Rethinking Adulthood, a neurodiverse trajectory Thursday, 11/12, 7-8:30pm What does it mean to be an adult? How is the transition to adulthood addressed in neurodivergent populations? Presented by a neurodivergent educator, we will explore the social and emotional elements of this transition and how we can better support our students and children through this process and the neurodiverse trajectory. Amy Faigin is a neurodivergent educator, activist and individual. Diagnosed as autistic at age thirteen, she attended Bridges Academy, a school for twice-exceptional students. After graduating from high school, she pursued a degree in Digital Media at Otis College of Art and Design, and began work as an independent designer. Amy now teaches at Bridges Academy, instructing in entertainment design, technological history, and mentoring students through their self-directed Young Expert program. She also works with the Ed Asner Family Center as a spokesperson, educator, and co-leader of their LGBTQ+ group. Amy is presently pursuing further education through the Bridges Graduate School of Cognitive Diversity in Education in order to continue growing as an educator and advocate. See the transcript here: Amy Faigin: Appreciate that so much. And I also appreciate you giving me this platform and this opportunity to speak as a neurodivergent and autistic person. It means a lot to me because I talk a lot about how our voices need to be elevated, and you are doing that for me tonight. So thank you sincerely, REEL Palo Alto and CAC, for sponsoring this. And, um, thank you everybody who's here for lending me your ear for a few minutes. Um, I very sincerely appreciate it. So today we're looking at adulthood and rethinking it a little bit. Oh no—I didn't want to click that. I wanted to click this one. Now I feel like a true teacher—I just fumbled a button during a presentation. And this is about a neuro-diverse trajectory towards adulthood. So Callie did an excellent job of introducing me and really covered a lot of bases, but I wanted to present myself with some fish. Fish are my passion. And I am an educator working at Bridges Academy. I work with twice-exceptional students who are neurodivergent as well as being identified as highly gifted in one or more domains. I live in Los Angeles with over 200 fish, a small but growing collection of reptiles, my affectionate dog, and an extraordinarily patient fiancé. For today's workshop—well, introduction—that's recursive. That's what we're doing right now. And I'm going to share the DBBST with you all and give you an opportunity to explore this test with me. Um, you'll get a chance to take it, and then afterwards we will debrief it. We'll examine what some of those results might mean. And then I'm going to present on neurodivergence and adulthood. Specifically, we can examine that transition to adulthood, how the DBBST applies, and then how we can use that information to better the lives of our children. So the DBBST—this is the adulthood test. It is a measurement of an individual's preparedness for adulthood by assessing your responses in three categories: early development, adolescent development, and early adulthood. We can calculate a DBBST score, which can then be used to measure an individual against a bell curve and make meaningful predictions about how one might transition to adulthood. So I have—let me bring up the chat. And I am just going to paste a link to this test in the chat. And this is just a Google Doc. You're welcome to make a copy of it for yourself. You can print out a copy and fill it out on your own pencil and paper if you prefer that. You can just run a calculator on your phone—however makes you most comfortable. This is an abbreviated version of the test, so it shouldn't take you more than about 10 minutes to take and calculate a score. I just sent the link. And what I'm going to do right now is set a timer for 10 minutes and let people play with this metric tool. I thought about playing the Jeopardy theme song, but I was worried about your presentation getting copyright striked. But you can all mentally play the Jeopardy theme. So that 10 minutes starts now. Callie Turk: Amy. I'm just keeping an eye on when new people come, reposting since the chat, you know, doesn't show up. Amy Faigin: Thank you, Callie. Callie Turk: Amy, Allison wants to know if they've never done something, what number do they put? Amy says if you've never done something or you have yet to hit a benchmark, you enter 30. If you're just joining us and you're wondering why we're quiet, we are working on a little test called the DBBST, and the link is in the chat. We've had a couple new people join. If you're just joining us, we are in the middle of a little period where we are working on a little test called the DVDST, and the link to it is in the chat. Susan says her test won't share or do anything with the age line. I think, Susan, um—you the part—yeah, you can, um, you can either make a copy of the file, or you can just put your answers on a separate sheet of paper. I believe Susan, just add up the scores yourself. Amy will clarify if that is not the case. Amy says there—this is a pencil-and-paper edition, and she's trying to get a version that will auto-calculate. I'm reading these things because I'm not sure. I think the chat will show up in the recording, but just in case, I want people who see this later to be able to get to what they need. For those of you who are just joining, we are getting close to the end of taking a test called the DBBST, and I have posted the link to that in the, um, in the chat. Oh, here, Marilyn. I'm going to put the link here in the chat. Thank you for letting me know. If you are just joining us, we're working on the test, and the link is in the chat—although I don't, uh, know how much time we have. Amy Faigin: Just about 20 seconds left on the timer. You are welcome to go and look at the test later if you have the link. You can always go and look at it. All right, time is up. So debriefing the DBBST—first of all, my score is a 398.25, which—if your score is higher than mine, please talk to me after this because, um, that is the highest score that should be in the room. I am the best adult—clearly, my score says so. So some responses to the test that I have heard in feedback when I have tried this out in other audiences: Some people have said, "This test feels unfair," or, "I'm being measured against a standard that isn't my own," or, "These benchmarks didn't apply to my life in a meaningful way. This test feels rigged." This test is kind of—the DBBST stands for the Developmental Benchmark Test. So before I get into anything else, just real quick, I have to put this in the universe. While what I'm talking about predominantly focuses on neurodivergence and social justice, the issues that I'm going to be presenting today are intersectional in nature. So factors such as race, gender, sex, economic background, and cognitive or physical ability do impact or exacerbate these issues. Who am I when I unmask? I am sorry—first of all—that I played a trick on you and made you take the DBBST. I will not pull any more pranks. I'm actually not good at pranks. Um, that's why I had to turn my camera off and go mute because I can't keep a straight face. The thing about the fish is true, but also, I am twice-exceptional myself. I am autistic and loud and proud. I am a happy person. I am a person who has lived the journey that I'm going to be describing tonight firsthand. I'm an artist, a scientist. I'm not a fan of low-quality generic clip art. Um, there won't be any more of that in these slides either—I promise. And, um, no more tricks from here on out. It's going to be straightforward. So let's talk about neurodivergence and adulthood—for real this time. We asked you at the beginning what adulthood meant to you. What does it mean to be an adult? And we got some interesting answers. Some folks said living independently, paying taxes, maybe driving is a big one, completing an education, financial productivity, having a job, skill acquisition, or legal consent to contracts—that's sort of how the government defines it. I missed half of this thing because there's something wrong with my Zoom instance. What about long-term happiness, health, and autonomy? Is this presentation an elaborate excuse for Amy to Google cute babies? Yes. But when we examine the transition to adulthood, we find that it doesn't really exist culturally. We kind of go, "You're 18 now," and when a person has turned 18, they're an adult in terms of legal access and expectations and responsibilities. Now, I'm a biologist—I said I was a scientist—so I'm gonna throw a little bit of jargon at you, but I'll try and keep it jargon-light. Myelinogenesis is the process where a brain grows new neurons, and we have two major growth spurts of myelinogenesis in our lifetime. The first one being that magical time between when a baby makes eye contact and when they're about six or seven years old. And then the second one starts in adolescence and continues through the mid-20s. Your brain does continue to grow after your 20s. You're never done growing and learning. But there is a developmental process that, uh, is as intense as your toddlerhood happening during puberty. We set the cutoff date for adulthood at 18 when typically developing brains don't really reach what we would consider complete until age 21 to 24. In addition to that, neurodivergent individuals often have what we call developmental delays. Both ADHD and autism have developmental delays as key elements in their identification. To clarify, a developmental delay is not the same thing as a regression. It's rather that an individual isn't uniformly hitting expected developmental benchmarks. So for a twice-exceptional student, this might manifest as early speech development before walking or reading before fine motor development. You'll see them hitting some benchmarks, but other ones might be lagging behind. As far as the internal experience, social and emotional or executive function delays are what's most commonly reported within the community, but academic or motor or sensory delays are also experienced. I myself had a visual processing delay. The timeline of these delays can vary from one individual to another. It's not like you can say a person has X diagnosis and therefore will be three years behind. Every person grows at a different rate. IQ scores can indicate the extent of the delay to some degree, but learning profiles are uneven. These predictions aren't absolute. And more often than not, what we find is that in the case of an IQ being a compensatory factor for a delay, it's because a person is straining themselves. And a quick note about function labels—this question came up before: Do these experiences differ between high-functioning or low-functioning individuals? It is my belief that when we use the term "low-functioning" to describe a person, we stop looking for opportunities to help an individual be successful. And when we use the term "high-functioning," we stop looking for ways in which an individual might need help. I'm autistic. I love to put things in boxes. But this is something that doesn't fit in two boxes. Rather, I would say that function is often a function of context. So when I'm citing statistics, I'm citing broad statistics. I'm not looking at the disabled population as being typical disabled and twice-exceptional disabled or any kind of binary like that. We are all one neurodivergent community. So let's examine the consequences of an unsupported transition, which is what is the status quo currently. Before I get into that, I want to remind people that I am happy today. I have personally faced many of these struggles—and that are endemic to growing up neurodiverse in a world that is not made for me. But I am a happy and healthy person in spite of those experiences. I have meaningful relationships. I have a career that I love. I enjoy fine dining. I enjoy art and travel. Life is good. I have people who are meaningful in my life. But I'm in the minority. Some of the information that I'm gonna present today is going to be upsetting, and it should be upsetting. But I don't want this information to frighten you or drive you to despair. I want it to galvanize you. I want you to be bothered by the information I'm going to present, and then I want you to turn that upset into action. I don't want to be pitied. I want to be heard. PTSD and other emotional consequences are frequently reported in our community. We navigate a world that is not made for us. I describe this as the existential wound, which is the awareness that every neurodivergent person or disabled person—or honestly, marginalized person—feels when they recognize that they are not part of the dominant narrative and that they are not wanted in the world, but rather have to fight for their place in it. This hurts in a way that we carry with us. When we look at the lack of neurodiverse voices in dictating our treatment—very often, historically, in medical treatment and in education—we find that our population has been mistreated because of misunderstanding because we are not being listened to. Statistically, neurodiverse people are more likely to be the victims of violent crimes. We're often framed as being the perpetrators. If you watch movies, you'll see, "Oh, the crazy person with the knife who committed the crime." More often than not, the mentally ill or disabled person is on the receiving end of violence. Autism, in particular, comes with an elevated risk of negative life experiences—excuse me—um, which include things like job loss, eviction, divorce—things that have major emotional and economic impact and quality-of-life impact. We also face institutional discrimination. The question of whether to out oneself or not comes up a lot in these conversations. "Do I tell my employer or my school that I am disabled or divergent in some way?" And I can't answer that question because it really does depend on the institution, on the individuals running it. And it can be hard for a disabled person to navigate and know whether or not a space is one that will support them or whether they should remain secretive about their needs. And the ADA is not enough because there are a lot of local laws and state laws that bypass it. At-will employment, which is the employment law in the state of California, makes discrimination unprovable because a person can be fired at any time for any reason. Your employer may not say, "I fired you for being autistic," or "for having ADHD," or "for being dyslexic." They’ll say, "I fired you for being late," or "I fired you because I had too many staff," even though we just hired three staff. So it becomes impossible to prove that you faced a discriminatory action. In many states, right-to-work laws remit—limit our rights at work. In, I want to say, 21 states, it is legal to pay a disabled person a subminimum wage. It may be a higher number. I have links to all of my resources—I will share after this presentation in my slideshow. Fewer than 20 percent of autistic students complete college in five years or less. I myself faced the difficulties in college. It's hard when you have an executive function disorder to get help because, in order to get help for an executive function disorder, you must first contact the school's disability office and make an appointment with their counselor. Their counselor will tell you that you need a psychiatrist's note. So you need to make an appointment with your psychiatrist, remember to request the note, get the note, remember to keep it in your bag, make a follow-up appointment at the disability office, and file the paperwork. And you must do this for every class, every semester—for an executive function disorder, which makes it hard to follow multi-process, multi-step instructions. I completed that process all of once in my college career. We face suppressed economic development. Eighty-five percent of autistic adults are unemployed or underemployed. Thirty percent of the ADHD population experiences chronic unemployment. Fifty-two percent of dyslexic individuals report facing workplace discrimination. And 20 to 30 percent of the USA's prison population is cognitively disabled. We have the highest rate of prisoners per capita of any developed country in the world, and a significant portion of them are cognitively disabled individuals. I find a problem with that, personally. There are also physical health risks and consequences. Regardless of twice-exceptional status, neurodiverse individuals are at an elevated risk of negative health outcomes. We face an elevated risk of accidental death, suicide, addiction-related death, physical abuse, violent crime, and medical neglect. And these factors shorten our lives. Autistic people, on average, have a life expectancy that's 16 years shorter than the general population. Bipolar disorder reduces life expectancy between 9 and 20 years. And ADHD doubles the risk of premature death. I myself faced medical neglect when living in Arizona. I had an autoimmune disorder that was sparked by an infection and ended up causing a cardiac incident that took me multiple years to recover from because the doctor did not believe me when I was doing all this research. I—my partner is dyslexic, so of course I had to investigate dyslexia. And I found that the life expectancy of someone with dyslexia is between 100 and 200 years. They strive in beauty and always spill milk in their boots. They can be clumsy and, um, I don't know what the source on that information is. I wouldn't personally trust it. My partner does not want to live to be 200 years old without me. So those are some scary pieces of data. And a lot of parents and a lot of educators are sitting here going, "How can I prepare my child for adulthood given this horrifying spread of data?" And I want you to ask instead, "How can I rethink adulthood—where and when it happens—in order to give my child room to grow into an adult safely and naturally?" Which brings us back to benchmarks and rethinking them. Individuals are going to mature at different rates according to their own neurology and background. And I believe it is our job as educators and parents to respect that process and work on developing targeted support in order to ensure long-term success as adults—rather than being concerned about an adherence to an external timeline. I have some proposed solutions. I'm not going to leave you hanging with all that data and no idea what to do with it. So we can ask: Is this a chicken-or-egg problem? Is this a problem for schools? The home? Broader society? This seems big—where do we start? And I believe in oyakodon. Oyakodon is a Japanese dish where chicken is cooked in egg. I don't think this is a chicken-or-egg problem. I think this is a chicken-and-egg problem. And that it's too big for us to address from one angle. The way that we tackle this is by each addressing this from our own place of strength. So as far as the family solutions go, the first thing is to reconsider the timeline for adulthood and ask yourself: Is this expectation healthy for my child, or is it being framed by an external narrative? Callie sent me a really beautiful article written by an individual who learned how to drive at 30. There is no reason that a person absolutely must have control of a vehicle at 16. I don't think that, um, neurotypical kids should be driving at 16 necessarily. I've seen what they do on the road. Incorporate teaching life skills into daily routines: cooking, housekeeping, transportation, basic first aid—so that when your child is on their own, they can feed and wash themselves and live in a hygienic environment and, you know, put a band-aid on. Introduce financial management strategies early. I mentioned the, um, executive functioning disorder that I have. A lot of autistic people experience difficulty with executive functioning. A lot of people with ADHD and dyslexia do as well. Financial management strategies—the quicker we can get into them and practicing them, the more it's going to protect us economically. And normalize imperfection and vulnerability in front of your kids. Model humanity and humility. It's okay to be imperfect. And it will honestly give your kid a lot of peace of mind to know that adults aren't perfect. For teachers and education-specific solutions: I hear a lot the saying, "Assume competence," and I absolutely agree with that ideology. But I also want to assume that every student is going to need help at some point in their academic career—regardless of their ability or disability status. To that end, I think that we need to change schools beyond a 12th-grade education. If a kid isn't developmentally "cooked" until they're 21, so to speak, then they should have the opportunity to stay in high school until the age of 21. There should be transitionary programs that utilize partner universities or online colleges. I think that this should be the standard practice. Make differentiated education the default. So instead of having a standard curriculum and special education and 2e materials, establish a library of approaches to topics that allow students to learn from their strengths. I think that all schools should have full-time mental health staff and occupational therapists, as well as life-skill training opportunities for students. I've seen what having counselors on campus does for the students' welfare, and I think that that should be a basic prac—a standard practice. Um, and change schools and universities to be more welcoming to neurodiverse students—and all students. Make accessibility the default rather than forcing disabled students to seek it out. In addition to modifying staff, I think this should extend to physical spaces and curriculum. And as far as the big picture—if you don't have a classroom or a kid—here's what you can do. And also what everyone should be doing: Politically engage and demand disability rights. Don't forget that 2e individuals are gifted and disabled, so these rights do apply to us—and we need them. Call for trained advocates in situations where individuals may be vulnerable: so police and legal interactions, educational counseling, medical scenarios, housing negotiations—anywhere where there's going to be a major life-altering decision, there should be advocates available to help navigate it. And please vote. A lot of neurodiverse people cannot vote—either due to legal barriers or criminal records. If somebody has a full conservatorship, they may not have access to the ability to vote. If somebody has a felony record, they cannot vote in many states. So you must vote on our behalf, please, when we cannot. And sever the link between economics and education. Higher education has to be economically accessible to protect students from accruing debt before they're cognitively equipped to fully understand it. We're asking an 18-year-old to sign a loan that's the equivalent to a down payment on a house when their brain isn't fully developed. Students can't be economically penalized for needing an extended education. I also believe we need to sever the tie between military and education. I see too many kids who are 18 years old seeing the military as their only economic inlet to higher education. I think we should raise the age of military service to 21—when brains are more developed—and reduce economic incentives. People shouldn't have to go to war in order to access a better life. And lastly, model neurodiversity acceptance in your life—in your language, in your family, in your classroom. When you go to the supermarket, practice normalizing variances within human cognition and speaking and thinking about them in a compassionate and respectful manner. Listen to neurodiverse people. Hi, I'm talking. Thank you for listening. Um, so long as we are the "other," we can't have equity. Humanize us so that we may be treated humanely. Humanize us so that we may be treated humanely. Loving our children for who they are—and really loving our fellow humans—means accepting us as individuals with our own needs and developmental timelines. We cannot hold them to an external standard that was built by a system that was constructed without taking them into account. Our present system asks children to take a test that's rigged against them—a DBBST—and this is particularly true of our neurodiverse population. We have to reframe how we think about transitioning to adulthood and better scaffold the system in order to allow our children to grow in a way that is natural, healthy, and joyful. I want to take an extra minute to thank REEL Palo Alto and the Community Advisory Committee for elevating my voice. You have given me—a neurodivergent person—a space to speak and people to listen to me, and I very deeply appreciate it. And I also want to thank everybody who attended tonight for letting me be heard. Callie Turk: T hank you so much, Amy. And I know that, um, we wanted to have people put questions into the chat, and I think y'all's going to say a few words about that. But I wondered—before we turn it over to Yale for Q&A—can you just give people a little more, um, information on your background and kind of the journey you took and what college looked like for you? Amy Faigin: And—oh, college was a nightmare for me. Um, I took eight years to finish college, and I had to drop out. I think two and a half times. One of those times, I thought, "I'm gonna go to a different college. I'm gonna go live in a different state." And I spent a year in Arizona, and I don't think any of those credits ended up counting towards my degree in the end. Um, but it was a learning experience. I don't think my brain was really fully "cooked," so to speak, until my mid-20s. Maybe 26 or 27 is when I really figured stuff out. Um, to the extent that I could control my emotions and control and make conscious decisions about how I wanted to navigate through life. Callie Turk: And I think I'm—I'm curious. I—I'm taking advantage of having a microphone to say, like, I—how did your parents help you through that? What were the strategies they used? I mean, I think for a lot of parents thinking about their child going on like an eight-year journey kind of like you did to—and then and coming into your own now—how are your parents helpful with that? What did they do? Amy Faigin: What—well, my mom is a superhero. Um, she's my champion. But I think that that was honestly a very hard time for her too because my mom was more of a typically developed individual. She had a more traditional college trajectory. She finished in a typical amount of time. She got a graduate degree. She got a career. She got a house. And these happened in the sequence that society told her they should happen, and it worked for her. And then she winds up with me, and it's not working for me. Um, and there wasn't a playbook for that. It was a source of a lot of frustration in our relationship for a time. We didn't get along. And I think that I sort of figured out my footing, and I think my mom sort of figured out that the timeline was external—that it didn't matter if I finish something in two years or in two and a half years. It got done. And we came together in understanding at that point, and she's one of my best friends in the world right now. Yael Valek: That's wonderful. Wonderful. So we have, um, one question. We have some that were asked in advance as well. She says, "I'm very interested in college. I have a 20-year-old daughter in college who is struggling to feel included. What would you suggest as possible gap years so that she's not just home?" Amy Faigin: I think that for gap years—that there's no reason to necessarily walk away from the idea of education entirely. There's taking a class or two, or taking a creative class, or an internship, or an apprenticeship, volunteering with animals. That's—or taking a job. I spent part of my gap years in college working at a warehouse where we sold freshwater fish for aquariums. And it was my favorite job on earth because I could wear headphones and basically work out all day carrying around jugs of water with fish in them. And there was no brain activity involved, but it was a time that I sort of gestated internally and grew. Yael Valek: So one of the, um, questions that someone asked before this: "Are what are some like key moments in your life—classes or extracurriculars you participated in or friends or teachers who helped you towards your journey?"Um, how do we promote and cultivate self-awareness as a means to achieving self-determination? Amy Faigin: That's a good question. There's like two pieces to that question, and I'm trying to, like, chunk them apart in my brain. The first chunk is, as far as like getting inspiration, I really believe in punctuated equilibrium as a developmental philosophy. I think that we grow way more than we anticipate in one week and weigh less than we anticipate in one year sometimes. So I think it's about seeking the unknown and accessing it with an open mind. I've learned tons from attending two-hour lectures from artists, and I've learned nothing in six-month biology classes. Um, and then—what was the second half of that question? Sorry. Yael Valek: "How do we cultivate—" No, it's a big question: "How do we cultivate self-awareness as a means to achieving self-determination?" Amy Faigin: Man, how does one have an epiphany? Um, I think that we don't—there's not really a prescriptive place that you find it. I found a lot of it through bibliotherapy, personally—reading a lot and playing video games. And I went through one year of my life