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Transition Planning for Every Age and Stage

Added Dec 09, 2025 •

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good morning everyone um thank you for joining us today we have we're honored to have our ambassadors and a former public Unified School District student that coming over to share their trust uh transition experiences with us um I just want to tell everyone that every child is unique so we hope this today's sharing will um make you start thinking what's best for your child uh and help you to uh um think about how to best support them through transition stages uh so without further Ado we're going to introduce our first Speaker Geraldine she's going to talk about her son's transition from preschool to kindergarten welcome Journey need to enter yeah yeah so uh if any time you uh have a question uh please feel free to raise your hand for the impersonal audience and for those joining us on Zoom you can put in the question at the bottom of the screen there's a Q&A section feel free to put in the question thank you okay this 1 okay okay hold on yeah there you go basically say first 1 yeah it's a first 1 okay so because okay I just click this it should be working now okay try okay hi everybody ready I'm Geraldine edu um I'm here to talk about my son's experience in our experience as parents uh with him uh going from preschool to kindergarten and a little bit about him he's 5 years old attends kindergarten at Park Village uh he received early intervention therapy at 2 and a half till 3 through the San Diego Regional Center and at 3 years old he was diagnosed with autism with a speech delay um and he became a big brother at 3 and a half years old to a new neurotypical sister and that's Juniper right there and they get along really well so really happy about that and he also he just he loves music 6 Star Wars Spider-Man and has a photographic memory for everywhere we've ever had ice cream so if we drive somewhere he'll say ice cream because he'll know that in this car I was here when ice cream happened so very interesting Talent um so this the route that we took is definitely tailored to him and we didn't do the conventional route that most people do so this is is just my experience but you know other people have other experiences so this is this is what we did for our son because I mean obviously we know him best um in 2023 while I just had the baby um we were going through the IEP process and he was we had the IEP meeting and I just had the baby and uh at the time he was attending the early Learners program at his um at his ABA clinic at communication lab and we had let them know that hey we're thinking about um sending uh Sebastian to preschool and he went through the IEP and we I kind of made the mistake of just me and my husband going to the IEP alone and because we had no idea how this all works so we were just like okay let's show up oh sorry um individual education plan is that right yes um so uh basically what happened is um he got the diagnosis and to Regional Center like kind of says you're on your own um go get all the other services from from the school district and so that's kind of where we were at so um he we got the IEP and um this is kind of just the next step once I once we got to that diagnosis uh most people would normally just say okay this is the IP that was offered let me send my kid here and then move on and then it's a nice for most kids it would be an easy transition preschool to kindergarten I knew my son the best and I knew that um he needs more 1-on-1 um uh time and my back is neuroscience so like I really believe in the in the benefits of early intervention and I I understand like neuroplasticity and how this time is like when your brain is swarming so I was like let me just try something else so um we pretty much decided okay we're we're going to decline the IEP and um we spoke with the bcba which is his pretty much his case manager for Aba and we planned okay this is what we're going to do to get him ready for kindergarten um so at page 3 we we sent him to the early Learners program with peers at the at his ABA Clinic uh communication labs and um we were I relied on um Insurance space speech therapy um for the speech um needs that he had um and then so we did that for about a year just to see how that goes and just focus on building his advocacy skills um um social emotional awareness things that that are you kind of need more 1-on-1 attention at least for my son he did um and my concern at um the preschool it wasn't really 1-on-1 and if I could get the benefit of that through insurance then I'm going to take advantage of it for him so um when he turned 4 we we once we got that groundwork done um collaborating with our bcba uh looked for a private preschool that would allow uh registered behavioral technician an aid to kind of be with him during school just to like you can go because he's a guy who likes relationships he doesn't like to go things that is unknown could go to things that are known so if you see meets new people he'll just kind of automatically be resistant so you kind of have to build a relationship for him to be open to it so that's what we were trying to do is kind of just in introduced him to the setting of preschool this is a school setting and we're going to gradually take you um to just be familiar with what happens at school and at the same time have the aid there to just kind of chime in and advocate for him or help him like kind of kind of communicate what he can to his teachers so um we did the Private Preschool Monday Wednesday Friday and then um still had the early Learners program part-time so that was his age 4 at at preschool and then knowing that he would probably be attending kindergarten in Fall 2025 um I and I requested another IEP spring of 2025 so that it would be ready by the time fall started so so at this kind of like a a additional IP so the 1 I when I spoke with um Judy Monday who was our case manager at Park Village um I had talked to her and I told her hey I'm I'm just worried that my son attending a new school full-time with no Aid was just going to be a rough transition so um and with that she kind of we we kind of came up with an a way to um kind of ease them into it and during after the I the little IEP meeting just to resume um we came up with a plan where we would allow my son um the ability to get familiar with the staff and the school setting and he would we would just send him to um speech therapy twice a week so he he that actually was really good to kind of them into the whole school setting at Park Village and um help help them know the teachers and then when they actually did their assessments he's not totally resistant because the first time when he did his assessments for the preschool he was just not participating he was it was just not the best way to evaluate his abilities so um this time after getting familiar with you know the staff and the school they're able to get a better take on how he is and what his strengths are what is this is our so that was able to like get a better IEP meeting and kind of understand his needs better um and so with that with with the addition of the of the speech therapy um we ended up with this pre IEP to the main IEP which is um he would attend a preschool with his uh behavioral therapist and then also had part-time early Learners and then also had speech therapy at Parkville so just a like literally it's a gradual step step um stepwise plan to get him to what the goal was which was um allowing uh better collaborative insightful IEP meeting um and we also were able to get uh feedback better feedback from the staff and um his bcba was obviously in very involved in that and so this is old okay I thought I edited but this is not so anyway Sebastian uh pretty much to in kindergarten um he uh we what the outcomes of the IEP where he received uh structured support class at Park Village and also um had a goal of um a minimum of 30% mainstreaming to eventually full-time and um and then also man this is not my slide okay and then also Okay so he had he made streaming start to support um he we had our first parent teacher conference recently and um they had blowing reviews so like no issues problematic issues of behavior or anything so the transition was pretty seamless and like at home he he's not resistant to going to school I mean of course like kids don't want to be at school but you know once he's there he's ready to go and um feedback the feedback from teachers has been great so uh this knows this kind of just helped me like feel good about how I tailored my transition because I knew how my kid was he needs that relationship he needs a step-wise kind of easing into things and our bcba was able to also in our IEP meeting with able to give feedback for during the meetings and then talk about some of the accommodations that worked with him at the Private Preschool so that was really valuable feedback for for the IEP meeting when they go oh when he's like this this is what we did and so um if PA unified was able to you know accommodate those it was built into into his IEP so it just was um made for a more productive meeting which was more informative so um my experience when the first IEP meeting when it was just me and my husband we just kind of were like I have no idea like sure whatever yeah that sounds good like when I had this with this outside feedback from bcva who's seen him in a school setting um it was really helpful in designing you know the the whole plan for him in Fall 2025 so this is uh my take-home um advice and tips like I really partnered with our ABA provider um I before I even chose the ABA provider I went to all the ABA providers I you know did a tour and I asked them what's your philosophy like um and I was really happy to find communication Labs which was fairly new but then their approach to Aba was more like child-led and play-based um and so with that um we we kind of built a partnership for we do have a partnership for um how to get Sebastian to be successful and so with that um as soon as we had the IEP from preschool we were like hey this is what we're thinking and we're just like hey let's let's think about this let's see how we could better support him like we could provide the 1-on-1 like um intent uh attention that he needs so why why are you rushing why are