Episode 1 The Golden Ticket Intro
Welcome to the Golden Ticket to improve special education. If you're after a no nonsense inspiring podcast for all special education stakeholders, you're in the right place. The mission is simple, to enhance outcomes for all students by elevating best practices for special education staff and administrators across the USA and Canada. Your host, Bob Barrows, provides a unique perspective from his years as a special education administrator in multiple large public school districts as he dives deep into the strategies that make a difference. Here we go with a golden ticket to improve special education.
Bob:Welcome everybody. Whether you're a special education administrator or teacher or related service provider or community stakeholder, this podcast is for you. We make a positive presupposition by first celebrating the excellence we already have with best practices by all of you. Across the USA and Canada, we know we have success stories in many areas. The point of this podcast is to help each one of you self reflect in a wide variety of areas to help even our most talented people find a skill or consideration to improve upon.
Bob:This podcast will hopefully encourage your self reflection about your own practice, your team's practice, and your district's practice to help you target an area that will make you even greater and more effective in meeting the needs of your students with varying abilities. Our podcast content for the first 21 episodes comes from my professional learning platform titled Clarity and Order for Special Education success. It's titled this way because I learned through my experiences in the trenches that when you have a lack of clarity, it can result in a lack of consistency and fidelity as it relates to best practices. And when you have a lack of clarity, it affects the order of a district's overall special education approach. In addition to the clarity and order platform, we will utilize content from artificial intelligence, and I will cite AI whenever I am drawing from it.
Bob:We will also make connections to the 2024 publication of The Practical Guide to High Leverage Practices in Special Education. So we welcome everyone in the continuum of special education here and encourage you all to join in the analysis of best practices as it relates to your performance, your team's performance, as well as your district's performance. When I look at the realm of special education through my 37 years of experience, all in public education, I see special education directors and assistant directors and coordinators of special education. All of you out there that do that administrative work in special education as one of the most underappreciated and thankless jobs, but also can be one of the most fulfilling jobs. There's been so many times that tears came to my eyes because of the greatness of support given to students and families by providers in both special education and general education.
Bob:There's also been times when my emotions as a special ed administrator were the opposite of that because of the oppression I felt from all kinds of influences. So thanks to all of you special education administrators for your consistent support for staff, students, and families day in and day out. Continuing in this realm of special education, I next see our school administrators. At each level, school administrators are the support structure for the building's special education team, providing constant support for all of our providers on the scene each day. When we have school administrators who are knowledgeable about IEPs and best practices, It always goes so much better, so much smoother, and staff and families feel so much more supported.
Bob:In the realm of special education, I also see special education teachers and teachers in center based programs. I see teachers of the deaf and teachers of the blind. You guys are the case managers in the trenches doing the really hard daily grind, working without a lunch sometimes, and having no time to really think about a lot of nonsense, but constantly getting ready for the next class, the next IEP, and the next demand and the next duty being placed on you for academics, behavior, and everything else. So thank you teachers and case managers for being a consistent motivator for all of our students with varying abilities. Next in the special education continuum, I see our specialized service providers or related service providers.
Bob:These are people like psychologists and social workers, occupational therapists, COTAs, speech language pathologists and SLPAs, physical therapists and PTAs. Thank you all for the therapies that you provide and the unwavering support you give to students and staff. I'm so thankful to have evaluated a large number of specialized service providers in my career and I've learned so much from them in all of their specialty areas. Next, in this continuum of special education, let's consider our paraeducators. These people, in some cases, are the most underpaid, underappreciated, and undervalued people in the whole realm of special education.
Bob:Hopefully, we do a better job of recognizing them lifting paraeducators up and making sure they're appreciated, but that's not always the case. But these are the people that in many cases get to know our students with unique needs the best because they spend the most time with them under a variety of challenging circumstances. So don't forget to thank your paras or educational assistants for the amazing support they provide each school day. In the middle of our continuum of special ed, let's consider our students and parents. We have so much to learn from both students and parents, and I am sure most of you have a plethora of things that you could relay over your careers regarding what you've learned to deepen your skill sets from students and parents.
Bob:Finally, let's be sure to include our community partners such as vocational rehabilitation providers, case management agencies, workforce centers, advocacy organizations, program approved service providers, otherwise known as PASAs, and all of the partners that compose a dynamic interagency team to be the lasting connection between schools and families. So all of you in this realm of special education, you deserve a constant round of applause each day.
Bob:Let's think about special education now and think of it as a heart, a special education heart that beats throughout the schools across the USA and Canada. It has a pulse, the special education pulse. And it's a different pulse in every school district. And within each district, it's a different pulse between different school buildings. One building is not run the same as the other and doesn't have the same strengths or opportunities for growth as the other. Within each school, it's a different pulse between each provider. When I was a high school administrator for 16 years, my families, they always knew who the best providers were. There were always some of our providers that everybody wanted.