where I watched 100 movies in one year. Um, but absorbing all of that information—eventually something clicked. I think that it'll be a different magic thing for everyone—for every individual. Yael Valek: Kimberly, did you want to ask one? Kimberly Eng Lee: Yes. Hi, everyone. Um, I have a question here from someone in the audience, and it is something that resonates for us at home as well. Um, so the question is: "I'm curious what you think about age-inappropriate interests. I know plenty of neurotypical adults who love Disney and other age-inappropriate things, so it's not exclusive to neurodiverse people. Um, and personally—this must be a teacher—I don't care if, um, if my students do, but it makes it hard for them to develop friendships at a high school age level. Do you think we should be pushing kids towards age-appropriate interests so that they can be more accepted by their peers, or should we be pushing the societal change and accepting kids and their interests?" Amy Faigin: I vote for the societal change, to be honest. I know it's not a small task, but I spent a lot of time in middle school and high school denying the things that I loved in order to try and fit in. I know a lot of neurodivergent people mask, and it is part of that existential wound that I described—to not be able to be your authentic self in the world and vulnerable and to be embraced. I love anime, and I love video games, and that is not necessarily an age-appropriate thing for an adult woman. But those things bring me joy. I have found other adults that enjoy those things with me, and we have formed communities where we are able to be our authentic selves with each other. And I found it helps me to connect authentically with my students. So I say: Let your kids love what they love. Embrace them for who they are. Their passions will grow and evolve as they do at whatever rate is right for them. And in the meantime, Disney songs are excellent. Like, I still have "Shiny" stuck in my head from Moana . Yael Valek: Oh, great. Now that's gonna get stuck in my head. Amy Faigin: I had one kid who was singing the "You're Welcome" song all of spring break every time we went to break, and it was beautiful. Okay, someone asks: "Finding connections in college seems to be an essential piece to gaining confidence that can help lead to success in other areas. Without this piece, it seems that nothing else follows. How can students find their people? I've heard this saying for years, and I don't believe my daughter has ever experienced this." Amy Faigin: I did not find my people in college. Um, just so you know. That's—that's one of those timelines that people are told: "You need to make these social connections in college." They can come afterwards. I found a lot of my people on the internet, and I found most of my people through my special interests—which is where you find those most meaningful connections. So video games and anime made me friends. Kimberly Eng Lee: Okay, we have another question from the chat: "At any point, did you try to suppress your autism to be able to fit in? My daughter and other young autistics I work with often try to ignore their disability, and as a result may ignore other peers with disabilities." Amy Faigin: Oh, 150 percent. I—I used to—first of all, cry and say, "I wish I was normal," a lot. And I spent most of my teen years and early to mid-20s thinking, "If I can just fake being social good enough, nobody will notice that I'm autistic, and then I won't be autistic anymore because clearly autism is only how other people seem to experience." Um, this proved to be false. It just left me feeling really detached from myself, and it—it made it harder for me to seek out the accommodations that would have made my life easier. Um, and by the way, I wasn't able to, like, fake my way out of autism. I'm still autistic. But the difference is now that I love myself, and I love my brain and my life, and being autistic is wonderful. And you can rip it out of my cold, dead hands now. Like, I wouldn't trade my brain for a "normal" brain for all of the money in the world. Kimberly Eng Lee: Amy, can you share some, um, ideas for families—um, maybe parents that have not yet, um, been able to connect to their child and their work to their young adult and wondering how to be assured that things are going to be okay? Because for a parent, I think that's the biggest fear. You know, I think it's wonderful that we're hearing your lived experience, um, but—but for families that are not actually having a communication with—with their—with their kids, do you have comments on that? Amy Faigin: Do you mean as in an individual is not verbal, or the individual's not emotionally connecting? Kimberly Eng Lee: Um, either—emotionally or actually, there's not a lot of—there's not a lot of communication between the—the—the individual and—and their family. Amy Faigin: I think that that can come on a delayed timeline. I also want to remind people that neurodivergent people sometimes experience and express affection differently and intimacy differently. I did not give my mother a full-body hug until I was 16 years old because hugging was just way too much sensory information. It's like taking in an entire novel in 10 seconds as far as content, and I just couldn't handle it until my brain had developed to a certain point. People are going to have different timelines. So it might be that this happens in late teens. It might be that it happens in the 20s. It might be that it happens in adulthood. Um, it might be that the specific form of connection that an individual wants isn't how that child communicates. It might be that I could have maybe never hugged my mom, but that doesn't mean I don't love and connect with my mother in other ways that are my personal love language. I still don't hug her that often—I should after this. But, um, we communicate in other manners that are more naturalistic to me. And we have found a way to bridge that language gap, so to speak, and connect with each other. It didn't happen early. The real communication—like I said—didn't happen until my brain started to solidify at like 26, 27. Um, for every person, it's going to be a different timeline, and it's going to be a different end result. But connection is very possible. Kimberly Eng Lee: Thank you for assuring us of that. Um, another question: "Is there a right age to tell your child—um, to tell their child about their diagnosis?" Amy Faigin: Um, I think it depends on the kid to an extent and to the family to an extent. Some kids are going to take that diagnosis better than others. Um, and I also think that it depends a lot on the context and how it's addressed in the family. When I learned that I was autistic, it was in an admittedly confrontational and contentious manner, and it didn't make me feel very excited about being an autistic person. I think that if you introduce the idea to children that neurodiversity exists—that everybody has a different brain, and that those different brains are what make us different, beautiful people—and, "This is the name that we call the shape of your brain," and don't attach a value judgment to it—but that can happen relatively early in development. I—I mean, I plan to tell my kids as soon as they can have a conversation—so like six or seven. I hope my kids are autistic. I expect them to be. Yael Valek: So Amy, you're so inspiring. I'm wondering if you feel like—you know, this is just my own question—but, um, why it is that you ended up in such a different place from some of the statistics that you described in your presentation? Amy Faigin: Um, because I had the good fortune of implementing some of those solutions in my life. I had the good fortune of being surrounded by an education system at Bridges Academy and a community through my friends and family that understood me to the best extent at the time and were willing to embrace me. So I had opportunities to grow at a delayed rate. My family—my mother wasn't thrilled about it, I'm sure—but she allowed it to happen. So I was able to grow up in a manner that was naturalistic—with patience and support. And I had educators that let that happen. And I had people who taught me that my autism wasn't something that made me less of a person, even though that was the external narrative. And I was able to sit there and live in my own brain and go, "Wait a minute, I'm a whole person. I'm gonna go tell the world about this." Kimberly Eng Lee: Okay, I have another question: "At what age—um, at what age were you able to figure out what kind of support you needed to be successful?" Amy Faigin: Unfortunately, I was delayed on that front because I didn't like my diagnosis, and I thought I was gonna cure myself by just dressing cute enough and flirting with boys and making friends with popular girls. Um, I don't even know what "popular" means anymore. But so I didn't figure that out until maybe my late teens or early 20s. What I will tell you is that my students have it figured out. I have 12-year-olds who say, "I need time and a half on this test because this subject gives me anxiety, and anxiety makes me work more slowly." Cool. Um, so I think that's part of the reason I encourage giving a diagnosis early—because a diagnosis is not a value judgment. It's a tool and an identifier. This is how you can say, "Here's my brain shape, and this is what I need." And I find that very valuable. My kids know their brain shape, and they can tell me what they need. Um, maybe from the age of 12 or older. Kimberly Eng Lee: Right. And here's a follow-on: "Kind of how—how were—how you were able to to discern what kinds of supports you needed, and then maybe if there were a few key events that you could recall that impacted your path?" Amy Faigin: The biggest asset for me was my community and finding other neurodivergent people to talk to and to ask questions and to share memes with. We communicate a lot via memes. There's a photo that says, "Autism is like a sundae bar," and it has all these different toppings for things like gastric issues or anxiety or dyspraxia or dyslexia or obsessive-compulsive disorder or high attention to detail. And every autistic person has a different combination. And just to see it laid out like that—we're constantly sharing information like that within our community. In addition to resources like, "This accommodation worked for me." Um, so I do feel like finding the tribe, so to speak, is enormously valuable—not just in terms of feeling connected, but in terms of figuring out, "How do I navigate a world that wasn't made for me?" If other people have navigated it, we can share the map. Kimberly Eng Lee: Great. There's a question in the chat that, um, and it's related to college, and it asks which colleges you attended and what you'd recommend—but maybe also for other autistics—but maybe also what are the qualities of, um, of, uh, higher education that people should be thinking about? Amy Faigin: I went to Otis College of Art and Design on a dare because I was a hyper-competitive person who was planning on going to med school. I didn't get into med school, but my art teacher dared me to apply to art school, and I pivoted, um, very abruptly. And I like Otis College of Art and Design, and I think that they have—since I graduated—become better equipped to deal with neurodivergent individuals and embrace them and give them a more valuable learning experience. It was a hard experience for me, but not one I regret. I have heard good things about Landmark College—specifically for neurodivergent individuals—as a really welcoming space and one of those semi-transitional colleges. And I think it's CIP in Long Beach, um, also has a transitional program for neurodivergent students. Um, there's also a link from Callie in the chat for Thrive College Counseling, where Dr. Marcy Schwartz has advice on that front, um, because it's been admittedly a hot minute since I was in college or looking at colleges. Callie Turk: Yes. And Marcy—she was part of the K-12 team for the Stanford Neurodiversity Summit, so we got to know her really well. And she specializes in helping families with children with learning differences think about college and what will work best for their children. Amy Faigin: Lynn, you asked me a really tricky question: "How can parents figure out which autistic-related groups out there are promoting your viewpoint when there are so many out there with different viewpoints?" I think the biggest indicator for whether an advocacy group is a good one or maybe a less trustworthy one is whether they are elevating and engaging with the voices that they are claiming to protect. I think that if you are looking for a group to support your autistic child, do they have autistic people that they are communicating with to guide them? Do they have autistic speakers? Do they have autistic people on their staff? I think that that's one of the biggest indicators, um, which is why I'm so happy to be with REELand CAC as an autistic and neurodivergent person and have my voice be elevated. Yael Valek: We love hearing your voice. So I know you touched on this in your presentation, but someone asked: "What are the most useful and important life skills for transitioning to adulthood?" Amy Faigin: Executive function is a big one, and that sometimes can be one that's slow to grow—especially that's one of the ones that we tend to get hit with delays. But the ability to hold multiple tasks in your mind at the same time and navigate them effectively—how many times are you driving home from work and you're thinking, "I need to stop by the grocery store. The grocery list is on my phone. I need to make sure I stop by the bank and get cash first." All of those steps can be more difficult for a neurodivergent person to hold in their brain at one time. And that's a skill that we need to work to develop. And that sort of ties into economic management—remembering to do things like get quarters for the laundry machine and pay your water bill and pay your rent and make sure your credit card doesn't go into default. Holding all of those tasks in mind. So I think economic management and executive function in general would be my two biggest ones. Kimberly Eng Lee: So, Amy, you talked about, um, about encouraging families to decouple timeline, right, from from their, um, from their child's experience. Can you describe for us, um, you know, what was that like as it clicked for those those particular life skills that you talked about? You know, I mean, I think we will often look at that, uh, at others and say, "Oh, they've already got it," and they don't. And and it's hard to—it's hard to wrestle with, um, seeing your your adult child—adult child—like, "I don't think they get it yet," but and then you're wondering, "Will it ever come?" So since you've kind of you're on the other side of that now and that's that has, um, you know, you've you've developed that maturity—can you explain what that's like? Is that just like an aha moment, or, um— Amy Faigin See, I don't—I don't think I'm 100% on the other side of it is the thing. I think that adulthood is like an asymptote in math. It's a point that we are constantly getting closer to but never actually can touch—that platonic ideal of the grown-up who has everything together. I don't think they exist. I think that every once in a while, you spill coffee on your socks, and life just gets in the way. But I think that we gain more experience, and the days that we drop everything and lose our minds and can't get it done become fewer and fewer—hopefully. And we also can not only internally manage but create our own adult networks that help us externally manage as well—because you're not really an adult on your own. You're an adult within a community. Kimberly Eng Lee: How can neurodiverse people build a life in their passion areas?" Amy Faigin: They say that if you get work at what you love, then you'll never work a day in your life. But that's not true. You will just work much harder and take it much more personally. Um, but build—build well. Recognize need. I don't think that anybody is going to necessarily make a living braiding horsehair. Um, maybe—maybe somebody. But if you find a job at the racetrack, maybe the horses need their manes braided. So find somebody who's willing to pay you to do what you already like doing. Callie Turk: Did anyone ask you yet to put up the references and resources because Kim Vargas was asking for—oh, let me—what I'll do is I will grab—let me find it real quick. And then—and then Lynn has another question, and, um, I'm just going to pick a couple more from the pre-submitted questions and put them in the chat for you, Ellen, Kimberly, to sort through. Amy Faigin: So real quickly, this is a link to the slideshow, and in the speaker notes, there are links to all of my sources. Oh, I just sent it to share to Sherry privately instead of the whole chat. There we go. Now everyone can see. That's the presentation link. Kimberly Eng Lee: Okay. So Lynn's question is: "Are there any tools—tools, strategies, or technologies—that you've been that you found to be helpful to help you to scaffold the executive functioning?" Amy Faigin: My phone. Oh my god, phones are amazing. I grew up in the paper planner days when they would hand you that, um, schedule—you had that little book. I can't even remember what it's called. Oh my gosh. And it had all of the dates, and you were supposed to write down every single homework assignment. And I was so excited about it, and I would fill out two days worth of pages, and then a half page—oh, and then it was lost at the bottom of my backpack forever. My phone vibrates. So my, uh, my schedule vibrates and gets my attention, and that's great. Um, and it also has maps. An agenda—that's what it's called. They still hand them out every school year. And if I were still getting them, they would still be at the bottom of my purse Oh, 100%. And all my homework assignments ended up there too. What's wonderful about technology is when I was in high school, I would do my homework on my computer and email it to my teachers. It never got lost in the bottom of my backpack. If anything, it just get lost in my files, but then my teacher would scold me, and it was still there. It wasn't a crumpled pile. Yael Valek: Yes. All the Schoology kind of systems have helped with that a lot. So somebody now asks: "What advice do you have for how to handle the anxiety of the environment and sensory challenges?" Amy Faigin: I do a couple of things for that. I, um, first of all, brace myself for the day. Um, I—I say that I'm putting on my war paint when I put on my makeup and my armor when I'm putting on my clothes. And I make sure that I am specifically choosing clothes and to do my hair in such a way that it will leave me physically comfortable for the whole day. So I don't wear like a nice button-down blouse if I know that I have to look presentable for more than an hour. I'll wear like a soft fabric dress because I know that the sensory issue is going to distract me. So I plan in advance. It's sort of how people do "phone, wallet, keys." I do a sensory check. The other thing I do is I make sure that the people in the space that I'm going to know that I am neurodivergent as often as that is safe. It's not always safe. But that way, if I escape into the back room because I need to get away from noise, or if I disappear on a walk to go around the block to get away from people, that isn't a surprising thing. It's how I am managing so that I can participate fully. Callie Turk: So, Amy, I'm sorry—I forgot to put with that question that it was also in the specific context of college. I mean, you're those are all great, and those might all apply to college, but, um, we did put in our Q&A for the pre-, um, submitted questions—I don't know if you saw this—I think you did—was the panel they did at the UC Davis Mind Institute that was the five women who attended or were alumni of UC Davis. And I thought they had some really great suggestions about how to think through college and how you're, you know, like, going and doing the path ahead of time—like, no, looking for sensory-safe spaces along the path, you know, packing their own lunch so they didn't have to go into crowded cafeterias. And I—I thought that was a great presentation, and I put the link in in that other document. I'll repost that link. But I'm curious—when you were in college, where there are specific things beyond what you've already shared, which was more than enough, but if there were is anything specific about the college environment—because that was the original question. Amy Faigin: I—I honestly had a rough time in college because I didn't think to do those things for the most part. It was, um—you sort of pick them up as you go along. You realize that, "Oh, I have snacks in my bag, and I had a less terrible day. I should pack snacks more often." Um, I would also say bring an escape. Sometimes you just have to pull the emotional fire alarm, and it's great to have a book or a Game Boy—or, I guess, Nintendo Switch—and just kind of find a quiet corner. And when the teacher calls a 10-minute break, take an actual break from the class mentally and exit that space and go into a book or a game or a video just for those 10 minutes before returning. I find that those breaks—the internal ones—are very valuable. Yael Valek: I see we have a question here that says, um, "Did you accept your diagnosis early? Sorry, was diagnosed with autism in March but till now he's still refusing to accept it. He's afraid of others looking differently at him and hated that I persuaded him to get a diagnosis. He felt his life changed because he now has a burden." Amy Faigin: I know that feeling. Um, I really do. When I got diagnosed, uh, the first thing I did was I asked my mom, "Does this mean that I'm stupid?" And she goes, "You're in your head. You know you're not stupid." I don't think of the autism diagnosis as a burden. It's a lens through which you can understand yourself. And with clarity comes power. So when you get the autism diagnosis or the ADHD diagnosis or the bipolar diagnosis, the truth is you haven't changed. You are the exact same person you were 45 minutes before the medical appointment where they handed you the name of your brain shape. All they did was describe who you were before you walked into the office in an admittedly medical term. That term is now your sword through which you can cut the brush, so to speak, that has been inhibiting your life. You can explain it. You can now find accommodations and get them. Okay. But no, I didn't accept it at first. I did not like it at all. Kimberly Eng Lee: There's another question that came in advance says: "My 18-year-old takes so long to make social connections and gives up too soon in new situations. He won't go to therapy or coaching, believing that nobody can teach him these skills. The result is he hasn't made even one friend in college this semester. Do I force him to get help or just watch him flounder? Does he have to hit bottom before he'll accept help? What do parents see us—I think seek for help understanding their young adults—who do parents seek help from to understand their young adults?" Amy Faigin: I—I think I'd have to know the individual in question before I could really make a call like where is therapy the ideal line. I think therapy is great. I think everyone should go to therapy, but not everyone feels that way. I don't think that it's fair to force somebody necessarily to get the help. And I don't think that that's how you get consent in help. Maybe instead of saying, "You need to go to therapy," or, "You need to get coaching or counseling," find therapeutic environments that you can participate with your son in. Go places with him. Meet people with him. Find special interests—are gonna are like my favorite thing to gravitate to. Find what he's interested in, and rather than worrying about getting him into a social group for people that have his neurology, get him into a social group for people who like the same things he likes. If he likes anime, go to anime conventions with him. I've seen people do parent-child cosplays. They're cool. People are going to come up and want to take photos. You'll get interactions. You'll trade business cards. You'll buy comics. If he's really into biology, go to the aquarium. If he's really into space, take him to the observatory. So let the interest guide rather than the disability or diagnosis. Yael Valek: Um, I have another question here: "How do you help someone who is very easily overwhelmed with anxiety on even small tasks to even begin to think about the future, let alone approach or begin a long-term plan?" Amy Faigin: Bring the anxiety down first before you try and accomplish anything. You're not going to get any kind of cognitive function while a person is in fight-or-flight mode. So put any choices aside for a minute until the emotional status is such that you can engage. Um, as far as thinking future-wise in a manner that's not so anxiety-inducing, my mom teaches me to start at the end and work backwards. So to set—what is my goal for the end product? Now, what is the halfway mark? Now, what is the halfway mark? Until you've gotten to, "Well, if I'm going to be president of the United States in 30 years, I guess I need to brush my teeth tonight." And you've pulled the goal backwards until it's something that's manageable. Kimberly Eng Lee: That's great. That sounds familiar. Um, so, uh, another question: "Besides the special school like Bridges, are there other types of experiences or family habits that can help autistic students to develop that powerful sense of ability and ambition?" Amy Faigin: I think it starts at home. I think it starts with embracing the child fully—and the parent and the siblings and the rest of the family members really looking at the kid and not seeing something wrong with them. I think that that's square one. Because if you start from that point—"This is who my child is, and they are okay, and who they are is okay"—then every interaction you have with them and every choice you make on their behalf comes from a place of not trying to correct your child but rather trying to uplift and embrace them more fully. And I think that when you let that guide your relationship with them and how you help them navigate the world, they will pick up on it. And if you don't see anything wrong with them, they don't see anything wrong with themselves. Then they will not let anybody else act as if there's something wrong with them. Yael Valek: It's beautiful. Um, I did have a question, uh, related to that. This my question is, um, so—we don't have a Bridges up here. We keep talking about, uh, trying to get them to expand up here. Um, but what can we do in, um, the schools that our children are in here—um, minor in just you know, public, local public school? Um, I assume—did you start out going to local public school before you transferred to Bridges? And, um, do you have any recommendations on what we can do to support our kids there? Amy Faigin : I think our schools need more money—teacher doesn't say that. And I think that we need a curriculum overhaul that allows for differentiation because I see differentiation as curriculum of curriculum as one of those cognitive foundations that allows people to be different from one another. When we divide students into traditional education, gifted education, special education, 2e education, they start to apply value judgments early on. And I think that giving students opportunities to remain together and have their education differentiated within the classroom—so I'm more of a visual learner, I'm going to go to the visual learning corner; I'm more of an auditory learner, I want to listen to the lecture—and make those resources available. Then kids see each other being different, and they stop applying value judgments to those differences. It becomes their norm. Callie Turk: I love that. I was saying I was going to take advantage of the fact that we're co-hosting also to ask Amy a question, which is—I think most—I think I think a big—I think it's a big mind shift for parents to say, "I'm going to try not to pay attention to the timeline." And this is hard, especially in our family because, you know, as you know, my 2e daughter—my, my autistic daughter—has a twin. So, you know, it's very tricky because one is on—they're on different paths. I—I feel like—and I'm totally comfortable with that, but they're not. I don't think they would be. So I guess I'm looking, you know—I also—this is kind of a big question. I also think so many parents think about the regular timeline, and it's it's a fear thing, right? Like, I think in parenting, you can always sort of look at how you're behaving and say, "Am I—am I acting out of love for this child, or I'm acting—am I acting out of fear for their future?" And the fear is usually rooted in love as well, right? It's like, "I—I'm worried." So which which one is driving my choices? And I feel like I'm—I'm coming to be very comfortable with, "Hey, everyone's on their own path, and it's great, and we'll get there. We'll all get to where we need to be, and wherever that is—wherever that is." But I do wonder if you have any words of wisdom: A, for when kids are having a hard time accepting that—like, especially like twins, so you can compare yourself so easily to a sibling—but kids in our area compare themselves to their peers a lot—a lot, right? Yeah. I'd like to hear a little bit about any advice for helping our children accept maybe that it's all right to have