SpEd-Splaining
Covering a wide range of education topics with instructional leaders from North Central Educational Service District.
SpEd-Splaining
Graduation
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
When a diploma closes doors instead of opening them—was this student graduated, or exited? This case exposes how one piece of paper can end special education rights, spark lawsuits, and redefine what ‘graduation’ really means
To submit feedback or questions, fill out the form at this link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeCcjgEdpruEaYMbgCRCv6jCbARf7HGSPwdCpR8ein-37A6lQ/viewform?usp=dialog
You can find more information our connect with us on our webpage here:
I think it's also really odd sometimes that we think that all learning has to be maximized up until the age 18 or 21 when we know that their brains are still developing till 25. It just there's just so much more time still to capture some of that learning and kids could still be making gains in their reading as they go. Leanne, don't say that.
SPEAKER_03When we reach a million people, they're gonna say we have to keep them in 25.
SPEAKER_02I'm okay with that. They'll be like, school, two should do this.
SPEAKER_04Welcome to Spence Planning, where special education gets decoded one case at a time. I'm Stefan, a former classroom teacher and current instructional coach, and I'm joined by three brilliant minds in special education. Darcy, Anna, and Leanne. Each week, they take real stories, often from right here in Washington, and break them down into plain language. We use these stories as a launch pad to explore the wild, wonderful, and sometimes frustrating world of general and special education. Whether you're an educator, parent, advocate, or just curious about how the system really works, we've got you. Let's dive in.
SPEAKER_03Okay, we are gonna talk about graduation. One of my favorite topics, because I say all the time for our students with disabilities, the goal is not just graduation, the goal is gainful employment and why our transition plans are so vital to kids and um being able to survive the adult world, which is not easy. And you don't ever have to tell them because they're gonna figure it out all on their own. So recently we saw and um our group was texting about a current case that's coming up about a gal who graduated from high school and left and kind of call is calling that four years later or three years later sort of a fail for her. Um, because she went to a university. She graduated with, I think it was the three eight, um, and couldn't read or write. So had to take remedial classes in college, which costs additional funding. And so she's got college debt now and still not employed. So it was kind of us texting and going, what's happening with this graduation thing? So on that, I picked a graduation case to talk about today. So, first of all, for all of our listeners who are not in the secondary world, Stefan, do you know the three things you need to graduate from high school?
SPEAKER_04Um, just like generally, gen ed? Yep. There, ooh, I should, I should, I should know more about this. Uh, is one of them a high school and beyond plan?
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_04Nailed it. Uh another one is you need to like complete a specific pathway. Excellent. That is correct. You know, because it was just a couple of years ago in Washington, they added a bunch. And that had some implications on like master schedules, how you were coding things, because like you could get your science credit through like ag science, which is technically CTE. But the idea was to give kids more of an opportunity. I think it was a good shift. Like, I think that was cool. And the third is. Oh, I really, I really feel like I should know it. I'm gonna feel real dumb when you're talking about it. You do, you do know it. It's uh a pulse.
SPEAKER_01It's kind of the most basic one out of the three.
SPEAKER_04You have to get a number of number credits, credits, credits, credits, credits, credits, which that's funny because I'm pretty sure that was the only requirement to graduate in Colorado. So I just had to hit a certain number of credits and like in certain back in the day. Yeah. Yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_03So you still have to get the required amount of credits in certain classes, right? So much English, so much math, all of those is is remaining. So that's kind of the base foundation that people are familiar with. And then the approved graduation pathway. So there's a whole bunch now. There's uh CTE is a really common one, right? Because the that is kind of thinking more about what are you gonna do after graduation? Let's get you a skill so we see lots of things like um our not work source was what I was gonna say. What's in Moses Lake?
SPEAKER_00Skill source.
SPEAKER_03Skills skill source where kids can like not do the dual credit piece, but they can go and actually get like a welding certificate and a CNA and all of those kind of things. So CTE is a really uh big pathway for a lot of kids, ASVAB, testing, those sort of things are um that new shift that we had um around 2019 when that happened, which kind of caused everybody to go, ah, how are we coding things? Do they meet these certain pathways? Um tech is that CV Tech, thank you.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I did not know what you were talking about.
