[00:00:00] Krystal Ashe: Advocacy isn’t accessible to as many people as you would hope, as might need, and something that was discovered through the work of the advocates and the attorneys, and even through Keith’s own life experiences, that if 100 people walk through the door looking for advocacy, only a quarter of those people are actually going to be able to access it.

[music]

[00:00:26] Gretchen Roe: Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to this episode of The Demme Learning Show. I am so excited to welcome these three beautiful ladies today to talk to you about The Advocacy Circle in K Altman Law. We’re going to talk to you all today about what it really means to understand fully when your child learns differently, and how to really be their advocate in a cogent and real way to help them get what they need so that they can be successful. I am so delighted to welcome these ladies today. I’ve been waiting for this conversation all summer long.

I’m going to learn a great deal today, and I’m sure you all will too. As our guests join us online, I want you all to know that I am monitoring the Q&A. If we say something that has you questioning, please don’t hesitate to ask questions. We want this to be for your benefit. We’re going to begin with Krystal. She’s going to tell us how she came to be here and a little bit about how this amazing service came about for parents.

[00:01:31] Krystal: Thank you for such a warm welcome. We have also been waiting all summer for this conversation to happen. We’re so excited to be here. My name’s Krystal Ashe. I’m the assistant director of The Advocacy Circle. A little bit of my personal professional journey. I was a classroom teacher and then got my master’s in curriculum and instruction, which brought me to K Altman Law to help out on the SPED team. K Altman Law’s SPED team does a lot of parent training, a lot of professional training, and that developed into The Advocacy Circle, which now I head up the curriculum for.

I’ve had a very slow roll into this space, but it was a long time coming with my experience in the classroom and my experience as an advocate with K Altman Law. Now, we continue our partnership outreach efforts to connect with people like you and have these awesome conversations. Which is how we’ve landed here on The Demme Learning Show. We are just so excited to continue this conversation and really dive into these things.

[00:02:33] Gretchen: I think it’s really remarkable that you all saw a need and you didn’t just fill it. You went and figured out how to make it a premium experience for families who had those needs, which is just remarkable. Melanie, I’m going to let you introduce yourself, and then I’ll go to Francesca, and then we’ll get into the meat of our conversation.

[00:02:56] Melanie: My name is Melanie Roy. I am a special education advocate with K Altman Law, as well as The Advocacy Circle. Prior to becoming an advocate or alongside being an advocate, I was a special education teacher for many years. You mentioned seeing this need and filling it. In transitioning to K Altman Law, we, as advocates, want to help everyone. We want to help every single person that reaches out. Being a boutique law firm, that isn’t always realistic. Whether the barriers be financial, whether they be a knowledge or an understanding of where to get help, or whether they be from a location perspective, there are some barriers there.

While we do as much as we can to break down those barriers, we recognize some of them are just the reality. The Advocacy Circle really is created to address those concerns and make sure that we’re widening our circle. We’re making sure that everybody who needs the support, who wants the support, can hopefully find an entry point, a way to get the supports. Parents don’t know what they don’t know, and that’s horrifying and overwhelming as a parent.

Our goal is to give them a safe space to land and to learn because so much of us are learn-it-alls. We want to learn more, and we know when we have the right resources, we can do that. That’s how my part of The Advocacy Circle came to be. We utilized all of our advocates’ expertise and their approach to advocacy, and we worked to build that into The Advocacy Circle. Like I said, we can broaden that circle and bring in more families for support. That’s my passion, for sure.

[00:04:35] Gretchen: I think that’s pretty amazing. We’ll get into a little bit more of the detail of how that support is generated. Francesca, before we dive too deeply in here, tell us about you.

[00:04:48] Francesca Korbas: My background is different than Krystal and Melanie’s by a bit. My background really stemmed from a very young age of a drive to support children and child welfare. I went to law school. I received a law degree. My goal was to work with children and child welfare, and I did for a while. Any type of protection that existed for children, I was very, very bound to, and that eventually became education law. I always talk about this with the advocates. One of the things that I love about education law is education is where children, no matter what their experiences are, can find meaning and find purpose wherever it takes them.

I wanted to help all the kids, but I couldn’t. I was like, “Okay, this is a good niche.” Then I ended up going and really working with people who are non-attorneys who do this type of advocacy, Melanie being one of them previously. She also brings up medical advocacy. Lends to things, which I love because it’s the holistic perspective of working with kids. Ending up at K Altman Law, I was asked to come to K Altman Law and help grow the special education team because of the background I had in doing so in other places.

I always say I’m an advocate for the advocates. That’s my job is to help them do their job because I know what the end result is, and that’s helping the kids. That’s a long-winded history of how I got here too.

[00:06:20] Gretchen: I’m just impressed with the fact that a law firm saw this kind of a need and was willing to press into delivering for families at a variety of different levels for that. In speaking at homeschool conferences across the country, I talk to families all the time who have some wild stories of how they have been thrown into the deep end of the pool trying to advocate for their kids, and it’s not easy to do that. It just is remarkable. Tell us how you all conceived of The Advocacy Circle because I think knowing how this functions is the key or the fulcrum to us having a deeper understanding.

[00:07:15] Krystal: It is my very favorite story to explain how The Advocacy Circle came to be. I’ll tackle this one. The advocacy work at K Altman Law, it’s something that Keith Altman, the founder, really believes very strongly in. Being someone who lost his vision very late in life and having a disability himself, it’s something that he really believes in and really wanted to be able to help more with. Like Melanie said, unfortunately, advocacy isn’t accessible to as many people as you would hope, as might need.

