Off-Balance
Welcome to Off-Balance, where the worlds of faith, family, and business seamlessly come together. Our podcast is a hub for individuals who are seeking inspiration and guidance in navigating the delicate balance between these three important aspects of life. Join us as we explore practical strategies, share personal stories, and provide valuable insights on how to thrive in your faith, strengthen your family bonds, and achieve success in your business endeavors. Subscribe now to embark on a transformative journey that will empower you to lead a purpose-driven life filled with joy, fulfillment, and prosperity.
Off-Balance
Building Strong Foundations: The Importance of Early Childhood Education
Dr. Brandi Howard discusses the importance of parental involvement in their child(ren) education and the misconception about Special Education programs and Individualized Educational Plans (IEP). Dr. Howard also addresses the burnout that educators are experiencing and provides tips to help the be successful in classroom management. Dr. Howard is an incredible educator, mentor, and coach. She has more than twelve years of experience in elementary education, classroom, and administration. Her career consists of implementing positive behavior interventions, support, and 21st-century skills into instruction. She earned her Doctor of Philosophy degree from Auburn University and Administration of Supervision and Curriculum.
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Dr. Howard
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You.
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Welcome to the Off Balance podcast, where faith, family
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and business collide
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with your host, Dr.
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Brooks Deming, Christian life coach, intercessor, and entrepreneur.
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Hello everyone. I'm Dr. Brooks. Welcome to Off Balance, a podcast for adults trying to balanced life. Thank you for tuning in each week to learn strategies to help you be a better version of yourself. The sponsor of today's episode is clothed by J Christine, a Christian based clothing store offering quality and affordable clothing for the everyday, fashionable conscious woman. Today's guest is an incredible educator, mentor and coach. She has more than twelve years of experience in elementary education, in the classroom and in administration. Her career consists of implementing positive behavior interventions and support and 21st century skills into instruction. She earned her Doctor of Philosophy degree from Auburn University and Administration of Supervision and Curriculum. Please welcome to the show Dr. Brandy Howard.
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You. Thank you for having me.
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Thanks.
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Who is Dr. Brandy
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Howard? Well,
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Dr. Brandy Howard is a learner. I know it's cliché when people say they're a lifelong learner, but I am I'm constantly trying to figure out how to perfect what it is that I am trying to do to support students as an educator. I'm an educator of twelve years. Elementary education has been my passion. So I've done that for twelve years. Pre K through third grade, teacher, also mentor. So it's easy to say that you are a mentor, but I have literally read the guide that we used when I was in school about how to be an effective mentor and using those principles to support teachers, novice teachers, preservice teachers. So using those skills to support teachers. So definitely learner, educator, mentor. That's who I am.
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And
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what would you say sparked your passion to be a learner?
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It. I am very inquisitive. Like, I always have questions and I want to figure out the why. And so in order to figure out the why, you're constantly trying to get new information to figure that out. So, for example,
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I remember in
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kindergarten, I would always ask my teacher, she said, oh, you need to sit here. And I'd be like, well, why? And so she was like, you always need to know the why. And I do. So I am constantly researching the why. So right now, we have a lot of students that are struggling with social emotional issues. So I am constantly looking on the computer, trying to figure out what are some strategies that I haven't heard of that I can support students. Students are completely different than when I started in this career field twelve years ago. And so you always have to stay abreast of the newest information in order to support 1s those that are in your circle. Whether it be student, whether it be teacher, whether it be friend. You always have to stay abreast to what's
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new.
