OTS 28: Preventing, Defending, & Conducting an Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE)
- Jayson Davies
- Apr 15, 2019
- 31 min read
Updated: May 7
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Welcome to the show notes for Episode 28 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast.
In this episode, Jayson interviews School-based occupational therapist Danielle Delorenzo. Danielle is originally from New Jersey but made her way out to California via an unsuspecting vacation. Upon moving to California, Danielle was shocked at the number of Individual Educational Evaluations (IEEs) that occur and soon found herself on both sides of the table at IEPs.
Listen in as Jayson and Danielle provide an introduction to IEEs and how to prevent them, defend against them, and even conduct them as an IEE provider.
EARN PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
You can earn 1.00 unit of professional development by listening to this podcast and purchasing the episode 28 podcast PD opportunity here.
Objectives for this Professional Development Podcast
Listeners will:
1. Learn the primary reasons that lead to parents asking for an Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE) and what they can do in an attempt to prevent IEEs
2. Understand what an IEE looks like in a real situation and learn how to approach an IEP meeting when an IEE is being presented
3. Learn the basics of providing and conducting an IEE as an outside evaluator.
Links to Show References:
Have a question for Danielle? Visit her website at
Be sure to subscribe to the OT Schoolhouse email list & get access to our free downloads of Gray-Space paper and the Occupational Profile for school-based OTs.
Have any questions or comments about the podcast? Email Jayson at Jayson@otschoolhouse.com
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Episode Transcript
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Amazing Narrator
Hello and welcome to the OT schoolhouse podcast. Your source for the latest school based occupational therapy tips, interviews and research now to get the conversation started, here are your hosts, Jayson and Abby. Class is officially in session.
Jayson Davies
Hey everyone, and welcome to the OT school house podcast. This is episode 28 I want to say a special shout out to everyone who was down in New Orleans for a OTA, unfortunately, I didn't make it this year, but I look forward to seeing all of you next year in Boston. I hope everyone made it home safe, and if you didn't go, I hope you had a fantastic weekend and are still having a great week. In episode 27 of the OT school house podcast, Scott Harmon and I briefly touched upon iees, or independent educational evaluations, and how he, through his clinic, provides iees for school districts on a contract basis, for the schools and for the parents who request them. Moving into this episode, we're going to actually dive into iees a bit deeper with a good friend of mine, Danielle de Lorenzo. Danielle is a fellow school based occupational therapist who not only has experience with preventing and defending against ies, but she has also actually conducted many of her own ies herself or other school districts. We're very fortunate to have Danielle joining us today to talk about ies and allowing us to provide you with one hour professional development in the online distance learning category. You can learn more about how to earn that professional development unit by heading over to the show notes at ot schoolhouse.com forward slash episode 28 for this episode, or at ot schoolhouse.com forward slash PD, and where you can find any of the other seven episodes that we offer professional development for, because today's episode does qualify as a professional development podcast. We do have a few objectives that we want to go over, and that is that you will learn the primary reasons that lead to parents asking for an independent educational evaluations, and what you can do about it and attempt to prevent these ies. You also understand what an IEE looks like in a real situation, and learn how to approach an IEP meeting when an IEE is being presented. And last but not least, you'll learn the basics of providing and conducting an IEE as an outside evaluator. Again, be sure to head over to OT schoolhouse.com. Forward slash episode 28 for all the show notes on this episode and to earn your professional development and now, as we dive into our interview, I want to say a quick thank you to doubletimedocs.com for sponsoring this episode of the OT schoolhouse podcast. Doubletime Docs is a software designed to help you write comprehensive ot evals in half the time. Use promo code OTs H 20 to get 20% off your first order of evaluations now. And with that, please, welcome to the show. My friend and fellow occupational therapist, Danielle de Lorenzo, hey, Danielle, and welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today? I am doing well. How about yourself? I'm doing pretty done well, enjoying our Monday off from school based. OT, yeah, today off too, right?
Danielle Delorenzo
I absolutely did awesome.
Jayson Davies
Well, real quick, I know Danielle because she's a fellow occupational therapist down here in Southern California, works at a district a few cities over, but not too far, and she's actually doing some really cool stuff. And we're gonna get into that a little bit, but first I'm gonna let her actually give you some background, you know, kind of how she became an OT and what she's up to these days.
Danielle Delorenzo
So I am from New Jersey, and I started out as an ABA therapist when I was 18, and I met some pretty amazing people in early intervention, fellow OTs and PTs and speech paths. And I think when I met the occupational therapist, I fell in love with what they were doing and what they were all about, and I knew that I had to go back to school to become one, and I did.