Something that was discovered through the work of the advocates and the attorneys, and even through Keith’s own life experiences, that if 100 people walk through the door looking for advocacy, only a quarter of those people are actually going to be able to access it. Whether it’s the cost or the geographic location or you don’t know what you don’t know, even being able to get to the door to find a resource, it’s quite difficult to actually get advocacy and get good advocacy and have meaningful outcomes.

The Advocacy Circle was created to address that problem of we can literally see people coming in the door needing advocacy and not being able to access it for some way. That got us thinking, how many other people aren’t even making it to the door? How many people don’t know that they have rights or that advocacy is an option that they can try for their child? We came to The Advocacy Circle as an online platform, as a solution, a soft place to land, like Melanie said, because for a much wider variety of people, an online virtual advocate hopefully is just a little bit more accessible. Hopefully, that makes all the difference for some families looking for advocacy.

[00:09:06] Gretchen: Just to have a place where you can be sure that the terminology is defined and that you are having a place for a parent to self-educate, to me, is remarkable. Often, I speak with parents, and they don’t know what their rights are. They’ve got to start somewhere. How does a parent who comes to The Advocacy Circle, what is their first experience? I have a child. My child has a need. That need’s not being met. Now what?

[00:09:37] Krystal: Your first experience is me and Francesca. Our faces are plastered all over the tutorial, the advocates as well. The first step really is, like you said, I don’t know what I’m doing. I think this is a good resource, but where do I even start? We have some instructional videos that get kicked off. We actually have some on our YouTube as well as in the actual platform as a tutorial, and we have some functions of the Virtual Advocate Celia that walk you through what you can do with The Advocacy Circle and then actually get you started.

There is a button that says, Get Started Here, and it’ll prompt you to run your IEP or 504 or eval or whatever it is that you may have at that point through our document analysis, and it will actually suggest that maybe you need to follow up with these types of questions, or maybe you need to ask your school team if you have this kind of data. It will point you in the right direction so you can get your feet wet. It is a unique type of program that we have. It’s got our learning center where you can self-educate. It’s got our virtual advocate where you can actually run those queries and those questions and have that simulation of advocacy, and then we also have our community.

There’s a lot going on, and we’re there in spirit with our videos and our pictures plastered all over everything to guide you through what we typically find most helpful when somebody is starting out, whether it’s their first child in pre-K or maybe you made it all the way to senior year without having a special education experience. Regardless of where you are on that spectrum, we try to get you started off on the right foot.

[00:11:17] Gretchen: We were fortunate. I had two kids who had 504 plans. Kid number one, when we moved to where he ultimately graduated high school from, he did not want it disclosed that he had dyslexia. He went all the way through his sophomore year of high school scrambling to keep up. It actually was the woman who developed our spelling curriculum who said to me, “Absolutely not. You have got to disclose this. The school needs to know. He needs to have the supports.” She convinced him because your mother doesn’t know anything. [laughs]

She convinced him to allow us to advocate for him to get him a 504. The interesting thing was because he didn’t have that in place until he was a junior in high school, it didn’t follow him to college because they said there wasn’t enough time in grade. Then we got smart with his younger brother, who also is mildly dyslexic. We got those things in place for him in middle school. It made a difference for him in high school. Then he decided to become an electrician. His path forward was entirely different. [laughs]

At least we felt like we had done everything we could for the kids. Before we started, we talked a little bit about not wanting to label, and that can be a hindrance to being helpful. Can you guys talk about that? Why it’s so important to make sure that we have the terms defined and the supports available to our students?

[00:13:05] Francesca: I think Melanie should answer this.

[00:13:07] Melanie: Okay. Absolutely. I can say that I understand where the fear or the worry related to a label is coming from. I can empathize with that. When I look at it through the lens of special education, the label isn’t a box that we’re putting your child in, which I think is a lot of the fear. We’re putting them in this box. We’re saying this is how far they can go. This is what they can experience. This is what they can do. This is mostly what they can’t do.

In the special education process, it’s really so much more about what supports do they need so they can climb above expectations, so they can have the supports they need in order to access their education. So much of it is about access. You wouldn’t take away a physical accommodation aid from a student that needs it in order to access. In the same way, we wouldn’t want to take away accommodations for a student with a mental health or a cognitive, or a learning disability.

They need those supports in the same way. It’s not as obvious. It’s not as visually clear, but they need those supports. Without them, research is pretty heavy on the impact that has on self-esteem, self-confidence, self-worth, their own thought process on how far they can go. Whereas, when given the supports, we see exponential growth in those areas for the positive. Part of advocacy is working with the team to figure out what the student’s needs are.

In doing that, you’re going to, yes, note some of the relative weaknesses for the student, but you’re also going to be identifying the strengths of the student and figuring out how we leverage those strengths in order to continue to grow the areas of weakness and relative weakness. It’s going to look different for everyone, and it does in our world look different for everyone, but special education makes sure that we look at it through that lens to, instead of holding them down and preventing them from living their life to the fullest, ensure access so that they can take their path forward to the fullest.

[00:15:16] Gretchen: I like that you said ensure access because I think sometimes as parents, we’re afraid of the label for fear that our children won’t have access, and you have to reframe this for parents so that they understand.

[00:15:37] Melanie: We do. We absolutely do.

[00:15:38] Krystal: It’s really important, too, to recognize that that fear stems from a stigma, a social construct. Having a label of a diagnosis or of having an IEP or a 504, there is nothing inherently bad or wrong about that. That all stems from that social stigma, which to an extent isn’t real. It is just a perception. It is not who you are. It does not define you. It does not make you more or less than anybody else. I think framing this as a diagnosis might feel like a label, but really it is one step in a staircase that we have to climb to get you what you need.

