Michelle she/her (00:00.266)

Hello, hello everybody. Welcome back to episode five of season four of the Empowered to Advocate podcast. Thank you so much for being here. If you are a new listener, if you are somebody who's been listening since season one, we're so grateful that you are here. We're so happy that you are here. We love hearing from you with your questions and when something that you have learned or has been youthful, useful.

Dana Marie (00:29.233)

And youthful.

Michelle she/her (00:30.266)

and youthful. Does that mean timely advice? So we're so glad that you're here. And today for our halfway point through the season, we thought that it might be a nice thing to just give a little reintroduction of ourselves. Let us reintroduce ourselves to y'all. So you know, especially if you are somebody who's new to listening to us, you know who you're listening to.

Dana Marie (00:55.29)

Yeah, and we get some, a lot of folks who I think find the podcast through like our other social media platforms, through our Instagram and our Facebook and so on and so forth. And we have a bunch of new followers over there who might be finding us from those platforms. So if that's you, hello, welcome as well. And like Michelle said, we kind of just want to give you a quick intro who we are, who you're listening to, how we got here and sort of what our vision is for the space. So with that.

Michelle she/her (01:30.891)

Yeah. All right, well, I am Michelle and I have a master's in special education and I have been working in the field of special education as an educator at an added district program school for students with autism, ABA-based program that was back in the early 2000s. And since then have worked in a let's say medium size district with a lot of diversity. And we try to keep many students in district as much as possible. So we have inclusion programming in our district. We have substantially separate programming. And then we have that blend of supports through partial inclusion, which is a nice nice hybrid for a lot of students. So anyway, so I've been doing this for around 22 years. Yeah, long time. And I've been doing the role of like educational team leader, team chairperson, evaluation, team leader, depending on what district you're in for, I think this is my 10th year doing it. So I have written many IEPs.

Michelle she/her (02:55.298)

I have worked with many students. I have worked with many families. And something that I'm really, really passionate about is supporting, obviously also through the advocacy work, but I still continue to teach in a public school district. And I'm very passionate about supporting parents, caregivers, students with understanding the IEP process, the special ed process, what that means. And you know, helping them be making sure they can make informed decisions. Also pretty passionate about supporting educators with understanding the purpose of an IEP, the purpose of a 504 plan. And it's not just, it's so you can have extra help, that it is actually for disability equity, disability justice, right? So that students with disabilities are getting the supports that they need to be able to be successful in school and then be successful outside of school. So, so yeah, that's kind of who I am in an educator nutshell.

Dana Marie (04:01.08)

A lot of times people ask like how we know each other. And so like how we got to be this double duo. So Michelle and I actually worked at the same public school district in the same public school district. I was there for about 15 years. So we overlapped for that amount of time doing similar roles. And we just came to find over the years Michelle actually started as my mentor. She had been doing the role.

Dana Marie (04:32.87)

for a few years already when I started. And we came to find that we had a lot of the same sort of just philosophies of education, philosophies of special education, especially when it comes to helping parents, families, community members, teachers, educators, make informed decisions, help them navigate this process, which can often be really confusing. And the more we talked about it, we really talked about how we just didn't have enough time during the day to do all of the teaching and learning work, do all the advocacy work that we wanted to do. And so for Michelle, that means that obviously she gets to do this both in her school-based role and in her out-of-school role. I have taken a slightly different path and left my school-based role, and this is sort of my primary role now, but similar to when we started, two, a little over two years ago. It's for the same reason, it's for the same purpose because we had just had so many conversations about how to reach more parents and families and break down barriers to information and stop ourselves and others from gatekeeping information, especially when it comes to special education. And so, like I mentioned, I was in the same district as Michelle for about 15 years. I started as a regular education teacher in social studies and then became a special education teacher. I co-taught social studies, I co-taught ELA for a number of years. And then I was also an evaluation team leader or team chairperson like Michelle was for a while. I left a couple of years ago to complete my doctorate in education in the area of student voice which is one of my passions in this new role, which is ensuring that students of all ages, go back and listen to our episodes about student voice, but students of all ages have a say in their education, have a say in their special education process, have a say in what goals are set for them, what their vision is for the future, so on and so forth. So that's kind of my path to how I got here, but also how we connected and both got here together. Some of the things that we love to do in this role, we love, like I said before, breaking down, it's so fun to like break down barriers to information. It feels like you're sharing secrets, right? A lot of times this process is kept secret from parents and caregivers or it's just gate kept. I don't, I, you know, some of it's intentional, some of it's not intentional, but one of our favorite things to do is just share information. We get information, we try to get it to you as quickly as possible. And that's anything from the policy law side to things that are changing. For instance, we're in Massachusetts and we are looking at a new IEP format for next school year and things like that we get information about, we distill it, we learn a little bit, and then we try to share it in the best possible way we can with parents and caregivers. That's, I think, one of our favorite things to do is just get you information in your hands in a number of different ways, whether it's through the podcast, social media, so on and so forth.

