Understanding PPTs and Supporting Students with Special Education
A Primer for Paraeducators - October 2015
Rebecca Rudnick Santiago, Esq. Partner, Shipman & Goodwin LLP
Ravit R. Stein, Ph.D., BCBA-D, EASTCONN Director of Psychological & Behavioral Consultation
Attorney Santiago:	I’m Rebecca Santiago from Shipman & Goodwin.  I’m a school lawyer and I am here with . . . 
Dr. Stein:	Hi, I’m Ravit Stein.  I’m a psychologist and BCBA and I direct the Psychological & Behavioral Consultation division at EASTCONN.
Attorney Santiago:	And the two of us are here to speak to paraeducators about understanding PPT meetings and supporting students with special needs.  In light of the recent changes in the legislation, it’s anticipated that paraeducators may be attending PPT meetings more often than they had prior and in light of that, we thought that this training would be helpful.  Some of the things that we’re going to discuss in this training are the laws and guidelines protecting students with special needs.  We’re going to discuss what is a PPT meeting, a Planning and Placement Team Meeting?  What happens at a Planning and Placement Team Meeting?  What is some important background information to know about a PPT meeting and what are the roles that a paraeducator might play?  What are the best practices in supporting students at Planning and Placement Team Meetings?  And we’re also going to discuss confidentiality which is, of course, an important legal principle to be aware of in attending a PPT meeting.  So we’re going to touch base about the laws that require us to be confidential and then we’re going to make certain that all the paraeducators who have listened to this training know exactly how that impacts them and how they can best support the district and maintain those legal requirements.  
	So, when we’re talking about PPT meetings, it’s important to know the laws that set forth the definitions and require us to hold such meetings.  The first law that pertains to PPT meetings is the IDEA, Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act.  And that is the law that requires us to provide special education to students with special needs.  Under that law, what we are required - what school districts are required to provide students with special needs - is a Free and Appropriate Public Education and later in these slides, we are going to define what that means and then where that Free Appropriate Public Education is codified is in an Individualized Education Plan, or an IEP.  Many of you are familiar with these documents but we’re hoping today is that we’re going to go into a little better detail so you’ll know exactly what the elements of those documents are and can participate meaningfully in a Planning and Placement Team Meeting.
	So who is covered under, in a PPT meeting?  First of all it’s children who, by reason of certain types of disabilities, need special education and related services.  What is special education?  Special education is specially designed instruction, at no cost to the parents, intended to meet the unique needs of a child with a disability.  So what I like to think of that is it’s modifications to the curriculum as opposed to just support.  It’s - specialized instruction is instruction provided to students where the actual content has to be modified in some way.  You have to teach it in a little bit of a different way in order to make the student understand the content.  That’s what special education is designed - is defined as under the law.
	What are the eligibility categories?  For a student to be eligible for special education as opposed to just generalized support in the classroom, special education under the IDEA is provided for students who meet certain eligibility categories.  You have to fit into one of these categories in order to be eligible for services under the IDEA.  So one of the things that happens at a PPT meeting is we discuss whether or not a student meets the definition of one of these eligibility categories.  So those eligibility categories are autism, deaf-blindness, deafness, developmental delay which is a category that only applies to younger students three to five years old.  After five years old, this eligibility category is not applicable.  Emotional disturbance which sounds harsher than it really is.  People - students in the emotional disturbance category are students often who have depression or anxiety.  Any sort of category that would prevent that - that would have them have an emotional disability that impacts them over an extended period of time to a strong or marked degree is the legal definition.  Hearing impairment, intellectual disability, multiple disabilities.  So sometimes you have students who meet many categories.  Orthopedic impairment, other health impairment.  This is something like any disability that affects their - that affects a student such as ADHD falls in this category.  Ravit, can you think of another one that I’m forgetting right now but . . .
Dr. Stein:	Some other chronic illnesses that could impact the student’s ability to . . . 
