3922
 1:00Êp.m./national DBorg
CART Disclaimer:  This rough edit transcript, which may contain missing, misspelled or paraphrased words, is only provided for your immediate review and is not certified as verbatim and is not to be cited in any way.
 [ captioner standing by ]
 >> Hi everybody.  Welcome to today's session putting it into practice.  We are so excited to have you all here for our last session on access to the GEC and are thrilled to continue sharing state project examples of how this work is put into practice across the country.  Last week it was so inspiring to hear Tracy's passion and commitment to addressing this topic and we sincerely hope that today's presentations will do the same.
 The structure of today will be brief project presentations followed by individual reflection.  It is our hope that the reflection will give you time to write down key take aways that you may want to discuss in the breakout sessions or in conversation with your project staff.  Following the first two presentations and reflections we will have a 20minute small group breakout.  The purpose of the breakout is to process collectively and identify areas of celebration, need or ways that you might apply what you've heard into your own practice.
 The second half of the session will follow the same format.  We recognize and really know that this is such a complex topic and this is by no means the end.  In closing, Kristi will accuracy some ways that NCDB will have collaboration going forward and we look forward to hearing from all of you with input about what else you might need.  The objectives for today are first that you'll gain knowledge of high quality practices on supporting students who are DeafBlind to access the General Education curriculum then that you will gain knowledge of resources that support students for DeafBlind to access the GEC.
 And now it is my pleasure to introduce Katy Ring and turn the presentation over to her to share how the Iowa DeafBlind project is engaging in this work.  Thank you so much Katy.
 >> Hello everybody I'm so excited to share with you what Iowa is doing.  I wanted to start with a quote from Brown.  You might recognize it.  But she has a quote in her newest book at harass of the heart that says vulnerability is not a weakness, it is our greatest measure of courage.  And why I wanted to start with that quote today is because it takes a lot of courage to get up here and say this is what my state is doing.  Here's how it's going.  We still don't have it quite right.  We're still struggling with these things.  And I think all of the states sharing today can acknowledge that we still have barriers in place and just like all of you, we don't have this quite perfectly figured out yet.  So I wanted to start with that.
 So here's kind of my objectives.  I just want to show you what Iowa DeafBlind project is trying to do with the framework that's been outlined by our Department of Education.  And I'm going to tell you the barriers that we are still facing in implementation to that framework.
 So we did some work last year when COVID shut everything down and decided this would be a really good time to revamp our TA process so this is my shout out to folks atÊ you know who I'm talking aboutÊ who helped us revamp our TA process.  So we've added a needs assessment, we've really looked at those readiness factors, we're working onsetting outcomes with the team that are measurable, adult behavior changes, what do we want the adults doing and really focusing on team ownership of that student.
 Another thing I've been working on too is I got some training on coaching and consultation and adult learning and the things that impact change.  Adults have emotions, adults have social and emotional learning needs too and what impacts whether or not a team can implement change.  So this is kind of my push to consider those things in this work as well.
 So Iowa has adopted this SD iFrame work, the especially designed instruction framework.  And there's a link in the PowerPoint slide to that framework.  And you can click on the link as well to get it.  It's wordy and it's color coded just like everything, but some key points in that is the iFrame work is all students are General Education students first.  That our educational standards should drive our diagnose, design and deliver.  Diagnose, designing and delivering and engaging helps address our student's unique needs as learners who are DeafBlind.
 So this is a table of kind of how I think through that process for our students who are DeafBlind.  So we start with the standards.  So we already know what our standards are that our students are working towards whether those are in Iowa we do have aligned essential elements with our core standards and our diagnose.  So have we done a really good job with vision and hearing assessments and we understand our student's access.  We have to start there.
 Do we understand the effect that that are Etiology has on their access to education or their sensory channels or their health?  Have we done good thorough communication assessments?  Like the communication matrix.  Have we done preference assessments?  Have we done expanded core curricular assessments?  So it's starting with that diagnose.  Do we really understand where this student is and what their needs are?
 Then we get into that design.  This is where those DeafBlind strategies come in.  These are the things that we preach all the time.  Are we using counter system social security, are we developing routines, are we building gesture dictionaries and using touch cues and experience books?  This is where we design.  So we know the standard, we've done a really good job diagnosing, we understand their access now we're going to design instruction using DeafBlind strategies.
 Once we've designed we then deliver.  We're going to monitor fidelity, we're going to use our formative assessments, are they making progress.  Instructional decision making.  And revisit and refine.  Then engage, are we continually thinking about access?  Are the materials we're giving them, are the communication devices we're using accessible?  Are we focusing on building positive relationships with our students and are we communicating with family?
 So this is kind of that framework.  I'm going to kind of show how this kind of plays out in realtime.  So I have a couple of examples.
 So in this example is a picture of aÊ you can't see the student's face, he's kind of off to the side.  But what you can see is there's a book, it's a handmade book.  It has a picture of a preferred object for that student in the book.  Then on the student's lap is that object.  It's that real object that goes with the book.  That IEP goal that that student is working on is receptive language skills.  His essential element or course standard is understanding words associated with objects and engaging in shared reading activities.  So those are the standards.
 Then we made sure to diagnose.  So you can see we've got some black background on that picture.  What you can't kind of see is his positioning we understand the Etiology and need for good positioning.  We understood he needs that relevant object representation and then we've designed this instruction using objects using real objects to go with this book and now him and his teacher are going to participate in a shared reading activity with his real object and their incorporated vocabulary.  So this is an example of how we use that diagnose, now design now delivering instruction for this student.
 Here's another example.  The IEP goal was a goal around a job routine or following a routine for a job.  The essential element that we're addressing is matching and arranging.  It's a math element.  We've got the expanded core curriculum in there about laying out socks and stacking and folding and rolling.  And in the picture there's a container of socks thatÊ different pairs, different colors that match.  And then there's a printout that you can't read that is the routine of that activity.  And so the teacher would be doing a routine with this student of matching the socks and folding them and putting them in a, like, finished basket.  So when we did in we did a good diagnose.  The student can visually access this.  We designed it, we size we really need to be working with real objects, pictures aren't the best mode for this student so we're going to be working on this matching and arranging activity using real sock activities.  We've done good expanded core curriculum assessments into know we need to work on some of these daily living skills and now we've designed our instruction around that.
 Okay so that was all good and dandy and great but here are the barriers we continue to face.  Expecting teams to implement DeafBlind strategies without first providing training on those.  It really kind of still takes us a while.  We can identify the student's essential elements they're working on but we've still got to provide training around those best strategies so sometimes it still takes us a while to get going.
 Staff turnover is huge and I feel like it's only going to get worse.  We train teachers, we get good programming going then people leave.  If anybody has found a good solution to that problem please let me know.  SD iFrame work that is rolled out by our Department of Education has not completely trickled down to School Districts yet.  And so it's still kind ofÊ you bring it up and teachers aren't like well what are you talking about so then I'm doing training on the front end on what that even is.