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And you mentioned that students are struggling. So we know that teachers are there to support, but what can parents do to help when it's their student that's
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struggling? So
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for parents, I think it's in the same place as teachers. We have not been 1s trained properly on how to deal with some of the behavior issues that are happening. 1s The things that you see now, as far as outbursts and attention things, those are not things that were prevalent when we were growing up. So for a parent, when you say, oh, your student is having these outbursts, or they're having trouble focusing or they're impulsive,
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they don't know what you're talking about because in their home they might not see that. But we see that in a structured environment. And so for parents, I would definitely say go to the school, see what's going on, because someone can describe this for you. But until you see it and you're looking at it in that environment, in that structured environment, and you're also looking at their same age peers, it's that comparison, because if you don't have any other kids at home or if your kids have gaps in ages, you don't know what the teacher is talking about. So it's definitely going to the school. Being a volunteer, it's being a part of parent teacher association, it's getting involved in the school environment so that you can see what's happening. There are a lot of school districts now that are offering
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parental parenting classes, especially like if you're in a school system that has universal pre K, so they're offering those parental classes to show you how to support your child socially, emotionally and academically. So you have things like that. Being in a military community, there are resources to support students. Like at our school, we have a brochure that talks about 1s if you are a parent of a student that has ADHD, you can go to this place to get this support. There are also different social media groups that are parents of students who have ADHD, autism, 1s Add that exhibit various behaviors that you can learn more information about. But I think it first just starts with going to the school to see because we don't have a lot of parental involvement. Sometimes people show up when there is a problem versus before there's a problem.
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Yes. And so what happens when the behavioral problem begins to spill into their ability to perform academically?
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So it all depends on the school system. So, for example, 1s the goal is always to keep the child in school. So every school district has a discipline matrix. So some school systems, if the behavior continues to progress, there might be suspension. But due to the pandemic, I think that as educators, we have really backed up on suspension and started to figure out, okay, what is the targeted behavior? So you start to bring your guidance counselor in. You start to bring your school psychologists in. So you have these experts that are sitting down with you, and you're identifying, okay, this is what I'm seeing. And so then they start asking probing questions. Okay, well, what happened before Johnny flipped over the table? Did someone say something? Did someone take something? What was his perception? So you're trying to figure out, how did these things happen? And so.
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When the behaviors are impacting the classroom. These experts, your counselor, your school psychologists, they're doing observations. And once they start observing and they can sometimes see with their eyes differently because they're trained in psychology, they see things a little bit differently. They can give you some tips. So a tip might be, okay, this child is getting overstimulated, so they only need to work for ten minutes and then maybe get a five minute break. Or work for five minutes and get a five minute break. They're looking at, how often is this student on task if they're only on task for 60 minutes? If they're only on task for 60 seconds, well, you can't expect them to work for five minutes and then take a break for five minutes. So it's your team coming together, observing the behaviors that have been identified, and trying to identify some type of behavior plan that is going to support the student.
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Those are hard conversations to have with parents, because, again, parents don't see certain behaviors in their environment like we do. So it is a very hard conversation to have. So when you approach the conversation, you have to be very delicate and saying, hey, this is something that we notice. And so based on what we notice, we have tried these strategies to help Johnny, but we're noticing that we're still having a hard time with that. And so what we're going to do is we're going to have this reinforcement plan. So a reinforcement plan is something that you are trying to replace the targeted behavior. So if the targeted behavior is johnny doesn't keep his hands to himself, okay? So we're going to keep his hands busy, whether it's having a ball in his hand, whether it's having something that he can fidget with. You're trying to keep the hands busy. If he's in line, his hands are in his pocket. He has a certain position in line, whether it's in the front or it's in the back. So you're trying to find things to replace those behaviors when they're impacting the academic setting. And the last resort is sometimes to go to a modified school day. Whether it's this student, if you don't see the behaviors in the morning time, then maybe that's the best time for them to come to school. And then we start working towards full day. Or if you're seeing in the afternoons, if the behaviors happen in the morning time, maybe you're going in the afternoon. So you're working that plan out. It's a modified schedule. So
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you're trying to do all of these things before there is suspension or 1s in school, because that's not helping the student. The issue is still there.
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Yes.
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And you said that there has been a lot of different behavior issues that we didn't
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see when we were coming up in school.
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So how are the
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teachers able to effectively teach and not get
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burned out?
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Well, that's a good question, because teachers are burnout. You are seeing now more videos of whether it be the regular teacher or the sub teacher. They've had enough. And so because they've had enough of these behaviors, they are 1s having reactions because you're taught to take a step back and sometimes ignore the behavior, but it's persisting. And so they're at their wits end, so then they react. 1s So it's very hard for teachers. So one of the things that I have really been working with the teachers that I support is providing them some professional learning on de-escalation strategies. So how do we deescalate a situation before it gets there? What are the things that we are noticing if you know that writing is a trigger for Johnny?