Not, it’s a label that’s going to define you and ostracize you from everybody else. It’s just a stepping stone. You’ve got to get your diagnosis so that you can get your eval, so you can get your supports. There are stepping stones along the way, and none of it defines a student’s person or character or worth.

[00:16:41] Francesca: I’ll add the nerdy legal lens here, too. One of the things that I think sometimes that people are interested in hearing is that the laws at the core of what supports students in schools were born from civil rights. They were born from injustices that segregated individuals in all different spaces. They have been hard-fought protections to give this access. Access is the word that was born from these injustices. We feel very passionately also because we are a law firm, and we have lawyers who also fight for that access, that these are things that should be taken advantage of by families because of the purpose behind them, which is let’s let everyone access the things in society that they are entitled to access.

[00:17:32] Gretchen: Sure. Sure. It makes a difference, at least in my mind. I have a grandchild who needed 504 until she didn’t need it anymore. She actually said– She’s a rising fourth-grader this year, and she said to the teachers at the end of the year when they did their sit-down, she said, “I don’t think I need this anymore.” The teachers had evaluated her and said, “Yes, we don’t either.” She said, “I’m good, but I want to be able to come back and talk to the counselors if it feels hard later.”

What was impressive for me with the school district is they were like, “Absolutely, you can certainly come back, but we’re really proud of you that you have managed to move beyond this.” I think isn’t that what all of us want for our kids, is we want them to be able to be successful.

[00:18:39] Krystal: That’s self-advocacy, too. I love to see that.

[00:18:42] Gretchen: I know. Tomorrow is her 10th birthday. I talked to her on the phone last night, and she said, “Well, I’m not 10 yet, but I’m very close.”

[laughter]

[00:18:57] Melanie: I love that.

[00:18:58] Francesca: She’s precocious. [crosstalk] We love a precocious kid.

[00:19:02] Gretchen: Yes, she is.

[00:19:02] Melanie: We sure do.

[00:19:04] Gretchen: She is really, she’s just a precious child. She was late to reading. She struggled to read. She had vision issues that I brought up to her parents that needed resolution. When I actually brought it up to her parents, they were shocked. They’re like, “What are you talking about?” I’m like, “Look, this is the world I walk in every day, all day. I’m going to tell you what I’m going to tell you, and then you’re going to go do something about this, because if you don’t, I will.” [chuckles] Last night, we had a very lengthy conversation about the three books that she’s juggling reading right now. I had called during her reading time. She said, “Well, normally, I would not interrupt my reading time, but for you, I’ll talk to you.” [laughs]

[00:19:54] Francesca: It’s for her, and you.

[00:19:56] Gretchen: Pretty awesome. My questions with you all. We had some super interesting questions. When a parent comes to you, how do you all, because I know supporting families who are pulling their kids from school, who have had 504s or IEPs, and they felt like their kids’ needs have not been met, that’s a huge underserved population. How do you guys find that population? What can you do for them? Because I know support varies by state, as what’s even available to them.

[00:20:35] Melanie: Special education, in terms of what services a student needs for that access, is so individualized. While we know that it is a population that’s underserved, we tend to receive them the same way. They’re overwhelmed, they’ve tried everything they know to try, and it hasn’t worked, and they’re reaching out a hand. Our job is to help them understand their rights. Their options moving forward, and help them make the informed decision.

Now, do we give our professional recommendations? Absolutely, we do. We also understand that that parent knows that child better than anyone. If they don’t have the background information, they can’t make an informed choice. Sometimes we have parents who pull the child because they want to keep them safe, and they know pulling them is going to prevent them from whatever harm is happening from not having the appropriate supports.

Sometimes that means guiding them through the conversation of how to get the student back in school. Sometimes that is the appropriate path, that is the path they want, and that is what we help them do. Sometimes that isn’t the path forward. They’ve now determined homeschool is the right fit for their child, and we can guide them through the laws. As you mentioned, it is so different from state to state. Please don’t quote me on the numbers because things shift at a state level pretty quickly compared to federal.

It’s my understanding there’s something like six states-ish that don’t require any documentation to homeschool. You decide to homeschool, you withdraw your child, and now you’re homeschooling. Then there’s also the opposite extreme. There are seven or so states where not only do they require notice, they require lesson plans and a curriculum. They require teacher qualification and things like that for the individual. We can help guide them in, first of all, how do we know this is the right choice for your family? How do we help you make that informed decision? Then how do we help you do it the right way if you’re going to take this step so that you are protected, and you know your options?

Some parents come to us not knowing that they have the option to homeschool but still receive certain special education services within the school district. It’s wonderful, but also heartbreaking that we’re the first person to tell them that because we know they got to this point for a reason. There are so many people along the way who could have told them that that maybe didn’t know themselves, or didn’t feel it was their responsibility to share that information. We tell them, and it’s like this light bulb goes off and they’re like, “Oh, I have more options than I even realized.”

Sometimes that feels overwhelming. They shut down, and then we walk them through, “Here’s the next right step.” Sometimes that feels world-opening. They’re just so happy, and they take off running on their own. We help them get there, and they’re good. It’s so individualized. Some of them need really that one-to-one support from an advocate to understand their rights and options. Some of them just need a consultation conversation to really understand, “Hey, where am I? Am I okay?”