you rushing into just getting into school what's like kind of just got me to stop and think you know so having that ABA provider that has outside perspective and kind of knows your your kid best is just really critical um also I took time to connect with other parents who've been through um the whole transition and it helped me just kind of be aware of what other parents have done so you know that was helpful for me and I really really highly suggested for anyone also who's going through this because it's not a 1 size fits all and this is what works my son so would work for him might not be necessary for yours so that uh and that takes us to the third point is you know your child's best so just kind of follow his lead or her his or her lead and um and then help help them to just help him or her um set them up for success and that's kind of what I I tried to do and also don't don't be like me at the first IEP meeting where I just was like showing up and just just had no idea what's happening bring a person familiar with your child's needs outside of you because how how they act with you is totally different from how they are outside in like the real the real world or with people who don't really know him or you know um obviously when I when I even at my parent teacher conference like he missed lamb his teacher was telling me Oh yeah he's great he does this he does that and I was sitting back a gas like who's this child I don't even like I was I don't like is that the same boy that I sent to school every day so it's just um it's definitely they are different and every child's different but it's good to have prospective from you as parents and and someone outside of you so that's pretty much it do you have any questions yeah just did you do you already live in District at Park Village or you choose probability because of whatever support and resources they had or oh I happen to live live very close so I was lucky because they're really good specifically how good yeah yeah repeat the question the audience asks oh sorry okay um I was asked did I live in Park Village or no did I choose it or no I I just I lived there so it was the the closest so is there any other questions oh yes oh so the the ABA wasn't allowed on campus um the um that's kind of why we did the Private Preschool route because the Private Preschool some private preschools allow uh behavioral therapists to be there um and would I believe is really valuable feedback for how your child performs at school and also to add to that when they were observing um the during the IEP evaluation um the psychologists would watch how he is in school so they were able to see what what kind of needs um the be the aid provided of how he would B and then also during school the aid would kind of step back and just let how what would happen if he had no support so it was just a a better um kind of demonstration of his performance so that that kind of why I did the Private Preschool route just so to get that kind of more you know tailored behavior um read off from for him okay thank you thank you do you want to add or something change host tools so that you don't have to keep letting people in okay I don't know why I don't see it up here host can I do you see it it's disappeared 1 of these okay next time we're gonna thank you Joe all right thank you Jordan um so just wanted to add on just now apparently asked um uh you know there is option that your child may go to a different school and IEP team they are going to have a discussion with you and figure out what's the best program for your child uh so just want to add on to that um our next at the end of the presentation if you think have another question for us uh um Jordan she's going to be here so feel free to ask her again and our next speaker will be Kita Kim she is going to share about her son's experience from elementary school to Middle School welcome thank you uh good morning everybody everybody here and everybody online uh my name is Kita my son okay wait I don't know how to move the slides I need uh I'm a technophobe everybody's so just bear with me so I just have to click oh there's my son okay there he is okay so I should before I go on I I truly want to say to Geraldine um you were very insightful with your son and and that's amazing like seriously with James when we had James um he was diagnosed because as a first-time parent I had no clue what autism looked like uh I just thought my son was great you know he was having fun at preschool and then I come to find out that my his teacher says to me uh carita uh you know when there's changes going on in the class James has a very hard time adjusting when someone different comes into the class he kind of freaks out and I'm just like oh okay so she to me you might want to get him assessed and I said assess for what right um and then she said well you know you may want to get him assessed so I said okay I'll do that then we took him to I think it was Roz children's hospital and and this was all a blur by the way my first child I'm an older mom and I had no clue right I I seriously had just no clue um for me this step was like when everybody tells you when you're pregnant that your life will never be the same again but nobody tells you how okay seriously that that I I will never forget those words when someone said that to me because now I understand how right and the how is the biggest part so we got him assessed at raies um by psychologist there and then he came back with a diagnosis of autism he was high functioning I can't remember the whole report that they gave to us but from there they said we need to go to sdrc and get services for our son and I was like okay who's sdrc so there are all these services that I had no clue about that I had not researched um because to me it was an unknown so the fact that Geraldine was a neuro is a neuros scientist is fantastic because she understands the brain more than anyone else I did not understand James's brain at all okay um which was a setback for us uh I hope it was not a setback for him right as a mom um then he we got an IEP from the powerway school district we live in Forest Ranch so his school was Stone Ranch he did a um what do you call that like it was like a a a fast track of being in that school um because I'm not from here as you may all realized so I'm thinking that school starts in January and finishes in December like Australia but it does not so I found that out pretty fast so James had to do a fast track um and then he was transferred to Westwood Elementary where he had been uh from TK up until sixth grade the most beloved School that I could tell you about because he was there the staff were also supportive I I I honestly I can't tell you how supportive the staff were I can't give them any accolades because you know I'm not allowed to do that but they were honestly the most supportive people teachers um case managers psychologists um speech therapists the most supportive people that I've ever come across uh and they've helped James come from this who was non-speaking he was non-verbal to this child who never stops talking now who can think outside the box all the time right all the time and who asks a thousand questions per day and I'm not joking when I say a questions per day so uh in saying that my greatest thing about this is if you can see transitions mind body and soul because it encapsulates everything their Journey honestly just encapsulates every every part of their mind body and soul right and if you can imagine that you're the mom of this little kid and you're thinking oh my God he's autistic what do we do now like how's he going to survive I mean these are all the questions that we went through so we just took it step by step as I said I'm not from here I didn't know the system I didn't know that we were in such a fantastic School District lucky my husband had foresight right um so for us communication was key I we had our just IP meeting it was like a deer in headlights we were like seriously we sat there we listened and it was like full-on and we were just like my husband and I we just sat there right and my husband is pretty vocal I mean you may think I'm vocal but bowl and we just sat there and we walked out and we were just like oh okay so what do we do now so that's what it's like when you have your first IEP meeting seriously it is dear in the headlights so when Geraldine says you know take someone with you I absolutely agree with that but in our case we did not we did not have that experience but in saying that I learned to um actually read all the IEPs and they're like 30 pages long you know if you've got a nice afternoon for a healthy just read your IEP and then I had to tear apart every section and try and learn about these sections because otherwise I'm the sort of person who wants to know um rather than bring someone else in because yes I know my child be but I want to know I want to learn what they also know about my child because they're the Educators I am not I don't have a Masters in Education or anything like that for sure um so from the IEPs this IEP has followed him through to uh Middle School it has changed all the time he has made his goals by 80% on some 70% on others but he's continuing to grow and develop um so we went to Westwood his school of um his actual homeschool is Oak Valley but the transition from Oak Valley you know from Westwood to Oak Valley where none of his friends would be his neurotypical neighborhood friends would be but none of his school friends would be um was a really hard transition so I thought tooth and nail to get him into banado Heights Middle School where all his friends would be now is that a good thing is it a bad thing I'm still deciding right I I'm still in that moment of did I do the right thing did we do the wrong thing honestly I have no idea yet um he has his neurotypical friends at home and he has a hard day with them every single day every every single day he has neurotypical friends at school he has a hard time with them also at school um so we're having to support him every single day we are learning every single day and now I have to change the side but I can't remember what you said to do so should I wing it what Arrow is Aaron can change my slide okay no not yet the next 1 yeah there you go oh there thanks okay so I say busy Minds because I have a sheet to show everyone I didn't put