 I think that if we did a survey, um, not everyone believes that our students are General Education students first.  And so you are addressing a mental model sometimes when you go in.  You have to address that off the bat.  And then we continually face that I am my position problem.  Which is I'm the TBI, this is my job.  I'm the teacher of the deaf and hardofhearing, this is my job.  And what fails to happen is that collaborative team approach to addressing needs of students who are DeafBlind.  So that was a barrier.  And one I don't have listed here that we still struggle with is Iowa is a state that has really adopted the Karen Erikson work and for some reason there has been a narrative, I'm not sure where it came from that we don't or that I don't, the DeafBlind project doesn't support that work and we do support that work.  We just want to make sure that folks are thinking about access.  And so, um, that's kind of a barrier we're facing in Iowa.
 That is what I've got.  I tried to talk fast but I think now you get some time to reflect.
 >> Thank you so much, Katy and yes, now is time for reflection.  So the SDI   framework sounds like a great way to address the GEC and dig into that.  So now we're going to give all of you a short 3 minutes to do some reflecting on what Katy shared with us and to consider these two questions.  So one is, what did you hear that resonated with you?  Then how might you use the SDI   framework in your TA on access to the GEC?  And I'm going to set my timer for 3 minutes then Kristi will welcome you guys back.
 >> Hello everyone, your 3 minutes are up.  So I hope you had some great time to reflect on what Katy presented for us.  There we go.  Now I'm really pleased to introduce our next presenter.  Cha son Sutter from the Nevada dual sensory impairment project Chevonne.
 >> Hello, I'm here to help teachers increase access to the General Education curriculum.  So today I'm going to tell you a little bit about or introduce to you a lesson planning tool that we've developed to assist educators in the state to increase access to the General Education curriculum for all students.  And what you're really going to see is an actual tool lesson planning tool that you can have access to as well to help providing technical assistance around this particular initiative.
 So just a little bit of background is that of course I know like Katy and everybody else and you all as well that planning for access to the General Education curriculum is not really one skill but it's really a complex process with multiple components and composed of many skills that teachers need to learn.  And so, um, I just wanted to assure everybody that it is actually really common for us in Nevada and to really provide assistance on only one or a few of the components that you're going to see in this lesson planning template at a time so we might not provide training or assistance on all of these items at the same time to a particular teacher or educator team.  So we might for example select one of these things like selecting meaningful goals and objectives, conducting symbol assessments, assistive technology and focusing just on those key components rather than the entire lesson planning tool all at once.
 So a little bit more context for this particular lesson planning tool is that it's really a way for teachers to put together a differentiated lesson plan.  It is a planning guide for teachers to help them have all the materials, um, and plan for all these components within a classroom setting where they might be providing a lesson to a group or classroom of students at multiple levels at the same time.  And so again, we have not used this complete guide in an intensive TA but what we have done is used this lesson plan format and disseminated it to kind of at this point widely throughout the state in more targeted technical assistance like professional development, state and district level trainings, University courses.  And in fact it was actually developed originally forÊ to meet a district level need for Special Education teachers.
 So you're going to see the actual form but I wanted to tell you about what components are addressed on the form first.  Just because it's going to be a little bit hard to see.  There's going to be a lot of text on it.  So the components you're actually addressing on the lesson planning form are the domain objective and standard and everything then of course is going to follow and be related back to that objective and learning standard or content standard.  There's going to be key terms and vocabulary.  Then all these things are going to be specified for students at each level.  So we want to make sure we identify the literacy or level of symbolic understanding of each student then specify specific adults that will be working with each student in the classroom, whether that's a teacher or paraprofessional, specify specific IEP data sheets and objectives that are going to be addressed and embedded within that specific lesson.  What materials are needed for each student.  Alternative and augmentive communication as well as specific assistive technology in other areas and specific instructional strategies.  So strategies to help students to make meaning of the content.  So the input both before, during and after.  And then also specific before, during and after strategies for how students are going to express what they know.  So how are we going to assess what students are getting from this content or this lesson and how are they going to show what they know?
 So what you're going to see now on the next several slides is actually a snapshot of the different components of the lesson.  You can access both a blank version of this sample differentiated lesson plan and also this completed sample plan both in base camp.  If you want to go back and read it in more detail or look at it then you can find those things there.
 So at the very top of the lesson plan you see there's a place for an objective and this is actually, um, a lesson that was developed around English language arts and science.  So it's actually addressing content standards in two areas.  You see that there is like the objective of the lesson but also the actual connector standard so in the bottom we call them connectors.  But if you call them something else that's fine.  What this really is is a way to specifically state the state standard and modified standards no matter the vocabulary you use in your state.  Next you will see here that there are 3Ê there'sÊ you'll see a table divided into different columns and different rows.  And so across the top in each of the different columns you're going to see, um, strategies, um, and materials for students at each literacy level or a level of symbolic understanding.  So, um, this would be for example if you were addressing, um, this, um, science lesson, um, with this text for students in the whole class you can actually plan the materials, um, and all of the supports that you would need, um, to meet the needs of students at each of those levels.  So on the far left you'll see that there are students at the text level, you can also plan for students with the simple text level, line drawing level, photo level and at the object level.  So I'm going to just walk you through the object level a little bit, um, and you'll see that in that first row they're going to specify the students at that level.  So we have one student at the object level here.  The next row is first the supervising adult.  In this case you can specify if it's going to be the teacher or the paraprofessional or maybe if there's a coteacher or General Education teacher that's responsible for working with this particular student for this lesson that would also be specified there.
 Next you see that there's a place for IEP data sheets to be used.  This would be where you could note the specific, um, way to record student data, performance data but also, um, the specific IEP objectives that could be embedded within this lesson plan.  Um, here for the student at the object level the student is working on attending to a text for object supports communicating with partners, expanding her use of the object symbols and participating in vocational activities.  So there are a variety of different IEP objectives that could be embedded within and addressed within this context of this particular lesson.
 So on the next row here of the lesson planning sheet you see that there are materials.  And the really important piece here is that for each student they have a copy of the materials and a means to communicate about the material that they areÊ the content that they are learning.  So if we look at the right column again where the student at the object level is, we're going to make sure the student has a copy of the science text at the object level.  So they have comprehensible input then as well it lists specific items to be gathered related to, um, creating objects that are addressed to meet the symbol needs of this particular student and also, um, the content standards.  So if you see here the specific objects to be gathered would be related back to that content which had to do with science and recycling.  So newspaper, water bottle, aluminum can and the teacher can plan to have those materials ready.
 The next two rows have to do with alternative and augmentive communication then other assistive technology.  So again using the student at the object level for an example, if she uses a stepbystep or some other type of single button voice output device, we're going to list the specific messages that are going to be programmed on that device as well as listing the specific object symbols that we want to use with that device to let the student have access and again to allow the student to actually be able to express what they know about that particular content area.  And then for other assistive technology this would be a place where a teacher could plan for things like page fluffers or nonslip shelf liners to hold material in place, slant boards, just so that all the items again are prepared and ready in advance so that the student can access those materials.
 The next row is designed to help teachers plan to develop specific strategies related to helping students make meaning of the content.  So this is really instructional strategies broken down into before, during and after.  So what is it that the teacher is going to do to help the student access, um, the content material?  And so over here for before an example is the teacher would do a book walk with the student, discuss the title and author, guide the student to explore the object symbols in the book, talk about the experiences with each item then you'll see there are specific during strategies for shared reading where the student and teacher will read the book together.  The teacher will respond to the student's comments, commands, directions to reading and ask the student to touch and explore the objects in the book then some specific after strategies.  So what will the teacher do to help the student to engage with the content after the book has been read?  In this case the student will be prompted to actually engage in an applied recycling activity using the vocabulary from the book.  And then finally the last row isÊ has to do with assessment.  So this is how the student isÊ how are we going to assess what the student knows, what the student understood from the lesson and what the student can do related to what they learned from that lesson.  So again the teacher can plan for how the student is going to respond and tell what they know both before, during and after, again.  So the student can answer questions about the main topic of the book using object symbols then again during and after strategies.  An important thing here is that the teacher is incorporating all of these different things for comprehensible input and output that is designed to meet the student's specific literacy and level of symbolic understanding.
