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[Music] Uh today we are joined by my fellow board members, President Scott Schmurlson and Vice President Dr. Rosio Rivas. And I'll give them an opportunity to introduce themselves further down in the agenda.
But today we are joined um I'm sorry our goal for this committee is to make this a co-thinking space where together we can uplift the needs of our students in special education but also come up with solutions on how we can improve the way
that we serve our students. I invite all of our committee members to share their ideas and their experiences with special education. I invite parents to share their concerns and students needs and I invite our educators and
paraprofessionals to share any recommendations they have about how the district can better prepare and support you in the classroom. Uh before I go on, I want to acknowledge that September is National
Deaf Awareness Month. This is a time to shine a light on the issues that the deaf community faces while also honoring the richness of their culture. Most importantly, it is a reminder of our shared responsibility to deepen public understanding to build true social
inclusion and to ensure that communication access is a right for all. Similarly, I also want to recognize that September 23rd is recognized as International Day of Sign Language by the United Nations. The resolution
adopted by the United Nations General Assembly states that early access to sign language and services in sign languages, including quality education available in sign language is vital to the growth and development of the deaf
individual. Here at LUSD, we continue to work on promoting awareness and improving education opportunities for those deaf and heart of hearing students. We currently serve approximately 1,700 students districtwide serve through the deaf education
program. As part of the resolution, restructure deaf and heart of hearing education, elevate language equity, eliminate bias in deaf education, and improve educational outcomes, which the board passed in 2020. The district has now identified the deaf education
department is part of DSSE instruction team to ensure our students with varied hearing levels are receiving an intentional and meaningful instructional program. The district also continues to provide ongoing training opportunities
to DR district staff to deepen their understanding of our program offerings and of deaf education as a whole. Additionally, the district regularly meets with the deaf education HR advisory committee consisting of LUSD educators, representatives of HR and
personnel commission and community members to identify ways to bolster the recruitment, training, and retention of educators for our deaf education programs. As a district, we'll continue to work on addressing the needs of our deaf community. Please contact connect
with the de educa deaf education office for additional guidance and resources and we will allow some uh some speaking on this um if anybody would like to add anything. But now to move us to what we have on our agenda this afternoon. Uh
last school year we ended our last committee meeting discussing the division of special education's listen and learn campaign report which summarized the key findings highlighted successes challenges and opportunities for how LUSD can support students with
disabilities. And today we are revisiting the listen and learn campaign with a specific lens into parent learning opportunities and educator training that will be offered this school year. Your questions and input will be part of recommendations we will
make to the district and the division of special education. So we had a few premeings just to let the audience know. uh we had one premeating I should say with our committee members and I was so impressed by their breath of experience and
knowledge. I am so looking forward to working with you all this year. Now I'd like to open the floor to our committee members to introduce themselves and also my board member colleagues. And as we know in special education and just
throughout um all of our students are unique learners and so are each of you in this committee. So what is something unique and specific that you bring to this committee? That is the grounding question as we're centering ourselves in
the work that we're going to do for the next hour or hour and a half. what is something unique and specific that you bring to this committee? So, if you can introduce yourself, your name um the role that you play um in your life
um in your role here in this committee as a parent, an educator, uh an advocate, whatever role you play, and then if you can share with us something unique and specific that you bring to this committee. Um I can start. My name
is Carla. Uh I'm currently the school board member for board district 5, but I've been a special education teacher for 20 years. I've taught little ones, three year olds all the way up to 22 year olds. And so I think the unique um
offering and very specific offering is my experience not only as a classroom teacher but also outside of the classroom. And so, um, and also as a parent, I've been able to, um, understand what it's like to be a
teacher in a special day program, what it's like to be a teacher in the resource specialist program, what it's like to teach, uh, uh, little ones, three-year-olds in the in the preschool, and also students in the options programs. And so, um, I think that
that's what I'm bringing to this committee. And then also of of course the fact that I am the schoolboard member, I also bring this voice to other spaces that have uh the power to make decisions about how we do special
education in this district. So I'm going to hand it off to my left to my colleague Scott Merlson. >> Thank you. Thank you Carla. Uh former chair I'm Scott Merlson, board member board district three in the San Frernando Valley. former chair of the
special ed committee, um, previous teacher, counselor, assistant principal, and principal. And what I bring to this committee is my knowledge of how special ed works in the school. And it was always my job to make sure that our
special education students and their teacher and their aids in the classroom always got a fair shake so that our kids got a fair education and that people followed the IEP. That was the most important thing, especially when children were put in u mainstream
classes. Make sure that teacher knew that they had an IEP for that student and it was just not in the drawer in the classroom. It was actually an active live document. And that's my goal. Thank you. Rosio.
>> Hello everyone. I'm Dr. Rosio Rivas. He she aa pronouns. Um, I'm a board member for board district 2, which encompasses east side, east LA, Boil Heights, all the way to northeast LA, Highland Park,
Cypress Park, uh, downtown LA, um, just to name a few of the communities that I that I serve. Um, you know, my professional uh, background is in education research and program analyst. I'm a policy analyst. Um and so I bring
that perspective in ter in terms of you know um critical eye and analysis of policies but above all um my unique experiences as a parent. I also was a a community representative of one of my schools and I have had a lot of
interaction with with parents and um speaking with them and and understanding parents with students with special needs and disabilities um knowing their concerns. And so as a board member with both my perspective as a parent um and
also as a researcher um I bring different perspectives into into this into my work and particularly to this to this committee. Good afternoon everybody. Jose Sto, a proud executive director of special education, starting my third year in
this role. Um, the question was, what is something unique and specific you bring to the committee? Um, I'm I'm proud to say that I started serving our students in special ed uh at 18 years old at a special education assistant. Um, so I served in that capacity and then I was a
special education teacher for 13 years. I worked at a special ed center and then a comprehensive high school. O have had both experiences at a special ed center and a comprehensive school. And then I had various roles within the division of special education that included program specialist, behavior specialist. I was
able to lead region south as their special education administrator for a number of years. And then I served as a school principal and was able to support our students with disabilities from that from that lens as well. Um I'm proud to to serve in this position. Um I'm also a father of two students with
disabilities. My son is a student that's been identified as or has autism and my daughter has ADHD. So being on both sides of the table as a as an educator and as a parent at IEP meetings has really given me a unique perspective that I that I lead in my work or I bring
as I lead in this work. So again, happy to be part of this committee and and proud proud to serve in the executive uh director role and I'm excited to see what comes out of our spec committee meetings this year. Good afternoon. I'm Alicia Hos. I'm the administrator of instruction for the
division of special education. This is my fourth year in the role. Prior to that, um I'm a proud Lisdy graduate. I did my entire educational program here in LA USD and I'm very very proud of that. Um I also have served uh since I started working in multiple roles within
special education in Los Angeles Unified as a teacher um and then in varying support roles like Dr. Sodel mentioned. I was a program specialist. I was a least restrictive environment specialist. I was the special education administrator when we had region or local district northeast and now I am
proud to serve in this role um and on this committee. Another hat that I wear is that I'm also the co-director for state sulpa. And I think that that's an important role that I play and that affords us a really great opportunity for us to see what current trends and practices are in districts across the
state of California. And it also allows for advocacy across the state of California um in our joint efforts. So we have amazing partners in other places. Everybody comes to me and says, "How in the world are you doing this in LUSD because you're so far ahead of everybody else?" Um, I'm very proud of
that, but I know that we have work to do and I'm excited to see how as a committee we can support that work to move it forward. Thank you. >> Wonderful. Why don't we move to this site here with Robia? Press the button. Sorry.
>> Hi there. Um, >> okay. Um, my name is Robia Malik and I am the daughter of an LUSD teacher. Um, I am a parent of a special needs child. I am um a physician uh and I have a deep
understanding of um health care policy and design. I'm the chair of a special needs network for parents. Um and I believe I bring a a unique clinical understanding um of both developmental and medical
conditions that might affect behavior and learning. Um, and I think that can help this committee understand more holistically how to support a student and how to support parents. >> Thank you. >> And Amy,
>> you already know my name. >> I am Amy Burgos. I am a deaf education itinerate teacher and I am here to provide support for the deaf education program and I work with the transition
from an early childhood special education the babies to our schoolbased um and I also do uh support the new deped program department with operation
supports I do a lot of things Um, what makes me unique in this is I've been doing work in deaf education my whole life, but officially for about 30 years. I am deaf and I did not get services or
support growing up. So, I can relate to those students who don't get the supports that they need in order to succeed with language, academics, social, mental health. So I bring a lot of my own personal
experiences here as well as my professional ones and I was also a very um involved person in that resolution that you mentioned Carla and I am very committed to make sure that it's implemented
that resolution is implemented so we can elevate language equity eliminate bias and deaf education and improve the educational outcomes of our very diverse deaf students. >> Thank you. >> Thank you.
>> Hi, my name is Marcia Scott. I'm on this committee serving as a labor partner for CSEA representing the clerical staff members that support the families and the students with their IEPs. Um that's what brought me to the district and in
that role I learned that the better we support families, the better we support students. as as we're teaching the children things, those things need to be translated to the parents. The more we reinforce the skills we're teaching them and the parents teach them the same
things, they get better more quickly. So I think the unique perspective that I bring to this committee is a perspective of advocacy for parents because in working with those parents and them being pressured to sign things when they're just coming to a realizations or
knowledge that they didn't have sometimes our goals to get things done quickly doesn't take into consideration the human pers humanity that's involved in uh representing those parents. So my unique perspective or the thing that I
bring to this committee is that advocacy for the students and for the parents. >> Thank you. Hello, my name is Sharita Rogers. I'm an ant itinerate uh in I'm itinerate um in
inclusion facilitator for the district uh K through 12. I al also support the IAP program as an instructor. So I also support in um helping teachers clear their credentials for the district. I hold multiple uh credentials. So I hold
my um my secondary English, my mod, my mod severe and my RLA. I'm also working towards my admin and I'm working towards national boards. So I have a lots of things going on. But my perspective that
I hold for the district is because I'm my itinerant, I get to sit in a lot of classrooms and I get to see a lot of ways that teachers are working. I have a lot of conversations with teachers, with um support providers, with admin, and we're all looking um for the best way to
support our students, especially the ones with the most impaction to education. And my biggest belief is that all children can learn and they all deserve a quality education. >> Wonderful. Thank you. We're going to move to the back
with >> I'll go ahead and start. Hello everybody. Um my name is Mary Kellogg. I'm an associate general counsel um in the office of general counsel for LUSD. I'm here today on behalf of our deputy general counsel Denine Cox who was
unable to make it. Um, but both Denine and I um have dedicated our careers to advising school districts about their obligations under the IDA and related California special education law and it's been an honor to do so and I know I
speak on behalf of Denine um who would express the same emotion. >> Hello, I'm Mariel Graales. I am a teacher. >> Sorry. Hello, I am Ariel Graales. I'm an educator at Roosevelt High School. I've
been there 24 years. I been part of three different programs, IDM, um what it's called today. I've been part of the SDC program and now I am in the general ed classes supporting both SDC and RSB
students. Um, and I'm here to um I bring um all all these years of practice. I bring what's happening in the classrooms. Um, and so that's the unique thing that I bring to the table.
