A Special Education Teacher, Administrator and Lawyer walk into a bar....all you ever wanted to know about special education

Listen in as Angela, Robin and Abby discuss a troubling new phenomenon - changes to key aspects of the regulations that determine where a person with a disability can and should receive services.

For over 25 years, US policy has favored community based living and supports for people with disabilities. Guided by the 1999 Supreme Court decision in Olmstead, regulations and guidance for states has preferred (often strongly) the creation of community based living settings instead of larger congregate institutional settings.

However, that has changed as Texas, Alaska, Florida, Louisiana, and Montana have won the right to strip language preferring community based supports from their state guiding regulations.  See the recent Department of Justice memo (June 2026 ) codifying this here.

In a related development, in June 2025 the Trump Administration issued an executive order on homelessness which similarly rejects the belief that people experiencing homelessness (who also are often also people with disabling conditions) are best served by a "housing first" or community based response.

Check out that executive order here

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Sadly, things are getting spooky at the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) and the leadership vacuum at the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) isn't looking much better.

Listen in as Robin, Angela and Abby break down the recent leadership changes and underlying political machinations at the Department of Education.

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Listen in as Robin and Abby discuss the role of parent advocacy in the Team decision making process.  Sparked by an editorial in The 74 titled: Why Access to Special Education Depends Too Much on Parents, Robin and Abby unpack the dynamics that race, class and English language facility can have on outcomes for students.  If you are interested in reading the original article it is linked here:   The 74 from 9/20/26 Editorial: Erica Richards.

Happy Listening!

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This September, Robin joined two amazing colleagues, Elizabeth Hamblet and Kelley Challen, as they wrote an article about key Transition (14 -22) skill development. The article is featured in the September 2026 journal of Teaching Exceptional Children the leading journal of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC). Robin's article focuses on misconceptions about transition skill instruction and important strategies to increase student independence.  Listen in to hear more about the article's content.

Learn more about Elizabeth Hamblet here

Learn more about Kelley Challen here

Here's the citation/link to the article on Sage Publishing.

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Welcome to Season 7! 

We are so glad to be back and to share information about communication and ways to access support as we kick off the school year.

Facilitated IEP's are a great way to support parents and school based team members in completing the process to generate a complete IEP for a student if the process has begun to fray.  Multiple states offer this add on to the required types of dispute resolution and we break down the who/what/when/and WHY for how it might support your Team meetings too!

Listen in as Abby, Robin and Angela kick off the new season and discuss a 2025 grant from the state of Vermont that offers free Facilitated IEP meetings.

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Thanks for listening to our summer pod!! If you want to read the legal brief directly from Perry Z. - here is a link:

Perry Zirkel's July 2026 legal update

Here are the book's Robin is reading this summer....

by Mahzarin R. Banaji (Author), Anthony G. Greenwald (Author)

Take care and see you all in September!
Robin, Angela and Abby

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Thank you for listening in this year! This week if our final week of Season 6. LIsten in as Robin, Angela and Abby look back and ahead to key topics in the world of inclusive public schools.

Have a great summer all!

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Listen in as Robin, Angela and Abby interview Brian Harrigan  and Deb Westaway from the Parker Charter School in Harvard, MA about their experience with the provision of special education in charter schools.

Learn more about Parker and their mission here.

Www.theparkerschool.org

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Listen in as Robin, Angela and Abby discuss a recent Chalkbeat article about the Newark, NJ public schools and the possible over evaluation of students who are English Language Learners.

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Tonight Abby and Robin talk about the science of Math. This movement is a response to ongoing math achievement gaps for all students and suggests that it is just as important to teach procedural fluency (Facts/algorithms) as it is conceptual understanding. There are many echos of the science of reading approach to be seen and lots of implications for students with disabilities as well.

Here is the website where many of the articles and discussions of this topic get started.

https://www.thescienceofmath.com/

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