 So of course that's a lot of stuff but I think that there's also some really essential components related to being able to address and plan for all those different components in the lesson plan.  And some of them I think are almost, um, perquisite type of skills for teachers and this is, um, I just pulled out a few of those what I think of as the essential components that you might need to help teachers or school teams plan for before they can actually address some of theÊ or complete this lesson planning template.  One of those is that of course the teacher has to be able to actually identify the skill that they want to teach and link it to the connector standards which sounds easy but can actually be quite complex because they have to know what the essence of the skill is.  Why are they teaching that skill?  What is the main purpose?  So that might need additional attention.  The next essential component is that you have to be able to identify the student's level of symbolic understanding or literacy level.  So can they access some conventional text or are they using like object symbols, photo symbols, line drawing symbols or other tactile symbols?  And so that might include some type of like assessment of course beforehand.
 The next essential component is that the teacher has to also be able to identify instructional strategies that match both the task and the characteristics of the student.  So they have to haveÊ have to know what instructional strategies to use and how to select those.
 Then finally kind of a fourth essential component is be able to identify the IEP objectives for that particular student and figure out how this can be really embedded within that content lesson for writing instruction.  There might be IEP objectives that are really closely linked with the standard already but it might also be there's something that's more individualized and functional that can be embedded within that lesson so figuring out how those things link together is also really important.
 So like I said just a reminder that form both the completed sample version and the blank one is available to you in base camp if you want to look further at it.
 >> Thank you so much for sharing that with us and the work that you're doing around it.  We really like what you've shared with us and I think the differentiated lesson plan looks like a fantastic resource that people could use.  All right.  So we're going to give you another short 3minutes for reflection on what Chevonne shared with us.  What did you hear that resonated with you and how might you use the differentiated lesson plan in your TA process?  I'm starting my timer now.  Three minutes.
 >> Recording stopped.
 >> Thirty seconds left.
 >> All right.  I'm going to pull you all back together here and, um, Haylee is going to put us all into breakout rooms.  As Emma said you'll have 20 minutes in your groups.  You have a facilitator that will guide you through your discussion and take care of that.  So we will see you all back here in 20 minutes.
 >> This is Haylee just a quick note we will have a group in the main room using the Spanish interpreter so if you don't get put into a breakout room don't worry you won't miss out on the discussion.  We also have one room with a captioner and so everyone who needs captioning will be put into that room and I will provide a 5minute warning before it's time to end.  All right I'm going to open the rooms now and see you all in a bit.
 >> Hi everyone.
 >> Hello everybody.
 >> I'm not sure what happened it just changed my name.
 >> Maybe because I gave I my link.
 >> Oh that's what it was.  My link wasn't working.
 >> I was like who else is Amanda.
 >> Anne and I had to do the same thing.
 >> I'm note taking but it just changed my notes link to say Hillary's name.  So I don't know what'sÊ somebody's trying to take my identity today.
 >> I was note taking also so I wonder if there's a room without a note taker.
 >> Oh one of you might get pulled out if they figure that out.
 >> Okay probably because it thought that that I was you, Amanda.  So I wonder if they're going to move me.  In case I'm gone in a second it's nice to see you guys.
 >> Chris you might want to send Haylee a message so she knows.
 >> Yeah I'll do that now.
 >> Say you're in Julie's room because I'm the facilitator.
 >> Oh it's not letting me send a chat to anybody other than people in this room.
 >> Why don't you leave the roomÊ can you go back to the main room and tell Haylee what happened?
 >> Haylee just joined this room.
 >> Hello.  What's going on?
 >> We have two note takers.
 >> There might have been some confusion because I actually had Amanda's link so it logged me in as Amanda as well so I think you might need me in a different room to be note taking.
 >> You're actually okay.  We thought you weren't here so we found somebody else.  So just go ahead, thanks, Chris, I'm so sorry.
 >> All right.  Hi everybody.  It's me, Julie.  From California.  I'm your facilitator.
 >> Hi Julie and so Brandi and Chris, whoever wants to take the notes can do that.
 >> I think one session Chris if you want to do the second session.
 >> I think I need your link because that was a unique link for you.
 >> Okay.
 >> And I just put into the chat, everyone, these are potential questions we could talk about today.  Or we can just talk about what we just heard and what we thought about in our few 3 minutes in between the two speakers who I thought both of them were fabulous and what they shared.  So we can talk specifically about what we learned from Katy and Chevonne so that's kind of the first couple questions.  What stood out?  Was there anything we want more information about?  Then if that doesn't give us enough food for thought we can move into talking about other things that we're doing.
 >> Anybody feel like sharing?
 >> This is Andrea from North Carolina.  I guess the thing that resonated with me unfortunately is the whole barrier to the turnover for implementing any good plan.  It's just the turnover is such an obstacle for me here in North Carolina, that I'm continuously rebooting and restarting and retraining.  So I guess that kind of stayed in my head.
 >> Yeah.  Certainly can relate.  I do think thoughÊ I wonder, it does seem like if you can find tools or have a practice like that, diagnose, design, deliver, engage and other people on the team stay the same and people kind of know that process or the same thing with Chevonne's form that Nevada developed.  Maybe if some things pass on to the next teamÊ I don't know but I totally understand what you're saying, Andrea.
 >> This is Chris.  I mean I think this is, you know, there are a lot ofÊ a lot of the barriers and issues that came up in the conversation were just like all related to systemic impact and it seems like this is a conversation we just continue to have over and over and over again.  Um, so I was curious to see what, um, that OSEP project resource that Susan shared about retaining teachers and enhancing practices and what not.  Because obviously that's a nationwide issue as I saw you said Julie in the comments.  But I would just be curious if there is anything really unique that came out of that work that would be helpful to us for, you know, to affect our own systemic work.  Because I think we all kind of know what works in our TA but then we all face the exact same problems of the TA gets built up and built up then that one great person leaves and it's gone.  Or, um, you know, the student goes to a different school and it's gone.  Or any number of things.
 And even project staff that's something that happens from project to project let alone like state to state.
 >> Yeah.  Great points.
 >> Anybody else?  Amanda or Anne Louis?  You know it's interesting in California over the last 5 years they've changed the credentialing process in where they're saying that all teachers are going to be able to teach all kids that whole idea that all students belong to all teachers and that we'll start giving teaching even general Ed teachers how to provide effective instruction and know how to plan a lesson or assess students with a variety of disabilities.  But to me I still kind ofÊ what stood outÊ a lot of things stood out from Katy's talk but that idea of trickling down from special ed and further trickling down to kids who are DeafBlind and especially those with the most support needs and that's what I feel like I struggle with is, um, our role as like technical assistance providers which are essentially trainers and consultants, maybe coaching a little bit but we're not the direct service provider.  So it's the direct service provider that has to have the knowledge and skills.