their own timeline. But the other one would be advice you have for parents to help them get out of that fear mindset. Amy Faigin : Um, for the parents' fear or the child's fear? Callie Turk: Their own fear is okay, right? Um, I think the question is, "Am I doing this out of love, or am I doing this out of fear?" Amy Faigin : It's also, "Why is this important?" When you are tearing your hair out because your child refuses to enroll in college or refuses to learn how to drive or refuses to go out with friends—um, why? Why—why am I tearing my hair out over this? What is my fear? I name the fear. "I'm afraid that my child will never learn how to drive. I'm afraid that my child will never, you know, live independently. Will never have friends." And and pull back. "Is this realistic? Do I really think that my child is going to be 60 years old and incapable of sleeping without the lights on?" And chances are, no. So would it be the end of the world if they were 58 years old and still needed a nightlight and figured it out at 59? And it wouldn't. So they're going to get there. My younger brother used to have to sleep in my parents' room, and he did this until an age that would embarrass him if I revealed it. And people used to ask my mother, "Aren't you worried? You know, he's getting a little old to be sleeping in your bedroom." And he would show up every night with a pillow and a blanket, and he would like kind of salute my folks and then lay down at the foot of their bed on the floor. And my mom said, "I have a feeling by the time he goes to college, he'll have figured out the night fears. It's gonna happen." And the thing that makes us afraid, I think so often, is that other people tell us, "You have to graduate high school at 18. You have to finish college at 22. You need to finish graduate school or your trade school by 25. Own a house by 30." I don't know anybody my age who owns a house. Um, these are stories that are told to us from outside—from older generations that lived in different economic circumstances. They're from the media. They're from fiction, to be honest, a lot of the time. So instead of worrying about, "This is how it should be,"—"How will it make my child healthy? How will it make my child safe?" They're gonna get there. Growth doesn't stop in the human brain. Like, it—it doesn't until you reach the end of your life. That's when myelinogenesis ceases. Yael Valek: So to what extent would you say to parents to nudge toward some of these goals while still being supportive and caring? What is the balance? Amy Faigin : I tell my students that I'm like—when they're when I'm bothering them, I say, "I'm the most singular annoying adult in your life right now." Um, and I can nudge pretty hard. I don't know—it's one of those like it's not baking where there's exact ingredient lists. It's more like a sauté where it's to your taste and to your kid. Every kid has a different stress—stress threshold, and you want to make sure that you are pushing them to the point where their stress that encourages growth—the good stress, the motivation—but not to the point where it shuts them down emotionally and impairs their cognitive function. When people are stressed to the point of fight-or-flight, they cease growing altogether. Yael Valek: And how did you know that some of the school environments you were in were not the right ones for you? When should parents look to make a change? Amy Faigin : I had reached a point in my depression when I—before I went to Bridges—where I was running away from home very frequently, and the police were bringing me back. They told my parents that if they had to bring me back again that I would be put into the foster care system. I had, um, very erratic behaviors. I was engaging in self-destructive habits, um, because a lot—I hadn't developed any impulse control, and I had so much anger and so much pain that I was lashing out at really everyone around me. And I think the breaking point—I am like the second or third time I ran away from home, and my brother had snuck a cell phone in my bag because, um, he wanted me to be able to call home. And I did end up calling home, but by then the police were already there to pick me up. And I think my mom just realized this wasn't how she wanted her family to work and that something was very wrong with the system that I was currently in—that this wasn't who I was to be acting out so severely, um—and she started to really actively find solutions for me. Don't let it get to that point, though. Like, there was—there was no information out there when I was that young. People were like, "Girls aren't autistic, so we don't know what your daughter is." And, um, also, "Traditional child-rearing won't work on autistic kids, but we don't know what does work," was basically the advice she got at first. Create a space where your child feels safe communicating with you so that they can tell you when they're having a hard time. And when they tell you they're having a hard time, believe them. Callie Turk: Your mom really does sound like a superhero. Amy Faigin : Oh, she's my champion. I—favorite human. I think she may be on here. So thank you—that's why I'm asking my—that's why I'm watching what I say about her and not talking too much trash. No, she—she really ended up blazing a trail where there wasn't one when it came to bringing me up. Callie Turk: Yeah. I think we have time for one more question, and there's one here from Mahala: "How do you know when the goal set for yourself or your kids is manageable or not? Because when they are not manageable, then the failure follows, and it can be very traumatizing. I'm talking about goals like career, college choices, or even smaller like everyday stuff." Amy Faigin : I think that that kind of comes back to modeling humanity and humility in your own life. Failure is normal and inevitable, and it's about how we respond to it and how we make choices to try and avoid it and accept that we made the best choices we could at the time and things sometimes don't work out. Um, and to recognize—sometimes I—I—I mean, I think I'm—I'm the best adult in the room. I passed the DBBST with the highest score ever, and I still make mistakes sometimes. And I sometimes overexert myself and think I can pull something off and absolutely cannot. And you just kind of sometimes you have to have a bad day and accept it and move through it and listen to like a sad album on repeat three times and have a bowl of ice cream and go to bed a little early and then wake up in the face the next day. Kimberly Eb: Great. Well, um, Amy, we've—we've come to the close of our time, and we could really listen to you, um, forever. Um, and it's just been such a privilege to, um, you know, to hear a real lived experience. Um, you know, I think on behalf of of, um, the Palo Alto CAC and REEL, and more importantly, I think each of the parents, um, and community members that are that are on this call—you know, we, um, we just thank you that you have modeled for us vulnerability, you know, and, um, and just showed us your bravery in, um, in in being yourself and and and sharing that with us. So, um, you know, we—we can't thank you enough for that. It's—it's a—it's unfortunately a a rare occasion that we, um, can see someone as and hear from someone as real as you. And I think what you're doing is you're actually showing us that this is the kind of, um, um, relationship that we want—that you're encouraging us to build with our own, um, in our own family and with our own—with our own children. Um, I just—speaking as a as a parent, you know, I think what you said about, um, asking whether or not this is something that we're doing or wondering or, um, out of love or out of fear—um, just as as a parent—that is, uh, myself—uh, just having that—asking myself that question all the time and and not and like you said, naming it, um, and then going in and embracing—embracing my kid. Um, so we really, really thank you for your time tonight, and, um, thank you again for—like I said—giving me a space to have this voice. Amy Faigin : I appreciate it. I think that this is how we build that brighter future—is by listening to each other and communicating. Thank you. Kimberly Eng Lee: You're precious. Thank you. Calile's on—you're on mute, Callie. Callie Turk: Thank you, everyone. Have a wonderful night. Love your kids. We hope to see you at another event soon. Amy Faigin : Love yourselves as well. Yael Valek: Thank you, Amy. That was truly inspirational. Good night, everyone. Have a good evening. Amy Faigin : Thank you so much again for giving me your time in your ears. See you soon.

Transcript below Monday, Mar 29, 2021, 7-8:30pm Panel Featuring: Dr. Kari Berquist, Psychologist, http://kariberquist.com/about.html Nancy Kong, Educational Therapist Toni Ratzburg, Clinical Director, MFT, https://www.beaconwellnessteam.com/toni-ratzburg-lmft-52576 Knowing how your brain learns—and talking with your teachers about how they can modify assignments to fit your learning needs—is touted as one of the most important skills 2e students should develop. 2e kids often lose self-esteem when they aren’t able to learn the way the classroom or assignments are organized. Students gain confidence with the success that comes with having their environment or assignments adjusted so they can access their learning abilities. Explore the prerequisites to self-advocacy, discover how to help students understand what their brain needs to succeed at school, learn specific developmentally-appropriate techniques to try with your 2e learners, and gain skills to help you and your child communicate with educators about your child’s needs. Co-Sponsored with CA C and PTAC Transcript Below Welcome & Introductions Just as a reminder, our event tonight is co-hosted by REEL, the Community Advisory Committee for Special Education in Palo Alto, and PTAC, which is the Palo Alto Council of PTAs. I'm Calli, the co-founder of REEL. We support twice-exceptional, neurodivergent learners by building bridges between their parents and educators. Tonight’s panel is focused on self-advocacy—what it looks like, how it evolves, and how we can support it. We’re thrilled to have a mix of student, parent, and educator voices here to share their experiences. Understanding Twice-Exceptionality Twice-exceptional, or 2e, refers to students who are both gifted and have learning differences. These students often face unique challenges in school because their strengths can mask their struggles, and vice versa. It’s important to recognize that 2e students may need accommodations while also being capable of advanced work. Supporting them means seeing the whole child—not just their diagnosis or their test scores. Student Voices: Self-Advocacy in Action Student 1: I used to feel like I had to hide parts of myself to fit in. But once I started speaking up about what I needed—extra time, breaks, or just a heads-up before a big assignment—it got easier. Self-advocacy isn’t just about asking for help. It’s about knowing yourself and being brave enough to say, “This is what works for me.” Student 2: I learned to email my teachers before class if I was having a tough day. It helped them understand I wasn’t being lazy—I just needed a little flexibility. Student 3: Sometimes I use humor to explain my needs. Like, “My brain is a Ferrari with bicycle brakes.” It helps people get it without making it awkward. Parent Perspectives Parent 1: At first, I thought I had to do all the advocating for my child. But over time, I realized they needed to find their own voice. I started coaching them on how to talk to teachers and role-playing conversations at home. Parent 2: It’s hard watching your child struggle, especially when they’re misunderstood. But when they start speaking up for themselves, it’s powerful. You see their confidence grow. Parent 3: We use visuals and scripts to help our child prepare for meetings. It’s not about perfection—it’s about practice and progress. Educator Insights Educator 1: Listening is key. When a student tells me what they need, I take it seriously—even if it’s unconventional. That’s how trust is built. Educator 2: I try to offer choices whenever possible. Do you want to present your project as a video or a slide deck? That flexibility helps 2e students shine. Educator 3: Collaboration with parents is essential. They know their child best, and when we work together, the student benefits. Q&A and Community Reflections Audience Member: What advice would you give to a parent whose child is just starting to advocate for themselves? Panel Response: Start small. Encourage your child to speak up in low-stakes situations. Celebrate their efforts, not just the outcomes. Audience Member: How do you handle setbacks when advocacy doesn’t go as planned? Panel Response: Normalize it. Advocacy is a skill, and like any skill, it takes time. Reflect, regroup, and try again. Closing Remarks Thank you to all our panelists for sharing your stories and strategies. Self-advocacy is a journey, and tonight we’ve seen how powerful it can be when students, parents, and educators walk that path together. We encourage you to stay connected, share resources, and continue building inclusive spaces where every learner can thrive.

July 7, 22 7-8:30pm PST Register here Watch recording of Intro to 2e (20 mins) from our first meeting We're teaming up with Parents Helping Parents to offer a quarterly support group for parents of twice-exceptional children. Join us to ask questions and share answers.

Do you have a bright child who struggles to show it at school? Are they doing advanced math at home for fun but won’t fill out a simple worksheet at school? Have they memorized elaborate sequences of historical events but can’t remember to turn in their homework? You may have a twice exceptional (2e) child! Yael Valek and Callie Turk, founders of Resilience and Engagement for Every Learner (REEL) as well as parents of twice exceptional (2e) kids, present an interactive overview of 2e - what it is, why it matters, and effective approaches for supporting 2e learners. 2e students experience both high ability and learning challenges, which presents unique challenges in the classroom, including asynchronous development that may lead to anxiety and behavior issues. Explore strategies to help your child thrive at school. See the transcript here: Callie Turk: Okay, so I thank you all so much for joining us for this session, "Intro to the 2e Learner and Supporting Your Smart and Struggling Student." In this session today, you know, you may have joined because as a parent, it might be confusing—like, why is my smart student struggling at school? Or why is my child so uneven across different subjects? They're very resistant to doing work—why is that? And they're exhibiting some very disruptive or unusual or frightening behaviors—what does that mean? And why are they anxious about school? And how can I work with the school to support them? How can I bring out the best in my child? And when is my child at their most joyful? And how do we get more of that joy into their school experience? So those are the kinds of things we're hoping to talk about today and give you some insights into. We do have a lot to cover, and while we're hoping to have time for Q&A at the end of the session, it may be very tight. This session is usually designed to last at least an hour and a half. We're trying to fit a lot in, so please consider joining us at the lunch and learn that's taking place right after this session if you'd like to continue the conversation. We'll put the link to that in the chat and hope to see you there. And for anyone who's joined late—again, we are recording this session—you might want to consider your video use and your first name only. So, hello and welcome! I am Callie Turk, and I am joined by Yael Valek, and we are the co-founders of a local group called REEL, which stands for Resilience and Engagement for Every Learner. We strive to ensure that twice-exceptional students are thriving in school by raising parent and educator awareness and understanding through resources, tools, services, events, and workshops. And we are just all about building bridges between the parents and educators of twice-exceptional learners. We're also the parents of 2e learners ourselves. So, my kids attended Palo Alto Unified in the past, and Yael's are still at Palo Alto Unified. You can find us at these email addresses, and if you have any follow-up questions, you're welcome to reach out to us. Today, we are going to cover a few main things. We are going to first do an overview of what 2e is—since this is an intro, and some of you may not know that much about twice-exceptionality. We're then going to walk through two different vignettes of students who are twice-exceptional. We're going to sprinkle in a very little thing about 504s and IEPs and then hopefully have time for Q&A at the end. I do want to make one disclaimer up front, and that is: Yael and I are the founders of REEL, and we have a lot of experience talking with, working with, and training educators and parents and educating ourselves about twice-exceptional children. But we are not medical or psychiatric professionals, so our advice is just that—it's advice based on our experience and understanding of 2e learners. I'm gonna hand this over to you, Yael, who's gonna start us off with a little bit of storytime. Yael Valek: So this is something that my son made in third grade. He was bright and engaging, but getting him to do any classwork that was not in his area of interest was very difficult. So you may be familiar with that. And he was showing less and less enthusiasm for school. I ended up having a conversation with Oren's third-grade teacher about 2e students and their needs, and she changed the way she thought about assignments. So this is an example of an assignment where she wanted them to show the difference between a law and a rule. Oren has a very vivid imagination, and he asked, "Could he make his law from his imaginary Bear Land, Babalaya?" And the teacher's first reaction was, "No, you have to make a real law." But after hearing about 2e, she thought about it and said, "What's the point of this lesson? It's to show a rule versus a law, so who cares if he makes it from an imaginary land?" So she allowed it. So he made this law that art fairs are not allowed—in reaction to me taking him to too many that summer. And from then on, he was engaged in the class. He participated well, and all the other students thought this was so funny, so they started making more interesting laws, and it elevated the whole classroom discussion. So this is just one small vignette, and we're not saying it's easy to solve all the 2e students' challenges in this way. But it encouraged us that with small changes in the classroom, a lot of challenges can be overcome. And he ended up connecting with this teacher and becoming one of the star students in the class because she made these changes. And so we wanted to share this 2e lens with you so that hopefully you can make changes like this for your students in their classrooms. Callie Turk: So, what is 2e? So, 2e students have distinguishing strengths—high abilities and/or potential in one or more areas—but they also, at the same time, have complex challenges such as ADHD, specific learning challenges such as dyslexia, they may be on the autism spectrum, they may have high anxiety. And the difference between 2e kids and other kids is: All kids have strengths and challenges. In some areas, they may have a great strength in math and a challenge in writing. But 2e kids are in the middle, having both at all times. So, Seth Perler—he's a famous executive functioning coach—he says, "In a nutshell, if you have a child who you know is bright, but they struggle to show it in school, they may be 2e." And there are estimates that about five percent of kids may be 2e. We anecdotally think it's higher in Silicon Valley. And so this is always important to keep in mind—this being in the green at all times. So we're used to looking at bell curves when we think about students and where they fall. And of course, no one student is in the middle of the bell curve exactly on everything. But most students fall within a little bit plus or minus of the middle of the bell curve across all areas. But this is an example of a 2e profile, and as you can see, the gaps are at extremes. So this is an example of a child who has extremely high general intellectual ability and very high mathematical reasoning, but as you can see, the processing speed is on the low end of the curve. And even though it's just on the low end of average—so that might not show up as something to be alarmed about—the difference between those two is very large, and so it's very confusing for the student. So the child's math scores are showing up as just above average, and the teacher wonders, "Why is this child having trouble in math? Why are they having anxiety and inability to complete assignments?" But what's happening inside the child's brain is that the processing speed feels like an extreme deficit to them, and their gifted math ability is masking the processing speed challenges. And the processing speed challenges are masking the extreme math ability. And so they end up appearing average. So because of this discrepancy—and this happens to my own child—math can be both too hard and too easy at the same time. The child feels that math reasoning comes so easily to them—they're ready to tackle more advanced concepts—but they can't process information quickly or write a lot of answers, so they feel like a failure, and they can't complete a basic, repetitive math worksheet. You can also see that social skills are falling very low on the bell curve, and appropriate behavior may be falling low on the bell curve. And this is typical of developmental asynchrony—you know, developing asynchronously. You may have a fourth grader: They may do math at a seventh-grade level, they may write at a second-grade level, they may socialize at a first-grade level, and they may reason at a 12th-grade level. So you can imagine how confusing that is for the child—and let alone for their parents and their educators. And we just want to point out: This is just one example of a 2e curve. Every 2e child is different. Some are very strong in writing and may fall lower on the curve in math. And that makes it even more confusing because if you've met one 2e child, you've met one 2e child. And although we talk a lot about the struggles of 2e children, we definitely want to emphasize the amazing strengths. Many 2e people are the ones you hear in the news that are changing the world. So one of the strengths of dyslexia is that they make connections across disciplines—like Steven Spielberg. That they have 3D spatial perspectives and thinking—like Steve Jobs. That they have narrative reasoning—recalling stories, episodes, and concepts—like Whoopi Goldberg. These are all strengths of dyslexia. And then creative, out-of-the-box thinking—like Dav Pilkey. Amazing enthusiasm—like Simone Biles. And risk-taking, being adventurous, seeking novelty, and curious—like Richard Branson. These are all strengths of ADHD. And then knowledge, skill, passion, and strong motivation in interest areas—like Sir Anthony Hopkins. Intently focused on details—like Dan Aykroyd. Logical thinking and honest—like Greta Thunberg. And you may have heard—last weekend on Saturday Night Live—Elon Musk came out as being also on the spectrum. These are all strengths of ASD. And I just want you to imagine these amazing world-changers in the classroom in K through 12 and what that must have been like. Yael Valek: As Callie said, we really do want to spend more time focusing on strengths and struggles as much as possible when we're working with these kids. But in terms of understanding what some of the struggles might look like—if you're just getting to know about twice-exceptionality—one is masking. And this is the concept that you know you have a gift or a talent, but it gets hidden by your struggle. Or you're struggling so much that no one can see your gift or talent—or vice versa. And a lot of times, people just don't know. And a lot of times, what happens is these kids go to school, and everyone says they're doing fine, but then they fall apart when they get home. So they may talk about really deep, complex concepts, but they may be just below or even at grade level in reading. Or it may be the quiet girl who does her work but is kind of unengaged socially or in group work. This is something too that we saw happening more—not being able to do this as much—with virtual learning because all the scaffolds and coping mechanisms that a child had in place that worked in school maybe didn't work at home. Sometimes you'll see kids who are really the class clowns—they make a lot of jokes—and this is often to deflect their weak skill areas. And they might be avoiding classes because that's their only easy way out. So that is something we see, especially among—I would say—kids with dyslexia who don't want to have to read out loud in class. We see many different kinds of sensory challenges. Sounds in the classroom might bother them more than you would expect. Maybe they were even exhausted by one Zoom meeting. On the other hand, we saw a lot of kids actually did better at home because there weren't quite as many sensory challenges. So it's interesting when you see a child who has sensory challenges in environments where they don't have control over the situation. We can see that becomes more—if something is really surprising to them that they can't manage on their own. You definitely see social challenges with kids who are twice-exceptional. They might wander around alone on the playground, or they might weave in and out of social groups but not ever really join in on one. So they just can have these problems even if they're not on the spectrum. A lot of times, people think social challenges are only related to people who are autistic, but many people who have learning differences will start avoiding being around other people. Or they'll realize that they're different from other people in some way, and it can become a problem. Oftentimes, when we really start to notice a child is twice-exceptional, it's because they've started to be very resistant. They maybe refuse to read out loud in the classroom, or they don't want to use the whiteboard to share their answers, or they argue with you ad nauseam about their school assignments. This is sort of when parents usually start to really take notice because their child now is displaying these really challenging behaviors—challenging, resistant behavior. And then we have unexpected underperformance. So, you know, you have a child who you know is very bright, but all of a sudden can't perform in a specific academic area. Maybe they struggle with rote memorization. Maybe they can talk through math problems, but they can't read them or write out the answers easily. Or they have a lot of stories in their head, but they can't get them written onto paper. And so you can see that they have so much to offer, but for some reason, it's not coming out. And so a lot of these things can lead to anxiety. The children can just start to shut down, or they're just easily overwhelmed. And this is something that especially can happen with girls when they haven't been diagnosed with a learning difference yet because they will be internalizing a lot of these other struggles, and they'll start to seem anxious. Some of these kids will just completely disengage. They'll either disengage in the classroom by daydreaming, or they'll sneak into a corner to read a book. They also might disengage by just not going to school anymore. So when we were in traditional school, they just won't go to school. Or they might have many, many tardies. For instance, my daughter—who had undiagnosed autism in third grade—was late to school 40 days. Never very late—always like by five minutes—but it was just: She did not want to get out of bed; she did not want to go to school. And so we had to keep cajoling her along. And so those are things that can be a sign that your child is twice-exceptional. So if this is resonating for you and you suspect that your child might be twice-exceptional, we always recommend that you get a formal evaluation and consider getting a deep assessment about your child's strengths and challenges. Your school might offer an evaluation like that, or they may not—hopefully they will—but you may have to consider getting a private evaluation. In the end, the most important thing is that even as you're seeing these struggles, that you are just showing your child a lot of love and support. Callie Turk: So before we move into the next section—where we're going to work on some vignettes to give you a better sense of what these stories look like in real life—we wanted to let you know that you can go to this TinyURL, and we've set up a bunch of resources and details for you that you can access during this session, after this session. We have things like our 2e fact sheet, we have a checklist of things to consider if you think your child might be 2e, we have a link to a blog series we published in the fall called "Living and Learning 2e," which will give you team views on what it's like to be 2e and tips for teachers and parents. And then you will also find all of the information we're going to go through on Ben and Nikki and the vignettes, as well as the slides for that we've been using in the presentation today. So first thing we're going to do is introduce