Reaching full potential. Becoming independent. We want these things for our children. For kids with disabilities, providing the assistance they need while trying to achieve these goals is like walking a tightrope. Help from even the most well-intentioned people, often is not helpful. It’s not just educators, parents unintentionally hold their children back as well.  Dr. John McNaught has made it his life’s work to reshape how we teach students with disabilities. Early on, he realized parents need to be educated too. The lesson plan: SELF-DETERMINATION.  He has witnessed first hand the transformation that happens when you give children the tools to make decisions for themselves. He has watched students move from self-contained classrooms, to general education classrooms, and onto college campuses.  Take a listen and learn how powerful self-determination and meaningful inclusion can be when done right.   The Odyssey: Parenting. Caregiving. Disability.    The Center for Family Involvement provides informational and emotional support to people with disabilities and their families. All of our services are free. We just want to help. We know how hard this can be because we're in it with you.  You can learn more about I’m Determined here.  You can read the research article Dr. McNaught’s mentioned about struggles students face because they don’t understand their disability here.      TRANSCRIPT Welcome to The Odyssey. Parenting, Caregiving, Disability. I'm Erin Croyle, the creator and host. The Odyssey podcast explores the turn our lives take when a loved one has a disability. My first child was born with Down's Syndrome in 2010. His diagnosis hit me like a freight train. It's the most common chromosomal condition diagnosed in the United States. Yet so little is known. I was a new parent with a newborn son who was the first person I ever met with Down syndrome. I had so much to learn. So I started right there next to him in the neonatal ICU. Now I'm here working with the Center for Family Involvement at VCU's Partnership for People with Disabilities. This podcast digs deep into the joys and hardships we face. We're going to celebrate how amazing the odyssey of parenting, caregiving and disability is. But we won't shy away from the tough stuff either. Something a lot of families struggle with are the many roadblocks our children face throughout their lives. These roadblocks are in our communities, our workforce, our schools, even in ourselves. Thankfully, more and more bridges to independence are being built for our children. One of those bridges is a program called I'm Determined. This state directed project funded by the Virginia Department of Education. Works with youth, especially those with disabilities, to help them steer the course of their lives rather than being the passenger. It's all about self-determination. The program isn't just for youth, though. There's a family component that helps parents learn how to better listen to and support their children. And there are resources for educators as well. Joining me today is Dr. John McNaught. he was one of the first people in Virginia to implement student directed IEP meetings. His focus has always been bringing the student voice to the forefront. He's also the founding member and principal investigator of the I'm Determined Project. so. John, I'm so excited to talk to you. I've known about I'm determined for years, but last year was the first time I was able to attend the summit working with its communications team. I have to be honest, while I've known about I'm determined for ages, it's hard to fully grasp what it's about without being there. I would love to start with you as a founding member. Summarizing, I'm determined in a nutshell, So in a nutshell, I'm determined is all about opportunities to practice self-determined behaviors in an environment that supports those behaviors. And so it's that simple. I think a lot of times we where we fail with self determination is we do a little bit of an instruction and we toss a kid into an potentially unsupportive or scary environment. And what if we approached life that way? What if the first time you drive a car, you know there's no instruction or there you read the manual and then you just get in the car and drive by yourself with nobody there. And so it's all about scaffolding supports providing that environment, right? You become competent in your ability to do things like advocate or problem solve, and you do it around people who are, you know, supportive. And that gives you the ability and the confidence then to go try that somewhere else like school. So that's how you know, in a nutshell, that's how I would describe it. There's a lot of probably 10,000 intertwining pieces that make that happen. But that's the best case. John, before we dive in deeper, there's something that kind of always intrigues me reading your full bio, right? I wonder what brought you to this place professionally. And I ask this because until I had my son, I was totally ignorant, to the struggles and marginalization that people with disabilities face. And by the time my son was one, I was then immersed in advocacy. my son, he's just opened up my life in this spectacular, fair way. So I now see all the room for growth in our educational systems, our workforce, our community that I wasn't aware of. So I'm really, really curious if there was an event or a person or something that put you on this path. Yeah. So there are multiple things. So I'll start with, know, I grew up in a small town. It was a kindergarten through eighth grade school and everybody knew everybody and it was an inclusive model. our football coach, his son, was an individual with Down's syndrome. He's the same age as us. Chris was his name was in all of our classes he was the manager of the football team. And, you know, he was just one of one of the guys. Right. and then we graduated eighth grade and we went to regional high school. And my mom was actually a teacher at that high school. And I can remember, like after about two weeks, you know, I probably wasn't even in two weeks realizing, Hey, where the heck is Chris? I haven't seen him, you know, in two weeks. And I remember asking my mom and I'm like, Hey, where's Chris? And she's like, What are you talking about? I'm like, I haven't seen Chris, you know, since school started. And she's like, Oh, well, you know, he's in the special ed program. And I'm like, All right, well, where is that? And, you know, I mean, you know the story, right down the hall, down the stairs, around the corner, next to the boiler. And that just kind of stuck with me as just not being right, not feeling right. He was such a part of our everyday life. And then it's like you don't even see the kid. that's how it was for four years, you know? I mean, we you know, we tried to, you know, break him out, but inclusive education was certainly not a thing. And social inclusion was definitely not a thing. And so that that kind of stuck with me. And then honestly, I did some volunteer work in college at a place called the Virginia Home for Boys you know, it was just a lot of kids would with different stories, but some of it was behavior related. Almost all of it was disability intersectionality of disability and and some other issues. 