Ask AISAP! #5 Diverse Learning Profiles in the Admissions Process

Expert Caryl Frankenberger and legal counsel Janice Gregerson answer several audience questions on how to manage conversations around diverse learning profiles with parents and students before, during, and after the admission process. Want to learn more on this topic? Sign up for AISAP's Understanding Diverse Learning Profiles Certificate Program here: https://bit.ly/3gLCBTU

Disclaimer: This podcast is intended to provide educational information of a general nature. It is not intended as, and should not be viewed to be legal advice with respect to any particular situation. Schools are encouraged to seek counsel for specific advice.

Transcript

00;00;00;08 - 00;00;19;18
Beth Amann
When you’re tossing and turning day after day, wondering how to do things the right way when it suddenly hits you. The answer's so clear. Just reach out to those who will lend you an ear. Ask AISAP.

00;00;19;27 - 00;00;55;18
Janice Crampton
So one of the things that we love about our independent and private school worlds is the opportunity for us to recognize that every child is different, every family is different, every school is different. And what's so interesting about our conversation today and those two wonderful practitioners who are on the call with me today, is that we're going to dive into the subject matter that was unearthed at several Annual Institutes ago around “Understanding Diverse Learning Profiles.”

00;00;56;00 - 00;01;20;18
Janice Crampton
And in the spirit of all of this conversation in our Annual Institute and our community of colleagues, I had the good fortune of knowing and have worked with Caryl Frankenberger of Frankenberger and Associates for a number of years. And I turned to Caryl and said, I have an idea. And she knows me well enough to run in fear because an idea oftentimes becomes a to do.

00;01;20;19 - 00;01;52;09
Janice Crampton
Right, Caryl? Yeah, she's just laughing. But but Caryl and her team created this a certificate that is entitled Understanding Diverse Learning Profiles. And over our time together today, we will learn a little bit more about the content of this. But what was really interesting is a very simple question that I posed in our community of colleagues, and I said, I have a question.

00;01;53;16 - 00;02;40;11
Beth Amann
“What is on your mind as it relates to this subject matter? These students that come to our schools for assessment and for enrollment?” And we were flooded in the Ask AISAP email with questions all around this topic. So today's Ask AISAP is an extended version where we are joined not only with, as I mentioned before, Caryl Frankenberger, but also Janice Gregerson, who is Counsel at Venable, one of the legal sort of pioneers, as well as powerful tools in the association world, but also in the independent school world.

00;02;40;22 - 00;03;14;20
Janice Crampton
And Janice, you've presented with AISAP on a number of occasions, all related to all things legal and admission and enrollment and tohave you on this call today to be the the industry expert in this particular arena is quite exciting. So that's the background for why we are doing what we're doing today. But that's also an introduction to the two wonderful colleagues that I have, the two wonderful experts that I have all related to this topic of diverse learning.

00;03;14;27 - 00;03;17;03
Janice Crampton
So welcome, welcome, and thank you.

00;03;17;25 - 00;03;18;23
Janice Gregerson
Thank you.

00;03;19;03 - 00;03;48;18
Janice Crampton
Yeah. So, Janice, I'm going to start with you and an Ask AISAP came in and here it is. Glen Bellow from Randolph School said, We are challenged by our middle school administration to secure more info in the admission process about a student's learning profile. And what they are finding is that many students enroll and then let the school know about their classroom needs.

00;03;49;06 - 00;04;16;14
Janice Crampton
They used to think that they couldn't ask, but now they're finding that when they don't ask, they're not really able to serve a student. So thoughts on the legality? And then we'll pivot to Caryl about how to navigate from a parent standpoint and a student standpoint on answering these questions as we seek to find places for students where they can be their best selves.

00;04;16;14 - 00;05;12;11
Janice Gregerson
So I have so many thoughts on the legality of this, and this is why I always have many thoughts, right? But this is certainly a topic that I think many independent schools struggle with because it's about finding a balance and it's about assessing meaningfully, assessing your school's risk appetite and understanding the risk assessment there. So the conventional wisdom on this issue comes out of the Americans with Disabilities Act and specifically Title III of that and what the Americans with Disabilities Act says, because you can't discriminate on the basis of a disability and that institutions like independent schools are required to make reasonable accommodations so long as there's no undue hardship to the institution, no direct

00;05;12;11 - 00;05;38;11
Janice Gregerson
threat of harm to the individual or others, or no fundamental alteration of the program. So the whole idea behind the ADA is to level the playing field for students with disabilities and for purposes of the Act, it does consider learning style differences and diverse learning profiles to fall within that category, but to level the playing field for them as opposed to giving a leg up.