you to Ben. And I am just putting—I'm trying to put the link in the chat. Thank you. This is a story of—oh, I should first say that these are vignettes. We're going to share a couple of vignettes with you, and they're composites of kids that we actually know—our kids, friends' kids, in real life—of real-life students in these situations. And in these vignettes, we acknowledge that we're all human, and the reactions that people have in the classroom to some of these challenges are natural. And it's tough being a 2e parent or educator, and so we honor all the parents and teachers and all the challenges that they face. And some of the answers that we're giving here—there's no one right answer—but we're going to try to give you some tools to deal with some of the challenging behaviors that you may see your students struggling with. So, Ben. So I'm going to read you the vignette story—you're welcome to click and follow along. Ben is in fifth grade. He is gifted, he is autistic, and has ADHD. He loves Minecraft and will discuss it in detail to anyone who will listen—and even those who won't. He has an uncanny ability to connect ideas that sometimes stuns his teachers. His memory surprises other students—who came to him in fourth grade to hear facts about the missions they were studying. He loves hamming it up when he gets to act out class projects. Ben came into the fifth grade with Smarter Balanced test results showing he's performing above grade level in math. He received an 80 on the pretest for the new math unit on volume and keeps asking for harder math. Math was scheduled just before lunch. Last Friday, during lesson time, Ben refused to sit on the rug, which led to a power struggle with his teacher. Ben was messing around all during math work time—doodling and reading books—despite reminders to stay on task. Just before lunch, the teacher told Ben, "I noticed you didn't make good use of your time. I will need you—you will need to complete this work either at recess or as homework in addition to your regular math homework. You asked for harder math, but I can't give you harder math if you won't complete this basic math first." Ben yelled loudly, threw his math book on the ground, and stormed out of the classroom. So in this story, you can see that Ben has many great strengths—strength in math, his memory, making ideas and connections, and showing his mastery in creative ways. But he struggles in class. He messes around, he can yell or throw things, he has a refusal to sit on the rug, and he storms out of the classroom. So the teacher may be thinking: Ben is lazy. I gave him so many reminders, and he still didn't work. He's a behavior problem. I'm tired of him blowing up in class. This math should be easy for him—why can't he just get it done? I can't give him harder math if he can't do this basic math first. So the teacher's stress and frustration level is like at a 9 out of 10 with Ben right now. And so what might the teacher do? Might tell Ben that this behavior is unacceptable. Might have the child stay in during recess to finish the work. They might tell Ben, "This should be easy for you—just get it done." And they might not provide Ben with more advanced math. So—is it the next slide now, Callie? Callie Turk: Before we move on to what happens next with Ben, the key thing that we present is this concept of reframing. This is a key part of helping twice-exceptional kids, and reframing is actually based on Stanford research that was conducted on emotional regulation and the positive impacts that can have on the adults and the children they're working with. We've also found in our personal lives that when we work really hard to reframe our understanding of what our children are experiencing—or what other twice-exceptional children are experiencing—then we are actually better at understanding how to meet their needs. So in terms of reframing, what you're really doing is changing from a mindset of "a child won't do something" to "a child can't yet do something." So instead of walking into a situation and feeling very judgmental in our own mindset as the adult, we walk into a situation trying to feel just very curious about what is going on and ask ourselves: Why might this be happening? What might be causing this? How could I help this child? And we have to also then change our view of the child and not see them just as being so willful or defiant or trying to act out or be bad. What we have to do is reframe and say, "There are probably too many stressors, or there could be a skills deficit. There's something going on that I don't understand yet about this child." And then we have to kind of rethink about our thoughts. Then we can't go to labels like "this child is lazy" or "wants attention" or "is rude." Instead, we really need to get into that curious place of: What's getting in their way, and how can I be helpful? And this will then help us shift our response away from just putting in rewards and punishments or using just a carrot and stick to get kids motivated. What it really helps us to do is look for the barriers that are impacting the child and help find and remove those—and help the child learn about barriers they may face and how they can help find those and remove those. And it really changes then the child's whole experience. Children who are approached from a "won't" perspective end up feeling frustrated or guilty or shameful or anxious—they kind of close down. But when children know we're going to approach them from a perspective of "they can't yet do something, but we believe in them, and we believe we can find solutions," then they feel supported. They become stronger. They learn how to advocate better for themselves as well. And so that is the basis of what we're going to walk through with the vignettes in terms of how we get to a better place for these kids. And just keeping in mind that our own emotional regulation is just very important in working with children. If we can regulate our own emotions, then we can be better equipped to help others—kind of like the "putting on your own oxygen mask first" analogy. Back to Ben. So, what's going on inside? Look at Ben curled up in the corner. What's going on in his mind is he's like: I'm tired. I'm hungry for lunch. It's been a long morning. I don't like sitting on the carpet so close to everyone—it's making me feel uncomfortable. I already know this math, and I still have to do so many repetitive problems. And writing is hard for me—I can't write this many answers. I'm stupid. I can't even pay attention to easy math, even though I wish I could do harder math that's more interesting. Now I might miss recess—and I need to run around—or I might have extra homework, and that's really stressful for me. So now that the teacher has reframed her thoughts, she might be thinking—instead of what we had talked about before about him being lazy and obstinate—is: Oh, Ben is just having a really hard time. He couldn't hold it in any longer. He must feel so bad inside to have reacted by throwing a book. He was having a hard time focusing—I bet he's hungry. And I bet sitting on the rug and touching other kids gives him sensory challenges. He's already had to work hard to get to lunch today, and he must be tired. I wonder if this math is too easy for him, and he's frustrated, but at the same time, the writing's too hard for him. Maybe this worksheet has too many problems on it. Now my stress level as a teacher has gone down from a nine to a three. I feel sympathetic to Ben's situation. So what might I do instead? So now that we've reframed our thinking, what should we do to help this student? So we have a list of tips, and of all the tips that we provide, the number one is that it's very important to build a trusted connection between the student and the teacher. 2e students especially rely on this bond for motivation in their challenge areas. So for us personally, what's worked for us is to have the times with the teacher one-on-one. Sometimes it can be the day before school starts—this year it happened over Zoom—maybe during office hours—to have them connect about passions that they have in common. And for the teacher to really understand the student's strengths and passions and share personal stories together. That way, the teacher will listen when the student self-advocates and help them feel successful. And once that trust is built, I have noticed my children are more willing to work in areas that are not an area they're interested in or have a strength in because they have that connection with the teacher, and the teacher says, "I know you can do it." This year, of course, it was a lot more challenging to build this connection over distance learning, but hopefully it will get easier once we're in person again. And of course, we used to have a student-teacher connection, but it's turned into a triangle this year because the parents were a lot more involved in their children's learning at home. You saw their strengths and challenges this year more than any other time. And so it's important for the parents to connect that information to the teacher because the teacher doesn't know that when your kid comes home at the end of the day—or gets off of Zoom—they're having a meltdown. They might have looked fine to the teacher. I mean, it's important to know that the classroom environment is being overwhelming to them. And also, the connection between the parent and student has changed this year. You know, your child needs to learn to trust that you are there to help them through their challenges and celebrate their strengths rather than push them through schoolwork that leads to tears. And so when students know that you're going to listen when they have an issue and will advocate for change on their behalf, they're more likely to come to you and work with you through challenges and hopefully experience less anxiety. We have a few other top tips. These are the things that tend to always come up in terms of supporting our twice-exceptional learners and getting to a better place with them. First is: Really let their strengths and passions shine. 2e learners tend to have strong interests, and it's very important for them to find a way to weave those into their schoolwork. So like, for instance, maybe your child doesn't love math, but they love Pokémon. So is there a way to integrate a Pokémon worksheet into the work they're doing? Maybe they don't really like to write, but they're passionate about sharks. So could they do a research project about sharks and then make a PowerPoint presentation? I like to talk about the protective power of passions for these kids. These really give them a place to shine, to go deep, and to get much more engaged and motivated in their work. The other one is really about being curious and empathetic—really approaching them to understand the logic behind the frustrating behavior. They really don't intend to give teachers and parents a hard time—really, they are having a hard time. So what you need to do is really approach them not from a place of blame but a place of curiosity. It's super important to think about the asynchronous development and understand that twice-exceptional kids do not develop on a consistent timeline. They may be able to read at a high school level, but they may not be able to really understand what they're reading as well. Or they may not be able to have a friend over for more than an hour without melting down. So their social skills development, their emotional development, may be quite a bit lower than some of their academic progress that they're making. And it's important for us to understand that and accept that—that children do not develop uniformly. There is really no normal—we've moved beyond normal. Another thing—as we've already talked about—is really collaborating with them and their team. And the point we really want to make here is that you really want to problem-solve with the child as much as you possibly can. Really involve the child in helping to plot new paths forward, to find ways to experiment, to find new things to try. And it's really important not just that we collaborate with the child—and we also talked about the parent and the student—but also with their team. These kids often come with a team of support—whether it's a therapist, the school psychologist, a counselor, an occupational therapist, a speech-language practitioner. All these people have really valuable perspectives on the child, and they see—maybe it's a coach outside, maybe it's the person who does kids with them, or they go to the Coder School, or they have something they love. Those people all have really unique perspectives and see the child in their best, their worst, and everything in between. And so how do we bring in all of those perspectives? We really want to make sure that we're being very flexible. I think if you look at our blog series from the fall called "Living and Learning 2e," it's teenagers—2e teenagers—talking about their experiences in school. And I would say flexibility was one of the most important things to them. If they could get to a place where teachers would be flexible on assignments—would give them flexible ways to show they had mastered something, would give them the opportunity to use their strengths to show that they had mastery over content, would let them move on with content if they'd shown they had mastery rather than making them turn in a lot of homework that maybe wasn't that useful. All of those things are really important, and we need to be advocating for flexibility for our kids. And then the last thing is just to learn something new every day. This is something that really all people should have the right to do—is to learn something new because that will keep them engaged in school. It will keep them excited to go. When kids realize they're not going to learn something new—that the focus is going to be on everything they can't do—that's when they really start to shut down. So with these tips in mind, what are some of the strategies for supporting Ben? So typically, this is an hour-and-a-half workshop, and we have you guys working in groups and strategizing ways to help Ben. So we're going to share a few things that we think might help Ben, and if you have more ideas, please share them in the chat or feel free to unmute and share them. So one thing that happened is the teacher finally talked to Ben and said, "Ben, I need you to show me that you know this math. What can we do so it's not so overwhelming for you next time?" And so what Ben and the teacher agreed on is that he would be given fewer problems, and instead of having to repeat once he showed the mastery of something, he would be given extensions—maybe math games to play or something more advanced to learn. And he would not have to do the parts that he had already tested out of. And they also decided that after a certain amount of time—let's say five minutes of working, ten minutes working—that Ben would get a break. And then he would have something to look forward to when he was done. So maybe he gets to play a really cool math game or read a book that he likes. And since Ben loves Minecraft, the teacher started to tie the volume problems into Minecraft calculations. Not only did that make it more interesting to Ben, but it made it more interesting to the whole class since many kids like to play Minecraft. And then allowing him to show different ways to show mastery—other than filling in a worksheet. Could he teach the class something about this topic? Could he make a comic strip about this topic? There are so many creative ways that he could show his mastery. And then she also started to give Ben more interesting and harder work to do. And so what happened to Ben? Instead of being frustrated and throwing books, the teacher joint problem-solved with Ben and got to the root of the problem, and they agreed on solutions to try next time. Ben now trusts his teacher and feels connected with her, so he has fewer meltdowns and a renewed excitement for math. Ben decides to start a Minecraft Math Club, and many kids in the class are excited to work with him on this fun area. And that makes math in the classroom more interesting for everyone. So of course, not everything wraps up so neatly in a bow in real life, but this actually did—a story like this actually did happen in real life. And Ben was a lot happier, more connected to his teachers like this. If anyone has any other strategies they'd like to share, please feel free to add them to the chat. Yael Valek: All right, we're going to shift gears because we wanted to make sure we covered an elementary school student but also a secondary school student because the challenges are a little different, and the solutions are a little different. So we're going to cover a ninth-grade girl named Nikki. And Nikki is a very mild-mannered child. She's sometimes distracted and dreamy, and her teachers always comment on what a polite and quiet student she is. But she's a great problem-solver. She loves science, and she's got a particular passion for nature and biology. She started high school, and she's actually found it to be much more complicated than elementary or middle school. While she has an IEP for ADHD—inattentive type—she has a goal to develop self-advocacy skills. That's one of the things that they're really focusing on. But she's run into some challenges because she also has severe allergies and asthma, so she often has to stay home. And she recently developed a throbbing headache when she was at school. She texted her parents, and they encouraged her to visit the nurse's office. But when she got there, the nurse—who had met Nikki before—looked at the file and noticed that she had all these absences, so she tried to convince Nikki to stay at school. Eventually, the nurse—the parent called the nurse and asked her to review Nikki's file more closely. And what she did—she saw the medical history and the IEP—and so she understood what was going on a little better. But Nikki was super discouraged because the nurse didn't listen to her, and she only checked the file after she spoke to her dad. So she felt like the nurse didn't believe her and that her self-advocacy needs weren't being addressed. Because Nikki misses school so much, it's really hard for her to keep up with all of her work—in particular, in her foreign language class. And when she misses these classes, the teacher says, "Oh, just check the online learning management system. It's all on there." But because Nikki has ADHD, it's very difficult for her to sort through all the layers, and she feels like she's always missing something for her class. So she's just running into a lot of roadblocks, but she doesn't want to cause trouble. But she feels like she could actually do better, and she's trying so hard to hold it together, and she's exhausted when she gets home. So as you can see, she's a very kind, mild-mannered girl. She's seen as athletic and active. She's a great problem-solver. She loves science. But she does have ADHD. She has a lot of anxiety. She's missing assignments, and she's actually missing school. So the teacher—before they reframe their thinking—might think things like: Well, it's going to be hard for her to keep up if she misses school. I think she's making all this stuff up about headaches and stomachaches. I just think she's trying to get out of going to school. The teacher might also think something like: How am I supposed to keep up with over a hundred kids who have IEPs and what they need? It's just too hard. And I'm spending a lot of time on Schoology, so that's enough. A ninth-grader can keep up with everything on Schoology. And some teachers might even think: Well, Nikki doesn't seem like she needs an IEP. I mean, parents and kids these days—they're getting IEPs for nothing. So there's a lot of misunderstanding in a lot of those thoughts. And what's going to happen if we continue down that path is Nikki's going to keep feeling overwhelmed. She's going to feel misunderstood. Her grades will continue to suffer because she doesn't have the organizational skills yet. And she's going to miss out on the honors-level science work because people aren't going to see what she's really capable of. And in this case, she'll start to probably nosedive and miss school more and more, never learn to self-advocate, and she won't learn to trust the adults in her life. So Nikki is not feeling so great at this point, right? Like, she's thinking: Wow, I hate missing school because of my asthma and allergies. I know I'm just going to fall farther and farther behind. But Schoology is so hard to navigate—it seems like assignments are hiding in there. I know other kids can figure it out, but it just seems like a hurdle for me. I really don't want to trouble anyone. I know if I just sit in my classes quietly, my teachers will be happy. But I want to learn too, and it's so hard when I can't keep up with all my assignments. I want to be more independent, but I feel like I'm not as ready for all of the things my classmates are. That people don't listen to me, and they don't help. So at this stage of the game, the teacher's frustration on a scale of one to ten is probably like a five, and Nikki's is very, very high—much higher than that. So when we have a teacher who can reframe all of this with more of a twice-exceptional perspective and have more curiosity about Nikki, then they might think things like: Hey, you know what? Nikki is so calm—it's really hard for me to remember that she has a serious health issue or that she has an IEP for her ADHD. I really should take her seriously when she tells me she isn't feeling well. We can problem-solve together and think about the option for going home if that's what makes sense and what she's advocating for. Or something more like: I'm so grateful that Nikki is well-behaved, but I know there is more going on under the surface. She's fallen behind on her homework, and I should check in with her to see what we can do to help her keep up better. Also, a teacher might think something like: Nikki is a really bright student, and I want her to be able to spend more time learning. So how can we remove some of the barriers that she faces due to her ADHD, allergies, and asthma? When the teacher goes into helping Nikki with those perspectives, it's more likely that the teacher's stress and frustration level is more like a two. I mean, of course, it's stressful to help a student who's struggling no matter what—your curiosity or the situation—but you go into a much better-regulated place when you approach Nikki with that kind of curiosity. So there's a lot of things that the school could do to support Nikki better. Things like: Creating a game plan with Nikki before the illnesses come up—like having a set game plan about the processes that will be followed. Deciding when Nikki will and won't go home. What are some of the other alternatives they might be able to consider? They really should strategize with Nikki about the missing assignments and create a plan for making up the work. And the teacher should be flexible and think about whether all of the original work is actually essential or if there's a way for Nikki to show that she has gained mastery without necessarily doing all of the assignments. And then, in order to really address some of Nikki's really strong interest in science, they could consider compacting some of the science lessons into a deeper project so that Nikki just has one due date and assignment to keep track of—and she gets to go deeper in an area that's really interesting to her. And also, it could be something she could be working on at home when she has to miss due to her illness, but that she's still staying on track. Really, we should also find ways to work with the science department to identify ways to modify assignments and assessments so that students with learning differences can access the content of their more advanced courses without having to jump through a lot of hoops. Because one of the things that can happen with 2e learners is that because their performance and their grades doesn't always match their actual capabilities, they sometimes have roadblocks in getting into the advanced coursework. A couple of things that I thought of after the fact—in terms of her strength—would be ways to really engage around nature and biology in her foreign language. Since that's something that she has been struggling to keep up with, maybe she would be a little better engaged if maybe she could create a nature photography album with the foreign language words in it. Or if they could incorporate something around biology into those lesson plans. Or if they could find out if there are people who are from the countries in the foreign language she's learning who are doctors or biologists and learn about them and how they've done their work. So just finding ways to connect and bridge from that interest she has in science to connect to her foreign language. So the outcome of this situation has been that she still actually does miss a lot of school because of her allergies and asthma—there's not much she can do about that. But now she'll have a better plan for how to keep up with everything when she's missing. And in addition, she will know that the other students and the teachers at the school actually have her back. And that trust is so important for twice-exceptional kids. So she will feel more supported in her learning, and that will help her become a more active advocate when her issues do come up. And she'll know—as she moves into the future—how to advocate for her needs. In this case, because this is based on a real-world scenario, she created a video about a trip she took to Zion National Park, and it had rich detail about the landscape and wildlife. And it deepened her classmates' understanding of ecology and climate change. So while school isn't always easy, Nikki feels calmer, and she's better able to enjoy life and learning. And she knows more about what she needs at school and in the future. And that's Nikki. If anyone has other ideas, you're welcome to contribute those in the chat. And I want to share too that just simply last week—some of these changes can be so small in the classroom—they were presenting about something they learned about ancient China, and my son had built a boat. And he had researched boats, and his strength is his memory and his ability to speak, and his weakness is writing. And so she said, "Go up and present—be one of the first ones." And he said, "But I didn't write a script." And she said, "You don't need a script." And he went right up and presented. And that removed such a big barrier, emphasized his strengths over his weaknesses, he gave a great presentation—he didn't need a script. So those are examples of things like this where you can make the kids' world so much easier in such a simple way. Callie Turk: Everything that we've talked to up until this point are things you can work on with your teachers directly. But if you're finding that that's not solving the challenges and you need more support, your child may qualify for a 504 or an IEP through the school. And some 504 accommodations for 2e students can be around: Alternative demonstration of mastery. Access to challenging activities. Reducing the amount of repetitive tasks. Offering the student more choices about what they write about or what area they research. Support during group work. And leadership opportunities to emphasize the strengths. And then if your student actually needs services at school—such as counseling, social skills classes, behavioral support, occupational therapy, assistive technology, and things like that—then you may need to qualify for an IEP in order to access those services. So these are just other tools that you may use. And I think one of the things we've pointed out here, Yael, is that if you're feeling really overwhelmed or confused or you don't feel like you're being heard, you can reach out to an advocate. And we got these tips from a group called Landmark Advocacy, who did a presentation for us last fall. And they can really—also, they don't—you don't have to use an advocate to go in and fight with the district. It doesn't have to be a fight. It can be coaching behind the scenes—like they can prepare you for a meeting, they can help you come up with ideas for goals for your child. They can also provide that direct support by going with you to meetings if you need that level of support. They're very good at brainstorming solutions to unique challenges that 2e students face—if you find the right ones. So we did it! We made it—I don't know, we rushed through, but we made it to the end with eight minutes to spare and time for questions. If anyone has questions or if you just want to have a conversation—like we said—I'm Callie, this is Yael. I have all the different ways you can be in touch with us here. You can email us, you can check out our website, follow us on Facebook and Twitter. And we also have our Google Groups sign-up here. We have a private email list where people can post resources and events and activities, ask questions, and get more helpful advice. And these were just some of the credits and the resources. And like I mentioned, all of this is available in the document that we shared, so you should have access to this. And I will just go back and pull that up too so you can see what all is in there. So Dana was asking, "What percentage of gifted kids have allergies?" I think that's a great question, Dana. I'm going to turn off the recording, and we can have our Q&A if you'd like.

