WEBVTT
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(rock music)
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Welcome to the Accessible Learning Experience
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where we help you turn learning barriers
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into learning opportunities.
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On this episode, we'll focus on the work of CITES,
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the Center on Inclusive Technology and Education Systems.
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at CAST. The mission of CITES is to empower school districts
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to create and sustain inclusive technology systems
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that serve all students,
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including students with disabilities
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who require assistive technology
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or accessible educational materials.
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After a brief introduction to the CITES framework,
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which includes family engagement
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as one of its inclusive practices,
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we'll hear from this month's guest, Yokasta Urena.
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Yokasta will share her perspectives on family engagement
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as both the parent of a student with a disability
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and as a professional in the field of education.
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The CITES framework includes practices
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to support inclusive technology systems,
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including practices focused on leadership,
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infrastructure, teaching, learning,
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assessment, and family engagement.
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Why family engagement?
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The research is clear.
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Implementing strong authentic family engagement practices
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has a positive impact across the board for educators,
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families, and learners themselves.
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Because of the demonstrated impacts
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and benefits of implementing family engagement practices,
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our federal partners encourage their use in law.
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ESSA, the Every Student Succeeds Act,
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requires schools to meaningfully engage
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the parents of all students
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and ensure they're giving input and influence
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in decision making.
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Taking that commitment a step further,
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the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act,
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or IDEA, requires that parents of students with disabilities
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are full and equal participants
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in their child's individualized education program.
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But special educators or even classroom educators in general
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aren't the only district services
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interfacing with families these days.
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Barriers for families and learners who use technology,
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particular students with disabilities and their families,
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arise at every level of this system.
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Direct service providers, paraprofessionals,
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classroom volunteers, teacher librarians,
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instructional coaches, and help desk folks
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can all be part of designing and delivering technology
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to students and families to access learning.
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It is with this concept in mind
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that the CITES family engagement practices
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elevate this critical piece
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of district technology implementation across the five areas
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of the CITES framework: leadership, infrastructure
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teaching, learning, and assessment.
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Unearthing these practices started with a literature review,
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then a landscape analysis serving over 300 family members
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of students with disabilities.
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And finally, focus groups with families and interviews
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with district teams that focus on quality family engagement.
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We invite you to learn more about the work of CITES
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on family engagement through the links in the show notes
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for this episode or by visiting the CITES website
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at CITES, C-I-T-E-S .cast.org.
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With this introduction to the work
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of CITES on family engagement, let's now hear from Yokasta
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as she shares her perspective on this topic.
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Hi, Yokasta.
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It's so great to have you
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on the Accessible Learning Experience.
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Let's get started by having you introduce yourself
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and tell us, what is your accessibility story?
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Hi, everyone.
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My name is Yokasta Urena.
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I am the daughter of immigrant parents
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from the Dominican Republic.
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I was born in New York, but I was raised
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between Dominican Republic and New York City.
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My accessibility journey has been a very interesting one.
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For my early years and into junior high school
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and high school, I had no accessibility during my schooling.
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Basically, my accommodations for my visual impairment
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consisted of a monocular,
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which is basically like a binocular, but for one eye,
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and carbon paper.
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So I had a note taker who would take notes
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and give me a copy of the notes.
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If my note taker was out, guess what?
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I was outta luck.
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So I wanna go back for a second
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and just speak a little bit about my visual impairment.
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So I have a condition called Leber's congenital amaurosis,
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and this condition basically affects the rods
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and the cones in the retina.
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Their main function is to capture light, perceive light,
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and transmit that to the brain.
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I'm very photophobic.
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I use sunglasses outside
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because I'm very sensitive to light.
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And I'm also near sighted.
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I use a cane in certain circumstances.
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I don't use it all the time.
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I use it to travel,
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mainly when I'm traveling internationally
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because I don't know the layout and the landscape.
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And I understand you also use a number
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of accessibility features in your technology.
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Tell us about that.
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I also use technology functions,
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such as Zoom, VoiceOver, inverted contrast.
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VoiceOver is a technology that allows you to,
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allows someone with visual impairment
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to listen to the information that's on the screen.
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But what becomes challenging for someone with low vision
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such as myself is that not every webpage
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has the function available for us to use VoiceOver.
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So for example, if the webpage is not coded
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to allow VoiceOver, VoiceOver will not work,
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and I will not be able to access that page.
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It's really important for content creators,
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businesses and organizations
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that are putting out information, to make sure
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that their web page allows for VoiceOver,
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because if it doesn't allow for VoiceOver,
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then I will just move on to another page
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and use that information that is accessible to me.
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Thank you so much, Yokasta, for that introduction
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and for highlighting the need for accessibility.
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And of course, on the AEM Center website,
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which we can share in the show notes,
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we have lots of information on how you can improve
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the accessibility of the content you create
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so that it works with VoiceOver.