 This is Andrea can I go now?  So she talked about, you know, first they're gen   ed students first but when you've got TA's teaching and there are assumptions are these kids can't learn they're never going to be able to learn you spend time first just fighting that and now you have to have them buy into gen   ed so there's a lot of barriers.
 >> Yep.  Chris.
 >> This is Chris.  Yeah I completely agree Andrea and also just to keep bouncing off what you were saying, Julie.  Um, I think that maybe something that comes out of some of these conversations each time we have them is the major difference in the kind of TA that we provide if we're a large state or a small state.  Because, um, we really cannot do that much intensive TA.  Just given the size of our grant.  So we certainly can't, you know, be acting as a service provider.  None of us can, direct service providers.  But even the notion that we're going to work intensively with the team on developing lesson plans or, you know, that's for a very small number of students on a year to year basis and, um, that usually happens as a result of some major problem that's happening that someone is reaching out to us to try to save the day.  You know?  So, um, so to me, you know, these tools are all obviously incredibly valuable but it's more important that they are implemented on like a personal prep level and inservice level than on an individual teacher level.  That to me doesn't provide any opportunity for systemic impact if we're only focusing on the role of intensive TA.
 >> Yep.  This is Anne I'm in agreement with you Chris.  I mean I thinkÊ I was thinking about the amount of intensive TA that we do it's quite limited.  I find a lot of our energy is spent with systems trying to get the word out to, um, teachers who are working with our DeafBlind students because we don't have licensure for DeafBlind in our state and I don't see it happening anytime soon because we have an extreme shortage of DHH, deaf hardofhearing and blind visually impaired teachers.  But anyway I think what we've done is we've gone into likeÊ we have these communities of practice around the state and just even putting the word out there trying to get people to have a paradigm shift looking at our students with multiple disabilities and oh they also are DeafBlind or have combined hearing and visual loss.  Let's start taking a little bit of a shift and look at access.  That's where we spend a lot of time and I think that's where we have systemic change and when the word gets out there then I get people reaching back and saying so now what do I do.  You know I need an intervener.  Now what do I do?  But the lesson planning information is valuable but someone who came out of teaching Brandi and I were having a conversation I could see it maybe being a model to help people make a shift in their thinking but, um, not necessarily on a daytoday basis.
 >> Those are great points, Anne.  I totally agree.  This is Julie.  Yeah the form from Nevada made they think of similar forms that we've used in our preservice training with teachers.  And I always wonder aboutÊ because I think the New England consortium comes up with fantastic forms but I wonder what teams think when I share examples and forms that someone else has developed and whether they're going to take it and use it.  I wonder if there's a way to find out what are they already doing.  Like show us your lesson plan.
 Then see if there's features that might be missing then kind of talk about that.  But I don't know.  Again to me we rarely get in those situations.  Only at the intensive TA level where I would engage in that kind of conversation with someone so...Ê
 >> We had a presentation, this is Ann, we had a presentation at our statewide community of practice meeting about one pager person centered planning but it was submissions and to the point and people who came were like this is something I can use.  It gets put in front of multiple team members and that helps the shift.  That was a very exciting presentation.
 >> This is Andrea again.  I'm finding too that that assessment piece that you start with and the access piece so many of our intensive TA work around that for teachers they never get to that or complete that assessment.  They want toÊ you can't just jump right in and skip that step and that's not happening in the way it should I'm finding.  We're just not starting there a lot or enough.
 >> Amanda do you have anything you want to share?
 >> Yeah actually I think the idea of the show us your lesson plan.  While it typically happens in these intensive places I think that could be a really cool like lateral network sort of thing.  We have networks for teachers of DeafBlind students in certain regions.  I think that would be a great topic for one of those groups where teachers in a general region are collaborating with each other and looking at their lesson plans and saying what am I missing, where can I fill things in?
 >> Yeah.  This is Julie.  That's a great idea.  Brandi I know you're a note taker but feel free to jump in if you have anything to share.
 >> It's hard to concentrate and note take.  At the same time.
 >> Chris.
 >> This is Chris, yeah, the other thing I was just thinking too, maybe it's just like a comment or aha moment when we see states developing unique forms and protocol I think it's just a reminder that we really, um, we really can't use a uniform system for any of this.  We really do need to have the flexibility and freedom to be able to develop our own systems.  There may be a lot of repeating things and certainly we don't need to recreate the wheel and, you know, constantly be making things that already exist.  Um, butÊ but to apply the sort of best practices from around our field to our individual local and state needs, we really do need to be able to, um, to individualize and create our own systems.  So I think, you know, maybe that's on something that we take for granted because we don't have that enforced from a federal perspective but it's valuable to have that freedom to individualize our work to our state's needs.
 >> Does anybodyÊ this is Julie.  And I appreciated the example, the idea that you had, Amanda that you shared about using that within your networks then Ann the fact you shared another example of what happened at your Minnesota community of practice meeting.  But does anyone have, um, we have 5 minutes soÊ I just thought if anybody out there since Chris brought up the point of we kind of have to individualize it to us is anybody having discuss?  Is there something we didn't hear from the first two presenters that you want to share with people here?
 >> So we started over with a team that we're working with and we gave them this really cool lesson plan we worked up my partner and I and we were so proud and it had many of those components and it was really great and they cleaned house and got rid of everybody.  So we said okay we're going to start over and we looked at that plan and realized these teachers didn't have a shot of really implementing it even though it was really well done we thought so we're starting over from scratch again.  We're starting with assessment then we'll build parts of that back up, you know and how to tie it to standards and all.  So it's kind of a constant reboot but sometimes your best formsÊ they don't really bring the results and outcomes you hope for and you have to kind of take a step back and do tiny steps.
 >> Anybody else?  Anything in particular they're doing with their grant in terms of their activities that's related to the GEC?  One thing that I like, this is Julie, in both of those presentations is how they did take time to really first, um, assess and evaluate like the student first and kind of figure that out and actually if I'm going to be totally honest I feel like that's something we can do totally better in California.  I feel like ourÊ at least with me the discussions I have with teams is often pretty informal in terms of gathering information.  I don't use like a formal interview tool asking specific questions and things like that.  It makes me wonder if that could be particularly helpful or at least going down that checklist and really saying we're really answeringÊ we're thinking about all the sensory issues and we're thinking about the Etiology, we're thinkingÊ I mean we always talk to them about communication and know the Etiology but I'm just kind of wondering myself if that might be something that we could improve.
 >> I know we're going to use the form from last week on theÊ you know the access point form.  We talked this week and figured out a way to incorporate that with our planning tools.
 >> That's great.
 >> Yeah.
 >> Yeah New England I feel like one after another they come out with these great forms that I always look at.  Louise.
 >> Have you ever thought about presenting preserves training, like in universities that have special ed students, scholars that are friended by us have you gone into the classroom and given those presentations?  That would be helpful.  That way these kidsÊ I mean the students that are going out in the field will be better prepared.
 >> Absolutely.  Yep.  Yep.  Great suggestion.  Chris?