[Music] And through my experience, I've learned the importance of working together as families. I've participated in different school committees and district-wide ones with the purpose of supporting families and parents of special education. For
me, language is not a barrier when it's about supporting our children. To quite the contrary, our differences enrich this community work. I feel honored to be a part of this committee and my commitment is to
keep representing our families hearing their concerns and make sure that all the results benefit all children of special education. Thank you. >> Good afternoon. My name is Tama Davis. I am currently
a um PSA counselor for LUSD. Uh, I have worked in the deaf community for about 30 years. I was a sign language interpreter. Um, I hold an AA in, uh, ASL English translation. Um, I have a BA
in deaf studies. Um, I went back into the classroom after raising my kids for about 10 years and I've been through various programs and things throughout as far as students in mainstream situations, special day classes, and I'm
currently at Marlton. I've been there for about 10 almost 10 and a half years. I am the only signing PSA in um, LA USD. Um what's unique about me, I'm also an MSW
and so my focus is definitely the whole child. Um the family um providing as much psycho education to families. Um providing resources for families, making connections outside. Um, every now and
then I can do my attendance work, but there seems to be a very strong need for just uh supporting families and and being that advocate that they so um strongly deserve. Thank you. >> Thank you.
>> Maria, >> hello. My name is Maria if Sanchez and I too am in Molton. I'm a mother and I am fighting for those that have are hard of hearing and I want to support this committee because there are
parents who are a bit confused about the IEP process. We need workshops and orientations to support these parents and fight for each one of these children's that aren't just hard of hearing but have other difficulties
and more and are going through hard times. And we want the schools to have that benefit and opportunity for every child and parent to learn how to be able to advocate for our students and
our parents so they can be more involved with their children of this education because I have seen these past four years of my child who's hard of hearing. It was hard for me to find a school to
learn myself this language, but thank you to the teachers who helped my son, I've been able to
benefit 75%. Thank you. >> Hi, good afternoon. My name is Brenda Deierro and what I bring to this committee is the parent perspective. Um, I've navigated the IEP process with my own son who is both gifted and has special needs. Um, and I've seen how
different the experience can be depending on the support the school has and the support the teacher has. I've also s um served as the PTA president which allows me to hear directly from families who don't always feel comfortable speaking up. Um, for as long as I can remember, I've been a huge
advocate for public education. And so I'm a huge supporter of LA USD, but I'm also not a yes person. So I'm going to be very honest with what I've experienced and what other parents have experienced. So my role here is to br to be that bridge to make sure that parents
feel truly heard and what and that what looks good on paper actually translates into real support for our students and teachers because often enough my son is in general ed. teachers don't have that support because they're not equipped for
students who are neurode divergent like my son and so he's always been labeled as a bad student and for that that's not okay for our students to be they need the support teachers need the support and that's what I want here today for all our students to have that support
and to be seen. Thank you. >> Hello. Good afternoon. My name is Christina Martinez. I'm a special education pair professional. I work in the RSP. Um I help students out in in gened classrooms mainly inclusion kids
with IEP. And I feel the uniqueness that I bring is that I um can be a voice for many of the u special educselves are not aware of these resources. So it's it will it's nice that we can or at least we have the opportunity to give
our voice in how can we you know help the students help the parents and be that mediator between the teachers because some you know like somebody mentioned earlier some of the teachers gen teachers expect these kids to do very high but we know the limitations
that they have so we we're the mediators between the teachers and the students because some st students don't want to say anything and rather just take you know the low grade but you know I feel like giving the insight we can communicate with teachers and explain
hey how about we do these you know so I think that that's the uniqueness that I can bring hello my name is Kenya Maria Pineda I use they and them pronouns I am a very proud product of LA USD K through 12 I am the daughter of an LUSD special
educator and I am a resource specialist teacher at a middle school with three magnet programs. Um, I bring the perspective of an educator who works with students with diverse needs, which constantly requires me to adapt instruction, advocate for supports, and
collaborate with teachers, families, specialists, school members. Um, I'm deeply committed to building trusting relationships with the families and the broader community at my school site. Um, and I do truly believe that when families feel valued, then students can
thrive. I hope to use this lens to be able to strengthen the communication and connections between the district, the families, the students, and our schools. >> Wow. All right. Did we get everyone? And then there's other folks in the back who
are staff members uh from our offices, so they're in there as well. And um but thank you all. Oh my god, what amazing folks we have here who have so much experience, personal experience, professional experience. And I think
that is all very valuable because that is what we need, right? In order to do things right, we need to hear from folks who are practitioners and who are experiencing what we are putting out there. So, I'm very excited to have all
of you here with your ideas and um and looking forward to what we build together. Um so, today we're going to hear from the Division of Special Education and to our committee members, we will have pauses between the presentation for questions and answers.
So, please jot down your thoughts as you are listening so that you can uh be ready to ask some questions when they come up. Um, but I want to thank the division of special education and the board secretariates office for helping produce these wonderful presentations
right here that you all have, all the materials and getting them out to folks. I want to thank our translating uh services for uh providing translation today. And I'd like to go ahead and invite Alicia Hos, our administrator of
instruction, division of special education. All right, good afternoon. I really want to start by thanking board member Grigo for your question. Um, it really gave us all the opportunity to understand each other a little bit better and the background that we all bring to the table. I'm excited that um, as you were
all speaking, I was taking notes. Um, in case you're not aware, we have um, as we have several members of our committee who are engaged and working in supporting our deaf education program. Um, Dr. uh, board member Grego referred to how our deaf education program is now
with DSSE instruction. So that means that within the work that I do on a daily basis, I'm working with our deaf education program directly to support those programs, those students, those families. and I'm really excited about the things that we have coming up throughout this school year um to
highlight and support and serve our students with varying levels of hearing. I also heard things about engaging parents and about paraprofessionals and training and learning opportunities, general education learning opportunities, and I'm really excited because that's what we're here to talk
about today. So, we're going to be able to share examples of some of those things that we have going on this school year. Um, but before we get there, I want to start and just sort of ground us in the work. Was there a Oh, yes. Okay. All right.
Okay. So, first of all, we always want to start with celebrations and highlights. So, I just wanted to start and share that even though we are at September 24th, um, we still are very early in our school year. And I want to just express gratitude to all of our service staff,
all of our teachers, all of our paraprofessionals, our families, our students, our administrators, everybody who made our school opening such a wonderful opportunity for our students. We celebrated that work in all of our regions through our social media. So, if you don't already follow us at LUSD
sped, we encourage you to because that's where we are highlighting and celebrating some of the work of our schools. Another highlight that I wanted to share and we're going to talk more about this in detail a little bit later is that we've started last year we talked to you a little bit about our paraprofessional
plans uh training for them. We talked about having in-person cohorts of training opportunities two-day in-person meetings where they would learn strategies about behavior and supporting behavior but also strategies on helping our students throughout the school day
with varying needs in varying areas. So we've started those cohorts through. We've had a great success so far. Um, and we are doing that monthly. So, we'll talk a little bit more about that lately and some other opportunities we have for our paraprofessionals. All right. So, last year we ended our
year uh talking about the listen and learn campaign. And the listen campaign was an incredibly valuable opportunity for us to get feedback and input from our families, our teachers, our administrators, our pair of professionals, our students. We asked for input through focus groups and
through surveys to gather information as far as what was working, what could we be doing better, and what suggestions might somebody have in order for us to improve our practice. Um, and so I want to just point out that the complete report, which you can see the the image
of here, is located on our division of special education website. You can also access it through that QR code directly. As I'm sure you're all aware, um, within Los Angeles Unified, we have a driving force. We have a strategic plan, and all of the work we do in all of our
departments aligns itself to Superintendent Carvalo's plan for us. We've been seeing the fruits of our labor. We've been seeing the successes that our students within Los Angeles Unified have had. Um, but the work continues. And so, Dr. Um, I'm sorry. Superintendent Carvalo identified these
pillars and priorities for us to align all of our work to within the Division of Special Education. We also identified priorities. We recognize four key components to the work that we do every day. Instruction, substantial
compliance, operations, and engagement in game communication. Without all four of those pieces, we cannot be successful. If we don't have strong instruction in our classrooms, our students are not served. If we are not meeting our compliance opportunities and expectations and mandates to ensure
students get services in a timely manner, we are not meeting the needs of our students. If we don't ensure that we have operations where we have programs for students to attend, services and supports for students to access, we are not serving students. And most of all, if we don't have engagement and
communication with our staff and our families, we are not properly serving students. And so, thank you, Miss Scott, for bringing that forward, the importance of that. And so, what you see on the slide are those four buckets, and around them, you see what our priorities are, what our strategies are to meet
those needs. And so, all of the work we do is aligned to that, which in turn is aligned to the LUSD strategic plan. So, on the left side of the slide, you'll see the four colors. Those are our division of special education priorities that I just spoke of, our instruction
substantial compliance, engagement and communication and operations. And it shows you the alignment to the Los Angeles Unified School District strategic plan. And that is an important alignment because as we go through the presentation today, we're going to be highlighting where the items that we're
discussing are aligned to the strategic plan. Okay? So, this may look familiar to you. my question. Hold on one second for my team. How am I just okay? Sorry, I'm not a tech wizard, so I appreciate the support of my team.
So, when you look at the document on our website that you may recall seeing this previously, um we have this structure in our action plan for each of those pillars where we talk about emerging themes. We talk about what did we do currently
when we wrote this last year. What actions did we commit to in response to those emerging themes? And we might have to look at our current practices to identify things we wanted to tweak or twist. We also thought about the feedback that we received, the
suggestions we we received through the listen and learn campaign and we identified specific actions that we were going to align to each of these pillars. And then finally, we identified a measure of success that we intend to meet by June of 2027
in this particular area. And we have one of these pages in that guide for each of the areas. So when you look through the listen and learn action uh listen and learn campaign action step summary you will see pages that look like this for each of the pillars and these these
consistent pieces laid out. We made a commitment Dr. Sodto stood before you and made a commitment last year to be able to report back to you on the progress that we were making that we were not putting things just on paper. We wanted things to come off of the paper and we wanted to not only hold
ourselves accountable, but we understand that this committee will hold us accountable. We understand that Dr. Estrada, our deputy superintendent of instruction, will hold us accountable. And we certainly understand that superintendent Carvalo will hold us accountable. And so we designed a tracking system that we use internally
to be able to ensure that there's nothing that gets missed, there's nothing that gets dropped off, that everything is monitored, everything is recorded, and everything is followed up on. So, we will at subsequent special education meetings, committee meetings, be reporting out to you on the status of
where we are with those action steps. Today, because we are at the beginning of our school year, we wanted to start by really focusing on what are we doing around professional development and providing learning opportunities for our families. I heard one of our parents
talking about just now the need for additional training and workshop for parents to better understand the IEP process. We like to call that demystifying the IEP. So, I wanted to call out that you'll see in just a few minutes that is one of the opportunities
that we have for families that will be provided in a multitude of settings throughout the school year. So, we really do want our parents to be engaged with us as partners. We want our staff to feel confident and competent to serve the students. And in order to do that,
we need to make sure that we are providing those learning opportunities for all of our stakeholders. So, as we go through today and our presentation today, you'll notice that all of the topics that we're going to be talking about in this particular section of the meeting will be focused on those
learning opportunities. We want to ensure that our staff and our families are aware from the very beginning of the school year the opportunities that we can afford for them. Okay. All right. So, with that, I would like to bring up two of my instructional specialists. They are phenomenal staff that work
diligently to make sure that our teachers have what they need. They design so much of our training. Um, and so I'd like to introduce Joyce Radcliffe and Adrienne Aras. you Alicia. Okay, so we are now going to take a deeper dive on how we are addressing the
listen and learn campaign action items. We will begin by discussing how we are engaging and collaborating with community members and parents. When we reviewed the listen and learn campaign community feedback, these were the emergent themes that we noticed related to the LUSD strategic plan. Pillar
three, engagement and collaboration. Develop tools to support families to better navigate the special education system and resources. Bolster workshop and collaboration opportunities for families and workshops for families to better understand the IEP process.
