What Can You Ask Your School For?

When working with schools, parents of 2e learners often don’t know which accommodations, services, and strength-based elements they should ask for to support their child. For example, getting more time on assignments is a standard accommodation schools provide, but it can lead to assignment pile up and stress for your student. There is no book of accommodation choices - so where do you begin? What is reasonable and likely to be accepted and what is not? Our panel of two parents and a neuropsychologist discussed and suggested concrete support and accommodation options as well as answered questions from our parent community.

Read the transcript

[0:02] Welcome everyone to tonight's Real Talk: What Can You Ask Your Schools For. In case you're not familiar with REAL, we are a non-profit that strives to ensure Silicon Valley twice-exceptional students thrive in school. We host parent events like this and we also host events for educators and create tools and strategies that are research-based to help twice-exceptional students thrive. Just in case if you're here tonight you probably know what 2e is, but just in case, 2e students have an intersection of distinguishing strengths, high abilities or potential in one or more areas, and at the same time complex challenges such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia and others.

[0:49] Because they have both these strengths and challenges at the same time, they combine and interact and one can mask the other, which makes them a very complicated student profile. You can learn more at real2e.org. We have a topic tool that lets you browse all of our previous blog posts, articles, one-pagers and events so you can learn more about all these various topics that we've covered in the past, and eventually this recording will make its way there as well.

[1:23] To let you know a little bit about our upcoming events, we have tonight's event and then coming up in the beginning of October, Stanford is hosting its fourth annual Neurodiversity Summit and REAL has been working on their K-12 strands since the beginning. So we have three evenings of really interesting speakers talking about self-advocacy, strengths in the classroom, and working together as teams to support neurodiverse students. On October 12th we have our fourth annual 2E Private School Panel where panelists will discuss various schools they've attended and what schools might be a fit for your 2e child. October 23rd we have a brown bag lunch talk about 2E and math challenges and solutions, and then we have our next bi-monthly 2E parent support group with PHP on November 2nd. We're going to have the most requested topic of the season, executive functioning, on November 14th. You can learn about all these and RSVP for them on our website.

[2:24] We also have a Google group with hundreds of people in it, parents of 2e kids that are local, and you can ask and answer questions there and get resources. We're also on Facebook, Twitter, and all of our previous recordings are available on YouTube. We host educator workshops. Our two most popular are Introduction to the 2E Student and the Learning Differences Simulation, so if you'd like to bring us to your school please let us know. We are a non-profit organization and we do rely on donations to keep our programming free, so if you enjoy this presentation at the end of the evening please visit our website and help us keep these free.

[3:05] Tonight's speakers: we have parents and a neuropsychologist with us this evening. Iman just moved to Michigan with her family of six. She is the CEO of her household and a doctoral student at Bridges Graduate School. She supports her four 2e kiddos and 2e husband navigating their life adventures with neurodiverse profiles. She earned her Bachelor's and Master's degrees from Wake Forest University, and her professional career seasons included work in television production for ESPN as an event coordinator for large entertainment facilities. Nothing in her educational and professional life speaks louder to her qualifications for being her family's fierce advocate than her on-the-job training and trial and error. In sharing her journey and experiences, she hopes to encourage and give hope to other families that seek the supports they need and to take on the hard journey that comes with advocating for our 2e kiddos and children of color in their educational and life journey.

[4:00] And we have Amber Wilburn. She is a writer with two decades of experience in business, technical and government contract writing. She has pivoted from the business world to the education world, supporting public, private and parochial schools as a mom of three 2e children. Amber has navigated schooling options, IEPs and 504s, accelerated learning plans, and now brings this experience to divergent educators in the 2e world. You can read Amber's blogs on the Young Scholars Academy and she also serves on the board of Big Minds in School. Currently Amber's in the Master's of Education program at the Bridges Graduate School of Cognitive Diversity and Education.

[4:40] And last but not least we have Mark Westerfield. He's a clinical psychologist in Palo Alto. In his private practice he specializes in neuropsychological and educational assessment of children and adolescents. He conducts comprehensive evaluations to assess for giftedness, dyslexia and other learning disabilities, ADHD, autism, and other mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, and OCD. Goals that these assessments often include illuminating your child's strengths, identifying areas of challenge, and providing individualized evidence-based recommendations to support their success in school and beyond. Dr. Westerfield also provides consultation and advocacy services as well as free presentations to school and community organizations on a range of topics. Thank you all so much for joining.

[6:06] Hi everybody, thanks for being here tonight. I am, as she mentioned in my bio, on the East Coast now, so I'm glad to make it. If you get a yawn or two, there is exhaustion over here. Hurting my cats and children a bit, but I thank you for being here all the same. I just want to take a minute to say, you know, this can be kind of triggering for some people. There's a lot of information I have to say, and if you have to take a deep breath, if you need to take your space, you're welcome to have your screen off. I like seeing faces, but if you need to take that time, please, you know, tap out if it gets too overwhelming. Keep your space but try to come back and at least listen and engage because there's a lot I think we have to share for you guys.

[6:41] I am just a parent, but wait, I am a parent of some amazing 2e kids, and our journey has taken us through the gamut of so many twists and turns and special education. I used to joke that I had to become an educational specialist just to be able to navigate the IEPs. I thought it was a joke, but I think what we miss as parents is understanding how integral and essential that we are as members of the IEP team. We know our kids best. We may not know what to call it, we may not know what to name it, but we understand when things aren't working. We can help when working on implementation of things, and it's just the mentality to take on that—even when you don't know what you don't know, you're an integral member of this team. So I want you guys to come away at least feeling a little more empowered to get some information and some tools and tips to walk into your next meeting space, therapist, whatever assessments, knowing that you're enough and you're worth being there to help your kids and guide them in this journey.

[8:32] The other part I want to add in this journey too with the IEPs is it is not a sprint, it is an endurance race. There's a lot you can learn from engaging in relationships with the people that are going to be with your kids most of the time, whether they're the teachers. For us, the first thing we engaged with was safe spaces. For us, our family has ASD, ADHD, learning differences in dysgraphia, dyslexia, dyscalculia, and anxiety disorders as well as some developmental coordination disorders when it comes to writing. For all of those things, the behaviors that came out were the symptoms that we could not recognize as academic or learning disabilities or even in the cases of their autism diagnosis, which they did not get until 14.

[9:33] I will put a caveat: as a family of African descent, California does not test for IQ in IEPs in the school system. They will offer cognitive testing, and maybe Mark can speak specifically more to that to help you navigate that space if you need more information. You can contact me through REAL—that's also an option. But it is my best advice to gather your allies. As I said, we needed for my kids to have a safe space at school in elementary. Who do they talk to when there's a problem? Whether it's their homeroom teacher—sometimes not—whether it's a librarian, which for my oldest, that was his safe space, was the library. These are things that helped me know and signal when things were working and when things weren't, when we had supports that needed to be changed. This is kind of the signals that I got from my kids early when they were hiding and becoming passive students for different reasons.