01:06:31:12 - 01:06:40:21 Unknown And, you know, just kind of watching them at such a young age like, you know, teenagers just in this home, residential, no choice, no voice. And it just kind of brought me back to this idea of Chris and then I graduated college and I didn't know what I wanted to do. And so I decided to hike the Appalachian Trail from Maine down to Georgia. And in the middle of that hike in Virginia, I ran into this group of kids from this wilderness school, and they fed me an and remarkably, one of the kids from the Virginia home for boys that I had volunteered with was a student in this wilderness school who recognized me. And so we started having this conversation and it turned out this was a school for, you know, kids with ADHD, emotional disability, learning disability. And they were there because they also had some behavioral issues. So they were either there because they had a problem in school, their parents sent them or the court sent them. And I was like, this is this is interesting. And we just kind of hung out all night. And so I got off, finished the trail and I was telling my dad how I didn't want to my major, what my undergrad major was business. And I was like, There's no way I'm going to work in business. And he happened to see an ad for a wilderness school. I go on the interview and it's that school and those kids are still there. so I started a week later. did that for three years, living out in the woods and eventually decided that, you know what I want to learn more about special education, went back, got a master's degree, and then went into teaching. And my first kind of foray into teaching was I was given a room. So I was working was I got hired as a teacher of students with emotional disabilities, and they gave me my first classroom and it was like, you know, I don't know, an eight by eight closet with no windows. And an A caseload of 25, but I had seven who were seniors who were 100% self-contained I was just like, wait a second, we're supposed to hang out in this room for 6 hours together by ourselves. So I was like, This is crazy. I don't think we're going to do this. I will never forget this. I thought this was such a great idea. I on the first day of school, I handed them all their IEPs and they said, What's this? I was like, Get your IEP. And they're like, What's an IEP? Whoa. Now I can start getting a little bit nervous. And then, you know, back in the day it was called emotional disturbance. So they see their name, they see the word emotional disturbance, and they're starting to get, you know, what the heck's emotional disturbance? Well, then they start reading the present level. And in hindsight, I probably should have read those a little more closely through a different lens. So they were super negative, right? It was basically summary of every bad thing that kid ever did and every, you know, And so they're starting to get upset. And I'm like, Who wrote this? And I said, This is my first day teaching. I mean, look at the back page, see who signed it. Like, I didn't write it. So, you know, we sat we started having a conversation and these kids didn't know they were in special ed and they had been in special ed since third grade. They're now 18 or 17. It's fall semester of senior year. And so I talked to the principal. I'm like, Yeah, we're not going to do this self-contained thing. We're going to these kids, This is crazy. And, you know, we moved to an inclusive model with the idea that if there's behavior problems that I'm going to have to deal with it and we're going to, go back to the old model. If we have to. And, you know, I just watched trying to give these kids some choice, and they were just so unwilling to take the leap because they'd been told what to do forever. And now they're 17 and some new young kids in their talent on that. They're in charge and they're like, I don't think so, man. Like, I don't you know, I don't trust you. I don't know you. I don't even know what to do and how to be in charge. it was a hard year. We made a lot of strides. But you cannot in one year make up for six years of, you know, self-contained education or lack of education. And so I was a little, you know, like, all right, we got to change this whole model. And then that that same year at the time we had what was called IEP Day. And so it's April and I had like 27 on my caseload, including and those kids were all graduating. So they didn't they didn't need I didn't need to rewrite their IEP, but 27 kids every IEP do on the same day. And you know, for anyone my age or older, you'll remember pre computers, we had the NCR paper. So each sheet of the IEP was like seven pages thick and you had to write really hard. That's right. Right. So, you know, I wrote 27 IEPs, I'll do the same day. And so then the kids would come to school until noon and then leave because it was a half day. And then we were supposed to schedule 27 IEP meetings from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. like in every special. The teacher in the school is doing this. And so I was like, This is crazy, but okay, this is what we do. So we're going to do it. And I told the kids, I said, Look, if you come to your IEP meetings, I know I knew from asking them they hadn't done it before. You come to your IEP, meet me, I'll buy you pizza the next day. And they're like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll see you there. So I thought they were going to show up. And so the day comes, they leave the meeting start. I've got administrators just walking in and out of classrooms, just signing their name and leaving. I've got, you know, parents who, you know, some want to sit down and have a meeting, but some just want to sign it and walk out the door. And out of 27 possible kids, I had zero show up. this is like a bad origin story. I was so annoyed at those kids for not showing up. Right? And so I go to school the next day. I'm like, I can't believe you didn't show up. What is the deal? I was going to buy you pizza. And they're like, they're like, Look, dude, school ended at 12? So let me just get this straight. You want me to come back to school? That which I hate? You want me to sit in a meeting with a bunch of people? I don't like so I can hear about all the things I can't do? They're like, No, thanks. And I'm like, WhatIf you had looked at the IEP, I wrote, but they had no say in it, right? They didn't. You hadn't even seen it. And so in hindsight, not a big shock. They didn't show up. So I said to them, out of out of frustration, you know what? Anyone who's not a senior, you're going to write your own IEP next year. I'm just not going to do it. And I just happened to go to a conference a month later and met one guy out of Northern Virginia, and he had this grainy VHS tape of this kid participating in his meeting. And I was like, Oh, this is a thing like, we're doing it like this is a thing. And so the next year I started what I called back then, student led IEPs. we went for it and we did it it was awesome. It was a lot of work, but it was a lot of relationship building and it totally changed. It changed the kids, it changed the parents, it changed the administrator perspective of the kids. It changed the general education perception of the students. it was really just this magic thing that they just kind of took off. And my wife was also a special education teacher at the time in the same district at a neighboring high school. And she started doing it and it started taking off. this is all kind of pre undetermined. Right. I'm a term wasn't a thing yet. so that's a long way of around how I got to coming up with this thing called undetermined John I just have to say what really strikes me in my heart as a mother of a kid with Down syndrome and as a person who helps other families, you know, do this, it is just like, wow, that was one student. This all started because of inclusion with one student back in elementary school. And I just think, so often, parents still have to fight to have their kids included. You know, they you have a certain code and automatically you are put in a self-contained classroom, you're segregated. And that argument that we still have to make constantly as advocates, which is, inclusion is better for everyone. students with disabilities do as well, if not better, and students without do as well, if not better. And your story is like this beautiful example of what a difference it can make. Just seeing someone with a disability in the same room as you. I mean, that changed your entire trajectory. It did. I'm floored. I just to me, it speaks volumes to inclusion and then to hear the stories, about the IEPs, that does not shock me. I mean, we're still at a place where a lot of schools,  you have to fight to have a student lead their IEPs. I mean, you know, I've been doing this now for 25 years you know, I'm finally I'm finally