All right. So, in response to the themes we heard about engagement and collaboration, these are the action steps that we identified. Organize workshops for families focused on strategies to support their child's educational needs at home. Expand collaboration in professional and
community organizations to offer workshops for parents and staff focused on supporting students with disabilities in the least restrictive environment and survey families to determine topics of interest for additional parentformational sessions. Okay. So, we will now review our parent
learning opportunities for the 2526 school year based on the action steps that I just shared. We're excited to continue the special education region ambassador meetings this year. Uh these meetings are offered
in person um as a hybrid format. So, it's in person and virtual. So, the parents have an option to attend either way and they're held at each region. The topics for this school year include early childhood special education
programs overview, helping your child thrive, supporting with instruction at home, and preventing and responding to behaviors in the home setting. We also offer virtual workshops for our parents hel and these are held every
other month. These sessions cover a wide range of topics, all designed to provide families with information, strategies, and resources to support their child's learning. Topics for these sessions include empowering families during the
IEP process, the power of belonging, learning more about inclusive opportunities, executive functioning. This session will help parents gain effective strategies to support their child with organization, time management, following multi-step directions and maintaining
focus, navigating special education together. This session reviews community and district resources with parents and supporting student mental health. In addition to that, we also have asynchronous parent workshops and
parents are able to access this at any time on the division of special education LSD website and the topics include increasing inclusive practices overview, dyslexia overview, universal design for learning and power of play. I
just wanted to add >> and I wanted to add it's not on um the slide deck but we do have the information sessions for diplomas for students on the modified core curriculum. Um so those are uh another
resource that parents have to find out more about earning a diploma while being on the modified core. Okay, so let's take a closer look at the LUSD division of special education website. As you see here, there's a wide variety of resources available to
parents. Um, included on this page are the featured guides, the IEPU, a parents guide to special education and the ITPU. And also included on this page is understanding the process. And when you click on those blue bar, that blue bar
information will generate. Okay. And this is a continuation of the website. Um you have quite a few options here. As you see, we have parent workshop library, dispute resolution, and learning and well-being resources.
Um once again, when you click the blue bars, it generates information for the parent workshop library. When you click on the blue bar in that area, they have um recordings of those sessions in both English and Spanish for parents to access. Okay. And to wrap up the parent learning
opportunities portion of today's presentation, we invite you all to complete our family workshop survey. So you can access it by scanning the QR code. Um, this is your chance to share the topics that you're most interested in. And your input really does help us
design these parent workshops uh that best meet all of our parents' needs. We will be promoting this uh survey throughout the school year on our social media and our schooly page um to gather that ongoing feedback throughout the school year.
>> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. So, we're going to take a moment because that was a quite a bit of information. So, appreciate you for sharing all of that with us. and we could ask some questions at this point of them if you have any questions
regarding what they shared or I would encourage you to think about those questions that we have posted or they're also in your in your PowerPoint presentation that you have so to share ideas as to what strategies and tools
can the division utilize to prioritize supporting parents to feel both heard and responded to during these workshops. Right? We know the the workshops are happening, the topic is there, the presentations are done, but how do we
help people feel heard during these workshops? And the second one is how can the division of special ed cultivate and support parent leaders who can serve as ambassadors to help inform and connect other families with available
opportunities and resources, right? How can we do that? Because everybody here could be an ambassador really, right? But how do we make that happen? Um, so I'm going to open up the floor for any we're going to probably do only let me see what does the agenda say for
probably about five or five minutes. So I know it's got to be quick. Sorry. Um, yes. Um, Amy and then anybody else? >> Tama. >> Tamala. >> Tamela and Brenda. >> It's gonna take me a minute. Okay, go ahead. Okay. I have three things. The
first has to do with access. As you know, there's an ASL interpreter here and there's a team of one. So, I was wondering if somebody had some information about the second ASL interpreter. So, that way the primary interpreter does not have to work so
hard to express themselves and it should be a team. So, maybe somebody can multitask and figure that out. Um I have two points. One would the
graph with the buckets and as Alicia House said that we need all four of the buckets to be successful and that was instruction uh compliance operation engagement and communication.
I know that we can't list the details of it, but I think it's important that we get a sense of what are the general principles that guide these areas and especially regarding program
support. Who determined the level of support for a program that it requires? Is it by the number of students or is it based on the program need or the students need? is that support fiscal or the system and how do we have the staff
to maintain and improve our programs. Okay. So, as far as decisions about services and supports, that is always the call of the IEP team. So, that isn't a fiscal decision. It isn't a central decision. That is a decision that an IEP team
makes based on data that's unique for that student. So an IEP team determines what does a student need as far as access and then that is what is written into the IEP and then that becomes the responsibility of the district to provide. So that's the first thing that I want to clarify about that. Um the
second thing that I wanted to clarify about that is as far as what are the areas of focus. If you look again at this graphic, you'll see that outside of each of those four quadrants of that circle, um those are the the strategies
that we are using to help guide our work in those particular areas. They're not exhaustive. They're not the only ones, but those are the drivers of the work. So, when we're looking at instruction, we always want to be looking at inclusive opportunities as appropriate. We always want to be looking at high
expectations and differentiation. When we're looking at engagement, we have our parent workshops that we want to leverage. We want to leverage our ambassador program and we want to leverage our familymies. Um, so each of the as you look at the outside of it, you'll see the sort of the drivers of that work. And I'm sorry, Amy, can you
repeat the third question you had? >> There wasn't a third question. I haven't done that one yet. >> Oh, okay. I'm so sorry. Did I answer your question? >> Okay. >> So, on pillar three, parent learning and objectives is slide 13. Um, but maybe I missed it, but it talked
about uh community organizations that LA USD is looking to partner with for the parent partnership. Do what are those organizations and is there a timeline for the parent survey? >> So, the timeline for the parent survey is something that we're keeping open throughout the year. Um we have a
partnership with SFACE where those uh topics for our region ambassador meetings and our DSSE virtual workshops those are determined now for the school year. However, that doesn't preclude us from offering additional opportunities of learning. It's just for those
particular sessions those will be the topics. So we are encouraging our families to provide us with additional information about additional areas of opportunity that they would like to learn more about so that we can develop those sessions. So those might be inerson sessions, virtual risk sessions,
asynchronous sessions. It will depend on the topic and sort of what it is and what it involves. Um but we will be seeking that input on an ongoing basis. You're going to hear a little bit later about a regional opportunity to bring parents together as an extension of our listen and learn campaign for this year
through coffee with special education. We're going to talk about that a little bit later on in the presentation. And so you'll have an opportunity to see another opportunity where we're going to be engaging families for input and participation. As far as community organizations, we have many many organizations we work with and we
continue to thrive and strive to find additional organizations to work with. So we take as organizations approach us or as our leadership and by leadership I don't just mean Dr. Sodto and Chief Aguilar and Dr. Estrada but I mean our department leads those are our leaders as well um in all of their areas of
specialty as they identify partners for us to work with. We do that. In the past at this very committee, we've had university partners. We've had supporting at the time it was supporting inclusive practice. Now it is supporting innovative practice. Um we've had um
different organizations. We've had regional center. Um we've had department of rehab. So we have other partnerships in the community that we work with and we're always looking to expand that. >> Thank you Alicia. and then when you have a chance it would be great to see a list
of those organizations so we all please that would be nice to have here um okay I'm ASL interpreter second one is on their way >> all right thank you for um uplifting that okay >> Pamela >> Tamila there we go thank you
>> welcome um so I like the workshops I think they're wonderful um opportunities ities, particularly the one supporting student mental health. Um, just wondering, I know we're still kind of
using virtual as a platform and sometimes that can be a struggle um because, you know, the parents also need a break. um they come home from a long day, we put them back on a Zoom call and
where we wish they would be, but they really can't because they have to take care. They can't separate themselves. They can't find that quiet place. So, I was wondering I I'm also the homeless liaison at my school and I do tap cards.
Uh, so I was wondering is there a way that maybe we can give parents or find a way to for parents to get these tap cards because maybe it would be a good idea for them to to also take a break and be involved personally in front of
someone that that personal human interaction is very very valuable. They get to see other parents that are going through similar things. They can talk versus on on Zoom calls people tend to not be engaged. just it's difficult. We've all been there, so we know how
difficult that can be. Um, my second question was as far as the Oh, I lost it. The options of the languages, there's no ASL. I do have parents, particularly at my schools, many schools that I've been,
the parents themselves are also deaf. So they don't have their students maybe have the access to language but they do not in which case then they're not involved and they're not engaged. So I wonder if that's something that we can work on.
>> Hi again. So as far as our in-person and Zoom virtual meetings um we do have ASL interpretation for those. As far as any written materials, um, we have we currently have the everything in English and Spanish, whether it's ASL, um, whether it's another language, whatever
it may be, we have the opportunity and the ability to create whatever materials we need to create through our translation unit. Um, there are delays sometimes in providing those materials just because we have to find different providers. With ASL, that's certainly not an issue. Um, but we are always
looking for ways to engage our families. To your question about the tap cards, we certainly can look into that and see. Um, we do find that quite honestly when we have in-person sessions, the in-person sessions are not as widely attended as our virtual sessions. Our virtual sessions tend to have quite a
bit more attendance. Um, but we always want to provide multiple opportunities. And when we say virtual, they are live, they just are on Zoom. So, we do have live facilitated conversations and then we do also have asynchronous where there is not somebody's parents can do it at
any time. Um, but I hear you and we'll certainly see if perhaps if we were to offer some sort of a transportation option if that would increase the participation at those inerson meetings. So, we will follow up on that. >> Thank you, Brenda. And then we're going to Does anybody else We can also have
more time later on for questions. Um I'm going to assume that the surveys that you have are um to get feedbacks in regards to the training topics, but truly um maybe asking also um educators in the classroom because they're the ones especially in elementary school, they're the ones who are with the
parents and with the students and though they're the ones dealing with the parents, right? And really know what the parents might really need, right? Also maybe getting student feedback like high school students, students who have the IEPs who can articulate, who can tell
you, hey, this is working in the classroom, they are in the classroom, they can tell you this is working, that's not working. Um, the pair of professionals that are in the classroom that could tell you what is working and what is not working as well. Um, and training the general ed teachers as
well. Um, and not just the sped teachers. Um, and and sorry, maybe I'm going off topic here. And and in regards to the parent resource, were there any parent was there any parent input in regards to that putting
that together? >> The um which parent resource are you referring to? >> Those Yeah. So, those are all trainings that those parent resources. Do you mean the Let's see. Let me go back.