00;05;39;10 - 00;06;07;06
Janice Gregerson
Where this comes in to admissions is the pre-admission inquiry into a disability. And so we have this guidance from the Department of Justice, which oversees enforcement of civil rights laws like the ADA, that says that schools cannot make unnecessary inquiries into the existence of a disability in the admissions process. Now, it doesn't say you can't make any inquiry at all.

00;06;07;06 - 00;06;36;15
Janice Gregerson
It just says you can't make unnecessary inquiries. So what the school can do is seek out information in the admissions process to enable it to make that determination of whether a student or an applicant is entitled to a request of accommodation. Can they participate in our program with or without accommodations with the ultimate decision on admit or deny or waitlist being disability blind?

00;06;36;19 - 00;06;44;22
Janice Gregerson
So the examples that the Department of Justice has given us are not particularly helpful. The Justice.

00;06;44;22 - 00;06;46;16
Janice Crampton
I can't imagine. Imagine.

00;06;46;17 - 00;06;59;16
Janice Gregerson
Right. They don't well, they don't practice in this space. They don't feel the day in and day out. I sincerely hope that no one from the Department of Justice is listening to this at this certain point in time. That's why we love you.

00;07;00;04 - 00;07;01;08
Janice Crampton
I love you. We love you.

00;07;02;12 - 00;07;36;25
Janice Gregerson
And so they're saying an improper inquiry is, does your child have an Individualized Education Program, an IEP, but that a proper inquiry is would your child need assistance or modification to the programs in order to be able to fully participate with that being a yes, no question. And then if the answer to that question is yes, triggering the legal duty to go into the interactive process with the family, conduct an individualized assessment, and determine whether or not there are accommodations, whether they're reasonable, and what the needs are.

00;07;38;03 - 00;08;05;10
Janice Gregerson
So that's what the law says that you can do. And there are a handful of cases from the past six years where the Department of Justice has done an investigation and found that a school made the inquiry and did not engage in that interactive process. And that's where the violation is. So to bring it back to what can we ask for, right?

00;08;06;09 - 00;08;36;05
Janice Gregerson
I think it's important, I think, to sit down with your leadership team and understand where our risk tolerance is, what are our procedures and policies going to be? Do we as a school need to be able to ask this question more directly upfront so that we can get the information we need not to determine whether we're going to just blanket, admit or deny a student, but whether they can be successful in our program.

00;08;36;27 - 00;09;01;09
Janice Gregerson
So if we're going to ask the questions, we need to be prepared to act on the answer, on the response, which really is engaging in that process with the family, having an understanding of the child's needs, determining how we can meet those needs in our program. Because where were the violations? Where DOJ really finds violations is not just the question on the application itself.

00;09;02;01 - 00;09;09;20
Janice Gregerson
It's where their question was on the application and then we didn't do anything about it or then we just blanket denied.

00;09;11;02 - 00;09;33;07
Janice Crampton
So Janice, have a question for you that that before we move forward, here is what I heard you say is it's not that the question is being asked, although that is viewed as problematic, but where it is placed in the inquiry process or I should say in the application where there's nothing that is done about it. Did I hear you correctly?

00;09;33;19 - 00;10;00;01
Janice Gregerson
I think I would modify that slightly. You know, it's not just that the question is being asked, although that is you're correct. That is from DOJ perspective, part of the problem. But it's whether or not the school acted on that information, meaning did they have this information, take this information and make a meaningful determination, engaging with the family about whether they can accommodate that particular student.

00;10;00;10 - 00;10;43;28
Janice Crampton
So since there's in my word, and I'm not in the world of legalese here, since there is such room for misinterpretation on the word meaningful or intent or how we document things, it sounds as though to avoid any potential for problem that you do not ask it in the way that you have framed the question or back in the olden days we asked it, but that we turn it around and ask it in the way that you have noted and many of our literature that's available to AISAP members, it clearly states like a phrase to use in its place.