 >> This is Chris.  We definitely do in New York a lot of preserves guest lectures for all the various programs that are likely to serve our kids.  You know we definitely do guest lectures in the TVI programs, severe multiple disabilities programs and there wasÊ I mean this was a number of years ago, um, and this is actually how I got into the DeafBlind projects was the Helen Keller fellows program and several people who are currently working for state DeafBlind projects were Helen Keller fellows over that 5 year grant.  I know that was a specific grant and it was, you know, it happened then it ended but I think that was a huge example of a successful implementation of preserves training specific to deafblindness that has had really obvious ongoing impact.  So I mean I don't know about any kind of potential for that to happen again in the future, um, but it was massively impactful to our community, um, and you can tell just by kind of looking around the room at this summit.
 >> Yep.  Thanks everybody.
 >> Hello everyone.  I'm just going to give a couple of seconds to let everyone get back in the room.
 >> Recording in progress.  Welcome back.  I trust that your breakout sessions provided you all some time to collaborate and do some more thinking about this topic of accessing the General Education curriculum.  Now we're going to turn it over to Kayla and Julie who will share with us how California DeafBlind services is incorporating access to the General Education curriculum in their work.  Kayla and Julie.  Take it away.
 >> Hi everyone.  I am Kayla Coburn.  Apparently gardeners just showed up to my mom's house which is where I'm at so I'm sorry if there's a lot of background noise.  But I am Kayla I am the new education specialist at California DeafBlind services.  I'm a white woman with long reddish hair in front of a beautiful virtual background of a book shelf.  I wish I could say this is mine but it is not.  And I'm presenting today with Julie Maier the one and only.
 >> Hi everyone this is Julie Maier and I'm the project coordinator of California DeafBlind services.  I am a white woman with dark hair and I'm wearing glasses and a black shirt with a gray blazer and I'm sitting at a desk in front of a white wall that has photos displayed behind me.  And Kayla will start our first slide.
 >> Yes.  So our objectives today.  We are just going to talk about the challenges and opportunities that we face in our state.  We want to just provide information or we're going to explain how CDBS provides information through our TA process on the General Education curriculum then at the end we're going to share a couple of examples that we have used with our team during the TA process.  So here's a quick snapshot of our student population.  The regular state assessment we had 29 students.  The regular state assessment with accommodations was 125.  The alternate assessment was 314.  Then we have a session for not required by grade or age or parental opt out which was 486 which I then asked if we can break that down so I feel like those are two pretty separate groups and parental opt out was 28.  Not sure why but there were 28 opt outs.  So, um, this is what's on our state website of how we give General Education access and there are standards.  So we emphasize on access for all students promoting use of the universal design of learning and collaboration between educators.  We hope that IEP goals align to grade level standards and California mostly uses synergy for IEP writeups and they both have the option to have the Common Core standards then you can connect it, um, to the goal that you're writing for the student.  So it will leave out blanks of where to fill in the accommodations or modification that is might be needed.
 Then we are a state that has the Common Core standards for ELA and math and next generation science standards.  We are not a dynamic learning map state.  And the yearly assessments we have the smarter balanced assessment and alternate assessment which is the California alternate assessment and as a former Special Education teacher, um, this was something that I got trained on a lot and I don't feel like it was always the best alternative assessment for our specific population.  Um, which I just think would come with more modifications and accommodations that we would have to supply for our students.
 And so I'm going to talk about this quote which I think especially after our breakout room, um, this is such a great quote.  So it's Dianne Browder, the danger of basing educational planning solely on a team's expectations of a student's future life is that the vision may be too small.  And this is her response to an article from Pam Hunt and John McDonnell which talks about how to find the core standard that is important for the student, find the area, you know, what's the goal for what's next?
 And how to write an IEP goal that is best for that student, um, in an extensive support needs classroom which again we put in our resources at the end.  Good article.
 >> Thanks so much Kayla we wanted to end that section with a quote because it's another way of talking about what we've been hearing all along I think from everyone around this paradigm shift and really helping people recognize that we must have competence and opportunity to have access and gain knowledge and learn these things.  We know if we don't provide the opportunities or don't provide a way for them to learn these things then they certainly won't.  So that's a dangerous assumption to make so it's better to just presume that they might be able to learn these things and as Tracy so brilliantly showed us last week, um, that, um, even she was surprised to go back and see this boy learning how to count using puffy paints.
 So we just agree with whatever is shared:  2/3 or more of our students are involved in the alternate assessment so we have a lot of students who are with school teams that need information about perhaps need information about access to the general Ed core curriculum and the best way for us to do this in our large state is through our TA process.
 We have a similar TA process to many of you, I think.  It's a 3 tiered process.  And we have teams move up and kind of earn the right to intensive TA as they demonstrate readiness and commitment.  Next slide, please.  So on this slide you'll just see the different levels and kind of the ways that we provide resources at each level.  So at the foundational level and everyone who requests TA starts there.  We first provide resources.  And there's so many great online resources that either we've developed or all of you out there have developed and NCDB has so beautifully like now curated on their website.  Teams that are interested in learning more or have specific needs for students we then will move to that level of targeted TA if they show they're ready for that and do specific training for the team based on those needs.  Then finally and this is few teams in our large state and this is all we have the capacity for, um, is intensive.  So for teams that really show commitment, they're using the resources we're giving them.  They're asking for more types of trainings.  We're seeing them ready to implement specific strategies, maybe they've taken paraeducators in their district or on their team and enrolled them in our intervener trainer program.  Those things show they're ready to now implement the things we've been talking about then intensive TA begins with an onsite visit, more coaching and monitoring and development of a TA plan.  And we'll show you that TA plan shortly.
 So the other teams have shared some challenges and we certainly have ours.  I mean I know everybody out there does.  We just talked about many in our breakout room.  In California as always, our biggest challenge is just how large the state is and how populated it is and the diversity.  It's also the greatest thing about California the diversity but it's a challenge.
 And we currently have a critical teacher shortage.  The curriculum that many districts develop they pick a certain curriculum like say unique learning systems and they say oh that's our curriculum for all the students in the extensive support needs class but often that doesn't provide access to students with extensive support needs including deafblindness.
 Then that professional mindset that everyone else talked about just not having a big enough view of what this child could do, what this child's capabilities are, what this child might be interested in.  That this child of course should have access to learning about space and the moon and stars.  If everybody else in the fourth grade does this child should too much and finally the variability in teacher and service providers' training.  Depending on where they earn their credential what program they went through that will vary in terms of what knowledge and skills they have in being able to implement something like the type of plan that Chevonne shared with us.  So that's a challenge.  Let me tell you about the opportunities.  So...ÊAnyone that knows me out there, um, I'm a very glass is half full kind of person.  I've been accused of wearing rose colored glasses.  So I am not just going to look at barriers and get frustrated by them.  We need to think about opportunities.
 In our state these are opportunities that we see.  You'll see after each bulleted point an initial.  That initial is just telling you if it's foundational, intensive or TA.  So providing webinars on literacy.  Foundational.  Using all the resources we've gathered and developed and we have ready to share with people happens at all levels.