Bob:They'd start asking you the year before, can I get so and so to be my case manager? When you're really good, the word travels down the hall real quick and ends up at the dinner table when the student goes home. But as we take that pulse across the USA and Canada every year, you're gonna hear success stories. You're gonna hear celebrations about how great the experience was, how fabulous the school district did in preparing their people to exit the district with no gap, with no lapse, with a total plan figured out. And when we have it all figured out, there's nothing more fulfilling than to see your graduate go on to a successful adult life.
Bob:And we do that across the USA and Canada a great deal. But on the other hand, every year at the end of the year, you're gonna hear stories of regret, stories of disappointment, and places where we did not do as good a job as we really could have in preparing our young adults to be successful when they leave the school district. And that's what the barrows barometer for special education is all about. It's about shoring up gaps so that we can ensure that in every district, in every school, every administrator, and every staff member that we're giving our kids with disabilities or what we're starting to more commonly say, kids with varying abilities or the neurodivergent a chance to have a wonderfully successful adult life. So that's what this is all about.
Bob:This golden ticket that we refer to, it symbolizes the successful transition to adulthood for all of our students with varying abilities. It doesn't just mean our high school programs and it doesn't just mean our 18 to 21 or 18 to 22 transition programs. It means high quality special education programs and providers at all levels. It means this starts in early childhood. This starts in our elementary schools.
Bob:This starts with really beefing up and making sure that we're implementing the best practices and special education services at all levels for all of our students with varying abilities. We believe that the higher quality of relationship and support will reduce the rate of dropouts and non completers. So as we think about the Golden Ticket to Improve Special Education podcast, It's really devoted to celebrating those best practices in places where we have high quality providers and services, high quality special education, but that we also fill gaps where we have opportunities to improve. When we come back, we'll take a look at what you can expect from the clarity and order for special education success platform and how it will play out in the next 21 episodes. See you in a few.
Announcer:The golden ticket for improving special education podcast is brought to you by the Barrows barometer for special education. We are available for meaningful professional learning sessions in rejuvenating locations. We also enjoy providing PD on-site to collaborate with your stakeholders. Stay tuned for the second half in just a moment.
Bob:Okay. What I first want to say here to start the second half of this podcast is that I hope you have the best year of your career in special education this year. I hope the year is off to a positive start and that optimism prevails among your team and your community. So let's look at the clarity in order for special education success platform. It's a collection of 21 elements divided into 3 categories.
Bob:The categories are climate, structure, and performance. These categories were determined as I was finishing my last year as a special education director. These were categories that I felt needed to be paid attention to for special education teams and for community stakeholders. This platform is an encouragement to pay attention to detail in areas that really can get overlooked or not talked about. Here's what artificial intelligence says about attention to detail.
Bob:Quote, attention to detail is a skill that involves being thorough, accurate, and consistent. When completing a task, it requires noticing, processing, and managing all the small elements that make up a project or a job, ensuring they are finished correctly and efficiently. People with attention to detail often produce accurate and error free work and tend to be thorough with their research and highly efficient. They focus on producing quality work that relays the necessary information as opposed to trying to finish as many tasks as possible in a short amount of time unquote. So when I speak with special education teachers, particularly at the high school level, they often tell me that they're overwhelmed and that they are trying to finish as many tasks as possible in a short amount of time.
Bob:I also speak and work with many special education administrators and know that many of them are also scrambling to finish as many tasks as possible in a short amount of time. The clarity in order for special education platform allows you to self reflect in areas that can get overlooked or lost in the shuffle when many are working to finish as many tasks as possible in a short amount of time. So why did I choose these categories? Let's dive into the climate category. I've been intimately involved in special education since 1987.
Bob:Every role I've played in the last 37 years has been in support of special education. As a high school administrator for 16 years, I had many opportunities to witness and be a part of both excellent climates for special education and poor climates for special education. As a special education administrator, I've also seen big differences in climate between different schools within a district. So climate from these angles have informed the elements within this category. In this category, we look at the climate for inclusion within both the school and parent community.
Bob:We encourage reflection in school districts between special education teams and district administrators. We look at climate between school district and families. We look at climate between school district and community partners. In this category, we also consider research in the area of optimism and draw connections to your school community. So we will break down the many different angles of climate through the first seven episodes.