Jayson Davies
Wow, so you weren't. It's funny, because everyone when they get into OT, there's very few people that are like, I was a junior in high school, and I knew I was going to go to OT, right? And so it sounds like you were kind of, you were in the therapy realm, but you weren't necessarily OT.
Danielle Delorenzo
At first, I didn't even know occupational therapy existed or what it was. And when I was in and I was in early intervention at that time for about seven years, and I was a supervisor, as in, like, doing ABA therapy, and that's when I started working closely with OTs, and I was like, What do you guys do? And it was when I realized that I was doing a lot of sensory based techniques without even knowing it, and then having that behavior background, and then learning about the whole sensory aspect of what occupational therapist did. It was like, it was like, my calling was like, I knew I had to do this, and I was like, I wish somebody would have told me when I was in high school, before I got to college, or I would have got to hear about this amazing profession that no one still to this day, I feel like is. This understands what we do. It always requires further explanation, of course, but, but, yeah, it was, I didn't even know it existed, and I was like, this, this is amazing, but imagine eight years. It took me seven, eight years to find it.
Jayson Davies
Wow. So were you? You weren't a BCBA, though, were you?
Danielle Delorenzo
I was not. I was contemplating becoming a B, C, B A, until I found occupational therapy. And it was I, it was a very my, my company at the time, they wanted to pay for me to go to school to get my B, C, B A. I was in Philadelphia, and it would have been great, but I decided to still work as an ABA therapist, and I went to school at Philadelphia university that's now Thomas Jefferson. They are the Falls campus. So it was a weekend program that allowed me to still work and go to school. So three years, and then I started doing OT and early intervention in the schools right out of grad school.
Jayson Davies
Wow. So we got lucky. You came to the OT side rather than the
Danielle Delorenzo
cool, still, the best decision I ever had, but the behavior background comes in handy that I can ever express, I bet.
Jayson Davies
And we love our abas here. Yes, it's a blessing when we can work together with other types of therapists and love abas. I know me too. So how did you work your way out here to California then?
Danielle Delorenzo
So interestingly enough, my father, who is retired, is a writer in his hobby, and himself and his business partner, Maria, they had a documentary that they were working on about a group of dancers in Brooklyn, and the film actually got entered into the Riverside International Film Festival. So we got to come out here in 2015 for the first time to Cali for 10 days. And my husband and I just traveled all around and literally went back and was like, we should move here. Like it snows all the time. It's breathing. We didn't have any kids. We were about to try to buy a house back east, and we were like, so should we're young. Let's just honestly, we woke up every day for like, a month, and we're like, do you still want to move? And we're both like, yes. And literally, move that summer, best decision we ever made. We're never going back.
Jayson Davies
Wow, yeah, that's pretty cool. And so you were already an OT, though, before you moved, right? I was already an OT and moved you had to do the whole license switch over.
Danielle Delorenzo
I did. I My first job was a contract position with the east valley SELPA. So they helped me, kind of just they put me in touch with it. But it was actually one of the easiest license transitions I've ever had. Moving from Pennsylvania to New Jersey was way harder than New Jersey to California. Oh, okay. It went very smoothly. I got it all worked out, and then I immediately started working about five days after I arrived here.
Jayson Davies
Wow, that that worked out pretty well. I've heard some people have a lot of difficulty with their transferring of license, or when they're trying to get multiple licenses for telehealth or something, it can take some time, but yeah, sounds like you had it all figured out. Cool. Well, let's jump into today's topic, actually. And today we're going to talk about assessments, but more so we're actually going to talk about iees. And from my pre conversation with Danielle, it sounds like ies are a little bit different across the country, and so I'm excited to hear a little bit about ies and the assessments, and I'm going to let actually, I'm going to let Danielle introduce what the term ie even stands for, for those of you who may not know.