it on the slide so I apologize because I tried to do it this morning and then my scanner wasn't working so hold it up to the camera on here will people can you see it switch from presentation next this is a different 1 okay anyway what I will say to you is in James's mind he has he goes A Thousand Miles a minute I go 5 miles a minute right he goes 1,000 miles a minute he will think about something and I don't know if everyone can see this but you will see how his mind thinks he he has a vision and then he draws it and then it gets even more complicated so he's delving into all these things that I have no idea about because I don't have that sort of mind so in saying that he is a very visual learner okay this is what I've learned Okay so I speak to James in this language which is this slide because I can speak to James in another way which is like they do at school where they'll have their slides up and they will say you know yada yada yada about this hope that they're reading but I think that because the teachers there's like 30 students in the class they it's hard for them to focus on 1 or 2 right but James will read the facts he knows in this book the key that they're reading which by the way is actually a very good book it's about Thomas and Phillip so Thomas is an African-American gentleman Philip is a little um Caucasian boy uh he's been brought up not to mix with these you know Thomas's people and so on and so forth so they stuck on an island together because they Shipwrecked or actually was a a bomb I think it was during the war so James is like okay if there's a question question um how did Philip feel about Thomas right or how do you know this is why he felt this way about Thomas and James will say he um he picked up Thomas from the water he rescued getting from the water or he got food for Phillip right which is the right answer it's the fact right but it doesn't bring out what the teacher is actually looking for which is his opinion he can't seem to I've I've reduced it to this because he can't seem to make the black and white gray and this is how I literally tell him I said this is black this is white and this is what you have to make which is the gray because my child is visual if you put a lot of words in front of him even math questions that are worthy he gets lost Okay so I've I'm studying uh language arts now right I'm studying in American language arts right so you're going to follow me because this is what we're doing in in school so this is how I break it down for him and I've shown the case manager I haven't shown the teach yet but I realize that this is the only way he gets it now if we move to the next this is uh science okay so science yes I did science in school in Australia but now I'm learning science In America which is very different right so he's learning about molecules and how they move and how they create kinetic energy do you think he gets that yes he does he gets the black and white but he does not get the gray so again I have to make pictures for him because then he understands it there's another picture okay how do you make your hypothesis in science well you have the black you have the white and then you have the gray so James was stating the facts why does the molecule move because it's hot you know or you know when now I've asked him to make when oh we're doing wpm K to try and make his hypothesis right so we're doing the black the White and the gray again so it appears that all of these subjects that is doing now which are a lot more complex than wedding was in elementary school I have to do this with him in the afternoons because then he gets what he needs to do and I don't know how I can bring this into the school you know without physically sitting there in class with him which I cannot do um but I'm bringing it to all of you because I find that this helps my son and maybe it'll help someone else I don't know but to get these things like in my head takes me a long time and you know I work you know we've got a and it's just like it takes a lot of brain power honestly it's like very tiring that's all I can say this is where I talk about support as I said I'm doing school again with James very fun uh it's really nice but anyway um now the next slide is this 1 the extra play okay we discovered that in middle school there are no place structures I did not know this right I don't know if all middle schools are like that there are no play structures is that how it works okay um and I only found that out through James so I noticed now every day he comes home from school he's in such a rush to do his homework because then he goes he needs to go and play he needs to get out all this angst of how is being controlled at school he sat there he's tried to listen he's tried to learn he's tried not to move he's tried not to be distracted and the only way that he can get all that out is by playing okay so then he goes to play hey he goes to play with all his neurotypical uh friends in the park and then every day he comes back and he's crying because he didn't understand the game and they thought he cheated because he didn't understand the game and they thought he did this wrong but he doesn't do anything wrong because he's rule follow up so now we're having all these sort of social interactions which are different from when he was in elementary school by the way um so now I'm trying to get him into more independent activities which I honestly I didn't want to do because I wanted to give him the tools to be able to do all these things on his own right but I'm finding that by giving him these tools and throwing them throwing him into these like social interactions is hurting him emotionally and I'm finding that out I I think I always said in the beginning of parent ambassadors that I wanted to give him the tools but giving him the tools is really painful that's what I would say so now I'm trying to get him into more independent activities like doing a coding school um learning basketball you know just things that he he can extricate himself from the neighborhood kids and do on his own and find new friends so that's when I talk about the toolkit so in conclusion honestly the transition for him has been painful but it has been worthwhile the community um that had surrounded us have been so helpful and supportive people are supportive when you communicate with them if you don't reach out to your case manager to your teachers and this is through all the years of school that he's been through I don't think I would have had the support that we had and um I will continue trying to integrate myself into these teachers and the case manager because I know that that's the only way that I can tell them this is what's happening at home this may be happening at school but that's the only way I feel and this is just my personal opinion that he's going to be able to flourish so I always say communication is key no matter how many times you email people no matter how many times you want to talk to them if you don't communicate with them they don't know what's going going on at home because the kids are great at school but it's when they come home that they release all that tension and then you really know what's going on so communicate is my best takeaway from this that's me thank you if you have any questions do it now because then I got to go no questions 5 Seconds I have 1 hello hi I missed a little bit of what you said about um you were talking about something that was hurting your son regarding I think it had to do with social interactions or yeah sometimes I'm sorry I feel like the social interactions are the hardest he's speaking with adults you know why because adults have the time to listen they'll always ask for his question but the kids well he's he speaks to them in a tone like this if uh 1 of the kids does something like you know he wants to take a turn on the swing this is what he will say to them you know he he will ask them he'll say you know men can I it's my turn can I have a plan on this thing and you're going to know I don't feel like it it's it's going to be my turn next and then he will say well didn't your parents teach you that it's it's good to be kind and to everybody has to have a so this is how he speaks to them right and I can understand if I was emailing I wouldn't want to listen to him right but it's then it comes back to then she'll say something and then he gets mortally wounded emotionally he gets more actually wounded okay and that's part of his autism and part of his ADHD anything that is done to them or said to them it could be ingested it could be serious whatever they get mortally wounded I mean that's the best way I in describe it so the only way that I can help him through these transitions is by giving him the words in his in that moment James will never have the words to counteract what they say and that's partly because number 1 he's got so much going on in his mind anyway number 2 he freezes and number 3 those words just don't come to his head as an 11 year old or as a 12 year old they'll come to his head as what Mom has told me or dad has told me but not his own words so my husband and I now are practicing giving him words of what to say like if someone says you know it's not I'm going to have another turn then either he says okay and he walks away and goes to something else right or he says well when do you think it can be my turn right if I don't give him those words he's not going to be able to have a comeback and then I think part of that too now is that's why you always gets picked on because he doesn't have a comeback so now we're opening our toolbox again and we're trying to give him all these words and phrases to say in the mindset of a 12 year old I don't know if that helps sorry it helps know it does it helps a lot because my son has the same issues um so were you saying that you decided instead of trying to have him play with the neighborhood kids that you were trying to just front independent activities is that what you were saying yes yes okay but he's still okay so he still sees his friends as his people right 1 of his people decides and the girls right some of them are girls and they want to talk together he says well they didn't want to talk to me they left me out and I then I have to go through oh James you know now is the time when girls are want to talk to girls because sometimes there's girls