the old guy in the room who's like, we've been talking about this for 25 years. People like, come on, You know, I mean, I can remember thinking, oh, I'm never going to be able to say that, yet here I am. Like, we're still talking about getting kids involved in their IEP meeting, what's happening now we're trying to fight against, right, is that students participating in their IEP. It's it's awesome. It's a feel good moment, but it is not going to move the needle for the kid. Okay. It's a it's a once a year thing. What moves the needle for the kid is opportunities to practice being self-determined at home, in school and in the community on a daily basis. Right. And so that's where, you know, and you can still do still what? IEPs because it's fun and it's cool. Just can't be the only thing you do. And so it's all about those opportunities to practice. You know, I look at it now, you know, my lens now, 25 years later is, you know, I'm a researcher, I'm a teacher, but I'm also a parent of two high school girls, one of which has a disability, has ADHD, anxiety and OCD. And so I come at this through those three lenses. Right. And if you're only working on this stuff at school, it's not going to cut it, right? You've got to have families and teachers speaking in common language, working together, providing those opportunities. And I watched it with my own kid because, look, my my daughter is at the high school that my wife and I taught at. Okay. I know almost every teacher. I know all of the administrators. All right. She has a wonderful plan. I have all the privilege in the world. I mean, I am a white male with a terminal degree, and I have all the connections at the school. Right. You know how my kid gets accommodations? She advocates because when she wasn't advocating, it wasn't happening. And if it's not happening for me, right, then it's not happening for anybody, I can promise you. Right. Because if there's anybody's kid that should be getting it, they would be like, Oh, look, watch out for this guy, right? Make sure his kids are getting what they need, not the case. And so I'm like, all right, you know what? Then you're going to go do it. And luckily, you know, we've been raising her as a self-determining, self-determined child for so long. She was like, okay. and what a change. Like, what a change. Like, I haven't had to have one conversation in a year and a half with anybody because she's taking care of it. And that was my like, light bulb moment. Like, Wow, you got to put it in the hands of the kids. You do. And that's this is perfect is I want to talk about that more. I want to talk about I'm determined. And I think also the beauty of I'm determined, right, is one, it's an ongoing project. It's not just the summit, but also, you know, you work with kids who have disabilities, but those disabilities vary greatly. And I think a lot of times we talk about student LED IEP, but what about those students who don't have, traditional expressive language abilities, who have a very hard time communicating in a way that, non-disabled people understand? You know, my son is a perfect example. I have had him attend his IEP meetings since preschool I'm still working to have that participation be meaningful because that communication piece is just not there yet. So I would love to hear more about I'm determined and how you help kids of all levels and ages and all of it.   so.  Communication is like that's the heart of everything, right? And it's so hard being a parent. And I'm a parent with a degree in special ed and I still feel like I don't know, I don't know everything, but to I had to get out of this mindset of like, automatically looking at the teacher as the expert. Well, I'm not going to question right. Even myself and also understand you as a teacher. They don't necessarily get exposed to all of the resources that are out there, especially around communication. Right. Technology's changing every minute. And so a lot of the work we do is exposing teachers, kids and families to assistive technology because there is so much out there. Right. And not everything has to cost $10,000. Right? There are all sorts of apps or functional communication devices, speech generating devices. And what is so one of the things we did that I really love is is through I'm determined and a t tac in the College of Education at James Madison University is we opened up what we call the Accessibility and Inclusion lab where we've invested, you know, a quarter of $1,000,000 in technology and accessibility and we open it to free service teachers, in-service teachers, parents and kids. Let's say you have a kid who's strong, who's who's got some communication needs and you can't necessarily figure it out. You come to the lab and you can try everything, right? Because if the kid isn't motivated to use a device, it's not going to be a good fit. I've had kids weighing iPads across the room because they don't want the iPad. Right. And so it's a heck of a lot easier to come to us and throw our iPad across the room than it is for a parent to drop two grand on an iPad and then it's broken or a school division, whatever. every kid is different. Every need is different. And again, it's that opportunity to practice, right? So exposure and understanding that, not everyone's got the budget or the ability to bring all these pieces together for somebody to try. And, you know, that's one of the goals of the lab. So like, come in, explore it. And we've seen you know, we worked with a student, Chloe, who's an amateur one youth leader. She's actually about to graduate from VCU as a journalism major. She has cerebral palsy. She absolutely hates to use a speech generating device. Now, I work with Chloe all the time. I've known Chloe for almost a decade. I don't have an issue understanding her. But if you just met her, you're potentially going to have an issue. for Chloe, it was like it was all about speed, right? If I asked you if someone asked the question. Right. The fast processors can always answer first. If she's got to always type it into a device. Right. Especially if it's a kind of a antiquated device. They're already on six questions down. She's still trying to get her device geared for question one. There are question six, And so, hey, understanding that we got to find the right piece for her, but her also understanding that there's going to be times where, although it's not her preferred mode of communication, she's going to have to use something to get her point across. And that for her, that was a process that she really had to kind of come to. And then having her the ability to try all this new technology and be like, Oh, so I can have something preprogramed and boom, click and I'm right in it. it's sad sometimes. You see kids are still walking around with like, like a picture exchange communication system book, right? The thing weighs like 600 pounds. You know, you got to flip 80 pages to get to hamburger. I mean, I don't know how functional that is, right? I mean, are you going to be walking around with that thing in the community? I just think this idea of embracing technology and understanding that everyone has a desire to communicate, right. And if they can't do it verbally, they'll do it through behavior. we've got to find out where they are. I've had students lead IEP meetings with every disability you can imagine. one of my first years, I had a kindergartner with Down's syndrome, run his own meeting, show his PowerPoint. You know, I ran into the kid like two months ago. It's got a full time job at Costco. And I was like, Oh my gosh, oh, my gosh. She's I'm like, oh, he's got like a full beard. You know? I'm like, I remember you from kindergarten. it's accessibility in the ability to understand that these resources are available. We got know how to source them. And that's hard That's hard for families. That is I mean, you say JMU for those listening, that's in Harrisonburg, which is kind of central Virginia, beautiful town. And you mentioned TTAC. So I want to stop for clarity that one, if you can explain TTAC. But