Are you referring to to these So when I guess it's like the it looks like an app maybe this oh those are our actual those are our compliance uh documents that talk about the IEP and you parents rights procedural safeguards. Okay.
Those are all based on ED code. Those are the documents that we have that if you're a parent who's ever attended an IEP, you've been handed those on multiple occasions that review your rights to um agree disagree dispute resolution. the process as a whole, what you should expect at an IEP. Those are
all those documents that you receive. We have them there in case by chance you don't have access to them um at your fingertips. We wanted to make sure they were available in a digital copy so that they're available to you at any time. >> Are parents supposed to receive it at every IEP meeting? >> Yes, you're supposed to re receive your procedural safeguards at every IEP and
we also have them digitally. I can tell you I've never received I've maybe received them maybe once and my son has had an IEP since probably officially since probably sixth grade. Um so ensuring that every school or every person that's facilitating the IEP that
they actually know what they're doing. And for my experience, the IEP, I had an um advocate go over the IEP. It was done incorrectly and so I had to go over and go over everything. So, um, the IEP training is something that I'd like to
see maybe, um, I know that you have the virtuals every other month, but maybe having something where it's monthly, so parents or some kind of document. >> One of the things that we do have that's not represented in the slides that we've shown you is in addition to having it at the um, workshop, we also have charged
all of our assistant principles over special education at our elementary sites to host that once per semester for the parents at their school sites. And then regionally it will be held those will be in person and then regionally they'll be held once a semester virtually so that parents who can't
attend at their re at their school site they can also have the option of attending that virtually lively live facilitation. So we're offering that opportunity not just at that one workshop we're offering that it's also posted on our website that parents can review at any time but I agree with you
that it's critical information and we need to walk our families through that. So we're offering a multitude of ways this year to do that. We heard that loud and clear in the listen and learn campaign. Um and so we really have taken that to heart to make sure that you know at our fundamental basic we need to make sure our families understand the process
and understand their rights. So we are on that. Thank you. >> Thank you. And I do remember Dr. Sto last year you also said that part of the learning was to teach and to train everybody on campus so that everybody on campus also is aware of all of these
processes so that we can anybody can support a family member. I I agree. I I wish all the topics sound amazing and I wish they were at the school site as well because I think that's what I've been hearing from parents is that they want it at the school site.
>> Yes. And that's why we're going to have that happen. We're also working on a plan to train our parent resource um >> oh good >> coordinators >> and navigators >> representatives I apologize our parent center representatives to be able to have a base knowledge of the IEP process so that they can help direct parents to
the appropriate documents to the appropriate process to the appropriate staff um but helping them to feel empowered to be able to understand that process as well. Um, we also have documents that talk about what a parent should do or consider prior to an IEP,
during an IEP, after an IEP. So, we're really looking at how can we bolster that understanding that our families have, it's a very complicated process. Um, even though it's very simplistic at its base, it becomes very complicated when we're looking at the unique needs of our students. And so, we have many
things coming this year to address that in more detail. Um but again we're always open to feedback especially from our families to see what is or isn't working. >> Yeah. Is the feedback going to be part of the are the questions in this survey uh feedback questions on how things are
being rolled out? >> No. The questions in the survey are going to be what are the topics that you would like additional learnings about? We have other avenues that we're going to be using to collect feedback on what's working and what's not from all of our stakeholders. We will do that. So, like we did last year with the listen and learn, it'll be a slightly
smaller scale because we're going to be doing it regionally through our coffee with special education, but we will have opportunities for surveys like we did last year for all of our stakeholders, our families. We also um offered that for our students last year. We'll continue to do that this year as well. >> Thank you, Dr. Sto. It sounds like you
wanted to say something. >> I did. I just wanted to echo what Alicia shared about the listen campaign. We held 31 focus groups. uh parents were involved in that process and the the opportunity to provide additional training to parent parents bubbled up
loud and clear. Parents had concerns about the IEP process. There was concerns about uh what their role was in the IEP. So, we wanted to ensure that we provided opportunities for our parents to a really hit on the process of the IEP, empower them to be an active
participant in the IP pro in the IP meeting. So we knew that those are things that we need to offer more than once. So uh like Alicia said, we we are definitely ensuring that our APIs hold those meetings at their school sites with their own school community. And if parents aren't able to attend those, then we'll have the virtual session uh
that the region is offering as well. So again, we wanted to make sure that we were meeting our parents where they were at and providing those opportunities. >> Wonderful. Of course, that took more than five minutes, but let's continue with the presentation. All right, thank you. And now that we've
had um time to review our parent um opportunities, let's take a moment to review some of the exciting opportunities available to our staff. Now through the listen and learn campaign, we've identified three key
pillars from LUSD strategic plan with strong recurring themes for a need for additional professional development for staff. Now if we look at pillar one, academic excellence, we recognize a need for greater cont um continuity in the
implementation of instructional strategies. There was also a clear call for additional trainings for special education and general education teachers both in academic and behavioral supports. Now if we look at pillar two
joy and wellness, there was a central seam theme here um of the importance of equipping teachers with tools to help students develop strong self- advocacy skills. And when we got into pillar
five, investing in staff, the themes that emerged were um a need for robust, comprehensive trainings, particularly for our newly hired staff to ensure that they feel prepared, supported, and set
up for long-term success. All right, so now let's talk about some of those action steps. Those were the themes. What does that mean in action? So in pillar one, academic excellence, we want to expand collaboration
opportunities for special day program and resource specialist teachers. We want to develop ongoing learning burst focusing on uh literacy and math best practices for special education teachers. We want to provide targeted
training for our paraprofessionals to strengthen their support of smallroup instruction. We'd also like to broaden training offerings to our general education teachers with a focus on supporting our students with disabilities in the general education
setting. In addition, we want to collaborate with the division of instruction to embed students with disabilities focused best practices into our bank time professional developments.
And we'd also want to expand our micro credentiing program to equip general education teachers with strategies and supports to effectively teach students with the disabilities in their classrooms.
Uh action items for our pillar two joy and wellness from our strategic plan. We want to provide training for teachers and on student engagement strategies, ensuring involvement um of students in planning and
discussing their own educational programs. And then as we move to pillar five, investing in staff, um we identified the following action steps to better support, develop, and retain our
teachers. We want to create specialized training for educators in program specific roles. We want to expand training for general education teachers to in support with inclusive practices. We want to offer uh
comprehensive onboarding and ongoing professional development to our par profofessionals. And we want to train special educator special education administrators on effective instructional strategies using
classroom look force document. So that all sounds great, but what does this actually look like in practice? Well, we're going to take a look. All right. So, let us begin by exploring some of the professional learning
opportunities available to our core special education teachers. Now, when I say core special education teachers, I'm referring specifically to our mild moderate educators who are working with students on the core curriculum. Now,
these roles include resource specialist teachers as well as special day program teachers in core programs such as specific learning disabilities or SLD. If you look at the first flyer to the left of the screen, um you will see a
professional learning series that has been designed specifically for our new special education teachers. And these are virtual sessions held monthly and each focus on a different topic to support a new teacher's journey. Now,
what's really cool about this series is that we work with some of our partners to develop some of these sessions. So, we have a couple of CKLA um sessions in here. And we're also working with whole child which is one of our platforms to provide teachers um
more insight on how they can utilize these tools available to them to provide better instruction to students in the classroom. Uh we also have um a session on accommodations which has been very wellreceived allowing teachers to
explore um you know why we are providing accommodations and how important they really are. Now these are live sessions again held virtually. So there's an opportunity for our teachers to ask questions and get real time answers from our experts who are facilitating each
session. Um in addition to that we host our resource specialist program and special day program teacher meetings. We hold these three times each semester. They are held virtually and they provide
ongoing support and collaboration and also updates to our teachers. And again another opportunity for them to ask questions and get real time answers so they can apply them right away.
Um, in addition to that, we also offer our 95% group trainings which focus on evidence-based literacy instructional strategies. And I'm going to get into those in a minute. But we also have up here our weekly learning bursts which
happen every Monday. And these are short focused virtual sessions led by subject matter experts. And they're open to teachers, administrators, and support staff. Each session dives into practical
topics designed to support everyday instruction and implementation. And the learning burst are also developed um and facilitated by our partners in collaboration with us. We have a 95% program. I ready and then
division of instruction partners with math because we know that's an area of need. Thank you. >> Okay, as promised, we're going to delve in a little bit to our 95% trainings. Um
this is to provide you a better idea of what some of these trainings look like um when they happen. So again, 95% group is one of our structured literacy programs and this particular program is designed to support students with
significant decoding difficulties who may display characteristics of dyslexia. Um they are attended by our resource specialist teachers and new this year we are also including our special day program teachers. Um what they do when
they come to the teacher training in person is they'll learn the new content and they'll engage in hands-on learning activities. They'll collaborate with their colleagues and they interact with the materials. So we actually put them
live on the platform so they're able to see all the materials that are available to them virtually. What that looks like for them, what that looks like for students and how to implement the pieces virtually as well as we also have our
kit with us. And so they interact with the different components of the kit and they'll learn how to use and implement those pieces to the kit. So when they go back to the school, they feel confident and comfortable implementing the
program. Um, what's important to note is that this isn't just a one-time training. Teachers do begin with the in-person foundational training, but then they have the opportunity to participate in ongoing virtual trainings. Um, these follow-up sessions
are our refreshers and they continue to provide support to teachers to reinforce and refine their skills over time. We also walk them through on the platform how to progress monitor their students, how to group their students,
and we know that this is so important to progress monitor um for the effectiveness of the instruction. Now, just like our core curriculum teachers, we'd also provide specialized training and support for staff working with students on the modified core
curriculum. One example is our foundations training, which is designed to give new teachers a strong start as they begin working in the modified core programs. Now this training focuses on essential practices and strategies to
ensure they feel confident and prepared from the beginning. Now in addition to this, we also offer ongoing professional learning including monthly webinars. Now, these are open to all of our modified core teachers, and these
sessions provide continuous opportunities for collaboration, learning, and refinement of their instructional practices throughout the school year. Now we talk a lot about inclusive education and inclusive practices and
because of this we believe we have a responsibility to ensure learning opportunities for our gened teachers. Um we want to assist with the bolstering of their capacity to instruct all students
in their classroom. Now these are just a few of the trainings that we offer but they are very wellreceived by our general education teachers and they provide a lot of support and learning for them to incorporate strategies to
make sure that they feel that they are supported and have the ability to teach all learners that are in their classrooms. Um the including students with extensive support needs in the general education classroom is really wellreceived and it goes over specific
strategies that teachers can implement to make all st students in their classroom feel a sense of belonging. And I want to highlight one in particular opportunity available to our general education teachers
um that we're really excited about because this opportunity provides them um the ability to earn a micro credential in special education. Now this program is specific for stu supporting students with disabilities in
the general education classroom. Uh we are currently in our second cohort this year. Um and it is open to our TK12 GED teachers. It provides 75 plus hours of
learning and has been extremely wellreceived. Uh there's 30 hours of in-person learning where they come for five Saturday sessions and they learn from our team of experts strategies and best practices in special education and
inclusive practices. It provides them an opportunity to collaborate and to really listen to what's going on at other schools, hear what's working, what are the challenges, and maybe strategies to try and implement and bring back to the
school site. The idea here is that these teachers are now leading the charge at their school site. There's also uh 45 hours of le e e-learning which is uh the virtual content to it but it still allows time for them to collaborate
virtually as they participate in the various assignments. >> Yeah. And this program like Adrienne says very well received. It walks uh teachers through looking at a IEP, what do all the pages mean, through um best
practices, strategies, and then at the end they're uh presenting it to their school. So, we're really excited to be able to continue this work with our general education teachers as we know how valuable um they are in this work. Okay. As highlighted previously, we are
excited about our paraprofessional trainings. We also work with our instructional partners to develop training specific to paraprofessionals. For instance, we have a whole I Ready series which is up here on the screen as well as a series created by supporting
innovative practices um that really focus in on that pair professionals role. So we also offer weekly drop-in sessions for paraprofessionals giving them an opportunity to meet with
our behavioral regional instructional staff to ask questions. In addition to what you see here on the screen, we have behavior trainings available to our paraprofessionals. And finally, we are developing a seven
module asynchronous series for a pair of professionals that will be available this year. All right, this one we're very excited about. You saw on the previous slide that we offer paraprofessional onboarding training. Well, this training
is an in-person onboarding for cohorts of new pair professionals, and it reviews their roles and responsibilities. It also includes behavior strategies as well as instructional support strategies. It's over the course of two
days, there is an entire day dedicated to behavior strategies that pair professionals can use once they get in the classroom. It's a great opportunity for them to start off their careers as pair professionals and really feel like
they have that knowledge to go into the classroom and begin their work. Um, so we are excited to offer such an array of opportunities to our staff. And with that,
all right, um, I'm going to make I know we have questions. We have one more section, right? Can we zoom through that qu that next section and then I'll open it up for discussion? That's our last section, right? >> So, we have uh one last section which
actually is a fairly quick section and then there's that's this presentation and then there's another presentation that is a brief presentation on a corrective action. >> Okay. This next section is the region teams. Yes. Right. And can we make that as quickly as possible and then I'll
pause for questions before we move to the next one? No problem. All right. >> So, with that, one of the things that board member Grego has brought to the special education committee expectation for us as the division is to make sure that we are hearing from voices from the field. Um, and so as we move through that work this year, we'll be bringing
parents, we'll be bringing teachers, we'll be bringing administrators, and I'm very excited to get to share with you today and introduce you today our special education administrators representing each of our regions. So, I'm going to be calling up Jennifer McCann, Yolanda Bueno, Jara Turner, and
Ryan Morse. They'll introduce themselves. >> Good afternoon. Welcome. And well, I'm glad that I'm happy to be here. So, I'm Jennifer McConn. I'm the special education administrator with Region South where I'm proudly went to school as well.