stuff that they don't want to include you on okay that's the end of my sentence right the next day he comes home from school and he goes well he goes I asked malerie and I asked ya do they want to talk about things just between them and they said no so he comes and he tells me this and I'm like oh God in my mind I'm thinking what do I say now okay so that now I have to say to him what you hear in this house stays in this house or it's a thinker not a say it right because everything I tell him you know because of his little inquisitive mind he goes to double check and I keep forgetting that so yeah you've got honestly we have to be on our mind game every single day every single day because these kids are just so smart they are so so smart right um I hope that you can message me if you want OS Regina you know she's got my email like for real seriously okay thank you so much oh no you're absolutely welcome anybody else or can I go nobody else in the end uh we are going to have a QR code that everybody if you have extra questions to any of the parameters you are able to reach out to them so don't worry about that um next speaker we're gonna have Tina Campbell and she's going to talk about the fun experience in high school good morning everyone I so um I first of all create a middle school is hard for everybody whether you're I have twins whether they're neurotypical or not Middle School is a terrible place for children just is I and and my kids actually got to do most of middle school during Co so even then it was still terrible but here's what I'm going to tell you about high school when you drop your kid off at high school that's the kid you're dropping off in your brain you're dropping off this little bitty person to a school full of gigantic a gigantic school full of gigantic people and in your brain that is who you're leaving their and I have no advice for that so anyway I have twin boys they are now seniors they are now the gigantic boys they're at tell Norte High School um I'm not sure if I know not this later but there's like 2,700 kids that tell me I'm sure a lot of the high schools are like that in our district they're huge it is huge like you can see it on satellites I we were flying here from San Francisco the other day and I was like oh look there's Del Norte we were like in Orange County and I could see it it's huge so my son Michael has an IEP he has since preschool um he's been in early intervention since he was 10 months old um his brother his twin brother William has a fairly brand new 504 plan which is a whole different story for a different day I'm here to talk about Michael mostly so he has intellectual disability these speech disorder and then around the same time that my son William was diagnosed with dyslexia a year ago we also received an Autism diagnosis for Michael it's very it's I guess I don't even know how they qualified it's mild um he is on the alternative diploma pathway and so he will be attending a breakfast next year I have no idea what that looks like that's like next month's I'm trying to get William into college and then I'm gonna work on Michael the most important thing that I could Michael told me to tell you all this the most important thing you can know about Michael is that he is the San Diego Padre's biggest fan his dream job is to be a dream job like he understands that this is part time you only do this 80 days a year but his dream job is to be the scoreboard operator at Petco Park um I'm pretty sure he is unwilling to do anything else besides that possibly he could work at in sports production at Petco Park for the Padres but he will not do anything else um so that's part of that's of next month's conversation so um what I want to tell you about high school is really big there's tons of students the students are big social scene is a big deal in high school when we were all in high school you had the pop well I'm older when I was in high school you had the popular kids you had the band kids you had the Power Alley kids that were the ones with the like the cars out in the back of the parking lot and then there were some people that kind of flustered around they didn't really know where they belonged in high schools now there is a spot for everyone the schools are so great I in our experience this schools are really great about fostering clubs and interests and and relationship opportunities for all kinds of kids I have experienced that they really do keep at our school at least they keep a really good for kids that higher risk or and not just the kids with IEPs but we've had a great experience in high school we've had a hiccups we've had roadblocks and whatnot but high school has Michael High School is 1 of Michael's favorite places um the other that is super scary go back to that slide before with the little tiny kid is you're not involved on campus like you were in elementary school there is no Friday flag that the parents get to come to there's no volunteering for the parties I usually find out at my kids life for school at 8:10 I usually found out about 7:45 oh Mom we have a potluck today what are you bringing um napkins or I I mean I've trained them bring the napkins or whatever we always had that sometimes we have to bring goldfish every now and like a couple weeks ago they had a potluck and they had to bring drinks and Michael only drinks chocolate milk so I had to scramble to get chocolate milk at like 8 oclock in the morning but they do do it all themselves like you're not even even with IEPs they are this very independent they don't want you on campus unless it's for like a sporting event mom what are you doing here so that is hard that was really hard for me and my little tiny kid um there's also this is this was actually a hard transition for us and it was better because of William but there's a lot more independent time and free time throughout a day in high school um you know a lot of kids have what they call off-road I I have definitely heard from some of the questions that a lot of you are younger parents but they're just off-road so you don't have we have 5 classes during the day you don't have to take 5 classes you might only take 4 in when you're a senior you might only take 3 I don't know what I'm going to do about that next semester um but there's this off role so they might leave school earlier than you expected there's also office hours this was hard for Michael because office hours is just a like 30 minute period where you can go get help from teachers but in like a if you don't know what you're supposed to do you kind of just stand there for so for the first week of school he'd stay in there and then William will get a phone call from 1 of his friends saying hey your brother's just standing in the middle of the Quad where is he supposed to be and then I didn't call Mom where's Michael supposed to be the office hours was a weird thing for us we had to kind of make a plan with him like when you don't because he doesn't he has a 1 to 1 ah but not kind of during those free times we had to have a plan like during office hours if you don't have something to do here's where you go if you do have something to do you go there so there was some weird things like that that we had to plan out and then the other thing that's kind of weird about high school or great I don't know uh classes are harder they matter more are even when you're on this alternative pathway but they're also kind of more interesting we found even though he only wants to work the scoreboard he also really likes econ which is like a every senior has to take econ and he's coming home and talking to us about the stock market and about all these like things that my husband and I are Finance people like we're geeking out over this but he's like really into it we would have never known the other thing I didn't have this in the slides but it kind of occurred to me later 1 of the things he's really interested because of the scoreboard is also well he's in his autism World Sports is a special interests particularly the potteries so we were like hey if you want to work in sports maybe let's learn about about sports statistics so it is IEP last year I said we're looking at classes like hey how can he learn more about sports statistics he does pretty well in math and they're like well we have AP stats I was like he learning disability that I mentioned that like AP is stats is not going to be the place to go for this unless in Williams and AP stats right now and it is brutal it's really interesting and really hard I was like there's no way he can do AP stats but I want him to learn baseball statistics how do I do that so this is where a lot of like even what Geraldine and Creator were saying like some of the stuff sometimes you got to go Rogue and get outside of like the traditional box of your IEP as it turns out 1 of his special ed Math teachers also loves the Padres nearly as much as Michael and I said hey what are you doing on Wednesday afternoons at 4:00 do you want to come over and Tudor Michael so they spent last spring digging in on baseball stats on scorekeeping on like the score book of baseball I was a Teen Mom for like I don't know 10 years don't I I was a teen mom so I would never have to keep score it's hard he like they did this every day and it was like the best hour in fact the teacher was like you can't pay me this is so much fun and I had he's young I was like my old lady advice is do something you love you still get to get paid for it so there are going to be times where you kind of have to be like my kid really likes this I can't get it at school you know find a different way so here are the some some of my transition tips our transition meeting from middle school to high school was a little weird because we hadn't really designated so first of all let me say the alt pathway this alternative diploma pathway it's if you're very young if your kids are very young you're not going to hear about for a while and I don't even really understand it enough to explain it but it was brand new when he was finishing up his freshman year so when I so reversing back to middle school we didn't that wasn't even thing you either were a certificate of completion or you are a diploma and at this point in eighth grade we hadn't designated it was kind of like the year before that was the first time I had heard about it and it was in a meeting in here so