Episode 31: Special Education, Is Not a Place, It Is a Service

On today's episode, I welcome my guest, Christopher Conklin. This is part one of our conversation. Join me as I welcome Chris along with Fred from NJCIE. We discussed Chris's 30 years as an educator and we found out his thoughts on the topic of what characteristics make a good leader.

Transcript

Arthur: This is the Inclusion Think Tank podcast brought to you by New Jersey Coalition for Inclusive Education NJCIE, where we talk about inclusive education, why it works and how to make it happen.

On today's episode, I welcome my guest, Christopher Conklin. Chris is the superintendent of the Caldwell-West Caldwell Public School District in New Jersey. This is part one of our conversation.

Join me as I welcome Chris along with Fred from NJCIE. We discussed Chris's 30 years as an educator and we found out his thoughts on the topic of what characteristics make a good leader.

Arthur: I would like to welcome everyone back to another episode of the Inclusion Think Tank podcast brought to you by New Jersey Coalition for Inclusive Education. I'm your host, Arthur Aston, and today I'm joined by my guest, Christopher Conklin. And thank you for joining us today. And we're also joined by Fred. So, Fred, thank you for joining us for this conversation as well.

Chris: It’s great to see everybody and meet you for the first time. I've known Fred for several years now, so it's great to see him again.

Arthur: Yes. So to start off our podcast episodes, I usually begin with a version of the same question. So can you first share with us a little bit about yourself? Tell us who you are, what you do, and something you like to do for fun in your free time.

Chris: Sure. So I am in education for over 30 plus years. I know it's hard to look at my gray hair. I'm prematurely gray, so I'm really only 35 years old. And I started in my profession at five. But seriously, I've been in the teaching profession for over 30 years. I started as a teacher in Jersey City. I went on to get my first master's degree in special education as a learning disability teacher consultant, and I did that in Jersey City for a few years.

And then I moved from there to Bridgewater. While I was finishing up my time in Jersey City, I finished my second master's in Administration. One of my principals thought I would be a really good administrator. I wish I could track her down now and tell her, Please don't have that conversation with me. If I had a way to go back in time, I would do that and say, Don't have that conversation with me.

I think I would have preferred to stay on the child study team and finish my career there, but I did not. I finished my master's degree in administration and went from Bridgewater after a short time at the Department of Education as a director of special services out in Haledon Public Schools, Manchester Regional Schools and then after about three or four years, I left there and went out to Hackettstown, where I was the director of Special Services and then also the interim principal at one of the elementary schools.

Chris: After about six years there where I did a lot of work in inclusion and really found my footing in terms of what I thought was appropriate to start transitioning away from pull-out resource. So that was really when I moved that philosophy, that thought into action was to eliminate resource room as a place and really created special education as a service that went to where the students were.

We weren’t a full inclusion district because I still believe that there are students who need intensive, specific interventions that really can't be effective delivered in in a mainstream setting. So those students still need a setting where they can get those services. But for the majority of students that we service, those students can be supported and educated in a general education classroom.

I actually left Hackettstown and became the assistant superintendent in Edison Public Schools, which is the fifth-largest school district in New Jersey. And I brought my philosophy there. We slowly transitioned away from these resource room segregated settings for the students that could be supported in a Gen-ed classroom. And within four years, 90% of the resource rooms K-12 were eliminated.

And I say this in terms of special education director hat, without one lawsuit. So that means in the fifth largest school district in New Jersey, we moved away from these segregated settings into a more inclusive setting for 90% of the students that are being serviced and not one parent decided to sue us.

Now, that doesn't happen by accident. There is a lot of support and services and professional development that is part of that process. In Edison, as I've done in my previous school district, all the special education teachers K to five were trained in a specialized program that supports that is basically Orton Gillingham based.

Chris: So that means that it's multi-sensory approach to reading. So that was really important. So that way I could confidently say that every single special education teacher K to five is trained in this program. And then we started recognizing the need, and I've always recognized the need, but really specifically on the Gen-Ed side to make sure that the kindergarten, first and second grade teachers were trained in that same exact intervention strategy. So that way we reduced the number of students that are actually coming into special education because we were discovering and I continue to discover that there's an overrepresentation of students that could be serviced with just interventions, and hey really don't need to be in special education.