[10:51] It's not because you're going to know everything, as I said, as a parent, but you learn the teachers can be your best allies in the sense of if you develop relationships that can open up avenues for conversation. Everything won't always be discussed in an IEP, but you can collect information—if not through their teacher conferences and whatnot, it becomes your data that you use during IEP meetings. Because a lot of times the teacher input is essential for 2e kids especially to show the gaps that are coming in their learning and their knowledge. I can be all over the place, so my brain gets really swamped in a lot of these things. So if I don't complete the circle in any of the things I'm talking about for you, please let me know. You can always, like I said, reach out to REAL or in the chat or whatnot and let me know.

[11:53] The other part that I'll also mention is the timeline looks different for our kids and implementing supports. It was very hard for our family first on not to get out of the idea of "this is going to fix it." That is not a concept that I would encourage you to take on this journey. Things change. Staff changes, teachers change, your kids change, and as they go through each phase, the special education supports are pretty different from elementary to middle school, especially in high school. So the things that we learned definitely is to bring deep breaths to the space, be as collaborative as possible with the team members, and we ask for everything when we started out with evaluations.

[12:48] Because we saw it as kind of this knot, this ball of yarn that we were just trying to pull apart what it was. We didn't come in and say, you know what, my child's having speech issues, because they would very easily say, "Well, we'll do a speech evaluation and that's it." And we learned really quickly that you are by law able to ask for a full evaluation for your child because you don't know if that speech is coming from anxiety, you don't know if that speech is coming from a learning disability. And these are things that you need to know and that you have access to through the public education system and your IEP. I know we have some great resources that Amber's going to talk about and going through that.

[13:36] Some of the things that I specifically have navigated—and again my bucket comes from those wonderful alphabet soup that comes with my family—but I can speak specifically with like speech and language services. When we first engaged in those, my sons were younger, it was a lot easier for pull-out services. They don't like missing class, so they would say, "Oh well, they're refusing services," and I'm like, "No, you can find other ways to address their needs for the things that you know they have deficits in without having to pull them out of class." So we started to engage in working with the teacher for times that worked within their lesson plans to be able to take time out of their day for their speech, any presentations or writing prompts or things they had in class. The teacher could come into the class and work with my son specifically on his speech techniques and whatnot, so it wasn't a pull-out opportunity and then my child didn't feel like they were missing anything.

[14:41] As it got older, middle school, same situation: finding ways to integrate the supports in the classroom because they don't like to be highlighted or pulled out from the system. High school was the same way: how do you find a way that works with your high schooler to have their support still maintained? We had a very great—again, working with relationships with the teachers—offering to take time from their class for my son to have his check-ins with his speech therapist before attending the class, so that they did not miss their time with their speech but also were able to come in at their leisure and kind of prep for whatever their class was ahead of time. They don't advertise things like that, and it's really up to you as a parent to know.

[15:44] For us particularly, my son's mornings—his anxiety was always going to wreck him, so don't give a math class first thing in the morning. We had these conversations, and as they got to know and understand and see the data that came in helping them with their goals through their IEP, it became just—I won't say understood, but it didn't take as much to remind the team the goal and the intention in the first place was to do what's best for your child to achieve and maintain meaningful progress through their time at school.

[16:22] There's so many things in my past 10 years dealing with the Palo Alto school system that I can share, but I really, really do better diving into questions because it won't always look the same for every kid. And that's why I tell you, you're an integral part of your IEP team, because things that they may suggest are just the menus that they have at the time, and it's implementing those things in a way that works for your child best. That's where you bring a great perspective to help them, and even things that haven't worked in the past, being able to work with the team and in the space to be able to really be specific about timing, time of day specifics.

[17:08] Even for one of my children, sports—they, as sports are part of their high school or school environment, are to offer supports for anything that is allowing your child to be within their school environment. So for one of my kids who had an aide through their IEP, it also included their after-school sports activities for his social pragmatic and just social cues and being able to engage and still participate in those places. It's hard to believe that my 18-year-old is now a freshman in college, and navigating all of those spaces gives them the agency, the advocacy to see not only you working for them but how other people can be advocates for them as well.

[18:05] It doesn't have to always be—it doesn't have to be adversarial. It needs to really be a collaborative effort. Trial and error has always been the thing because you just don't know. Sometimes we've had that experience as well with assistive technology. It is not one that they traditionally offer unless there is a specific visual disability, but everyone needs assistive technology. So the push becomes, especially in the area of need for your child, what kind of—we call them fun toys—what kind of toys can you offer my child that can help them learn better? And with so much other technology today, we were able to get consultation services with our assistive technology resource person who is from the district, who can go to meet with the teachers, who can train the teachers, who can train your child through each of their lessons in each of their subjects. Again, not something I knew before asking for a full IEP evaluation.

[19:22] The other pieces that come with just so much work to really kind of get to what my children needed at the time was sometimes the change in schedule. It's harder the smarter your kids are for them to see the need for the higher education or higher category classes, APs and such, and still need supports. Because if you're trying to be in college-level classes, usually the timings of the supports or the resource time don't match up with the schedule. I would really encourage—that's where you talk with your team about reworking or managing the schedule of their classes in order to be able to really have a focus.

[20:19] For me, for my second son, it was about keeping them understanding he was on an NCAA eligibility, and so that put a goal and a perspective for them to understand certain classes weren't going to be in that bucket because, yes, they might have helped them not have to support him as much, but it wasn't what was helping him and his goals and his education. So those are again the places where as parents you can step in to really help guide the conversation so that, especially for all of my kids, we're not trying to lower the standards. We are just trying to help you guys as educators in this IEP realm and through these services help our kids access their education in a way that's valuable to them. And I think that's my time. I can go on, but thank you.

[21:30] Thank you so much, and Iman would love to answer questions too when we get to the Q&A section. I did forget to introduce our padlets, so just so everyone is aware, in the background while our speakers are talking, if you'd like, we have created a padlet and we will actually give you time. You can spend time during Q&A or whenever looking at this, then we will all take a look at it together. We broke this up by the questions that you submitted, the areas that your children have been having challenges in, and so here's some of the categories and you can look through ideas that other people have had across these categories. This was put—Kelly, can you reshare the link in the chat for everyone through the padlet? It's in the chat already. And if you'd like to add a new idea, you just hit this plus button and you should be able to type whatever you'd like and share it. You can also go through and heart the ideas that you really like that are already there so we can see which ones bubble up to the top. So feel free to poke through there throughout the presentation and we'll review it together at the end so that you leave with a nice list of things that you can take to your school.