also the question is, do you know of other places that do a lab like this where where can people find something like this locally? So Virginia has a model where as far as technical assistance to schools for special education, we have offices at seven different state universities and we cover the entire state. We're free resource the schools. And so for Virginia, you know, that's great, right? There are some other universities in Virginia, George Mason, Virginia Tech, that all have access to these kind of resources. But the reality is, no matter where you are in the country, universities is where you need to look. if you're in New York, I'm looking at, you know, maybe Cornell, if that's the area of the state you're in, what is their special ed? You know, who's our special ed department head? What do they have to offer? Because, you know, in my experience, you're going to have a better chance finding it at a university than you are at a local school system. Right? I mean, local school systems are just not equipped for funding wise to create this kind of they can do it for individual kids potentially, but they're not going to have a room where you can try all these different devices out. as a teacher prior to coming to the university, that was not on my radar. Mike. I had no idea that that's where I should look. And so that's where I would start as a parent. That's good to know. So I want to move towards we've kind of gone everywhere, so let's go backward so we can go forward. So you start the student letter IEP process and then how does that kind of evolve into I'm determined, there was an opportunity for a job at James Madison at TTAC. I decided to interview for and I got it. about a year later I was 25. And then in 2006, we were tasked the Department of Ed, through the Tea Tax, were tasked with coming up with a solution to or post-school outcomes for individuals with disabilities. we did a bunch of research and some things we found out were that at the time in Virginia, kids were not attending IEP meetings. Kids did not know what their disability was. They couldn't tell you any of their strengths. They couldn't tell you any of their accommodations. They couldn't tell you any of their rights under idea. you know, we had poor for post-school employment outcomes, for post-school secondary education outcomes. based on that and in our research, we said, well, self-determination sounds like an area we need to dig deeper into. And at the time, Mike Meyer out of Kansas was doing a lot of research that we would kind of grasp on to. And then the second piece was we knew it had to be in the very beginning teacher friendly, and so it had to be something we had to create something that teachers could use quickly that didn't feel like a curriculum because they weren't going to do it. And so we brought in some teachers from across Virginia, we came up with what we call the three core tools of I'm Determined. So you got the one pager, which honestly is just a simple way to come up with strengths, preference, interests, needs. We created the goal plan because another piece of that data was that kids had they didn't have short term goals. They didn't have long term goals. There was no real goal setting going on. So the goal plan and then the Good Day plan, which was just simply like, what's going on now? You know, or what happens on it? What on your perfect day, what happens? Is it happening now? What needs to happen to fix it and who can help you? And those were three easy tools and everyone loved them  and they jumped on board. And then I got to focus on, okay, as a result of these three tools, let's keep this student let IEP train. And I started moving, right? And so we brought in some professional film crew and just started making movies of kids leading IEP meetings, kids talking about their disability, understanding what their strengths were general education, teacher, special education, teachers, administrators, parents. Right. And honestly took I'm determined from from the nine pilot schools we started with in 2006 to, all the school divisions in Virginia, plus over 40 states that I've worked with over the past. You know, however many years has been the video storytelling. Right. Because people can see themselves in the stories. And that's powerful. And they want it. They want to see it, to believe it kind of thing. focused a lot in the beginning on driving around the schools in Virginia and shooting video, that was probably, you know, I don't know, maybe the first ten years of work. And then with that, this idea started in the year two. Okay, Well, that's the teachers now. We got to hit the kids directly. And so we came up with this idea of a summit. And so the very first summit, it was just a youth summit. And we had 15 kids with disabilities from across the state. And had kids with L.D., kids with autism, kids with Ida. And, you know, we had one kid who was the leader she ran this this two and one half day summit. And the whole time I couldn't get rid of the parents. So the parents are sitting outside our doors trying to, like, poke their head in, see their kids, okay. And they're driving me crazy. And and I wasn't a parent at the time. Okay? My wife was pregnant with our first kid, I couldn't really know why these parents are killing me and my colleagues. Like, we need to do an event at the same time for the parents, I was like, Man, I don't want to do that. That's going to be a pain in the butt. And she's like, It's going to be easier than this. And I'm like, All right, let's do it. And so the next year, five of those kids from the original summit came back as the leaders, we we said, All right, parents, we got something for you, too. And we went from like, you know, a summit of 15 to 20 to 50. and we found that and the parents had so many questions, right? So many questions around disability, around opportunity, around just navigating school and life and these these parents formed this like, support group outside of us back in the times everyone's using Facebook. The youth formed their own support group on Facebook and left us out of it. you know, we did another year of 50 and then next year we're at 100 and 150 you know what I found with parents? And this kind of speaks to why we really try to get a wide array of individuals with disabilities as if my kid has ADHD. I want to hear from another parent whose kid has ADHD. And if my kid has Down syndrome, I want to hear from another parent whose kid has Down syndrome. And at first I didn't totally understand it, but I kind of get it more now because it's just that like they can totally relate, And so we made sure that we had a wide range so that everyone had. if I'm if my kid is, 13 and just kind of going through it and I can run into a parent whose kid is now 19 or 20 and they can kind of tell me all the hoops they jump through and all the barriers they broke. For the parents, they can see the light and they learn some tricks for the kids, This is the crazy part. Every time a kid came to the summit and I wrote a whole article on this, they they'd say, I thought I was the only kid with L.D.. I thought I was the only kid with dyslexia in the world. I thought I was the only kid with intellectual disability in the world or autism. And then I come and I meet all of these other and this kid's got the same disability as me, and they're in college. Like, I can do that. That's a thing. And it just started right. The ceiling, just their own ceiling started raising. And so then we knew at that point, okay, we got the kids, we got the parents, we've got the special ed teachers. Now we got to raise the general led ceiling. you know, if I could do the whole thing over again, I would have never build this as a special ed initiatives. honestly, after about year five with my work with schools, I build it as an all kid initiative. And if you want to make inclusion happen, that's how you do it, right? All kids need these skills. All kids need to tell you what their strengths are, what their needs are, and by doing that right, I've got schools that every