I didn't even know this I had to choose and at first I was like wow he's gonna we are learning disability like there's no way he could get a diploma and the admin sitting in our meeting was like you know I don't he he's a temporary it was like a special assignment he goes I don't know Michael now but I knew him in preschool he can totally get a diploma and I all right let's go for it well anyway so we kind of did a big pivot in eighth grade then we you have your IEP you set all your goals in eighth grade in like February that are going to now supposedly go all the the next February in high school so I get to his transition meeting which is with the high school staff and the um department head says we have to scrap all of his goals none of these are high school appropriate they're also not diploma appropriate we got to like revamp them all and half of his accommodations are considered modifications and if you want to be on a diploma so we set this transition the transition meeting ended up being about double as long as it was supposed to be because we had to sort restructure some things the goals were appropriate from February to June but they were not going to be for high school so that was kind of a maybe a program specialist thing to keep an eye on um 1 of the things we did also because satellite campus huge campus is before school started he got to have a 1-on-1 tour with his schedule in hand and they walked the campus found all of his classes they walked it as if like you're showing up first period and now you go here and then you go here so he he's also got a really good sense of direction once they did that but he does that every year and even if he doesn't need it because he could pretty much be the ambassador of Del Norte he's goes to check out all of his classrooms um the other thing that has been really really good is this learning strategies class which is like a structured study hall kind of they do a lot of um like techniques on being successful with planners and organizing and things like that but it also gives some extra time to work on homework or projects with some support and then also is also noted here like have an office hours plan don't just all right so I made the kids take this picture last week lunch is also weird back to my social comments they're in there's 27 100 kids they all eat lunch at the same time I don't know if every school does that but at Del Norte they do and that has to do with scheduling of classes and you know whatever so we have enough lunch tables also have opinions about this as you wish but our tables in our lunchroom are for the upper classmen and that is just the unwritten rule of the social structure of this High School and it is a big there's moms that complain about it I think it's kind it's like a big deal like a rite of passage like junior year you get to set you get to pick your table for the next 2 years but back freshman year he and William went to lunch and William went to sit with some friends on the grass and revert back to Michael has autism he also has a lot of sensory issues there was no way he was sitting on the grass to eat his lunch so he actually went on his own and found some friends that were sitting on the concrete kids he knew from our neighborhood and from elementary school and he made new friends with this group that sat concrete and so for 2 years he's out of the concrete and it was actually fantastic from a social perspective because he did make new friends on his own without the comfort of his brother sort of guiding this whole thing um they now sit on they sit together the they have a boy table and a girls table they used to be a little more co-mingled um so these are this social is I think social is your kid is going to all all your kids are going to have different goals when you get to high school some are going to be on a college path and really focus on academics for us um we have really pushed Michael's Social Development all through elementary middle and now High School so um there are some great opportunities no matter what your kids interests I am going to focus on Sports because that is all we talk about um Michael has really loved best buddies it is at all the high schools it is such a cool organization um we can talk more about that later the other thing that he is now doing and this is sort of new at our school and I know all I think all the high schools now have it is Unified PE which is just about the coolest class ever it's through Special Olympics and it's like half kids with disabilities and half without and they compete together in sports and they do like tournaments around the around the county and things so he's actually made a lot of really really good friends to that which has been super cool um the other thing we have so I found this out your IEP I'm not sure like if I should be publicizing this but too bad you're retiring each other um your IEP continues through extracurriculars before and after school so if you are going to be the manager of the football team you can get IEP support as to work with your team on that but that is something that is available the the law says so we have an amazing manager who Michael loves football I'm from Green Bay our coach is used to play for the Packers Michael was like I want to be involved in football and our case manager helped get him into the manager group um which has been really really outstanding he actually lettered in football but he he's a human 2 by 4 there's no way he could have even carried pads let alone put them on but he did game film and he helped with equipment and it has been really really cool same with school dances he goes to the dances our case manager and our special ed staff often is at the dances with some like quiet sensory space some support for the kids that need a little extra maybe a break our dance is always have those Sill ENT discos have you guys heard of that and so that's actually kind of a cool he really likes that because you just sort of are in your own little world with their headphones on and everyone's dancing maybe not all the same thing it's kind it's weird and also very very cool um the other thing we did he has a 1-to-1 aid but it's for academic support and so we've really focused on Fading that back even in class and what's happened with that is he took a science class last year and they work at T in science most of the time he would come home and he's like oh yeah Tyler told me such and such and Jack told me this and blah blah blah and I was like who are all these people you're talking about he's like oh they're my friends from science so these kids would all now work together and he wasn't having ask adults for help as much he's another he's kind of like kita's James who we really connects better with adults but he's all of the sudden I was like you're making all these friends at who knew um so you know I feel like the IIA is a really nice crutch for us but it also is it's a yes I'm sorry instructional assistant so it's like a 1 to 1 support um some of the classes have like a a classroom support and that's what he has a lot of his classes but in some of the classes that are more gened focused or co-taught classes he brings his own his own adult with him um it felt weird when he was a freshman but now that all when you know as a senior everyone's over 6 feet tall so when you have an adult with you it doesn't feel as socially awkward I think um so these are my final things I'm going to fly through these but I would say number 1 tip is and this is for any transition to figure out communication with your IEP team and your case manager quickly you don't have to only talk to your IEP team once a year you can have communication with them throughout the year help your child find a club a sport activity um a bunch of my kids friends best buddies friends do theater and drama and marching band and things like that there's tons of ways to get involved help your kid learn to self-advocate eventually no matter what their disability is they're going to be off into this big world and they're going to need to know some things for us Michael does also have a speech disfluency and so if he's like overwhelmed he freezes and his words get blocked up so we also just ice he has like in his notes in his phone he has some where like even if he wants to go to Chick-fil-A with friends it's it has this order written so if he can't talk he can be like here's my order and he's done that he's terrified of balloons it's in his IEP but sometimes he so sometimes he has to leave an assembly if there's balloons kids aren't supposed to leave the assembly well he can be like here I can't talk right now because there's balloons I'm freaking out but here's my script um and then finally there are lots of really cool I think this is my last slide yes it um there's super cool electives as I mentioned stats but there's a lot of chance to try out new things and depending on your IEP depending on your diploma pathway all of that there you you can take things past fail you can sometimes take like we he could have graduated a year ago except for this econ class he had enough credits so this year he's taking just a bunch of classes that might be interesting and he's taking 1 class that he really liked again because like a photography class so there's a lot more flexibility in kind of what you're learning in high school it's it's like pre-color so um it's a cool place to try that out that's it anyone anyone any questions I could I listen we love high school I'm devastated that we're leaving it so I could talk about this for hours all right so next 1 we're going to have Sophie Smiths just now you guys had a sneak preview of her slides so welcome Sophie all righty so everyone's talked today mine's gonna be a little bit different so both my sons are doing IE have IEPs here and they're they're in the full special day program so they are not in the genetic class at all they they drop into genetic classes my youngest is going to Dear Canyon and he's actually busted there because that's not our home school um the district will look at your IEPs we moved here a couple years ago and they decided that that would be a better fit for him so they bust him to a school that's not our home school um Adam is in his home school at pawi High and he's going to get a certificate of completion which means he's not getting a diploma he's not getting a