Attorney Santiago:	Alertness.  It’s generally alertness that it impacts.  Physical impairment, specific learning disability, speech or language impairment, traumatic brain injury, visual impairment including blindness.  So those are the categories.  Once a student is determined to meet one of the categories, then the next thing that’s important, that happens at a PPT meeting as we discussed, now that we know the student’s eligible, what services, what modifications.  We talked a little bit before about how we’re going to need to modify their curriculum.  So what is it that we need to do to modify their program in order to make sure that they can access their education and benefit from their education?  And the standard under the law is FAPE or a Free Appropriate Public Education.  And what that means is that it has to be reasonably calculated to permit a student to derive educational benefit and that comes in two parts.  The first part of determining whether we provide educational benefit is the question - it’s a procedural question:  did the district meet procedural requirements of the IDEA?  And then the second piece is a substantive question:  did the district offer a substantive program designed to confer an educational benefit?  
	So the first prong, the procedural one is: did we do what we were supposed to do?  Did we hold the appropriate meeting?  Did we have the appropriate people at the meeting?  Did we involve the parent as we’re required to under law?  Did we meet our confidentiality requirements?  Did we conduct evaluations that meet our legal requirements?  All those procedural requirements that are part of the law.  And then the second prong is the substantive part.  Did we offer a program that really did allow that child to succeed and to have benefit?  So then we’re looking at students’ grades, we’re looking at how they’re functioning, you know, are they functioning well emotionally, are they functioning well academically, and that’s the second part of the test.  So that’s what we need, so when we’re looking at a PPT meeting to try to come up with a plan for a student, we’re thinking about those two prongs.  We’re making sure that we’re doing everything appropriate procedurally and we’re making sure that we’re offering a good solid program that’s going to result in educational benefit for that child.
	And the way we codify that is we put it in an IEP, Individualized Education Program.  All students covered under the IDEA are provided FAPE in their IEP, and the IEP has several pieces to it that you might hear referred to at a PPT meeting.  The first one is that there is going to be a plan, a written - the document is going to describe what exactly those services are.  That document, that IEP that we’re referring to, is a legal document so it’s important to know that whatever is put into that plan, we are legally, the school district is legally required to provide and if it isn’t provided, then there could be a claim from the parent saying that the school district has violated that legal obligation.  So obviously it’s very important that we think about what we put into the plan and that we make sure that what’s written in the plan is something that we all agree is appropriate, is something that’s meaningful, and is something that’s obtainable.  You wouldn’t want to put something in a plan that either the district couldn’t provide or that the student couldn’t succeed in.  So that’s important to understand that it’s a legal document.  The document though is not set in stone.  An IEP is something that can change over time, because just like students change over time, these are kids.  These are kids that grow and change and improve and so of course we wouldn’t want a fixed document that never changed.  So we review it at least annually and whenever we review it, it’s always at a PPT meeting where that’s the legal setting where we have a discussion about the plan and only in that legal forum, in that PPT meeting, can we write this legal document that defines the student’s program.
	So what are the major components of an IEP?  The one important page is the prior written notice page.  This is a page of the IEP that spells out for a parent what decisions were made at that meeting.  It records what actions were proposed by the team and also what actions were refused.  So if a request is made by a parent that the school district doesn’t agree with, that would be noted as well as things that the team agrees are appropriate and that’s provided in writing as a part of the IEP so that everyone is clear on the outcome of the meeting.  The present levels of performance are another important part of the IEP.  This defines the current skill level of the student that’s being discussed.  It discusses the areas of needs of the student so strengths and weaknesses are defined on that page and we want to make certain that that’s clear and measurable because the present level of performance defines the goals and objectives, which is another important part of the IEP.  So wherever there’s a weakness noted or an area of disability noted on the present levels of performance, there should be a goal and objective that mirrors that and addresses it.  So those are two important parts and we want to make sure that both pieces are very clear so that everyone again understands what’s being addressed and understands exactly how it’s going to be measured so that everybody has an understanding of how we’re going to track that progress that we just talked about under the FAPE standard.  