SPEAKER_03Um and then basically, if all of those things happen, then the school district says you are officially ready to graduate, and we graduate you and we code you in our student information system as G D, which is graduated. And so for example, this girl won she wants to come back, right? Like, I want to come back and go through your transition program. Well, she is stamped G D, which is graduated. Basically, once that happens, it's uh you may never come back. So this is going back to the ND and Reichdel case, which happened recently, like three or four years ago, where what happens with this diploma and kids are kids age out of the IEP system. So at 21, we used to say if you turn 21, that's school year, then that's the end of your school career. And at 22, you go and we we might we might wait, like the credit thing for a lot of our kids, they could have like 40 credits and you need 29 to graduate if they stay for another year, right? So the credits is not so much of an issue as it is completing a pathway and that high school and beyond plan and having something to do after. So with the rectal case, the student said, Hey, I'm 22, you let Gen Ed students come back at 22. Why can't I come back at 22? And so that case was um found that we do need to let students stay until 22 if you are a student with a disability and have an IEP and really not finishing that high school and beyond plan, which is part of our IEP transition plan. So those two kind of coincide and live live together. Um, so this student came back to districts had to send letters out to everybody and say your student might still qualify, we owe you compensatory ed, and they had to meet with all of the kids that left in that age 21 who had not officially graduated. So this family came back and said, Well, you graduated my student, but you shouldn't have, because not only were they 21, right? I want comp ed, but they shouldn't have actually graduated my student because the high school and beyond planned didn't do didn't do them any good, and they need to come back to school. So kind of this is more of the discussion rather than the case, because I'm guessing that you guys can figure out what the court said about the family that came back and said, I want cop ed sorry, just to clarify, is this someone that's like currently going on that we were talking about, or you found a different one? This is a different one. This was one that came back, came back after. So it's kind of like we see this current one, what's gonna happen, and then like, and here's one that's already played out. Gotcha.
SPEAKER_01If the student was marked graduated, the kid's not coming back. That's my theory. And the parents had time to talk about graduation date during the process where every IEP we talk about expect a graduation date because it's usually a topic that they can stay longer, and the team has had that conversation.
SPEAKER_00So I didn't say that was 21. I so they they were aging out, but the district marked them as graduating.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_00If so that I guess I would have that question of to Leanne's point of were they talking about graduating in all of those IEP meetings, or were they talking about staying until you aged out? And the district just coded it differently at the end.
SPEAKER_03Uh they have the IEP that said that they had a graduation date.
SPEAKER_00Then I agree. I think they're not coming back.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah, I think that's I think that's it, right? Like if you've gone through the process, you've hit these different things. You've talked to the parents, you've said graduation, they get coded as graduated. Nope.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Graduation in Washington State is an official you are done and cannot return.
SPEAKER_04No reversing it.
SPEAKER_03No reversing it.
SPEAKER_00Because it's not a it's not a one-time decision. It's a, I mean, starting when your transition plans are required when you're 16, used to be 14, right? But and you could start them earlier, but it's not required. You could start them at 14. But that conversation started at 16. So this kiddos had, or the family at least, I'm assuming the child was invited to the meetings, but they've been involved in these conversations since they were 16 of what the next step can and should be. Assuming there were no procedural errors on district side.
SPEAKER_03They did not even look into procedural errors in this case, interestingly enough. They said, Thank you. But according to the district, if you meet these things and the district says you're graduated, you are done. And in Washington State, you can graduate early. You can graduate late, you can graduate all the way up to 22. But once we once we press that button on the school system, you're done with school. Which to my question is like is graduation the end all and what kids need when we're having those discussions? And are we really having those in-depth discussions with families and kids?
SPEAKER_04No, is the easy answer for that.
SPEAKER_00You can always do better.