Good evening. Yolanda Bueno, uh, Region East special education administrator in my sixth year as a CIA. >> Good afternoon. Jarretta Turner, region West special ed administrator, proud LUSD graduate and second generation LA
USD administrator. >> All right. Good afternoon, committee members. Ryan Morris. I'm the special education administrator for region north, also our virtual academy and options programs. Before this, I had the honor of being a principal up at Leechman CTC with uh board member Scott
Schmen um back then and um I've been a teacher in region north uh specialist up there and also a program specialist. Excited to be back in the north. >> Um so good evening. Um it's my honor and pleasure to share with you um some of the roles and responsibilities that my
colleagues and I share as a special education administrator. And so uh our one of our roles is to lead our special education teams in providing support to schools both in instruction in compliance in technical support and
supporting with parent engagement as well. Um, part of our work also includes um, serving as a liaison between the division of special education and our region leadership. And so we communicate regularly with our region leadership. We communicate back and forth um,
initiatives that the division is bringing on instruction on supporting our schools and then we also support our schools alongside our region um, leaderships you know such as regional directors, AIS and AOS. Um and then finally um we are responsible for the
supervision um and evaluation of um special education specialists who will also help in support um in uh uh supervising APIs's. We supervise APIs's LR specialists, program specialists, itinerate resource teachers um and um
the clerical staff that's assigned to our sites. Thank you. Right. Just like at at at our school sites, our clerical staff are the heart, the soul, the engine, the driving force that keeps everything running smoothly. And I can speak for my colleagues that
we could not do it without them. They are that friendly voice and face when a parent calls or a staff member calls, when they come into our office. They're able to answer, you know, some simple questions. They can share resources. They can share information about uh
events both uh from the division and central offices and through the regions. They are able to listen to parents, hear what their needs are, guide them to the right uh department or division for their support. It could be something like, hey, I just moved to LA Unified.
My child has an IEP. How do I go about enrollment? Um I have a question or concern about transportation. How who can I contact? All of those things. And that's what they do is just keep things running well and then they're there to really serve our parents and our staff
who need that support and call the regions. Thank you. Under us we have uh several um key players LRES um is the title but we also call them sped uh specialists. They support uh approximately about 30
schools each in the various regions. There are boots on the ground. They are providing technical technical support to the school site administrators also region leadership. They review and develop schoolwide instructional and behavioral and compliancewide systems. They also coach um they're coaching
teachers. They're coaching administrators. and they create a network of school site special ed administrators to support with compliance and with state and federal um district and district policies and initiatives. They also are very busy. They assist
schools in the development of action plans that are aligned to the LUSD strategic plan and the division of special ed initiatives. again supporting least restrictive environments, building inclusive practices in school communities, and also making sure that we are following substantial compliance.
And they're also working to decrease uh the overidentification of students in special ed um and receiving services. Our LRES and our specialists are also uh parent and family support representatives. They they address questions, concerns about special
education policies. They assist with uh specific individual student questions. They support with additional concerns and they support our parents through the IEP process when necessary. Thank you. >> All right, you can ask the rest of the CS. I was excited to present on this one
because this is one of our most critical roles. These are our teacher experts out of the classroom and like our specialists, they serve up to 30 of our schools as well um in the regions. And what's unique about our uh teacher experts, our our program specialists, is they're in the classrooms. They're
working with our teachers, they're working with our administrators, um with our uh principal supervisors to provide hands-on coaching, um and support directly to those teachers. And it can be on anything from instruction, best practice, behavior, uh compliance,
tracking service. they're really in those classrooms working handinhand with our teachers to lend that support um through all of our regions. Um and so it's quite an exciting role for um for them to be in that position, but also they're working with our parents and our
families. So when questions come in, they can also support our teachers, our administrators, and our principal supervisors in answering those questions related to anything from the IEP process to our programs around the districts uh to um providing more at least restrictive environment for our students
um and for also just any individual questions that uh parents may have. So it's quite a critical role um and that they're on in the field in the classrooms working with our staff. Okay. And I get to stay up here and present uh the regional team for region
north. You can see there I am. I do have our just as we spoke to earlier, we do have our office, our clerical support. They're in those offices answering phone calls uh mostly from our our school sites, parents, um and ready to route those calls out to either myself or to
the specialists or program specialists. You may have seen some of these folks up here. These are our region northbed specialists and our LRE specialists that are leading the um the work around supporting our our our principles, our classrooms um and our administrators.
Some friendly faces up there, right? Uh and these are our region north program specialists which I just spoke to. Uh this is the team that's in those classrooms working with our teachers, coaching them and providing that direct support. And then of course our contact
information is up there. Uh Rita Balboa next to board member Schmirson. These are phenomenal Region South team. There's myself and my one clerical support Rosanna Vagrant. Here are the special education
specialists for Region South. And hopefully you've seen them out and about, friendly faces um working closely with uh our region administrators and our school administrators and our wonderful program specialists out there supporting our teachers and of course we all support our families and
staff as well. Thank you. >> Specialists are the former LRES least restrictive, right? >> It's a little bit different role, but yes, basically the very similar. Yes. >> Okay. >> And there's our contact information. and we're happy to interact with our
families. Hello again. Okay. Um so here is our region east team. Um there's our clerical staff, Miss Michelle Usher. She's our administrative secretary and Haral Patel who is our senior office tech. I did have a picture there. I
don't know where it went. I think it flew away. Change it. Oh, there it is. Um this is these are our uh region team administrators. We have um six sped specialists, one LRE specialist and so each one is paired with one to two
program specialists because they each have one to two networks of schools. So again the case load can vary between you know 20 schools to 40 schools. There are program specialists, you know, who also are very collaborative, who are
constantly in the classrooms, you know, providing support to teachers and sometimes they even go out as a team to provide um modeling, to provide strategies, um technical support and also to our pair of professionals. We will support with tracking um with uh
behavior strategies, you know, sharing uh PDs and um and a variety of information. And there is our uh contact information. Last but not least, we have our winning list,
myself and my uh senior secretary. We have five um specialists, four specialists, one LRE supporting the West. Again, we're small but mighty. And we also have five program specialists that are supporting our
team. Hardest working people in the district. Very happy to have them. This is our contact information. We work out of the Regent West office in West LA. Come by and visit. All right. I get to come back up because
our virtual academy and educational options programs are also supported. Um there I am again in our admin secretary. Um and also we have a team a specialist and two program specialists supporting these schools. So we do again have our six virtualmies and we have our educational option schools. So our
continuation schools uh opportunity schools uh and around we we we range from anywhere from 1,600 to 2,000 students that are accessing those programs still with special needs. And back oh there's our contact information and back over to Alicia.
>> All right. And we just wanted to close out with a save the date even though there's no date yet. We're working on the date TVD, but we wanted to bring to your attention um Dr. Stoodto made the commitment last year through the listen and learn campaign that we would continue that work moving forward this school year. We're going to be doing
that regionally. We're going to be having coffee with regional special education where families will be invited to meet the team, get updates, learn about special education events and things that are occurring, and most of all, I think most importantly, have that opportunity to interact. So, we'll have
staff available with computers to work one-on-one with families who may have individual specific questions, but we'll also have an opportunity for families to ask questions openly and be able to get information and responses back from the team live and in person. So that is coming. We are planning that um closer
to November. Um and right now we're securing our location so that we can secure our dates and announce those. But I just wanted to end with that to let you know that those opportunities will be there be one more opportunity for us to collect information and and be able to engage with our families as we think
is so very important. Okay. >> Awesome. Thank you so much. Um, also I remember last year you would always bring a team that could be out there in case anybody has any questions. So I want the our committee to know that, but also the audience to know that there's
going to be uh a team of folks from special ed division to answer any questions, address any concerns that may come up. All right, now we're ready for discussion. I know that was a lot and um I'm going to call on folks who have not had an opportunity to speak yet and
we're going to try to do it for 10 minutes because we do have public comment at the end. I know I know I'm sorry. >> And keep in mind we also do have one more piece that we have to present but there will be as Dr. Sto I think let us know ahead of time there will be no questions for that section.