[22:43] Hi everybody, I'm Amber. Thanks Iman for all of the great advice. I loved how you said, "I'm a parent, I'm just a parent," but then you said, "I'm a parent," and I think that's where we all, for most of us, come into this world. I never thought I would have a different educational journey with my kids than I had myself, and it's been very enlightening, this whole process. When we first started, we actually lived in Colorado and we moved from Colorado to California, and my oldest child was radically accelerated in Colorado. Colorado has gifted IEPs, and when we moved to California, the IEP process here was actually used to revoke all of his accelerations, and it became very frustrating for me as I navigated that with my child.

[23:51] I heard a lot of the things that I think a lot of parents do, things like, "Oh well, he can't be accelerated because he has social-emotional differences," or one of my other children has dysgraphia and also was a spontaneous reader when he was very young. So I got the, "Oh, he can't be dyslexic or have dysgraphia because he's reading. You know, you can't be dyslexic and read." We got the, "Well, your child's not two years behind, so obviously they don't need an IEP or a disability or an evaluation." When I first started this whole process, several years ago for me now, I was like, "Fine, I'm not gonna fight this. I don't have the energy. I'm just gonna go and I'm gonna homeschool." And I quit my job and I homeschooled my children, and I had the privilege to be able to do that.

[24:49] But one of the things they said to me was, "You know, how are you gonna know you can educate your children? You have a degree in education." So I went and I am currently working on a degree in education. I call it my rage degree, just so that I can prove it. But as I've been going through it, I started learning more about IEPs, and I was like, "Man, they violated so many of my rights that are protected in this whole process," and it made me so angry. It made me so frustrated that I just didn't know the things that I had the right to as a parent. So I ended up writing a short parent's guide that I shared with Kelly, part of a class, and she was like, "Hey, do you think you could write this into a guide?" And I was like, "Sure." So I'm actually in the process right now of working on a full IEP parent's guide that's going to come out through REAL soon. I think Kelly—I think I have to finish, it's on me, I had to finish things.

[25:51] But I wanted to share with you—I started thinking about this, I almost want to make it like the Parent's Manifesto, basically all of the rights that are protected by law for you as you go through this process. So I'm going to share my screen. Just in case anybody, I will probably have typos because that's just how I roll. These are your educational rights that you are granted by law, and there's multiple laws, and all of the laws are there if you really feel the need to Google them that you have through this journey.

[26:33] This first one is actually a 504. It's part of Section 504, and I'm not going to talk a lot about 504s in the rest of this because 504s and IEPs are different. They get muddled together a lot, but they are different. But first, your child has the right to access equal education. This is super important. 504s are legally protected, they are legally binding documents. Your school cannot just not follow a 504. They can't just take it away. They can't say, "Well, we didn't follow it because your child no longer needs it." It has a process all its own. It falls under here, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. It's part of the Disabilities Act, so it is a full law, and your child has the right to have accommodations to access education. That's a lot. So if your school's not doing that, right here is the Office for Civil Rights, and they will resolve that. So just want to start there.

[27:53] The next thing is you have the right to initiate, participate, and be informed of all IEP options. You are an equal participant in the IEP process. This means that you can say, "Hey, we need to have an IEP meeting," and the school has—I think it's 30 days, don't quote me on that because sometimes I get the dates wrong when I'm not looking at them—to set up that meeting with the participants who are required for an IEP meeting. That's a law. You have the right to be informed of any changes that happen to your IEP. They can't just change it. They can't just be like, "You know, we decided to have a meeting without you." That's not how it works. And you have to be given the right to participate in any decision-making meeting around your child's IEP.

[28:38] Now to caveat this a little bit is you don't have the right to take over the role of another member of the IEP. So you're not a child psychologist—I mean, you might be, Mark, I think you are—but if you're not the child psychologist on this case, on your child's case, then you can't be the one to decide if your child has a disability or not. So there's some caveats with how all of the team members participate, but you have this right. The next is you have the right to receive information in writing. This is actually another really important thing to remember: if you start the process, in most places a verbal request is enough to start the IEP process, but I would never leave it there. I would always request in writing. If you want an evaluation, request it in writing. If you want a meeting, request it in writing. An email is enough, just so you know. And in the same regard, they have to respond in writing. So they can't just tell you no, we're not going to have this meeting, or no, we don't think it's enough. They have to respond in writing, and it has to be in your native language.

[29:50] That's the other thing that's really important. If you speak English as an additional language and you have a right to request all of this information in your language that you are most familiar and comfortable with, that's on the school to do. So that's really important. If you're supporting other people—there's a lot of diversity in language in the Bay Area—just let people know that they have the right to get this information in their native language. It might take a while sometimes if a school doesn't have enough resources, but you still have that right.

[30:28] You have the right to consent, refuse, or revoke consent. Now if you're from another state, I want to clarify that California is what's called a partial consent state. So you can consent to parts of the IEP and not others. Not all states are like that. That is a state right, not an IDEA right. But in general, you have the right to consent to any kind of evaluation or revoke it. You have the right to consent to placement, revoke placement, refuse any of those things. And let's say you agree to an IEP and they start services and your child is like, "Never again will I do this, this is horrible, it's a terrible fit," you have a right to revoke and say, "No longer will my child be doing that," and then your child will go back to—there can be processes that go with that, but in general your child will go back to general education. But you have all of those rights. The school can't trap you in any of these things.

[31:38] You have a right to assessment. This is the first assessment, which is you have the right to a non-discriminatory assessment. And this is through the school should be that when you say, "I have—I suspect that my child has a disability"—no, the suspicion of a disability is enough to trigger an evaluation. That gets lost a lot. Schools are like, "I said Mike, our school was like, 'Well, your child's reading, so they can't have dyslexia.'" Suspicion of a disability—so you should probably say why you suspect it—is enough to trigger that. And that falls under what's called child find. And then your school has an obligation to test for disability, to evaluate in a non-discriminatory manner.

[32:28] And let's say you get those results back and you're like, "I don't feel like this met my child's needs or denoted any of those things," you have a right to request an independent educational assessment. That's an IEE. You'll hear that a lot. And then the school has to oblige you with that. Sometimes schools will put different regulations on it. Like right now in California, the districts now require IEEs to follow what the SELPA policy—SELPAs are the special education something area, I forgot what it stands for—and it's basically the area of your school with disabilities. And SELPA policies are that a school psychologist does the assessment. So now a lot of districts are saying, "Great, you can get an IEE, but it has to follow SELPA policies, so you have to use a school psychologist to do the IEE." That's going to differ by state, how they require in district, actually what they require those IEEs to follow.