Danielle Delorenzo
Okay, so IEE is an independent education evaluation. And as you know, as the idea states, what it is is, you know, every parent has the right to an evaluation at the public expense. So at any point in time, they can ask for an OT eval, a speech eval, a T assessment, psycho educational assessment. And then, in addition, a parent has the right to ask for an independent evaluation if they disagree with the current assessment that has been done on their child. However, it is up to the district as to whether or not they are going to, in fact, grant an IEE, pay for an IEE, or support the district's evaluation, or whatever that whoever they hired to do that evaluation. So it's kind of very interesting, because I didn't realize I ease even existed until I came to this side of the country, because I they never really got that to that point in my experience back on the east coast. So this was a whole new world to me, the independent education evaluations.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. And some of the terminology that often goes along with iees isn't good terminology, words like advocate, lawyer. What are some of the ADRs, Alternative Dispute Resolutions, things that just don't sound so friendly sometimes are associated with iees. And yeah, yeah. And so you're doing so you work at a school district right now, currently I do, and you're also doing ies, kind of not as part of the school district job, but potentially on the side a little bit.
Danielle Delorenzo
No. So whenever you work for a district, you are not able to do an IEE for that district. However, a fun fact is, let's say so there are three occupational therapists at my district. If they let's say I did an evaluation and the parent asked for another assessment, we could essentially have another therapist from our district do that evaluation. But as for a public, like private, like another outside agency, you have to do it for district, a different district than where you're fully employed. So I'm on the IE list for the Riverside SELPA San Bernardino City, couple other districts all throughout and I really I'll do it on my time off, or a lot of the schools have different, varying breaks, so they don't happen too often, and the factors surrounding them vary so much that it's definitely not something you could depend on. It's more of like a pop up random like oop, there's a phone call now it's going to see if it's going to be an IEE, because sometimes it takes several phone calls back and forth, because it is the parents right to choose who they want off of a list of the district that is offering the IEE. So essentially, it's just a matter of a waiting game to see if you are the name that they pick, and then if they actually, in fact, move towards the IEE, because sometimes mediation occurs to where it's not needed.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and is it true that they have to take it right off the list? Because I've heard of some people where they just kind of go and pick their own evaluator and say, yeah, thanks for your thanks for your list of these OTs. But I'm gonna go with so and so.
Danielle Delorenzo
So I think it varies from district to district as to how that IEE actually comes into play, which is why it makes it so varied and so different depending on the circumstances that the IEE has come about in the first place. Typically, an IEE comes about because some trust was broken. Something occurred, maybe a procedural issue, time issue, something happened where parent is not happy. District wants to make parent happy. How do we offer a free and appropriate public education offer, which would also include iees or an assess, or an assessment, at least, for sure, because you're denying FAPE if you don't move forward with doing any assessment when concerns arise? So it's there are things that occur behind closed doors that are well above therapists and psychologists, you know, like our above our pay grade. But I think in the simple terms of it, it should, it should go about where there's a list you should pick off of that list. But I think there are always exceptions to the rules, as we all know in the wonderful world of special education, from a school based perspective.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely, and it's always, it's always frustrating when you know you put your effort into this, what you think is a great assessment, and then it just gets you know, you go into the IEP, you present your results, you go over the occupational profile, the standardized test, informal observations, and that stuff. And then you get to your the end of your assessment, and you know, maybe you say, Oh, I think that this student needs one time a month, OT or No, ot at all. And they're doing fine, and then at that point, the parent, the advocate, whoever it might be, gets a little quiet sometimes or vocal, but a lot of times, I don't even know that there's been an IE requested, and because it doesn't always happen at the IEP meeting. Do you experience that?