00;10;45;05 - 00;11;06;10
Janice Crampton
And that's what I'm hearing you say is again, just go with that phrase, it gets you what you need. And then perhaps, and this might turn it now to Caryl, and then be trained in a way that you as a practitioner, but also parents in a way are understanding of the importance of communication back and forth.

00;11;07;05 - 00;11;29;13
Janice Gregerson
Yeah, I would agree with that. Ideally, you know, ideally asking the question in the way that it's been framed will get you what you need. We do need to understand that there is a possibility that parents just aren't going to be truthful in the application process on that point, for whatever reason, they're concerned that we're not going to admit their child and they're convinced that this is the best place for their child.

00;11;30;08 - 00;12;06;13
Janice Gregerson
But I do want to emphasize that part of this discussion is a risk spectrum or a risk continuum. There are some schools that are not going to feel comfortable asking the more involved question or asking about it at all on the application, because they're concerned about the prospect of it getting flagged, concerned about the prospect of a lawsuit coming out of it, whatever it may be, or they're not comfortable asking it because they're not confident that on the back end we have the ability to follow up on that question.

00;12;06;20 - 00;12;28;09
Janice Gregerson
And that's why when it comes particularly to this issue, I think it's so important and my team at Venable thinks it's so important that we really sit down with our leadership team and say, okay, where is our risk tolerance? What are we comfortable with? And what are we going to be able to meaningfully be able to do as part of asking this question, what are the consequences of this for us?

00;12;28;18 - 00;12;32;10
Janice Crampton
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Caryl, what are your thoughts on all of this?

00;12;33;03 - 00;13;02;02
Caryl Frankenberger
Can I ask you, Janice Gregerson, can I ask a question? Can you ask the question, “Are there any evaluations or reports that we should be reviewing to better understand your child and to meet their needs?” Or, “Is there anything you want to share with us about your child's strengths and challenges? Is there additional information to that we should know about your child?”

00;13;02;02 - 00;13;04;20
Caryl Frankenberger
Can those questions be asked?

00;13;05;19 - 00;13;28;27
Janice Gregerson
So, thank you, Caryl. The two latter questions is, is there anything else that we should know about your child? Is there anything else that we should know about? Your child's strengths are certainly permissible on their face, and sometimes we use them to hopefully trigger parents or generate parents into giving us more information that we need about their child's learning profile or any learning style differences.

00;13;28;27 - 00;13;50;03
Janice Gregerson
But the first question about evaluations and needs, if we're going strictly by the guidance from the Department of Justice, the answer to that question would be no. But with the you know, the asterisk caveat here, that it is a risk evaluation. And maybe we do want to sit down and say that we're going to ask that question that directly.

00;13;50;15 - 00;13;57;15
Janice Gregerson
And we at the school understand that there may be some implications for us to follow up on that information as needed.

00;13;57;25 - 00;13;58;08
Caryl Frankenberger
Mm hmm.

00;13;58;29 - 00;14;26;29
Janice Crampton
And again, what I think is very interesting here and boy, this quick Ask AISAP is turning into which I love, by the way, is turning into a whole other opportunity for discussion. But here goes. We ask in our process for various pieces of information or a transcript, a standardized testing score. We look and have a student come for a visit to look at social emotional behavior, right?

00;14;26;29 - 00;15;08;11
Janice Crampton
To kind of see good, good fit. Or again, is this the right match and all these other words and phrases. And yet there's this one element that has really caused this particular legal catalyst for concern. And I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I'm just saying that it's interesting to imagine that there's all these other elements. You know, Caryl, I think, again, one of the beauties of your work with AISAP and quite honestly, in the world of independent and private schools, is that you in many ways not only represent and advocate for the student and the parent, but you also have done an incredibly, you know, beautiful job.

00;15;08;11 - 00;15;39;20
Janice Crampton
You've done a great job in having schools understand when you invite and when you have a student who is X, Y, Z, that these are not only the accommodations, but this is the style of learning. I'd love to hear from you. What would your advice be to, let's say, that admission and enrollment practitioner about navigating a parent who you may or may not know, but how you might introduce certain phrases and clauses and beliefs?