single kid's got a one pager, every single kid's got a good day plan, and it just changes. It's just more of an inclusive mindset. So I wish that I had that kind of foresight way back when we first started it, because the places where I started as a special ed initiative, it was really hard to kind of remarket it as something for all kids. And that's still kind of drives me crazy. Yeah, I can see that. Although I think, it may not belong to you because it's your baby and you've been doing it a while, but it is still young and there's so much room for growth. And I love that you've brought this up because I'm quite curious, you know, when you were talking earlier about special education in that first room you started in and that mantra that we learn as advocates, special education is a service, not a place is so important. And hearing what you're saying now, when I speak to university students and I talk about inclusion with them, and one of the things they mention is, is the failure of higher education to teach special education to all teachers, including general ed teachers, because these practices, these practices benefit every single student and co teaching models are beneficial, all students. And we just see in our structures that lack of funding of public schools, the lack of education in higher education to make this happen. John, if you could change something what do you think the the thing is that could have the most impact? Yeah, honestly, you hit the nail on the head and I'm I'm involved in a project and that's what we're doing right now in it is re-envisioning educator prep programs because we can't keep churning out teachers who are not prepared. And so like you said, especially with the teacher shortage right there, kids, students with disabilities are going to be in general education. And that's just a fact. End of story. A lot of our educator prep programs, right. You can you can say I want to be a high school math teacher. And outside of your intro to Ed class, never hear the word disability. Ever. And then you come out and you're teaching algebra one in 15 to 20% in the kids in the room have an IEP and you even know what it stands for. Now, what kind of that model makes no sense right, Right. And so we're working on both at, you know, with the Department of Education and a select number of universities in Virginia is just, hey, that model makes no sense. We need to do better than that. The other side of that coin is this. You're going to want you're going to college because you want to be a special ed teacher, okay? At some colleges, you can go through four years and never interact with a general education undergrad, and then then they get a job and it's like, Oh, cool, I want you to go co teach math. And they're like, Whoa, what? I that's not what I do. I'm not. I'm not that. And so we're failing and on both sides, And so we're teaching this model that is like honestly, like a pre 1975 model. Yeah. And we're still doing it. I came to that realization like maybe two years ago in this, this grant opportunity showed up a year ago. So I was all over it because I'm like, I'm tired of constantly going into in-service classrooms and trying to fix things that need that could be addressed in re service universities. And so to me, like that's what we need to do and that's what I'm excited about kind of moving forward. And I'm a little I'm a little worried about with the teacher shortage, with all these people going coming in my kind of alternate route who aren't necessarily having those classes like that scares me a little bit. But I'm putting my eggs in that basket. We need to we need to fix those educator prep programs. We need to get them aligned. They got to work together they got to understand, like all kids means all kids both and need to understand that. you know, I have hope for the future because I think we're getting there. I think we're we're looking at that model. And I know some universities already have like what I'm talking about, like, I know Radford University in Southwest Virginia has been doing a model like that for years. And guess what? Those teachers come out better prepared because I've seen them. So we can do it. Yeah. And Radford has a great reputation. It's unfortunate. I mean, we have the teacher shortage and then we also are seeing some colleges and universities are losing money and they're having to get rid of programs that were actually hugely beneficial. And I guess we can just I mean, hope is great. So let's hope that it starts to see the pendulum start swinging back. But I think advocacy is also necessary speaking about these things and spreading it. I know so many teachers who care deeply about teaching, but it's a struggle because they have to relearn so much. After going through school and getting a master's here, they are relearning through professional development. And you know that same question like from a parent lens. Yeah, I think what I've learned is that you've got to put 100% of your effort into creating the most self-determined son or daughter that you can because even though I know better, I wanted to solve my kids problems. I wanted to call those teachers out and be like, what are you doing right? And I did that sometimes like, I would. I did it sometimes. And it didn't have a it didn't have any effect. Right? And so watching my own kid learn to navigate the system and just be fearless about it because they they've been practicing it for so long that, you know, as a parent lens, that's what I'm going for. And I'm going to make, you know, my kid has more significant support needs. I'm going to make sure 100% they have some kind of communication device. So when I'm not there, they can communicate those needs and we're going to practice that all the time. that's just as a parent, that's where I am. And, you know, I'm going to feel like, okay, my kids prepared. Well, let's touch on that more, because I think and I bet you've run into this a lot and I bet the parent summit helps. But, as parents, you know, that parental instinct to protect your child is so ingrained in us. Yeah. And then when you combine that and having a child with an intellectual or developmental disability, that protection radar is just up a notch. And I think as parents, we can sometimes do a huge disservice to our children in just thinking that we're protecting them and thinking that we're helping them and thinking that they need these things. We kind of hold them back a little bit. So I'm curious, you know, how often you see that and also how you help parents kind of understand how detrimental it can be, though. I see it all the time and I've been guilty of it myself. But so I think with self determination right at home you start small. I'll give you this example. So my kids who are now about to be 16 and 17 when they are around five, one night a week, they pick, they pick a meal, they make the grocery list, we go shopping and they help cook the meal cook. And so, you know, here we are at 17 and 16. They're both extremely competent and confident in the kitchen. I've got one who's like a master dessert maker and one who can cook any kind of pasta and loves to grill cook. And so taking the time to give that opportunity to think about when they're in an argument, right, they're only a year apart. Like there were times as a parent where I'm like, You be quiet and sit over here. You be quiet and sit over here. But then 5 seconds later, they're in that same problem, right? So and not every moment, a teachable moment. Right. But your default all needs to be teachable moments. Okay? And that's how you're going to start building that up. Think of choices. Our kids can go through school, Think of elementary school. There's like zero choice built in, Right? I think my kids couldn't even pick where they ate lunch by until fifth grade. You imagine that? And so how can we build some choices and build in some autonomy, as they get older? And this is the hard part. Okay. They've got a decision to make. And I say, look, if you choose this path, these are the consequences, meaning