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Then maybe he needs to record what it is that he wants to say on the computer. It's picking your battles, and so it's really identifying what triggers them and how can I get around that? So it's providing teachers with the support that they need as far as de escalation strategies.
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Also
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going in to support the teacher. You
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know, there has to be some time in our schedule where we actually go into the classroom so that we can be that other set of eyes, so that we can be that set of hands for teachers. It's challenging as a school leader to do that sometimes, but if you can, it's going to the classroom, supporting that teacher, providing that professional learning. Also, if there are additional resources, which is very hard because typically they're not, because the funding in schools is very tight. But if there is additional resources where that teacher can have another set of hands in there, even if it's for 20 or 30 minutes, that makes a teacher happy that they had another set of hands, eyes and ears in that classroom. So to avoid burnout, we have to better prepare. We took one class. At least I did. It was only one class on classroom management. That was it. That's the only class I took, and the entire time I was in school, one class on classroom management.
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One class does not effectively prepare you for what we're seeing.
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Wow. So I was going to ask, is it something like
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that school districts provide teachers to learn how to properly manage the classroom, or is that something that they kind of learn as they go into their career?
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It's really on the job training because you take that one class, but it's all theory, it's all textbook stuff. And so when you actually get into the classroom and you meet the students and you see the diverse needs of your students, that's when it is. The reality of nothing in this book has prepared
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me for what is really happening. And so, again,
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we always pride ourselves in school districts with, oh, we're giving professional learning on this, we're giving professional learning on that. But no one ever stops to say to a teacher, hey, what
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was a challenge for you this school year? And what could we have done to support
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you? That's where your professional learning comes in. Like we know there are things that you have to do. There are certain things that you have to get professional learning on. But behaviors is something that we kind of sweep under the rug as far as professional learning, I guess the mindset could possibly be, well, you're going have some that are trouble. So you just work your way through it. You get to the weekend, you get to the break. But if we want to keep teachers, we have to find out what it is that they need
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and use our money wisely to provide that.
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Yes. I can only imagine what it's like being a teacher today, because you have kids that are low, they may be below grade level, and then you have to try to get them where they need to be, and then you have kids that have behavior issues. So I can imagine that it will be hard trying to manage a classroom. So for those teachers that are listening, and they probably experience this on a day to day basis, what advice can you give
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them? I would say get to know your students. 2s It sounds simple, but it's real. What are their interests? One of the things that I have done with some kids that I've supported this year that have had some behavior challenges was I had to figure out, what did they like? And a lot of the strategies that we were trying, they didn't like. So when you're trying to bargain with them to get them to do, oh, I just want you to do this. You're just going to work for five minutes, and then we're going to get a five minute break. And your five minute break, oh, I'm going to give you a skittle. And the kid said to me, I don't even like candy.
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Well,
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that's why he wasn't doing what it was I wanted him to do, because he didn't even like candy. So it's getting to know your kids. So there's this thing that counseling teams are using called an interest inventory. And so in that inventory, it figures out a kid's likes and dislikes. And so it's not like you have to sit at a table with the student and just say, oh, do you like Pokémon, or do you like Star Wars? It's talking to them when you're at lunch with them, having a conversation, oh, tell me what you did this weekend. Are you playing any sports? Finding out their hobbies? Just having those conversations with them helps because you're building relationships. So now it's okay. My teacher cares. She wants to know what I'm doing. That's a start. If your students are involved in certain activities, if they told me in advance, I would attend. So, again, you are building a relationship because now you are working with them outside of school, because you are now an additional person, an additional cheerleader in their corner, because you're showing up for things that they like to do for fun. 2s And so I just think the big thing is just getting to know your students. Even in twelve years, I can still tell you everything about every kid that I had
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taught for
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twelve years. I know, because I took the time.