[33:35] But they also, sometimes they will say schools will say it has to be under $3,000, and there's no possible way you could get a full IEE done in that cost. And then you just have to kind of negotiate that with the school, but you have a right to these IEEs. You have a right to records. This means that you have a right to receive the evaluations, the records, test results, all of that for your child evaluations. And you should receive the results prior to the IEP. And I put "should" in there is that sometimes testing may not be completed until even just like the day before. So you may not receive full records, but you should be receiving something so that you're not the only person in that meeting who hasn't been able to read the reports. And you can—you have the right to request pretty much anything around those tests so that you are fully prepared and aware to be a member of the IEP team.

[34:43] Right to escalate. This is basically you have a right to file complaints, receive hearings, receive mediation around a disagreement of an IEP. This is like if you cannot resolve this with your school district, there are a lot of different ways to escalate this, including due process request, due process, ask for mediation, and even filing complaints around your school. And this also, this right also means that you have a right to do this and not be discriminated against for it. So if you file a complaint against your school, your school does not have a right to discriminate against your child or you because of your filing. That's just, you know, there's actually if you don't agree with an IEP and an IEP, there's actually a lot of steps you can go through to escalate and hope to reach resolution. And as Iman said, you really want to try and not get to that point. You want to try and work as a team together because that's going to give you the best result. But I think we all know that sometimes that doesn't happen. So in those cases where you need additional steps, there's a lot of processes that you can go through.

[36:10] And then this one's the last one. You have the right to leave the school. And I know there's a lot of privilege around this, so I fully understand that there comes a lot of privilege with being able to leave a school system. But you do have that right, and I want to put that in there because there are instances where schools will say, "Hey, you have an IEP, you cannot leave the school district," and parents have been threatened about leaving, schools are harassed about it. But you absolutely have the right to leave your school district and find different placement, and it may be all on your dime, but you have that right. You might lose some of the services. Some states, some districts still allow children with IEPs to be serviced in a school, but that's kind of district by district. But I just want to put that out there that you absolutely have the right to change your school setting to fit your child's needs. So these are just several of many, many rights that you have, but these are like I think of as my Parent's Manifesto that I wish everybody knew. I wish I had known when I started this process.

[37:36] Hi everyone, just give me one second. I'm gonna share my screen with some slides as well. Is everyone able to see this? Great, awesome. So first, I just want to thank the REAL team for inviting me to speak. It's a great privilege to speak with you all. And thanks to Iman and Amber as well for sharing your lived experience. That piece is so important to me as an assessor, and I'll talk about that as I'm talking about how I think about accommodations for 2e kids with various profiles. And that sort of parent input and what has happened for your kid in the school system in the past is a huge part of that.

[38:24] So I'm coming at this from a different perspective, obviously, than the parents here. My whole practice just focuses on assessments, so I don't—I have done therapy and educational advocacy and other hats in the past, but I just focus on assessing kids now. And you know, a key aspect of these assessments is to recommend accommodations, and those might be part of an IEP or a 504 plan. Or in private schools that are flexible and accommodating to kids, they might call it different things like an independent learning plan. But really the goal of these accommodations is to individualize education for your child.

[39:10] You know, I wish that we could do this effectively for every kid, but it's especially important for 2e kiddos because they have this sort of one-size-fits-all, teaching to the middle approach that is not going to work well for your kids, as you all have probably experienced. Because they have amazing strengths that, you know, often are going to leave them bored in class if it is not moving quickly enough or not challenging them. But also some weaknesses that they may need some support in, and that might be with a specific subject, it could be with attention, it could be with social skills and interacting with other kids.

[40:00] So I'm going to talk about accommodations, some common ones and some less common ones that you might not have heard of that you can ask for. And I want to reiterate the point: you can ask for anything. It doesn't hurt to ask. And I think it is important both to take that collaborative approach—I agree that it works best when things are collaborative. I've been the assessor for IEEs and they often are just very combative and challenging because parents and schools are both tense and it's a tough, contentious place. But at the same time, you know, I want to echo that it's important to keep advocating for what your kids need and recognize that right. You know, many times school systems are too slow in enacting the services and supports that your kids need, or not following through on the supports that they said they were going to offer.

[41:04] The kind of goals of these accommodations are to make your kids—help your kids feel comfortable in the classroom, make sure they can access the curriculum, make sure they can show their knowledge in the class and on tests, especially as they get older. And also make sure that we are not punishing or stigmatizing students for having, you know, a brain that works differently than the average or typical kid. It's really important that we support and value those brains because they can bring such richness to the classroom.

[41:49] You guys know this already. Y'all showed a similar slide, but you know, your kids are on both ends of the spectrum for various skills, so it's important that we acknowledge that. And I'll say I have done hundreds of neuropsych assessments. I can't think of any kid I've tested where they're in this typical average range, you know, for everything. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses and things that they're working on. It's just that they're often a little more pronounced in our 2e kiddos.

[42:17] So I want to first chat about some recommendations I give kind of around giftedness. Basically, these are things that you might get in kind of through the back door. I don't know about getting a 504 plan just for giftedness on its own. Oftentimes you're getting into those accommodations by way of having a challenge, but that doesn't mean we should be neglecting, you know, all the strengths that your child has and not leveraging those. So for especially particular subjects, you know, kids may benefit from being placed in a higher grade class. Many of the gifted schools in the Bay Area do not group kids by age at all. They group kids by ability levels so that we can meet kids where they're at, and that also just genuinely recognizes that kids have different strengths and weaknesses.

[43:21] I have worked with, yeah, high school students who are taking college-level classes, maybe in a particular subject, and getting credit for those classes, and that's part of the learning plan. Flexible guidelines on assignments, I think, is super important. Many of our gifted kids are also the types of kids who are going to question why an assignment is being given. And I really think it's important to value that. Obviously, we want to teach them to advocate and to question authority in ways that are productive. But also, if teachers are able to be flexible on those assignments, sometimes that means giving more time for them to do the work or to let them sort of bend the rubric of the assignment. Oftentimes, the finished product is, you know, an amazing piece of work and really good for, you know, the class and also for the student. And I'll share all of these slides as well. I'm happy to through REAL make all of these slides available, so I know there's going to be a lot of content on here.

[44:37] So in terms of dyslexia and learning disabilities, you know, kind of earlier on in elementary school, that might look like shortening assignments. So really the goal of homework or assignments should be, you know, mastery of the subject. We don't want to focus—basically, you want to emphasize mastery of the content over completing a bunch of busy work. So that might be an accommodation for younger on. And not penalizing for spelling errors while these kids are learning spelling rules. And eventually, in the long term, you know, lots of dyslexic college students and adults, you know, they're relying pretty heavily on spell check and Grammarly and other tech tools that we have, and those things work really well for them.