graduating and he is allotted to go to arais um and then we'll have a transition meeting probably in a couple months which will kind of explain what a brais is he'll get to go and tour a brais and kind of get a general feel for that um so realistically his education is pretty much set you know we have our IEP we have our team meetings and you know don't be afraid to tell your IEP team I don't feel comfortable with that or I want to keep that there you know he hasn't needed physical therapy or OT at all and I'm like I still want to keep you on as a consultant just in case if he does have regression anywhere we can easily access it he doesn't need to access it for 2 years but if he ever does it's easier for him to access it as a consultant for PS5 our like I think 15 hours a year and he maybe uses 2 but if he ever has a regression period he can easily access it and I could quickly have an IEP meeting and add more hours of trying to have an emergency IEP meeting because now suddenly he doesn't want to hold a pencil um um so I just wanted to make sure kind of touch base with the whole High School experience they have a lot of goals he has to meet but again with him being in a fully kind of segregated classroom it's very um made to me his goals and his needs um I'm going to be kind of hitting a lot of dry topics because I'm basically preparing for him to be 18 you know he's going to graduate in June with a certificate of completion and then he's going to basis till 22 so if his education is pretty much set until 22 we don't have to worry about college or driving or any of that kind of stuff um so for preparing for him to be 18 which every parent has to prepare for that um so we're gonna touch base on special needs trust and conservatorships are the 2 really really big um topics and then just kind of bank accounts if they do receive special um they do receive income like Social Security you're going to have your bank accounts in order because they do consider assets if they're under 18 um they're considered your assets so that's kind of how you they can qualify Social Security with or without being 18 so I'll touch base on that later um so special need Trust um just basically a regular trust but it's they can access it at any time basically it's for the providing that child or the adult they care they need um and you can have a letter of intent will have you can write out however you want you can have the daily their daily expectations their weekly their monthly their yearly who their doctors are um however you want to have that letter it's basically if you handed your child to somebody they could step into your and they would be an easy transition for them so I did my special need trust if any 1 of 3 reasons happened 1 is I am no longer able to take care of them um their trustee can take my packet Go activate it and then his assets that I am now managing we put into that trust and that will go to him um if I decide to separate his assets that I am already managing if I Choose You know I I want our assets to be separate I don't want them to be together anymore and that could be for a variety of reasons if he decides to go live go live with a friend if we decide to live separately a noise kind of want it pulling from a separate account I can activate the trust for that reason um or if he gets an inheritance that specifically States his his assets need to go into a trust or an account with his name on it if his if that asset over thousand dollars goes into an account with his name on it he'll lose Social Security so I can again activate the trust and put that money either from an inheritance or if he gets like a settlement for some reason or if there's any reason why he got a large sum of money I can activate the trust um so I have a trust written in a portfolio in a safe whenever I want to activate it you can activate it um just remember if you do activate your trust you do have to maintain it which means you have to file taxes on it because it's an asset um which has its own thing it did cost me about 2500 to have it done because it's a you know legal written contract um and it's a little bit different than a regular trust being a third party um I worked with an agency that did both the um the trust and the conservatorship and they were great they answered all my questions um and if anybody wants to reach out I can pass that information on to them um so conservatorship there are 4 different versions of conservatorship and if you talk to an attorney they can kind of tell you what might be the best 1 to work with if you need more specific or not the limited conservatorship is what I ended up going with it's only called limited because there are 7 powers and you can have either 1 or up to 7 if you have 7 you have full conservatorship it's just called limited because you might only have 1 or 2 if that's the better fit for the family um and there's kind of a blip of what all the different conservatorships are so um all these are the 7 of the conservatorships so you can have 1 or 2 if it's a better fit if they only need help in a couple things you don't need to have all 7 um I did go the route of having an attorney because my 18 year old was not going to say yes to me having all 7 Powers which what 18 year old will be okay with that I don't know but um so um you do not need to have an attorney represent you you can file on your own and you can do a waiver with regional center that will pay or will um weigh the filing fee for doing it and then the court appoints an attorney for your child um so it was a very smooth process it did cost me a little over 4K to do it um and working with attorney there was very smooth they answered all my questions they filed everything on my behalf so I didn't have to really worry about that um the 1 thing I do want to say is if you do do the route of conservatorship when you go to court there's you know a bunch of other people also flying for conservatorship and as you can see from the photos my son is very physically capable so if you look at him he might need some support but maybe not all 7 um and when we went there was 5 families all together mostly their families you could visibly see that they need supports they were we're chill bound they weren't physically able to speak on their own um so from a judge's perspective these families need also 7 powers like you know it's just not really a lot of conversation that needs to happen um and then when it got to us my son's like yeah I don't want her to be able to choose where I live like yeah you know so I had to write a letter of intent of you know why should I be able to see if I was like well you know uh my son is very um giving and he's very kind and if someone's like hey just come and live with me and then you you get enough money with Social Security you can pay all the rent like you know and he'd be like cool that sounds great sign my name like he would he wouldn't understand and why that might not be the best situation so just me being able to come in with the conversation of how I can best protect him and his assets where he might get taken advantage of so you know from a parents perspective you're like I've been taking care of them for 18 years why wouldn't I continue providing care and doing the service for them but from when we look at it from a judge perspective where they have all these families that might need more support or more care compared to a child that might not need as much support and care and they have to kind of make that decision on their behalf because you are taking over their rights as an adult you know because once they're 18 if they decide I don't want to live here anymore and walk out and you call the cops going I don't know where my child is they ran out of the house and they're like well they're 18 they can do that and there's nothing you can do about it um you know I can show a paper and be like well can you please just look a little for him you know um he might not be aware of his surroundings he might not be aware danger um you know he just eloped and he doesn't know where he's going so having the conservatorship was very important to me to have done before he turned 18 and the process if you don't do an attorney they recommend starting at 17 because it's assumed you're probably going to have to refile you're probably going to have observations done you might not do the paperwork correctly and it just gives you enough time to have a continuation with the courts um if you do do an attorney and when I called they're like call us back 2017 and a half call back at 17 and a half paid the money did the paperwork about 3 months later we had the court date we went and spoke at court um they ended up digging granting me all 7 powers and then my attorney resubmitted the paperwork on his birthday um to be officially stamped by the courts and then it took about almost 6 weeks to get it back the courts were they usually say 3 to 4 weeks that they take a little bit longer with the holidays and all that um with him being born in October um so those are the 2 like really big things I wanted to make sure we're done before he turned 18 and continue from um continuing with this education before I go any further any questions I know this is like the 2 big topics uh hi can you pass on that information for the the uh the trust and the conservative conservative uh where you got that done from the previous slide or this slide I just need to have okay the previous slide those are the 4 different kinds of conservatorship okay okay then the slides are going to be sent out after um the presentation so you guys will have access to these slides later um yes so once you have a conservatorship in place you will have um I believe they come and do a meeting like a year after the fact just to like touch base with the conserved and like is everything good are you happy with how things are and then I think it's every 2 years they kind of do that or 2 or 3 years if you move you do have to update the courts if you if you change addresses if you leave the county you have to change it to whatever County you're in um because it is basically a Act court order so you need to make sure the county is aware um of that you have a court order and you have to update it if you move because if they ever need to reach out to you for whatever reason they can reach out to them do you have like a successor conservator