00;15;39;20 - 00;15;40;27
Janice Crampton
I just would love to hear from you.

00;15;41;20 - 00;15;52;17
Caryl Frankenberger
Phrases in terms of actual kind of learning challenges, Janice? Or how close you can ask to tease those things apart without directly asking those questions.

00;15;52;20 - 00;16;10;28
Janice Crampton
A little bit about what are phrases and clauses? How might you again, you know, I oftentimes will ask the question, we are so thrilled to see you here today. What brings you here today? What is it about your present school environment that is just not clicking that you'd like to look for another place? So.

00;16;12;00 - 00;16;43;04
Caryl Frankenberger
You know, I think I think in the admissions process, you can ask a lot of questions that target certain areas that you're interested in. Maybe you want to know more about their academic abilities, reading, writing, math. Maybe you want to know about their attention or their processing speed or their working memory. And I think there are questions that you can ask that give you insight into a student's profile without saying, “Do you have an attention deficit disorder?”

00;16;43;16 - 00;17;07;05
Caryl Frankenberger
You know, are you bothered? And these questions are very or should be very open ended. We actually created questions as one of our modules on our “Understanding. Diverse Learning Profiles” are questions that have no right or wrong answers. “Does it bother you to have background noise or others talking when you're trying to complete work?” “Well, yes, it really bothers me.”

00;17;07;17 - 00;17;29;06
Caryl Frankenberger
Or no, “It really doesn't bother me.” Neither of those are right or wrong. It just gives you some insight into that student's profile or, you know, “How do you work through timed tasks? Can you get them all done or do you need a little more time again?” Nothing wrong with, “Hey, I do need a little more time. In fact, a lot of times I don't finish exams.”

00;17;29;14 - 00;17;52;01
Caryl Frankenberger
I think those kinds of questions that offer you then the step to take it, sort of the next step when they say, “Yeah, there are times that I don't finish exams.” “Oh well, so what does that feel like?” And all of a sudden now you're learning a little bit more about the students learning profile, something like, you know, “When do you - when you read, do you annotate?”

00;17;52;24 - 00;18;14;23
Caryl Frankenberger
“What's annotate mean?” Well, there you go, you know? Or, you know, “No, I don't need to annotate.” Okay, so that tells you something. So there are so many ways to frame questions and I think you can say the same questions to parents, you know, “Have you ever completed assignment and turned and - have you ever completed an assignment and not turned it in?”

00;18;14;27 - 00;18;40;19
Caryl Frankenberger
I certainly have. Have you experienced the same thing? There's no right or wrong answer. So we've tried to create these questions so that in the admissions process and actually for classroom teachers to ask, that will shed some light on the student's learning profile. That then helps you understand how the student will learn best and gives you insight as to whether they're going to be able to fit in your school.

00;18;40;25 - 00;19;04;25
Caryl Frankenberger
I love one of our questions is, “When you're learning to play new sports, do you like to listen to the directions, watch the play, or have a written diagram?” Now, there are amazing athletes who say, “I can't follow my coaches directions, but I sit back and I watch my teammates and I can do it better than they can just by watching them.”

00;19;05;01 - 00;19;27;13
Caryl Frankenberger
That gives you tremendous insight into the student’s profile. So those are the kinds of questions I don't know if I'm answering your question, Janice, but those are the kinds of questions that would lead to understanding a student's kind of learning preference or learning profile. Not so much learning style.

00;19;27;13 - 00;19;52;02
Janice Crampton
Outstanding. I mean, in the spirit of did you answer my question, which was your question, which is a here comes the circle of, you know, I think again, we never want any of our families, let alone our professionals, to come from a place of fear, you know? And if we truly are transformational and not transactional, yeah, we are going to have a lot of emotion tied to it.

00;19;52;16 - 00;20;16;15
Janice Crampton
And with emotion comes not that I am speaking personally, but there's oftentimes a lot of anxiety attached to that. So everybody comes to these interactions in the admission and enrollment process where there's these expectations, these urban myths about these, you know, preconceived notion. I mean, all of these things and everyone wants to, quote unquote, put their best foot forward.