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Wow,
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that's good. Because I don't think a lot of people see the children as people. They kind of want them to show up, they want to tell them what to do, but they don't allow them to be able to express themselves as far as their feelings, their likes and dislikes. So I think that's very important for teachers to understand that we are to build a rapport and a relationship with the children, because sometimes that gets lost in the shuffle of just trying to teach them. So what would you say for teachers
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who have
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students that are low and they're trying to find strategies to be able to sustain the ones that are on grade level and the ones that are excelling, but also give their attention to the ones that are struggling?
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So with below level learners, one of the things that I always used to do was I used to try to figure out what was the best way that they learned. And so I would use a variety of strategies. Of course you have your Flashcards. So for example, if you're a kindergarten teacher and you're trying to teach a kid, you know their letters, they don't know any letters. So you have the flashcards. Flashcards work for some. Flashcards don't work for everybody. So you're trying to figure out how are they learning? What is their learning style? Is it going to be the Flashcards? Is it going to be, we need to look in our environment and identify things that start with the letter B. 1s Are they those students that because we're in a technology age, they are so into technology that they're going to learn best on the computer. It's trying to figure out how do they best learn? And that comes through observation, it comes through talking to them. And once you figure out how they best learn, then you identify what's going to be like the goal. Okay, so you only know two letters. My goal is for you to learn maybe five this week. Maybe I want to increase it from two to five. So that means we got to work on three letters. So that's the goal, and you're sharing that goal with them. All right, so Johnny, two letters, we're going to focus on the letter J is in your name, j for Johnny, so he can make that connection. Can you think of anything else that makes the just sound so then you're walking through your environment. It's setting that realistic goal in making connections of what's happening in the environment to support that learning.
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Below level learners, it's challenging because. 2s You have to spend a lot of time with them. So it's not just a one and done. It's multiple times that you're meeting with them, and it can become exhausting. And
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so I
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was the person that worked with the below level learners, and my teammates would take my high kids, because the high kids, 1s they are the ones that are more inquisitive than you are sometimes. And so that's a challenge in itself. So if you have that teammate or that group of teammates that you can say,
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I'm
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really struggling with my below level learners, can you work with them? And then I can work with your on level or your above level, then that takes some of the pressure off as well. Or if they could just show you different strategies. And it really all depends on the kids. It's not a one size fits all. It just really depends on the group of kids that you have.
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So
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what advice can you give to parents when they get that phone call or that initial counseling session, and when they learn that their child is below grade level? 1s What advice can you give them? Because I would imagine that the first reaction would be to be defensive. So what can you advise the parents?
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I think
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the first thing is parents don't know what kids need to know. So if you are not an educator or if you don't have friends or family members that are educators, it's somewhat like a foreign language, because, again, schooling now is not the same as schooling previously. Kindergarten is the new first grade, so we're expecting that when they leave kindergarten, they should be reading cat, dog, some sight words like the she. And so, first of all, our parents do not know. It is our job as educators to provide some kind of support that before school starts that we're saying,
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okay,
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if you have a kid that's going to first grade, these are the things that first grade students need to know,
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and this is how you can work with your first grader. We have to do a better job as schools providing those opportunities for them to know. So I would say to a parent, if you get that phone call that your child does not know a certain thing, then I would ask, okay, you're telling me they don't know this. Can you tell me, what have you done to support them?
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What are some things that you're doing at school to support them with this? This? What are some resources that you could send home to me that could help me with this? And if a teacher just says to you, oh, you just need to read for 20 minutes,
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that's not true. 1s It's more
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than just reading for 20 minutes because any of us can pick up a book and read for 20 minutes. It is what are we doing with what we've read? There are specific questions that parents need to ask to help with their reading. So I would say be very intentional with the questions that you're asking the teacher in regards to how to support your child. There are resources in the community. Sometimes local libraries have different support for reading. Especially they have different reading programs that happen during the school year over the summer. That's something that parents can look into. Barnes and Noble has. They used to I don't know if they do now after COVID,
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but on
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Saturdays, they would have guest readers to come in and they would do different reading activities with students. So that's something else that can be done. In the state of Alabama, they have, like, a homework. It's called homework. I think. It's like homeworkalabama.org. So that was a resource that you could use as a parent if you find out your child is struggling because at the end of the day, everybody doesn't have the money to get the tutor. Yeah. And so there are free resources out there, and unfortunately, they're available, but we don't provide that information to families. And so that is a deficit for us as a school district, is we're not even providing what it is that we need to provide to help. So looking at the community library stores like Barnes and Noble, looking to see what your state offers because, like I said, Alabama has a homework hotline that can literally be on your computer. Kids are on the computer anyways. You're on the computer. There is a tutor that will assist you with the assignment. So that's something else. 1s Um, also sitting with your child to see what their homework is. Many times they'll bring home homework and we're like,
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do your homework. They struggle
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with that assignment all day at
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school. They have
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no clue how to start it.