SPEAKER_04Uh well, and from a genetic perspective, it's like, hey, you're you're about to go from you got to raise your hand to go to the bathroom to see ya, like you are on your own. Like go get a job, go to school. Like it is a it is a tough kick in the pants, uh, which is what like having worked as an instructional coach in the high school and kids not taking those high school and beyond plans seriously, because kids don't take anything seriously. Um, I'm like, these, these are amazing. Like the fact that you're having this conversation starting in seventh grade, they were doing them. Uh, like you are reflecting, you are thinking, you are planning, at least you're supposed to be. Uh, and you're putting it all in writing and you're capturing it. Like, this is amazing. But I only think that because I have hindsight and was bailed out constantly by supportive parents uh and eventually a future wife who liked to hang out in the library because she's a dork. So it is graduation the end all be all? And is that is that what we should really be shooting for? No. But like I think Washington is moving in the right direction for like the high school and beyond plan and those multiple pathways, because it gives kids the opportunities to be having the conversations around what they actually want to be doing, especially when like who knows when people listen to this and what generative AI is like around then. But like I this is this is the the gen ed perspective, I think, more. But like the job market is shifting and changing so much as technology shifts and changes a lot, like providing opportunities for doing something uh to having a connection right as you leave high school, I think is just good. Because how many people just get lost in that like 18 to early 20 years without a disability, just because you're kind of wandering and still figuring yourself out and your brain isn't fully developed, you know, and it used to be so easy. Well, graduate high school, like like the message used to be so clear and linear. Graduate high school, go to college, get a job. You know, um, it's never been that clear, I don't think, if you've got a disability. But if your question is specifically for kids with disabilities, should graduation be the goal? I would guess no, and that's the purpose of the transition plan, right?
SPEAKER_00Well, and I think like from what I've read on on this current case that's going on, the the family had previously done a due process stating a denial of fape, but they ALJ found in favor of the district. So now what's current is they're going after like the diploma itself, saying that like you you guys passed or without foundational skills. So your diploma is meaningless, like your your meaning of graduation is meaningless because you have you have graduated a student that doesn't have the skills to be successful.
SPEAKER_03And I think at the the flip side of that too is you know, to the as Stefan said, the undeveloped mind. Um you know telling an 18-year-old that they're gonna come back to high school for another year, like nails on the chalkboard to age myself, right? I mean, it that's that's not a conversation they're interested in, but I think it's also not a conversation they're interested in because of the structure of high school and they've already done it. I don't want to go back and sit through seven classes a day, work for the grades, like that's not meeting that need. And I think that's the that's the opportunity I think sometimes we miss um in the traditional high school setting for those kids that versus the kids who are very academic are gonna sit through the classes, are gonna do the calculus and all of those kind of things. But but we have we also have a population of if we can give kids skills, they may not, they might not love welding or doing a journeyman of some kind or plumber or what whatever that next is that may not be there forever life, but they have a skill and a livelihood. Right. I mean, I how many people know what they want to do when we write their transition plan? They're like, I'm gonna be a guitar player, and then like all the things, and yes, they may. And what are you gonna do to until you actually get there where that's actual gainful employment for you?
SPEAKER_00When I was in high school, um I think it was my junior year. We had to do it, it wasn't like a I think it was a version of a high school and beyond plan, but it was like an assignment type of thing in a in a class. And we couldn't, I was so mad. We couldn't write it on what we wanted to do. Cause like I knew when I was in first grade I was gonna be a teacher, like my whole life. I had a plan for what I wanted to do. Yeah, first grade. I told you. And um, I mean, it's obviously morphed, right? But I like knew forever what I wanted to do. But we had to take this test and it told us what we were going to do. And that's what we had to write this thing on. And I don't even remember what it was, but I remember it wasn't a teacher, and I had to write this like college and beyond whatever plan of what I was gonna do. And I'm like, this is so stupid. I don't want to do this. I've known forever, but like for some kids, I remember thinking, well, that's great because that kid's a loser, he doesn't know what's going on. Like, this is really helping him, but I know what I want, and I can't, uh they're not allowing me to go forward with it. And I think there's just such a way to be in the middle. Clearly, I'm still upset about you when I was 20 years ago.
SPEAKER_01I'm surprised you don't remember what fake job they wanted you to do with my building.