>> Oh okay. >> That section will be more of an announcement. >> Okay. And it'll be quick I hope. Okay. So let me go ahead. But I have somebody in the back. I have Miss Duran and then um let's see. I saw Rabia uh Scott
uh Miss Kenya and Miss Martinez. Okay. Got everybody. All right. Let's go ahead. >> Okay. on the presentation >> you were informing about the behavioral
strategies. And my question here is these strategies that you offer to teachers when they're facing uh challenging behaviors like the way that they can respond with empathy. These strategies, are they
effective? Because well, in the general classes and in inclusion classes, we are seeing students that have had behaviors that were severes and well, I'm I'm not sure I don't know about these trainings.
Do they have something that some kind of strategy or resources to be able to support those teachers facing that? >> Okay, thank you for your question. Yeah. um when we provide PD um on any
strategy, these are evidence-based um strategies that we have, you know, developed a PD around. So, we're not just saying, "Oh, try this." These are act there's actually proof that these strategies do work before we even bring them forward to our teachers. Um that
being said, there's also like various behaviors that happen, various needs. Every school site's a little bit different and we know that. So, we also have, you know, our our behavior staff, the, you know, our behavior specialists
that can go out and and see, okay, what what exactly is happening at this school because maybe we need to tweak this strategy a little bit better to work for this case. You know, we that's why we have IEP plans, right? They're they're individual um education programs, right?
So, everything's individualized. So, while yeah, a strategy is evidence-based, um, it might need to be, you know, looked at with one of another pair of eyes outside of the school to help support and bring that implementation so
it works. >> Thank you, Rabia. >> Uh, thank you everyone for preparing this very comprehensive presentation. Um, you know, as a parent, one of the first things I want to talk about, well, first of all, I want to say is that uh, you know, the highest level of
complexity is simpl simplicity. And one of the things that most parents um, deal with is, of course, you're creating these wonderful workshops, but the IEP itself, if you've ever seen one, can be 30, 40, 50 pages with high level
of vocabulary. it's not at the standard reading level for most of the population. Um, and most of the time when you have really complex documents, there is attached or there's a discussion of what these words mean. So, a lot of the
frustration that parents have and why you've created workshops is because they get this packet and they have no idea what these 50 pages mean. And so talking about it at a broad level is very helpful to understand the process of of
it, but understanding what's in your kids's IEP. So I think there does need to be some sort of effort put forth that can condense that down and imagine bigger where we can parents can go home with a five to 10page document
in simple terms and addendum. We have large language models. there's very easy ways that we can do this but to brainstorm around that. So that's that's one of the ideas I'd like to bring to the table um uh for the future. The second thing is is a lot of the things that I I heard too in this presentation
which is fantastic the microcredentiing but I also heard the term opportunities attached to each and every one of these and PDS and opportunities and what part of the disconnect is is that you have teachers that are the world is bearing
down on them. They have 30 students and they are trying to fulfill these PDs. I know this because my mother's a teacher, my sister's a teacher, my brother-in-law's a teacher. So I grew up in this. And so practically what really needs to occur because if you look at
the average classroom, there are going to be special ed kids in there, right? You guys know what the stats are in the statistics, right? At least a couple if not more in the average LED classroom. So the question is can we turn the word
opportunities into something that is a requirement because we have this issue where teachers want to learn. I don't know what their incentive is to learn besides adding more work to their plate. So
maybe somebody could elaborate a little bit more on um when we talk about these opportunities, is it just free out there for anyone to pick? Is it mandated? How does that come into play? >> So there are limited opportunities that
are mandated. Um and that is something that in order for something to be mandated we have there are additional steps that we need to take and there are limitations on what can be mandated and how much can be mandated. Um there are contractual pieces to that as one piece
that we have to be very responsible and responsive to. So there are some limitations within the contract itself the employment contracts that uh our staff are part of and represented by. So that presents one particular challenge. Um we also have a challenge with um
being able to provide opportunities at a time when staff can be released to do that. So there are opportunities that we provide that we do during the school day. We do things we have things that are after school. Um we are always looking at what can we do to encourage
our staff to participate. As far as requiring, that's something that we've had conversations about and will continue to have conversations about with our division of instruction and our deputy superintendent of instruction to see what else we can do. Um, however, for us where we come from, we want to
make sure that we're affording everything that we can possibly afford even though there may be some limitations to what can be mandated. So, we're constantly looking and reviewing and and providing any opportunity we can, but the majority of the learning
opportunities within LA Unified um for both special education and general education are uh not mandated. They are opportunities where staff can take advantage of. >> So, what can we do to bridge that disconnect? >> Here's an opportunity and then here's,
you know, the the team that wants to learn. So that's really what I want your team to kind of really focus on on creating incentives for them whatever they might be. >> Yeah. And we are working with HR to look at what opportunities might there be to create sessions and for participants to
gain hours like credit hours towards the units that they're trying to gain to make gains on the employment chart on the salary chart. Um the way our district works is the number of units an employee has in the years of service. um they have the opportunity to make additional money as part of their
paycheck, their ongoing paycheck. And so we're always looking at how can we provide verifications or certifications for them to be able to use um towards those hours. So we're looking at different opportunities that we can do to do that. And I know I've said the word opportunities quite a bit in the last few minutes, but um we do really
want to afford them any option to be able to participate. Um but we'll absolutely take the question back to see what we can do >> and and really focus on incentives. incentives for them to do it. Double the double the number of hours. I don't know, but you know, some incentives
because you have a great program, but if nobody's utilizing it, then you know, where are we at? Thank you. >> Thank you, Rabio. Thank you for the suggestion. And um yeah, I want to look into more about what can be mandate mandated and how we can incorporate some
of the specialed uh PD into our year PD, right? like there that should always be incorporated into every professional development that we have. So, okay, Scott, >> mine are just comments. You don't have to answer the questions, but any answers
that you may want to give me later by email or something, I will share with the committee. Uh, number one, para profofessionals. You cannot teach the class without having proper paraprofessionals. I don't care what anybody says, you must have
them. So, so many times I read my eye where my paraprofessionals are getting hurt. Not the teachers, but the paraprofessionals are getting hurt. And I'm just wondering in this training that I read about are are we
can answer if you want. Are we teaching uh our par professionals how to protect themselves and how to stand back? Because I don't understand why there's so many incidents. Maybe it's just board district three. That's all I get. As soon as I see teach uh employee injury,
I know it's going to be and that's what it is. But you can answer if you like. >> I just want to say really quickly, we referenced that we're building these modules. We referenced this onboarding as a result of all the efforts that we're putting together and we're going to be very excited to introduce this year. It's about 80 hours of opportunity for pair of professionals to get
training with behavior and not only be not just behavior strategies, but behavior response so that they understand perhaps we need to move out of the way, perhaps we need to stand further back. Those types of things too close. Exactly. So any of those strategies we're going to be focusing on
and they're going to have repeated opportunities throughout the year to reinforce that learning >> and that makes me very happy. Thank you for saying that. Uh second thing comment that you don't have to answer. You know in LA USC we're so quick to close a class if there's not enough kids in
there. >> Not only special ed but gened. But when it comes to special ed some of my classes keep getting loaded and loaded and loading and I have teachers writing me saying that they're getting sick because the norm is eight and they have 16.
The answer is not to put more paraprofessionals in there. They don't teach the kids. The teacher teaches the kids. The paraprofessionals assist the teachers. So, I don't know what we can do or how we can do it, but lots of overloaded special ed classes. Just so
you're aware. Just so you're aware. I'm sure it's not only in board district 3, but my constituents write me and they tell me they're starting to get sick because nothing is happening and it's whatever week are we, I don't even know, but we keep adding more and more and more. So, that's only my comments. So,
thank you very much. >> Thank you, Scott, for uplifting that. I have that conversation today at my schools. Thank you. Um, okay. So, I have uh Kenya and then last we have Miss Martinez. >> Hi. I'll try to keep it brief because
the last two people shared very many of the sentiments I wanted to talk about. I think first and foremost for the teachers, I know personally I have a hard time wanting to make it out to trainings like this, especially when it's an all day training or if I'm missing part of my day. I'm a resource
specialist teacher. I've got a gang of kids to work with. So, it's really hard for me to feel like I can entrust my students with a person who maybe they're not familiar with and leave to go do trainings like this. So, I would like to see if there's a possibility of I think
we mentioned doing these during PDs or I'd love to be able to as part of my bed department group listen to some of these like trainings or talk to some people and see if the feedback can be collected in that way. I think it would be so meaningful to have someone to come to my
school site and say we see you, we hear you, we want to take in that feedback from you here. Um and then to kind of echo also our paraprofessionals are our lifelines in our classrooms and at my school there is a serious parah to educator pipeline. A lot of them always
come in and they see and they feel the passion and they want to continue working. And a lot of them mention how difficult it is to better themselves and improve their practice with professional developments because when during the day are they supposed to do these things and
even my parro doesn't have a form of technology provided by the school. So how are they supposed to log on to these trainings and how are they supposed to participate in a meaningful and engaging way to continue bettering their practice? So, I'd love to talk more about the reality practice of how this
applies at our actual school sites and what are the barriers that these two groups may be encountering in wanting to engage in some of these trainings because even I didn't I haven't heard of most of these trainings and they look amazing and they seem like they'll provide so much great information but at
our school sites themselves we don't even know this is going on. >> Thank you. Go ahead, Miss Martinez. First of all, I want to say thank you for developing this um special education par profofessional group. I think it's
amazing because we or at least in my school, we do tend to use schooly a lot, you know, to log in stuff or to check out kids grades. So, it's it's a great resource. Um, but my question was more like what if the times and dates, like Kenya said, it doesn't meet our needs
because, you know, when I saw Bank Tuesdays, um, or you know, or like, hey, um, step in if you have questions, concerns, but then I I kind of got discouraged because the time doesn't work for me because I don't get, you know, our school doesn't have release
time on Tuesdays, they have it on Fridays. So, like, what other options? um you know not just that set time and then you know there's other trainings too but it's like it's it doesn't work with my time the time I would have to be
you know removed from a classroom that I'm supporting that's a high need demand you know so that was one of the things and you know Kenya also said you know meeting as a team you know because sometimes like we service the same kids different classrooms and sometimes we
don't get to touch base you know hey what's working for you, what's not working for you or how can we come as a team to help these students, you know? Um, another thing, um, when it came down to understanding the IEPs, right? Um, I
can openly say I have no clue how the IEP works and I'm a pair professional. A teacher can tell me hey you know focus on this but it's like how can we focus like maybe having us as parents just step in not to translate because many of
us are asked to translate in these meetings but it's like to understand or or grasp hey okay this is what you're asking how can I put that in the classroom to support the students um you know and I know they mentioned um a a
checklist I mean no not a checklist But a pamphlet, right, that every parent is supposed to receive. It's so funny because earlier this week we were cleaning out one of the drawers and the teacher was like, "Oh, those are the plans pamphlets we're supposed to give to parents in every IEP and we forget."
And it was like, "Oh, wow." So when you mentioned it, I was like, "It happens because teachers are overworked. there are a bunch of case loads and it's like maybe just having a quick checklist of like things we should have ready for IEP
and you know just yes it might be a little bit more work but it's just for parents to understand like somebody else mentioned what it means or just having the case managers follow up individually because it it can be overwhelming.
you're sitting there, everybody's talking and throwing things at you, but you're not understanding, you know. So, I I just wanted to touch on those points. >> Thank you so much. And our last um committee member is Miss Graales.