like you and then if something happens to you like a second that is in the the third party trust stand in my trust and will but you don't in the conservators correct because basically if anything happens to me whoever be the next conservator has to go to the process with the courts again um now I can put like in Back to the um the the trust in the letter of intent I have in there who I would want to be his conservatorship and then they would take the process on the same people you hire you do that your own you can they can help you with it but you just kind of write it because that's just a personal letter that you would give to or have in um with your trust anything else I know those are 2 really big okay okay so um wraparound program has been amazing it's basically your own IEP team for home so any age can do this it's through Regional Center if you're having difficulties with getting support if you're having behavioral activity difficulties if you're just kind of feeling like you're just surviving and not really thriving you're not really sure what to do next wraparound is an amazing opportunity um to work with your family I had 5 different people um so there was the care coordinator um the family the parenting coach we had a psychologist and a couple of the people that kind of popped in with the case and we had them for a little over year and basically they do 3 months rotation with regional center and if you're like I kind of need some more support they just renew it for another 3 months um and for the first few years few few months they were every week I had a meeting with somebody and we're like making a behavioral plan we're making um basically an IEP plan for the house of how how to best support him in his home with his transition from school to home with the buses with doctors and they really kind of brought everything down to be very fluid like to do at school so that's kind of how I compare it it's basically having an IEP plan at home with professionals come and they observe you the insert your family they give your they give their opinions and then we kind of write a plan that best supports the family as a whole with the special need child as the focus um and they really helped me when I'm in the process right now of transferring with regional center from traditional to self-directed and they really kind of helped take all that information and make it a little more bite-sized information because Regional Center likes to just throw a lot of information at once and I'm just like okay so they um really helped me kind of do that process and kind of um we trailed off off from being every week meeting to every other week meeting to once a month touch base to I think I think you're good to end services and I was like are you sure you know maybe we should keep you another 3 months and they're like we can we could help other fans I'm like okay but you can always reach out again um to read the services if need be the work for all is a doj program um and basically anybody with an IEP can qualify to 100 hours they do do 3 month blocks if you don't do your 100 hours in 3 months you get another 3 months and that's kind of how they manage it um they do many different uh internships and job shadowing so my son works at a horse ranch here in Poway and we've actually been volunteering there for years so when he qualified for options for all and did the interview process and basically got hired by them they're like well where do you want to work he's like well I already volunteer here so we called them and was like would he be able to get paid to volunteer here and everybody agreed and they had they made their own contracts so basically we'll go volunteer still but they just sign a form saying he was here from this time of this time and then options for all pays him so now he's kind of getting a paycheck and learning how how to deal with money and all that which that kind of goes to the finance part um so with him being 18 He re-qualify security and he's gonna be getting income so with disability you cannot have over thousand dollars in assets so um you need to kind of have a couple different accounts set up if if you do a 529 savings plan you can have this at any time you can start education savings plan for your child at any time and kind of start putting money in their gifts whatever and you can pull money out from K through 12 for education I believe the money has to be in there for at least 5 years but then you can start pulling money after 5 years there's 2 enable account um after 12 after after the 12th grade Awards like you know my kids not going to go to college he's not going to be able to pull from a 529 account because he's not doing uh further education so I can start transferring that from the 529 account to his able account um so he has a regular checking account or a social security gets deposited to and then we have a cal able account where basically we're using it as his savings account um they do have limitations where like this here you can only deposit $1,000 this year with him working from his paychecks direct deposited he can get an extra 12K which you know he probably he's not going to hit that but you know it's just a little things set aside um and able account is um very like a savings I log in I'm like hey I need money for something I transfer back to my account or I transfer it to his prepaid debit card and then I pay for clothes whatever right now we're really using it for paying for a service animal training um so it's basically a savings account that doesn't get counted against your child's um assets if they are pulling from Social Security um or if they're getting medical because that's also income based if you don't do the waiver with Regional Center so I know it's a lot of dry information I'm sorry so um oh yes good question you mentioned there was like the the assets threshold restriction for SSI how does how does that work with the Special Needs Trust um or is that also example so yes it's exempt because it's a trust but they will take into account how often your money from the trust so if you take money from the trust and give it to the child if it goes to a child's account then they're going to be like oh that's an income but if you're paying for directly from the trust like if I pull money from the trust to pay for his rent or pay for his phone that's not he's not getting the asset it's paying on behalf of him does that make sense yeah okay okay there's a question you would share repeat is that something you would be able to share with the Virginia and then she can send yes yes I wasn't sure if I could say that yep like publicly um but I we can definitely send that out okay um okay I believe this is my last slide so um the really big thing we're working on right now is transitioning from traditional Services self-determination with Regional Center um so my youngest is keeping traditional Services because we're able to access a lot of programs for him that are local and it's still really really good fit with my oldest you know stuff that might be a better fit for him aren't as local we would have to drive really far and it's just kind of been difficult to find services that are a good fit for him um so I'm not sure I'm pretty sure everyone's pretty familiar with regional center because if you have special needs child they're kind of a staple in everybody having that um but with additional Services you have a service coordinator you kind of Reach Out say oh my kids be into swim or kind want to try um like horseback riding therapy and they're like okay we have these services that are approved and they do the process of submitting the application their Finance pays them you wait till it's approved and they tell you you're good to go when you start taking your child so it's very you can't take a step back on it and they kind of handle the budgeting and everything like that with self-determination um the beginning is very much a pain in the butt to set it up um because it's basically I I am running the team so it's me it's regional center I have a um basically liaison that's helping me write the budget that's helping me reach out to people and kind of coordinate everything and then we have a third-party payee um that would pay people people to do services that I'm looking for um and they do not have to be Regional Center approved providers um so kind of how that's going we decided to do that is because my son loves to cook so we really wanted somebody to come the house and teach him how to cook and meal prep us to be more comfortable in the kitchen well you can't really do that with most providers with regional center um also I'm going to be an employee for my son so I can clock in to drive him to appointments and drive him back um and then if you ever has its own apartment I can have it set up where a house cleaner can come and clean the house once a month and I can have it set up through his budget that way and with the third-party payee how it kind of works is regional Center you have your budget from Regional Center they keep their portion of the budget that's going to go to like if they're doing swim activities if they're doing um other supports like the work for all and stuff like that that's kind of they keep that portion but the other portion the budget will go to this third party pay group that would pay me as an employee pay the chef as a cook coming that would pay the house cleaner that would um that is paying for the service dog training that we're doing so it's a lot of different things that you can be much more individualized as long as they take third-party pay but doesn't have to be Regional Center approved so it makes a little bit more flexibility after you get it set up the initial setting up process takes about a year because you got to have the meetings you have to have the budget you kind of have to hire the employees and get everything set up um but it was really important to me to have this kind of all set up and um ready because if it ever comes to the point where I'm like okay he's living on his own you know it's not make it doesn't make sense for me to be his driver I can get somebody local to him to take my spot and it's easier transition once it's already set up um or to add an employee going oh you have your own place you need a cook you need a cleaner um oh we're going to get you a the um when you get driven