[45:32] In middle school, that might mean leaning on, you know, typing a little more to take notes and assignments. Schools should be able to provide your kid a way to take notes and take written tests, you know, with a computer or another word processor instead of writing by hand if that's creating a lot of challenges, thinking about our kids with dyslexia and dysgraphia. One that I think is less common is thinking about limiting the blending of writing and math. There's a lot of emphasis now on explaining your rationale for how you got to a math answer. For a kid who is struggling with writing or just is going to be unwilling to show their work or write by hand, but is an exceptional math student, you know, that combination can be quite a challenge. So, yeah, I recommend for those types of kids that we let them write in bullet points, you know, let them dictate their explanation to a scribe, give opportunities for them to explain their reason verbally instead of in writing. There are lots of ways to do this and to recognize, you know, how it works best for those students.

[46:51] In high school and beyond, you know, extra time on tests, I think people probably know about, is a pretty common accommodation. But there are lots of other things out there that can be really helpful: text-to-speech, audiobooks. For kids where math is a challenge, you know, we are not focusing on "do you know your times tables" in high school. The goal is to learn the content of higher-level math. And so if we can kind of get out of the way some of those foundational skills that are a little bit challenging because of a learning difference, then we can focus on, you know, the content that we're actually trying to teach, and we get a more accurate assessment of what your kids can do.

[47:34] All right, for ADHD and executive functioning challenges, again, earlier on, those things might be, you know, fidgets and movement, movement breaks. One I want to highlight is teacher check-ins before independent work. I've done a ton of classroom observations where I've seen kids with great ideas for a writing task, and they start writing one sentence, and then they spend the rest of the time talking to their friends or drawing the picture that goes along with the paragraph that they're supposed to write. And if that process had just started with a teacher checking in with them and going over, "Okay, these are the three steps that you need to do to get through this assignment," talking through their plan for the paragraph, helping them scaffold that task and sort of self-monitor their work, you know, then that work period could have been a lot more productive. And those are the types of skills we want kids to keep learning as they develop.

[48:40] I want to highlight extensions on assignments for like the middle school, high school age. This can be super helpful in a pinch as sort of a safety net, but I also think this is one where it's important to be careful about not overusing it. Because, you know, we know procrastination is a pretty common thing for most people with ADHD, and that can sort of build up, or we can start relying on the extensions too much. The goal for me in this type of accommodation is also to help kids advocate for themselves. So you practice, you know, if I am planning ahead and looking at my work and I realize a day before the assignment is due I'm not going to have time to get it done, I need to write an email to my teacher or work with my parents to write an email to my teacher to advocate, you know, for more time on that assignment. I still think it's a good thing to have on balance as kids are learning those executive functioning skills and learning to plan and manage their time.

[49:45] And then again, in the high school, I want to kind of highlight these non-extra-time-on-test accommodations. Many kids get to take tests in a separate room so there are less distractions around, or take breaks during tests that don't count toward the time of the test. That's an accommodation on the SAT and ACT as well. We're moving towards more digital testing, but while there are still Scantrons, many of these kids also get the answers right but then bubbled, you know, one number down on the Scantron and got the answers wrong. So there are accommodations that will allow you to mark answers on the test, take breaks during tests, take the tests in rooms with less distractions. And those things for, you know, many students with ADHD—it depends on the profile—are actually more valuable than the extra time. Some of those kids are actually kids who are rushing, rushing through the test and need to learn to kind of slow down. So all of these, you know, obviously depend a lot on your specific child.

[50:45] For kids on the spectrum, you know, there may be some aides kind of earlier on that are going to be important. I've asterisked some of these accommodations because some of them really are more like services that you would see in an IEP rather than accommodations, and we can talk about IEP and 504 differences. As kids get older, yeah, I want to highlight that I think it's really important to embrace neurodiversity. You know, many of these students on the spectrum are going to make, you know, comments in class that have a unique perspective. And I think it's important to value that perspective and know that both your student and the other students in the class can learn from valuing that perspective. And then in these kind of moments of social misunderstanding, either with a teacher or with other students, to use those as learning opportunities, not as punishing your kid for, you know, a behavior that is not socially normative. You know, I think it's important to value that.

[51:56] And then, yeah, I know many of the families here are, I think, with younger students, but as you think about kind of going to the college age, there are things that we don't really think of in K-12 education at all that I've seen be really valuable for autistic young adults, like having a single room in college, being able to have priority registration for classes so that includes being able to set a schedule that works at times of the day that work for your brain, or, you know, having a schedule that's not too much overload. Some colleges also have mentor programs as well that can be really helpful.

[52:49] Many 2e kids are also struggling with mental health challenges: depression, anxiety, OCD. A thing I want to highlight kind of so far on this slide is really we want to be teaching kids coping skills that they can use when they feel stressed or upset. Or one thing I say to younger kids is, you know, when your feeling brain is sort of taking over your thinking brain, you are a great, you know, reasoner, you're really good at problem-solving problems. But when we get those big emotions, it's hard for our thinking brain to do its best work, you know, whether that be in the classroom or solving a social conflict. So we want kids to be able to take breaks from the classroom and have a plan for, you know, what are we gonna do if, if your kid starts to get upset about something, you know, whether it be an assignment or a comment another student made. What are the coping skills that are options? Who are the staff who are going to be in charge of helping your kid self-regulate? And then outside of those situations, are there counselors or social workers or SEL staff who are going to be teaching your kids those coping skills at calm time so that they can apply them during situations that are more challenging?

[54:09] All right, one other one maybe to highlight for high school is that I recommend: don't cold call on the student, so don't just randomly ask the student to participate. This has worked really well for a lot of kids with social anxiety or anxiety in general who have told me, "Yeah, math—I can do the math work, but I can't focus in math class at all because I'm so worried that the teacher is going to call on me and I'm not going to know the answer." So if we just remove that barrier, we are, you know, giving them a much better opportunity to learn the content that they're very capable of. And then it's not a mental health issue that is getting in the way of the learning.