Bob:Next, we have the area of structure. Again, through my personal experience as a special ed administrator, I've seen wonderful elements of structure and woeful elements of structure. We'll focus on elements such as case management for providers. Taking a closer look at how we are communicating expectation for the many varied responsibilities of case management. We'll also look at the role of the special education teacher and how we're utilizing these professionals and how we master and I'm sorry and how master scheduling creates either wonderful or woeful outcomes for supporting students.
Bob:We'll also cause you to reflect on IEP creation, considering areas of improvement for IEP development at the different levels of schooling. For the high school crowd, looking at the elements of best practices for transition, We'll also encourage you to self reflect for how IEP meetings are run and how you ensure consistency for excellence. Also in the structure category, we'll analyze curriculum and program supports for mild and moderate, also for intellectual and developmental disabilities or IDD. And looking specifically at autism for one episode, which will feature doctor Adrielle Bennini, who is an amazing board certified behavior analyst or BCBA, and she's also a current specialized program administrator. Doctor Bennini is known for her engaging presentation style and she's highly accomplished as both a provider and a trainer and an administrator. So structure is a meat and potatoes type of category where we each look at our reality and consider where we are flying high and where we are in need of some attention to detail. The 3rd and last category is performance. The elements within this category have to do with what your data is telling you and what data you might not be collecting that could amplify your strengths and areas of opportunities for growth. Performance is really where the rubber hits the road.
Bob:In looking at your data, where are students with varying abilities achieving academically? And more importantly, how are these students achieving in terms of their growth data academically? We'll also look at the element of direct and explicit instruction and provide a basis for self reflection in the instructional program. Further, we'll consider this topic of direct instruction with our IDD population and consider what the research says for emergent learners. In this performance category, I also target m t s s and how that's playing out in individual schools and districts.
Bob:You know, I always love the question who's providing tier 2 behavioral support. In some places, you'll get a very specific answer and in some places it'll be rather nebulous and uncertain, which can create stress on the school's interdisciplinary team. Another category that seems to get hotter each year deals with how we're addressing provider shortages for both special ed teachers and specialized service providers. These are just a sampling of the elements for the climate structure and performance categories within the clarity in order for special education success. The trainings I offer will tailor these elements more specifically for various groups.
Bob:For example, the special education administrator version, it's a bit different than for special education teachers and service providers. And we have a different focus for high school administrators which helps the school leader go deeper in their skill set For this podcast, we've chosen elements that are very relevant for all of these subgroups. Each episode in our podcast is an opportunity for the listener to self reflect on how you're performing as it relates to a specific element. If you're like many stakeholders, you'll be expert in some of these areas and you'll see opportunities for growth in others. I encourage everybody at the start of this school year, consider a growth area that you can bring up with your evaluator.
Bob:I do hear from time to time in my travels that the evaluation process is not always that meaningful. You can make it more meaningful by bringing your ideas to the table and getting serious about growing your skill set to better serve students and families. So it's really about self reflection. It's really getting you guys thinking about all the things that you do well already and feeling good about it. Giving yourself some good feeling about where you're already really talented, really skilled.
Bob:But let's also self reflect to think about that one thing that maybe you've always kind of known, maybe you needed to get better at and maybe you haven't yet. Maybe now's the time where you can really dig in and be an honest self reflector and improve your clarity for things to improve upon. That'll make your repertoire for serving our students with varying abilities even deeper than it already is. So we look forward to these first 21 episodes spread over the categories of climate, structure, and performance. We invite everyone to tune in and self reflect.
Bob:If you're interested in a professional learning session, we host cohorts for special education administrators, different ones for special education teachers and providers, as well as cohorts for school administrators. You can access more information about these opportunities on my website. That's www.boberrows.com. You can book a free consultation with me from the contact page to discuss the possibility of joining a cohort on the East Coast in Saint Simons Island, Georgia, or on the West Coast on the Monterrey Peninsula. We'll also offer trainings in the Rocky Mountain region at Colorado Springs.
Bob:In addition, Doctor Adrielle Bennini is available for autism specific cohorts in these locations. If you're interested in having us come to your district to help your special education teams analyze their strengths in areas of professional growth. We're available now to facilitate self reflection for your district's teams. Episode 2 is next where we analyze optimism, The research around it, drawing meaningful connections to how we think about our special education reality. Thanks for joining us today and stay tuned for more collaboration very soon.
Bob:You're already great and we just want to help you get greater and help you fill the gaps where you and your teams have room to grow with best practices. Have a great day.
Announcer:Thank you for joining us on the golden ticket to improve special education. Remember to subscribe to our podcast and follow Bob Barrows on LinkedIn and Facebook at the Barrows Barometer. Also, please check out Bob's website at www.bobbarrows.com. Together, we can create a lasting impact across the USA and Canada by improving special education where it's needed.
