In this episode, Jeremy Tiegerman shares insights into his lifelong dedication to special education, focusing on language development, behavioral support, and innovative programs for neurodivergent students. Discover how his family’s legacy and his own experiences shape a comprehensive approach to supporting children with learning differences.

keywordsspecial education, language development, behavioral support, neurodivergent students, education programs, parent advocacy, teaching strategies

key topics

• Family legacy in education
• Importance of language development
• Behavioral support and interventions
• Program structure and classroom ratios
• Parent involvement and advocacy
• Teacher training and professional development
• Transition planning for students
• Impact of COVID-19 on behavior and communication

guest nameDr. Jeremy Tiegerman

titles

• Inside Look at Specialized Education with Jeremy Tiegerman
• Transforming Lives: Jeremy Tiegerman on Language and Behavior Support

Sound Bites

• "Investors in lives, not just students"
• "Behavior is a form of communication"
• "Graduating with a diploma or certificate of completion"

Chapters

00:00Introduction and guest introduction

2416:36:30Jeremy's lifelong involvement in education

8999:56:58Family legacy and founding of the school

16138:50:42Focus on language as foundational to learning

20333:17:34Individualized education plans and program structure

25194:24:25Role of speech-language pathologists and classroom support

345555:31:21Teacher collaboration and classroom management

411944:24:53Classroom ratios and program size

449999:58:25School locations and program diversity

520555:32:02Transition programs and adult services

619444:25:42Parent involvement and advocacy

738611:06:06Open door policy and community engagement

843611:06:33Communication and behavior management

911388:53:20Closing remarks and future collaboration opportunities

Resources

• Tiegerman School for Language and Communication Development
• OPWDD - Office for People with Developmental Disabilities
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4FBluZ3rO8

Guest links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-tiegerman-01473b17/
• https://tiegerman.org/

Good morning, Jeremy. thank you for being here and welcome to the podcast.

Good morning.

Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here and talk a little bit with you about our programs and and what we do here and to of course speak to you a little bit about you too.

Nobody wants to hear any more about that. what I'm excited about really is I'm representing the special education area, but I've been out of the teaching for now going on eight, nine years. And so being in touch with what's actually still going on in the classrooms and in the system, we talk about the system a lot, I have guests on and things like that. So I feel

Ha ha ha.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I'm still up to date on things, but now I'm not in it anymore, So to get your perspective to kind of like catch me up a little bit or to just maybe clarify certain things that are we've been talking about here, I'm excited about that part too. Plus, I think your story is pretty wild. you've literally done this all your life.

My entire life. I was brought up in this history, this system. My mother, started the program in nineteen eighty-five. So we just celebrated several years ago our fortieth anniversary. So she laid the groundwork and she's still involved with she's still our CEO and and working with me every day. I'm the chief operating officer. But

Right.

From an early age I kind of was always involved and not really sure of what she was doing, that she was involved with the school and going to public school.

I had my summers off. She ran a program that we still run is twelve months long. So during my summer breaks I would do some camp, but on on other days she would be at work and I would be running through the hallways and and helping out a little bit and as I got older becoming more aware having greater appreciation of what she built and that's why I'm I I got involved in it too.

It's amazing. And you were like the field you were comfortable immediately with the population and you felt like it was just a natural thing for you as kid.

Well, i besides definitely having a comfort level, and love loving my mom and having great respect for her and being exposed to it, my father worked in a public school as a school psychologist. So

school psychologists are involved in assisting staff members, whether it be teachers, teaching assistants, specialists, administrators, with students who are exhibiting challenges with behaviors. So they're a support system helping to modify behaviors, improve, you know, a attending kinds of behaviors, and of course with testing and measurements in in classrooms with regard to evaluations, cognitive assessments. So

While a little bit different that kind of the work that we do in in our program and we of course have school psychologists, I I was brought up in a world of education and certainly both parents work with the special education field.

Okay. And by exposing you to that, did they give you kind of a an advantage in a sense as a child to the awareness of what life can be when the all the forms that we come in as human beings, How did that affect you as a child growing up? did it make you so much more aware of things at an earlier age?

That maybe you might not have had the opportunity to experience if you hadn't been through this system with your parents in a sense.