00;20;16;24 - 00;21;03;26
Janice Crampton
But don't you just want everyone to like. “Okay, welcome to the opportunity to meet with us. Let's all take a deep breath.” Right? You know, could we not? And I think, again, the idea notion that I was asking you, Caryl, about in relationship to, you know, what might you advise someone who is meeting with an admission office or headed to a school who has, in fact, some learning differences is how you might recommend that they approach this in the spirit of transparency, so to speak, because I guess it pains us or nothing pains us more to find that a student has enrolled and we can't meet their needs.

00;21;03;26 - 00;21;47;00
Janice Crampton
And that's, I think, one of the things that we're seeking to avoid. There's another question here. Skyler is looking at this from a different perspective and Skyler's question is, “If a parent mentions in person on the phone or through an inquiry or application process that their child has a different learning style or has or is specifically mentioning ADHD, autism spectrum or anything else, is it that okay to ask these questions and get details?” Ar, you know, again, what is the recommended navigated road? So, different than a school not asking the question now a parent has shared and now what does a school do?

00;21;48;02 - 00;22;26;22
Janice Gregerson
Yeah, from my vantage point, it's really of you know, it's of no moment how the information comes to us, but rather it's that the information came to us. And so if we ask for it, you know, we still have the obligation to ask if the parent are act on it. Excuse me, if the parent offered it, then we still do have that obligation to engage in a dialog with the family, to understand the child's needs and understand what kind of supports that we're reasonably able to put in place in our program to help them, or if we're able to put supports in place at all in the context of our program to help them.

00;22;26;22 - 00;22;56;24
Janice Gregerson
I mean, that's really at its core, I think, you know, independent schools sometimes get a little itchy or twitchy or nervous around the accommodations process. All it really is, is a discussion with the family about this is our program, this is what we're able to offer. This is what your child needs. We can give your child a little bit extra write off of what we're typically able to offer or we're not able to do that.

00;22;56;24 - 00;23;11;17
Janice Gregerson
And we might not be the best fit for your child. And that can be a painful conversation to have. I hear that from schools that I speak with around the country, but that's really at its core. What the law wants us to do is have a conversation.

00;23;12;21 - 00;23;26;25
Janice Crampton
Would you advise the school to be as clear as possible on what they can provide and what they cannot provide, just as clear as they do with what their sports program is or what their cafeteria dining hall services are?

00;23;28;14 - 00;24;05;27
Janice Gregerson
That's a good question. I don't - I sometimes see and I don't generally advise having the list, the menu of additional services, extra support services that we can provide out there publicly available on the website. Inevitably, I think that's kind of asking for someone who's seeking to create a legal issue where there might not be one, to have an opportunity to have access to that information and target the school.

00;24;06;23 - 00;24;34;28
Janice Gregerson
But I do encourage schools to have in their mind or documented somewhere, “What are we, what do we provide commonly without question?” Right? Without requiring the student to be to be seen or to have an evaluation done. And in the past, “Where have we stretched a little bit to give the students something else?” If a student who has a particular needs something else so that we're not recreating the wheel when we're presented with that question again.

00;24;35;09 - 00;24;36;06
Caryl Frankenberger
Mm hmm.

00;24;36;24 - 00;24;40;29
Janice Crampton
Caryl, what is your your experience with with, again, families and schools?

00;24;41;15 - 00;25;02;04
Caryl Frankenberger
I think it's really interesting. I just wanted to go back to a question. When a parent says, “Oh, my child, my child has ADHD,” or “my child has high functioning autism.” It at that point, can you say, well, if you share the evaluation with us, it's you know, it really helps us to more clearly understand your learning profile.

00;25;02;04 - 00;25;25;09
Caryl Frankenberger
I keep going back to this evaluation because I get so many questions about evaluations and I'm an evaluator, so I'm writing reports, I'm sending them to private schools. I know people, you know, I mean, I just interact with private school people all the time centered around the reports. And to be honest, there are some private schools that say, oh, we'll do all these recommendations, and some say, no, but we'll do these four.

00;25;25;18 - 00;25;36;26
Caryl Frankenberger
But these we just don't do because we just don't have the staff. We're not set up. And is that okay to do in that context where the parent comes to you?

00;25;37;18 - 00;25;55;26
Janice Gregerson
Yeah, that's exactly the right context for it to be presented, the dialog and discussion, because, you know, it is intended to be an interactive process. So the parent comes forward and says, you know, exactly as you said, “My child has high functioning autism.” “Okay. Can you can you give us some more information about that?