The number of– I say parents, but oftentimes it’s moms who call in who they’ve made a decision, but they need to talk it out. They need someone to tell them it’s okay. They need someone to tell them it’s going to be okay. When they have questions, a safe place to land for that. Through both K Altman Law and The Advocacy Circle, we’ve created that community so that, especially through The Advocacy Circle, they can hop in in a low-stakes way because I don’t know about you, but phone calls for me outside of the professional sense, I don’t want to do that. That’s a lot.

[00:24:06] Gretchen: Melanie, that’s a reflection of your age, I think.

[00:24:09] Melanie: It is.

[00:24:09] Gretchen: [laughs]

[00:24:10] Melanie: I think you’re right. I find that The Advocacy Circle and having access to that bridge, that first step, that builds the confidence, and then they know what questions to ask, and it creates that momentum.

[00:24:22] Gretchen: You also bring up something really important, and that is often what a parent needs. We call them window ledge conversations here at Demme Learning. They just need someone to sit on the window ledge with them and listen and tell them they’re not wrong. Tell them, as you said, “You know your child better than anyone.”

[00:24:45] Melanie: Absolutely.

[00:24:46] Gretchen: “Now’s the time to pick up the reins of advocacy for your child.”

[00:24:51] Francesca: Yes. I’ll say there are certain things that, even the name, The Advocacy Circle, I always come back to what that was born from. As advocates, one of the best things about the team at K Altman Law that now obviously educates and contributes to The Advocacy Circle is that we are what we call a hive mind. We consult on everything. We talk through everything, and we all do these consultations with families and talk through how they’re going, what we see. There are always these consistent things that we have heard from parents that are heartbreaking and relatable, which include things like, “I’m so isolated. I feel like I’m on an island.”

It causes so many mental health issues with parents and just all different types of things. They just want to be a mom or a dad or a parent or a caregiver. They don’t want to have to do this. They have no fight left in them. Then we also hear, “I should have known. I should have known to do this,” or, “I knew this,” or, “I feel this way, and I feel silly.” Every time, we always have the same, almost the most enthusiastic responses, which are your gut is 99.999% correct. It might not be spot on, but your gut is you are the parent. You have that instinct inherently, and we support that instinct.

Then the isolation piece is, “Oh, man, this person doesn’t know that there are so many other people out there that would connect with them and have these exact experiences and can commiserate and validate and do all the things we’re talking about.” For us as a unit, we’re like, we just want to embrace them in a circle and just give them, like Melanie said, a warm place to land where they feel like they can be educated, be empowered, not feel alone, know that their instincts are correct. That whole experience that we’re talking about of being a parent in this situation is exactly what we wanted to– the energy we wanted to bring to the circle, too, is basically the safe circle, the safe bubble for parents and caregivers.

[00:26:53] Gretchen: When you have a child who learns differently, it is isolating. One of the things I often say to parents is don’t should on yourself. You can only operate on the information you have. If you didn’t have the information, you can’t judge yourself for not making a good decision once you have the information.

[00:27:12] Krystal: You don’t know what you don’t know.

[00:27:14] Gretchen: Yes.

[crosstalk]

[00:27:15] Francesca: This is our careers. This is what we do every day, and it’s still hard for us who are learning every day. This is our job. To have that on top of all the other parts of parenting is so much. Parents are really hard on themselves.

[00:27:30] Gretchen: I wanted to ask you all, somebody asked this really interesting question. How are the changes with the Department of the Education going to– I think the vote’s still out here, but what does this mean for helping these kids get the services they need?

[00:27:50] Melanie: I’ll start by saying as much as these changes are scary and overwhelming, we do know that it is pro-homeschool. We know that. We also know that change is slow. It is. It doesn’t feel like it right now. Right now it feels like it’s full speed ahead, but it is slow, and it’s going to take time to figure out how everything settles and the actual impact. We know that the federal law is still there. It is very much so still there. I know we’re all concerned about enforcement and what that’s going to look like long-term, but everything still needs to settle before we can really truly predict positive and negative outcomes from this.

I understand the fear. Our team talks about it all the time. We really do. We also try to ground ourselves in what are the facts. The federal law is still very much so intact and very clear. We know it’s going to take time to figure out the impact. We also know that advocates– and I don’t just mean special education advocates, I mean advocates at the legal level, are actively working to ensure that the protections that are already in place remain in place. If anything, the protections boost. We don’t want to lose protections. We’re not looking to lose protections.

I wish I had a very clear answer for you. I wish I could say everything’s going to be fine or everything’s going to be terrible and really feel confident in either option. I do. We don’t know.

[00:29:14] Gretchen: I don’t think we have that though. No.

[00:29:16] Melanie: We don’t know yet. I am cautiously optimistic in what I’m grounded in, the facts that I have. I will continue to keep an eye. We do a series of social media posts to keep parents informed. This is one of them where we talk through, “Okay, here’s the impact we’re already seeing. Here’s the impact we anticipate.” We talk it through every couple of weeks. It’s less of that overwhelming fear and more of the baby steps of, “Okay, what is this reality right now?”

[00:29:46] Krystal: I will add, too, that, first of all, don’t panic. Panic never helped anybody. At the end of the day, it is still an individualized process, special education. Even if things are being shaken up at the federal level with the Department of Education, even if things are being shaken up in other states, or you see or hear of things happening to other students, you have to remember that that’s not your student. Your student has an individual set of needs. They do have rights as an individual. You have rights as their parent.

Try not to panic when you see things, especially negative things or uncertain things, because you do still have that individual experience that can’t be predicted at this point or really at any point. It’s still a process that you have to move through on your own with as much information as possible.