	Accommodations and modifications are also addressed.  So just as I had said before that some - that when people receive specialized instruction we’re modifying the curriculum and teaching it in a different way, we can also provide accommodations which wouldn’t change the curriculum or the actual teaching but it would provide some support.  So for instance, we might put someone in the front row of a classroom.  That’s not changing the actual way they’re instructed, but it’s putting them in a place in the classroom that would aid them in being able to understand the material and access the material.  So those things are also noted and there’s all kinds of accommodations.  It depends on what the individual student requires but those are also documented in the IEP.  And then finally there’s the service delivery grid which is a chart that outlines the specific amount of services provided to the student.  So if the student met with a resource - met in the resource room for one hour, had speech services for half an hour a week and OT services for half an hour a week, that would all be noted in the chart.  Whatever is appropriate for that individual student, but again it’s a legal document, it clearly defines what that student receives and it’s a part of the IEP.
	The implementation of the IEP.  Obviously if you have a legal document as I said before, we’re obligated to implement it and make certain that the student receives those benefits that are carefully crafted at the PPT meeting.  So that document, of course, has to be accessible to anyone who’s responsible for its implementation.  Meaning the people who need to provide these supports need to know what they are.  They have to be informed of their specific responsibilities to implement the IEPs and the specific accommodations that may be in their purview.  But we’re going to talk a little bit later about the legal requirements with respect to confidentiality because just as the IEP has to be accessible to those who have a legal obligation to implement it, it shouldn’t be discussed with people who have no reason to know about it because this is a confidential document about a student’s disability and about a student’s services at school, and while it might be appropriate to address that with somebody who needs to implement it or with the parent, it certainly wouldn’t be appropriate to discuss it with someone who doesn’t have a need to know that information.  And what that standard is called under the law is a legitimate educational interest.  Only those with a legitimate educational interest should have the IEP or really even have the elements of the IEP that are applicable to them.  It may be that even parts of the IEP are not provided to a person because those don’t affect them.  But we’re going to have a little bit more discussion about that later, but I certainly wanted to flag that when we’re talking about implementation.
Dr. Stein:	So now we’re going to talk a little bit more about what actually is a Planning and Placement Team Meeting.  What is the purpose, who’s involved and what roles do those people have and then we’ll learn a little bit more about what happens before and during a PPT.  So the purpose of a PPT is to review the referral to special education, current evaluations and information and to determine if additional information is needed to determine eligibility for special education, and really so that means that the PPT can have more than one purpose and so coming into a PPT as a paraeducator, you may want to be thinking and understanding about what the purpose is of the PPT that you’re attending.  Is it a PPT that’s looking at reviewing the findings of some assessments or are we looking at just looking at progress over the past year or is it, you might have heard the word triennial which means that the PPT would be meeting to look at the student’s growth over the last three years where there might be more formal or comprehensive assessment.  So understanding the purpose of the PPT that you would be attending is an important facet of the process.
	The members of the Planning and Placement Team are varied and they are varied in order to ensure that we are making sure that everyone that is supporting the student is involved.  So we begin with the parent and guardian who is always a part of the process, the student when appropriate.  This is based on developmental and chronological age as well as whether it’s relevant for the student’s voice to be there, but typically older students will join their PPT meetings.  General educator, even if a student is in a self-contained setting that’s very specific to their needs, there still may be a general educator at that meeting for thinking about when that student is included with non-disabled peers.  Special educator that’s supporting the student.  Again, one or more than one may be present.  A district representative who can help facilitate the PPT.  In your school it may be the Director of Pupil Services, it may be a Principal or an Assistant Principal or other person who can facilitate that process from the district perspective.  The individual - an individual who can interpret evaluations, so that may be your school psychologist or a social worker or a sped teacher depending on the evaluations that are taking place, an OT, Occupational Therapist, Physical Therapist, etc. depending on who - what evaluations were done, we want to make sure that the individuals that evaluated or could interpret those evaluations are present to be able to do so.  And then finally, others who have knowledge or expertise related to the child.  So if there is another individual who may be involved, I’ve had PPTs where a community member that was working with the student after school may be helpful and of course, based on the new legislation, a paraeducator may also be joining that team.