00;25;55;26 - 00;26;14;00
Janice Gregerson
What does that mean for your child? Has there been an evaluation done that would help us as a school be able to identify how we can support your child?” And then exactly as you said, the school determines, okay, we can do X, Y and Z or we can only do A, B and C or we can do the full menu and we're the place.

00;26;14;00 - 00;26;30;06
Janice Gregerson
I mean, that process is what the law says is permissible. It's when we get the information and we just say, no, we have a policy that says we don't do this and we're not going to deviate from that policy at all that we get into hot water.

00;26;31;04 - 00;27;18;18
Caryl Frankenberger
And that same policy is we don't accept kids who have IQs under 100. I mean, that's one of the ones that I'm you know, because there are so many smart kids out there whose IQ is might be 120 and with an 85 processing speed and they do fit in the school, they just need more time. So it's the understanding of these numbers, which is why we really created this course, is to try to help tease apart and demystify some of these IQ scores in particular, but also in terms of just educating people on, you know, what is high functioning autism, what are the pink flags?

00;27;18;26 - 00;27;38;13
Caryl Frankenberger
And then if you know that you can ask the questions of the parents, “Well, so how is that for your child?” You know, “Does he does he make friends? How does he deal with changes in routine?” I think you can ask direct questions if you know more about high functioning autism, but if you come from it as, “I don't know it.

00;27;38;13 - 00;27;59;11
Caryl Frankenberger
And we don't take kids who are on the spectrum.” You know, it just isn't true because every school has these kids and they have adults. You know, we're a world where 20% of all populations have learning challenges of some sort. So why would we not have that particular type of learning challenge?

00;27;59;11 - 00;28;33;17
Janice Crampton
But I think it once again reinforces a level of passion and also purpose for why AISAP is teaching this topic. Right, and having you, Caryl, serve as the key faculty member or dean of curriculum in this area, because it's the absence of knowledge, it's the absence of understanding that then someone who is, let's say, evaluating an application and sees the word IEP and gets hysterical or sees ADHD or sees MOUSE, and they just don't understand what it means.

00;28;33;17 - 00;29;00;12
Janice Crampton
And therefore, they're going to make a decision that's predicated on something that is misunderstood and not correct. And that's, I think, again, going back to the Department of Justice - so here we are now praising it - and that's why these rules, right, were created because it's in the absence of knowledge, people are demonstrating a level of bias that isn't appropriate.

00;29;01;00 - 00;29;17;22
Caryl Frankenberger
Which is another module we have, what misconceptions do you bring to your practice in your classroom about learning challenges? And some of this is just an awareness because sometimes we don't even know what biases we might bring.

00;29;18;07 - 00;30;04;14
Janice Crampton
Well and it's an awareness. And I also think that gosh, talk about going back to the days but I remember when I was in the admission and enrollment profession at that side of the desk, I remember Priscilla Vale talking about it's not a learning disability, it's a learning difference. And as more and more schools and adults in those communities and the world at large understand the uniqueness of what we value in our community is, quite honestly satisfied when we are educated and we understand how different learning profiles will add, a wonderful feeling, flavor.

00;30;04;14 - 00;30;29;02
Janice Crampton
So Jeff is asked the following question. “I interviewed, I evaluated and we enrolled a student at our school and now we are hearing that they have particular learning needs. Our concern is, is that we cannot meet this child's needs, but the child is enrolled. Now, what do I do? What do we do legally and otherwise?” Janice and Caryl?

00;30;30;27 - 00;31;03;26
Janice Gregerson
From the legal perspective, and that's the million dollar question, what we want to do is assess, “Ok, what do the needs really look like?” Let's have an evaluation done. Let's have the child seen by someone perhaps we request the child be seen by someone of our choosing. If we're concerned that whomever the parents might choose may be the neighbor up the street, that happens to have the degree that is needed to sign off on the reporter or something of that nature.

00;31;03;26 - 00;31;28;27
Janice Gregerson
And then we engage in a discussion with the family about what we're realistically and reasonably able to provide within the context of our program. And sometimes the end result of that discussion is that this child has a need that we just can't provide, and then we are counseling them out. And then that moment we - that is a hard conversation to have with a family.