[00:30:37] Gretchen: My father was a good German immigrant, and Germans love to take words and put them together to make other words. He used to say, “You are future catastrophizing.” [laughs]

[00:30:51] Krystal: Let’s not do that.

[00:30:53] Gretchen: Yes. I think he was right. Let’s think about the child in front of us and what we can do for that child for this year and set a child up for success in this year and then worry about the larger picture later. I think that’s

[00:31:10] Krystal: Absolutely.

[00:31:10] Gretchen: -important for us. Another question that came up, which I wanted you all to delve into a little bit is tell me more in depth about the curriculum that The Advocacy Circle provides because this, I think, is very cool.

[00:31:26] Krystal: Another one of my favorite questions. Like I said, I am a teacher and a curriculum writer by trade. The curriculum in the learning center of The Advocacy Circle, very near and dear to my heart. We really tried to take this idea that this is a circle of support, and anybody may be stepping into the circle of support at any point in their special education journey. This could be somebody who just learned the word “special education” yesterday. This could be a teacher who worked in the special education sphere for 30 years and is now advocating for their grandchild.

We really tried to cover a lot of bases and a lot of ground with the curriculum in The Advocacy Circle. We start off with the very basics. The very first module that you see when you go into The Advocacy Circle is the history of special education. It covers everything from what we started off with to what ideas started as to where we are now and everything in between. It evolves from there. We have a slow roll into all of the parts and pieces. What’s an IEP? What’s a 504? What do they look like? What goes into ’em? What’s all this other documentation? A PWN? A meeting notice?

We introduce you and dip your toes into the very basics of special education, again, because we don’t want to assume anybody has any level of knowledge. From there, we pick up into some more advanced topics. If you’ve got your feet wet and you have your sea legs now, we have modules on deep dive into documentation so you can really decode these things and understand them, medical advocacy, how health can impact education, and what those rights and those protections look like.

Then we go off into the deep end. We’ve got due process deep dive that our attorneys at K. Altman Law actually helped us write and put together to really explain what is due process, what is the preparation for it like, what is an actual due process hearing like, that really complex, in-depth knowledge that it takes experience to really be able to explain. We have a lot of that in there as well.

Then we delve into some niche territory. We know that there is such a wide variety of experiences that anyone could have, and it would be nearly impossible for just our team and just me to address that. We do bring in partners to address their expertise. If they have a unique perspective in something that they’ve gone through or they have an expertise in a particular area, we have them in to speak to that.

Everything like MDRs, the Manifestation Determination Review, how behavior and disability interact, and then what the MDR process looks like, communication, differences in communication, communications need, AAC devices. We try to hear what our audience is saying and what the community wants or needs to learn more about. We dive into that with our partners and in our monthly updates as well. There really is a little bit of something for everyone in there, no matter where you are in your special education journey.

[00:34:37] Gretchen: I think it’s a deliberate obfuscation with acronym. My husband is ex-military. The military has its own vernacular of acronym. I see that in special education realm. Just to find and have a place where you can go and make sure that you’re getting an accurate definition of the information, to me, is pretty wild. I had asked you all before we began to tell me a little bit about Celia and working with an AI tool to be able to provide support. Tell our families a little bit how that works because you all told me it’s working well. I know we’ve all had stellar AI experiences and then some that are less than stellar. [chuckles] Tell us how Celia has made this easier for families.

[00:35:47] Krystal: Absolutely. For anyone who is keeping score, we consider The Advocacy Circle a three-part approach to self-advocacy. We’ve already covered the community, Francesca wanting to give everyone in that circle a big hug and just let them know they’re not alone. We’ve covered the curriculum. The third part is Celia. Celia is the virtual advocate powered by an AI that we created in-house for a couple of different reasons.

We do not allow Celia open access to the internet. She’s got very specific databases that we, me, personally researched and created and vetted the resources for. There are some specific development things in the background that I’m sure our development team could better explain than I can. She’s on some pretty strict guardrails because, like you said, everyone’s had a great experience and everyone’s had a really bad experience. We never wanted anybody to have a bad experience.

We understand that when you come seeking special education resources, it’s high stakes. Oftentimes, people are coming in crisis, they need an answer, they need it now, and they need it to be right. We, luckily, have been able to work with our great development team to, so far, knock on wood, make that a reality. We haven’t had any concerns from our community about the type of responses that Celia gives or the analysis of a document that has been run through it.

We spent about two years on the backend, really making sure that if we were going to do this, we’re going to do it right. We have a lot of users sending a lot of questions and analyzing a lot of documents. So far, so good. I really think that speaks to the level of understanding that the team building the tool had in their experiences. The entire team at K. Altman Law, the development team that we worked with, all of our personal and professional experiences, we understood that principle of, if we’re going to do it, we have to do it right because the people that we want to serve can’t afford for us to get it wrong.

[00:37:53] Gretchen: Right. Well, I think it’s also really interesting that as parents are feeding documents in, Celia’s knowledge base is growing, but it’s also interesting that you all are keeping her off the internet.

[00:38:05] Krystal: Yes, that was a big concern. Her knowledge base grows with every piece of information you put in it, but only for you. We don’t train. We don’t sell data. We can’t even look at your data. She’s HIPAA, FERPA, and COPPA compliant because she does not have open access to the internet. The more access points you have out of your own system, the more risk of security leaking there is. The more risk, you get a query that uses Dave’s blog from 2002 to answer your question.