	So the role of the Planning and Placement Team is to always support students in what we call the Least Restrictive Environment.  So you may have heard the term LRE, and basically that is that to the maximum extent possible, students with disabilities are educated with their non-disabled peers.  We know that students need specialized instruction if they’re students with special needs and, as Rebecca mentioned earlier, some specific modifications to their instructions.  We also know that they benefit from spending time with non-disabled peers.  So we’re looking to make sure that that time is maximized.  So during that Planning and Placement Team Meeting we may plan and, as Rebecca mentioned earlier, evaluate, develop or revise that legal document, the IEP, and also look at what the placement is in terms of what the specific programming and supports would look like for that student across settings.  And the reason you see that as a cycle is because it is a process where we’re always coming back and making sure that when we engage in a specific placement and programming and supports that it’s meeting the needs of the student and that they’re able to meet their goals as identified in the IEP and that we reframe and evaluate what the placement looks like.  So we think of it from an expression of planning before placement because we want to make sure that we’re thinking about the student’s specific program and what they need and what the goals are before we look specifically at where that will actually take place.  So the IEP, that legal document, really needs to guide what the placement would look like and what those supports look like.  
	And so then now that we have an understanding of what the purpose of a PPT is and who may be involved, we also want to think about what our best practice is in supporting students at PPTs.  So we’re going to talk a little bit about logistics of PPTs and how we prepare for them before and during them and some frequently asked questions about the PPTs.  So PPTs are typically facilitated by a district representative with input from all stakeholders as we noted in an earlier slide that you saw.  There’s many different people that can be there and a PPT as I mentioned earlier can be held to either review the findings of an evaluation or reevaluation which may also be called a triennial.  Review current programming and I mention this because you can hold a PPT to look at programming at any time.  It does not need to be at the year, the annual review or the triennial.  If there’s conversation to be had about current programming, a PPT can be requested and that meeting framework can happen at any time and that can be requested by a parent or it can be requested by the district depending on what the needs are.  Following a suspension a manifestation meeting is a time where a PPT is convened to understand better the behaviors behind that suspension and then assess whether that was due to the student’s disability and if it was, what we’re doing to follow up to ensure that we can meet - the student can meet with more success in the future and then finally later on in student’s educational careers, we may convene a PPT to discuss the Individual Transition Plan and this is when students are moving from high school to looking at some more adaptive skills in the ages of 18 to 21.
	So we want to make sure that you walk away with an understanding of what your role as a paraeducator would be prior to the PPT as well as at the PPT if you were to attend one.  One of the most important things you can do prior to a PPT is speak with your supervisor about thoughts, input, any questions that you might have if you’re asked at the PPT to reflect upon your work with the student.  So this would be a very good time if you have concerns about the way that programming or supports look to speak freely about those with your supervisor prior to the PPT so that you can figure out how you might move forward and make those decisions and be, as we put it, on the same page as you’re walking into the PPT.  I also noted that it’s a great idea to really come from a strength-base perspective.  PPT and the IEP for the student, the Individualized Education Plan, is a place where we both look at what the student needs for additional supports but we also are looking at what that student’s strengths are and how we can use that student’s strengths to help guide programming.  So I think it’s important and helpful to really be thinking ahead of time about that student’s strength and how you, as the paraeducator who might have possibly the most contact with that student in a day if you’re in a one-to-one setting where you work directly with the student all day long, to really be able to bring that to the meeting again, if asked.  And then with your supervisor, identify how you might respond to questions.  
	PPTs can be an intimidating place at times with a lot of people in the room.  They may also be intimidating to the family, but they can be intimidating for all.  They shouldn’t be.  They’re an opportunity for teaming and collaboration, but if you do find yourself in a position where you’re asked a question and you don’t know the answer or the answer is outside of the scope of your role, it’s always good to think with your supervisor about how you might respond to those before you get to the PPT so that again, everyone is prepared in terms of you, you know, passing the ball onto that certified staff member or other individual that may be better equipped to answer the question, or you feel more comfortable with someone else answering.  So good things to talk about before the meeting.  And finally, expressing your concerns, as I mentioned earlier, to speak with your supervisor prior to the meeting about those so that you can, together, identify next steps and that those don’t come up for the first time in the PPT.  
