this is the best interest of a student. And so I think that that approach is probably the most important. speaker-0: Yeah. And I love it that you said you, take care of the emotional part of the parents because I mean, that's when you're, when we're coming to you, we are completely emotionally in this. I mean, I, remember shaking at the last, you know, the last couple of IEPs because I'm so angry, but I couldn't get my words out and I couldn't let them know exactly what was happening. And then You come in and you say, hey, here's what the law says. This is what we can and these are the things that we can't do. And it's really looking, it's not for the parents. And this is the one thing that I want the parents to hear. This is not for you. It's for your child. that's, Edwin is coming in, not as an attorney for you. He's gonna fix it for your kid. That's how I see this. speaker-1: Yeah, those have been some of the most difficult conversations I've had with clients is to say, look, I understand why you're asking for that. And it's not my opinion. But it's more let me tell you why I don't agree with that. And you know, again, have some grace, because usually parents all they want is their children to thrive, right? It's usually not that they want above and beyond. They just want to have a great time at school, learn and be a happy child. The issues are is they're usually not seeing that. And so, ⁓ yes, it is, I think, the responsibility of an attorney to work with a certain level of compassion and passion to get the job done. speaker-0: Okay, I have two more questions and then we can close this up. But one is, what can a parent do now, even though they might not be filing due process. know, what should we be doing now? speaker-1: Can you provide some specifics regarding how to appreciate or? speaker-0: No, just yes. Like what can a parent do now to prepare in case something happens? Because I feel like, and I know that it wasn't on there, but ⁓ I feel like if we don't get everything in writing, if we don't keep this together, if we don't do this, I feel like we would make it so much harder for you to come in ⁓ later on, you know, just I'm hearing these, I'm hearing that. I've talked to this person and I've talked to that person, but there's nothing in writing. Like what can we do as parents to make this easier on you? Hopefully we would never have to get to the point. speaker-1: You know, I think being proactive, okay, and that's very singular, but let's break that down, okay? Because I think that unfortunately, and it's not by any intentional behavior, but I think that the calls that we receive parents are being very reactive to certain things, okay? So what I mean being proactive is this. Number one, have a copy of all educational records. Have the file at home, whether it is a physical copy or a digital, but have them, okay? So that you could take a look at your child in a chronological perspective, from a chronological perspective. Year by year, what is the IEP working on? What's the level of progress? And so that you can have a wider lens of This is where they were, say for instance, kindergarten, we're now in fifth grade, yes, he's progressing here, or no, he's not progressing there. So one is become well-versed with your child's education and documents, have all educational records, put them in chronological order, and review them so that you understand where things are, okay? Number two, ⁓ nip things in the bud. In other words, if there's an issue. concern, problem, whatever. Don't say, well, give it some time. ⁓ I would say, let's write an email. ⁓ This is happening. I'm seeing this. What are we going to do about it? If you don't get a substantial response, I'm requesting an IEP meeting to discuss this, this, and that. And just be on top of things. For an annual IEP, number one, at the very least, review the the last IEP so that when there is an accounting of where the goals were met, you could say, agree because I videotaped him and he can do those things. ⁓ Or I don't agree. Press play and I'll show you he can't do that. And they go, well, you did it here. Well, that's not good enough because then they're not generalizing these skills in other environments. ⁓ You indicated a letter to the team. think that's a great idea. Prior term IEP, request all draft evaluations, request the draft IEP, read it, read it until you understand it. And then I would say, look, have some draft goals. They're easy to construct nowadays. Just go online, you can figure it out. Look at all areas that you want goals, and I would draft a letter. that you're gonna be at this IEP. These are the areas that you want goals. Here's just a couple of ideas. I wanna talk about services. This is what I wanna talk about, accommodations, whatever it is. Put the district on notice that this is your agenda at this meeting. So when they come with their agenda, go great, I'm gonna respect that, but here's mine. Because this movie is my meeting and I heard this podcast and the guy said, that I need to be an active participant and meaningful participation. So now I know. And so, you know, I think that is what would be my advice to parents. Get in front of everything. Be proactive so that if there is a problem, a problem where you said, geez, I think I need an attorney. didn't frustrate. It hasn't been years. And that you could really try to get the help ⁓ that your child needs as soon as possible. speaker-0: Well, that was so good. That's I mean, you just told us parents what we need to do. And I think that it is so true. And I cannot thank you enough for spending all this time with me on here and with our listeners. And ⁓ we might have to have you back at another time to ask more questions. ⁓ speaker-1: I hope it was great. Thank you. My pleasure speaker-0: They're gonna love it. Thank you so much Edwin, we'll see you next time. Bye everyone. See you next speaker-1: Bye bye. Thank you so much. speaker-0: Before you go take a deep breath solve everything today. You don't have to have it all figured out. If this episode helped you feel grounded or a little less alone, make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss future conversations. And if you ever want a deeper support, Special education concierge is here when you're ready. One step at a time. One decision at a time. You are your child's hero. I'll see you next time.