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So I'm really excited for this conversation
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because you and I share a lot in common.
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You're the child of Dominican immigrants,
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I am a Dominican immigrant,
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and I also have a visual impairment
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that's very similar to yours in that it affects the retina
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and it affects the ability to capture light.
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But you know, both of us have been able to find success
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in school and in the workplace.
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So tell me a little bit about what you're doing now
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in terms of your career and some of your achievements.
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So when I came back from Dominican Republic,
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on one of my many trips back and forth,
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my year of college was not accepted in the United States.
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So I had to go back to school and get a GED.
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There's nothing wrong with getting a GED
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if that's where you are in your life,
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but it was very difficult for me
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because I saw myself going into a four year college.
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That was not possible.
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I had to get a GED and get an Associate's degree,
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and get my Bachelor's in psychology, Master's in education,
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a few post-graduate degrees in the field of education
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early childhood special ed,
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teacher for the blind and visually impaired,
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and now I'm in an ED Doctorate program
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at New England College.
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My journey in education has been a long journey,
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and it's been arduous with a lot of hiccups
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in terms of accessibility.
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But with every step I've taken,
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I've just become more determined
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to be at the leadership level.
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I want to see more change in the area
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of special needs and accessibility.
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And I feel that the only way I can do that
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is if I'm at the table making decisions, helping districts,
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helping organizations to really understand
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that accessibility helps us all.
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So right now, in terms of work,
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I'm working on the ED Doctorate.
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I'm also an early intervention service provider.
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So I work with children zero to three years old
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providing direct intervention,
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and also as a teacher for the blind and visually impaired.
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Well, I would say your experiences
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give you a very rich experience and background to draw upon
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for your work that you do, and we really appreciate it.
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And there's another wrinkle to your experience
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in that you are the parent of a child
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that has a disability as well.
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Can you tell us a little bit about that,
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and then we'll move into the topic for this episode,
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which is really the importance of family engagement.
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Yes.
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So Liam, I can blame him for going into special education.
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I was actually a psychology major.
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I wanted to be a clinical psychologist
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and possibly open my own practice.
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But when my son was born also with Leber's,
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it completely changed my career track.
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I saw how difficult it was to navigate
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the system as a parent.
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I saw the way that sometimes professionals spoke to me
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as a young mother with a disability,
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with a child with a disability,
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and I felt that I wanted to become his advocate
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and that I wanted to feel more,
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feel a sense of power.
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So I went into education
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and received my master's in education
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mainly to support him and his journey
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as a student with a disability,
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and also as a Latino in the United States.
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Well, I would say thank you, Liam,
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for inspiring you to continue your work as an educator.
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And I'm sure that many other children
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over the time that you've worked in education
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definitely are grateful for that career move.
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So we wanna get into the family engagement piece.
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As you said, your work is inspired by the fact
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that you yourself are a parent of a child with a disability.
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So why is family engagement so critical
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for students and teachers?
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Well, family engagement really breeds collaboration.
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I think that very few teachers would disagree with me
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when I say that having parents involved
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and engaged in classroom life
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and in understanding what teachers are doing
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in the classroom only helps the teachers
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and the administrators run their classrooms
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and their schools smoothly.
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Because when there's buy-in
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from the family, there's collaboration.
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Parents feel that everyone is on the same team,
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and that the main goal of the educators
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in their children's lives are to really help the student
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reach their fullest potential.
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If you had to share two or three tips
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that you could say to a teacher or a fellow educator
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that would promote family engagement,
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what would be those top three tips?
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My first tip when it comes to family engagement
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is keep yourself in check.
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And I do this myself, right?
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Keep your ego in check.
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I try to keep my ego in check as much as possible,
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because no matter how many degrees or certifications I have,
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I am not that child's parent.
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And we as human beings have the mama bear
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and the papa bear syndrome in us.
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When we feel attacked or we feel that our child
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is being attacked, we are going to react.
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So when you speak to a parent of a child
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that is struggling in your classroom,
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be very mindful of your tone, your body language,
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the volume of your voice.
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When a parent feels attacked, they shut down.
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And sometimes it's not our intention as teachers.
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Teachers are multitasking.
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We have a lot of things on our minds,
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lot of things on our plate.
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So sometimes we're not aware
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of how we're interacting with a family.
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Many times, we're interacting with a family
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at the end of the school day and we're stressed,
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and you know, all of these things,
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people have called out and we're short staffed.
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But please keep in mind that that parent
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is there to support their child.
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And if they mistake your tone
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for anything less than cooperative and collaborative,
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they will shut down.
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So keep your ego in check is number one.
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Number two, have an open door policy as much as possible.
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I've found over the years
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that having an open door policy actually helps me.
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It makes my job easier.
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When parents tell me what's happening with their child,
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I don't have to guess.
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So it really eliminates all the guesswork
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when I have open communication with parents.