[54:49] Yeah, lastly, I just wanted to share this slide about reframing behavior. "Kids will do well if they can" is a quote that maybe some of you have heard. Ross Greene is a psychologist who does a lot of work with kids who have, you know, challenging behaviors. And, you know, really shifting that focus of, you know, punishing or judging the behavior towards being curious about "why is this happening?" You know, let's think about what the underlying causes of this behavior are. And then I also want to—I think that we can take some lessons from cognitive behavioral therapy, CBT, as well. We talk a lot with kids who are depressed and anxious about how our thoughts and our feelings and our actions are all connected. And so I think in these situations where we feel really stuck with how to support our kids or stuck with the school, thinking about how we can reframe the situation or help teachers or school staff reframe, you know, the way that your child learns best also helps people change their feelings about the situation and change—that changes the actions that they take to support kids. I will leave it there. My contact information is on the last slide. I'm happy to, you know, be a resource for anyone who, you know, has specific questions that we don't get answered tonight or is interested in an assessment in general. But I'll stop there and then shift back to the REAL team.

[56:36] Thank you, Mark. That was so helpful and so great to see such an organized list across ages and different challenge areas that everyone can draw from. And we—I just put Mark's website URL in the chat, but we will also give links to reach all of our speakers this evening at the end of the talk. Thank you. The chat's been going crazy, so we have a lot of questions. I want to leave as much time possible for Q&A, so I'm just going to very quickly once again remind you that we have our padlet open with a lot of your great ideas. Lots of people are populating it, and so Kelly or Abby, if somebody could share the link again in the chat, hopefully you guys can keep adding to it, and we'll also add all the things that Mark shared into the padlet as well. And we'll take some time to review it after we spend time on Q&A.

[57:44] So Kelly or Abby, do you want to ask our panelists the first question? I'm gonna ask the three speakers the first question, and I'll let you guys fight over who answers it first, although I think this might be in Amber's area. My school keeps telling us because of my son's giftedness, he doesn't qualify for an IEP because he's way above grade level. How do families qualify?

[58:52] This is one of the most frustrating questions we get a lot. I can jump in if Amber needs to take a minute. So what I've had to navigate with my kids is showing data. Where are they having trouble accessing their education? And a lot of times that won't show up on a test score because, lo and behold, they're reaching standards. But that's where I talk about some of the relationships you have with the teachers. What's going on in behaviors in the classroom? What's going on with pieces of work, you know? I want to see work samples. I want to see what was the expectation for the lesson. And then a lot of times what the IEP is supposed to hold standards to is progress for your student where they are. So they may not be three deviated levels below standard, but if they are tested and they are above standard, then it is meaningful progress for them to make if they're continuing above standard. And that's a hard kind of piece for the IEP team to swallow, but it is in there as what an IEP is supposed to address.

[1:00:10] If you're looking at just qualifying for an IEP, that's where the data comes in. That's where a lot of times, if you're not able to get them to agree to assessments, you have to show where your child is struggling to adequately access their necessary progress in their education. And again, that's where sometimes you just have to come in with work samples, things that they're able to do that they're not doing in class. And a lot of times from our kids, my kids in particular, mental health was the buzzword that we had to use because it was completely anxiety-provoking for my child to be in an environment where they didn't feel they could be their best selves, where they became a passive student and couldn't engage. And for another one of my children, it became outward behaviors. They were bored, so they became outwardly aggressive in certain areas. And so those are the things that you bring to the forefront to show that there's need for them to be assessed and for the IEP to be—to have a discussion about that.

[1:01:29] I'll add that sometimes showing the need is like when they have very spiky profiles within a subject itself. For example, my dyslexic reader could read just about anything but couldn't spell at all. And so he might get like a 101 in one area and a 50 in another area. That balances out to a 70, and they're like, "See that, he's passing." And so we were like, "This one specific area," and you have to use the language of the schools, showing below level in this one specific area, has needs in this area. And you want to use the standards and whatever they're working on in school. And as Iman said, working with the teacher to get this language right really helps a lot.

[1:02:21] All right, thanks guys. I'll ask the next question. There are several questions here. I think I'm going to break it up. The first one was, how does somebody make sure that the school is actually following through on the IEP, especially when they're busy and they work full time and they can't always be involved in terms of proactively checking in?

[1:02:46] So I mean, schools traditionally are supposed to have markers for such things, whether it's parent-teacher conferences, progress reports, and report cards. A lot of times our school had quite a bit of difference with their progress reports where the narrative was really spelled out as to what your child was doing and what they were engaging in. And, again, that's just dependent on the teacher and how engaged they are in documenting those things. If your child is on an IEP, something I had to do when we were in a lot of struggle and it was not clear to the rest of the team that this was a problem: we had an IEP every 30 days, and it was to keep accountability for what you are calling progress and what I'm seeing at home. And for every change, every reason that there was made, if it was still present after the 30 days, you had to make a change and you had to present another option for them, or else you're not helping them in reaching meaningful progress. And even in their goals.

[1:04:03] I think it's hard for parents, especially because it's a system that is not set up to be easy. It just isn't, and I don't want to sugarcoat it for anyone. It's a lot, and it's worth being an advocate for your child. It may call for days off to have this meeting, but it is necessary. And especially if your child is going through some hard challenges and some hard times, to get that input. But at the very least, you should be getting progress reports, and you can always, like I said, if you're in elementary, they still do teacher conferences. Middle school, even. So high school they don't, which is where we just called for an IEP every 30 days because they don't like talking to parents in high school.

[1:04:49] I can echo this, but if you request an IEP meeting, it's your right to have one within 30 days. And I'm not sure if the set timelines for assessment are different in different states, but I believe in California, if you request an assessment, they have to respond in writing within 15 days. Yep, they have to respond in writing within 15. So they either have to agree to assess your child, or they have to give you a reason why they won't, and then you can push back on that if you need to.

[1:05:31] All right, I have one that's a very specific accommodation, a question—maybe Mark, you have some ideas for this one. For an autistic middle schooler/high schooler, do you have examples of accommodations around seating and group work when the student doesn't want to interact with the students or adults he doesn't know or isn't comfortable engaging with?

[1:05:57] Yeah, so for me, it's tricky to—I can't really give specifics on specific children, so I'll just say kind of in general, things that I have suggested are—I said—are flexibility around assignments. So, you know, ultimately the goal, you know, would be for your child to be able to participate in that, but if they need support from the teacher who's there or from another staff to engage in that, or if we need to give them an alternative way to complete the assignment. I've worked with kids on the spectrum and with, you know, social anxiety where there have been assignments around interviewing someone for like a pretend podcast or recording yourself on video, and the child wasn't going to do that assignment. So give them an alternative way to do the assignment. I would say in those situations, and that's, you know, a reasonable accommodation, I think, that you can ask for in a 504 plan. You know, and at the same time, you could also advocate for some skill building so that they can get there, you know, if needed.

[1:07:08] So we have—thank you guys—we have a question. What about social skills? What could schools do for social skills development and making friends? Any ideas?