00;31;29;26 - 00;31;54;24
Janice Gregerson
And in that moment, we want to be compassionate and we want to be kind and supportive and, you know, it's very common for the schools that we work with to suggest programs that might be able to support their child and might be able to offer some additional assistance from the legal perspective. But that's certainly could be other things that are done in that process.

00;31;54;24 - 00;32;10;04
Janice Crampton
Right. And from a legal perspective. From a legal perspective, are you able to, in the spirit of the use of the word counsel out, are you able to not extend a contract predicated on this information?

00;32;10;20 - 00;32;38;03
Janice Gregerson
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely you are. I mean, if the child isn't able to meet the basic expectations of the program or able to perform, I should say, or function within the basic framework of the program without making significant modifications, then the law says that we're able to counsel out or you know, sometimes we have had situations where we've done that midyear,

00;32;38;03 - 00;32;40;08
Janice Gregerson
in fact, where it would have been inappropriate to wait.

00;32;41;02 - 00;32;49;03
Caryl Frankenberger
In this situation, can the school say, “Do you have an evaluation that would shed more light on your child?”

00;32;49;07 - 00;32;51;05
Janice Gregerson
Yeah, absolutely. In that situation.

00;32;51;05 - 00;32;51;24
Caryl Frankenberger
That’s important.

00;32;51;29 - 00;33;15;19
Janice Gregerson
Right. It's all part of that interactive process that back and forth dialog of assessing, okay, if the child has a need, okay, what precisely is the need, what, you know, beyond just the label of the diagnosis, what how does this manifest for this child? Caryl, to your point that you were discussing earlier and how can we support them and are we able to do that within this, within our framework?

00;33;16;19 - 00;33;42;17
Caryl Frankenberger
Yeah. And I think there are questions that you can ask to get at that information without having a diagnosis. I mean, you can ask questions about how somebody reads or processes language or how they write and what the process is. And through the questions that you ask, you can glean a lot of information that would help you to understand that this student maybe really couldn't write a five page paper.

00;33;43;08 - 00;33;50;23
Caryl Frankenberger
You know, they'd be better suited writing a three paragraph essay. Those are the kinds of questions that we tried to pose in the course.

00;33;51;10 - 00;34;16;26
Janice Crampton
Yeah, that's great. That's great. Well, Janice and Caryl, I thank you for your time today. Again, in the spirit of Ask AISAP, we had so many questions coming in from this perspective of what can we ask when we ask? And if someone tells, what can we then follow up on? And there will be many more that will come forward from this particular topic,

00;34;16;26 - 00;34;56;21
Janice Crampton
“Understanding Diverse Learning Profiles.” But again, thank you all today for joining us. For those of you who are interested in becoming or receiving a certificate truly diving deep into this topic, I urge you to go to AISAP.org and learn about the modules, the asynchronous learning as well as school-wide training that can happen with Caryl and her team because knowledge is in fact something that will not only set you up for success, but will allow you to not work from a place of fear.

00;34;56;21 - 00;35;01;20
Janice Crampton
So thank you so much, Janice and Caryl. Any sort of closing thoughts or remarks for today?

00;35;02;21 - 00;35;18;20
Janice Gregerson
Man, I just I - don't work from a place of fear. My goodness. That's what - we cannot be hamstrung by fear. We can't be hamstrung by risk. We can't be hamstrung by the prospect of a lawsuit or an investigation because it just paralyzes us from doing what we need to do.

00;35;19;01 - 00;35;19;28
Janice Crampton
Absolutely.

00;35;19;28 - 00;35;26;21
Caryl Frankenberger
Absolutely. And we're all diverse learners, each and every one of us. We you know, we're all different. So.

00;35;26;21 - 00;35;32;20
Janice Crampton
Exactly. Exactly. And Caryl learned about my diverse learning profile working with me on this certificate.

00;35;32;20 - 00;35;34;01
Caryl Frankenberger
A new mind.

00;35;35;04 - 00;35;36;12
Janice Crampton
Anyway, already, hey, this has been great.

00;35;36;12 - 00;35;50;11
Beth Amann
Do you have a question about admission and enrollment? Send us an email at ask@aisap.org. Ask AISAP.