	And then at the PPT, just a reminder that there’s a lot of different people expressing opinions and sharing their perspective on the student’s growth and challenges, so respectful listening across the table is an important piece of those PPTs, and then in general all members of that team should be refraining from opinions and hearsay and really be using the data and the information that is gathered from the team as a whole to share what should be next steps.  So sharing information outside of the scope of your role or responsibilities would be inappropriate at a PPT.  And then finally, deferring to certified staff so, as we discussed earlier, if you’re thinking about what you can say if you’re not sure if a question should be answered.  So you might say something along the lines of “I believe Mrs. whatever the teacher’s name is, is best suited to answer that question.”  So that’s just one example of how you can pass that along.
	Rebecca’s going to follow up with some frequently asked questions that she receives in her practice about PPTs.
Attorney Santiago:	And I think these go hand in hand with some of the notes that Ravit just spelled out, but one question that I frequently get is: is voting required at a PPT meeting?  And the answer’s no.  Although there’s a lot of participants at a PPT meeting, it is not a situation where anyone’s going to be asked, raise your hand if you agree the student needs speech services.  Obviously, in the example I gave about speech services, certainly an important person to chime in on that would be the speech pathologist and so it would be perfectly appropriate in that example for the speech pathologist to say, I just did some testing and the results of my testing demonstrate that the child requires such and such with respect to speech services and can explain the data.  The other people around the table may not have a speech background, may not be able to participate in the decision and to the same degree that that speech pathologist is.  They might be able to give anecdotal data - well I see this child struggles with pronouncing these words - but they couldn’t vote in the way that, there wouldn’t be voting in any case, but they certainly couldn’t participate to the same degree as somebody who’s trained as a speech pathologist.  So no, voting wouldn’t be appropriate at a PPT meeting.  
	Is a PPT decision majority rule?  Similarly no, it’s not a majority rule.  One important thing to know is that the IEP, although it’s a team created document and it’s a collaboration, ultimately that document is a legal document that belongs to the school district.  So the school district ultimately has to make the decision that what they’re providing in the document is appropriate because they’re promising the parent that they will deliver those, and so if the school team does not believe a certain thing is appropriate, they shouldn’t put it in an IEP.  So it’s not majority rule because ultimately that school district has to make a decision about what to put in the document.  However, it is an opportunity for everyone to be heard and we certainly want input from the parent, we want input from outside providers, we want input from the community agencies where appropriate, we want input from staff that work but ultimately, the school district has to make a decision about what’s appropriate to offer to that parent and that child.
	Is it okay to disagree?  Of course, and in fact this does happen.  In a good PPT meeting it happens respectfully where you might hear a parent make a request for something, but as I noted, the school district ultimately has to make a decision about what they think is appropriate because they’re agreeing legally to provide it and they’re not going to agree legally to provide something they don’t think is appropriate, and in those circumstances you might hear the person chairing the PPT saying, after hearing the discussion at the table, we’re going to have to respectfully disagree on that and I’m going to note on the prior written notice page that we’re going to refuse that request.  It’s a respectful way to note that disagreement, but it does happen.
	What if no one talks at all?  This happens sometimes too where it’s a difficult issue but in those circumstances, the chair of the meeting usually tries to guide the conversation to the person who’s the most appropriate to answer that.  So in my speech pathologist example, for instance, if we were talking about a speech issue, that chair of the PPT may turn to the speech pathologist and say, well what does the data reflect, and then that person would respond to the issue.  So I would certainly leave it to the chair to decide if they think that information needs to be provided, they will ask you.