So we kind of approach it from both sides, from the gen-ed and the special ed side. I for some reason, and I'm still figuring this out, decided that I should get my doctorate. And again, if I could go back in time and talk to myself, I would say, Self, don't do that.

But I did it anyway. And I actually finished, my doctorate in 2019, and I did my dissertation specifically about New Jersey and the Dyslexia law. Do teachers, Do they really understand what dyslexia is, and does the professional development provided actually help them intervene and remediate for students with dyslexia?

Chris: I’ll give you the synopsis of 201-300 actually page document. We don't and the law is great, but it actually doesn't do the thing that I think it was designed to do. So, again, I think that goes back to IDEA. It's supposed to fully fund and support special education nationwide and we're funded about 10%. So again, the law is great, it's a great idea.

But the actual action is not always what it needs to be in order to support the students that it's designed to support. So we as a school district, wherever I am now, I'm the superintendent in Caldwell, We make sure that we do provide those supports. We do provide that professional development. I do recognize the need to provide that specialized training in Orton Gillingham multisensory approaches to reading, and then layer that with things through maybe 5% panel or other trainings like Wilson

So if the initial interventions aren't successful in the elementary school, we have alternative ways to support students as they progress through the public school system.

Chris: So that's pretty much where I am. So in 2023, I'm the superintendent of the Caldwell-West Caldwell Public Schools. Going into my third year, I have two master's degrees and I have a doctorate. So and I'm still paying for some of that.

So, yeah, that’s who I am.

Fred: Chris, let me reiterate some of the things that you just said. What you were saying was that as you go through the process of making a more inclusive school, you're building up teachers both general and special ed instructional capacity to support all students in gen-ed environments or as many students and environments as possible.

Chris: So yes, you have to do that and you cannot provide the support services that are necessary to address such a diverse population unless both teachers have the skills and training to do that.

Fred: You also mentioned that you keep getting suggestions or advice that you keep taking, but may look back on a little suspect at some point. First off, I've been an admirer of yours for quite some time, and you make it look easy. You really do.

You managed to flow through these challenges and systemic change efforts very smoothly and very easily. So I, I for one would say that you listen to the right advice through the years. Is there any advice you're getting now that you're thinking about following? I'm curious what the next step is or in your parlance, the next mistake.

Chris: So I think right now, the advice that I that I'm always getting is to not add more to my plate. And I wish I would listen to that more often. One of the things we said nothing new in 22. So that was the goal for last school year. And of course, as much as I say, Oh, that's true.

Right. Absolutely. Well, what if we just add this component to it? How about we bring in this thing? We really should talk about this more. And then the next thing you know, you have this new initiative that you're starting because you saw a need. That's the one thing I would love to listen to myself more often and say, you know what? Maybe we shouldn't do that. Let's give it let's take a breather.

Chris: So that's the one advice I take. And sometimes I listen and most times, I don't. And then I find myself with another no initiative. And there's a lot that goes into that. As you were saying, Fred, these things don't happen overnight. I think I have a fairly well-established process that I've used in several school districts, and it kind of like lends itself well in terms of communication, in terms of transition, in terms of messaging, and then in terms of actual boots on the ground.

And who are we bringing in? What training are they going to provide us? And in this day and age especially, what's the bang for the buck? What do we get out of the investment that we make because we have a finite dollar amount. As much as the community thinks we have a money tree hanging in the backyard and we'll just go pick on it and pick at it and get all this extra stuff, we don't have that.

So, one of the things that I always try to focus on is like layering that professional development with components of technology. So we make sure that students have access to the things that they need during the school day and then after school. And that usually means that not only are we providing them with the teacher, the professional development, we're giving students 1 to 1 devices to make sure that if we can layer on supports and through computer programs, through even simple things like teacher websites or Google classrooms, we make sure that we provide that as well.