 We do an extensive amount of preserves training to all the credential programs for deafblindness in our state.  That's foundational.  We're giving teachers information and overview so when they get into the classroom they can get started.  Consult during an IEP goal, not during IEP but prior to IEPs, we're excited we have a lot of educators in our state that have knowledge of the core vocabulary, know about project core, emergent literacy skills.  In those cases targeted TA can make a difference.  There are other organizations focused on general Ed access too for different types of groups and learners so we can connect with them then finally we have a small but very vibrant community of practice of teachers of the DeafBlind and they can serve as mentors and a few already have so that could happen at a targeted or intensive level.  And next what we just want to share in our last 5 minutes is just showing you some examples of how we've done in at different levels.  So on the first example it's just a list of resources that I shared with the team for a middle school student.  He had charge syndrome.  His family had immigrated from a country whereÊ and had refugee status here.  He bounced around to a lot of different districts.  The family does not speak English.  And so we really had to address communication as well as engagement in the general Ed curriculum together.  So you'll see here just a list and this is in your slides.  You can click on any of the hyperlinks.  You should be familiar with everything that we've shared.  So just to show you that we're taking things from lots of places and helping teams just get started.  Start with this, get a taste of these things if you want more come back then we now move with this child into targeted TA.
 The next slide shows just an example of consult we did with a transitionaged kindergarten student or transitionedaged kindergarten student so she's almost 5 and this team knew a lot about emergent literacy but we wanted to write goals specific to thinking about DeafBlind strategies and connecting it to the Common Core connectors.  Essential understanding.  So here's there's one related to her using a switch to read during shared reading and another one using an anticipation calendar with tactileÊ in a multimodal way, tactile objects, spoken language, touch cues and signs.  So she's able to demonstrate that she understands information she's receiving and can give a response back.  So early literacy skill.
 Kayla.
 >> So these next two goals were for a high school student who wore hearing aids and very low visually.  So we would have the Common Core standard which in this case it's the determining two or more central ideas of text and analyzing their development.  The essential understanding is identifying the central idea or key detail of a text.  So her goal read as Kayla will increase literacy skills by touching one tactile object relating to a text or chapter being read when prompted with 1 body or touch cue and 1 verbal cue in 3 out of 3 opportunities.  So thisÊ she used a lot of tactile objects and she was still reading high school books that were just modified to her ability.  Then the next goal is understanding how language functions in different texts to make choices and comprehend when reading or listening.  The essential understanding is to use a range of vocabulary to convey ideas and opinions.  And for this goal it's given hand under hand support after listening to an adapted grade level text Kayla will answer 6 questions with two choice options relating to the topic using core words cards like or not with 80Êpercent accuracy.  So this is just a way of, you know, they're finding the Common Core standard that is grade level appropriate but then making it appropriate to her needs and giving her access to the curriculum, the Common Core standard.  Yeah.
 >> Thanks Kayla and Kayla developed that with the team during intensive TA and also I have to say Kayla before she came to our project was a phenomenal classroom teacher in an extensive support needs class so she had a lot of great knowledge, you know, to share with them and great ideas.  And the essential understandings that's something that's straight from our CaliforniaÊ from our Common Core standards in our state.  So they provide that document that helps you identify where that understanding is.  Then finally in base camp I'm not going through it but in base camp you'll find the form we use for our intensive TA planning and I want to give a shout out and thank you to the New York DeafBlind collaborative because rather than reinventing the wheel in this case we used a great TA planning form they had shared with many people and found it useful.  So you'll see how we then were able to identify action items so that the adult learners or the adults supporting this child are able to show what they're going to do to enhance her communication, her access to the General Education curriculum.  So we're able to track progress an common measures that way.  And, um, the final slide is just references we talked about where you can find the two articles Kayla referenced and thanks for taking an interest in what we're trying to do.  We know we're all at different places and we all have a lot of work to do.  Us included.
 >> Thank you so much, Julie and Kayla.  And so now we're going to give you all the 3 minutes just a quick reflection to jot down some of your thoughts and bring you back for the final presentation from Juanita from Puerto Rico.
 >> Thirty seconds everybody!
 >> All right.  So we are now going to turn our presentation over to Juanita Rodriguez from the Puerto Rico DeafBlind project.  And we really wanted to end with a case study, just an example of how this works in practice and we are so thrilled that Juanita is going to share the story of Ryan and his family.  Thank you so much Juanita.
 >> Thank you Emma.  It's nice to see you all in this summit.  I am going to talk about a case, um, we don't have a systematic plan we just depend on the communication from the teacher and family.  To summarize what we have right now there are as of 2021 there are 34 students.  And the technical assistance is provided as per requests from families, teachers and other school personnel.  And I am the coordinator and Marta is the Associate Director.  Next.  I'm going to be talking about Ryan.  Ryan is 16 years old.  The youngest of two sons born to Yvette and Moises.  He's in tenth grade in public school in the southern part of the island.  Access to GEC, he has received that access and he's also received adaptive physical education.  And was eligible for Special Education services under DeafBlind category.  Originally Ryan was placed in a classroom for students with multiple disabilities.  When you see Ryan for the first time you think that, um, like one of the persons who presented before said he was not [Indiscernible] to access curriculum but he proved us wrong.  Next.  Okay he also received home schooling prior to elementary school.  The elementary placement Special Education classroom for the DeafBlind on a one to one he was placed.  He's DeafBlind and due to Kernicterus and has cortical visual imparity auditory neuropathy spectrum disease order severe CP and dystonia.  So when you see him and don't have regular form to communicate you ask how this child is going to access our curriculum.  Next.
 This is a photo, a snap of Ryan in his home classroom.  And the family has to provide a larger, um completer because the one that he wasÊ was too small for his visual needs.  There's Ryan and this is a closer look of Ryan's room.
 It includes the laptop.  Next I will have an excerpt of the IEP.  It is one of 4 slides and it comes on his health.  Ryan suffers from reflux severe constipation and dystonia.  He gets tired frequently depending on the activity and frequency of the activity.  That means if heÊ he can't go for more than 15 minutes in any activity so he has to rest then go again to the activity so that has to be part of the recommendations.
 The academic level, academic function is average if compared with other students of his same age with assistive technology, modifications and support.
 He accesses the curriculum.  Someone was asking about that.  During the academic year 2021 the student will be included in science, mathÊ I'm reading the IEP for 2021.  That's why it's in the future.  Science, math and English.  By the way science and math are his favorite subjects.  The content will be modified to fit his needs.
 Next.
 Ryan receives individualized instruction to meet his learning needs to access information.  He communicates in gestures, weeping, smiling and eye contact.  He uses a Tobii communicator.  Next.
 The goal was to apply math concepts, estimate, computer, relate numbers and numeric systems, select and interpret units in formulas and select and interpret the scale in a graphic.  Those are goals for the standard for his grade.  Next.  Ryan needs assistance in communication.  His mother collaborated in the identification of his preferred mode of communication.  Teacher was instructed, one to one teacher on the communication system used by the students.  Twohand system.  He has to be able to communicate in a regular classroom to participate and interact with classmates.  It means that we have to work with him and with the other students in order to foster this interaction and communication.  So he will feel part of the classroom and the classmates and not someone that is sitting there doing something different from the curriculum.  Next.
 Revision of IEP to changeÊ we offer technical assistance to teachers to review.  His IEP to change his placement to a regular seventh grade.  Access the General Education curriculum with modifications and accommodations needed.  Technical assistance to content area teachers on how to teach Ryan using his unique communication system.  How to ask questions when you talk to Ryan?  How to evaluate Ryan?  And the other technical assistance provided was orientation to Ryan's classmates to facilitate his interactions in the classroom in math Ontario science, particularly.  Ryan wants to have friends among classmates.  So we went to these classroom and talked in general terms of what was to be DeafBlind and what Ryan needed for him to interact with the students.  So we explained to them how Ryan communicated and from that time on we saw, um, more student, um, getting closer to Ryan and trying to communicate with him.  Next.