Research has shown that the majority of educators and caregivers of students with complex learning needs desire effective and meaningful communication with one another and that students benefit most when parents and teachers work together to support them. However, with the ever increasing demands on the time and energy of teachers and parents alike, it is important to consider how we can communicate valuable information about our child to their new teachers in a way that is positive, proactive and efficient. A Student Intro One Sheet is a concise, easy to read, and useful “cheat sheet” distributed at the start of the school year that supports teacher understanding of the student and their unique needs before challenges arise in the classroom. The practice of sharing this vital information in an honest, informative, and respectful manner acknowledges your child’s teacher as a professional, opens a channel of communication and enables greater understanding of the student from day one. In this workshop, 2e advocate, parent coach, and writer Kimberlee Joseph presented the goals and benefits of creating a student one sheet, the do’s and don’t of an effective document, and when and how to support student self-advocacy by involving the student in the process of writing and distributing their own one sheet. Creating Your Student Intro One Sheet Starting the school year off right with positive, concise and proactive home to school communication. Monday, Aug 23, 2021, 7-8:30pm Zoom info sent the day before the event *This workshop focuses on parents of K-8 students - however we will do our best to answer questions for older students as well Research has shown that the majority of educators and caregivers of students with complex learning needs desire effective and meaningful communication with one another and that students benefit most when parents and teachers work together to support them. However, with the ever increasing demands on the time and energy of teachers and parents alike, it is important to consider how we can communicate valuable information about our child to their new teachers in a way that is positive, proactive and efficient. A Student Intro One Sheet is a concise, easy to read, and useful “cheat sheet” distributed at the start of the school year that supports teacher understanding of the student and their unique needs before challenges arise in the classroom. The practice of sharing this vital information in an honest, informative, and respectful manner acknowledges your child’s teacher as a professional, opens a channel of communication and enables greater understanding of the student from day one. In this workshop we will consider the goals and benefits of creating a student one sheet, the do’s and don’t of an effective document, and when and how to support student self-advocacy by involving the student in the process of writing and distributing their own one sheet. Participants will be provided with a one sheet template and begin the process of creating their own Student Intro One Sheet to share with their child’s teacher at the start of the new school year. ----- Kimberlee Joseph is a 2e advocate, parent coach, and writer whose primary focus lies in supporting the parents and caregivers of Twice-Exceptional learners as they navigate their child’s educational path be it public, private or homeschool. She holds an M.Ed. in Cognitive Diversity in Education and was among the first to receive a graduate certificate in Twice-Exceptional Education, a first of its kind course of study, at Bridges Graduate School.

Thurs, April 22 7-8:30pm, Zoom info sent the day before the event Join Dr. Melanie Hayes, founder of Big Minds School for 2e students in Pinole, CA, for a discussion about strength-based learning. When kids are far from the bell curve in both directions, parents and educators tend to focus on shoring up weaknesses at the expense of bolstering strengths. However, strengths are where 2e kids build energy to face their challenges, boost their self-esteem, and their likely future careers will lie. Focusing on strengths should be a cornerstone of any 2e student’s educational plan. Melanie will share the strength-based methods of Big Minds Unschool, as well as how strength-based learning can be incorporated into any learning environment. What can parents do to bolster strengths at home and advocate for them in the classroom? How can we use strength-based learning to increase student motivation and tackle challenge areas? How does focusing on strengths help heal school trauma? We will leave plenty of time for your questions on anything 2e from this dynamic fountain of 2e wisdom! ---------------- About Dr Melanie Hayes Dr. Melanie Hayes, Founder and Executive Director, Big Minds School. She holds a Doctorate in Educational Leadership with a focus on twice-exceptionality, a Masters of Arts in Gifted Education, a Masters of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy, a California Teaching Credential, and is currently working toward LMFT/LPCC licensure in California. Melanie has 20 years experience teaching, mentoring, coaching, and advocating for 2e persons. She won the Innovations 4 Entrepreneurs National Award for her work using adaptive technology for twice exceptional students, and the Jefferson Award in recognition of her contributions to the 2e community. She also received SENG’s Educator of the Year Award for her groundbreaking work in educating gifted and twice exceptional children. Melanie is a certified SENG Model Parent Group Facilitator and supports parents to help them develop their parenting skills. She also works with various other professional associations, such as the IECA, where she serves as the Affinity Group Co-Chair for Gifted/Talented and Twice Exceptional. If you’d like to learn more about Melanie’s expertise and insights, check out these resources: Embracing Intensity podcast featuring Melanie as the guest TiLT parenting podcast where Melanie is in conversation with Debbie Reber Melanie’s book “We Tried Normal” free on the BigMinds website Building Successful Schools for 2e Children a 4-part series she wrote for 2eNews

Thursday, January 21, 2020, 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. Is your 2e child struggling in school? Have you wondered if a different approach to schooling might be a better fit to support your child’s strengths and needs? Do you sometimes think about homeschooling or flexible schooling, but feel daunted by the prospect? Has distance learning given you fresh insight into what a more optimal educational environment might be for your child? REEL is excited to host independent educational planner Teresa Nair, who will share her experiences helping families, in particular those with 2e and neurodivergent learners, explore non-traditional schooling pathways. As a homeschooling mom, special needs professional, and educator, Teresa’s goal is to empower and support families and students in their choice of personalized educational paths. With her vast experience and multidisciplinary background, Teresa currently consults on strengths-based and talent-focused educational planning for twice-exceptional students. Teresa has helped numerous parents navigate the range of non-traditional choices. She will provide an overview of options across all grade levels (from homeschooling via charter school to creating your own homeschool and more), talk about real-world students and their paths, address common homeschooling myths, and answer frequently asked questions. If you’ve ever asked “What might it look like to choose a completely different approach to educate my unique 2e learner?” then you will not want to miss this session! Transcript: A Conversation on Personalized Education Wait, maybe she introduced me to it a year ago; it could have been. And it was great to see that this work is being done because sometimes, even when you're in the field as long as I am, you can feel like you're the only one. But you guys have done a fantastic job of connecting people, and I'm so excited and so honored to be here tonight. As Kelly said, this is just the beginning of this conversation. You'll see from the information that I present tonight that there is a lot that goes in so many directions. You could probably get a graduate degree in 10 aspects of it or just spend your entire life as a parent searching after one aspect of it. So it's a community conversation that is living and breathing and changing for all of us, so I'll just kind of start that conversation tonight. Please feel free, wherever you're at in your personal journey, to jump in and ask questions about it when we have the time at the end because it is very personal. I've always said that special needs, but also raising a twice-exceptional child, is never a one-stop shop, and so I feel like I'm always shopping. Therefore, let's start shopping and looking for some opportunities. I'm going to go ahead and share my screen, and you'll get all of the beauty here. Thumbs up, do you happen to see the first slide? Excellent, great. Okay, so this is a conversation that was titled "From Homeschool to Unschool: Personalized Educational Paths for 2E Students," and my name is Theresa Nair. I do want to focus tonight on the personalized educational path idea of this, and some of the aspects that we'll start to include do include homeschooling and unschooling. The Starting Point: Recognizing Choices Let's see, let's move forward here. Where does it all begin? I think it all begins when we start to realize that there are choices. Whether that came to you as a need or as a want, choices seem to lead a lot of us down this path of what we can do. So we're looking for choices. The other, oh gosh, it must have been back in April, I want to introduce a story about a family that kind of rang true to me. I saw this story on a Facebook group that I'm a part of, and I asked if I could share, and she said, "Sure." I wanted to share because it's really close to me as far as it resonated. I looked at this, I saw this post, and she was talking about how it was April of 2020 and she was emptying out her son's backpack. As we all know, life changed dramatically in March of 2020, and a lot of our kids came home and were a little bit more under our noses than they used to be, and we were seeing a lot more. But she hadn't emptied the backpack, so she's emptying the backpack in April, and she sees this beautiful piece of art. Unfortunately, it really kind of struck her in the heart. I don't know if you can read it or not, but to me it looks like... I used to read a story to my kids by Dr. Seuss called "My Many Colored Days," and it looks like the teacher might have been going over that book with this young student. Her son was in second grade at the time, and this piece of art says, "On yellow days, I feel bad and sad. Go away. I'm alone. I'm down as can be." And she sat with this for a few minutes and decided she needed to talk to her son and find out about this. She knew he wasn't happy at school, but she didn't really understand the extent, and this hit home. So she went to him and she said, "But how often did you feel this way at school? How often did you have yellow days?" And he said, "All the time, Mama. Every day was a yellow day at school." And she said, "You know that's... I'm sorry to hear that. Now that things are a little different, we've kind of been working at home. Now we're kind of working on things you enjoy and doing a little bit more of a homeschooling approach. Well, how many yellow days are you having now?" And he said, "Only when I stubbed my toe." And I thought that was wonderful because some of us parents who've been in a place where we felt like we just couldn't save our kiddos from one bad day after another, she had found a solution where her kiddo was like, "Yeah, only when I stubbed my toe." And I was like, "Oh, you know, just having that lift off your chest and knowing that your kiddo's okay, except when they stub their toe, is good." You know, so this story kind of brought to me this idea that for a long time we felt, when we were put in that place of how do I help my child at school when they're having these rough and tough consecutive days over again or we can't find the answers and it's just a struggle, we had two choices. Sometimes it felt like it was black and white, one or the other. How do we make our public school work? How do we make private school work? But tonight I want to talk to you guys a little bit about the reality and how we can kind of sweep that away and that the reality of it all kind of looks a little bit different. There are more colors on our palette than we might know of, and with all of those, you can create a masterpiece for your child or your child can create their own masterpiece. To whatever degree you choose to use that palette is up to you, but the choices are there. About Me and My Journey So let's give an overview a little bit more about what I'm going to talk about. So who am I and why am I here talking about this? Well, my name is Theresa Nair as we mentioned, and a couple years ago I had one of my colleagues introduce me to a new client. And I think this is a new client that I was going to start working with. They were down in Los Angeles and in the email to the client he referred to me as an "out-of-the-box educator." And that kind of made me chuckle because I've been in education off and on for about 20 years. As Kelly mentioned, I started in high-tech, so I was working in Chicago for Fortune 500 companies, traveling the world, designing multimedia presentations. It was great, and I decided to volunteer in a middle school classroom teaching technology. I don't really know where that came from, but I did. I started volunteering in a middle school classroom and I realized that I loved it. I loved teaching, and I loved working with middle schoolers specifically. And so I went back to school and worked on my master's in the arts of teaching English degrees. I hit it hard and I had a wonderful opportunity for several years to work in public and private schools. I worked in one of the best private schools in the nation for several years, and it focused on gifted students, so I had a great view into these wonderful programs. My husband and I then moved from the Midwest, the Chicago area, here to the Bay Area. He's in tech, I'm in tech, and we decided, "Okay, you know what, for myself, I thought maybe I'd give high-tech a chance here in the heart of part of the tech industry." So I went back and started working for companies like PayPal and eBay, and I did that knowingly, not that I was leaving education forever, but one of the things I feel that is important to bring to education and to the experience and the people that I work with, and especially the students that I work with, is the understanding of what they're working towards and what the real world is. Sometimes it breaks my heart if an educator is preparing a child for a real world but they've never been outside of education. So I really embraced the idea of wanting to know what I am preparing my high school students for in this class that were, you know, here five days a week and however many hours. What am I preparing my middle school students for? And so I got a chance to work for some high-tech companies here in the Bay Area, and it was a reality check. It was another aspect of what the world is expecting from people and what the what industry is and things like that. And so then I went back into education and I worked here locally at a couple wonderful private schools. During that time, I became a mother and I am a wife, and so you'll see that a lot of this pathway for myself was non-traditional too. But we'll see kind of how that fits in. As I was going through that, in the last seven or eight years, I started to work with the homeschooling community. Now, I want to explain to everybody that this is an interesting time because I did not think I'd be having this conversation, but I think it's important to have this conversation. Homeschooling vs. Crisis Schooling In March of 2020, things got confused and I heard a lot of families saying, "Oh, homeschooling is horrible! Oh my gosh, I could never homeschool!" And my son and I had been homeschooling for two years at that time, and I thought, "Oh my goodness, this crisis schooling that all of us were thrown into, including myself, because my daughter was still at a traditional school, this crisis schooling that we were thrown into in March for children, for families, for teachers, for administration, it is not homeschooling." And it's very important, I believe, to make that differentiation so that we can have a clearer conversation. So, like I said, my daughter was still in a traditional school, and so when she came home in March and was going to do her distance learning, we thought, "Oh, you know, my son and I, like, 'Hey, we got you know, Evie's home with us and and we'll all be homeschooling together.'" But it was hard, and I found myself actually spending more time with her than I did with my son, and I was running interference, and I was caught up. It was a time of crisis definitely, but I started to think about, "Why is it so difficult to help her in this school from home versus my son who I've been homeschooling for two years?" Was it just new? And I started to realize that there is a fundamental difference. For those of you that are learning that your children are learning from home, you're doing what somebody else wants, when they want it, and how they want it, and it's brought into your living space. And that might work for some people. It might be helpful for some people to have somebody tell you what to do, when to do, and how to do it. "Thank you, that's great, I need that." For us, it didn't work. I realized we were homeschoolers, and so the traditional homeschooling idea and foundation is, as a parent, you get to choose what you want to do, how you want to do it, and when you want to do it. So you could choose to do a public school distance learning program, but you know, understanding that when you talk about homeschooling, it's a lifestyle, they like to say, because it does, it changes so much of the experience because of where its foundation is. So we're going to talk about kind of the spectrum in between that of distance learning from home and the possibilities there, but also this possibility of the lifestyle homeschooling, making all those choices, and what that could mean also. Legal Pathways for Homeschooling in California When we talk about homeschooling, we need to remind everybody that every state is different, and that's what's really interesting. There is actually no true homeschooling in California, as I used to think it was like, "You just... kid comes home and you start to educate." No, actually, there's a lot of organization that can help you along the way as homeschoolers, and so I wanted to mention first off, hsc.org  is one of the resources that I'm going to talk about tonight. This is the Homeschool Association of California. It's volunteer-run, it's a wonderful organization. They actually have a Homeschooling 101 meeting in February. I think it's on the 10th, but they've got this quick start guide and they know what they're doing. They are really helpful. They have a support line you can call, and what they do is they can help you organize not only your resources but the idea of what it means to homeschool in California. So there are three of the most popular ways to homeschool in California: is to apply for the PSA, which is the Private School Affidavit program, the PSP, which is the Private School Satellite Program, and then the third one that's popular is the Public Independent Study. Now, like I said, each one of these is different, but they're all supported by the state of California. This is how you legally homeschool in California: by following and going through one of these programs. The first program, the PSA , is where you, as a family or as a mother, however you choose to do it, you make your home your institution. Your itty-bitty school is just you and your child or your children. That is the private school that you have formed, and you are the administrator and the director of that, and you will only be educating your children. And you file that with your state, and you tell the state that you're going to be keeping the records that you need to keep. There are information... there's information of, you know, folders and files and and forms you can do to fill those out if you'd like to, but the PSA is quite a popular option right now. And one of the things about that is that once again, it's the true homeschooling of the parent is in charge, and they can seek as much support and organization and help as they would like or not like. So this is freedom to choose. And let's say you follow this all the way through high school, your child would be graduating, and you would be giving them the diploma from the institution or the private school that you had created. And so keeping the records, creating the program, however you choose and whatever support you choose, is part of the PSA, and there's varying degrees of that. The next one is more of a private satellite program (PSP) . This is where somebody else has created a private school, and the amount of leniency and opportunities and choices that you have is going to be based on their program, but they usually keep the records and things like that. One of the things we'd like to highlight and say about the PSP is, you know, you'll want to know what private school you're joining. And some of them are faith-based, some of them might have particular curriculums that they use and things like that, but it's another opportunity that sometimes really allows you flexibility, but keep in mind what that means. And the third one, the public independent study , is a complicated one only in the fact that, of course, everything changed in March of 2020. But this would be... like my son is enrolled in a public school. He goes to a charter school, a public charter school called Ocean Grove, and they support us. Now, because of his age, because of the program that we choose, we check in once a month with our specialist, our education specialist. We don't have a particular curriculum that we're supposed to follow, but they'd like us to do science and they'd like us to do math and things like that. So we have a scaffolding that they help us with, and I usually get to choose how we're going to approach that and what we're going to do with that. And as the child gets older, there are more resources, maybe, but what it is is more structured. And so they help you take the steps through a graduation program so that then your child would graduate from that public independent study school. Now what I've heard, and I'm just starting to get more familiar with, is that public schools in the area are starting to wake up on the possibilities of what this can do as far as helping the students in their districts right now. And so I have a friend who lives out in the Santa Teresa area, and I believe, I can't remember exactly where it is, but she had talked about how her public school... she would lose her son's quote-unquote personal physical place to re-enroll into the classroom if they chose to go in public or in-person eventually. But the program that they were putting together to support the homeschooling students that chose to go through this public independence study was actually turning out to be really robust, and she thought it was pretty valuable. So as things are changing right now, I'm not discounting your local public schools. I think it's important to look at them and see how they can help you on this. So what that means though is once again, so we've got these options. There are structures put in place. California can help you along those lines, and those programs are there. What makes it different now is we get to choose the resources and how we're going to go about this, and that actually is kind of where things get a little messy. No, I'm just kidding, that's where they kind of get a little exciting. So it can be very different and very colorful for everybody in the way that it looks. So I don't see it as messy, I see it as an opportunity. Finding Your Homeschooling Style And so, let's talk about what that means. Where would you even start, you know, now that you've got these three possibilities in California? I don't even know what that means though. Well, let me tell you a little bit about what that means. So the links that I'm sharing with you tonight are a great place to get started because you could Google every single one of these words that I give you or topics that I give you, but I've done a lot of research and I've helped several clients, and these are good ones. They're not necessarily the end-all, be-all great, but these are some good ones. And so I wanted to point out that you can take a quiz, and this is one from Homeschool On, and this is kind of a good way to start because what it does is it exposes you to some of the different styles of homeschooling. And so you can literally take this quiz. You start the quiz and it says things like, "I want to do school with my kids. Model the value of learning, reading, and writing." "Yeah, I agree with that." So let's agree with that one. You can also answer, "I prefer workbooks. I want to have children working independently." Now, this is where you start. Just think about this. "Oh, you know, I guess I never realized it, but yeah, I think workbooks are great and I would like my child to work independently quite a bit," so I'm going to agree with that. And there are, as you can see, 32 questions. I'm not sure what their, you know, analog is and how it all gets down to it, but at the end you're going to fit into one of these categories. And like I said, it's just a place to get started. It's not going to define you and it's not going to make you know who you are for the rest of your homeschooling lives or for the rest of your independent journey lives, but what it's going to do is it's going to give you some information. So let's say you didn't know it, but you fell into the traditional style , and that gives you a jumping off point. What does it mean to be a traditional homeschool style? Well, here on the side it'll tell you, "Well, that probably means that you like little desks and you probably love workbooks and you probably love schedules and planners. You probably make sure that you write down when recess is." And so this is when you enjoy the opportunity of bringing school into your home and replicating that how it's going to work for your family. You might fall into a traditional homeschooling kind of mold, and that's great. And there are others, so if that doesn't sound like something you want to do, it could be classical . Classical is a very logic-based; they, I heard, I read somewhere that they kind of rule out color, and that makes lazy. They have lots of repetition and studying Latin and grammar and things like that, that there's a lot of public speaking and memorizing, and it's a very beautiful program. Most of it is faith-based also, I believe in the Christian faith. There are unit studies and then there's the unschooling  style and the eclectic  and then Charlotte Mason . So it might be fun to take this quiz and see what it comes up with, but read a little bit about all of them because it'll then take you on a journey about maybe what what's your style, what are you even starting to look for. Unschooling and Deschooling One of the ones that we wanted to talk about tonight was a little bit of what is this unschooling. Unschooling is probably something that you've heard about, and one of the things that I like to tell my clients and the families that I talk with who do unschool, they talk a lot about how it's more about facilitating. It's not necessarily that you just, you know, let your kid sit on their, you know, phone all day and do nothing. You become a facilitator and figure out how to help your child when they find things they're interested in. I've even had one unschooling mom talk about how she would place books, interesting books on topics that she thought her son would really enjoy. She'd strategically place them around the house so when he had, like, downtime or no-tech time and he was just, you know, wandering around looking for something to do, she knew he'd run across some of those books. And if you just happen to kind of express an interest in something, she'd be like, "Hmm, well, what if we enroll in this class or how about we do a Google search on this?" And so she would kind of start to facilitate that interest and then back off whenever they wanted her to jump in and, you know, however it needs to be. This is a great source if you're interested in kind of getting to know that style a little bit more. I really like her work; I believe her name is Sue Patterson , I might have got that wrong, maybe it's Peterson. Let's see, it's right down here. Yeah, Sue Patterson. And as you can see, she's got a beautiful site and there's an FAQ, and if you're going to choose the unschooling route, I would recommend looking into deschooling . I don't know if you've heard of this one yet either or not, but especially if you're going to just really leave the system behind and let your child do what they want to do or if you come from a dramatic degree... if you're coming from a traumatic experience, deschooling is really helpful in this because I, as a parent, needed to deschool. I needed to get out of the idea of what school had to look like, and my child had to deschool and let go of some of the trauma. So look into deschooling. She has great resources here. She also has wonderful resources on research in homeschooling and unschooling. So as the night goes on and as my conversation hopefully goes on with all of you, it's going to be about knowing that there's support out there. You're going to be not necessarily recreating the wheel, you're going to be recreating whatever vehicle you want, and there is a lot of support out there to do that. So looking through these and understanding them a little bit more is helpful. She's got great videos, she's got "Find local groups," she's got guides, so we can start to point you in the direction of maybe a style