Danielle Delorenzo
I do. I think that. You know, I think it can happen at any time. So I've experienced it where I've handed an assessment to a parent, they flipped to the back of the page, and before the IEP even got started, they already asked for an IE because I. Not recommending services or not recommending enough services. And, you know, we all know there are rules to follow in an IEP, you have to be able to go over present levels, present levels, drive goals, goals, drive services, services, drive placement, and so forth. So, you know, sometimes you have that happen, or then you have you go through the whole entire thing. They get real silent, you leave, and then all of a sudden, there's an IE meeting, and you're like, oh, okay, luckily at this district, we are very, very aware and in tune, but that's because we have worked very hard on our prevention and education to our teachers and our administration as to what our OT policies and procedures are. I don't think that's always the case, especially when you have districts that hire contractors. So that also leads in a whole nother ball game, because if you don't have your own people, then you're entrusting another agency, and then you have a parent saying that that's not okay. So then they just go out and do something else, and then all of a sudden you find out that you have X amount of comp hours that you have to do. Because sometimes I ease happen and settlement agreements happen, and you don't even know about it until you get an email or somebody's like, hey, this kid now has to be seen for 30 hours in this amount of time. And you're like, but I didn't even recommend occupational therapy. I'm so confused. And I think especially after this training, our, you know, our lawyer is phenomenal. She gives these great trainings, and it was a favor over faith training. And I have to say, you know, she says an expression, is this the hill you want to die on? And I really like that phrase, because it's not about favor over faith. What it's a matter is, you know, if you could get your assessment in a little bit earlier, because the parents requesting it, do you do that? Because it's just going to help the build the bond and the trust and make it move forward and possibly end up where they'll end up, you know, having this awesome collaboration. Or do you fight for those like extra days, because it's in your within timeline, and you really have to assess each situation individually, hence the IEP of by nature. But I think the most important thing is, when you're doing your report, every report that you write has a chance to go to court, and when it goes to court, your name, your license, your experience, it becomes a public document. So we owe it to ourselves, because we've all worked so hard to obtain this license. You know, we are the experts, and when we go in, we have to be able to express what our findings are to parents that might not be ready to hear what we have to say. And that's and that's important, to be able to separate those emotions so you can remain cool and collective and report your findings that you know you did a good as long as you know you did right by your student and you did best practice, you will be just fine. However, it's when maybe not everybody else on the IEP team was making those same decisions. Or because if one procedural error happens, unfortunately, sometimes it doesn't matter how great our reports are we might end up in an IEE when it has nothing to do with us. Yeah. So that's, I think that happened everywhere, yeah. And it's going back to that prevention. How do you stop it before it even starts?
Jayson Davies
Yeah? And it's funny, because we ended up being in a lawyer training the same day with different lawyers. But right, one of the takeaways that I had was that, just like you were saying, you know, it often comes down to the parent says, hey, I want an IEE, and we'll just say it's an OT, for today's sake. And then the school's like, actually, we think our report is pretty darn good. We're not going to grant you their IE, and they come back, the parent comes back with their advocate and lawyer and says, Well, if you're not going to grant us this IE, then we're going to start pointing out all these missed sessions. We're going to start pointing out all these little clerical errors almost in the IEP that can then be even more difficult for the district to defend. And so they're like, Sure, we'll give you an OT IE. Tell us who you want to do your IE. And so you're right, it kind of you could have a good report, and it doesn't matter, because they have the right to request an IEE, no matter what that said. Another takeaway, the last one I'll talk about right now, it was that they could not request an IEE until the district has done an assessment.
Danielle Delorenzo
Absolutely or even, which is interesting, because this came up at our training too. And it was a fake scenario about, first off, I almost, I almost had a I had to, like, stop myself, because when I was listening to the scenario, I was like, Oh my gosh, I hope this never happened. So, so the scenario was, Mom requested an assessment. OT made an assessment plan. Further along the meeting, when it got heated, ot went to hand mom the assessment plans. She said, No, I'm going to have somebody else do it outside. OT ripped up the assessment plan. So now I'm like, jumping out of my chair because I'm like, never, ever rip up an assessment plan. You know, especially with these new court cases that have been coming up, we have to show, without a reasonable doubt, that we are trying to do our due diligence over and beyond to get this child assess. So instead of ripping up that ot assessment, what the OT should have did was present it at a different time. Keep presenting it. Present it as much as they possibly can, because then if the mother went and got another eval and didn't sign that when it went to court, that would be findings where we wouldn't have to reimburse now, if we rip up an assessment plan, we're absolutely denying fate, because we denied the chance to be able to assess in the first place in the suspected area of disability.
Jayson Davies
Exactly. Yeah, it's the district's responsibility to assess and whether or not the parent agrees to it, oh, I should say, if they don't agree to it, is then the district's responsibility to actually file yes a case against the parent saying, hey, State of California, we feel that this assessment needs to happen. Basically, you know, it rarely comes down to that, but that's, that's what would actually have to happen. So when you rip up that assessment plan, it's like, you never offered.
Danielle Delorenzo
Exactly, and then you're gonna end up probably having to, oh, or even more, because you've denied FAPE, and then it's just like, ah, then you're in that hole. Well, it doesn't really matter what happens or what's supposed to be right at that point, something, a mistake has already been made. Unfortunately,
Jayson Davies
absolutely, all right, so let's jump into the next area. We're gonna talk about being on the side of an evaluator of an IE. But first, let's talk about kind of defending yourself against an IE, you know. So you're the occupational therapist you gave your report, you know, two months ago, three months ago, however long it took to do the IEE, and now you're sitting in this room again with another occupational therapist sitting, you know, around the table with you, and they're presenting their own IE, what are some of the things that you know you need to remain calm, obviously. But what else can you do when an IE is being presented about the student first?