Michelle she/her (08:14.646)

And I think one of the things that really sets us apart from other advocates, other educational advocates is that we have the educational background. I mean, between the two of us, we've written thousands and thousands of IEPs. Like we have worked with thousands of kids, thousands, hundreds of kids. I don't know. Like, and, um, gone to so much professional development and things like that. And.

Dana Marie (08:32.146)

thousands.

Michelle she/her (08:45.258)

Our goal is really to make that bridge of collaboration between school and caregivers where, whether it's intentional or not, oftentimes when an advocate starts coming to a special education meeting, school teams can immediately feel prickled by that and can feel it can make a meeting feel adversarial. I do think that there are some advocates who that's kind of what their shtick is, is to make school teams feel a certain way. So like they get backed into a corner and that's like kind of, that's how they feel like they get things done for families. Our approach and our approach is go in with the mindset of collaboration and conversation because quite frankly, most students, many students are going to continue to be in that school and or school district for a long period of time. So making it a collab, and that doesn't mean that we're always gonna agree with everything or we're going to just say like, well, the school district said, cause that's like absolutely not it. But we go in with it with a lens of how is this gonna be receptive by the people on the receiving end of this partial rejection or this rejection? How are we gonna open up this conversation to help that school team do better, not just for this particular student, but for future students, right?

Dana Marie (10:21.434)

And I think that goes back to our goal anyways, of just breaking down information. I think one of the things that sets us apart is we really believe that if everybody at the table, not just us, not just parents and caregivers, but the teachers, but the administrators, the specialists, so on and so on, if everyone has access to the same information, that just makes the team stronger, right? And the more people you have at the table with differing backgrounds, with differing experiences, I think the better in theory to get to the goal of getting the child exactly what they need. I mean, that's when you can be creative, that's when you can think outside the box, that's when you can have people, like I said, coming from all different areas of this child's life to come up with really good ideas of how to help them progress and how to help them become better learners and students and so on and so forth.

Michelle she/her (11:25.534)

Yeah, keeping the whole process really student-centered. And it's such an emotional process for, I mean, not only for caregivers, but the IEP process can also be an emotional process for school teams. And coming at that from that empathetic lens, but not being a pushover, right? But kind of leading with empathy and leading with that lens of this is what could be happening at the school in this district. And then how are we going to then support our families and our students within the school district in a way that feels doable and manageable on those teams. And I feel pretty strongly that when you have somebody that comes in and yells at educators and demeans educators that doesn't make them want to meet with you or necessarily like the guard is immediately put up and they're not even necessarily listening anymore. So I just, I find that approach more often than not doesn't necessarily make everybody feel good at the table.