Sure. So I think yeah and I'll get to my parents and them loving me and and imparting certain things that were just parental in nature that had nothing to do with their profession. But I think that kind of was a byproduct of the people that they are and and the work that they did that kind of went into parenting and and the kind of

person I became but also a little bit back to my mother which was the reason why she started the school was based on her very very important moment growing up where sh she grew up with a sister who had a traumatic brain injury and that led her to witness what my grandfather ended up doing is that commitment

a tireless dedication to never giving up on somebody and to always helping others. And that was something that they always, pushed me to do. no matter what field I was gonna go into, is to work well with others and to always help others who need.

Yeah, that's beautiful. that's what we want. That's what we want in this world, right? And I wish more people would get that message. love your child, right? By loving your child simply is the best message you can send to them. They feel that love and that trust. And it since you asked you want to know little bit about me, the kind of the coincidence between the two of us is that my mom was the secretary at my elementary school.

Really?

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

And so a lot of the summer times I would go back and help distribute the textbooks to the classrooms or I would do other things. I ended up being a a maintenance guy on Sundays for a couple of years, So I was always connected to the school and I think that's why it never left me. As I was pursuing a career in communications, whatever that was, I I remember going to the city and passing a school every day and just being compelled to the school. And ultimately three, four months later I was in a school working.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

because that's just was what was inside me. So it was my the the amount of exposure and so that's a similarity between the two of us. We kinda grew up around it and it was just part of who we were, you know.

Yes, school,

and sometimes we we don't always have the most positive experiences growing up in them, but school, yeah, I think and I don't wanna speak for everyone in this world, but school obviously has such tremendous impacts on on all of us growing up. And I just always had very fond memories of my own

personal educational journey and the being exposed to things from my parents and of course working in in my mother's school growing up.

So cool. Yeah, while I don't miss the daily grind of it, I still I still miss the s I I still always when I go to a high school an event or something like that, I feel invigorated, you know, it's just it's what it is.

Ha ha ha

Yes, yes, yes. So much

excitement and possibility and how one could be shaped and the possibilities of you could do anything. We all might have, you know, weaknesses of course or or challenges, but the the book is open for you if you access it and you try.

Yeah, and watching children develop is the greatest feeling. my goodness. When they when they do things right, it really is. They do things that blow you away and you're like, Whoa Or like, W look what you've become, you know, look where you started, look what you've become. That arc of learning and growth is just like, man, that's what gets me. That was always the thing.

The most beautiful feeling. The most beautiful feeling.

Yes. And and more I

I would tell people ask me what I do and I I tell them, you know, I do this, I do this, I do this. But really at the end of the day, it's just we're we're we're investors, right? We're investors in lives.

Absolutely. Yeah, I love that. It's it's really true. let talk about your program a little bit and then we'll talk in maybe some more specific questions. So just tell us about it's it's called Tiegerman, correct?

Sure. So it

was formerly known as the School for Language and Communication Development. That's a mouthful. call and it was called SL C D. my mom started in nineteen eighty-five and we rebranded it about about a decade ago. going back to SLCD,

Yeah.

School for Language and Communication Development. That is essentially and that's everything that we are. Is while we work with the neurodivergent population or children with learning disabilities, speech language impairments, other health impairments, which may be like an ADHD kind of student, we believe that language is the paramount, the most important

the foundation of everything. So without foundation, I mean without language, I'm sorry, there can't be other kinds of things. There can't be cognition, there can't be learning. it really is everything to us. So the the former name clearly told the world of this is a school for what? For language and communication development. But we strongly believe that regardless of of

cognitive ability, language ability or or learning ability, or social ability, langu you must have language. You must have language to develop.

How do you go about fostering that in the with the variety of student that you have, those students that are a little bit more able to communicate verbally or through sign language perhaps, maybe you could talk about that. and then those kids that struggle more and maybe use devices or, in the range anywhere in between those two things.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sure. So there are different methodologies, there are different techniques and as you mentioned about using using particular signs to start the process of language development if it's difficult to to brut produce sounds and language, augmentative devices. So we utilize all of these techniques and modify to the individual's needs, but

speaking about the program, I think you know, regardless of the approach that one use, and we individualize to all of our children based on their unique learning needs. That's through our assessment. And also our kids are coming from their local school districts. They're all public school children, okay? but they have not done well in public school, so then they are referred to a a non-public school like us that is state supported.

And federally supported as well. So generally, students don't have to pay tuition to come to us. They don't pay out of pocket. But so they come to us with learning plans that we work with their school district on. In preschool, it's the Committee on Preschool Special Education, an IEP, an individualized education program. and from K through 12, it's the Committee on Special Education, CSE, and that's also an IEP.