that you're interested in or getting to know something a little bit more. My Family's Homeschooling Style: Secular Eclectic Now my family... so like I said, I might have mentioned my son and I started homeschooling about two or three years ago when he was having trouble at school, and he was definitely not enjoying the experience. I was missing him every morning. I would look at him and he'd say, "Mama, do I have a temperature?" And I would... it would just break my heart. He did not want to go. He was hoping he was sick as opposed to going to school, and those kind of things just kept coming and coming. And so when we decided to homeschool, like I said, I'd been working in the community for several years. I still felt like I was jumping off into this, "I am on my own," but you're not. Let me... that's why I'm here and that's what I'm hoping to help everybody understand is whichever path you choose, now is a really exciting time. So what we chose and what I've kind of found out over the last couple years is that we are secular eclectic somewhat unit homeschoolers . And so what does that mean? Well, the secular  means that we don't... we're not faith-based. We don't practice through a specific religion. We're eclectic  in the fact that I choose my resources from everywhere. I really am a believer that people and children can learn from everywhere, but that doesn't mean I don't buy curriculum out of the box and that I don't have steps and help along the way, that's for sure. I like some organization there too, and I say a lot of times that part of what we do is I get a curriculum that I enjoy and then we jump off, and I pull in novels and I'll pull in a movie or I'll pull in a class. My daughter's a big history buff, so she decided she wanted to do the Titanic. So as an eclectic homeschooler, I can now start to pull together some of those things, but then I also keep an eye on standards and where she's at and things like that, so I'll talk a little bit more about that. That's the idea of eclectic, it's taking from a lot of different places. Unit studies  being kind of the idea of the unit of the Titanic being that single unit and how do we make it work. Like I said, I don't fully necessarily do unit all the way, but to each his own. Once you get this understanding of, "I have a style, I kind of like the idea of traditional. Tell me what is California public schools doing right now and how do I find that and where are the workbooks," and we're going to go through that and thank you very much that's great. There are traditional curriculums out there. You can see some of them will be possibly faith-based, you can choose not to use that one. There are... there are some that aren't. You'll see that there are a lot of places to go once you start to dabble in this and a lot of things to choose from. Now as I said, resources are going to be everywhere. Resources and Getting Started I want to flip back and kind of give you guys one little short slide that might help out because resources might seem overwhelming, but let me give you just a quick summary of these links that I went over tonight. Okay, you can start with figuring out what does California allow, and that's the hsc.org  link that will help you know what are the rules and regulations around what I can do in California as a quote-unquote homeschooler. Hsc.org is a good place to start. "What kind of homeschooler am I?" Here's the quiz link, so if you want to screenshot this and look at it later, or I have a feeling that the wonderful REAL group will put this together for you guys too. We can get you these links, but what I've done is I've chosen places for you to start on this journey instead of getting overwhelmed with a Google search. These are pretty good places to start and get curious. The Secular Eclectic Academic  one that I spoke about, this SEA, they have a magnificent private Facebook group with over 70,000 members. It's amazing, it's extremely active, it's extremely inspiring, but their website is also fantastic, and so is their magazine. You don't have to recreate the wheel in so many ways, and you can just be inspired by a lot of what's out there. I wanted to point out that in the fall issue they actually have "Teaching the 2E Learners," so the community of homeschooling is beginning to be familiar with and embracing the understanding that we have unique learners, our twice-exceptional children. Sometimes do well with their own path, and so Kimberly Joseph wrote a wonderful article even in this magazine. So there's representation out there, there's information out there, and we're going to keep exploring a little bit more about that. Creating a Personalized Educational Plan So what does it mean though? What do I do? Well, usually families come to me and they're ready to figure out what does this look for like for them personally, and I want to thank everybody who signed up tonight. Several of you, many, many of you put responses in the comments and had specific questions, and that was really helpful. So what Cali now and I decided to do was create some profiles of hypothetical students based on my experience, based on some of the feedback and comments that we got in registration, and how would I create a personalized education plan for a twice-exceptional student based on some of the comments and feedback that we got. So thank you for being a part of that. None of the students that I talk about going forward are actual one child, okay? This is an amalgamation of a lot of different kids. And so I usually start with a family, and and we start out talking about what are your priorities as a family ? It's really important to know what's important, what do you want for your child, what do you want for your for your family as a unit? Does it mean, "We... I both of our, both of us in the family are working and we really don't have a whole lot of time, so we want to take our child out of the school system because it's not working for us. We're ready to go full bore, but we need as much support as possible." Okay, or, "We would like to make sure that our child maintains bilingual and is fluent within these two languages," and we can make that work too. So it's really this very personalized time to to look at what it means for your family, what are your priorities as a family, and make a list and have conversations. One of the conversations I had with my daughter when she decided she wanted to finally homeschool... my son and I have been homeschooling for a couple years and she's always had the choice to join us but she's chosen school and she loved the school she was at. When she did decide to start homeschooling, I was like, "Okay, well, so what's important to you, sweetie? What are you interested in? What do you want to do?" And she said, "I want to study history." And I thought, "Great, okay." So these are important conversations because they can then help us create this unique path. As a parent, I would also ask, what's working ? What is working for your child at school? What is working with any of the extracurriculars that they're doing? What is working, and what's not working? And what's not working can be, they just can't be on Zoom for eight hours straight or six hours straight, or what's not working is their organizational skills. And so then we start to piece together this... it's not a puzzle because we don't know what it's going to look like in the end. I'd say it's a quilt. We start to piece together these these pieces of a beautiful quilt that we don't know what's going to look like the shape or size of all these pieces, but they're all important, and so you start to organize them. One of the main things... I come from a strength-based background , strength, faith, talent-focused. It's important. And so when does your child shine? Dr. Susan Baum, I can remember sitting, having a one-on-one conversation with her, and she she looked at me and she said, "You know, it comes down to when does that child shine, you know?" And I think that's wonderful, and I want all of my parents and everybody that I work with to think hard on that and identify it. You know, I can remember thinking, my son, I didn't see him shine very much first and second grade, personally or academically. He was struggling, it was hard, but when he was out on the soccer field, he was just lit up, beautiful, happy. I mean, he was in a good place. So how do I build off of that as a mom? How do I build off of that as somebody hoping to find a larger educational experience on the things that make him shine? I also started to realize math made him shine. I didn't know that, and so we started having conversations. As a parent though, don't forget what makes you  shine and take time to sit with that question and flesh it out and analyze it for yourself because you don't want to be doing something for several hours a day that doesn't work for you either. So for me, workbooks work every now and then, but we're good conversation hackers. We like to talk, and I shine when I have time to research before I sit down and then time to research together. And so I shine with time, I shine with research, and so finding those things out because that's necessary then for me to start planning this educational journey for our family. So these are some questions that I would start with. Then the next thing I ask everybody to kind of keep in mind is that look at this picture and think about what this picture means to you. What does it mean to you? Redefining the Educational Path What does it mean to you in general and what does it mean to you in the idea of possibly education or in your child's well-being? I thought this was a great visual because a lot of times we forget, and especially in our asynchronous, twice-exceptional children's journeys. I've been working with gifted children for decades now, and I'm working on my doctorate in twice-exceptional cognitive diversity and education, and these asynchronicities play a big role in our journey and in our child's journey. When that leap is too big, it can stop the whole process, but what could that mean? So looking at this, for me I see that in some cases we have benchmarks, achievements, timelines, and competition, and it can be overwhelming to the point where it's hard to get started on that ladder. It's hard to get started on that aspect. But I want everybody to know that when we recreate a personal journey, we get to start to fill in those extra rungs with what we need or what our child needs. So, you know what, maybe in the beginning we need a couple more extra rungs in our path for social-emotional skills, and we need a couple extra maybe just throw in one for OT, and then we definitely need some executive functioning rungs in there too because we need a little extra of that. And so while other schools or environments might have set benchmarks, set achievements, this personalized path or whatever path you choose through these paths, through this palette of many colors, you can start to put in that little extra rung here and there by being aware of it and knowing that you have choices. So another thing I point out to parents is it's not that your child's not going to make those benchmarks or they're going to miss those benchmarks; we know as parents of twice-exceptional students that it might be possible that they reach that benchmark at the same time or they might just blow past that, but they might need more time to get to another one. It's that asynchronous experience where we need to put in place a little bit extra, but my child, their math benchmarks, he just blew those out of the water. So one of his benchmarks on a strength base is to get him a mentor. My daughter, we're going to get her a tutor, so it's all of these different ideas even within the same home of understanding. We'll get to those benchmarks. We will probably do it in a different timeline and with different steps, and that's okay. So the more you're willing to let go on this and kind of let it be, you'll kind of see it come together. Designing an Elementary School Path Based on some of the feedback, let's create a personalized path for an elementary student who is 2E and dyslexic. They are a big-picture thinker, they love math, have high anxiety, and this is in a social and in-school setting. So after going through some of those questions, I would start to put together some ideas, and so maybe one of the things I've seen in the past, and this worked well for us as we were going through our elementary, is I've heard that an hour per grade for direct and for direct instruction up until like third or fourth grade is about right. So as a first grader, you might want to be doing direct instruction with your first grader for only one hour. The rest of the day is playing and exploring and going and doing, which is kind of difficult but right now but it still can be done, trust me, it still can be done. And so it's that idea that you don't have to over-instruct; you keep in mind that if you're transitioning into a non-traditional path, that can mean non-traditional hours. As a teacher, I used to say you know probably 60 to 70% of my classroom time is classroom management. It's helping kids come in and get settled down. It's making sure everybody's quiet. It's, "Does everybody have their book? Do they not?" So a lot of school time can be put in other places, and when you're one-on-one working with your child, you get more bang for your buck. It's more about quality versus quantity, so think about using your time differently and maybe even less time but to do different things. When I have an opportunity to sit down with my daughter and do one-on-one math instruction, she gets a lot quicker, but we also repeat it several more times. I think that you'll find that these quality times will work better than quantity, so that's helpful for some parents who might be working. You might be able to find an opportunity, and this is kind of for both grades, I know of a family who does a lot of their work in the evening. As homeschooling parents, they sit around the table and instead of doing homework, they do homeschool work. It's, you know, three or four hours in the evening of sitting around, making a plan, going over lessons, homeschooling after their busy day is done. And instead of sitting down to decipher what the school wants you to do, let's sit down and decipher what it is that we want to do and what can I get you going on tomorrow during your day and well, maybe your nanny's here or a couple classes planned for you. So there are some things we can do and think about using different times now. Because our student in this scenario has dyslexia, this is also a good opportunity. One of the things that I keep in mind and help parents understand is when you take out all of those school hours, you now have an opportunity to add in specialists and mentors. And if you have a public school... if you're paying public school or private school tuition, you've got this private school tuition now to use in other areas, and it's helpful then to be able to schedule these things during the day instead of after school when they're just tired and exhausted and going to a reading specialist is the last thing they want to do at 4:30 in the afternoon on a Tuesday. So these are things that we now schedule through the day or you could schedule throughout your day so that gets us moving on that specific neurodiversity that we can start to structure. And I was... I've seen improvements and I know that there's some experiences here with different teachers also who've had opportunities to work one-on-one or in small groups with children specifically focused on dyslexia and reading improvement either through Orton Gillingham or the Barton method. Once you get one-on-one or small group and really give that focused time as opposed to a classroom full of several different reading groups and public school interactions and things like that, once again, quality can really help your child move forward, and they might make bigger steps and strides with that kind of opportunity as opposed to figuring it out in the in the public school classroom. Now, these are all just possibilities in a fictitious child as we as we go forward. Moving beyond the page, I would suggest maybe that because if this child is gifted, "Moving Beyond the Page" does a really good job. It's a curriculum that has science and social studies intertwined, which works well. But if we have, let's say, auditory issues, there's a Cellus , which is a program where they have videos that your child watches a video, they listen to it, and then they can rewind it if they need to. They can get... they're asked questions and then they can rewind it to the lessons. So there's also other things that we could tailor as far as a curriculum that we would put in there. And then Outschool  is a great way to bring in and sprinkle in some interest if you have an interest or talent that you'd like to explore. Park groups and social pods , this is one I can talk into a little bit more if anybody's interested, but these are really good opportunities, and there's more and more of these cropping up and they become an important part of your child's exploratory world. And so whether it's a park group, which is really popular with elementary students, when we were homeschooling before the coronavirus, there were park groups for every single day, a different park, a different group completely. So it might be that the unschoolers were meeting on Mondays, and you know, more of a traditional was meeting or classicals were meeting on different... So there's these park groups that meet all around this area. This area is a wonderful place to take a non-traditional path, and so starting to find those and now finding out how we can work those in is a new and interesting way. A math mentor ... as I mentioned, my son loves math. He didn't need remediation and support as much as I wanted to find somebody who would inspire him and help him enjoy math and see math everywhere, and so taking that opportunity to build on those strengths and take that talent to the next level. We didn't have time to do that before, but now we've got some time, and I can find somebody special. And getting out and involving your child... now I know some kids are not interested in team sports. I have no desire to do a team sport. There are ways to get outside that don't involve team sports, and sometimes, like tennis , I found to be kind of fun for the younger elementary students because, especially those with anxiety, because you don't necessarily... you're not, you know, necessarily communicating one-on-one with somebody or trying to make it happen, but you can still make a social connection. You're still there with somebody or maybe a golf group or things like that too. These are outside, very social distance, and at this time we can't necessarily do that, but as we get closer and things start to open up, these are more comfortable ways too instead of being in a classroom. Getting out and getting some fresh air and maybe meeting people in a less anxiety-provoking way. Now these can be done through the PSA. This can be done because the parent decides they're going to do a small private school, they're going to make their own private school, they're going to make the choices. They're going to keep track of things, which is not that difficult; we can talk more on that if somebody wants to know. And this is your choice and how you want to do this, and maybe that's what they look for for elementary school, and that's what they're going to do. So maybe this is a PSA choice. Questions from the Audience: Time Management and Logistics Theresa : Yeah, I just asked a question that I'm curious about personally: this looks incredible, I wish my kids had this. How do you have the time to organize and manage this and get the kids to all these different things when you're working? Theresa : That's a great question, and for me and for a lot of a lot of the families that I know that want to do these things, you need a flexible work schedule or you need somebody that you can hire to kind of help you get your children there. So there are a couple ways to do... we also... I mean, I know of some homeschooling families where, you know, Bev takes them on Mondays and she has the pod with her and and she takes them to activities on Mondays, and then JoJo has them on Wednesdays and she takes them to different activities on Wednesdays. And so it's kind of figuring out how you're going to organize your time, which might be outside of work hours or it might be a flexible work hour. But it's also depending a lot on each other and building connections too and sharing the opportunities. So in the homeschooling community, you kind of start to find your pod and you work with each other and say, "Oh, we're all going to take this class next week, great, can you drive them? Sure, thank you!" You know, and you're like, "And then I'll make sure to teach the lit circle in a couple weeks," you know? So it can become this really give-and-take experience where even parents who are working long schedules can find a group that they fit in with and then give back how they can. One of the things I'd like to say, and this is this is it's a tough point, but think about how much time we as parents are investing right now in reactionary, possibly. How much are we trying to figure out how do we do this? How do we control that? How can I make this work? How can I make that? When you choose to take it on proactively, it becomes a little easier because now your your palette and your canvas get bigger. So there are possibilities, and depending on which one works for you, it can be done. There are lots of blogs out there too about parents who work full-time and how they do it. Theresa : Great, thank you. Okay, I'm I'd love to see the middle school one because I have a middle schooler. Theresa : Once wonderful. Okay, I can jump onto middle school if we'd like and then we can come back and circle back to each one if people have... just anybody else has a question, please share it in the chat if you'd like. Excellent. Designing a Middle School Path Okay, so let me jump onto middle school so we'll have some time then just to kind of flesh it out if there are specific questions, but I put together this middle school one and our student... let's see, we've got a middle school student who is twice-exceptional. He is autistic, he loves his deep dives, he's very detail-oriented, he loves history. Also has some anxiety, and that's okay. So what we're going to do is we're going to talk about this child and how we can start. Middle school specifically was my course, so I love teaching middle school for years and years, especially gifted middle school students, and one of the things you hear a lot about in middle school is this is the opportunity and this is the time for kids to take chances and learn how to fail. Now, for some of our kids, that's really hard. Just being a perfectionist or failing in general can be painful, and so finding an opportunity in an environment and space for a child who doesn't like to fail and try new things to try a couple new things at their own pace, wherever that rung is going to fit in, is good. And so this gives us some flexibility to maybe try a gifted curriculum specifically for history and writing. If you are with the independent, the public school independence study, hold on to the IEP  and see how you can use that for standardized testings that you still may need to do through the through the public school that you're with. Find out how you can get into gifted curriculum so depending on which route you go, the one of the three that we talked about, you can still use an IEP and use it well. You might want to use a couple extra rungs, put those in there for executive functioning or, um, one of the things we talked about with my daughter was how could we start a study group, and she started a study group now, based around history, and it was kind of fun. Theater classes  might be enjoyable. This is a fun way for kids who don't even necessarily want to be in theater but to take an opportunity to get them trying on new communications styles in a way that, "Hey, this is acting," but actually it's a really good opportunity to try on different communication styles and listen and watch and see what makes things, you know, work out the way they do. So I think theater classes can be wonderful, even online ones are that's, I found some wonderful ones. Writers' workshops  might be interesting. A math tutor  might be helpful. So let's say this particular student needs more of a remediation in math, take that time, you know. This is a time where now you can go back and review and review and review because they might get that point, and it might take four weeks and then they get the next one in one week and then you get to move on to the next one because you I mean your time frame is your own, and so using a tutor to help you get through a subject that might be difficult for you to teach your child is another way to go. Kind of hand it off and say, "We really just do not communicate well over math. You know, I I love math and I do math and in my sleep, my child doesn't seem to understand, could you help them?" And it might be a wonderful way for you to hand it over. I had one of my families tell me that they handed it over to grandpa because grandpa did really well with it, and it was a wonderful opportunity actually for them to bond too, and so not only do you find your tutors somewhere maybe through one of the sites, but you can also find them, you know, in your family and create these whole other opportunities. And all of a sudden you have a math tutor and grandpa, and grandpa gets to know your kid better than they ever thought over a subject they enjoy together. So there's all these possibilities once again. Getting outdoors, hiking groups ... there are several hiking groups in the Bay Area that are focused on homeschoolers, but also several of them open up to just kids who are interested in hiking during the day, and it's social distance or they have a list of some of the wider paths and some of the easier paths to take, some of the less populated paths to take. And so once you start seeking this, you can get out there and start hiking maybe, and this could be another fun way to get some fresh air. If you choose a middle school route that you want to start to make your own, so PSA... I had a question in there, what about math? Whether it's high school or middle school, this is where you as a family would want to sit down and say, "Well, what are we doing math for? Why are we doing math?" Is it because we want to get our child into college to study something for math? Well then, maybe we need to put some more research sources behind it and look for more opportunities. Or is it just something right now that if we've got the basic bare minimum, let's stick with that and and let it be or skip it for a year because there's way too much trauma around it. As a PSA, you can choose that. You can choose to skip it for a year, especially if you're going with like, let's say, an independent study school and you've got an IEP. You can say, "Yep, they did a worksheet once a week, here's your worksheet," and let it be and don't continue to go back on it every single day if you don't need to. And that's something you can do, and I encourage families to find what they need, and we can talk a little bit more about that. Audience Questions: IEPs and Career Exploration Theresa : Lisa, before you move on to the high school, there were a couple of questions that had come in related to middle school, and the folks who submitted those are on the call tonight, and you kind of touched on this a little bit in terms of the IEP. And someone, Melissa, asked, "Once you leave public school for homeschool, do you lose your IEP for going back or can you save it?" Theresa : Well, I'm I... I don't know if you can save it quote-unquote, and if there's anybody on here who wants to speak specifically to that, I've never had a family who tried to save it, and that's only because their child changed dramatically while they did the two or three years of homeschooling, and so when they came back to the table, they used the former IEP or the previous IEP as a jumping-off point, but they weren't looking for the same things. And so in and every three years, it's not unusual for educational environments, depending on whether it's private or public, to want a re-evaluation also. So you just might be in a very different place that you're not necessarily going to need that. I haven't had a family that that switched around quite quick quite that quickly, so like one year to the next. So if anybody has experienced that, I would love to know because I think that would be good to know, but my experience is usually the child has changed, and so it's a reference, but it's not the same. Does that kind of help? And I'm not an expert in this field at all, so if anyone on the chat knows more, feel free to weigh in, but I I do know like when we moved our daughter from a public school to a private school, the public school had to follow up on her IEP for a certain amount of time even though she was not enrolled there. There was some obligation on your public school district's behalf to follow that through. At some point that stopped, and I don't really know why because we didn't pursue it, but you know, it is important to keep that documentation up if you think you want accommodations for standardized testing or if you want to, you know, you really want to make sure before your child goes to college if you're going to request college accommodations. So we can maybe talk about that more at the high school, but right. Theresa : Yeah, and another question that came in ahead of time about middle school is, you know, when you have a a child that has high curiosity, especially in a lot of these kids who are on the spectrum have just such great passion for for things, and you want to start thinking about exposing them to potential career paths to give them role models and stories and that sort of thing. And someone was asking, "How do you help introduce that at this age?" Theresa : And that's a great question. So I was just on a seminar call with Berlin Blankin at