So. And yes, I hope the analogy that we always give, it's if you ever seen a duck floating on the water, you only see them floating there and you think they're really calm, but their legs are going a mile a minute, that's typically what I do. And most of my administrators that I surround myself with do as well.

I expect them to look like everything's fine. There are no concerns. Everything's working here, but their legs are just churning away to make sure that they stay afloat.

Fred: Well, I'm glad you I'm glad you ended with that because that is one of the questions that we have as well. I've known you for a number of years. What I find striking is the administrators who have worked with you in the past and are now leading as directors of special ed in different districts.

It's truly a remarkable group that really, really understands special education in New Jersey at a really granular level. So I'm curious what you do to attract folks like that, how you managed to find amazing people and what is it that you do with these people that adds to their knowledge base, adds to their capabilities because when we look at like Celeste Menorah, we look at Erin Madeira, just incredible administrators who really just knock everything they touch out of the park.

So what's what's the trick? What's the magic? What's the magic sauce?

Chris: Luck, I think, is that. No, I would say luck is one of the things. One of the process really starts when you're interviewing for these positions. So I typically focus on people who have experience from the child study team.

This is a very challenging position. There's a lot of moving parts. One of the major components of what happens in special education, what decisions are made in special education, often comes out of IEP team meetings. So I really want a basic knowledge base from there. So it's important that even if they weren't on the child study team, they at least have their masters degree that maybe has all that training as well.

Chris: But for the most part, I typically target people who have been on the child study team. That means that they understand the management side of special education as well as the instructional side. So that's a unique thing that I typically look for. I usually look for and this may sound a little odd, people who have the same personality, and the same desire to support students that that I have.

So when I'm interviewing them, I'll ask specific targeted questions in terms of what do you do in this situation? What would you do in this situation? How would you solve this kind of situation, to see if we have the same mindset. Because it's really hard to retrain someone who has other philosophies that aren't kind of aligned with yours.

So when I'm hiring people, even I'm thinking back to Edison, Dawn Netsell. Nancy Sica Those are people who really have a really strong grasp of what happens in special education and the process. Erin Madera talked about Celeste, like all of them have really, really similar mindsets that I have. And they understand the process and they understand how to provide the professional development to staff to move an initiative forward.

Chris: So that's kind of how I pick and choose. And then once they're working with me, we have a lot of opportunities for discussions. I give them a wide berth in terms of, Hey, I have this idea, how do I get it from A to Z? And then we could like flesh that out and talk that through. So I give them the freedom to make those decisions.

A lot of the things we did, especially in a big school district like Edison, was creating frameworks. So I let them lead that process to make sure they have the skills. One of the things that's important for me is I want to provide the training and supervision to the people under me so that they could do my job.

The idea being that at some point I'm not going to be there whether I retire, whether I hit the lottery or whatever I decide to do with my the next phase of my journey here, I want to make sure that I leave someone behind that can fill my shoes so I make sure I hire and groom people that have the similar thought process that I have.

Chris: So that's really what it is for me in terms of leadership, picking the right people that have the same philosophy as I have, and then giving them the skills and the freedom to kind of grow into their own leader.

Fred: Well, you know, being 35, you've still got quite a lot of time in this career.

Chris: Yes, I know, 35. I have a couple of years left.

Arthur: So that's that's really great. I appreciate what you've said to, you know, to prepare them to step in for it for you and to have the same ideas that you have and the same thought process and beliefs that you have. I think that's really, really important for creating the next the next level and the next generation of leaders to come after.

That's really great.

Arthur: You mentioned about the the resource center pull out model and how you are not really a fan of that for special ed delivery. Can you explain a little bit why that is? And what do you prefer to go in its place?

Arthur: This concludes part one of my conversation with Chris Conklin. Join me again in two weeks when we continue our conversation to find out why Chris is not a fan of the pull-out resource for a model for special education delivery and much more.

In the meantime, catch up on all previous episodes of the Inclusion Think Tank podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube. Also, be sure to follow us on social media at NJCIE. Until next time.