	A final thought on PPTs which goes along with many of the things that we just talked about and some of the things we’re going to talk about when we go into the confidentiality is that we want to think before we speak.  These, as Ravit noted, sometimes these can be intimidating meetings.  We certainly never want them to be though and one way to avoid making PPT meetings uncomfortable is to really think about how the listener, how the other members of the team will react to what you’re saying and some of the ways to avoid having any disagreement or uncomfortableness at a PPT meeting is to do some of the things that Ravit mentioned.  Come prepared, having already spoken to your supervisor.  If you think there’s something that could be contentious, mention it, talk it through because you may not be aware of all of the factors that relate to that issue, and having that conversation may bring you to a different position on that.  Think about how it might be heard by the parent too.  When you’re making comments at a PPT meeting, make sure that it’s supported by data, it’s phrased in a way that the parent would understand, because we want parents to feel included and we don’t want to create disagreement where there is none.  So, again, if you stick to the things that you have direct knowledge of, that are within your scope of responsibility, provide information only when asked to do so and listen respectfully and think about what you say and the way it could be interpreted by others, I think you’re very unlikely to have difficulties at a PPT meeting.
	Okay, so now we’re going to talk a little bit about confidentiality, which I have mentioned earlier but I’m going to provide a little bit of additional detail.  We’re going to talk specifically about FERPA which is the federal law that pertains to student confidentiality and education records.  We’re going to talk about who, where, what and why we would provide information regarding the student records.  So what is FERPA?  It’s the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and it’s the federal law that applies to recipients of federal funds.  So anyone who receives money from the U.S. Department of Education which is public schools and even colleges and universities, and what it does is protects the confidentiality of student education records and it says that those entities, those recipients of federal funds, those public schools, those colleges, those universities have to keep confidential the information that employees know because it’s documented in student records and it limits the ability to disclose any information which might be stored in student records to any third parties unless we have specific parental consent.  
	So what is an education record because I just told you that we’re talking about information that might be contained in education records when we talk about confidentiality under FERPA and the definition is very broad.  It’s any record that’s directly relating to a student and maintained by the educational institution.  So if it directly addresses that student and it’s maintained by the school district, it’s going to be an education record and that includes family data, 504 plans, progress reports, conferences, video tapes, written accounts of information by a parent to a teacher, by a teacher to a parent, and one really important thing to understand that is also covered is electronic information.  So information stored on cell phones, email, voice mail recordings, those would also be education records if they directly relate to a student and are maintained by the district.  So if it’s a school cell phone and it has information that directly relates to a student, that’s going to be an education record and so we want to make sure that we’re careful, and we’re going to talk about that in greater detail in a moment.
	Email is an electronic record obviously, and emails sent as part of your work, or using the district network, are not private communications.  So what that means in a practical matter is that if you send an email as part of your school day to a parent, to another colleague, that becomes a record.  Either a public record under the Freedom of Information Act, which I’ll talk about in a moment briefly, or a student record under FERPA.  So you shouldn’t have an expectation of what’s written in there as private and, of course, since it’s not private we want to be very careful about what we put in those documents.  
	I referenced Freedom of Information Act.  As a public entity, documents stored at a school are public records that members of the public can request to have made copies of.  If they’re student records, they’re covered by FERPA which we just discussed and so that wouldn’t be released, but even if it didn’t talk about a student, so let’s say you were able to maintain the confidentiality, other documents would be disclosable under the Freedom of Information Act.  So there are two opportunities for your emails to be disclosed to the public or to a parent and we want to make sure for both of those reasons, that we’re very careful.  What I always say is whatever you write in an email, make sure you would be fine saying face to face to a parent.  So if it’s something that you wouldn’t say to a parent face to face, don’t put it in an email, please.  And if it’s something that is a concern, talk about it with someone face to face.  It’s always better than putting it in an email because no matter what we do, emails always tend to get misconstrued and so we want to be very careful.
	So I referenced a second ago that they could be records under FERPA.  They may be retrieved as part of routine monitoring or investigation or formal discovery process as part of litigation.  So what happens a lot when I have special education litigation is the first thing the parents’ lawyer does is ask for all emails including from paraprofessionals, paraeducators and if you’ve put something in there that you ought not, it’ll become Exhibit A in that litigation and there’s nothing worse than having to be on the stand and explain why you made a derogatory comment about a parent.  It’s just no fun for you, no fun for me, no fun for the parent.  So let’s try to avoid that, if at all possible.  And we don’t want to include student names in the email about other students because that makes it even more complicated.  So you certainly wouldn’t want to reference any students, if at all possible.