And they come to us with their individualized learning plans. And we work together with families, with our specialists, and with their administrators or specialists on the public school side through their committees on special education to create a learning plan that is most appropriate for them. And we consider all of the things like Mark that you mentioned like

Do they need teachings or development in in sign? do they need an augmentative device? Do they need a specialized speech language kind of approach, which is kind of like a prompt therapy? So there are lots of different kinds of approaches that can be utilized, but with the IEP, okay, which makes our program so very, very unique, is

based on Dr. Tigerman, my mother's very intense belief in this this this the need for language. And so that trickles down and is disseminated through the entire program. How does that happen? Okay? Through our professional development days. Okay. So our special education teachers our teachers, our teaching assistants in the classroom, they are properly certified. But

I'm not sure going down the education pathway that they've gone. They may have taken some language development courses, but they're not specialists like our speech language pathologists are. So the speech language pathologist and our administrative team, and we sometimes we do it in-house, sometimes we'll bring specialists from outside of the program. We are every single year doing very intensive trainings for all of our staff on language development best.

practices for developing language so that our teaching staff in the classrooms can foster the development per the IEP and per what our speech language pathologists consult with them on. And that's another important piece because in the IEPs, the speech language pathologists are charged with doing individual or group services for these children. So they will do pull out

This is what I

Which is very important and appropriate for them. Some of the stuff you can't do in the classroom with all the children that will help to address their individual needs in their offices. But language should be taking place all day long. So the speech language pathologists are pushing in also and consulting with teachers, saying, This is what you should be doing with this particular child. This is how you should be presenting.

the instruction language-wise to the children so that they can understand as well as what should you be pulling from the children in the classroom, depending on their developmental age, to help foster growth with that language. So that push-in and pull out is very, very important. We have in each of our programs way beyond the amount of speech language pathologists that some public schools have.

Yeah.

I was gonna

ask how many you have, right?

Yeah, yeah.

So in every building it's a little bit different based on the number of students that we have. But just for example, in the building that I work in, it's in Glen Cove, New York, it's our preschool program, goes three to five year olds, and then we have a K through sixth grade in that building as well. we have probably about two hundred and fifty kids across all of those grades. So I would say

You know, in preschool we probably have about a hundred kids. And in K through six we have about a hundred twenty-ish, hundred thirty-ish kind of kids like that. And probably maybe to make the two fifty a little bit more on the preschool side. So it's i we're not a huge program, but we have about twenty speech language pathologists, okay, with caseloads of you gotta be doing about fifty sessions a week, okay, for two hundred kids.

Hmm.

Now you could think about in a public school for how many kids, how many speech language pathologists that they have. Now, not a in a public school, not everyone's getting speech language therapy. And all of our kids are getting it, but it's it speaks to the intensity of what we offer individually and in group and also to support the teachers in the classroom regularly.

Well, of course.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean it's ten students per speech teacher, it's incredible. what an integral piece that is missing because when I was a teacher, we'd have the communication devices, but it was the speech pathologist who would put the information in, right? And

Yes.

There was never enough of that education for the teacher we weren't trained on it officially. We had to learn it as we went and you could ask questions and stuff like that, but it was it was never really formal enough. So you're doing it throughout the year. So it's constant, constant reintegration into the daily

Yes.

A absol

absolutely. The the other thing that I would say to to what you're saying, which is is it goes one step beyond. We do have one speech language pathologist who got her doctorate in audiology. So I not every building's gonna have a a certified or a licensed audiologist. So we had that. We had that in our building, and so so she's very critical with the augmentative devices.

We have the school for the death, so obviously we had it, but

which is wonderful for us and is is just in charge of those devices and training our staff on a regular basis to to to work with them because that's an on that's an ongoing thing. Not just a one time training. Yes.

mean communication is independence, right? when it's behavioral, behavior is communication. So it it's all around communication. So I love that that's a focus because to have someone come in and help the teacher

Yes. Yes.

First off, you obviously have teachers that are open minded and welcoming to collaborate with each other, which isn't always the case, because a lot of teachers like to work on their own, do their own thing, but it that needs to be understood that it's a collaboration. to be able to understand how to connect with each individual child is brilliant because

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Course, of course.