the University of Iowa, and they were talking about career paths and how middle school... and I do some career counseling and some career working with our twice-exceptional high school students also. Middle school is a great time to explore and and yes, I know a lot of students think they know what they want, and I'm not saying deny that to them, actually enjoy it. It was funny, we had one student who was very into baseball and memorized all of the stats and statistics, and it was like, "Oh my gosh, how can we do anything around baseball statistics because that's where this child was at. This is what they lived and breathed, that's what they did." And so as coaches and as mentors and as people working with him, we tried to figure out like what can we kind of show in through that lens. And public speaking through the lens of of baseball statistics, whether or not he would study different historical aspects and and things like that happening through baseball. So those kind of things, we kind of peppered through the lens of it, but no joke, this kid ended up somehow meeting a announcer for one of the baseball media things, and he was doing his thing, and he was talking about how excited he was about baseball statistics, and the announcer said, "You know what, I need to get you with my assistant because I'd love to hire you, you are a great resource." So even though this kid focused on it for for 10, 15 years, he can do that for the rest of his life now because he found his niche. Nobody ever thought he would or that it would not work out that way, but you never know. And so it's kind of trying to expose through the lens and then just letting it be. Theresa : Well, and another mom that has a middle schooler was noting that she already homeschools, and she'd like to know, "How do you keep your the child accountable for scheduling and time management and organization, especially because she has two other children and everyone has household things they have to do and and so, you know, in middle school you're trying to release some of that to the child more and more, so how do you kind of manage that in that environment?" Theresa : Yeah, and that will work differently for each family depending on how also how they kind of do the discipline and the in the way things work in their house. And so for one middle school family, I know that they, you know, don't get tech... they don't get tech until after all their school work is done, and then they're allowed to have however much tech time they want as long as they've done their work and it's been done well. I know other families that have a window of time where it's no tech, and this is what school is. So from 10 to 3, find something academic to do, and you know, accomplish what you need to during that time because after that you may have your free time and choose to do whatever with it. And so it depends on the dynamics of the family. I really recommend finding what works, and it's actually something that I'm studying right now is finding what works for the child, and this is an executive functioning thing. This is finding the right kind of momentum without overwhelming, without stressing. So often we don't we we think that the pressure is going to be helpful and it's not, and so knowing your child and creating a a plan with them is something I would, you know, suggest starting with and saying, "Okay, what can you do, bud? We're going to sit down, we're going to figure out, what do you want me to hold you accountable for because you know what I'm expecting? What are you expecting? And let's be reasonable," you know? And that's one reason why I used to say I loved teaching middle school because you could start to have those conversations with them and and they were open to it sometimes. So start the conversation, find out what works, and find out in your family, you know, how you're going to structure the give and take of of earning and not earning or maybe that's not a part of you. Theresa : Awesome, those were our middle school questions for now and then we may have some more in the general Q and A after we get through the private the high school. Theresa : Okay, all right, so let me go through the high school real quick. And we're doing pretty good on time. I hope that leaves us a good window. Designing a High School Path Okay, so our high school student, this is going to be our ADHD, creative, out-of-the-box thinker with humorous aspects. They love humor, they love science, specifically going towards animals and biology. Once again, high anxiety is not unusual, and especially working on executive functioning skills is going to be something that I would throw in this mix too. Most likely it's going to be helpful. High school is one where families start to think about whether or not there is a college path, whether or not they want one. I've worked with some, you know, homeschooling and unschooling families that it didn't matter if they wanted... if my child wants to go to college, great, we'll figure out how to get them there. And I have some that say, "You know what, we're actually homeschooling because we would like to start college at 14," and that can be done too. So there are there's a lot of flexibility here. Whether you are on a very intense academic track or just an academic track that follows the dreams of your child, your child might be ready for college courses at 14 or 15, you never know, but you can find out when you start to do these things also. Parents are asking, "Will the child be able to go into a college?" Yes, I highly recommend that you research each college that you're looking at beforehand  though. They will have information on what they need from you as a homeschooling parent, which, you know, what do they need as far as transcripts, what do they need as far as examples. And one of the things that you really have an opportunity to do if you choose to homeschool for whatever part of high school is to make your child's high school transcripts, but more along the lines of their application, really stand out. This is where you can find out how your child shines and then when they go to do the college application, they can talk about volunteering and why they chose to do it or whatever it is that made them, you know, unique and find it and use it for that college experience. So let's say we've got this out-of-the-box thinker who wants to do some volunteering. Maybe he chose to do a stand-up routine for a senior retirement home, and on his college entrance, he's going to talk about in his essay what he chose to do to entertain senior citizens during his comedy sketch comedy sketch. And so it can be anything, but think about how out of the box that would put that unique application, and it might be fun for the child also or the student also. This is, like I said, a really good time to think about portfolio development . If you have a child who is in the arts or creative in any way, I say exposure, exposure, exposure, but then let them create and find ways for them to hold on to that and it will all come together and and find the people to help it come together. There are companies and people out there that help students develop their own portfolio for college applications, and this can be done and actually can be fun when you're in high school and you don't have the high school day to go through. You might have the high school curriculum to go through, but you don't have the set time of day because you chose to homeschool, and now you're going to use this time to work on your portfolio pieces a little bit more. And so these are opportunities to keep track of those things. Definitely keep track of everything in high school; it will be important and it will be helpful. There are ways to keep track of those things. Another thing is one-on-one  so you might bring in some of the one-on-one schools. They have great lab facilities or you have a child that really excels in writing and you want them to sit with a writer and an instructor that does well. This can be an opportunity where, you know, it might not be your ability to keep up with them in the sciences, but we can take that and use that with a one-on-one school that can push them and then help them succeed and help manage the science aspect of it, and they have the facilities and the labs to do that too. So it's possible now to look into one-on-one aspects because a lot of them do high school; some do middle school. Dual enrollment  is where a child can a student, I shouldn't call them children anymore because they're headed into college, they can do courses at the local community college without enrolling in the community college and sometimes get dual enrollment credits for it. Now, this is very specific to each college, to each community college and to the courses, and so you're going to want to find out what transfers and what doesn't. So literally there are books out there, and I'll I'll have to take a picture of this; I forgot to write it in the notes, but there are books out there. There are books written on this. This one actually was updated in 2018, so it's not too old. The author of it also has a blog that she does. I know families that have used her suggestions. It's called "Homeschooling for College Credit." They've used her suggestions even if they don't homeschool because what she does is shows how you can incorporate for some of our gifted students, some of our exceptional students, they're ready for a really challenging course. How can you incorporate that and make sure that it counts going forward? So there's literally books written on this topic and good resources for that, so look into dual enrollment or college credits. This is where I would start to bring in career exploration . I work with a company that I use as a tool. It's a great tool called Greenwood, and I use it for some of my clients, some of my high school students. I think it's fantastic, and it's a tool where we look and it gives personality, it does the Myers-Briggs, it does all kinds of values, and then it gives you the top 100 careers based on your child's values and interests and personality and things like that, and then it gives the last 10 careers that they definitely shouldn't be in. Like I had one student that shouldn't be a mortician, but he should go into broadcasting, you know, and so it was kind of funny to sit down with this student and know what we knew from some of the career exploration you can start to do during this time and that you can make space for. What I do with my high schoolers that I set plans for is we we make a plan, we we will do this career exploration tool. We'll sit down and we'll say, "Okay, it looks like you're headed towards animation, computer graphic animation, specifically gaming. Are you interested in virtual reality? Let's find some people who do virtual reality gaming." We are in a spectacular area to start to look for these kind of connections, and this goes back to that little green icon I had about resources. Building on the idea of creating a personalized educational path, high school is the ideal time to focus on career exploration and mentorships. By taking an active role in shaping your child's education, you can foster their unique interests, build on their strengths, and prepare them for a future that aligns with their passions. Key Strategies for High School Career Exploration:  High school is the right time to introduce serious career exploration, generally after age 15. Tools like the Greenwood  platform can help identify career paths that match a student's values and personality. This allows them to "deep dive" into potential careers through mentorships, community college classes, or other hands-on experiences. For example, a student interested in gaming might connect with someone in virtual reality development to see if that path is a good fit. Customizing the Curriculum:  This personalized approach allows for flexibility in the academic schedule. For instance, a student with dysgraphia and high anxiety might take two years to complete Algebra I, if that's what they need to master the material without stress. This is possible when you're not restricted by the standard 50-minute class period. You can focus on quality over quantity  and ensure the student truly understands the material. Entrepreneurship:  Give students time to be "dreamers and thinkers" and to pursue their ideas. This can lead to incredible entrepreneurial ventures. Simple ideas, like a dog-walking business for a student who loves animals, can become a reality when they have the time to pursue them. Addressing Common Concerns Finding a Mentor Finding a mentor to manage all of the different aspects of a personalized education is a common challenge. You can hire an education consultant to help you organize a plan or work with a school that provides a framework for independent study. Additionally, you can find flexible executive functioning coaches  or private assistants to help with organization and scheduling. The Cost of Homeschooling Homeschooling doesn't have to break the bank. Many families work together in pods or co-ops to share the cost of resources or a private teacher. You can also hire college students to tutor or mentor at a much lower cost than a professional. It's about finding creative solutions and building a supportive community. Navigating Public School Transitions Families often wonder about the process of moving between homeschooling and public school. Leaving Public School:  When pulling a child from public school, especially due to trauma or high anxiety, give them time to "de-school" and heal. This period, often a year or two, allows for emotional and social growth that may not have been possible in a traditional setting. Returning to Public School:  It is possible to return to the public school system, but it's important to be prepared. Keep detailed records of your child's academic progress and experiences so you can present a comprehensive picture to the school. Hybrid Models:  Some independent public school programs, like Connections Academy, offer virtual learning options. While a true hybrid model of attending both public and homeschool may not be widely available, the landscape is changing, so it's worth contacting your local school district to discuss potential options. The California High School Proficiency Exam (CHSPE) The CHSPE  is an alternative to a traditional high school diploma for California homeschool students. It allows them to demonstrate their proficiency in high school subjects and can be a good option for students who are ready to move on. However, whether this is a better route than a GED depends on the student's post-high school goals, so it's important to research the specific requirements of any colleges or programs they are interested in. Maintaining a Positive Relationship A good relationship with your child is crucial for a successful homeschooling experience. Partnership:  It's essential to have your child's buy-in. Treat this journey as a partnership, discussing what each person needs to make it work. Flexible Schedule:  A flexible schedule can reduce friction. If a child works better in the evenings, then that's when you do school. Not a Punishment:  Avoid using homeschooling as a form of leverage or punishment. It should be a positive choice you make together to find a better educational fit. What are your main priorities for your child's high school years, and how do you think a personalized path could help you achieve them?

Join Special Education Advocates from Lamborn Advocacy to learn more about supports and services available for Twice-Exceptional students within public school districts. Learn about 504 plans and IEPs and how to push for eligibility even when the district mentions that your student is performing at grade level and is thus not eligible. Learn various support options available under a 504 or IEP. Learn how to work with teams to creatively extend learning beyond grade-level curriculum. And lastly, learn how Advocates can support your journey. Laura Kimpton and Heather Johanson, both with Lamborn Advocacy, have over 20 years of experience in the field of 504 and special education as Teachers and Advocates. Both have worked diligently over the years in securing eligibility and services for Twice-Exceptional clients. View the slides See the transcript here: Yael Valek: For that, you are welcome to ask questions in the chat at any time. Just know that we are recording this part of the session um up through the presentation, and then we will turn off recording for the Q&A at the end in case you want to ask more personal questions. Um, so welcome to the 2e um IEP 504 Support Evening hosted by REEL. My name is Yael Valek, and I'm co-founder of REEL along with Callie Turk. And for those of you who are new to REEL, welcome, and for those of you who have been part of our journey, we're excited to be together with you again. So we're going to start off by defining what is 2e. So 2e, or twice-exceptional children, have exceptional talents, and they experience learning differences such as autism spectrum, ADHD, dyslexia, anxiety, and other things that may interfere—interfere with their learning. And because they don't often fit into the common understanding of IEPs and 504s, they may not be failing their classes. They may be able to compensate. Their profiles are inconsistent and are confusing to educators, so it can be difficult for parents to obtain the services and supports that they need from school. Um, so if we can go to the next slide—okay, sorry, I'm having a technical difficulty. I don't know why it's—what am I doing? Sorry, sorry. This is why—okay, why does it not want to go to the next? Okay, let's try this again. Okay, there we go. Okay, so for those who don't know REEL, we um are working to build bridges for twice-exceptional learners between their educators and their parents. We raise awareness and understanding about two-week kids, and we provide resources to help make school a place where they can be successful. We create two resources and disseminate them to help parents advocate and to help educators understand how to best support chewy learners at school. You can see our website there—reelpalowalter.org. You can sign up to receive newsletters and be part of our support group where we ask each other questions. And if you go one more slide—if it cooperates—uh, REEL just published um this new toolkit about distance learning. We actually had an interview with a bunch of REEL parents uh about what worked and didn't work in distance learning, and we have now created a one-pager as well as some more detailed blog posts that you can share with teachers and educators at various schools. So feel free to share it widely, and we've gotten really good feedback that has been very helpful for them to understand how to support people with distance learning. So what I wanted to say: Parents of chewy kids often find themselves struggling to get the supports and services that their children need because tui children often mask their challenges using their strengths. But this masking can lead to anxiety, low self-esteem, and exhaustion as they work twice as hard to keep up in their challenge areas, and they don't get to showcase their strengths. So Laura Kimpton and Heather Johanson from Lamborn Advocacy are here tonight to speak about the various supports that might be relevant for two-week kids, how to qualify for them, as well as discussing what's happening now with distance learning support. Laura is passionate about helping children receive the education and services they need and deserve. She brings over 20 years of educational experience to the practice as a special education advocate, a special education program supervisor, a teacher for moderate to severe special day class, and an independent homeschool teacher and principal. Having worked on both sides of the table, she's developed strong working relationships with district employees and understands how to brainstorm and collaborate to achieve the best possible outcome for her clients. Heather has over 20 years of experience in K-12 education as a special education advocate, an executive functioning coach, an inclusion specialist, instructional leader of special education, educational specialist, reading specialist, and an elementary school teacher—so she's covered it all. Heather is passionate about creating environments where all learners thrive and continues to provide training in the areas of universal design for learning, dyslexia, inclusion, and supports for students with ADHD and executive functioning struggles. So welcome, Laura and Heather. Heater Johanson: I think we also have to just introduce our founder, Renee, who is also on the call um, who will be here to just kind of help along the way with some extra things. She's got great ideas in our brains. We—we dragged her in. She said she's technically retired, but we're not letting her all the way retire. Perfect. Laura Kimpton: All right, so we just put in an agenda for the meeting just so that you could kind of understand the flow. First, we're going to talk about supports that are available both through 504s and IEPs for 2e students and what curriculum enhancements are possible and what you can ask for in terms of working with the school district to help your child. We are also obviously going to touch on distance learning um because I think that is forefront right now to most parent concerns: What is um school going to look like for their students starting the new year? And then at the end, we'll have like a Q&A session um, so feel free to ask any questions if there's anything um that you would like either further explained or have additional questions about. Heather Johanson: Okay, so kind of our first slide is the presenting concern. So when you have a student with 2e, a lot of the times you hear, "Well, there's—as we talked about earlier—they're coping so well, but where are those kind of popping areas where you could probably bring that to a school team and say, 'Hey, these are the things that are really concerning'?" And they kind of fall under all these categories. So have those social skills—when you're seeing students have a hard time with pragmatics on the playground, during group work, really having a hard time interacting with peers, even with adults. Those emotional needs—anxiety, depression is a big one, and sometimes that usually comes in—that can come in with another piece. Like you might see they have real big executive functioning deficits—hard time staying organized. The homework's done, but it never quite makes it out of a backpack. But then there's that anxiety on top of it. That behavioral challenge piece—impulse control, that like, "Just I'm stuck, and I'm gonna refuse to do this," and you know that they have it in their brain, but for some reason, it's just not coming out in a classroom. And then academic challenges—I think the number one we see for a lot of our 2e kids is writing. Um, that is usually the area of most challenging, but you also see it through reading comprehension, math calculation, and that fluency of being able to do tasks really quickly. And attention—trouble taking notes and that distraction piece and that boredom. Laura, do you have anything to add to that one? Laura Kimpton: Okay, so we we started off just um—you might be in very different places along um the process in terms of getting supports for your child. So the first step that we would always do is to request a Student Study Team. It allows for the beginning of the documentation in terms of what you're agreeing upon in terms of accommodations and supports. It's not um as formal as a 504 or an IEP um, and it has to be worked on every year. Every time you have a new team, you work on an SST again. But it begins a process of the documentation that your child is having struggles. If the child is not able to reach the goals or is still having difficulties, then you would request an eligibility to a 504, and that is also including an assessment. Um, I think lots of people don't know that schools do have to do assessments for—they don't for 504. They can—they don't always. You can get a 504 without assessments um, but a 504 again is reviewed on an annual basis so that um all the team is aware and understanding of what accommodations and struggles that child is facing. And assessment may involve record review or socially distanced in-person assessment. So depending on which district um, some are just doing record reviews for assessments, and that would qualify a child for a 504, or they are doing assessments as well. Um, you don't necessarily need the 504 to have an IEP or two to request an IEP. Again, it depends on the individual struggles of that child. But an IEP is a legal document. It mandates that all staff implement accommodations and services. It also has specific goals, so that the two main differences between a fiber phone and IEP is an IEP has specific goals, and it has direct service, whereas a 504 can be um just accommodations. Caveat: You can also get services for a 504 but um. And so an IEP again is always reviewed on an annual basis. You have to re-qualify a child for an IEP every three years. It's called the tri-annual evaluation. And again, currently during distance learning, those assessments can involve either a records review—which the team would review previous assessments, any other information they have from the district, and to re-qualify that child—or they can opt to do assessments as well. Some are doing them online; some of them are doing socially distanced assessments. It really depends on the district and the team. But that's kind of the um the makeup of different levels of support that you can get in terms of different intensities—so SST to a 504 to an IEP. Renée Lamborn: All right, so I'm going to jump in. Um, Heather and Laura asked me to do the 504 section. So in addition to being a school psychologist and a director of special education, I was also a 504 coordinator in a district for eight years, so I have a lot of familiarity with 504. And I think the best way to explain 504—Section 504, which falls under the Office of Civil Rights—is to think about the continuum. On one side, we have a general education student with no supports. On the other end of the spectrum, we have a student whose disability and struggles have risen to the significant level of being eligible for an IEP, and that falls under IDEA as an IEP. And then in the middle, we have Section 504, and that is a general education support um. So it's run by a separate team than the IEP team. And 504 in general um allows accommodations for students um, but when we get to the last paragraph on the slide, I'll I'll talk a little more about what it's really meant to be. So the eligibility for a 504 is that the student must demonstrate a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities. And there is a long provided list of major life activities, but I've included the learning, concentration, reading, thinking, communicating—that sort of apply more to a public school setting because 504 is broad. It covers wheelchair access, elevators, everything else. But in the public school system, these are the major life activities that typically come up. Um, quite a few years ago, they changed the eligibility um criteria for 504 so that it would be a much wider net and it would capture more individuals, not less. So 504 has a very wide, fairly loose eligibility compared to what is required under special education to receive an IEP. Number two and number three: You can have a record of such impairment. So maybe you have um an outside private diagnosis of ADHD. Or you can be regarded as having such an impairment. So maybe a family chooses not to pursue a formal diagnosis of autism, ADHD, a learning disability, but the school views you as if you have some level of disability. Section 504 requires that the districts provide a free and appropriate public education who meet that eligibility criteria under Section 504. And this last paragraph—if you can put a big star next to it—this is the piece that even school district staff don't understand. And that is that a student who's eligible for a 504 plan, they're entitled to receive regular or special education services and supports. So school districts will tell you um over and over and over that a 504 plan only includes accommodations. And we're going to give you some examples later on. But the the truth of the matter is that students with a 504 plan can also receive special education services. So when I think about my clients, I've had 504 students receive occupational therapy support or speech and language support to address social skills. School districts again will argue that it's just accommodations, and I always show up at meetings with that bottom paragraph to really help enlighten teams that those students really are [Music] are eligible to receive more. And the main difference between the 504 and the IEP is that there's no funding behind a 504 plan. So districts are reluctant to give out direct services um, and if a student needs a lot of direct services, you can bet they're going to move towards that IEP eligibility piece. And on the next slide um, we we included this one. This is another um sort of section that we print and bring to meetings with us, and it's really pertinent to 2e students. Um, we hear a million times—both for 504 and for the IEP—that a student who's passing, who's getting good grades, who's got all C's, who's got all A's cannot possibly be eligible for 504 or an IEP. And I think what is really critical to remember is that it's not about 504 and even an IEP—they're not necessarily just about academics. They're also about social, emotional, and behavioral realm. And the 504 plan doesn't care at all. I think all three of us in the practice have students with straight A's who also have 504 plans because their disability—whatever it is—is impacting one of those major life activities. And I forgot to mention on the last side—the last slide—that even if your student doesn't meet one of those listed major life activities, you just write it in. The lovely thing about 504 is there is another line that says "other," and so we write in things like executive functioning, uh, processing speed—whatever you can