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And the third piece of that kind of goes along
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with open door policy is include your families
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in your classroom community.
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I teach early childhood,
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so I have more fun, I think, than the kids do.
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I try to create events where I can invite families.
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Now that we have Zoom and that we have Google Meets,
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the events can also be virtual.
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Try to find ways, creative ways, to include families
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in your classroom life.
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They can be readers, they can be guest speakers,
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they can work on STEM projects with your students.
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You just don't know how rich of a culture
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you have in your classroom
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unless you extend that invitation to parents.
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Excellent advice.
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I would encourage everyone to take those three tips,
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these three excellent tips into consideration
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as you think about how to better engage families.
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So in addition to all the other things
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that you have going on,
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I understand that you worked for CAST a little bit
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as an intern supporting the family engagement research
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that has been done through the Center
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on Inclusive Technology and Education Systems, or CITES.
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So as you participated in that research, what did you learn?
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What did you take away from it?
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Were there any surprises that you wanna share?
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Wow, I took a lot away from CAST.
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I've been in education roughly 20 years now
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in many different roles.
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I've been a parent coordinator,
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so I've worked very, very closely
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with families over the years.
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I've been an advocate for students with special needs.
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I've been a classroom teacher,
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an independent service provider.
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So I've worn many, many hats,
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but I've worked many times on the side of the families
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and the students.
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So I had a view of education as one big system.
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I didn't really see it in terms of the CITES framework
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where education is really broken up into sections,
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like leadership and infrastructure.
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That was my biggest wow moment, right?
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That a leader in a school could have the best intentions
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for your child and he or she may want to get
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the accessibility technology for your child,
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but they may not be connected to the infrastructure piece
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or the communication between leadership,
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and where the infrastructure is coming from
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may be fractured.
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That was something that I never really thought about.
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I put a lot of the ownership on the school principal.
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And through my internship with CAST,
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I realized that there are many systems at play
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in special education.
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It is not just the principal.
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The district plays a huge role in what happens
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at the school level.
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Thank you, Yokasta, for sharing that.
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And we will share in the show notes a link
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to the research related to family engagement from CITES.
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But I just wanna follow up by asking you,
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how do you think that the CITES family engagement practices
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and the resources from CITES
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can impact schools and districts?
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Well, I love the resources from the CITES website.
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For example, under the Family Engagement Practices,
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we have the self-assessment and goal setting.
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I think that this gives schools and districts
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an opportunity to become increasingly more self-reflective
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in terms of how they are engaging with families.
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This is a great opportunity to really hone in
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on what is the school doing, right,
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as a community to engage families
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in conversations around accessibility?
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And I think it's almost like a safe space
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because this self-assessment
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can really be done privately as a school.
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So there isn't this fear of like,
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well, how are we gonna look to the district,
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or how are we going to look to parents?
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You can have an internal conversation with your staff
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and your parents in your own school,
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and then take it up a notch and engage other schools
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in the district in this self assessment.
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I think it's a great tool
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to really think about reflectively, what are we doing right?
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Where can we improve?
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So it's a good way to be self-reflective
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and not feel like you're under a microscope,
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but really look at it from a school community,
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or if you're ready, at the district level
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to look at how your district is doing
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in comparison to itself, really.
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How were you doing last year?
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How are you doing this year?
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It's a great way to keep track of data
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in relation to how you're engaging families.
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And we'll go ahead and share
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the family engagement literature review that CITES has done
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as one of the resources in the show notes,
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and we also encourage everybody to visit the CITES website.
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Yokasta, you do such great work.
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So how can people stay in touch?
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Where can they find you?
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Well, I'm trying to become more social media savvy.
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So for now, you can find me on Instagram @Beyond20201.
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So it's Beyond2020 and the number one at the end of that.
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Great, and I encourage everyone to follow you,
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and I can't wait for you to finish your doctorate
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and all of the great work that you're gonna do
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in promoting accessibility,
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promoting greater family engagement
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and just moving the conversation forward
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so that the needs and the preferences of people
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with disabilities like ourselves
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are more part of the learning environment
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and more considered when designing learning environment.
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So Yokasta, thank you so much for joining us
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on this episode of the Accessible Learning Experience.
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It's been a lot of fun having you on it.
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Thank you so much for having me.
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Thanks for tuning in to this episode
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of the Accessible Learning Experience,
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brought to you by the National Center
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on Accessible Educational Materials at CAST.
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You can find us on the web at aem.cast.org.
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There you'll find show notes with links
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to all of the resources mentioned on each episode.
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Thanks again for listening, and remember,
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accessibility is everyone's responsibility.
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(soft music)
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The contents of this podcast
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were developed under a cooperative agreement
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with the US Department of Education.
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However, those contents do not necessarily represent
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the policy of the US Department of Education,
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and you should not assume endorsement
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by the federal government.