[1:07:24] I can say a few things. So, you know, one, through both 504 plans and IEPs, you should be able to get access to like individual counseling, so your child could work one-on-one with the school counselor or, you know, another SEL staff to, you know, work on those social skills. Many schools, especially in elementary school, also have like social skills groups where they would either concretely or in unstructured—just kind of like a small group of kids having lunch together with a school counselor—you know, have situations that are opportunities to grow social skills, so both explicitly and informally.

[1:08:08] Yeah, we've used the lunch buddies as a way to help with socialization. We've also had it under our SLP, our speech and language, under social pragmatic for my son. And with his autism, not being able to do facial cues and social cues and read those kind of friendly behavior, languages, and conversation starters for my other son, a lot of it was done through role play with the SLP. And then as they got older in high school, one of the things I will say that we were able to advocate for was their one-on-one aide was not an obvious aide. They looked like another college or a high school student, and so they were able to navigate kind of coming in as a mentor and walking along with my son to be able to help them with the sentence starters and help them in what to do when and making relationships. Now, when they're younger, obviously they need a little more guidance and help, and so like Mark said, if you have lunches, you know, where you're with the counselor whatnot, you can always ask for that if lunch buddies aren't necessarily available at that age.

[1:09:24] All right, thank you guys. We have several people asking about private schools, which we've talked a lot about IEPs and 504s. And I know Mark, you kind of talked about how there are also private school equivalents, but maybe you could just explain to everyone what private school has to do or, you know, should do and does do. And then maybe a little bit about, yeah, what the really, like how, you know, the importance of keeping those things, those things up to date, etc.

[1:09:58] Yeah, so unlike public schools, private schools aren't obligated to do a 504 plan or to do accommodations. Many of them are supportive and are willing to be flexible. Many private schools, you know, also know they have a ton of neurodiverse learners and they want their students to be successful. So I think, in large part, it depends somewhat on the culture of the school, and I think there's a ton of variability there, just like there is in, you know, public schools. But, you know, many private schools will implement some of these same accommodations. Depending on the school, some of them may not have the resources, and you don't have—and Amber, maybe you can touch on this as well—you don't have as much of the sort of legal rights and entitlement to sort of back you up in those situations.

[1:10:55] Yeah, that's true. So IDEA only works for institutions that take federal money. So does Section 504. I will say though that I found the private schools that we have worked with—and that's not all of them—have been really supportive of accommodations. It's easier for them to do accommodations. But when you look at money, thus they don't get money for special education, and under IDEA, private schools do not. So where public schools do, which is why you see different services being offered at different places. But if the private schools do not have a requirement to provide any of those things. But I have had really good luck with accommodations, and I would usually try and start there.

[1:11:44] So throw my own answer in, if that's okay, I just want to add two things. Most private schools I've ever spoken to and work with will want to see some documented learning, you know, some documentation. And so you can use a private service for that, and usually they want it updated within three years, etc. But you also are, even if you're at a private school, you are entitled because you pay taxes to go to your local public school and request your IEP there, and they have to do it there as well, even if your child is not enrolled at that school. You can go to your district public school and you can get your documentation there, and then you bring it to your private school if they are requiring documentation. Some private schools, you know, you may be able to just work with them, like Amber was saying, to get accommodations. But if they're wanting that documentation and you don't want to go private, you can go to your public district.

[1:12:40] I've also seen—worked with kids who were part of the public school system and then left to a private school but still maintain their IEP and still may get some services through the public school district. So I have worked with kids who, you know, did speech therapy or OT, you know, before or after school, after their private school day, they would go to the public school and do those services. So that can be an option as well.

[1:13:00] I'll just add on to that, it's very dependent on the district. It's very dependent on the school. Kind of all of these things—let's put the umbrella on—it depends, you know, it depends on the community you're working with. If you're in a private school that you're coming to them and you're telling them my child needs and they're saying, "Sorry, but we can't help you," you know, you have to really have a real hard conversation with yourself if you're in the right place. A lot of places I know, private, public, if you've got that teacher, if you've got that admin support staff, counselor, who really cares about helping and supporting your child, you can go to them and they will help you find a way.

[1:13:47] That is the one thing I will also add in this time that can be very triggering to think that it's overwhelming and nothing's ever working: there's good people in this education system, and a lot of them just don't know where to help. And so with the supports you learn about from REAL, some of the language you can learn about, you can help them help you to help your child. And so I would encourage parents also, if you're really feeling stumped, if you haven't gone to your teacher first to ask what can you do to collaborate with them, you know, I would do that. I wouldn't say that, you know, moving schools is the first thing, you're getting an IEP is the first thing. Ask them, because you really do have some great people in these situations and in these jobs who really want to help our kids.

[1:14:28] It's a really good point. Easy to forget sometimes. We have a question about—I'm going to combine two—how do you do advancement in a subject in elementary school, which is a little harder, right, when you can't just go to an AP class? And I'm combining it, although it doesn't exactly go, but just talking about the gifted part of an IEP, because they kind of go together. How much does that part matter? So how do we advance in elementary school and what about the gifted part of an IEP? Who wants to go first?

[1:15:07] I will jump in for a little bit. It can be really difficult to advance subject level in elementary schools in California, just because of the structure of the schools and how the standards are designed and things like that. You can—depending—we had success in sixth grade getting into seventh grade. And I can't remember, sixth grade middle school, we're homeschooling, so I don't remember now, is that? Her school district you're in? Yeah, okay. So we did—so actually fifth to six, I think it was what—we got a subject acceleration in fifth to get math at six. And he was—my son was able to take it somewhere else. But some of the things that I've heard have been successful for families is, one, some schools will allow students to use like Alex, Beast Academy—I just forgot the name of the other one—there's a few different online programs that some schools will allow you to use for math.

[1:16:13] I know math specifically. Language arts, I almost never find that getting accelerated because it's like, "just read a harder book," you know. But then some schools will allow students if the times work, and part of the problem with elementary school is their—some of these programs are not at certain times, or they have library at this time, or they have PE, or they have their special, or you know. So that makes it a little harder for moving to different classes. But I've heard some families have gotten that. And some families have just gone externally to something like Fusion or one of the one-to-one programs to get those classes. We ended up doing that also, but we did get a partial subject grade acceleration on my child's record for math. And it took many years, just in case anybody was wondering. It was a very long process. It took a lot of people to prove it. And then we were able to just get that class supported through a one-to-one school. So those are ways to do it. It's complicated. I don't know if anybody has found another easier way.