Dana Marie (12:43.114)

It doesn't. And that's something that we, if you, like I said, if you came here through social media, that's something you've probably noticed that we actually talk a lot about on our page, sort of what sets us apart, because not everyone is a good fit, right? So not every parent, not every family, not every caregiver is a good fit for us and vice versa, right? So just today, we literally recommended that some folks reach out to different advocates or attorneys, so on and so forth. And that's because we weren't a good fit for them. They needed something different than we could provide. They needed a different avenue to go down, so on and so forth. So I think that's one thing that's really important. We don't. We're so thrilled and happy when you come to us and ask us for advice or ask us to get on our waitlist or so on and so forth. But we're not going to be the best fit for everyone. And we talk a lot about sort of what our approach is, and then you as a parent or caregiver can decide if that is going to obviously work for you, if that feels like a good fit for you. But like Michelle said, really focusing on collaboration, really focusing on being creative at the IEP table. We tell folks that our goal is to solve as many problems as we can at the collaborative IEP table We're not going into meetings trying to get to the next step, trying to get to mediation, trying to get to hearing, so on and so forth. Does that sometimes happen? Of course. But we really want to work as a team and get to as many solutions as possible at the IEP table, which can set us apart, like Michelle said, from other folks.

Michelle she/her (14:27.874)

Yeah. So, Dana Marie, before we sign off on this reintroduction, tell everybody one fun fact about you. Hmm.

Dana Marie (14:35.806)

Oh, love this. Oh, fun facts. God, my life is so fun. Where do we stop? Um, bye.

Michelle she/her (14:41.279)

I mean, I know lots of fun facts about you.

Dana Marie (14:52.178)

I don't know, I guess this is fun. Yeah, I get it. I was thinking of like, okay, what do I do other than this? What do I do outside of work? What do I do other than this? One fun fact is I am often shadowed by my six and a half, almost seven year old husky, Rue. She's my favorite person dog. Something that is fun, if you watch us, not just listen, if you watch us over on YouTube, you will often get to see a cameo appearance by Miss Brew. In the background, my office doubles as her playroom. So there's a lot that goes on here. So she is, she's something. So a fun thing that you as a listener watcher might get to see is

Michelle she/her (15:42.03)

She's so cute.

Dana Marie (15:50.066)

rues, cameos throughout our podcasts. Michelle, what's your fun fact? I could think of a million for you. Ahem.

Michelle she/her (15:54.798)

She's so cute. Oh, jeesh. Fun fact for me is in addition to this work, I'm also a certified personal trainer and nutrition coach and yoga instructor. And another thing that I'm pretty passionate about is like supporting folks with feeling good in their bodies through movement and through healthy nutrition. That's not necessarily through a...

Dana Marie (16:05.274)

Yeah, I was definitely going to say that.

Michelle she/her (16:23.19)

like weight loss or diet lens, but more as like a feeling good getting out of bed in the morning and helping to reduce aches and pains when we can and making movement and nutrition as accessible and supportive for all people as possible, which there's a lot of overlaps.

Dana Marie (16:42.662)

That's a good fun one. There's so much, I mean, speaking of overlap, I mean, last fall we actually hosted a caregiver retreat for parents and caregivers of children with disabilities and special needs and Michelle led, it was a night of just beautiful, wonderful things, but Michelle led a yoga practice during that event. So there's so much crossover.

Michelle she/her (17:09.514)

Yeah. Yeah, it was awesome. It was awesome. We should do that again. All right. So we would love to hear from all of you. Maybe if, um, when you listen to this episode, if you head over to, um, Instagram or Facebook with the post from, so this will be season four, episode five, um, and drop into that post on Instagram, add empowered to advocate and introduce yourselves or ask us you know, it can be something about us, you know, personally, within obvious boundaries, of course. Well, I don't think anybody listening would be rude or disrespectful, but I just feel like I always have to put that out as a caveat because social media is wild. But you know, ask us if there's something you're interested in about us, you know, about Roo or about fitness or like things like that, or if you have questions about the IEP process or ideas for topics for upcoming podcasts or blogs or workshops or things like that, please come and find us over on this post on Instagram or send us a DM. We'd love to hear from you and connect.

Dana Marie (18:22.026)

Yeah, we do. We've met a lot of new folks, especially this year, through social media, and we love to hear from you. So please do that. All right, speaking of Rue, it's time for her to come on. Oh, she's looking at me. It's time for her to come out and play. It's time for us to sign off. It was great chatting with you all, Michelle, as always. Thanks so much for listening, and we will see you here next time. Bye, everybody.