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A Date with Data
Maine Narrative: Using Data to Tell a Story in the Pine Tree State, Part 2
August 24, 2023


The Princess Bride, Finding Dorie, The Goonies, data. Stories are everywhere you
look, and this week A Date with Data is looking in the state of Maine. Join host
Amy Bitterman for the second part of her conversation with even more members of
the team from Maine’s Department of Education's Office of Special Services and
Inclusive Education: Colette Sullivan, Mary Adley, Dr. Roberta Lucas, and more.
We’re talking about sharing data and using that data to tell a story about
inclusive education. It’s the Maine narrative, so don’t miss out.
Reach out to us if you want to access Podcast resources, submit questions
related to episodes, or share ideas for future topics. We’d love to hear from
you!

You can contact us via the Podcast page on the IDC website at
https://ideadata.org/.



### Episode Transcript ###

00:00:01.66  >> You're listening to "A Date with Data" with your host, Amy
Bitterman.


00:00:07.48  >> Hey. It's Amy, and I'm so excited to be hosting "A Date with
Data." I'll be chatting with state and district special education staff who,
just like you, are dealing with IDEA data every day.


00:00:19.64  >> "A Date with Data" is brought to you by the IDEA Data Center.


00:00:24.67  >> Thank you for listening to the second part of our episode with
the Maine Department of Education. The team from Maine will continue sharing how
they are working to improve the quality of their IDEA data and also use their
data to make improvements.


00:00:41.58  >> So we would be remiss to not include our Federal Monitoring
Team. Colette?


00:00:46.68  >> Yeah, and you ask about a data movie, and I have to say, I'm
kind of stuck because I'm in a bit of a panic because, as always, I have to go
after Lee, which I hate because Lee tells a great story, and I always get stuck
going after her. But that's okay. I'll do my best. Hi. I'm Colette Sullivan. I
am the Federal Programs Coordinator. I am responsible for the team that does the
supervision and monitoring across the state as well as professional development,
technical assistance and a variety of other topics that need to be completed. I
joined the department initially as a member of the monitoring team and then
moved into this position about 3 years in. And because initially I was not in a
position where I really needed to give the larger data story a lot of thought
because my supervisor was doing that, when I moved into this position, I spent
the better part of my time in this new role just trying to learn exactly what
the data was, what was available. How was it used in that larger sense, how it
was impacted and how it impacted the other teams? And Erin really worked to
break down silos so that we were all talking to each other about our data and
how they all work together, and it was really great. And I remember very clearly
the first time Sean asked me for data for the SBP/APR, and I started writing my
resignation letter right around that point. But I stayed because he was
wonderful.


00:02:22.11  But once COVID slowed down, one of my immediate priorities was
really to start looking at the SAUs in a way that was wider, I think, than just
across their own individual cohorts or their own individual monitoring sessions,
if you will, because I really wanted to help them understand that it was
important to see this process in a much broader way, in a bigger way than just a
federal requirement that they had to do to just get through it and close their
cap. I really wanted them to understand this as a period opportunity, which was
something that they really had worked on prior to me, but I really wanted them
to see that this needed to be a constant work for them, not just every four
years, we're coming in. So one of the things that we started doing was including
their previous summary. We call it their summary of finding, from their previous
cohort session, their previous monitoring session and really having
conversations with the directors about their previous findings as compared to
their current cycle, if you will, because we wanted them to see what ... How did
their data change? What went up? What went down? And it wasn't my intention to
do any sort of root cause analysis discussion. But it sort of lent itself to
some very rough beginnings around that, and that information, of course, was
very SAU-specific. But we found it was really helpful, and we want to continue
doing that. We are ...


00:03:54.73  For Sean, we are trying to pick his brain as much as possible just
to really understand. I really want to understand the SBP/APR more. So I'm
trying to have lots of conversations with the data manager because the more
involved I get in this position, I really become more excited about that process
and really what my role is in it, and how can I best present the data that I'm
responsible for, my B11 ... not my, but the B11 and BB13 data in a way that
really represents what we're doing and how we're working with the field to
represent that. So that's sort of broadly how we're using some of the data that
we have.


00:04:39.21  >> Lots ...


00:04:39.87  >> It's a few this you're doing.


00:04:41.50  >> Lots of data being collected. It's fascinating to hear and just
how you're using it, too. It's not just collecting it for collecting its sake
but really using it to improve things and ideas for topics to focus on.


00:04:55.33  >> Yeah, I hope so.


00:04:56.18  >> That's really neat.


00:04:58.71  >> And Mary is our special ... She's not special projects. She's
state agency clients and programs, and I'll have her describe what she does for
the department.


00:05:09.71  >> Everyone, I'm Mary Adley, the Coordinator for State Agency
Programs for the Maine Department of Education's Office of Special Services and
Inclusive Education. My movie reference is "Blade Runner." We're using data to
make sure students with variabilities don't become missing, as a main character
in this movie does. The state agency program team supports Maine's most
vulnerable students, who are in the care or custody of another partner agency,
DHHS or Department of Corrections, and includes, for example, children who
remain in their biological parents' custody but are placed through a DHS
referral process into residential treatment because of their medical and
clinical needs for additional supports and services in the home and community
settings. Regardless of their educational placement by IEP teams on the
least-restrictive environment continuum, these children's data, for example,
attendance assessment, disproportionality, et cetera, is all captured through
their school enrollment with the SAU that's responsible for their provision of
fate. We are ... My team is excited about our partnership with the federal
monitoring team to evaluate the Fidelity of programming for youth who are in
out-of-unit placements that includes ... In Maine, we call them special purpose
private schools. There's also educational programming provided for youth at the
Maine Department of Corrections Facility and a variety of temporary crisis
stabilization placements.