[1:17:17] I would just want to add, it's real easy to get caught up in the academic side of the struggle for our kids and dismiss the social. For my child, accelerating them was—we tried, but it wasn't the answer for us. And so we had to keep in mind the connections and the relationships he had with his peers. For one of my kids, especially, his best friend was his executive function. You find resources in all the unlikeliest places, and it was literally his best friend who took on all of his executive functioning supports. And that was gold because we did not have that. And so if you know, again, there's an expense that comes with that, but if you're able to compensate for those academic areas, if your child is fine and everything else—I'll preface it with that—if socially they're great, school's great, and it's just they need more challenge and they're at a reading level or their math level, that might be a good place to start.

[1:18:23] But again, I would also ask your teacher because they, for my older son, were able to give him different curriculum, not officially, but it helped him to stay engaged. My other son also became the teacher assistant, who then was able to go and help teach the other classmates and other kids who were struggling with the math or with the assignment or whatnot. And it's not an answer if you're looking for full-on acceleration, but especially in elementary school, it's a great skill for your kid to learn to be able to know that their place and their purpose in their classroom is also to help other kids. And I don't dismiss the need for you to want to help them in accelerating, but I would just also want to encourage you to highlight the social needs, especially at that young age.

[1:19:25] I'm just gonna jump in and ask one of the toughest areas for 2e kiddos, and we get asked about this over and over again, is writing. Challenging for so many reasons across so many areas. What are some things that have worked for your kids or clients with writing?

[1:19:50] Not writing. I mean, I have—one of my kids, it was just completely traumatizing. It brought him three grade levels below. His time was tripled when you asked him to put pen to paper or pencil to paper. And so literally for four years, he was not required to handwrite anything, and that was an IEP accommodation. Speech to text, scribing, dictation, or he had these assignments that required, you know, the production piece outside of the classroom. And not special environment, but a one-on-one environment. We did use the Cubberley one-on-one environment in high school, and it worked for us. One child yes, one child no. And so there are different ways that, again, you knowing your child best. It also comes down to different ways to show mastery of content. We would turn in videos, we would do collages for the project, something he could do outside of that space that showed that they still checked all the boxes of the assignment and whatever the rubric was, but took away the pain that came in his dyslexia with writing.

[1:21:22] I don't have anything to add to that. That was perfect. I would like to add, one of my children is dysgraphic as well, and one of the things that he really struggled with was even just coordinating the ideas. Mind map software was so life-changing for him. But he developed an anxiety around paper, just because of the trauma that came with being forced to handwrite. So it was, in elementary school, it was writing with gel—he had very special pens that he wrote with. We did the sleeves that you put paper in because he would not touch it, and markers. So just even finding writing utensils that don't hurt, because it physically hurts them to write. And then graphic organizers that are online, speech to text, even books that are accessible, because some of these kids with dysgraphia, like my son, end up not even liking the feel of paper as a sensory thing. So books that they don't have to touch, so that they can read online—all those can be really helpful ways to support them in addition to not writing.

[1:22:32] I would say as kids get older, to explore the tech tools that are out there for note-taking. There is no reason that your kid should be, like, in high school or college class, like, trying to keep up with handwritten notes. And like, they're just not going to be able to keep up if they have dysgraphia or another learning challenge that impacts writing. And so, yeah, typing, speech to text, there's some—especially in college, there's audio recording. Most colleges have students that are designated as note takers and send copies of their notes out to students. So there's lots of things you can ask for around that.

[1:23:10] I'll add to—on this, in your IEP, on that assessment box to check, is assistive technology. These are—that app, this is—that aspect, this is that area where the technology expert can say and work with your child on which products, programs fit, work best. They will train your child on those because they have a disability that impacts their ability to access education and they need it. And so that's one of the things, again, that you can ask for through their assessment is to have an assistive technology evaluation as well.

[1:23:56] And what—I think there's a question I hear about getting teachers' notes. That's the other thing I was going to say to ask for is teacher notes beforehand if they do need to take notes. And kind of what you're saying, Mark, too, a lot of teachers, if they know what they're teaching on or they have slides, they'll just hand them out. But usually that's later. That doesn't happen as much in elementary school, I found. But there's—I mean, there really is no reason that any child who struggles with writing needs to sit there and struggle with writing anymore.

[1:24:32] Abby, you asking the last one? Oh my goodness, there's so many. I don't know which one to choose. I'm putting the speaker's contact info in the chat, so if things didn't get answered, you can always contact us. Okay, I think there was a question that somebody had about, what are accommodations you can ask for for easing the homework load? I think, you know, many of the accommodations you've talked about so far would cover that. But is there anything specific you can ask for around homework? And especially, this person was asking when the child doesn't want to be singled out.

[1:25:14] We've had homework modification—well, not excuse me—homework accommodations, not modifications. And I say that very specifically because modifications take you out of graduation requirements for your high school. So very clearly, there are some things for his dyscalculia to remove parts of the assigned work so he doesn't have as many equations to finish. But again, it's understanding what's the goal in the assignment. What are you trying to achieve, and what do you need them to show? And so it doesn't take 100 practice problems to know they got it, so you don't need it for homework.

[1:26:06] I will also say my son did not have any homework for the last six years of school, again, IEP accommodations, because of the impact and trauma that came with his disabilities and trying to accomplish, in his slow processing, getting everything done, his anxiety with peer comparison and perfectionism. And so it was traumatizing. And in that place, again, mental health was our last word to understand. This is not—if it's not necessary, if he's able to show you mastery of this content, if he's able to do it, our teachers worked with us to have all of their assignments, all of his work production stuff done at school. Again, ask. They want to help you, they want to help your child. It is worth asking, especially depending on to what severity the need is for your child.

[1:27:04] I'll just say it at younger ages too, instead of just shortening the assignment, agree on a time limit for homework with your kids. Maybe that's subject-specific, but that's a different way of shortening the assignment that doesn't maybe feel as stigmatizing or like, "I only have to do, you know, one side of this worksheet." It's just, "We're going to work on it for 20 minutes together, do as much as you can, and the teacher is okay with that," and that's the message that you send, you know, okay, with your kid as well.

[1:27:36] Thank you all so much. There are still 100 questions. Unfortunately, we can't get to them all. I want to be respectful of everybody's time. You can reach our speakers—we posted their contact information in the chat. You can join REAL's Google group to ask and answer questions and get ideas from other parents of 2e kiddos, and that's available on our real2e.org/parents page. We also posted a couple IEP talks that REAL has done in the past. And I want to make sure everyone, we are going to leave this padlet open, so everyone, please continue to post your ideas and bubble up ideas in the padlet. And we will share the speaker slides, the recording, and the padlet with everyone who RSVP'd. So thank you everyone for attending, and thank you so much to our speakers for sharing all of this amazing wisdom with us tonight. Good night. Good night, guys. Good night.