Danielle Delorenzo
And the most important thing that I like to do is I like to look through the report. Most often you're getting it right there, so I'll skim it and I'll look at the observations to see number one, if they actually saw the child within a school setting. So often, a lot of these iees have never even set foot in the classroom. So our lawyer has instructed us to ensure that we have questioned the amount of time that the outside assessor has spent within the classroom, and note that in the comments section of the IEP, so if it does go to due process, she has more of a leg to stand on defending our skilled observations. That's why it's very important to write skilled observations everywhere in every assessment, because that makes it way different than a teacher's observations. Yours are your specific skilled ot observations. So in addition to that, how many days did they take for testing? How long were the testing sessions? Where were the testing sessions? And also ask them why, if they are recommending services, why that is the what was their rationale, and if it fits within a school based model, you know, we have our OT PT guidelines that specifically express how educational OT is very different than medical based occupational therapy. Yet, a lot of IEE recommendations fall along the lines of clinical recommendations in addition to clinical therapists completing these IE, so if you are able to touch on a few of those points, it helps just defend how your assessment is a true assessment of the child in their educational setting, because That's what an educational occupational therapy assessment comes down to, is the child able to access all areas of their education, and do they need any support in those educational occupational therapy related areas of the core curriculum, like and how they can do that. So a lot of these assessments have a lot of stuff in. Between and are very theatrical, but when you can cut it down to the core, why do they need this much therapy? What? How do you know they weren't accessing it by this, if you weren't even in the classroom and so forth? So really, just think about all of this. Is this could go to court. So what do you want in that legal document, as how you defended against somebody that's challenging they're not necessarily. Got to remember, it's not challenging your report. It's taking an outside view of what you see. That's what an IEE should be going into the school, taking everybody's things out, and saying, Does this kid need ot or not in a school setting, and what would help them you know?
Jayson Davies
Correct and, and I don't want to make it, you know, we're not bashing against iees. This is why we're going to get into the second part of this IE, where Danielle has actually presented several ies, and so she's going to talk a little bit about that side. But it's just kind of the nature of these meetings, they have a us versus them mentality,
Danielle Delorenzo
they do. And that's sad. That's so sad.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and it's great. I've been in, I've been in a few ies where, you know, the the findings come back, and the parent requested a psycho educational, a PT ot speech, and 95% of the reports like they mesh. They were their report sounded very similar to my report, right? And, and the findings were similar. The recommendations were similar, and, and so that does happen does, but occasionally you get some of those meetings where it doesn't happen like that, and these the the evaluators often come in and they have, well, they have recommendations that sometimes seem a little over the top, to put it that way, and it sometimes just doesn't seem like they really have necessarily a school based model in mind when they're talking about their evaluation and the recommendations, right?
Danielle Delorenzo
And, you know, I think, unfortunately, in my experience here in California, I've been on more of those, you know, us versus them. And then when I actually get the iees, like, when I had one with a psycho Ed, they were like, the everything that everyone's doing is great. I love this. And I'm like, see like this. This is how you build that continuity of care and build trust, because there's a reason why the parent is asking for another evaluation in the first place. So whether it is the district defending yours or having somebody in and come in depending on the circumstances, I think as long as anybody who's doing iees Has the mindset of, I'm going to go in here and give this independent, clear assessment of where this kiddo is and what they need to succeed, whether that Be OT or not, and try to bridge that gap of that mistrust to maybe put a little bit more confidence into the district. Now I've also had it where I've had to do an IEE, where certain people weren't recommending and then I recommended some type of service, and then ultimately you just report and you leave. It's then up to the district and the IEP team to determine what the level of service, what the goals are. You can make any suggestion that you want, but your job is to report out and then say what you think would be great, and then that's it. Your job is done. Yeah, that's true.
Jayson Davies
So I want to take a quick step back. We talked a little bit about defending an IEP, but also like going back to even before that, preventing and one of the things that you can do, and I think some people will have, they get very attached to the reports, and they're afraid to make a revision to the report, and remember that you can make a change. Say, you get to your IEP and something's not right in your IEP, you can make a revision to your evaluation and work alongside with the parent to make it okay. I'm not saying to change something that you know is right, but you know you're going through your report and there is something that isn't quite right, you can say you're right. That's not quite right. I will make a correction to my evaluation. We will put on the IEP that this was revised on this date, and then give it to the parent. And even just by doing that, you can build trust with a parent, which then can ultimately, potentially prevent an IE, yes.
