Inclusive Education: IEP Assessment for Functional Academics, and Work-Based Learning with Lisa Huffmaster

🙏 Special Thanks to Our Sponsors
A heartfelt thank you to our generous sponsors, Specially Designed Education Services, publishers of The Functional Academics Program.

🎙️ Episode Highlights: Breaking Barriers in Special Education

Hey there, educators! Welcome to another inspiring episode of The FAST 15. Today, we're diving into an uplifting conversation with Lisa Huffmaster, an incredible advocate and specialist in inclusive education. Lisa's journey began over two decades ago as a special educator, and her passion for creating meaningful opportunities for students with diverse needs shines through.

✨The Spark of Inspiration
Lisa shares her personal inspiration for entering the world of special education—her twin sister with Down syndrome. This heartfelt connection fueled her commitment to transforming the educational experience for students with unique abilities.

🔍 The Missing Piece: Assessment and Progress Monitoring
Lisa emphasizes the importance of assessments and progress monitoring in creating effective specially designed instruction. Without understanding a student's unique needs, it's like trying to teach algebra without knowing what the number eight is. Let's drill down, find the missing pieces, and empower our students with tailored support.

🤝 Bridging the Gap in General Ed Settings
Discover how functional academics are making waves in general education settings. Lisa shares insights into collaboration, communication, and creating inclusive learning environments. It's about identifying strengths, addressing needs, and ensuring every student's voice is heard at the IEP table.

🌟 Work-Based Learning: Real-World Success Stories
Lisa's involvement in work-based learning programs, like the PEAK (Panther, Employment, Action, and Knowledge) program, showcases the power of hands-on experiences. From running a student-owned coffee business to designing T-shirts, these initiatives provide real-world skills, community inclusion, and job opportunities for young adults.

🚀 Encouragement for New Educators
Lisa's advice for new educators? Take a tour through the entire educational journey, from kindergarten to transition. Witnessing the progress and celebrating small victories can be incredibly motivating. Remember, it's about taking baby steps and making a lasting impact on students' lives.

🌐 Community Connection: Church-Based Initiatives
Explore Lisa's co

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

So that's been a missing piece. If you don't have an assessment and you don't have what's missing, you can't teach me algebra if I still don't know what the number eight is. Right, right, okay, so we've got to drill down, we've got to drill down, and so having a tool, an assessment tool and progress monitoring and those type of things are what you need to show up with to discuss.

Speaker 2: 0:21

Hey everyone, welcome. This is Barb Beck and if you're intrigued like me, you will be happy that you joined us for this episode of the Fast 15. Today we launch into a conversation with Lisa Huffmaster. Lisa began her career as a special educator 26 years ago. She's taught in just about every setting on the LRE continuum before serving as a district special education administrator for 14 years. Over the course of her career, lisa led partnerships with surrounding school districts, state agencies, community members and private agencies to develop two very successful work-based learning programs for IEP and 504 eligible students. Lisa currently serves as the Inclusive Education Specialist for the Arkansas Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in the Office of Special Education. She stays connected to this work by serving as a volunteer job site coordinator for a paid off campus internship program called PEAK Panther Employment, action and Knowledge.

Speaker 2: 1:23

Let's now welcome Lisa to our Fast 15. All right, lisa Huffmaster, it's a privilege to get a chance to talk to you today and hear about your perspective. What brought you into the field of special education really, your story, who you are, what you're doing now in Arkansas and how you have connected with functional academics as well. What brought you into the field of special education?

Speaker 1: 1:47

Sure, so my journey began actually back in 1979. My parents had a set of twins. One of those twins happened to be rocking an extra chromosome Okay, and she had Down syndrome, and I obviously was very close to her growing up and just reflecting on her school experiences, they were her school experiences were way more segregated than any other place in her life, her church, our family, friends.

Speaker 1: 2:17

She spent at school. She spent her time in a classroom because we went to a very small rural school district. She spent her time in a small resource room with the little area in the back where she worked pretty much in solitude with a teacher or a parent all day so that was my inspiration. I felt like this needs to be done differently.

Speaker 2: 2:37

More opportunities for your sister or anybody else who's in that kind of a classroom setting and needing additional support but wanting more for them. That's amazing. I think a lot of people who have family members do end up going into special education and that is just such a unique perspective, I think knowing what it must be like for your parents or for other family members coming to the IEP table, working out the advocacy for your loved one and wanting a general ed experience or just being really included with same-aged peers, and how to do that. And it gets really personal when you have a family member. How do we do this? I wanna find out about what you're currently doing in your role in Arkansas.