 Ryan had been attending regular classes since the seventh grade.  Accessing the GEC with a teacher assistant, accommodations and modifications recommended to fit his communications.  Basically what we have to provide technical assistance to all the people that interact with Ryan in the classroom or school was to utilize this special communication strategy that he uses.  Ryan can raise his left hand to say no and to raise his right hand to answer yes questions.  So we have to modify the questions for yes and no answers.  Additionally teachers use two alternatives.  One for each hand to request Ryan's participation in the classroom.  So this particular system has been used by the teachers to encourage him to participate.  If they don't accommodate in the questions that they want to ask him he will not be able to answer because as I mentioned earlier he cannot talk.
 But he understands.
 We provide additional time to take tests, additional time to answer questions in the classroom.  One of the things of theÊ of his visual and hearing condition, he takes more time to think what has been asked then he provides the answer.  You have to give him enough time so he can answer the questions that you're presenting to him.  Technical assistance is offered to teachers, other school personnel and classmates in accordance with Ryan's academic and social needs.  And this is Ryan's mother.
 [ video ]
 >> Kristi this is Haylee.
 >> We're not getting any sound.
 >> Yeah there was no sound.
 >> You might have to unmute possibly.
 >> Sorry about that.  Let's try it again.
 [ captioned video ]
 >> Thank you Juanita for sharing your work with us and sharing Ryan and his story and his mom with us.  We're now going to give you a short 2minutes.  So your short by one minute, a short 2 minutes to do some reflecting on what Juanita shared with us.  What I would love to share with you is this great quote from the autism site and it says presuming competence means to assume that a person has the capacity to think, learn and understandeven if you don't see any tangible evidence that such is the case.  It's assuming they are not inherently incapable, they just need the right supports and systems to help them succeed.
 And I think this really applies to what we just heard from Ryan's mom and the story about Ryan and the work that Puerto Rico is doing.  So as we send you off just to have 2 minutes of reflection, please take some time to consider what did you hear that resonated with you and how might you speak with educational teams about presuming competence or the least dangerous assumption.  So I'll give you 2 minutes.
 >> Thirty seconds.
 >> All right.  Let's all come back together.  We're going to send you back into breakout rooms.  Today or for this breakout we're actually going to have it be 15 minutes instead of 20.  Hopefully you'll have some time for some more conversation to talk about the last two presentations and kind of process and go through, um, some collaborative discussion.  So Haylee if you'll put us into breakouts we'll see you in 15 minutes.
 >> Looks like we're back with the same group.
 >> Brandi I can do the note taking and let you participate more.
 >> Can I give an example of presumed competence I'm dealing with currently?  It's not a positive message.  I hate to be negative, gosh I'm sorry but working with this team and we're providing TA to them and the oneonone and the teacher that was brought in for this classroom has 3 students on the DeafBlind census.  You know they justÊ we were in a meeting with them and they shouted us down, they argued us down they just insisted and could not be convinced that these children have the ability to learn anything other than brushing their teeth or functional stuff.  I mean we triedÊ we gave him examples and we were never able to convince them that they communicate and they can learn.  And it was heart breaking, absolutely heart breaking that they assume no competence at all.  I think that's the worst example I've ever dealt with but heart breaking.
 >> Wow.
 >> Yeah.
 >> Yeah.  And it's hard whenÊ this is Julie, when there's a whole group.  Like you're the one, you know, you or the other person are the only people with that message and especially if they're the people with the kid every day or the children every day they think that they know.  Like you're just the outside person that'sÊ I get accused of that all the time.  People always tell me that I've got rose colored glasses.  Like Julie you're hoping for too much.  Yeah.  I'm so sorry Andrea.
 >> Well the teachers and the staff were let go last week so...ÊWe're going to rebuild now so...Ê
 >> This is Julie again what the about the family?  Can the family like speak up and advocate?  And like say I don't want to be in that class?  Is that an option?
 >> Well it's a residential program and they don't often speak up.
 >> I see.  Amanda.
 >> Hi, I'm relatively new to the DeafBlind project in my state.  It's something that I was thinking both during the presentation and now when Andrea was speaking about her experience that I'm still at I guess maybe wrapping my head around is we have a limited amount of people and time.  Right.  Every project.  Some much more than New York does.  And so how we deliver TA has to be to classrooms, to people who are invested to people who buyin but what's difficult about that is it's often the people who don't buyin most need it the most.  And Chris and I have been dealing with a situation for a while now where there's a lot of time and effort that's been put in and they keep inviting us back but they haven't really followed through on any of it.  And partÊ we keepÊ everyone who is involved in this particular situation we're like ready to jump ship at any moment but also like but nothing is happening for this student.  So you also are like well I really want to stay for this student who is capable of learning, who we can put great things into place for and I am pretty recently out of being a classroom teacher so I'm keepingÊ just moved to Albany, you just like come live next door to me and I'll be your teacher because this is driving me accuracy.  Why are these things not happening yet.
 >> Note taker Chris do you have something to add?
 >> Yeah, this is Chris.  Just to totally echo and piggyback on what Amanda said.  That's the struggle with intensive TA which is maybe more a large state struggle but maybe not because small states also have less funding so you have less time as a staff person.  So, you know, um, we have to make relevant tough decisions about who we're going to give our time to because we simply do not have the staffing and resources and funding to support the kind of intensive work that is needed.  Um, and so it is a very difficult decision to say, um, well, this team is not buying in.  Um, I've provided some support up front but there's no follow through.  And my time is really better spent elsewhere, even though it's heart breaking that that student is the one who loses out.
 Um...ÊBut the fact is we have 500 students and, you know, um, two fulltime staff and now 3, 4Ê 4 parttime staff.  So it's just not possible to provide, um, the ongoing intensive TA to teams that are not, um, not doing anything with it.  And for whom it's an attitudinal issue and not just a matter of learning.
 >> Yeah and I think Julie's question to Andrea is applicable in pretty much any cases.  Well what can we get from the family.  Because the family member is the team member that's not going to change in most cases.  That's the person that it is sort of more worth time long term to keep being invested with because classroom teachers this is part of our barrier, classroom teachers change all the time.  Professionals change all the time and if we do get a family to buy in they might then say let's move to a different program, let's look at a different classroom where there is a possibility of making impact of getting a buy in.
 >> Yep.
 >> I totally agree with that as well.  When you have that family buy in and they're working so close with the school no matter what the transition or turnover is, if you've got that family buy in the outcomes are usually a little different and positive.
 >> Brandi or Ann?  Or Ellen.
 >> This is Brandi I'm newer to the Minnesota project as well but Ann and I have been talking kind ofÊ Julie the diagram that you shared with the levels of TA that's something that we're really trying to start diving into deeper and I really liked kind of your statement that like the teams have to earn the right to that intensive TA through their commitment.  Back to what you were saying but of course we know not all the teams are at that place.  So I just really liked your examples and I know that Ann and I have looked at the New York DeafBlind project web page with your TA levels too and we're justÊ it's fun to see or helpful to see what other states are doing and how we can turn around and implement some of those things in a that I works for Minnesota.