>> And it's also a comment. Um first, the assistive technology um course or or uh training that you offer, you only offer it to Janet teachers. I'm a 24-year um person in the classroom and I am not
computer savvy. I would totally benefit from that training and I'm an RSP teacher. You know, I know when it first came out, I emailed to see if I can take it because it would be totally beneficial for my kiddos. Um and I was
denied. Um and so I think that this class would benefit paras would benefit RSP STP all teachers uh because we all work with students at different levels. So I highly recommend that. And um
the person the gentleman in front of mentioned numbers in classes, right? Um I think that we also need to look at these what we call inclusion classes, right? Um I am in a genetic class where
we have 30ome students and out of those 30 10 are students with high needs. They're not RSP students. They're STP students. That makes a world of a difference in a class of 30 because the
teacher if the teacher moves on quickly, we leave those kids behind. And so we if we're going to move with inclusion, which I think it's great if it's planned correctly, if it is tailored to the needs of those kids, if those kids are
programmed correctly. Um and so that's something that I again it's just a comment something to keep in mind. Um we definitely need funding for more personnel. We need more paras. We need more teachers in the inclusion program.
My numbers went from 20 to 27. So now I'm not an inclusion teacher. There's no way. But I'm not an RSP teacher because RSP you serve students who have um higher skills. Our SDP students need
more support. And so those are things that I think we really need to um keep in the forefront as we are moving forward with planning um the move of our students with IEPs into the general education population. Thank you.
>> Thank you so much. I want to hand it over to Dr. Sto. You're going to do the or >> Okay. Um, >> yes, the the final one that we still have public comment and I also want us to take a committee picture at the end,
but I want to thank everybody's as she's walking to the mic. Thank everybody for your input and your insight today. You have brought uh the the realities, right? appreciation for all the work that everyone has done in in in
preparing these PDs, but also um acknowledging and uh surfacing the realities that we are met with on the ground. Go ahead. >> Hi, good afternoon. My name is Diana Miseria. I'm a director in the division of special education in LUSD, of course,
and I'm also a proud graduate of LUSD. Oh, give me one moment for technical support, please. So, good afternoon. I'm here today to present uh California Department of Education investigation findings and corrective actions on a specific case,
case S-909-2425. Okay. The purpose of this presentation is to fulfill the California Department of Education's corrective action directive in case S0909-2425. And specifically in this case, the CDE has required the division of special
education to present the findings of non-compliance to this board committee. These are the findings in this CDE case. The CDE investigated an allegation that the district failed to implement a final settlement agreement dated February 1st,
2024. The agreement required reimbursement to parents for language and speech for occupational therapy and for tutoring services. The district was approximately eight months late in providing reimbursement
to the parents totaling $6,425 and the California Department of Education found this delay constituted non-compliance. Steps taken by the division of special education to address the reimbursement concerns. We have implemented a
centralized system, a tracking system for all settlement related reimbursements. We've established internal deadlines to ensure timely processing well in advance of the 60-day window. We've also issued direct guidance to our fiscal staff on
prompt implementation. And we strengthened coordination between our legal, fiscal, and programs teams to ensure followthrough. We have a commitment to compliance and to family support. As you've heard today in the presentations, the Division of
Special Education is committed to the timely fulfillment of settlement obligations. We will continue strengthening internal systems to ensure prompt and accurate implementation of services for our students and families. And I want to also say that we appreciate the partnership of this
committee in supporting the effective oversight and continuous improvement. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. All right. Um we are going to go ahead and move on to public comment. Okay. I'm going to call on the people who have listed themselves as being here
in person first and then I will call on those who listed themselves as being remote. Uh so Danna Guen, come on up. Miss Ken is gonna speak in Spanish. So if you'd like to hear what she's saying in English, please put on these translation headsets.
>> And just to remind our committee that during public comment, we listen and we do not respond to public comment. We listen. >> Okay, looks like everyone has a headset and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Thank you.
Good afternoon members of this committee for special education. Here you spoke about the campaign hear and learn where Cara Strata indicates that this report reflects what they heard reaffirming their
responsibilities for special education for quality and inclusivity where they reported that there's more than 70,000 students in special education that they did 31 focus groups one 1200 surveys but
where as a mother of a student for special education. I I didn't know what it said. This plan that's here before you where they said and who they didn't present because they presented some slides. I suggest you all read it because this is what's going to
happen. I want to know how the person who wrote this got that students supposedly were going to increase 20 points in English and math. But where did they start from? Where are these
kids coming from? Minus 200 minus 100. We need that information. We need to move the students with disabilities to participate in general education. 80%. Did you ask the parents who have students with severe disabilities if
they want their children to go to general education classes? Did they ask or think that it's a discrim discriminatory act for these kids who have other needs and who cannot perhaps other students that they they
want them to sign the IPS without the parent acceptance because to tell them their rights they can't be there making decisions of that adults are supposed to especially when it's a student with dis disabilities you want to put everything
under the smoke screen of inclusivity. But here many panelists who don't provide the information that is needed and you have thousands of workshops that are not understood with so many you know decipherable
language terms and if I do want to meet with Mr. Stogo >> thank you for your time. >> Where did they get these numbers and how did you get to this and you two as members should ask Thank you very much for your time.
>> Okay, the next speaker is Carol Land Verde. Carol Land Verde. Miss Londa Verde is not here. Uh uh let's see. Uh Charice Gruber, come on up. You have two minutes to speak once you begin. And then after
Miss Gruber is Norma Gonzalez. Come on up, Miss Gruber. You'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Thank you. >> Hello much. Gracias. >> Thank you for giving the opportunity for
public comments. I really like I would really like for the lady from region south to put on the headphones because thank to her I had to come in January to this committee. Mr. Sto, you know that I
congratulated you for this listening and learn campaign that I heard last year. I think it's a very important initiative, very valuable. As parents, I support your comment when you mention that it's necessary for teachers to have
incentives so that these trainings are not just optional, but that they are um required. My son is 6 years old and he is in general education. This is his second year and I'm so I'm so nervous. I'm so sorry. I have a student that is
wonderful this year and I was so saddened to hear from her that she has a lot of years working here but it's her first case of student with autism. So the call here and I recognize all the work that you do this I love to hear I drive an hour but I love to come here
because I want to be part of the solution and yes Mr. Sto I want to work along with your team. You need to hear from us. You need to listen to the feedback. You need we need to have true inclusion in the general education
classrooms. But we do need collaboration. We need for you to listen on what's working and what's not. And we need actions because important time is lost in our children's lives when they're not in early education. And we need for them to be independent as much as possible as we have said before in
public comments when they're adults. So I value all your effort, but we need to listen about what we don't like and right. We need for this training, teacher training for educa general education to be required so that there is true inclusion. Thank you.
>> Thank you for your time. >> The next speaker is Norma Gonzalez. Come on down. You'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Miss Gonzalez is going to speak in Spanish. So if you'd like to hear what she's saying in English, please put your hands up and we will get you these translation headsets.
>> Good afternoon. My name is Norarees and I am a mother with a student with autism in this district. As a mother, the importance of being aware and know everything that happens for my student. As a member also of a special education committee, I am interested to know what
is happening this program. I've never read it before. You had presented them as an announcement in the committee, but in actuality it it wasn't presented. Um some points are bullets or those the advocacy. Yes, the students do need to
know how to empower themselves so that they are here. But it's a great number of students that do not have that power because they do not have self-control. How can they be empowered in that kind of situation? How are you going to take
away parents to advocate for their students especially for those students that are modified curriculum? On the second topic here, inclusion. inclusion in the leis restrictive environment. Inclusion cannot be measured just with
numbers in general education classrooms. There's students that are specifically those that in the alternate curriculum for who they are in a general um classroom. It doesn't favor their education and they cannot be included
and actually it harms them. And the third topic here about the high quality instruction in the plan you talk about high quality expectations about instruction uh demanding instruction but at the end
you just reduce it to increase a 20% in language arts uh 30% in math for 2027 truly do you think that the qual quality education is just measured on a standardized test that is not a vision
that is a limited vision. Students with a disability need support that is comprehensive, individualized that the uh exams uh just show reductions and it's just a number in a
um table. It's just covering up with statistics. Please give the parents information. Those that are here as parents, please thank you for your time. Please give that information that you are limited. >> Okay. The next speaker is Mr. David Tokosski. Come on down Mr. Tokoski.
You'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. And then after Mr. Tokovski is Ingred Levy. >> Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. Um it was good to hear about one little uh special ed case for $6,000 in
a billion dollar budget. Uh it would be really good to get a picture of all the conflicts in litigation and cost and how much is being lost to litigation rather than services money for services. It's a pleasure to address this continuing segregated committee. That is to say
special ed apart from instruction is exactly what I learned as a 12 me year member of this board of education. When special ed does not meet with instruction it is at the heart of the problem of hostility of the two parts of the district. It must come together in
this committee under your leadership. Also, the legislative agenda is being made right now by the board of ed in serial meetings in private rather than in a public way. We need to get what we need legislatively uh from the governor and from whatever we can at the federal
level. That's public. Additionally, we need to know how much is being outsourced in this district rather than bringing in the employees and training them and so on. We just had a data breach from Cooko Solutions which is Hazel Health and the data of the
students and the families or social security their mental health records were exposed to the dark web. We have not heard about what protections are in place for that. Additionally, summer school uh remains mostly ESY extended
school year. Uh we have $500 million of ELO money now annually. Some of that money needs to extended learning. It's money that came from the governor to help us with the remedies from the co that could be enriching the students
lives in summer and winter session. Additionally, we need to find out about virtual students uh virtual schools. How are the kids doing special needs kids and other kids in the virtual schools? I understand it's three times lower than the scores of the regular head. And
finally, revenue. the LEA BOP. The district is getting about $37 a kid. Most districts are at $60 and $70 a kid. And finally, there's new money in Medicare medical called Children Youth Behavioral Health Initiative. All of
this can help all the programs you're talking about here. Thank you very much. >> Thank you for your time. Okay, Ingred Levy, come on up. You'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Hi, good evening everyone. I'm Ingred Levy. I'm the parent of two kids in LA
USD with IEPs. Um, also LA USD um alum myself, third generation, my kids are my parents met here in Hollywood High School. So, um I'm here today because I wanted to share um once again with this new school year, the feedback that I got
when I served for four years in the CAC. Um I served as the chairperson last seme or last school year and um what I've heard a lot even today even from the panel up here which is great that it's being communicated at all levels is that there is really a need to fill um the
gap between the plans from the district level down to the school sites. I know over the last four years many of us that served in the community advisory committee um were uh trying to champion a school site special education committee or affinity group or some kind
of way to receive feedback from teachers support staff paras and parents and students um if it's the secondary level right on how is each school site using the resources they have what do they need what needs to be communicated more clearly I think it's really important to
find a way to do that I really apprei appreciated Dr. Sodto's listen and learn campaign last year because it was so aligned with what we parents that were in leadership last year were um hearing back from the community that was needed. Um there definitely needs to be
training, but I also see how it seems kind of impossible when it's not mandated and I know why it can't be mandated and I agree that it needs to be incentivized. We've thought of things like, you know, pay them for a day off. I don't, you know, I don't know the union needs, but I do think that there
are teachers out there that would like to know how to serve the students better if they had the opportunity. Um, and lastly, just to update the training that paras and teachers get because there are some amazing teachers, my children have had, but I hear really sad stories from
other families where their children's civil rights were violated daily and the administrator or the teacher or the parah thought they were doing the right thing based on training from 30 years ago. So, I think updating everyone's training should be mandated. Thank you.