Everything [chuckles] like that was very intentionally thought through because we do serve a vulnerable population and we want them to rest assured not only are they getting valid answers, but that they’re not compromising their or their child’s safety in the process.

[00:38:51] Gretchen: I wouldn’t have even thought of the HIPAA and FERPA compliance, but yet that’s so obvious that you would need that to be part of the equation.

[00:39:01] Melanie: Well, you say that, but a lot of people are using open-source AI and putting-

[00:39:07] Gretchen: Absolutely.

[00:39:06] Melanie: -their children’s information or their students’ information in. It’s something we care deeply about to make sure that students are protected. We also want to make sure it’s important to know the differences between states. As an advocate, I’ve spent– I couldn’t even tell you how many hours making sure I understand those differences. As a parent, if you go to a Google or an OpenAI source, you may not– Your question’s only as good as the question, truly. If you don’t know where to start–

[00:39:33] Gretchen: Right. If you didn’t formulate the question well, you might get back something very different than what you intended.

[00:39:39] Melanie: From a different state, which is maybe more rigid or less rigid than your own. Again, you’re not making an informed decision if you don’t have your facts straight. We wanted to make sure that the AI model was able to understand where you’re coming from a location standpoint and give you location-specific information. If you have a question about placement in New Jersey, your answer is going to be different than your question about placement in Massachusetts because it’s different across those two states.

I think the value to that for parents who, again, don’t know what they don’t know is huge to make sure they’re protected, their student’s protected, and they can make those informed decisions.

[00:40:18] Krystal: There’s so much unknown with AI. Gretchen, like you said, your questions is only good as your question. We tried as hard as we could to take those nuances out of AI for our families and our community. The fact that we have these state-specific databases, and if you put that you’re from New Jersey in your profile, the system sees that and only pulls from the New Jersey database and the federal database. We didn’t want to have to rely on you having an optimized prompt and asking the perfect question in order to get the answer that you needed.

That’s another thing that I think speaks to the experience that we all had going into this is we know it’s hard to get the right answer out of AI. We wanted to make sure that when you’re in crisis and you need an answer now and you need a right answer, there are as few obstacles as possible in your way to that answer when you’re working with TAC.

[00:41:11] Gretchen: Then you also had to think your way through how a parent would ask that question because my query under duress is going to be different than not under duress.

[00:41:27] Krystal: Yes, absolutely. Really, it’s kind of keep it simple stupid. The old adage, “Keep it simple stupid.” We have so much running in the background and so much connecting happening behind the scenes with– well, I mean, we can call it the brain of Celia with the databases and everything that our system is more or less looking for keywords and matching them so that if I asked a question 10 different ways about the same type of a thing, it’s still going to answer about that same thing.

If I’ve got questions about placement, if I say, “I think my child needs new placement” or “How do I get my child a new placement?” or “What does special education placement look like?” “Placement” is that keyword there. No matter how you ask that question, it’s going to latch onto “placement” and it’s going to return those types of answers.

Again, to take that guesswork out of it for parents so that you don’t have to wonder maybe if I had asked it this way, would I get a better response or if I asked it that way. The lack of access to open internet, the very limited number of verified resources that we can pull from eases that transition. You don’t have to have the perfect question because we’re not running 10 billion hits on everything that’s ever existed. It’s really pulled from the state laws and rules and regulations, federal laws, some of the other research that we’ve done. It’s got a very narrow pool of actual fact that it can respond with that makes it a lot easier.

[00:42:59] Francesca: I want to give Krystal and The Advocates a huge plug here, too. One of the things that is so exciting about this tool and why we love it is it is entirely internally educated. We are nerds. We nerd out on all things special education.

[00:43:14] Gretchen: No. We can’t tell from this conversation. [chuckles]

[00:43:15] Francesca: No. We– Yes. This tool is not done being educated by any means. When Krystal and Melanie say, “Oh, yes. Placement in New Jersey. Placement, Massachusetts.” Yes, Krystal has done all this research through normal research forums. She has also interviewed each one of the advocates and continues to do so. She’ll say, “Hey, are there districts in New Jersey that do X, Y, and Z in this case?”

It is so minutely educated to the point where it gives very, very nuanced expertise that is from the advocates themselves. They are on the ground seeing how districts, states actually play out certain laws, actually accept certain communications. That expertise is what people hire us for at K. Altman Law. We get to educate the tool so that people can access that education because we feel so strongly that that should not be gatekept. That, I think, is one of the coolest parts of the tool, too, is that it’s not generically educated. It is educated from true expertise from the advocates, too.

[00:44:24] Gretchen: Wow. Okay. Ladies, in this last 15 minutes, what are the questions I should be asking you all that I have not asked you? I’m seeing this as a support for parents that they don’t even know exists. Until I met you all back in April, March, I didn’t know this kind of support existed. How do you put this out there so that parents know it’s available to them?

[00:44:58] Krystal: I think one of the ways and one of the questions maybe that isn’t thought of that should be asked is not just how can parents use it, but how can anybody use it? One of the ways that we really work to get this in the hands of parents is actually through partnerships and through working with other organizations.

For some nonprofits, they sponsor advocacy costs for families. TAC is a great low-cost option as compared to traditional advocacy that they can offer to more families. We’ve worked with some related service groups where they bring it in to optimize their own workflow and then hand it off to the parents after they’re done working with their service. Same thing with K. Altman Law. We partner with K. Altman Law, and it’s offered as part of every special education package so that parents have a hand to hold when they’re done with that intensive advocacy that K. Altman Law does.