Danielle Delorenzo
Absolutely. I mean, I don't think people realize it really can come down to those minimal, literal clerical errors that sometimes are the reason why we end up in this mistrust in the first place. I have been. To so many IEPs or reports have different names on it or different standard scores, but you're absolutely right. Own your mistake. That's what builds trust. If you've made a mistake, own it, revise it and submit it with the changes that are appropriate, because then a parent is going to see you as a human. They're going to see you as they're not going to sit there and keep defending something that is inaccurate. It happens. It's mistakes, like we're all it's all human error, you know. So I think that the most important thing is to just own it, and what can you do to move on? I think so often we try. I've seen in the past districts try to move forward without owning what they've done and and that's going to lead to more ies and things that are even bigger than ies, you know what I mean? And I've seen things really de escalate when people just start to talk and build those relationships and say, Okay, this might have been wrong, but let's try this.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely so I think we've kind of covered that. I mean, are there any things in a report? I guess maybe a few things that absolutely need to be in your report to try to prevent one of those kind of more clerical errors.
Danielle Delorenzo
So, you know, for us, we made this template where everything that has a name or an age or a score is always highlighted in yellow. So anytime you go to type that in, it has to be different. We also don't copy and paste art. We start a brand new template with each new child, because that just automatically eliminates the fact that you could duplicate any information. And then, in addition to that, I think what's super important is, you know, having skilled observations, putting the dates. And then the other thing, that's just something really nice, to make sure you're right. Your assessment the date the assessment plan was received, within your template for that, because then what it shows is that it was already within the timeline that it allotted. Because sometimes parents like to cancel IEPs and push them past their timelines. But if you try to give yourself some grace and try to set up like those three IEP meetings with ample amount of notices for those conference notices to go out. You're already saying like, Hey, I have this amount of time. I'm filling in those blanks. Also, you know, typically when you are either recommending or not recommending services, that's the other thing that we put in highlighting. Because sometimes I've seen reports where they don't recommend services, but in the report it says recommending services. So I've seen no so I've seen a couple, but like, it's, it's template errors, it's cutting and pasting errors. So I don't do it, and honestly, it's it. It eliminates the those clerical errors. And then I always follow along on the computer, and when I'm reading it down, and if there's an error, I make a change, immediately, take all my copies back, reprint it right there, and re sign them all. And when I know they're official, because you know what happens.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely and even what you just said, make sure you're signing and also, most recently, in our district, we've started dating, making sure that we date where signature is as well. Yes, so All right, so moving on. Then, now, kind of flipping the role to an IEE administrator or evaluator, I should say, yes. What? Let's start with, what does someone need to do in order to be an IEE potential evaluator?
Danielle Delorenzo
Okay, first things first, you need professional liability insurance. That has to be your step one, because everybody who asks you to be an independent contractor via an IEE will ask you for professional liability insurance. So the real cool thing is, if you're an A OTA member, I think it's around $200 a year through marsh and pro liability. So you could get that real easy. The next thing is, you're gonna need your own assessments and your protocols, because you know you have to have them. Now, is it expensive? Yes. But after you do 203, I ease all of your equipment is paid for. And then you have your assessments for life. They're not going anywhere unless somebody comes out with an amazing new motor test for school based besides the, yeah right, the bot three. But you know, I think your standard assessment, so your bot, your ravma, your ths, your handwriting, you know, the handwriting without tears, check readiness, the Peabody, all the sensory profile, sensory processing measure. I prefer the sensory processing measure over all of them. I just really. Like how they break it all down and apply it to different school areas, as well as having, like, your own informal assessment tool kit, that's another important thing. So when you have these kiddos that are more on the severe, profound side, you might be looking at a multi sensory level. So you want to make sure that you have a variety of sensor like different tactile inputs and other stuff like that, such as, like bubbles, different materials, sand, like that, stuff, just so you can get an informal sensory eval from that, which can really go a long way when you're looking at those foundational skills that are necessary for them to access their education. And you know, even though you might not be recommending services, you could be recommending an amazing program that the teacher can follow through with to help support those foundational skills.
Jayson Davies
See. So we got the insurance, getting some assessment protocols, what else?