Speaker 1: 3:22

Yeah, so I was a special education teacher for nine years, went on to be a special education director for 14 years, and now I'm working with the Office of Special Education. This is a new role for me and my title is inclusive education specialist. Now, that's a little intimidating. Anytime you put the word specialist one anything, I don't know that I've earned that title, but it's definitely a different role.

Speaker 1: 3:47

But yeah, so we work very closely with teachers training general ed, special education and then a focus on administrators. We do offer a lot of support for scheduling and for assistive technology a lot of the keys to universal design for learning, to help kids be successful in the general education setting. But it really happens, like you said, at that IEP team meeting when they're discussing the child and are they making progress with what we're doing or is there more that they can do? Are we just not giving them the opportunity to do so, really, how to show up at that IEP meeting, no matter what role you have and know what the end result should be and what you're advocating?

Speaker 2: 4:27

for and when we think about accessing curriculum and having all of the scaffolds that are needed to get moving. Like you were saying, progress monitoring and making sure that everybody's on the same page and everybody feels that they have a voice at the IEP table, but mostly the student. Hopefully we're inviting a student to the IEP team to voice what's happening out there as much as possible with whatever mode of communication that they have. Right, we want to have their voice there. I'm curious in your coaching and just helping I e p teams, how are you seeing functional academics being used in general settings and bridging that gap? Can you speak a little bit more specifically about that?

Speaker 1: 5:14

Yeah, so that specially designed instruction that they should get when they're learning things that they aren't learning or don't already have in place, those foundational or functional skills that they don't have in place. So we really need to know what those are. And we don't know what things are if we don't assess them and we don't have data to discuss. So that's been missing piece. If you don't have an assessment and you don't have what's missing. You can't teach me algebra if I still don't know what the number eight is.

Speaker 2: 5:42

Right, okay, we've got to drill down.

Speaker 1: 5:44

we got to drill down and so having a tool, an assessment tool and progress monitoring and those type of things are what you need to show up with to discuss what especially design instruction need to address. That the general ed has already Gone past, that doesn't mean there are things they couldn't be learning and benefiting from in that classroom, but what are they missing and how do we draw down and find that and provide that specially designed instruction to help bring them up to the level that their peers Are?

Speaker 2: 6:11

right and that takes people who really know and understand our young adults, like the student who has the plan, and those players, the general ed teacher, the para educator, if there, if that is available in the classroom setting. What are the solutions that you're finding for the collaboration piece? I think that's communication and being clear on how to deliver instruction, how to do that assessment. How do you make sure that all of the team members and everybody is really communicating and on the same page with delivering that in in a general ed setting and an inclusive learning environment?

Speaker 1: 6:49

Yeah, that's really a big disconnect. Sometimes when we get to those meetings in Arkansas our IPs have a page called the Platte is what we call the present level of academic and functional performance so that's probably something similar that all IPs have.

Speaker 1: 7:03

We just have that little acting in forth. So really instructing teachers on how to assess and write a good present level statement that identifies the student strengths and their needs and the adverse effects of the disability that they have and coming to the table and then with that gen ed looking at what strengths they have, how can we plug that into the gen ed and then be successful in those needs? That's where specially designed instruction and really targeted goals and objectives that support that student making progress. So helping the team take that big lump of puzzle pieces.

Speaker 1: 7:39

Yes, it were and put them together to write an educationally beneficial IP like. The IP is actually creating something. It's creating, it's filling in those gaps and doing what it's written to do. So that's the goal that we're really trying to mesh all those players and data together.

Speaker 2: 7:56

Right, I love it and I did notice when I was reviewing a little bit more about who you are and how you are participating. I think you're doing some work based learning with young adults. Is that right? Yes, it's called a peak program.

Speaker 1: 8:11

Yeah, we at the school that I just left, in July when I went to the Department of Education, had started a work based learning program with a grant that we received for a rehabilitation department here. It's called Arkansas rehabilitation services. Okay, so they have a work based learning program here that we applied for a grant. They get a start at money and the students started their own business. So within the school they have a coffee business. We have a local coffee shop that supports us and they let us order our supplies from them and teachers go in every morning or they can order by semester or by year and they pay for their coffee. And what's really exciting is they own their own company and now we have them going out into the community.

Speaker 2: 8:54

Several of the church Churches are interested in having them the church I go to actually coffee every morning and the students take their orders and fill their coffee orders real world experience in the community, inclusion that you're providing and getting your young adults ready for going out and they can go do their own thing right, so they're getting all those functional foundational skills to be able to do their own thing in the future. So that so, coffee. And then are there other elements to the program.