this is what's going to happen potentially you choose this path. These are the consequences. Hard part is stepping that stepping back as the parent and letting them choose the path, especially when it's not the one you would choose. I've watched my kids make mistakes and, you know, cringe. And the key pieces, which we don't do well in school. Okay. Failure Is the middle, not the end. We chose the wrong path. We have some consequences. Let's reassess what went wrong. What should I maybe done, what didn't I think about? And then let's try something again. Think about how they go through school. They fail a test. The next day you're on to New material, right? In their mind, failures. In the end, you can't go through life that way, You've got to learn to look at failure as the middle. And so the more that we can kind of instill that in our kids, you know, my my teaching, my oldest attire, shoes, she's a lefty. You know, at one point I was like, you know what? We're just going to buy Velcro because I can I am not a fine motor skill visual. Like, I just can't do it. And so, you know, also knowing when we're just going to need Velcro and we'll figure this out later, giving yourself some grace, but really looking at how you your family system, how much choice is built in, how much opportunity to try things are built in, how much are you connecting, what they're interested in. You know, when my kids were in high school, they always had a chore list. But this is more recent. The rule was chores had to be done at 3 p.m. on Sunday. Right? And they were just blowing it off. They just weren't doing and it was annoying. And my wife was annoyed and I was annoyed and were nagging them nonstop and it was just unenjoyable and I was like, What do we do? I talk about this stuff all the time and I'm doing everything I said not to do, right? And so I was like, okay, new plan, Here's your chore list, Here's your chore list. This is the this is the plan. I don't care when you do them, but they need to be done by 3 p.m. on Sunday. If they're not, then you turn in your cell phone until they're done. Well, my youngest looks at me and she's like, Yeah, right. You always say this kind of stuff. You're not going to follow through. I don't really care. Mike Okay, let's see, right? First Sunday rolls around, my oldest Saturday, all the chores are done. She's not feeling any pressure. My youngest, Sunday, real five. Still not done. Mike, give me the phone. She's like, now to get the phone back. Do I have to do them or is this just like a time thing? I'm like, No, you got to do it. You get the phone back, right? So she learns. So now, you know, three years later, my oldest still does a on Saturday in my youngest, although she's never missed another deadline, is still sprinting through the house at 259 on Sunday. The difference is I'm not annoyed. My wife's not annoyed. And it's her conscious choice to do it that way. And little things like that. build up our kids. You know, I set this up thinking we're just going to talk. I'm determined. And here I think you might have problem solved. One of my biggest frustrations, I'm going to give this I mean, they don't have phones, but I can think of something. I'm going to give this a shot. So thank you. I think so often, looking at this as a parent, we put people like you, John, and  my colleague Dana Yarbrough, who I just think is the best thing since sliced bread. we put professionals on a pedestal because we see what you say. But to hear you talk about implementing it at home being difficult, it just makes it easier for us to not feel so bad about our failures because you can try so many different things and it depends on the kid, you know? Absolutely. I've done so many things wrong. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and yeah. And then you have a self determined kid who doesn't want to listen to you because they're self determined. And so it's like that. That's what I have now. I've got two teenagers are like, I got this, I got this like, hey, I just scheduled myself for junior and senior year, and oh, my youngest says, and I signed your name. So I'm like, Whoa, dude, there's a line between self-determined and forgery. Like, I need to at least see what you're planning. But they're just taking control. And so, I mean, it's cool, but there's definitely, like, as a parent, there's like, Oh, remember the good old days when I could just control you? Yeah, that's, you know, it's a whole it's a thing. Well, and I, you know, I have an eight year old who? My daughter, they were born self-determined  I just got to hold on to the seat tightly until they're mature enough to make decisions that are not harmful. But I think that's the beauty of I'm determined. Right? So you have this perennial project that is year round where you're constantly working with schools and then this summit and I have to tell you, after finally being able to go to the summit last year and watching these young people just grow so much in three days, it is inspiring. And frankly, it's just electric. So can you kind of walk us through the thought process? Because not every person is born like my daughter who comes out just ready to take on the world. So how do you work on like building confidence and teaching these young people self-determined Nation? what makes the summit special is that it's kids leading kids, kids to disabilities, leading kids to disabilities and the adults really take a back seat and we are there, but we're there if there's a problem, if there's a question, you know, if a student's got a, you know, significant support need and whatever, we can do that. And look, that can be it's two things. It's very scary for parents because I purposely put parents on the other side of campus and I set up, face time stations in case there's, an issue. But it's almost always the parent wanting to talk to the kid and not the kid wanting to talk to the parent. Kids just inherently take care of kids. Right? And so I had a mom who's like, well, who's going to who's going to cut my daughter's food at the dining hall if I'm not there? I'm like, it's not going to be an issue. in a what? And I didn't even set it up right a kid, they all walk together. It's like, Oh, what do you need help with? And I just took a little video and texted it to her of like, Here, here's your kid with another kid and everything's cool, that's not something you teach or train. That's just kids accepting kids and feeling like they're not getting judged. There's no hierarchy. And that's what the kids of the kids talk about all the time. I don't think it's anything we do other than consciously we're not in charge. Right? And so in the leaders, we do a lot of training with our leaders who are anywhere age 13 through 21, and they're trained to, you know, make sure everybody's involved. They're trained to certainly when to ask for help from an adult. But it's just like this, natural kind of we're just going to take care of each other. And for parents, where I get a lot of heat is this is the first time mom or dad has ever like given this level of independence to their kid. I have a better appreciation now for how scary that can be. My younger self found it mildly annoying but I get it because they are away and they're not. they say goodbye in the morning and they're not going to see them again to like 6 p.m.. And there's there's some unstructured time built in there. I still remember this mom. She came back and she couldn't find her son. I said, all right, well, what's what's his name? Because I take pictures of everybody and I look and she's frantic. I mean, tears. And I walked downstairs and her son made a friend and they're in the room shooting pool. And so I just take a picture of them and walk back upstairs. she was just like, there was relief. But there was also just like, shock, right? Like, my kid doesn't have friends. I'm like, well, he does now. I mean, like, I can go get him if, you know. No, no, no. So, you know, it's just it's a big step for parents. And a lot of the Parents Summit focuses on how to take