Danielle Delorenzo
So we need a template. So you have to have your own template. Now, it took me a couple of years to really narrow down my template, and I feel very happy with it. And why I like it is because it encompasses everything. See as an IE, you could do whatever you want, you can put whatever information you want to include, or you could not include, but what you're trying to do is get that occupational profile of that student, what their areas of concerns are, what goals they're not able to meet, and what areas of their education they cannot access. And I think having a nice template, I like to use some color in it. I like to make it clear. I like to give I don't like it to be overwhelming, so like I try to keep my I ease to under 20 pages. But I also will add informal checklists, tools to grow. Has some amazing early skills, childhood checklists, and like, K through six checklists, those are really good informal assessments. So I like to add those and within your template, your own parent questionnaire and teacher questionnaire, just because that's pretty much, you know, especially if it's a home kid OT, because either way they're going to be having a home hospital teacher or the teacher at the school, we Need a rate sheet. You have to be able to give an overview of your hourly rate if you're going to be all inclusive, if you are going to go per hour, if you're going to charge for mileage, what your phone rates would be if you're going to attend an IEP via phone. And lastly, it's I like, networking, because I ended up on the riverside SELPA via like, three different connections that led me to somebody, that led me to somebody that was like, Oh, hey, I know this person. You're I'm gonna do an email. So
Jayson Davies
if you're gonna be an IEE evaluator, that's kind of like being an entrepreneur. And so just like any other having a business, even if it's just, you know, a few ies a year, you have to network so people know who you are, that you exist and that you have, that you're producing good reports. And like, like Danielle talked about earlier, there's a provider list, and if you're not getting selected, even if you're on the provider list, and you're not getting and you're not getting selected, then, well, it's not going to help your cause. But if you network, you know, because a lot of times people aren't just getting an OT IE, and so maybe they're getting a psycho educational IE, then that person who's evaluating the kid says, Oh, you need an OT one. Oh, I know. You know Danielle. She's good with she does really good ot evaluations, right?
Danielle Delorenzo
Yeah, and that kind of happened in Palm Desert. I got a random call that said, you were recommended. I wasn't even on the Palm Desert ie list, but somebody heard about me. I don't know how, but they called me up and they were like, we've heard that, you do, I ease, and they asked me a bunch of questions, and that was that. So it's, it's, I don't ever know how people get back to me, but, you know, I was an IEE for the district that I am working at now, when, after I left the district. So after I left them, they still wanted me to come on board as an IE. So that's what I did for them there, until I became you know that happens.
Jayson Davies
But that means that they liked you as an IE evaluator. I'm sure they're gonna like you as a as an OT there. So good earlier, you mentioned skilled in skilled observations. Yes, as an IEE, you can get on campus and do all the observations you need to do, absolutely.
Danielle Delorenzo
All you have to do, really, what, how I go about doing it is I contract the district office. I like to do a chart review. I think it's insane that iees Don't do. Chart reviews. I was told that I was one of the first ies that have ever reviewed charts. And I'm like, Well, I don't know the kids. So how else am I going to know them? Unless I look at their previous, you know, did they get ot before? Like, you know, it's just like a regular assessment. So if you contact the district and you say, Hey, I'm going to be setting up visits at this schools. You set it up at the school, you set it up with the parent, you set it up with the dates, and you go and you pull them out, and you get an area at the school, like that's it's almost like they don't they shouldn't have to come to you. Is it like you need to go to their setting? That's what you're assessing, not how well they can do in your office. You know what I mean. You're assessing how well they can do in their natural academic setting.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and just because they don't have to go into the school to do an evaluation, I would say that as an IEE, you're more likely to be well, you're gonna have some more credibility among the IEP team, if you have gone into the school and seen that kid, and potentially even, like she said, do the actual assessments on campus, because that is the closest thing to the natural environment that they're going to be in. And so, yeah, that makes sense to me. I like that you do that, yeah.
Danielle Delorenzo
I mean, I just, I don't really understand how you can't do that. It doesn't make sense to me. So that's why I feel like, anybody who's ever asked me, like, how, like, that's, that's my proto and I talked to the teacher, I talked to the parent, I, you know, and that's, that's who, whoever they give me permission to speak to, I will speak to. And then the other part that I like to include is I'll have a section that has educational recommendations, and then I'll put in parentheses specifically related to the educational setting. And then I'll put non educational setting, because a lot of the times I will get severe, profound kiddos specifically. And if you couldn't tell that is my love it's my favorite practice area, I have been working with that population since I was, oh gosh, years, over 18 years. But you know, there are some medical options for these kiddos that maybe the parents don't know about. So as an IEE, you can still educate, you can still empower. You can still say, Hey, I know this clinic that takes this insurance, and maybe they might, you, maybe you should get, like, a, you know, a kid that's in and out of the hospital, maybe some home. OT, home. PT, for transferring for your tub, your shower, like that stuff. And I think that's where to, you know, a lot of the times these parents are like, they're not giving me OT, but they need help. Yes, you're right. They do, but not in an educational setting. So an IEE can really help divide that and say, Hey, listen, look, here's from an educational setting, but listen, what you can do on your own time. Stuff that the school is not responsible for is x, y and z. That makes
Jayson Davies
sense, and that's cool, because as as an independent evaluator, you can do that, versus as a school based therapist, if you come in and do that, you're probably gonna get some interesting looks.