around not a show like with the app I don't use it Uber driver yes with Uber or something like that or you can have a prepaid card um I can I can put that on there where they're going to deposit this money on this card for an Uber account or for him oh he wants to go to this college and do an art class for the fun of it I can have direct pay for that so it's much more flexible um to write budget and work from there but you are working within the budget of regional centers so you kind of got to figure out what's a good fit I think that was that's the last of my slides any other questions I know I did a lot of information d for the wraparound program that was something that's for when they're 16 and older correct uh know any age anybody can um it's the Regional Center but okay so are they the ones providing it or they just help you sit um it's a service that they it's a third-party service so they kind of coordinate and like they pay for it on your behalf kind of how Regional standards with most things um but you would reach out to Regional Center say I want to wrap around service service and then that would get they would reach out and have it set up that way okay thank you so samples or after school but work from yeah well wrap around and work for all 2 different programs whichever that yeah the work for all um so yes my son is actually doing school and working he's over 18 now so he doesn't need a work permit but once was under 18 we had to go to the school and submit the work permit which the work for all will email you look like their request for a work permit and just take it to the high school and then they give you like a little paper that says he's approved for working basically not school hours um and then we just had we just renewed that until he was 18 and then after 18 he just go to work when you know he's not in school so he works the weekends right now they set up the I had a very uh any question is A's uh After High School or is it uh in Leu of high school so there's a site where students obtain diploma and there's a side that is what you were describing for your your son so I'm I'm trying to say child where and our um transition so yeah there there are both so you may have to re just for a practice so oh yes Abraxas High um they have a main campus which is the main high school and they have like a sub campus for the special need program for the continuation program but it's just called a braccus school and they don't really have differentiate but it's just kind of the same location if that makes sense so they're both the same place I was gonna ask that they put their question with chat yeah can you put your questions in the chat you guys are over each other and it's really hard um so we're gonna have the next person come and have his slides and we'll put the questions in the um um into answer asking the questions in the chat and then I can come back at the end if there's anything else more specific we want to go over Q&A sorry okay thank you yeah I think the question was is Abbas high school and the special need program at the same location and then uh is my son is in middle school right now if if he goes to uh Del naughty after Del naughty can he go to a prescos or he has to skip the multi and go to a answer all those okay uh yeah this is and yeah so we are going to move on to the next speaker and thank you for your patience Robert you have been waiting so patiently and he is actually a former public Unified School District student graduated with a diploma from Westville High School went to Community College and I believe now he's applying to be transferred into a 4 year college all right welcome Robert so hi my name is Robert nisoo and I was high school and I graduated with a diploma so so and I'm studying for computer science at at Miramar College for an associate and I'm and I'm planning to train transfer to California State University San Marcos or SDSU and I'm currently living at home with a cat and my parents so when I was in high school I had an IEP meaning that I had preferential seating and increased test duration and I took mostly Jen at classes with for in which some of them had an instructional assistant for 4 years and I had these 4 English and social studies but I took some special education class and also took AP classes with your computer sites and calculus AB overall the classes were hard and I had lots of help for homework for selecting the classes and for planning and in the summer I did some Spanish and for digital electronics when I was in high school I was in some clubs for example I was in Cross Country and best parties and also I have a driver's license so now we're going to talk about what how the differences in college so on College there's no I in the classroom no IEP and also the college is farther to commute meaning that a person would need to go there Bypass or right there and the person is expected to be more independent for example you would need to ask for help and to email the professors and there's no Direct current communic application in college meaning that the parents cannot look at their at the students grades and also he can be more academic flexibility meaning that could choose to finish in 2 or 5 years in person and mixed with online classes and and even take evening classes and he can take it at multiple locations in the semester some of the students are adults some have 3 kids and others have full-time jobs so now I'm going to talk about the the the dsps which is which is what disability support is so it helps with priority class registration meaning that the person can choose the classes earlier than other students he can get the letter of accommodations meaning that meaning that a person will get it from the dsps and then he will then email it to the to the professor they have adaptive technology for example digital recorders and I also have vocational counseling and also at dsps gives you your some events for example the monthly launch now I'm going to talk about preparation for college so so you a person would need to get used to thinking about college um and about where they want to go to college why they want to go to college and what they want to major in they could also take a career assessment for example at high school he could take the ASVAB to know what he wants to major in he can also develop in comments for example he could Bike to School leave on time and have a bank account he could also accept help for example tutoring and helping by parent and he can also learn more to the summer because to learn steadily otherwise if you don't then it will be too then in the fall it will be too much and by learning in a summer it would be the right amount so parents so parents may help with everything like for example the career and major selection the the selection of the college whether it's local community college or for you the applications to call it and also the class selections and more but also the parents should encourage Independence to their kids for example the life skills which includes cooking and doing laundry the development classes like for example the 1 I'm taking is Brock Peter to improve my communication and then I should do things by myself at college for example I do that I write a schedule whenever I do my homework when to know when I do it and also meeting with the counselors and thank you and the best of luck okay all right so Robert how do you truly feel about college do you like it yes okay are you applying to a different college right now oh yeah which 1 you going to probably San Marcos that's great yeah we are so proud of you thank you all right any questions from the audience for Robert about his experience translation in college and for his mom is here so for the parent that how to support them to for the transition process the myammar is that Community College how did you select VAR versus palamar or am so the question is how did we select Miramar versus anything else is the closest and uh I wanted Robert to be independent and Drive by himself so distance was most important so he doesn't drive far thank you thank you so much yes right okay okay so as promised we have this QR code that um feel free to scan that brings you to get connected form we have a team of ambassadors and today we only have 5 um here sharing the knowledge with you but we have a a worth 75 that in the background that working they are different age group different School site and they have knowledge in different areas so if you have any question about your kids IEP wants to share Community Resources or any um you know tips that working with sending original Center they are able to support you in that way so just to scan the QR code and put in your support needs and questions and we will try to match you with the p Ambassador who can support you all right thank you yeah sure so we have a friend from Exceptional Family Resource Center Joe is here um I think he has a message for everyone hi everyone thanks I'm glad to be here those are very inspiring presentations very insightful just want to let you know that Exceptional Family Resource Center is staffed by parents of children with disabilities who have lived experiences and we can help support folks through transitional IEP meetings special needs trusts conservatorships Cal label accounts if you go to our YouTube channel we have 2 different workshops on the cow label process from the folks at the collie will office in Sacramento 1 in English and 1 in Spanish uh we can help with the special um STP um self-determination program we have independent facilitators on our staff that can help guide you through that process so I have a couple of postcards here that you can take with you and feel free to reach out if you need any additional assistance we're also a partner with powerway Unified School District so glad to be here and nice to see all the progress and amazing work you all are doing thank you okay so this Rao meeting and today's meeting is recorded it's going to be uploaded to our parent Ambassador website and we have on the website we have a video section that has all the previous meetings as well so if you missed a while you want to go back and refresh um you know the knowledge you learned I know it's a lot it's a lot to go through and then feel free to go to a website and browse through uh video

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