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We got to help them. We can't just sit them at the table and say, oh, do your homework. So it's what's happening in that classroom. You got to know. And in order
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to know, you got to show up to the school. Parental involvement is important. So you need to show up, whether it's to eat lunch with your kid, whether it's to volunteer, whether it's going on a field trip, going to a school board meeting, whatever it
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is. The
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people in that school need to know that you're invested. Because when they know that you're invested in your child being the best that they can be, their tune about, oh, they're struggling. It changes to, oh,
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well, Johnny's
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struggling, but this is something that we're going to do versus Johnny's struggling. And I think we're going to have to retain him.
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The
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conversation changes because they know that you're invested. Yes. So
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parental involvement is very important.
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Can you talk a little about special education? Because I know when we were coming up, special education was something that was frowned upon. It had a negative connotation. So now when parents hear, we want to put your child on an individual education program or EIP, they are
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hesitant. So can you kind of explain what special education is as well as what's an IEP?
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So special education is basically what it says, special education. So you have identified that this student is struggling, whether it is in reading, whether it is in math, whether there's some speech concerns. They're struggling in this particular area. And so what you're trying to do is you're trying to provide direct service, an individualized plan to support this student that is struggling in reading. Your plan is going to be individualized. It's going to meet the needs of that student to hopefully the goal is to hopefully get them from struggling to being able to understand the concepts is the same thing for math and for speech. That's the goal of special education. The goal of it is not for it to be long term. Now, do you have some students that are on an Individualized education plan throughout their entire schooling from elementary to high school?
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Yes. Is
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that the goal of it? No, the goal is for it to.
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Do whatever it needs to do to help that student to reach on grade level standards. That is the goal. And then once they do reach it, then they graduate from it. I call it a graduation. We have met our goals. We're going to celebrate. We're done with it. That's the goal. It happens for some students. It doesn't happen for everyone. And so in order to even I'll
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put it like this. Before you should even say a kid needs special education, needs an individualized education plan. As classroom teachers, it is our job to make sure that we have provided equity and access to the grade level curriculum. So we're helping them access it in multiple ways, as I talked about earlier, trying to figure out what kind of learner they are. Is it the learning style? Do I need to chunk the assignment up? Do I need to change my directions if I want them to write five sentences for a paragraph? Do I need to break it up where I say, okay, what's going to be the topic 1s of our writing? What's going to be our first detail? What's going to be our second detail? Is it doing that? So do you need to break it up? Do you need to give simple directions? Does there need to be additional modeling? It's trying to use all of those strategies and collecting data so jotting down notes. When people hear collecting data, all we do is data. Well, yeah, data drives what we do. It's just like when you go to the doctor. When you go to the doctor, if he says that your blood pressure is high and he's going to check it in a month, well, he has to have data. So it's the same thing for us. So you have to document those notes of what you're doing with that kid. And if you're doing all of these things and you notice, okay, I'm doing XYZ instead of him doing all ten problems, we're just doing five. I've broken the assignment down into small pieces. I'm doing all of these things. I'm modeling. And the child still is having a hard time even with all of these strategies and providing an additional dose, like an intervention, one on one, or with a small group, and they're still struggling, then that says.