that step. And it's the first steps, the hardest. And then it gets easier and easier and easier. and I think once the parents start hearing from other parents who have been through exactly what they're going through currently, that's really powerful for them. I know for myself and my kid was first diagnosed we got done with the initial eligibility and the special ed teacher was like, you know, it was like, hey, you know, I have a daughter a little bit older who who is literally a carbon copy of your kid. and just was like, if you ever want to talk secure in And so that's huge, right parents I mean if you think back to like initial eligibility especially if your kid got identified at a young age. Right. You're sitting in this meeting, you hear the word disability and you hear all these other words and you've got 10,000 things going through your head, And you're not even half listening to what everybody's saying. When's the next opportunity as a parent that you have to get all those people together again in the same room? For a lot of our families, that could be years and years are never that feeling of aloneness is a real thing. That's real, right? And so the summit for them just kind of like makes them feel less alone. that's huge. And then immediately when they reconvene that first night, we have a dinner together and the kids don't want to eat with their parents because they've made friends. And for some it's like, oh, it's it's hard, you know, they let it happen. And I am like, Look, Jimmy's not going to eat dinner with you. I know you think Jimmy's going to eat dinner with you, but I promise you, it's not going to happen right? And they're like, Yeah, whatever. That's not. and purposely I do. I stagger it. So the kids go to dinner or 15 minutes early so I can kind of get them through the food line and get them all settled so that the parents can walk in and be like, Well, how'd you get a cheeseburger? You're eating a cheeseburger. I'm just like, you know, so don't hover parents. it can be an intense experience for parents, seriously, because it's a lot of independence. you know, I think they leave and they're just like they kind of see the light like, okay, I get it. I know. there's light potentially at the end of the tunnel. I've met some people who have gone through what I'm going through. My kid has made some friends. I mean, we do a a social the last night for the kids. And we get a DJ, we get karaoke for years parents would beg me to come to it. I'm like, No, you can't. This is a kid social. finally one year I was like, All right, this is the deal. You can go up on the balcony for 5 minutes at a time. You cannot call your kid's name, but you can watch for 5 minutes. And I mean, their kids are dancing. Their kids are singing karaoke and they're the parents are just bawling. They're like, we don't ever have this opportunity. And I can't believe our kids on the dance floor, you know, or singing karaoke. And, It's cool to let them see that, sometimes, you know, you're just not going to believe it without seeing it. it's quite an experience for sure. It's interesting to everything you're saying. I'm soaking in and I'm just thinking about the constructs we set up for our young people with disabilities. You know, you need the support in school. So a lot of times you have a teaching assistant or a 1 to 1 support, makes them dependent on someone else. Instead of building independence. And I think parents do that accidentally. And I think that parents forget from basically from 11 on, if your kid wants to hang out with you, you're lucky and a group. And it doesn't matter if you have a disability or not. It's beautiful that they are finally having an opportunity to make friends without an adult hovering over them. And I hope I mean, do you see when you see that experience there, do you see those parents taking that as a learning experience and hopefully trying to foster that when they get back home? Yeah, I think so. First learned helplessness is a real thing for everybody, right? So like, if someone's going to do something for me, especially if I don't really want to do it, I'm not going to change my behavior, right? I don't like making myself a sandwich. If my wife was going to make me a sandwich every day, I'd be like, Heck yeah, do it now. That's not a disability thing. That's just a human nature thing, Yeah, I think for parents, I think what I've learned is so I had a mom call me one time and they came to their first summit and the mom called me and she's like, you know, I just want to I just wanted to say we had a great time at the summit. But, Emily just not being self-determined. and I kind of in my head laughs. I'm like, Look, this isn't a magic pill. You don't come here for three days and boom, you're going to start being self-determined, right? You're you're getting exposed it. And I think for most kids and parents, like three years in a row is like the sweet spot. I think it's the first year it's so overwhelming, especially for parents that you've got so much in your head. And I try to tell them, leave here and try one thing, Don't go home and give your kid a chore list and make them cook dinner and you know, and like. Right, because their heads are going to spin, Try one thing and then come back. think that after at least two years, especially if they stay involved with the parent group, the idea of learned helplessness. They grasp it. But I will tell you this, if your kid is 15 understands learned helplessness and has not done a certain task for 15 years that's non-preferred, and all of a sudden you're trying to make them do it, or her do, it's going to take a while and it's not going to be fun, right? I mean, that's a real saying that, but doesn't mean you shouldn't try it. And I think sometimes we get like the whole, paraprofessional one on one support thing. I think we just need to be really careful. And I talk to parents a lot about and teachers. What does scaffolded support look like, how do we promote independence and failures? Not a bad word. I would rather give a kid too much independence, fail at something, reassess, try again with a little more support than give too much support in the beginning to where we never take it away because we're getting the expected outcome I mean, I struggle with that today with my own kids. You know, one just got our license and one is currently I'm teaching her how to drive. And so it's a constant battle. You're not just I've been talking self-determination for 25 years. I still have to think about it sometimes in the context of my own children and what this is going to look like today. It's just a journey. And it doesn't end when school's out, I've been around long enough that some of my original youth leaders are married. They're almost 40. They have jobs. they say, like self-determination is a thing I practice every day. And disability doesn't disappear just because you graduate high school or college it's still there. You might have learned how to use accommodations, focus on your strengths, but it's still a struggle. And I've got tools to overcome barriers. But, at the end of the day, I still have autism and I've got to work on certain things and for whatever reason, a lot of our kids came to us with This idea of disability is only a school thing, and when I get done with school, I'm not going to have it anymore. And it was kind of like, Huh, where does that come from? We got to figure that out a little bit. That's how. Have you ever tapped into figuring out why they feel that way? I think that because it's often associated with where they're experiencing the most failure. if you constantly go to the place and fail, you're going to think that when I get out of that place, I'm not going to experience all that failure. I've had a difficult time really pinpointing outside of they all experience a lot of fear of failure at an early age in school really think that's it. but yeah, it's interesting. It's been an interesting phenomenon. The other interesting thing, I just I just want to touch back on that you talked about briefly is