Danielle Delorenzo
You're not allowed to do that really. Let's just, let's just be for rank. You have to be like, and maybe you should consider the possibility of maybe talking to your doctor like you can. It's so hard to help when you are in a school district wanting to give recommendations outside of a school setting. We all have that medical background by nature, by our trade, by what we do, and we all know those kids that we would love to get in a clinic and be like, I can help you.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, well, plus, we're the ones who know that clinics actually exist, versus a administrator or a teacher that doesn't have a kid with special needs and so absolutely. Alrighty, well, is there anything else you wanted to talk about?
Danielle Delorenzo
Ies, you know, I think my biggest thing about IEE is that what I would love is to see ies looked at as a more positive type of intervention, where, if you're getting an IEE, then this is a situation that really needs for some relationship building and for some trust to be re established, and you can really help bridge that gap together. And I think most importantly, you know, as I like to call us educational occupational therapists, you know that that's my thing, because you know that that way people really start to see us as components of access to students education, rather than you're going to put my kid in a clinic and make them better, and they're going to be able to do great at school, and it's like, there's we could do so much more. And you know, that's why I think it's that prevention, and it's that RTI model, and if we are using a lot more respect. Response to Intervention and following that MTSS multi tiered system of support and educating our administrators and our principals and our teachers as to what OT is, what we do, and even just that phone call, because, you know, right before an IEP, hey, I got a parent that might need ot, let's figure out how we can do this. Let's just talk. Sometimes it's just a simple phone call or an email that says, hey, let's talk about some things before it even gets to an IEP. So I think if I could leave everybody with a message of just trying to look at iees and a little bit of a happier light and just really focusing on all the things that you could do before, and know that even if you've done everything, it still might not be your fault as to if it does end up going to an IE. And know that like, you got to separate that personal nature, because it hurts. It hurts to get yelled at by a parent. It hurts to get told that you don't care about a student, or that your report is horrible, and I don't know what I'm talking about, but you have to realize that there is something that is going on that is much deeper than your report, and it has nothing to do with your report. You are the expert. Trust your schooling, trust your judgment, and do best by those kids and make sure to do a lot of mindful practices when you do have those high, intense situations, because it's not about you, and you just got to keep bringing it back to the student.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and the lawyer will tell you exactly the same thing, that you're the professional, and you know, they they're not an OT. The lawyer is not an OT, the judge isn't an OT, the parents, not an OT. But if you don't see yourself as a professional, then no one else will. And so you absolutely, you see you completely view yourself as a professional and be confident in your report. Absolutely. So great. Well, Danielle, it was great having you on the show for people that may want to reach out to you. Do you have a website?
Danielle Delorenzo
I do. It is mornings with an OT mom.com, and it's the same handle for Instagram and Facebook. Awesome.
Jayson Davies
And you'll see us every now and then the OT school house. We give them a give Danielle a shout out over it, with an OT mom. So be sure to find her on on Instagram. She has a little one, and she's taken care of right now, but she she takes some time to put some post out there for everyone. So thank you so much, Danielle, for coming on, and we'll see you next time.
Danielle Delorenzo
Yes, thank you so much for having me. This was super fun. Take care. Bye.
Jayson Davies
Hey there. It's Jayson again. Thank you for listening to the OT school house podcast, a big special. Thank you to Danielle de Lorenzo for coming on the show and sharing everything she knows about iees and how we can prevent, defend and even conduct them. Be sure to check out the show notes at ot schoolhouse.com forward slash episode 28 and also there you can learn how to earn one unit of professional development for listening to this podcast. Until next time, have a great one. Bye, bye.
Amazing Narrator
Thank you for listening to the OT school house podcast for more ways to help you and your students succeed right now, head on over to otschoolhouse.com Until next time class is dismissed.
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