Speaker 1: 9:24

Yeah, they are. There's a lot of benefits. So this grant not only get a start up money for the business, but business owners can host a student or an intern and they have an employee that works for them with no cost to them and at that time, all they do yeah, they just take care of their time sheet and their employee rating and if there's any problem then we as job coaches, we as teachers, special educators, occupational therapists, we jump in and try to solve that problem. Okay, maybe it's an accommodation, maybe they need a picture, maybe they need things broken down in more of a task analysis. Yes, so it's benefiting the community, it's benefiting the intern and now we have students graduating with Jobs and a lot of those interns Get hired on the spot.

Speaker 1: 10:08

they continue working with that business that's amazing.

Speaker 2: 10:11

I love it and I saw some apparel to on the website when I was taking a look at it. How is that a different pathway other than the coffee business? So you tell a little bit about that too.

Speaker 1: 10:22

Yeah, thanks for noticing that. That's a great thing, because how many t-shirts a year does a school district order?

Speaker 1: 10:29

a lot yeah yes, so they use some of that start up money also to purchase the vinyl and the design software and now they design t-shirts for the different clubs and sports and that's organizations we even have. Like I said, the community is coming in at ordering their shirts. So, yeah, every year we design a t-shirt that kind of is our theme for the year and then the whole community orders it because it's the panther green bar panthers t-shirt of the year right and and who wouldn't want to order a t-shirt like that right, that's made by your young adults, and I think that's a brilliant idea.

Speaker 2: 11:05

so if other people wanted to start something like that, how would they go about doing that, getting a grant, doing that, going through those steps? Because people nationwide would really grab on to that idea.

Speaker 1: 11:16

I think it's fantastic getting getting that little bit of start up money. I think it was like twenty five hundred or something like that.

Speaker 1: 11:23

Just getting that little bit of start up money got us going like really fast once we got started. I think the last time we checked and they have over twenty thousand dollars now in their account. They're sustaining their selves Wow, with that t-shirt yeah, with that t-shirt business and then the grant pays them. Like I said, I went through Arkansas rehabilitation services and but I'm sure that money is allocated by state Nationally, so there has to be something within your own state. I would look at your rehab and see what grants are available. They're all probably a little different, but probably something similar.

Speaker 2: 11:57

Yeah, so people across the country, anybody else that's listening in other states could potentially think about doing A similar thing. I just love getting ideas from people who are really finding success in this way. I love all things transition and really bridging the gap. I think work based learning and career and technical education and special education we don't need to be in silos. I think that's where, when you see the crossover, that's just really powerful and I think it's amazing the things that you're doing out there. Let me ask you this we don't have a lot more time left on our fast fifteen, but let me ask you what would you say to somebody just coming into the field? You've had a lot of years of experience in the field and it probably worked with just so many different situations. But we have a lot of teachers that get in three years and they're like I can't do this. What would you say to encourage them? From your years of experience, what would you say to a brand new teacher coming into the field?

Speaker 1: 12:55

I think if I were to go back and be a special education director tomorrow or next year, the first thing I would do with those new teachers is I would schedule a day where they did a tour. They started in kindergarten and they saw what students look like and the needs that they had when they came into us. But I always want them to see the end and that's something with me being an elementary teacher. I didn't realize about transition and about all the things that we do between kindergarten and they're leaving us, and so for them to see what, what progress they make, if they can begin and see the end in mind, I think that would be a great thing for them to see and to be motivated and see that it's baby steps.

Speaker 1: 13:35

But it is steps in the right direction.

Speaker 2: 13:38

I think that's a really good suggestion for anybody coming into the field, or even if you're 10 years in or even more, to be able to see the whole continuum from early childhood all the way up through transition and knowing what to do for students. Wonderful, lisa, thank you so much for the time that you spent with us on the fast 15 and I would love to meet you in person someday. You're just so much fun to talk with and I know I could learn so much from you and your experience and I just really appreciate you and spending the time with us.

Speaker 1: 14:10

Barb, I may see you at some conference or something, or I may just have to come back out there. It was such a beautiful place for me.

Speaker 2: 14:17

I enjoyed it. Good, all right, take care. Please take a moment to learn more about that. Only true comprehensive, functional academics program that enables students with moderate to severe disabilities to improve their ability to live independently and show meaningful growth, both academically was a and personally, while creating accountability with data-driven, evidence-based results. Visit sdesworkscom to learn more.