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I need to look at something else. And that's a hard conversation to have with a parent to say, I noticed that Johnny is struggling. I have done XYZ and he or she is still struggling. And so what I want to do is I want to look to find out how Johnny is learning. I need to know how he best learns. And so in order to do that, I am, you know, thinking that we might need to look at special education, and special education would be before we could even 1s they're going to get an IEP. I want to look at how he learns.
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I also want to see what are his strengths, what are his weaknesses. This is what this is going to help me do, find out his strengths and weaknesses. And then once we do that, then I know how to best support him and if another person supporting him is also what's needed. So if we approach it in that manner versus.
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They're
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struggling and they need
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spay, it, you're
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going to get some pushback. So when you say to them, I want to know how he or she is learning. We need to take a deeper dive because I've done all these things, they're still struggling. I need to know how to best support them. I need to know if there's an additional person. If you approach it like that and also saying to them,
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if he or she does qualify for special education services, there are different models. And that's something that was different when we were growing up. So different models being the
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student can receive push in support, where another teacher comes into the classroom and is working with the student, and not just that student, but could be working with a general education student,
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too. They're coming
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in the classroom, working with him. There could be a model where he gets pull out services where he's pulled out. So
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when, for
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example, at schools that I've been at, when everyone's doing centers, that's when everybody's getting their pull out services. They're getting their speech services. They're going to the reading intervention teacher, the math intervention teacher. They're getting their individualized minutes for special education. So everybody's moving. So the kids are not really paying attention to who's in the classroom or who's not, because even you're gifted. It's coming in and out. So everybody's moving. And so if you explain, okay, there might be some times where the student gets pull out services, but they're not missing any of the fun activities. They are not missing the instruction that I give everybody. They're being pulled out during the times where students are doing their independent task.
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Then that kind of gives us fire relief of my kid is not going to this other room all day, never coming out, only going to lunch, recess with their classmates. If
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they hear the different parts of it, then it's an easier conversation. And so I got off on the tangent. I'm so sorry. No, actually,
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you did. You did not. Because I think a lot of people, when they hear special education, they think of the kids that when we were in school years ago that were in a classroom all day by themselves, they ate lunch by themselves. They really didn't get to interact with other kids. So I think when parents hear special education, everything else is like a blur. Like, they really don't have
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the ability to be able
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to comprehend during that moment because they're probably thinking like, me, oh, my God, I remember what special education was like. So I'm glad that you went off on what you called a tangent because you did a great job explaining to people, no, we're not isolating your kid. This is so that your kid can get the individualized attention that they need to be able to be
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successful. Because
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I remember when my daughter first started school,
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the no Kid Left Behind. No Child Left Behind thing was really big. And so what I saw as a parent was from grade to grade, her peers were being passed along, and they was already below in the previous grade. So what we saw was
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a bunch of kids that was not getting the assistance and services that they need, and so they were continuously passed through grades. And now those same children are probably juniors and seniors, and they read at
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an elementary level.
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So I think if parents knew during that time, okay, IEPs are available, and this will ensure by law that your child is getting everything that they need, I think those parents will be more accepting of it. So can you kind of explain to parents when their child, if everything works out, they test and it's determined that they need an IEP? Can you kind of go over the protection that that child will get to make sure that everything that is in that plan is
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executed? 1s Yeah. So 1s after you get the plan, there's a meeting that happens with the case manager and the parents, and they talk about what the services are going to look like. They're going to talk about what are the goals? The goals could be a combination of reading and math. The goals could just be reading or math. The goals could be behavior goals. The goals could be speech goals. So it just depends on what they're getting the IEP for. So you'll have that meeting and you'll talk about the goals, and then you talk about
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what the services are going to look like for this particular goal. How many minutes weekly is this student going to receive services? Are these services going to be push in services? Are these services going to be pull out services? So that's the conversation that you have in the meeting.
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Many
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parents, many families don't understand that document. It is a big document that says a whole lot of things. And so I encourage families to get an advocate
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when they send you that draft individualized education plan. You either need to a have a friend, a friend of a friend that knows somebody that is a bed teacher that can dissect that document to make sure that these are the right services for the child.
