No one working in special ed has ever said, “I chose this career so I could do paperwork all evening and weekend.”

Yet many realize after getting into the field that administrative demands can take away from time spent with students or collaborating with colleagues. 

That’s why I was so excited to connect with Sean Klamm, special educator and founder of Playground IEP (Link here: https://www.playgroundiep.com/) in episode 156 of “De Facto Leaders”. 

After starting his career as a teacher and then special education administrator, Sean was inspired to find a solution that would streamline, and potentially remove some of the “behind the scenes” work special educators need to do to manage service plans.

Sean Klamm is the Founder of Playground IEP. Sean is a Special Educator and former Director of Special Education at Butler College Prep in Chicago. After serving as Director for 5 years, Sean transitioned to build Playground IEP; the special education tools he wished he had while working in the school. Playground IEP is a new class of caseload management software that increases collaboration and automates many of the manual caseload management tasks. Sean and his team also built IEPcopilot.ai (Link here: https://www.playgroundiep.com/iep-copilot) which uses AI to assist in writing IEP goals, BIPs, and other sections of the IEP. Sean and his team are committed to building tools that allow teachers to spend more time with students and less time with spreadsheets.

In this conversation, we discuss:

✅ What’s the real motivation behind using AI and technology?

✅ How to keep the entire team in the loop about goals and accommodations (instead of letting IEPs collect dust in a binder on the shelf).

✅ When teachers aren’t supported, IEPs don’t get fully implemented. How do we solve that problem? 

✅ Using AI and technology to make space for better instructional practices and team collaboration.

✅ Systems vs. tools vs. culture: How leadership can avoid the “technology for the sake of technology” trap. 

You can connect with Sean on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanklamm/

Learn more about PlayGround IEP here: https://www.playgroundiep.com/

Create a free IEP Copilot account here: https://www.playgroundiep.com/iep-copilot

In this episode, I mention Language Therapy Advance Foundations, my program that helps SLPs create a system for language therapy. You can learn more about Language Therapy Advance Foundations here: https://drkarenspeech.com/languagetherapy/
 
I also mentioned The School of Clinical Leadership, my program that helps related service providers guide their teams to support students’ executive functioning across the day. This program will help you plan direct therapy, but will also help you lead change management on your team, no matter your job title. You can learn more about the School of Clinical Leadership here: https://drkarendudekbrannan.com/clinicalleadership

We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

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