>> Thank you for your time. Okay, the next speakers we will call are those who listed themselves as speaking remotely. Maria Louisa Palma, please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Maria Louisa Palma.
>> Good evening, special education parents of Los Angeles and members of this board subcommittee. What do you know about the SULPA? Stalpa is the special education local plan area local plan. And as far as this committee goes, I reviewed all
of the slides, all the videos from last school year. Nothing here has been discussed from that plan. This is a formal state required plan that covers all of special education services. Does that seem a little important? Yes. The board of education must approve this
plan in June of every year, but yet it's not discussed here at the special education subcommittee. Wouldn't that be appropriate? Here you present information on specific programs on special education. But this also is different. It provides direct clear
policy bulletin numbers, law citations of the requirements. In June of 2025, the board approved a plan which was submitted to the state. But that plan, that SLPA plan was not even translated into Spanish. It's still not translated now. How can that be? The SLPA plan is
buried on the special education website. Why is it being being hidden from the public and from parents? And how is this equitable? Today's report on the listen and learn campaign which you have been presented here did not include any of the measurements of success. We have
actions, we have metrics though in these measurements. This is what the accountability should be based on going forward. Why was this not presented? Not only were those metrics not presented, but no baseline measurements were included in the plan. This is a 24page
report. That plan has also not been translated to Spanish. Yet, it was presented to you here in May of 2025. Why does this keep happening given this community that we have here that needs Spanish language materials? My name is Marel Vita Palma. name here on behalf of
Olada which brings you research and analysis bringing parents and the board of education insight and information which apparently you will not find elsewhere in this LA Unified giant bodri bureaucracy. Good evening. >> Thank you for your time.
>> The next speaker is Jaclyn Casas. You're signed up to speak remotely but I do not see you in the room. Are you in the room Miss Kasardes? Hi, good afternoon members of the board. My name is Jacqueline Gases and I am the W's mother, a student that is 12 years
old from Emerson Charter in seventh grade >> with the diagnosis of autism. Today, I want to share my difficult experiences after giving the public comment here on May 7th of 2024. I had made the comment
that the teacher Reyes fought uh with my son to take away the Chromebook for him and Miss Claudia Vaya that is who was the one that was in charge in LA USD on my son's case. He she called the school to request to
communicate with the police affecting my child. Miss Montes, who was the one in charge in the IEP, mentioned that it was Claudia Vayadarees who requested that phone call when she spoke when she tried to speak to her.
Claudia to decide that she couldn't she couldn't hear that she hung up. Mr. Sto and Mr. Alberto Carvalo, I uh called you to urgent action because the IEP of my son is incomplete with areas that are
blank. My son does not receive the ESY classes because they were taken away. My son had an assessment of occupational therapy, an independent one, and he has not been given the services and he does not have an occupational therapy
teacher. Also, my son got an independent evaluation, social emotional one, and the teacher refused to do the uh surveys and this is affecting my son's life. So I call on you to please please follow up
on this situation and also I ask that you give the support and that you give my son the evaluation on um supportive technology that the OT uh
evaluators uh asked for and I want compensatory time for the services that my student has not received. and if it's affecting his life and thank you for listening and for supporting my rights as a mother of a student that is in special education. >> Thank you for your time.
>> Uh let's see. Next up is Win Martinez. Win I see you're here. Please come on down. You'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. >> Okay. Hey hello everybody. I hope you remember me five months ago when I gave
my public comment. I know you, Mrs. Sto, you handsome devil. I want to tell you that I received retaliation from the Laus in the case of Mrs. Claudia Valadaris.
She asked my school to call the police. This situation affects me and makes me sad to know how they abuse their power. A request from Mr. Jose Sodo my documented IEP and all my services.
Please, please help me and let the oranga tanks into all LUD schools. Oh. Oh. Can you give me a kissadilla? May my
with only the quesadilla. No, no, no cheese. Just only the meat and the tortilla because I'm a crazy orangutang lover. And I will talk when the minute goes down.
>> Thank you very much for your time. >> Okay. I am the crazy person. >> Okay, let's see. The next person listed as speaking remotely is a Victoria Victoria. I see you're online. Please press star six to unmute yourself, Victoria. And
you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. >> Victoria, I I see you're with us. Please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Last call for Victoria Irrigyan. I see you unmuted yourself, Miss
Victoria. Please press star six to unmute yourself. We'll try one more time and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Okay, we will try and come back to you. Uh, the next person speaking remotely is listed as concerned parent. Concerned
parent, please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Concerned parent. >> Good evening committee members. To answer the questions from the presentation, how can you engage? How can you parents feel heard? Listen to
understand. Don't be afraid to engage with us. And most importantly, take action. And your second question, give parents a platform, parent ambassadors a platform. The CAC has previously asked for a special education committee at
each school site. Please look into this and take action on this. And I'd like to remind you that special education is a service, not a place. With that said, contractual agreements do not supersede special education and
state and federal law. This district is doing a disservice by allowing contractual agreements to supersede special education law and by not properly training teachers, both general ed and special ed. Students are being held responsible for teachers not being
adequately trained. Committee members, we must do better. And in res in regards to the presentation around special education staff, I ask that you look into why parents are often ignored. You
heard one parent say earlier that the special education administrator was not responding to her concerns. This happens very often. What is the point of having staff if they're not going to resolve situations or parent concerns? Thank
you. Thank you for your time. The next speaker is Valerie Vanamman. Miss Vanamman, I see you're online. Please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Valerie Vanaman. Valerie Vanaman, I see you're with us.
Please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Last call for Miss Vanaman. >> Hello. Can you hear me? >> Yes, we can hear you. Please go ahead.
>> Hello. My name is Valerie Vanaman. I live in Los Angeles, the city of Los Angeles. I'm a taxpayer in the city of Los Angeles. I also happen to be a lawyer who had since 1976 has followed the activities of the Los
Angeles Unified School District with regard to special education matters. I am absolutely appalled that you think presenting the CDE report to this committee complies with the
requirements that CDE asked you to comply with. It asked you to notify the entire board of that situation and that finding, not a committee of the board. It is a very serious situation for the district. It has caused untold financial
loss for hundreds and hundreds of families. It does need to be brought to the attention of the full board because the plan that Miss Miseria says is in place needs to be in fact in place. It cannot simply be words on a piece of
paper. You actually do have to comply with the law from time to time. And one of those times is now. You not only have a finding from CDE on this issue, but those of you who are
board members have many constituents who have suffered gravely at the hands of the district's failure to provide this service. The other comment I have to make is to invite any of you who are interested
to spend a day with me in my shoes and if my clients give permission for you to do so. To hear about the classes of 18 students in a supposedly specialized autism class.
to hear about the fact that a parent who thought that they had an individually assigned aid has none because they were told that the school doesn't have an authorization to hire an aid. To hear about the fact that the deaf and
heart of hearing program that you've heard so much about today continues to be quite segregated, continues to be a program that does Thank you very much for your time. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you.
>> Okay, let's see. We have Dee Sun. I see you're on the line. Dee Sun, please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Dee Sun. >> Hello. >> Hi, we can hear you. Please go ahead.
>> Hi everyone. >> My name is Ste and I am the parent of a child with an IEP who is going to Third Street Elementary. um in district request. I need to call out what is happening at Third Street because it's
clear and systematic discrimination. Third Street has denied my daughter and other IEP students with disabilities fair enrollment and placement. students are being systematically excluded and pushed out specifically because of their disabilities and because they have an
IEP under the pretense that they do not live within the district school within the residential school boundaries. Meanwhile, all the kids who without IEPs um also do not live within the residential boundaries of the school get
to remain at the school. The principal has also been um has also been shown to favor students enrollments for families who have donated substantial amount of money
and who has the luxury to volunteer. And I have to ask, how can you call yourself a public school that serves everyone? Enrollment when enrollment and access are effectively reserved for families whose children are neurotypicals with parents have money and who have the time
and resources to volunteer while students with disabilities are systematically denying their rights. I'm sorry, I'm getting very emotional. And because of this discrimination, my daughter is still not in school today.
Even though she loves school, when she says, "Let's go to school." What am I supposed to tell her? That the school doesn't want her because she has a disability. She's not as good as to others so that she cannot be with her
friends from back here. That is what exactly the message the school and the district are sending to her family. Okay, fine. My question to the district in the committee is how do you explain these discriminatory practices that are street? Because I am not the only person
who has been complaining. There's many other parents who have has raised the same questions that we raised to the school in the district and when I raise my hand, they just avoid the accountability since me down the line from one. Thank you very much for your time instead of addressing the problem.
Thank you for your time. And we'll come back one more time to Victoria Irgoyan. Please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Victoria I >> Hi. Um my name is Victoria Irugo and my son is Gregory McGrath and this is the
third year in a row that I am fighting for my son's special education. He is being kept out of attending a comprehensive high school. He we have been fighting
since the beginning of the year for him to be able to go to any school at all. Any school, virtual academy, non-public school. We would just at this point we're so desperate we would just drop
this IEP and um Can you hear me? >> Yes. >> Hello. Can you hear me? >> Yes, we can hear you. Please, please proceed. >> Okay. Okay. At this point, I've already
told the IEP team that we would just drop his IEP and enroll him at Franklin High School, our local school, except that it has four story high open balconies. We have requested an ADA
accommodation so that they could secure those balconies and allow him to go to the high school or allow him to be enrolled at Eagle Rock High School. We have been told no. We were I was
outvoted by his IEP team that said they wanted to send him back to an RT residential treatment center, send him out of state to Utah against mine and against his desire to go to a
residential treatment center. He's been beaten up four times at two different residential treatment centers, including being kicked in the head several times at one and in the stomach. And um LA USD
did nothing. They didn't even reply. They did not even reply to the instant report that he was violently kicked in the head and kicked in the stomach. They did not reply the year before at the other residential when he was groomed and sexually abused.
They have no concern whatsoever that my son is now home again for >> Thank you for your time. Thank you for your time. That concludes uh general public comment. >> All right, committee. Thank you. Thank
you so much for your patience for uh coming driving all the way over here to participate sharing your thoughts and your ideas. I want to thank the division of special education for putting on the presentation uh and responding to the questions. Thank you to our public
commenters who share their stories, share their thoughts and uh make themselves vulnerable in this space. I know that this is very hard. Special education is very personal and it can be very emotional. And so I want to thank
people who are willing to share their stories so that we can do better and uh improve what we are doing for our families. So thank you again committee. I must run. We're not going to take a picture because I'm already late for a six o'clock meeting. So thank you. Thank
you. Thank you. [Music]