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If you don't have anyone. In our communities, there are special education advocates and their job is to ensure that the services that are being provided are what the student needs and are in accordance with the different special education laws. That's their job. Advocates can attend IEP meetings and no one can tell you that an advocate cannot come because they're not acting as a lawyer, they are advocating for this child. So that's what I always encourage people to do. If you don't know somebody that knows Sped Law, get you an advocate that can look at this document and go over that document with you. So you have the document, you've had someone to look over it, you agree with the services you're supposed to receive. Progress report. With each report card, you should get a progress report telling you how your child is progressing towards
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their goal. And so
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if you consistently see 1s on the progress report 1s that
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the goal hasn't been met. 1s Like
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if you see that every time, so you get four report cards. If you see that on all four report cards, to me it is a red flag
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of
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maybe this goal is not the right goal for the child at the time. That's good. Or maybe 2s the question also could be asked what are you doing to ensure that there is progress toward this goal? What are
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you doing?
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Those are questions to ask, and it's not rude. I noticed that he or she isn't making progress toward this goal. How are you helping them make progress towards the goal? Where is the data? You should be able to see the data. It shouldn't just be,
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well, they
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made some progress. What does some progress look like? And what is the documentation that says that they made some progress? What are the work samples? Because in an IEP, when you have a goal, it tells us how we're going to measure the goal. 1s So they have to put in there, oh, we're going to be looking at work samples or rubrics or whatever you're going to use to measure that they're making progress. So if you tell me that you're going to use it based on work samples, where are the work samples? Let me see the samples that have been done to help meet this goal. And if you don't have any
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samples, then that's
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a red flag because you said you were basing this on work
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samples. I need to see that.
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So it's really looking at that progress report and seeing, are they making any progress? Because at some point we should be graduating from these goals. 1s We look at an IEP annually. So there's an annual review where you meet and you're looking at the goals to see if we mastered any goals, then those goals would go away and they might be replaced with new goals or there might not need to be any new goals. We're just now just going to work on the goals we haven't mastered. There's also a triennial review where you're trying to identify, does this student still meet the criteria to receive specialized instruction? 1s So you're constantly having to review this document. Something that parents, I don't think that they know is you can call an IEP meeting at any time. If you have a question, you can request a meeting. No one can tell you that you cannot. That is a part of your procedural safeguards. Like, there is a document that you get, and you're we offer this document at the beginning of every meeting that says, hey, here's a copy of your procedural safeguards. These safeguards
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outline
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the special education structure. It tells you what you do if you do not like the programming. It tells you that we can't do anything with your child without your permission. It says that if you want to stop services, you have the right to do
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so.
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That's good, because I think a lot of parents may feel like they don't have the rights, or they may feel like that they're being kept in the dark when it comes to certain things. So that's very important to know that they have access to be able to call a meeting whenever they choose. So that's a good thing. You have given us so much good information here this morning. So if you can say anything to parents as a final thought about the importance of being involved with their children education, what advice would you give to them?
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So
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I wrote down this little quote because I read it a couple of days ago, and it says a school striving for family involvement often leads with its mouth, identifying projects, needs and goals and then telling parents how they can contribute. A school striving for parent engagement tends to lead with its ears, listening to what parents think, dream, and worry about. The goal of family engagement is not to serve clients, but gain
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partners.
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Parents are our partners. We can't do anything successfully at a school without our partners, whether it's our parents or our community. So for parents or for guardians, whatever your role is in a child
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life, you need to
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go to that school. And I'm not talking about going to that school when you're upset and you want to show out. I'm talking about going when everything appears to be going well.
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Pop up. Have
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lunch with your child. Volunteer in your child's classroom. If you can't go, who in your family can
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go.
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Being involved. Be a member of the PTA. PTO, they call it different things. Be present. Because, again, when you are present, that shows that you are
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invested.