	So confidentiality rights as a general rule, all personally identifiable information must be kept confidential unless a student or a parent consents in writing.  I referenced that earlier.  Written consent has to actually specify which records are allowed to be disclosed and the purpose of the disclosure and who it’s able to be disclosed to.  So without that kind of consent, we can’t disclose it.
Dr. Stein:	So I just wanted to add just a couple more points about email from a school based perspective, and the first is just that at times emails will go a long way whether forwarded or cc’ed to other people along the way.  So it just may also be a good practice around that confidentiality piece and insuring that student names are not in the email, to make sure that you’re, unless necessary, removing the long string of forwards that may or may not exist under the email that you respond to.  Just because it ensures, again, confidentiality around that email and then at times even if the name of a student was mentioned by someone else, that’s a good reason to perhaps either remove it from your response or continue to model best practice by responding just with the first initial or just saying the student just so that others who may or may not be realizing that including those student names may be a breach of confidentiality, can learn from your great example.  
	So to speak a little bit more about who do we tell.  A way to think about this from a day to day perspective might be to ask yourself, is the person I’m considering sharing information with someone who’s working in collaboration with me or other professionals and/or the parent to serve the needs of the student.  So we come back to legitimate educational interest.  So is this person - is sharing the information with this person going to help me and this person work together to serve the best needs of the student?  Is this a person who’s likely to use the information to benefit the student and other students?  So am I giving this information so that things can get better in terms of improving outcomes?  And finally, is the person who’s likely to use the information to prevent harm to the student or other students.  So these are the things that we want to make sure we can answer correctly in terms of, yes, in terms of when we would share information.  If we can’t say that the person we’re sharing with would be receiving the information in order to do these things, we would want to consider whether it’s a good idea to share that information.  And similarly, again, schools are busy, busy places and we want to make sure: is the place where I’m sharing the information a private place?  So we typically step aside, we do the best we can to step into an empty room and close the door if we need to share specific student information.  I do know that that’s difficult in schools, so doing the best you can to find yourself a private place to speak about a student’s programming is best practice.  If it’s not, if the information you’re sharing in the public place is necessary to ensure immediate safety or prevent harm, then that would be a situation where we would - it would be understood that you would be sharing that in a public place, but there are times where educators and paraeducators are speaking about student programming and trying to confer on next steps and doing the best we can to ensure the confidentiality of the student when we’re doing that is really important.  
	And finally, what/why do we tell?  So similar to where and who do we tell, is the information I’m considering sharing a generalization rather than a repetition of statements?  Am I, you know, looking at the things that I have and making a generalization or am I actually sharing the specific information?  Is there enough information so that the person can understand what’s going on in the situation and can be able to help?  So how do I share the information in a way that’s the most helpful and is there enough information so that the person understands how to benefit and support the student?  So when we’re thinking about the information that we’re sharing, we do want to also make sure that we’re sharing it in a way that’s beneficial, that tells us what we can do next.  So similar to what Rebecca mentioned earlier, something to ask yourself around, you know, would I want to share this over email or would I say it in person, if I’m saying this, is it definitely something that will be beneficial for the student?  
	So finally, just to pull everything together, we hope that you’re walking away from this training recognizing that there are a number of laws and guidelines protecting students with special needs, that you have a framework for understanding what is a PPT, a Planning and Placement Team and what does a PPT meeting look like, how you can be a meaningful, supportive part of that process before and during the PPT as well as throughout your day-to-day work that you’re working with the student in terms of supporting confidentiality and best practices, because we know that all educators and paraeducators are really just looking to support what is best for students and make sure that they can reach their potential and get the most meaningful outcomes every day.
	So we thank you for your hard work with students and we hope that this has been helpful for you.  If you have additional questions, both of our emails and telephone numbers, as well as the websites for the places we work, either Shipman & Goodwin or EASTCONN Regional Education Service Center are listed here for you and we welcome any questions or follow-up comments you may have following this training.
Attorney Santiago:	Alright.  Thank you for being with us.