There's so much going on as a teacher, I mean, we have to understand that part. There's so much to integrate into a day with a child academically and behaviorally and developmentally, all these things that you have to do and be able to find that way through to them. How do they communicate? How do they receive information? How am I gonna get information? So can you talk about the process between the the speech pathologist and the teacher and how that

Yeah.

translates to being able to access each child individually because it's really that's the game changer to me as far as what we're talking about here. Because if we really don't know what's going on inside a child and they can't get it out, there's a lot of time that's missing and a lot of time that goes wasted.

Sure. So I I love the word that you use because it was exactly the word that I was thinking with regard to language when you took we're talking about behaviors, but also if a child doesn't have behaviors, they could just be kind of sitting to the side and not demonstrating or exhibiting behavior and then the child is ignored. that child looks okay, kind of thing like that. It's not jumping out of his or her seat kind of thing like that. But it's the word that you use as far as access. Language is an access.

Okay. Yeah.

to the classroom, a participation, right, to it. And we want to make sure that everyone has access to that. And so the other thing that I would I would say that makes our program a little bit unique, which is not in every program, before becoming an administrator in our program, I got my administrative degree, I was a school psychologist, just like my father. And so I would go into classroom consult

You pop in and pop out, kind of thing like that. And teachers were so so needy. They they have so much on their plate, right? One teacher, maybe an eight or two, to support all of these children. Just in a in a regular public school kind of situation. Now we have children with special needs with all IEPs. Teachers are at the brink. They are so dedicated, so passionate.

Yeah.

Right? Why did you go into this? I want to help others. But it seems like my hands are tied behind my back sometimes. It's just so much. They bring their work home, their lesson planning, that night, all day long on weekends, trying to figure out and help these children. So why am I telling you all this? Because it's sometimes it's just so hard for one person to do all of this. And I tell you this is because in our programs.

Especially in Glen Cove, we have an approval ratio. That is the only approval ratio in our state of New York. It's a 12 to 2. Okay. All right. So let me explain that to you. Most ratios through the and and I think it's probably throughout the country. and and just let me say, if you're non-approved, we're we're a non-public approved school. if you are a non-approved private school.

I guess you could do whatever you want. I mean, if you're getting funded privately, you can create any configuration that you want, which is well and good. But when you are publicly funded, you have to follow the rules and regulations of the state or wherever you're located. And the approval, generally, the approval ratios for classrooms are one certified teacher, special education teacher, and then however number of teaching assistants or para professionals, right? You could have a one-one.

You could have a one-two, you could have a one-three, depending on the functioning of the children. We're the only school in the state that's approved for a two-two. So we have two certified teachers in our classroom and then two TAs. And that really allows for it doesn't I'm gonna get to what your question was about how the speech and the teacher work together, but I just speaking to the point of how to get this speech language development

Fantastic.

teachings or trainings to all of the children. It's hard for a class of twenty, it's even hard, our classrooms don't go above twelve, right? So it's hard to go to twelve kids with all varying needs. So the ability to split the classroom, bring them together for socialization purposes in 12 and for other academic purposes. But when the time comes and it's necessary

to split them up into smaller groups of sixes with two teachers and the TAs, of course, the one TA and the one TA to go s support each other. And the classrooms are large enough to allow that. But to then do the language development that is necessary and to do the the curriculum that we have to do the graded curriculum. We don't have to do word for word, but we have to expose our children based on their grade.

We'll have to do it.

And we understand that many of our children may be two to three grade levels below their same age peers, but we have to expose them to the graded curriculum. So that nuance or that unique thing to us really allows us to do it. It's I could envision it probably would be hard at doing it anywhere else.

I hear you.

I have a student who's it's like a an integrated classroom and so there are teachers in the classroom in a public school, but it's it's a unique situation and it's because they they're integrating the classroom. and my question was prior to knowing that you had two teachers

Mm-hmm.

Yes, of course.

Coming in, Because now you have the two teachers being able to work off each other and help each other out. when I was teaching, we went through this period of bilingual, bi-cultural.

Yes, yes,

Yes.

And so there were supposed to be, according to how it was created, two teachers, an English model and a D model. And it never that was always the thing that never happened. Like you did other things, but it never succeeded to where it could have, because you didn't have the most key element, which was to have two teachers, one specialist in both areas. And so

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

what you're doing is allowing these kids because a lot of people hear six kids in a classroom so they they think they have no idea the amount of work that is, that mountain of work that is. It's in s it's incredible. Yeah.