It’s not even necessarily how can parents find it. You can find anything online. If you search advocacy service, you can find this online. Our strongest effort is how can we put it in front of anyone who might be able to help a child with it? Not just a parent, not just a grandparent, but providers, teachers, other advocates, nonprofits. Like I said, there’s a little something for everybody in there. It’s not only for parents, but any way that we can get that back to a child and help them and improve their outcomes, that’s ultimately the goal of everything we do to put the advocacy circle out in the world, in the community.

[00:46:35] Gretchen: I’m thinking here’s the opportunity here in North Carolina that we have designated teachers who are responsible for supervising the 504 or the IEP process. Unfortunately, they’re not always special ed trained. They’ve just been the district has gone, “You and you will be responsible for them.” I have three personal friends who do this. I love the fact that they are so willing to give up their time well over and above the academics that they provide to help these kids in this process. They don’t always know all the answers either. To be-

[00:47:21] Krystal: None of us do.

[00:47:22] Gretchen: -able to find the information is amazing.

[00:47:25] Melanie: As a teacher, there are truly not enough hours in the day.

[00:47:29] Gretchen: Oh, no. No.

[00:47:30] Melanie: I know that we all say that for all professions, but when we look at being the advocate for your student and also teaching your student, obviously, we all want to do both, but it’s impossible to fully do both. The advocacy circle can really partner with the teacher. Keep in mind, I think one question that maybe wasn’t asked is about how schools feel about the use of this tool. I can say we’ve had really great success. For families who didn’t know how to effectively communicate with their school because special education is like its own language and they didn’t understand it. It became adversarial quickly because of that lack of understanding.

Now that they’re using the tool and they’re asking informed questions and they’re speaking the language a little bit, they’re finding more collaboration and they’re able to get their needs met faster and more efficiently. We love that for them. We love that for the school team. We love that for the parents. We want this process to become more accessible.

[00:48:28] Krystal: And more collaborative.

[00:48:28] Gretchen: That’s so interesting. I wouldn’t have thought of it from that perspective. Yes, that would make a huge difference, I would think.

[00:48:37] Francesca: Well, it’s not just personal for the parents. Teachers give their whole heart. We are huge fans of teachers. These are people who dedicate– who don’t lose sleep over kids. We know that this is personal to them, too. That is at the core of a lot of these disputes. That is personal to everyone in the room. If we can remove some of the stuff that makes it pointed personally, and just make it about how can we think through this, how can we connect together on our shared goal, which is typically the case, everyone appreciates that.

[00:49:16] Gretchen: It seems like we ask more and more of teachers every year. A dedicated teacher doesn’t always have boundaries because they want their kids to succeed. It becomes really exciting. I’m hoping that the weather cooperates with us for the last 10 minutes. I’m not sure whether you all can hear the thunderstorm that’s happening here. My lights keep flickering. I’m like, “No, don’t lose the internet.” [laughs] Can you all tell me some success stories without naming names? I would love for families to be able to figure out what does success look like in working with you all?

[00:50:03] Krystal: Well, I’ll start on the TAC side. Of course, the general disclaimer is that success looks different for everyone. It really depends on what you’re looking for and what your child needs. Through use of The Advocacy Circle, we have had members share their success stories.

One user was able to successfully get special education evaluations and then accommodations for their child because they had been trying for years, like Melanie had mentioned, they tried it on their own, and they didn’t have those right words. They were coming to a communication block with their school. By simply asking some questions through Celia and using what she responded with, they hit those keywords, they broke down that communication barrier. Ultimately, after several years of trying, this child was able to finally get evaluated and get supports and services.

We’ve had IEP revisions done through Celia where parents have asked, like, “Hey, is this IEP okay? Is there anything I should be concerned about?” She’s obviously responded in kind, and they’ve taken that back to the team and gotten improvements on the IEP or the 504. My favorite success stories are always just parents saying, “I didn’t know that was an option. I didn’t know I had this right. I didn’t know that this was something you could do.” Like I said, the curriculum and the learning center is really near and dear to my heart. I love that we are having success in breaking down those barriers and ending the gatekeeping of special education information.

[00:51:44] Melanie: I know one success story I have is from a parent who’s highly educated, not a teacher, not working in any way in the education field. Her eyes would glaze over in meetings, not because she was disinterested or uncaring, but because she didn’t understand specifically all of the acronyms. She understood all the words. She didn’t understand the acronyms. She felt she would look stupid if she asked, so she didn’t.

In getting The Advocacy Circle, which she originally wanted for the AI component, she utilized it for the learning profile and learned all of those acronyms. Once you know it, it’s empowering. Now she goes into the meeting. The first meeting I went in with her, this was a few times before she went into The Advocacy Circle. She was angry. She was so angry because she had tried and tried and tried and just been so unsuccessful through no fault of her own, through no intention on the school or her, that there was anger. There was that intense anger.

By the end of our work together and her work with The Advocacy Circle, she was laughing with the school team. She was smiling. They had built a solid plan and they had moved on. They had moved on to just chit-chatting because they had rebuilt that relationship and that trust. It was so wonderful for me to see because so often they come to us at their wit’s end and there’s no joy in those meetings. To end on such a positive note where there was joy and there was collaboration and there was comfort, it was just beautiful.

[00:53:14] Gretchen: That’s a very encouraging story. I recognize that my experience in seeking 504s for my two boys was outside the norm because when we went to the team at the school and said, “Here’s what we know. Here’s the need that we see. Can you help us with this?” They were like, “Absolutely, yes. Who do you want on your team?” They asked us to choose who the team would be to sit down to do the evaluation. When I’ve said that to parents in other states, they’re like, “What? Huh?”