SPEAKER_00It was something, it was still in the some sort of like helping people field, but it wasn't. I don't know. I don't remember.
SPEAKER_04It was probably like you'd be a great behavior analyst. She's like screwed.
SPEAKER_00I'm never doing that. I'm sure it was like social worker or something like that. Even that's like half of who I work with these days, but it but I and I remember going up to my teacher and saying that like I want to be a teacher. Uh, can I not write it on that? And they told me no.
SPEAKER_01Well, that is not listen to it. I'm gonna say that was wrong, though. We got to pick what we did ours on, so that doesn't make sense, even though we did also take the aptitude test. You still got to pick your own destiny. I mean, within I would guess like part of the transition planning that can be the hardest is when a student wants to do something that doesn't match their skills, and we have to have honest and hard conversations with families. And I don't think our IEP teams always do that um very well because it's it's difficult to say you can't be something, nobody wants to put a ceiling on somebody else's potential. But I know there's cases about that too, where the district had written a transition plan that a student couldn't possibly access with their abilities. And so these conversations are tough, like trying to figure out a future for somebody who doesn't really want to talk about their future. Sometimes the students don't, and then parents who may have a totally different expectation than what the kid really wants, which it's their live, you know, goal. It's there's so much work to do in transition times for students. And I think it's sad that we feel like we have to do even more because our current, and this is speaking specifically to Central Washington, but we don't have a ton of adult disability supports. Um they're very difficult to get access to, it seems, and not very comprehensive. It's definitely a huge drop in service time from what you get in the school system. So there's just so much pressure on us to cover all the bases.
SPEAKER_00Which I think isn't oh, I just think it's an added layer of like how cool some of that, like the DVR and pre-ed stuff is. Like I just think about we were talking yesterday in a in a case that our I don't know what her title as transition specialist was talking about. Thank you. I don't I never know titles. Um, what what Kate or someone asked or Leanne asked, can you share some of the internships that you've supported this year? And there was like more than one case where she was talking about like, oh, and now this place is actually hiring this like current student going to be, you know, done. And now this they have a place of employment because of their access through this DBR internship.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and that's the school, like us trying to braid those funds of DBR and school systems and come up with something that works for kids. Otherwise, I'm not sure that students would have been plugged into that. So schools are working hard.
SPEAKER_03They are, and we've made you know, I think the the pathway is was a great change for us. Yes. And it's still pretty new. I think lots of lots of systems are still thinking about how we can kind of maximize that for kids. But you know, I think that discussion for families is we're we're not very good about a soft handoff to the adult world. World, right? Like you go all this all the way up to 18, and all along we've told you when you can go to the bathroom. We've told you when you can walk from class to class, right? And then we go, okay, best of luck to ya. Right. And I think how do we how do we just talk more intentionally about what graduation means? And when we give that graduation stamp, that understanding that that door is closed, right? It's like the aperture. When you're in high school, I can do anything. I've I can do all these different things. There's nothing close to me. And as we make choices, things become closed. And I don't know that we always explain to parents that this is no longer an option once they accept that diploma or once we assign that diploma to them. Um and really being thoughtful about what that can mean for a student down the road.
SPEAKER_04In I know this is not the case you were talking about, but in that case that's currently happening over in Western Washington, part of their sounds like part of their argument is that like, well, this kid graduated with a 3-8, can't read and write. Two questions. No, just one, I guess. How does that happen?
SPEAKER_00Well, this kind of makes me think about our grading conversation yesterday, Leanne. One of we were talking, I kind of forget how it started, but we were talking about we had our regional special director meeting yesterday, and the topic of grading came up. And how are you establishing ABCD F for students on an IEP? And so one director pointed out like they um if they essentially show up, they should at baseline be a 50. And then their um like if their accommodation is they do 50% of the work, then they get that ABCD, whatever on the 50% that they were supposed to have accomplished. But then other other people had said that they're they were uh someone said they had a rubric, and then they were told by their district lawyer they can't go off of the rubric because then it's not equitable grading practices. At the end of the day, if your district lawyer is telling you that, they're the ones that are involved in the lawsuits and the due processes, so they're trying to protect you, right? In terms of situations.
