How Teen Students with an IEP Thrive at Turning Winds

What happens with a teen who is on an IEP transitions from their school at home to one that specializes in working with teens that need extra support? The answer is - everything! Teachers Greg Hall and Cathy Miller sit down with Kevin and they dive into academic support at Turning Winds.

To learn more about Turning Winds, visit turningwinds.com or call 800-845-1380.

Transcript

Welcome to the Turning Winds podcast. My name is Kevin Zundl.  Turning Winds has a full continuum of care for teens who would benefit from greater support clinically and academically, a place where they can focus on themselves in those critical years that set the course for a lifetime. Today, I sit down with Cathy Miller and Greg Hall, who are teachers at the program.

So my first question is this, with so many students that need extra support, they receive an IEP or Individualized Education Program. I'm sure that is something you work with a lot.  And so IEPs, we probably have, last time I checked and was writing things down, I believe we have 14 IEPs per se, and then we also have five or six 504 plans, about 29 people, and  And what's a 504 plan? 

A 504 is where basically they work it out where they have accommodations. It's not like they have a very specific thing like the IEP where you work on a very specific skillset kind of thing, but it's more of a general patch all. And so you'll get accommodations like take longer to complete a test or can get up and walk around if they get stressed or anxious or things like that. 

Whereas the IEP definitely is a little more concrete in terms of the daily things that you can do.  It's, it has specific goals. Exactly. Very much so.  And probably at least half of them have IEPs, like I said, but, you know, and so it's  a bit of a challenge because it, you know, there's a lot of,  we're just working some things out to where I now not only work on IEP  things and work on some, uh, tutoring to help the kids with their deficiencies, but we're But also I'll be able to kind of move around the classroom and observe.

Part of it with some of the kids, the behavior stuff, IEP is definitely about observation.  And so that's definitely an issue there that we're addressing. Because before I never really had the opportunity to be able to move around and observe.  Whereas now I will. In terms of the  IEPs, what are some of the more  Common goals that the students are working towards. 

There's the academic behavior and the academic typically is easier to, uh, as you have those goals, typically, let's say math, for instance, so and so will be behind in math and so we'll work on them,  math problems at whatever grade level they're at.  And then the idea is that they will be able to score  80 percent or higher on the assessment that we do,  or say four out of five times, a lot of IEPs say 75%.

So there'll be able to get 75 percent or greater on their evaluations or a five trial or a five times,  typically a lot of them work.  Behavior stuff is  not concrete. Uh, it's a little more challenging to track if that makes sense.  If you look at an average length of stay  of 10 months or a year, what is your goal  in working toward? 

Uh, my goal setting is that I try and I go through it when the first students get there and I find out what their IEP is. And so then I try and basically match that for the expectations, like they're in public school to where they need to be able to do this four out of five times with 80 percent accuracy, which is like 5 percent accuracy.

So is that common to have an IEP in place that early or just sometimes you just get somebody and they  are a year into an IEP? No, that actually is fairly common. It's starting at the elementary ages. And so then it kind of just, they work on it and progress as you progress up into the, you know, public system.

So that's not, that's definitely not a common thing.  Some of them will start, a lot of them start middle school.  Definitely some of the kids, I think I saw one here, I can't remember who the resident was. I think it started like second grade or something like that.  So that definitely is a normal, you know, a normal thing. 

As the general educator, I just wanted to put some things in there for you. Uh, first of all, we're set up really well to handle IEPs.  The fact that we have such a low  ratio of students to teachers means that we get to do a lot of one on one work, which is what students who are in regular schools, if they're on an IEP, they'll go into a resource room.

Our classrooms are resource rooms. So we are, we essentially have, even though we're like 50 percent of our kids, I don't have official IEPs. I would wait you to say we treat each child as if they have an IEP. We want to work with each child individually on an education plan that will accelerate them to the place where they should be when they leave Turning Winds.

And we work very hard at that, with the goal in mind. We don't care about, I don't. As. As the general educator, I don't care what label you want to put on them.  I want to work with them. I want to see them be successful. Very important to us in the school that the young people feel success because so many of them come to us having felt like failures when it comes to school, whether it's because they were high or because they were not able to focus in the classroom environment.

There are any number of reasons why they weren't successful at home. We want them to feel successful, be successful, and that carries over into their treatment. And since we're a treatment center, that is very important that they feel good about a part of their lives while they're working to get the other stuff taken care of.

Students can make a huge, make up a huge amount of ground tutoring and intervention stuff or do it in small groups. And that where I really see a lot of stuff coming to fruition, because we can, you know, work with them and focus on those goals and target those kind of things. And so it's that one on one, one on two instruction that I really believe is going to help them forward. 

That's why, that's why they can get so much academic success is because  they really get the attention, focused attention. I think a lot of it goes back to, uh, Kathy was saying how our school compared to a public school, our school is very small and it's very focused. And so, um,  we are very aware of where students are at, and so they're, uh, to use a term, there's no place to hide academic,  and so if they are able to, in a public school, they might be able to just kind of, uh, not make any waves, not cause any problems, uh, sneak through the system, so to speak, without really needing any kind of academic help or achievement. 

And so here, that is now, because it's very much. Uh,  we're aware of everything that goes on with the students, and we're aware of what their deficits are. And so that's how we're focused on that, able to get that, help them achieve growth. Is through that, you know, one on one, one on two, whatever.  And it's kind of neat to see, because I know, I've seen the kids here just in the last year,  academically speaking, have made up so many, so much ground on, you know, what they would in a public school, much more. 

I wanted to put in one other thing. Is we we talk about we've been talking about the kids who didn't feel successful in school before they came here. We also have young people who were successful in school, and I just wanted to bring that up because this particular term, we actually have two young people.

Who are taking a physics and chemistry. So we have a place for the kids who struggled and failed over and over and over again. We also have a place for the kids who were successful did great. We can push them further. We can support their academic achievement on the higher levels, as well as those that need to be pulled up in put in  the appropriate level of their academic years. 

So, if you're a parent that is listening to this, my hope is that it plants a seed of possibility and hope for you. There is a path that can change the trajectory that you're likely in, because you can make a difference. By just first picking up the phone and speaking to an expert who can listen to what's going on in your home so they can provide guidance.

Turning Winds can be reached at 800 845-1380.  And don't forget to check out some of the other episodes, especially Engagements with Teens, Connection and Working Through Power Struggles. It will change the way you look at parenting.  There's also a wealth of resources on their website  at turningwinds.com.