Course, of course,

and all of them with individualized learning plans can be very, very challenging. And that's that's what our mission is, is to reach each child. and as you were mentioning you know earlier, Mark, about our commitment to to each child and to each family, but also, helping them to grow. You know, we we have a high school and many of these kids who start out in this

Exactly.

area or this functioning level will eventually matriculate to our high school. And we still have plans for them to get a high school diploma and to to go on and to get a job or go on to another post secondary kind of experience. Some do some of our kids do go on to junior colleges and four year colleges. Not all, but that's the goal is to let's get start them here, get them, and there's gotta be a plan to get them someplace.

Right.

Well,

Well, absolutely. And that's always something that's we talk about here and isn't talked about enough, I think, and a lot of parents are still fairly in the dark about is that transition program, you know, and when it begin and where your child should be by the time they're graduating, how that how prepared you should be as a parent to know what the next move is. you you don't have a a Tegerman High School program, or you do. You do, okay.

Yes.

Yes.

We do. So we we

have and and I I we talked a lot and I jumped around a lot. I'm sorry. This is part of my attention focusing related issue. we have right now six. We will be having our seventh program. We just got approved another preschool, but presently we have six buildings. We have several preschool programs located across the five boroughs.

That's okay.

I was gonna ask. okay.

and of New York City.

And then we are and then we have several programs in Nassau of Nassau County of Long Island, which is right near New York City. and so in addition to those preschool programs we have our elementary school which goes K through six and then we have a middle school building that goes seven through nine.

And then we have a separate high school building that goes ten through twelve.

And that's one building.

Separate buildings. So three separate buildings. One high school building.

one high school building. Is that

located on Long Island or in the city? okay. so you're over. Okay.

Richmond Hill, Queens. Richmond Hill, Queens. Yes. Yes. The

the other program I do we do have another high school, not to confound you and confuse you, but we have a specialized in one building, a one-stop shop, which has its challenges because you have pre-K through twelve in one building. And and sometimes that could be ha d challenging with with the kids, like you know, they don't want to be around the young ones and parents sometimes feel a little bit

A different way about I don't want my young ones with it with the older ones kind of thing like that, but it it's a specialized autism program. Pre K through twelve, it's in Woodside, Queens. And so we the ratios are different there, but it's another high school program that we have, but it's a unique, kind of program.

Wow, that's really incredible. I mean, it's so diverse. and you're jumping around all the different campuses all the time?

Yes. So y

yes, yes. So we start jumping around, remember I told you we started in nineteen eighty-five. So we started with 35 preschool kids. and I'm sorry, 30 preschool kids. And today we have approximately a little bit above 600 special needs students in all of our programs.

one of the largest state approved non public schools in the state of New York. And then several years ago, Dr. Tigerman got the itch. And she's always looked to expand. the reason why she initially expanded from the preschool program was the families were so in love and smitten with our program and didn't want pre-K as three you know three, four, five year olds and then they have to transition onto their public school kindergarten.

programs and that the parents did not want to go back to the public school. They said, Why don't you open up a school of your own? She was like, How hard could that be? And that kind of started it. And so that was the same thing as we eventually expanded all the way through twelfth grade. But then the parents in twelfth grade said, We were concerned. some of our kids are not gonna be able to go on to college.

Yeah.

Can you open up an adult services program? And we opened an adult services. So I have two directors. I have a director of schools who answers to me, and I have the director of adult services special education ends at 22 years of age in the state of New York. And then they transition on to another agency called the OPWDD, which is the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities.

And that takes you from twenty-two till the end of time, kind of thing like that. And so we run programming there. we own homes, residences, we have dayhabilitation So we are kind of like a life cycle agency that started from a little preschool program.

And the nice thing is nobody has to get a different shirt that's Tiegerman your whole life.

No, they just keep going with us.

The same shirt Tigerman.

yeah, there's so many ways I would I can go with this conversation now. There's just just a bevy of things that I just want to discuss from the process of the transition, because when it comes to the parents

I love it.

Which is I I would imagine the majority of my audience listening and caretakers and hopefully teachers too, to know the process and what to expect to be and to be able to access that process if it's not coming to them. Because the system we know is uneven and it can be very challenging. And it's a question I want to ask of you too later, like what would you like to change in the system and how do you interact with the system being a specialized school? But for the parents, as far as the communication, there's such intense communication focus.

Yes.

Yes.

at school, how do you have the parents help their child to carry that over and transfer it into the home to continue that instruction and encouragement and reinforcement?

Wonderful,

wonderful question. parent involvement is paramount. If you don't have carry over at home, then many of not all, but many of the instruction or teachings or supports that we provide to our students in school sometimes falls by the wayside because it's not carried over. So parent involvement is imperative. if you think about it.