SPEAKER_04I understand from like a legal non-education perspective, the uh the desire for equality and sameness. Um, my my frustration is that's not equitable. What equitable would mean is every kid gets what they need, right? And we're we're uh making this the system fit to the individual needs. And like there's all kinds of issues with it's it's almost like I think maybe to answer my own question, it's almost like an A B C D F model is just not applicable anymore, right? There's a lot of work to be done on grading and assessment. Because can you tell me the difference in learning and competency between a 3.8 and a 3.75? No, you can't.
SPEAKER_00But that's how you get to that 3.8 with a first grade reading level. Is it's just small micro changes.
SPEAKER_03You also could get there because we will have kids that will graduate that will be non-readers. So one of those pathways is through a WAIM, potentially. Um, so they could graduate that way as a pathway.
SPEAKER_01I think it's also really odd sometimes that we think that all learning has to be maximized up until the age 18 or 21 when we know that their brains are still developing till 25. It just there's just so much more time still to capture some of that learning, and kids could still be making gains in their reading as they go.
SPEAKER_03Leanne, don't say that. When we reach a million people, they're gonna say we have to keep them in school 25.
SPEAKER_02I'm okay with that.
SPEAKER_01They'll be like, schools, you should do this post-high school option for kids. I really would love that. I just don't think we can do everything in K through 12. But I think, yeah, there's a lot more room for continuing to develop your brain and learn. And there are kids that their motivation doesn't start to really come to you know, mind until they actually are looking at paying their own bills or having this autonomy that comes with growing up, and then suddenly they're like, hey, I think I do want to learn to read and try harder. And it's it's not being done to them as much at a certain age as them seeking it out.
SPEAKER_04But it's a special culture. Oops sorry, go ahead.
SPEAKER_01No, just grading is so problematic all over, but then to take a problematic system and put special ed law on top of it is impossible, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_04But it's it's part of an educ of educator culture. Like we are we are aware, we say it all the time, in the real world, like when you get in the real world, this is gonna happen. And like it always bugs me. Not that I haven't said that to kids uh or say it to teachers now, like when kids hit the real world, but we like it's like in our verbiage, we know that we're sheltering kids. And there's there's a need for that, you know, in in certain circumstances. Like you need that soft handoff. You don't want to just throw kids in the deep end from the get-go. But I there does come a time where we're doing kids a disservice by sheltering them from some of the more tough realities. We say it all the time, you learn from failure. And then, like, oftentimes failure is the end of the learning for a lot of people when it should just be the beginning. And we don't have a system as a whole that's designed to support that kind of teaching. Individual teachers, I think, do a great job, but that's not that's not what any of us went to pre-service education for, whether or not we believe it now. It's that's a different kind of teaching because you've got a different type of world that you're preparing kids for. I know this is not the first time we've tread this line, but I think that's also not the first time I've said this. It's it's you've got special education who like their whole their entire system is around meeting the individual needs. And that just needs to be the norm for uh for for Gen Ed. But the pushback you get on that is well, no one's gonna bend over backwards to meet your needs in the real world. Yeah, they do. Yeah, I mean the the consequences sometimes can be swifter, but like we we use that that justification for like, well, you're gonna get fired if your punctuation isn't. I hear that all the time when I work with ELA teachers. Well, if they get in the real world and they can't they can't spell or they don't know proper punctuation or they can't cite their sources. I'll just use my voice to text. There you go. Again, not that those things aren't important, but this myth that kids are just gonna get slapped in the face and fired from every job and be unemployable because they don't have those skills is patently ridiculous. But it it's it's easier for I'll just speak from a ELA teacher's perspective, because that's what I was. The it's easier for me to look at an essay and like that's that's one of the few things that's black and white. There should have been a period there and there's not, you know, and so like I can assign a grade to that. And when I've got 30 kids a class, six classes a day, that's an insane amount of time uh and an insane, insane amount of kids to think about like personalizing on an individual level if we don't, if we're not restructuring the system. But then by design, I am crippling my kids. I maybe shouldn't use that term because it feels like maybe there's an uh making the implication that schools are crippling kids and they're not. Teachers are doing amazing things. But the system itself, by design, I think coddles kids, and then there is no soft handoff. Like we shouldn't even have to discuss a soft handoff. It should be a gradual release of responsibility to where uh like you've got a bunch of learning experts in the room working with your students and to where at some point they are driving their own learning. Like you need someone to facilitate that and provide structures for that. But like doing everything for kids, and not saying the work itself, but like structuring their day like that does them no favors when they when we rubber stamp the graduation seal and we set them loose and like you can't come back and now you're on your own. Well, we didn't do a good job of preparing you to be a well-rounded adult. We gave you a lot of like comprehensive content. And I I know systems move slow and there's some steps in the right direction for this, but I guess then it doesn't super surprise me that there's more than one case where it's like, well, we hit the real world and you told us we were doing a good job in school, but you're comparing apples and oranges.