00:06:44.42  A general system of supervision and monitoring data elements for
special purpose private schools is outline in our Maine Unified Special
Education Regulations, and it includes both quantitative and qualitative
components with a similar process used by my team as is used by the SAU
monitoring that occurs by the federal monitoring team. And I will close by
saying, as my colleagues have already said, collaboration with thought partners
is critical to our work of data-informed decisions and instruction. So now, I'm
going to turn it over to my colleague, Dr. Roberta Lucas, to introduce herself.


00:07:24.70  >> Thanks, Mary. I'm Dr. Roberta Lucas, and I am the Child
Development Services, CDS, State Director, and CDS in Maine is unique in that we
are a quasi-state agency that is under the Department of Education and service
children both in part C and part B. So we report all of our data through the
Department of Education, and I share our data with Sean as he writes the
SBP/APR. And I have a data manager, Ariana Whiting, who is also on this call,
and she gives me all of that quantitative data, and then I collect a lot of
quantitative data throughout our sites. Currently, we have seen an increase in
referrals in our children and in our infants and toddlers. In part C, we have h
about a 72-percent increase of children with IFSPs, which means that we are
approximately seeing a 51-percent increase of referrals year over year. And then
in children in part B, we have 62 percent of children on IEPs, which means that
we have about a 50-percent increase year over year of children being referred, 3
to 5-year-olds. Maine currently works with a lot of SAUs, and I have been trying
to build a repository of SAUs to help service children. Right now, we have about
20% of the SAUs.


00:09:04.89  That's about 45 servicing children in this age bracket, 3 to 5. And
they're providing speech and language, OTPT, some BCBA services, and they also
help us with transportation to and from public preschool. Because Maine is
unique, it also doesn't have universal pre-K. So the data that I get from Ariana
helps inform the program needs that we have for children, the capacity needs
that we have for staff and how we determine best opportunities for the children
that need either an IFSP or an IEP. I just love the two quotes. One of them is
from "The Princess Bride" as she enters into the fire swamp: "We'll never
survive." And then I answer that with "Finding Nemo," when Dora says, "Just keep
swimming," because those are the two things that keep me going, is that I ...
Sometimes I feel like I'll never survive, but I just keep swimming.


00:10:14.63  >> Going ...


00:10:14.84  >> And Ariana and my whole team in CDS helps me do that and is
behind me. That's me, and I think I'm moving it onto ... I'm not sure.


00:10:27.27  >> Yeah, no worries.


00:10:28.36  >> Okay. Back to Erin.


00:10:30.71  >> Right. So, Amy, you can see why, when I was thinking about who
to invite on this podcast to tell the Maine story, it's all of us, right?


00:10:38.86  >> Mm-hmm.


00:10:39.56  >> We are all interconnected, and we cannot ... We were all the
puzzle pieces of OSEP. My movie is "The Goonies," because that's what this team
is like. They're so ... We're so ... We have such a fun time talking. These are
serious topics, right?


00:10:54.15  >> Mm-hmm.


00:10:54.37  >> Mary Adley, serious topics that we have to talk about, and we
just ... We are passionate about data, and we want to ... As Sean said,
knowledge is good. It's great to have all this data, but if you can't use it to
change what's happening in your landscape, then it's not relevant. So that's
really our next focus as to how these data will support each other. Our big
mission right now in Maine, as I said, is inclusion, and we're all looking for
that to change that culture in Maine of belonging and access for ... We think of
ourselves as social justice warriors, and we use data to tell the story of how
this isn't going well and how we need to increase inclusion. So we were very
excited to be asked to talk about this. We talk about data a lot, as you can
imagine.


00:11:51.60  >> Yes, we certainly have a lot of data and interesting stories to
tell from just the whole team in all different ways. So I've really enjoyed
listening to how you all work together and improve the quality of your data that
then you can really take it and use it and make improvements. So thank you.


00:12:15.13  >> Yeah. Yeah, we really appreciate talking about this. Like I
said, I'm just so grateful for this team and our shared passion and commitment
to this work.


00:12:24.21  >> Mm-hmm.


00:12:24.43  >> It's very ... It's a very exciting place to be.


00:12:28.86  >> Yes. Well, passion definitely shines through. So really, really
appreciate it.


00:12:35.67  >> Yeah. Are there any other questions you have of Maine?


00:12:39.33  >> No. I'm still trying to absorb ...


00:12:41.15  >> I know. There's so much.


00:12:42.32  >> ... everything. There's just so much, yeah. But really enjoyed
hearing about it and just the variety and just all the different things you have
going on and how you're working together, is just so exciting to hear about
because I think that's ... That can be unusual in states. So kudos to all of
you.


00:13:03.99  >> To access podcast resources, submit questions related to today's
episode or if you have ideas for future topics, we'd love to hear from you. The
links are in the episode content. Or connect with us via the podcast page on the
IDC website at IDEAData.org.


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