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That's really good, because I know when my daughter was younger, I was definitely a member of at that time. They call it the PTA. My husband and I will always roll into those schools because, for one, we wanted to make sure that her teacher was engaging her. We wanted to make sure that she was in a safe environment, and we also wanted to make sure that the curriculum was being taught. So it's very important just to allow the school to put a face with a name, because I can assure you, from kindergarten all the way up until 8th grade, we were very involved. 9th grade, it was COVID for her, so she did virtual learning. 10th grade, she was kind of like, I'm an adult. I don't need
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you guys to kind of hover over me. So preparing her to go off to college, we allow her to interact with the counselor on her own. We allow her to fix any issues with the teacher or address them on her own. And if it can't be resolved, then we step in. But we were very active in her life, so I think that is very good advice, because I can count.
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I don't think we ever had any issues when it came to her teachers, because we were always involved. So I commend you for encouraging parents to be partners with the school system. And what can you say to those
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teachers that are like, I hear you, Dr. Howard, but I am tired. I just don't think that I get the support. I really don't know if I want to continue to do this. What can you say to kind of help them reignite their passion for teaching and education?
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I would say just remember the why. Because even in my current role, I get burnt out, and I think about, I might need to look at something else. But you remember the why. And the why is I show up for kids every day. I am their voice. And so many of our students don't have a voice because of whatever their home life is. So I am the Voice. And so if I step away from it, if the teachers who have the burnout, if they step away, who is the voice for those children? So remember the why. Remember that sometimes you are their advocate, and you're their advocate because you spend more time with them than sometimes their families. Kids are at school six to 8 hours a day, so you spend more time with them than their own family. So you are their parent at school. You are their advocate, you're their cheerleader. You're everything that they need and the time that they're at school. So remembering the why helps.
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Also, you employ the support of your community. So when I first started out,
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I had everybody coming to the school to volunteer. People at my church, I would let them know, hey, I have this going on in my classroom. I need your help. Because I had an aide, but I only had her for 30 minutes. I had to share her with six other people. And so there are things that you need to do in your classroom, but it's hard because you're one person trying to manage 16 to sometimes 25, 30 kids. How do you effectively do that? Guess what? You can't. You
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need your people. And so I solicited the support of my church members, some of them that were retired. Many of them were retired educators. And so they filled out the volunteer form, got their background check, and we had a schedule. They came on certain days. I had someone volunteering in my classroom every day from my church. 1s Wow. Lean on your people. Because that helps too, when you're overwhelmed and you need that extra person. Lean on your people. So if it's your church, family, or a group of people that you know that can pass a background check and it's going to be supportive of you in your classroom environment, do
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that.
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The place that people often forget about out teachers is middle and high school. Because people feel like kids are middle and high school. They're more mature. They have the willpower. They're not more mature. They're still trying to figure it all out. They're struggling too. And those teachers need even more support. So not just teachers. I just encourage communities to support teachers past teacher appreciation. Like beyond that, beyond this one week in May, find out what your community needs within these schools and go volunteer. Go
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help them.
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Yeah, that's a good point, because volunteering is very important. And it was interesting because as I was taking my daughter to test today, I told her, I said, I have not been a good parent to your teachers this year. Because no, seriously, because normally I am so involved, I email them to make sure they need any type of classroom things. Because a lot of the times that falls on the teacher to have to get the extra supplies. And I normally do a great job about that. And I was just telling her this morning, I have been a horrible parent. So I can tell you,
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listeners, please support the teachers, please support the school systems, because that is very important. And you have to remember, we're giving them our most precious jewel. We're giving them our children. So the least thing that we can do is support. So, Dr. Howard, thank you so much for joining me here on today. You have been an absolute pleasure. And I am sure that the listening audience has enjoyed all of your wisdom and all of the insight that you have as it relates to education. So, again, thank you so much. We appreciate you. Thank
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you for having me. This
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concludes today's episode. Thank you for tuning in. I hope the information presented adds value to your life. Be sure to follow me on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube at brooksdemming. The sponsor of today's episode was clothed by J Christine, a Christian clothing store offering quality and affordable clothing for the everyday fashionable, conscious woman. To learn more about today's guests, visit brooksdimming.com. Until next time, be resilient
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you it's.
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Thanks for joining. Please rate this episode and share this podcast with your family and friends. To learn more about your host, visit www.brooksdemming.com.