Children are in our lives, in our buildings for significant part of their life, but the other significant part of their life is weekends or after school with their families and their parents and caregivers. So being able to and we know through years of research.

For all children, typically developing and non-typically developing children, that carryover and reinforcement of skills and supports really helps to help things set in and for children to grow and to develop or grow to the to their best ability kind of thing. So parent involvement is imperative. Dr. Tigerman, my mom, from the beginning knew that with regard to the language, okay.

that had to be carried over and practiced at home. And so what we do in all of our programs is we have a very intensive parent education program. And what what we do with all of our families is offer weekly and monthly trainings they are not mandatory.

Wanders on.

required but we offer to anybody who wants to partake in it. They are sometimes in person, but the the well they were in person but we noticed that after covid people preferred the virtual and more people participated it was hard to get people to come into our buildings

Mm-hmm.

I was gonna say it's probably actually you can get more more attendance, yeah.

Exactly. And so

these are live streamed and of course all recorded. So we have an extensive library of trainings for all of our families to access on our websites. So if you miss a training, you could always have access to that. And we are we are working with all of our families through surveys and through our teaching staff to determine the most appropriate types of trainings,

Hmm.

To each of our school buildings. So each of our school buildings will target different things. All will target language, but will be related to developmentally, like probably in our middle school, high school, there there will be more so about development and puberty kinds of related issues. And of course, as you get to high school, we're doing more trainings about post-secondary kinds of things that are important, independent living skills.

graduation requirements. So every building will do their own unique kind of flavor, but all of it will relate to language and how to support the language at home and how to teach the parents to be this best speech language supporters at home to carry over those skills. Now with regard to the teaching staff, each and this is comparable to

most regular schools. probably more of your communication is more frequent in the primary and middle school. Once you get to high school and you have a and we have a departmentalized program. So our kids like you do in high school transition from class to class and you have like nine or ten teachers. So the communication is a little bit more complicated there with the families. But

All of our teachers in our primary school, you know, they have communication logs. They are communicating with with parents every single day to tell them how their days were and to make sure that they are practicing or working on the skills that they they were doing in school so that they can carry them over at home. But Mark, to your initial question about it,

Right.

We cannot be successful. I think that we're pretty good in what we do, but we cannot be successful without parent involvement.

thousand percent. I encourage parents all the time to request more meetings with their teachers and with their team because that there's just not offered enough. you got the beginning of the year, you got the CSC and that's pretty much it unless you're requesting it. And you need to be on top of what's going on with your child and the teachers need to be and the administration needs to know that you're be you're on top of the the situation too. So they they are accountable for what they're responsible to offer.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yep.

Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. The the other

thing I'll quickly say, I know I know we have a lot to talk about and I'm sure how much time, but Mark, the other thing that we

Yeah, we do a preview,

Jeremy, because there's a lot of I I to have you here and to be able to talk about this stuff is exciting for me and I we mean need to come back.

Absolutely,

absolutely. But the other thing that we do talk to our parents about, which is a unique thing to us, is parent advocacy. Because our parents, and many of them are already pretty good parent advocates, to get to our program, to navigate that committee on special education or to work with the public schools, they kind of have to I don't say it's always a battle, but they have to be savvy enough to learn the system to get into a school like ours. But

That in engagement involvement with the committee going forward. And then once they leave, whether be going to OPWDD, or if they go to help their child try to get a job, or if they go to junior college or four-year college to access that special services office to get their accommodations, they have to be good parent advocates. And that is training as well to help them get whatever is best for their kids.

Mm-hmm.

Right. Do you help provide that kind of advocacy? all this sounds way too good to be true, Jeremy. it's like it's like our Nirvana special education. You know, I know from being there and talking up the school and saying, the all these great things that we do and all these things and then there's the reality of the day to day. And I'm not

Yes, we do. Yes, we do.

It's happening.