SPEAKER_03It's an older and I think that's why for our students with disabilities, why we have post-school outcomes, right? Like that year out from high school is are you engaged? Are you employed? Are you doing something? Or are you sitting in your sitting in your parents' basement, maybe not employed?
SPEAKER_01And I mean, those numbers they don't, they're not great for us. We had a conversation yesterday at the meeting, Darcy, about how many kids are taking a gap year and destroying our data for post-secondary outcomes.
SPEAKER_03I want to know whose parents are supporting these gap years.
SPEAKER_01I had a different understanding of gap year. I thought gap year was specific to going to college, and I'm not sure it is anymore. It might just even be I'm gonna take a year before I even get a job.
SPEAKER_00And I mean I've heard multiple adults say I'm taking an adult gap year. So I think you can just take a gap from anything these days.
SPEAKER_01Just like you can take a moon for anything. We will accommodate that. New house moon.
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna take a gap year from parenting, Anna, if you could just not in a stage of our life where I am going to be okay with that. Um there in that Seattle Times, I had pulled this um quote earlier because I was gonna talk about it in my case, but since we're talking about it now, I won't. Um But there's a professor from Vanderbilt that's quoted in that Seattle Times article about the current case. And it they said students receiving special education services meet the milestones for a regular high school diploma, they should, or if if the students receiving the services meet the milestones for a regular diploma, they should get one. But that general education diploma can sometimes stop you from accessing services in adulthood that you need, including those transitional services designed to help you with education, life skills, and employment opportunities in long term that significantly affects their adult lives.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I also think I've sat in many of those IEPs and and recommending that kids not graduate. It doesn't go well. No. That's the norm benchmark.
SPEAKER_01And there is a rush to get to the finish line for kids and telling them that you're gonna move that finish line out is just about torture.
SPEAKER_04Oh, we can't end there.
SPEAKER_01I did like that gap year though. Gap year is a structured period often taken between high school and college for personal growth, skill building, and experiential learning through volunteering, working, or travel. So stay at home on your parents' couch is not technically a gap year.
SPEAKER_04It's freeloading. Yes. I think it's you're you're just trying to retire. Like, what are you doing? You haven't even started your life yet.
SPEAKER_03Uh I think the positive I appreciate that there's so many kids that can do that. And I think if that's true and they're doing something that's actually falls in that gap year, then it should count as engagement. Yeah, we'll have to argue. I mean, if you're like, I'm traveling, I'm doing all these things, then there you go. That seems different than I'm really not employed and I'm sitting on the couch, still eating my parents' dinners.
SPEAKER_04I'm picking up life experience. I'm finally experiencing what it means to be on my own and not inside a school system. Like there's no replacement for that. And you if you can do it while you're young and there are very few consequences, it's better that than a midlife crisis. Watch yourself now.
SPEAKER_03Thanks for tuning in to Spence Play Meet. If you've got questions or thoughts about today's episode, we'd love to hear from you. Head over to our links where you can drop in your questions, join the conversation, and act with us. Don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode if you found it helpful. Until next time, stay curious, and Steph and Wolf keeps that's played.