dream up that can be a major life activity um—and your student could be eligible for the 504. Um, so this is another one to print out and bring with you. And then on the next slide, what we did is we gathered together some of the general 504 accommodations that all three of us um work hard to get on a 504 plan for students. And it really has to do a lot with both challenging the tui student, minimizing repetitive tasks, and then working with some of that—some of those social, emotional, behavioral sections. So um, you'll see a daily workflow list, check-in/checkout system, lots of executive functioning support. We use technology for a lot of writing assignments, including writing software, writing templates—lots of different things to help that writing process. Behaviorally, we really work with teachers and teams around avoiding those power struggles that can come up um—where can a child go to privately calm down, things like that. During group work, we do a lot of support where the teacher and/or another adult in the class is really facilitating the group that the tui student is part of if that's a real struggle. We do a lot of work with teams around challenging activities and tasks. So many of our t2e students can whip through an assignment—they're done in three minutes—and then there's another 20 minutes left to work on the assignment. So we set up a whole basket or online access to more challenging activities for them. Um, and then we often allow different ways for them to move throughout the classroom—stand while they're working, whatever they need in terms of movement. So that's kind of a broad overview of a lot of the accommodations we typically will do for two students. Laura Kimpton: Um, so this—we're beginning now to move away from the 504s and talk more about IEPs. There are 13 different eligibility criterias for for a student to qualify for an IEP. Um, when it comes to twice-exceptional students, these are the five that we see most often. Now that doesn't mean we don't see the other ones at all, but SLD is specific learning disability, and that really is what—if a child has dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia—that is what is the term used by districts. It's just is considered a specific learning disability. There's also OHI, which can be ADHD, it can be anxiety, it can be depression—it's any other health impairment that is impacting that student's ability to access the curriculum. Autism—again, um, you know, that that might be impacting them with pragmatic language; it might be impacting them with communication, um, executive function. Um, so that's another eligibility criteria. Speech language impairment—um, again, that's that could also be the pragmatic language. It doesn't necessarily mean just articulation; it could be pragmatic language—some of those social language skills that that child might be lacking, which does impede their ability to learn in the classroom. And then emotional disturbance, which is a—this can be the anxiety and disturb—and depression is normally more at a heightened level by the time that it gets to emotional disturbance um, but that would also mean that you would ask for a lot of other services in terms of counseling, mental health issues as well. So those are the five most common um eligibility criterias that we see for for two-week students. Renée Lamborn: And Laura, really quickly, if I can just jump into—I think the different—the main difference between the 504 and the IEP is the degree of the challenge um—how significant is the disability impacting the child's ability to access their education. So I think that really helps distinguish the two. Heather Johanson: So this next slide kind of says, "Okay, well, you—the district—you've gone through that process, the assessment process, and yes, they do qualify. So what would that even look like for for your student?" So one, they would have all those accommodations that we talked about earlier, and then there would be direct services. And here's sort of a list of direct services you could potentially expect on an IEP. So counseling services—a lot of the times these are called educationally related mental health services or services, but they would have a therapist on campus. They would check in with um speech and language. A lot of times this is around like social skills, pragmatic language. Some schools even have social cog programs where they're really working on those specific social skills that students need to really be successful. Behavioral support—and this would be you know having a behavior plan in place for that kid that's really struggling for just that um overall ability to stay in a classroom or like regulate in a classroom. Occupational therapy—you would usually see this a little bit more for the younger guys, but I have seen it for the high school guys. Kind of remember on that finding gross motor. Assistive tech—assistive technology is a really big piece, obviously more so than ever now um, but there's some amazing programs out there that can really help take that load off students and help them be very successful. Um, executive functioning supports—it's kind of like, as we know, that prefrontal cortex on their—our neurotypical brain takes a long time to grow in. But then when we're dealing with a student that has those kind of executive functioning deficits, they're really almost sometimes two years behind, and they're being asked to you know seven to six different operating systems, and that's really tough. So having somebody to support them with that. And then the good old specialized academic instruction—or SAI as it's called in the IEP world—and this is where you get that pinpointed support on math, reading, and writing. Laura Kimpton: Um, so this slide is really um—it kind of encapsulates some of the things that we have been able to request through IEPs for 2e students. Um, you know, lots of times as well—just you know my the students getting C's or B's in the class, so it seems to be fine. Um, I've also worked with lots of students who do the bare minimum because they're just so bored at school. Um, the curriculum isn't enthralling or difficult for them, so they just get very bored. So these are some of the things that we have been able to get districts to do. One of them is obviously participation in the district gifted program. The other one is really to differentiate the instruction. Again, an IEP is supposed to be an individualized education plan, so a lot of this is accommodating the content, the product, the learning environment—thinking of different ways for that student to show knowledge. So maybe rather than doing 25 math problems, they can create something. They they can create a model; they could do something that they find more intrinsically interesting than just pen-on-paper work. So that leads into project-based learning, where they can take their knowledge and demonstrate it in other ways. Sometimes just getting them intrigued and learning about something and excited about being able to do it in a different way is enough to to keep their interest. Also that for them to work on high-grade-level curriculum. Again, this doesn't have to be cross-curriculum. So let's say we have a student who is just exceptional at math—we can get it so that student can work at a higher grade level for math, maybe not necessarily for English or reading, but just to continually keep their interest peaked with school. Again, placement in higher-level grades. Um, I know it sounds a lot like the curriculum, but I've had students who—let's say they've been in the middle school—they actually go to the high school for math classes or for different classes um to allow them that participation in the class with still general education peers, but they might be older, but they're at their level intellectually. So it's just stimulating their learning. Um, it's making them feel like they can have that conversation with peers or be older just to stimulate their intellectual growth as well. Um, test out a class prerequisite. So this is really more for the high school students where we've run into a lot where the districts say, "Before they can take Algebra 2 or calculus, they have to do these these other classes." And I've worked with district to say, "Give them a—give them a test—whether it be the final from last year or something—to let them demonstrate that they have the foundational knowledge that they need in order to be successful in this class." Um, again, this is—it's kind of like advanced placement classes. Um, again, sometimes there's lots of prerequisites before you can take AP classes, but we have worked with with districts to allow tui students in those classes as well. As choice of topics—sometimes students, tui students, really have an interest in a specific topic um to the point where they probably know more than some of the people that are teaching those classes. Um, but to really allow them the independence to hone in on that knowledge and to hone in on those skills and again to do something that is of interest to them. Um, and rather than making them do um you know what might be basic knowledge in terms of in terms of their area of expertise, but to really be able to develop that knowledge and to develop that interest so that they're not getting bored and they're not losing their interest in learning. Heather Johanson: Okay, so moving on to where we are right now in distance learning. I know we're kind of all in this one together. Um, so basically how it's where we are right now: So if your county is on the watch list, you're going to start with this district learning, and if you're in the Bay Area, we're all on that watch list. Once we're off for 14 consecutive days, school can start offering to bring back students. So just to make it um—so that's kind of like the next step. Um, it will close—like, so let's say everybody's back, and that there starts to be cases are popping up. When at least five percent of the student body and staff are diagnosed with coping, everything closes down for 14 days. Um, and basically if a quarter of a school has been like been—has the that diagnosis, then the basically the district will shut for two weeks. Those pieces—I think is something to keep in the back your mind just as I'm sitting in IEPs and listening to all these pieces and talking to different directors. I think it's really those first two pieces where we need to focus right now is the idea that for the for the foreseeable future, we are going to be distance learning. Um, so kind of we got a little dicey in March. We weren't sure what was going to happen with IDEA and our current um presidential group up there. Um, Betsy Devos was kind of going back and forth about, "Should we just put IDEA on pause during this time?" And luckily, that did not happen. IDEA is there; it's not on pi—on pause. And FAPE is still free and appropriate public education, and the LRE is still very much a part of what drives 504 and IEP at this point. So that is still there. Here's what—what does that mean though? What does that actually mean? So basically, student—schools still need to provide the services that are provided in a 504—accommodations and services that are provided in a five and four—to the best of their ability. There's that statement right—"best of their ability." What does that exactly mean? That is not a concrete term, and it's quite gray. But kind of like basically what's guiding us is the best interest for individual students—not the system—should guide how this goes. Um, parents and recipients of services must be informed of any changes that are going on. I'm sure some of you that have IEPs for your students right now have gotten something called a PWN or prior written notice. It kind of tells you, "Hey, we're distance learning. Here's what you can expect." And services that were typically in person now need to be provided through alternative methods. So here's the word—I think—requiring creative and innovative approaches. And we're going to talk a little bit more about creative and innovative approaches in distance learning and what that's going to mean. So going forward, it's kind of like, "What can I do?" Laura Kimpton: So we kind of made this as a visual of of how we're working with districts. Um, again, this is all new; there's no real solid road maps. Um, so a lot of it is collaborating with the teams, communicating with them, and accommodating—asking for specific accommodations. We're going into each of these sections after this slide, but this really is a continuum of what we are doing right now in terms of working with districts. It's really the most positive way in order to get supports and help for your student. So um, this is in terms of collaborating with it with the staff. This is the first step is um if you don't have one, you can request an SST meeting, a 504 meeting, or an IEP team meeting. You can—if you don't have anything established formally for your child, you can request for any one of those things depending again on the the situation of your child. Um, I think it's really important to approach team with a positive and creative mind frame right now. I—I've um—I've been in a few situations when parents have contacted me because they've been in touch with the district and has demanded that their child go to school and have to be there physically. And I think part of the part of the misunderstanding is that districts are choosing to do this. And I think that's the important thing is—I most districts would much rather be teaching their students in a classroom right now. So um, I think to work with them in terms of, "What can we do during this time?" is better than making demands that they won't be able to fulfill. Um, I think again if it falls into the next one, which is retaining the insight into school district limitations—they can't open up a classroom for your child. Um, they're not allowed to. It's it's not as simple as just, "I'm going to have one teacher in school for that one child." That it's a—the system is much bigger than that. Um, I think it's important to try and quiet the emotions. We all feel the frustrations; we all feel the anxiety right now of not being able to live the life that we that we're used to or that your child has been used in terms of going to school. So I think it's really important for parents to think outside of the box. And what I always tell parents is, "You know your child better than anybody else, so be as inventive as you possibly can in terms of what you think really helps your child to learn." Um, so if it's that your child is good for 10 minutes and then needs a break, if it's that your child is much better with pen and paper than on the computer, if it's that your child is better in the afternoons than the morning—um, any any specifics that you can think of that somebody at the district might not know about your child is the ideal. And then I always say to gather the data regarding that. So take the data of your child—which I know seems very very foreign—um, but if you're having a really hard time getting your child to focus for a long time, take take data on how long your child is able to focus for—whether it's five minutes or eight minutes—so that you have some very hard data to share with the school team. I know as a parent myself, it's very easy for the emotional part—which is you know, "My daughter's very sad; she's very anxious"—but that hard data is is indisputable. Um, and that's really how you can get the additional supports that your child would need. Um, I kind of cover the next one in terms of the creative solutions. So specific accommodations your child needs—let them know prior to the meeting. Again, this is uncharted territory. Districts and case managers and teachers and and service providers have never been in this position either, so give them that information of what you're going to ask for before the meeting so that they can discuss it and so that they can try and think of ways to make it work for your child. Um, because it's the beginning of the year, I always always recommend to parents that if your child is old enough, have your child write a letter. If not, you write for a letter on your child's behalf—really and including a picture—really explaining to them who your child is. Um, you know, what their strengths are, what their interests are, what their challenges are. It's really difficult—and having been a teacher myself—you get an IEP; you get a piece of paper that's supposed to explain a child to you, and it's it it doesn't do your child justice. So if you can just before the beginning of the school year, you know, send teachers the latter explaining your child as you know them and say, "You know, since distance learning in the spring, this is what I have learned. This is what I have noticed. This is what works; this is what doesn't." Um, you'll find that teachers are very very receptive to that information. Um, and then the next one is just if you feel like you're not being heard, if you feel like your requests for your child aren't being listened to, follow the hierarchical chain of command. I have lots of parents who jump straight to calling the superintendent or calling this the director of special education, and I think that's really difficult for a team. They they really want to have a chance to do well and to do right, and if they're not, follow that hierarchical chain of command—which is the teacher. At the high school level, it can be the um the lead teacher for that department, then the principal, a program specialist, director of special education. You know, your every district has a little bit of a different um chain of command, but follow that as far as you need to. Um, but just don't jump to the highest level. I think that that that just naturally puts human beings on the defensive, which is not how you want to come across to a team. It just doesn't build the best relationships right from the beginning. Um, so those are just some of our methods that we use for working with districts. Um, I'm not saying that all of this works all the time, but this is just kind of a good good starting point for for starting the conversation. Heather Johanson: And I just had a little brain wave or sitting there in this very digital world we're living in—if your kid hates the idea of writing—writing anything makes them unhappy even to watch you write it—maybe have them do a little video of themselves and then send that along to your to your teacher for that year—especially if they're younger. I mean, that would give them such a nice idea of who this kiddo is and really having them talk about—when they hear when a teacher hears from a student, "This is what's really hard for me, and this is how you can help me"—boom. As I used to tell my high school students, "We teachers are suckers. The second you get a little vulnerable with us and tell us what you need, we're just we're gonna be putting in your hands." And that's a pretty good way to go about doing it. Um, okay, so for distance learning—our new reality—what are some ways we can work and give some accommodations? So kind of that that top one is for for our kids with social skills challenges. Um, that kind of online—like if they do have an IEP, getting though getting for sure getting into a group—I think is really key. So really pushing those pragmatic social groups would be great. Targeted skills during the distance learning—having that speech and language pathologist kind of really working with those general education teachers, getting that data back—what's hard? Has it been hard for them to go out into those group chats? Is a stuff a social story I should be writing with them so they can understand the process of this? Um, and then also just that speech and language pathologist really working with you as a family and giving you some tips on ways that you can support your student while we're away. Laura Kimpton: In terms of if your child has a specific learning disability, um, technology really helps. There's so much technology out there in terms of text predictive software, speech predictive software. There are some students who don't want to do anything on technology, and so you can ask for accommodations regarding that. Again, they accommodated over differentiated assignments—they don't necessarily have to do 25 of the same math problems if they can show demonstrate mastery after doing 5 or 10. That's all they need to do. Again, screen-free or email work. I have quite a few clients who really don't do well on on the computer, so the teachers are dropping off their packets at the house on Monday and then picking them up on Friday so that they don't have to be on on a screen all day. And then a little bit like I talked about before, which is um adjusting the time. Again, know know when your child works best, when they don't. Um, you know, again, just anything that you can think of that help your child, you can ask for. Heather Johanson And then the good old executive functioning one. Um, this one is—take executive functioning skills and let's just make it real tough, and that's kind of online learning for the for a lot of these kids. Um, one thing that's really been helping a lot of my clients is getting that check-in and checkout at the end of the day. And that can be with their case manager; that can be with an aide; that can be with kind of a person that's really going to help them plan their day, get in a nice linear fashion on a list, and then they have that person kind of checking in out with them at the end of the day—like, "How to go?" And then troubleshooting, doing that metacognition—like, "What got in the way? How can we change that for tomorrow?" And just having somebody help them make that daily workflow list and help them advocate for themselves with those teachers too—saying, "Hey, the writing assignment where I'm supposed to read that 20 pages and then write this paragraph—that's going to be really tough for me. Could I listen to it and then could I've used bullet points so you know what I'm thinking?" Um, and then just breaking those assignments into smaller chunks. So kind of every teacher is kind of in a different place, and they're learning how to use this technology, learning how to deliver instruction. Like it just—I actually had coffee with a good friend of mine. We used to co-teach world history together, and we were both sort of lamenting the loss of that classroom. Like, he is brilliant in a classroom, right? He's like, "Because he just feeds off his kids." He's like, "I just don't even know what to do. These kids are so frustrated, and I had no idea." So this—they're losing so much of that queuing they can get when they have those kids in a classroom. So just kind of once again, that communication piece is really really important. They're not going to pick up on things in exactly the same way because their environment is also totally different. So just kind of making sure that the advocacy piece for you as parents—I know it's tough—but just saying, "Hey, they're really struggling to get this done. We're going to break this into smaller pieces. Friday probably won't work, but we could probably have it into you by Wednesday"—type of thing. Laura Kimpton: If your students with ADHD, one of the things that does help is streamlined assignments in terms of making it very specific what's due when. Um, and rather than it—it flows into a little bit what was said before in terms of breaking assignments into smaller chunks. Um, you know, if they're getting an assignment that it just seems so arduous that they can't focus on it, just break it into specific assignments. Um, again, back what I was saying before with the frequent breaks. Students with attentional difficulties—this is tough learning at home for them. Um, you know, there's not as much um natural breaks. They don't get to go and run off on the playground with their friends and run around for half an hour, so make sure that in their schedule is our breaks. Um, and whether it's they can go for a walk around the neighborhood or they do 10 push-ups just to get that physical energy exerted. Um, again, the ability to move around. I I know that some teachers are much more flexible with this, but again, it is something that if your child needs, they can actually absolutely access. Um, they don't have to be sitting down; they don't have to have two feet on the floor; they don't have to be facing forward. They can move as they need to. Um, and again, if your child has any OT or sensory needs, you can request all those things. So if your child uses manipulatives at school or has a seat, any of those things, you can request from the school. They have a right to have those accommodations for them at home as well. Um, and then you know the flexible due dates. Um, this is on you—it's all going to be different. If your child isn't available to get everything done, um, again, with the higher grades, if they've got five assignments for five different classes due on the same time, let's break those up. Let's make it easier and more manageable for them. Heather Johanson: And then for the anxiety and depression piece—and I know this is rev and hard for a lot of kids right now—this is as hard as it's been on us moms, I think it's been very hard on them in a different way. And they will show it sometimes in a different way—kind of through that anxiety, depression, or some of that behavioral stuff underneath. But just some ideas that has worked that have worked for some of our clients is that camera. For kids with that anxiety piece, it is quite the push button, and I know every district kind of has a different policy right now—like, "Well, it can be off; it can't be off; it has to be on." That would be a really important accommodation for a student that really has a lot of anxiety about being on camera. Um, they're going to be doing a lot of breakout groups, so just—just like in a classroom, the idea is that the teachers being thoughtful about who is in this group—is are these people are going to be triggering? Are they going to be supportive? So that that same idea. Um, presentations will probably still be a part of our world, and just that good gold accommodation of one-on-one presentation with a teacher versus having to do it in front of a whole group. And then daily check-ins with a therapist or case manager—just, "How are you doing? Where's your levels? What coping mechanisms are we using?" All of that kind of stuff would be really important right now. Laura Kimpton: And then you know regarding behavior, I think that's one of the areas where there has been such a change because now the behavior is in the home. So rather than the school having to accommodate or help support the behaviors that the student demonstrates in a school environment, they're now having to adjust that for home learning. So really make sure that your behaviorist is involved in terms of what any of the challenges that you're facing in the home. Um, I think to have the behavior is to even push into some of the classes so that they can see what the difficulties are for your child online. Um, and then for the behaviors to work with you. Um, so for them to give you some ideas of of what you can do um to incentivize a program for them where if they work for this, they get this. And most of the time, students are working for things like you know time more than computers or movie time or anything that your child likes can be used as an incentive. Um, but to really call in that behavior support and now that they're in the home um and to really if your child has a BIP or a behavior plan to really start fine-tuning that to meet the needs in the home environment. Heather Johanson: That's been my number one meeting these last couple weeks is my the students that have that BIP and kind of redefining it for that home environment and what supports they can bring in and how they can help structure all that. Okay, group—there we go. You're up. Renée Lampton: So Yael and Kelly asked us to add a slide about sort of how—how do families know when they need to rise to the level of hiring an advocate? Um, and you know, we really support families at every step. We have families come to us and say, "I'd like to get a 504 plan. I'd like to get accommodations in place, and help me line that up so I have the best shot." We have—we also on the other end—I have failed at every single attempt I've made; now I need you to step in and and help advocate for my child. Um, the word "advocate" often has some pretty negative connotations. Um, some advocates are viewed as confrontational and angry and rude. Um, in in our practice, we are absolutely none of those things. Um, we have really great positive working relationships with team based on the amount of amount of experience that we've all had in the school districts. Um, we offer—in particular, and I think other advocates do as well—both behind-the-scenes support. We can set you up; we can give you the strongest argument; we can help you line up data, and then you go into the meeting on your own. And then we have other families who say, "You know, I'm a mom; I'm too emotional; I can't do it. Can you come with me?" And then we will sit in that meeting with you and work with the team um to to bring about some positive changes. Um, if you're thinking about hiring an advocate, there are no licenses; there are no requirements at all for advocates. So any person out there can hang a shingle and call themselves an advocate. So what we always encourage families to do is think about um does the advocate—has the advocate actually worked in the public school system so that they know the breadth and depth of what's available and how to work with teams and access those supports and services? A number of years working as an advocate—again, experience within the public school. And then also, it's really really critical to think about personality and style. What kind of person do you want to bring into a meeting with you to sit at that table to work with your team? Um, so I think those are the highlights that that we think about. Heather Johanson: So now it's your turn. We've done a lot of talking at all of you with a lot of information. Um, so questions? Yael Valek: I think we're gonna turn off the recording at this point so that people can ask personal questions.