 >> Yep.  Yep.  This is Julie and it took us a while to get there.  We spent a lot of time where people just would call us or email us and say there's a kid you need to come out and see and we would spend funds, time, effort then they call us back a year later and tell us the same problems were there.  Well what about all the strategies that we talked about, the things we showed you and they didn't do them.  So now we kind of likeÊ I mean I probably shouldn't have said they have to earn it but we're really thinking about observable adult behaviors but they're showing they're ready to engage and learn.  Because if they're not ready to learn, I mean like Chris said we are so limited, we know 4 staff to cover this, you know, twice as many kids.  It's sad.  So, you know, we have to really think about how can we help build the capacity and knowledge and that kind of mindset of people as much as possible at that foundational level.  A key place and Louise I'm glad you brought it up in the last breakout is the preserves level.  Um, we reallyÊ and I'm excited we've been doing this forÊ the K12 service levels and DHH and other programs at many CSU's across the state and other universities but I just started making contact with the early childhood special ed programs because I want to start getting these educators really early.  Really, really early.  Before they make the assumption that a child with multiple disabilities is going to be like functional skills only.  You know?  And only writing goals related to that and not evenÊ yeah.  Chris.
 >> Julie what you just said made me think as well maybe a little bit of a tangent that we haven't talked about fully yet but this also supports the need for, um, alternate assessment standards whether it's DLM or anything else that are actually appropriate to our students.  Because I think one of the reasons that people have low expectations for students with complex multiple disabilities, especially complex communication needs is that the existing alternative standards are inappropriate for them and are way too high for them and don't factor in perquisite concept development skills that they may not yet be showing.  So I know that that's already work that OSEP is invested in through the Atlas center and updating the DLM but it could have a long term impact on people's attitudes if there were standards that show what they can do rather than what they constantly can't do.
 >> Uhhuh.  Great points.  Yep.  Yep.
 >> Thanks for writing down my thoughts Brandi.
 >> We're you such a good team.
 >> I realized it last time when you were speaking, oh I have access to the document.
 >> Teamwork.
 >> Yeah Kayla in our presentation this is Julie, Kayla said should I get into how the alternate assessment in California isn't appropriate for most of our kids.  I'm like I don't think we have time.  We're only given 15 minutes you can probably talk about that for 15 minutes from your experience.  Yeah.
 >> Yeah Amanda here as also a recent classroom teacher with multiple DeafBlind students.  Every time DLM or alternative assessments comes up I have post traumatic flashbacks to how inappropriate testing was.  
 >> This is Julie but also Chris what you said the perquisite concepts.  Kayla is like there's no way that theyÊ you know, it was just even talking about one of the questions I remember she explained was like a roof top garden.  You know?  Because it was a question about, you know, climate change or the environment or something.  And she's like how would they have the concept of a roof top garden unless they honestly had the chance to go and explore and crawl around and feel and...ÊAnd these are kids like, you know, in inner cities that convenient done that.  So yeah.
 This is Chris.  I just remember the example of, um, when I was 1214 classroom teacher and for high school aged students and the alternate assessment standard for social studies was to show understanding of the Industrial Revolution by demonstrating which items were made on a farm versus in a factory.  And definitely a student who had never been out of the south Bronx did not know about farms versus factories.
 >> Yeah.  Yeah.
 >> This is Ann, Chris what's a 1214 teacher?
 >> That's often how we talk about like ratios of classrooms at least in New York.  Twelve students, 1 teacher and 4 assistants, 4 paraprofessionals.  So 12, 1, 41 a ratio that kids with multiple disabilities get put in in New York because we're such a separate instruction kind of state.
 >> So we have probably 3 or 2 minutes so anybodyÊ any finalÊ going to be challenging to go change all those mindsets but...ÊSomeone's got to do it.  Going to have to be the DeafBlind network again.
 >> Might as well be us.  Right?
 [Laughing].
 >> This is Julie.  It would be cool if they startÊ maybe if NCDB finds a way to start pooling some of the resources that some of us are finding useful.  It's interesting, there's a lot of teams I worked with over the last year at the foundational level who really haveÊ once I started writing up my notes and putting in like making a column and a list of the resources and giving the brief explanation and the hyperlink and not too many, um, it'sÊ that's been better then what used to happen in the past where I would, you know, email them a PDF or something like that.  I think putting them all in one notes page with the hyperlink hasÊ it seems like more people are at least checking them out so...Ê
 >> That's what I've been doing I do a lot of hyperlinks and I find I'm sharing things from different state projects.  Brandi and I were just saying one of the things of the pandemic is that we can see what other projects are doing because it's up on the web.  I thinkÊ I don't remember who said it before but one project can't do it all.  So, you know like if there's something in California I can use that.  I encourage people in the communities of practice to look at other state projects because we do have a limited amount of money and some states are better at certain things than others and that's okay.
 >> Absolutely.  Julie I use the fact sheets from California quite a bit.
 >> Oh yeah.  Yeah.  I do think thatÊ we have to do more of the fact sheets because I think the shorter the better.  I wrote down on my notes here email Ann about the 1 pager person centered planning.  I'm all about one or two pagers so...Ê
 >> I've got a PDF I can share it with you.
 >> Would you email it to me, please?
 >> I'll do that.
 >> Thank you.
 >> I would like it as well.  Can you get it to all of us?
 >> Good resource sharing.  We've started it.  That's the first drop.  We're probably going to split up soon so...ÊHave a good day everybody.  I'm sure we're going to get pulled out.
 >> Hello everyone, I would like to welcome you back.  Um, and I'm hopeful and I trust that your discussions were great in these final breakouts.  I just wanted to thank you for joining us today and ask you to please take some time to, um, complete our evaluation.  It will help us as we move forward.  It will guide us in our work and give us some feedback about where we need to go moving forward.  Again thank you so much for joining us today for the second session on accessing the General Education curriculum.  Since we're just starting this journey in this work we want to partner with you.  If you are interested in joining a peer learning community or a work group around this subject and this work, please contact me or Emma Nelson.  Our emails are on the NCDB website and they're also linked in this PowerPoint.  I know that at times we have had our thoughts and assumptions challenged as we've embarked on this work intentionally.  I remember in the 90's a phrase that was popular and could possibly apply to us and that I heard Julie say earlier today.  As we ponder this topic and that is we need to change our paradigm.  We will likely need help from others and to help others as they change theirs as well.  So as we leave here today, I challenge all of us to continue the work through this idea of changing the paradigm.  As we work for incorporating these practices and move forward in our work together, let's forge forth together as we work toward better access for our students, their families and helping the professionals that we serve.  Thank you again for joining us today.  Emma you want to come back on and we can wave to everyone and tell them thank you for joining us.
 >> Yeah and actually I just got a really great idea from Melanie.  She said we should take a group photo.  If we stop sharing and everybody make a face like we wish we were altogether I'll take some quick screen shots.  So everybody on page one make a crazy wild fun face.  Yes, Katy I love your heart, Megan I love it.  Yes!
 >> Hurry up and take it.  Casey and Kayla and Lisa and Jennifer and Chris and let's see...ÊJana andÊ I love it then I will do the final one.  Okay.  One, 2, 3.  All right you guys wish we were all inperson so much.  And we're so grateful for all of everything that each of you do every day.
 >> Yes thank you!