Mm-hmm. Sure.

questioning your your honesty here. I'm just I I just know and I and it does for me it's exciting because I I really want to be able to promote what you do and I I hope that people will pick up on what you do because I do feel it makes so much sense that the communication is is the key. your success rate as far as graduating kids and putting kids through your entire system you have a really good track record. And the reality of what we're talking about is actually occurring

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Now we always are analyzing our data, always looking ourselves. We are not the end all be all. You know, sometimes we can we we're always evaluating ourselves on an annual basis to determine how we could be even better than we are. But since we started our high school approximately about 15 years ago, we have had full completion of our program. Now, not every track.

is the same for every child. Not every child, because there are certain requirements through this through the state of New York to be able to attain whether be a regular high school diploma or there's one step beyond that, which is a Regent's diploma, which are the Regents examination. So our s our kids have accommodation so they they don't have to get the same test scores that their same age peers that are are or

typically developing, they have to get those kids get have to attain a higher score to meet that criteria to get a diploma. but they still have to pass tests. And so we have been able to graduate with diplomas approximately 80% of our population over the last 15 years. And I'll put that up to any public school anywhere.

Yes.

Anyway, yeah. That's

kind of thing

fine.

like that. And these are special needs kids. Now, we have tremendous modification to our program. It's an extended year program. So they go 12 months. The curriculum is spread out to help them be able to better understand. It's an extended day. We go eight to four PM. So there is more time on task. But the children need this to be able to

comprehend this very complicated you know, my kids come home from school and they ask me to help them with homework. I can't help them with like fifth grade, sixth grade stuff. So it's very, very hard. But regardless of even if our students don't graduate with the diploma, they graduate with a certificate of completion. It's it's an achievement. All of our children also are graduating with something called a CDOS.

Yeah.

Which is a career development occupational studies or something called the SAC in New York State, the skills and achievement certificate. So there are certain for everyone, certain requirements to be able to achieve these things, and it's our responsibility to make sure if these students are not getting diploma, that there's certain competency of these students so that they are ready.

To be able to face that postsecondary world as best as possible. And that is the work really in high school is helping the parents determine, okay, which direction, which track is my child going to go? And based on this, what are we doing next? Because I can tell you, the level of support that we provide our students, even for maybe our valedictorian in our program, when they go to a junior college or four year college, they still have challenges because.

Okay, okay.

Those colleges are not having teaching assistants stand on top of them to prompt them or redirect them or go like, you know, you need help with your work. You know, so there's there's a lot of education for all of our families to say, you're going into this world, what is necessary to help your child be successful? Yes.

They're not purple.

That's huge because

yeah, you're not always gonna have the supports and you're gonna have to be able to manage independently to some degree I'm gonna ask you a couple of quick questions and then I have two other questions that are maybe a little bit longer, but maybe not too much. Okay. Is there public access to your library? So if people in my audience are hearing about your library and the things the trainings that you do, are they able to access your library?

yes.

Let's do it.

Yes, I'm pretty sure. Most of them should be on our website. So that's www.tiegerman.org. And speaking to your point earlier about like, is this too good to be true? You know, our doors are open. We want people to come see us, come visit us, come view us online. There's if you look on YouTube, we have years and years of videos of high school graduations.

we've had videographers do stories about Dr. Tigerman. Remember I told you about why she started the school and then my aunt who had the traumatic brain injury. There are videos about this. We have tons of videos archiving our entire history. They can go see well, we want people to come see and learn about us.

Right. Well I'm definitely gonna come see you. I'm gonna meet you and we're together. I wanna come see your program. staff longevity, how do you do with teacher turnover? Okay. Is it because of salary or is it because of workload?

I can't wait, Mark.

Well that is an issue.

I

well let me let me tell let me tell you, I I think that we have a tremendous commitment from a lot of staff. I would say that of our staff, and we have probably right now about three hundred emplo we have about four hundred employees, three hundred on the school side, a hundred on the adult services side. Of the three hundred employees, I'd say about sixty to seventy percent of them had been with us at least ten years, which I believe is pretty pretty darn good

idea.

For a non-public school. The reason why it's so hard, okay? And we do everything to support our staff with the most attractive salaries as best as possible. We can't compete with the public schools because we can't levy taxes like local school districts can based on where you're living. The budget goes we wanna do a new budget, we're gonna do this.

so we are at the mercy of whatever the state says this is your tuition is for the per kid. So salaries are always gonna be challenging to compete with public schools. The the biggest issue is, and we're as competitive as possible. we we don't have the pension plans that some of the public schools have because those pension plans are something so unique and special to public school teachers. My my father.

was a tier one and so that that's so attractive to public school teachers. But we have a ver

So

they're not part of the New York State retirement system.

They are not. So we

had to create our, you know, we have a 401 401k or 403B. We did we match up to six percent to all of our so so they don't have access to that. So that so it whether it be salary, okay, or whether it be pension plan, sometimes that affects people, but it's not the biggest issue. The biggest issue that affects our staff is working during the summer. And so as we talked about with

Yeah.