those supports in the scaffolding of support. I think that when doing the IEPs have to be very intentional to say that it's okay if something happens. I want this independence, especially the 1 to 1 support, they don't make a lot of money. They're not trained properly. They feel like their job is just to keep the students safe. And so they they hover. And this poor kid is is stripped of any chance of not just independence, but of making friends because. No, you know, middle schooler or high schooler wants to hang out with the grown up. But the kid who's hanging out with the grown up all the time. I mean, how do you help students and parents with an IEP to make that sort of thing clear? Honestly, with parents, I haven't talked to other parents that are I mean, the whole idea of a one on one support outside of a kid with some significant medical needs. I mean, there's just a lot of research in this does more harm than good. And so I direct them to and they can hear me say it, but I don't have a kid who had one on one supports right now. I have, you know, parents who have gone through that and and kind of talk them through it. And, you know, for the most part, they get their and then we also train paraprofessionals we just trained 300 paraprofessionals for our school division. Right. Because you're exactly right. They think their job is to protect the kid or prevent failure. Right. And when you do that, what are we actually doing that that's not that's not really your job. special ed teachers sometimes. And I as a former or current special ed teacher, former high school special education teacher, sometimes we're worst. Sometimes we're trying to prevent failure so much. My first couple of years teaching, all I was trying to do was prevent any failure because. They've experienced so much already. problem is I'm putting this bubble around them and then they leave and then the bubbles gone right and they fail and they don't know what to do. sometimes special ed teachers are the worst. And honestly, sometimes that starts in pre-K in elementary school. Oh, this kid's really cute. I'm going to do all this stuff for them because. And they think they're being helpful, but they're not. And then you got learned helplessness, right? And that that creeps in so early. So a lot of what I like to do is talk to parents of young children because it is so much easier, you know, so much easier. You know, when I started this project, my personal focus was high school and you can get there, but it is a lot of work. But if you can start this young and get parents on board young and teachers on board young man, it is just so much easier. So, John, with that, I'm curious, what's your vision? take, all the roadblocks out of it? Like, what would your vision be for? I'm determined. Would it start in pre-K? would it expand nationally? Like, what is your lottery winning vision for what I'm determined could be? Yeah. So the two things, one, we just we just expanded into early childhood a year ago because it just it just makes sense. you can build choices into early childhood, just like you can build it into third grade, eighth grade and grade. The second side of that is I'm determined is great and it's cool. And we got a cool logo. But the core of our work, Honestly, we were we're not a curriculum for a reason. And the core of our work is changing teacher practices, changing parent practices. And if I could get people to understand that it is the every day opportunities it is if you're a teacher, it is how you engage your class. So if you if you asked a question to the class and you're only your your procedure is whoever raises their hand, that's who you call on the fastest processors raise their hands. They always get called on. You're not going to build confidence or competence in a kid who never gets asked a question and gets a chance to answer it correctly. Right. So change your everyday practices. Give kids a piece of paper, say write down your answer. Nobody talk, give wait time. When you say go, everyone holds their whiteboard or piece of paper. You see what everyone answered. You can give specific feedback to every many kids you want, It doesn't have to be this epic thing of of leading an IEP meeting of bringing 500 kids to campus for three days and running a summit. Those are all awesome. They work. But what really works are those everyday opportunities that we're not always doing in the classroom. And so if I could get people to just understand that and have an inclusive school, I don't I don't care if it's co teaching Pinocchio teaching, right. But if we look at post-school outcomes, if you grew up in a small town and you went to high school and you never saw kid with a disability and you went to college and you come back home and you open a business, When I walk in trying to get my friend with Down syndrome a job, what's chances you're going to hire them? The chance is zero, right? Because you have no exposure, you have no history. Now go back to you have an inclusive high school. You've got kids with autism walking around in classes with you, kids with Down's syndrome, whatever. Right. You've experienced that. You've grown up with it. They're a part of the community. Then you come back home, you open a business. What are the chances that you're going to hire that kid? I've done it. It goes up exponentially. Okay. But we can't you can't keep doing this isolated model and expecting that the data is going to change, Because it's not. I mean, we've got 30 years of that data, right? And so one community, one school at a time, understanding that that's what moves the needle for kids. And, you know, I've seen I've seen it happen and I've seen it happen. you know, that's how we do it. There'll be companies out there who are going to try to sell you a self-determination curriculum, and you're going to go to this workbook and there might be a good activity in there, but it's not what it's about, sometimes we overcomplicate it, and it doesn't have to cost any money. I mean, it's really just opportunities and opportunities and inclusive mindset cohesion between families and schools and community. if you do enough digging and you look for positive post-school outcomes, that's the equation right there. Think I have to stop myself from like standing up and giving you a standing ovation because that is just a it's so spot on and it's just baffling how we don't realize that yet in our society and that we're still kind of stuck in this cycle of what we're doing. We're almost out of time. I want to hear before we go, just one success story, or two or, whatever, sum up something that just makes you happy when you look back at all the work you've done. Yeah. So I'll tell you story of Daniela. She was at an elementary age. She was diagnosed with a learning disability. They stuck her in self-contained classes. She got to high school. She was still in that self-contained model and got exposed and determined and said, Well, want to go to college? Like I've seen kids with a learning disability who are in college. And she was significantly behind academically because been in self-contained K-8. She fights the counselor, she fights the school, she gets into the classes, she graduates, she gets accepted into a college, she makes it through college, she gets her master's degree, and she's now a lead teacher teaching in an elementary school in an inclusive model, working with students with autism. I mean, that's that's it, right? The sad part is that she's got to fight counselors and fight educators, To get access to it. Look, I can tell you ten of those exact same stories. We've got another student, Ben, on the autism spectrum. His parents tell the story of he woke up one day and he's 16 and going to be out of the house in two years. And they're like, this kid can't cook, this kid can't do laundry. We've been so focused on the every day survival that we have on any future planning. And Ben starts participating in on determined, learns how to advocate, learns how to kind of take charge, learns how to set goals, decides he wants to