[00:53:50] Krystal: “Your team said yes?”

[00:53:51] Gretchen: “They what?” [chuckles] I recognize that is not the norm. I would love it to become the norm.

[00:54:00] Melanie: You have the knowledge to know what to ask for when they ask you that question. Some parents are a blank slate. You ask them, “Who do you want on your child’s team? Who do you want to evaluate them?” They’re like, I don’t know. Shouldn’t you know? Isn’t that your job?

[00:54:16] Francesca: That’s a part of it.

[00:54:16] Gretchen: This is true. You know what, Melanie? It never occurred to me. That never occurred to me.

[00:54:19] Melanie: Yes.

[00:54:19] Francesca: It’s true. That’s one of those things when we say the parents come and they’re like, I should have known. We’re like, “How would you have known what credentials you should be asking for? If you have some backgrounds, that’s great. There are people who happen to have a neuroscience degree or just things that just give them leverage. It’s okay that you don’t know those things. It’s not okay that they’re not given explicitly to parents in a way that allows them to ask those questions and to feel comfortable to ask those questions.

[00:54:50] Krystal: Even with the best intention. I’m sure, Gretchen, like your experience, if other people have been offered that and they just don’t know it, of course, that’s offered with the best intentions of the school. If it’s a team effort, who do you want on the team? If you don’t know the answer to that, like the example Melanie gave, it’s scary for some parents to think, “Oh, I’m supposed to know that? Well, I don’t know that. Maybe I’m going to bluff my way through it, or maybe I’m going to get on the offense first.”

[00:55:17] Francesca: I trust their deference because they’re going to know, or they’re going to be honest.

[00:55:24] Krysta: It just speaks to the breakdown.

[00:55:24] Gretchen: I know it’s funny that you all should say that because it never occurred to me that I had enough knowledge just to be dangerous, so– [laughs]

[00:55:36] Krystal: We hope more people will be.

[00:55:37] Gretchen: Yes, absolutely.

[00:55:39] Francesca: We want to make people a little dangerous.

[00:55:41] Gretchen: Well, ladies in this– [chuckles] I like that. “Make people a little dangerous.”

[00:55:45] Francesca: [crosstalk]

[00:55:46] Gretchen: You know what? Knowledge is power.

[00:55:50] Melanie: Knowledge is power. Absolutely.

[00:55:50] Gretchen: It really is. Ladies, in these last couple of minutes, each of you, think about what your closing thoughts would be to families who have spent this time with us. What do you want them to take away from our conversation today? What tools would you like them to take into “Now, what do you do”?

[00:56:11] Krystal: I’m ready for this one.

[00:56:12] Gretchen: Go for it. Krystal’s ready for anything.

[00:56:16] Melanie: It’s true.

[00:56:16] Francesca: She’s always ready.

[00:56:16] Krystal: She likes to talk.

[00:56:17] Francesca: Always.

[laughter]

[00:56:19] Krystal: The one thing–

[00:56:20] Gretchen: This is why Krystal and I were immediate symbiotic relationship as well. Yes. Okay, we got it.

[00:56:25] Krystal: That’s why our first meeting went way over time, so I’ll try to keep it brief. The one thing that I always try to impart on parents is that it is never, ever too late to start. Whether your child is about to graduate, maybe they’re already in college, or maybe they’re three years old, and you’re looking at early intervention, it is never too late to start looking for resources and to ask for help.

We have options like The Advocacy Circle and like K. Altman Law and like so many other people because there is no one-size-fits-all resource or answer or solution. Just like there’s no one-size-fits-all resource, there’s no one-size-fits-all timeline. If you are having that gut feeling that there might be something going on here, or I think my child needs more, or I wonder if they could be more successful if we did something, follow it. It doesn’t matter if they’re 25 or two and a half. There is never a wrong time to start.

[00:57:25] Melanie: I would just say to parents, I hope, that are listening to take away that this is an incredibly overwhelming time, but you are not alone. There are people who can help. There are resources. There are people who can listen. There are people who can help. There are things that you can do. There are actions you can take. It can feel helpless. It can feel like there are no actions to take. There are actions you can take. I’m sure you’ve already taken so many great ones. We’re here to help you take the next step.

[00:57:56] Francesca: Yes. My final closing thought would be that, similar to what I was saying earlier, don’t underestimate the value of education on your child. Your child might not be going to MIT or even going into a vocation. Whatever they may be doing, I’ll go back to the law, the law states that the laws are intended to protect students, to allow them to engage in education, employment, and independent living, meaning preparing them for the world.

Both preparing them for the world and when taking the greatest advantage of giving them a place to find their purpose in the world, find the social connections they can find, find their mentors, really give them something to launch them into the world, whatever direction that may be. When you utilize the protections, you can get the most out of that. Just know your child does not have to fit into some type of mold in order for them to get value out of an education.

[00:58:58] Gretchen: That is very true. I love that your child doesn’t have to fit into a mold to get value out of education. That is really true. Francesca, thank you for those closing words. Ladies, this has been wonderful. I cannot begin to tell you how much I have appreciated the time that you all have spent.

Our show notes will include links to The Advocacy Circle so that parents can find their way there, do some more research. This is well worth investing some time in, especially if you have a child who learns differently. Thank you, ladies, for spending this time with me this afternoon. I really appreciate it.

[00:59:35] Krystal: Thank you.

[00:59:35] Melanie: Thank you.

[00:59:36] Francesca: Thank you so much, Gretchen. This is wonderful.