You know, and just to tell you quickly, growing up, I saw everything my mom did, and then saw what my dad did. My dad worked in a public school right by where I grew up in Jericho, New York. He was the school psychologist there. And I said, I what maybe I'll be a school psychologist like you, and I'll have my s my summers off. And that didn't kind of work out for me, And I ended up working twelve months kind of thing, which is beautiful, it's fabulous. We recognize the need.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

But I think that so teachers, they work so hard and they're so passionate and they're just ghast. And I think that I think that, you know, for many people, that summer is a reprieve, a respite to kind of recharge batteries. And that's a that's a challenge that we experience besides acquiring and retaining people, but also when they staying with us.

my god, after

to kind of help them recharge the batteries because our our staff is gassed. They're gassed too.

You send

them You send them on vacation, what do you do?

Well the the it's a thirty day program over the summer. So they have about five weeks, you know, two weeks in in the beginning and three weeks in the end to to have vacation. But that that's the biggest issue as far as competing. You know, we're comparable as best as possible salaries and pension plans. It's it's the summer break.

Yeah. That's yeah. That's

No, I've been there too, so

Yeah. Do you so it's a mandatory thing that they have to work through the stuff okay.

we do sometimes is when it and we are completely Mark enrollment based. it's our lifeblood. If we don't have enrollment, programs start kind of going away. But if enrollment is decent, but the enrollment and sometimes enrollment over the summertime is a little bit lighter than over the three

'Cause not everybody's

gonna come back for the summer, right? Right.

September, June, then we

some specialists will be granted, you can have a day or two off based on your caseload. And some teachers have been granted teachers wanna work because the way that we structure our salaries is not like the public schools where you could either be paid over ten months or or twelve months, whatever you want, and you're gonna be paid regardless. If you take the summer off, you're you're not getting that paycheck with our school. So sometimes teachers will go like, I'll forego that.

I'll take the summer off if the program allows it, because we have to we we are committed to the children. If there are children there, we have to be there. But if the enrollment is slightly down, then yes, we offer that to our our staff members if they want that. Yes. Yes.

That's reasonable. I mean, you're walking into another situation, it's no surprise.

we had the flexibility of being able to work or not work, and sometimes there was a few summers I worked like three of the six weeks, but for the most part, you just need the money, we're running out of time, unfortunately, so of the two questions that might have a little bit more to them, I wanna ask about

Of course.

exactly.

the impact of the constant focus on the communication from the very early age, how that has impacted behavior in your students. Do you have a lot of behaviors or do you notice because of the communication abilities you know emerging earlier that children are able to communicate what's frustrating them, all these type of things that behavior can be, because we as we said earlier, behavior is communication.

Well you asked

me a question that's up my alley. I I was not a classroom teacher, I was a school school psychologist. So we have behaviors of all shapes and sizes i in in our school. And what we have been finding, the trend has been, language has always been necessary for our students, but we have been noticing that the children that are coming to us.

I doubt.

are more complicated behaviorally these days, whether it be related to the the COVID pandemic, whether it be there's more reliance on interaction on screens versus the face-to-face, and screens are fun great. They're great. But I'm always of the preference of the face to face kind of thing like that. But we have in addition to all of our speech language pathologists and our learning method, which is i it

The Tegerman learning method is essentially, and you what you could find that on our website, which describes it, is everything I described to you about the the speech language pathologists pushing in and the transdisciplinary approach and the the language foundation. So that's the language the language model that I I I essentially s spoke to you about. But we also have behavior specialists. So I have you know licensed behavior specialists, I have

RBTs, which are registered behavior technicians, I have school psychologists and social workers. And this behavior, social emotional team that I have in every building helps to support the teachers to promote pro social behaviors in the classroom. Now, Mark, to your point, what is the reason for some of these behaviors? Some of these behaviors are due to

Language deficits. They can't have access. They're not understood. And that could be could be frustrating. And behavior is a form of communication. Hi, I'm here. I'll let you know about it. but there there are other children who do have language in our programs that behavior is another function for them. So we do have the staff and you know for some of our students we are

Yeah.

traditional, in the sense of we do do some applied behavioral analysis in our programs. We are not an ABA program. So that is a methodology that is utilized not full day but is utilized for portions of the day depending on the individual needs of the child. Okay? But we are the traditional teaching sense of a of a classroom

Right.

where it's presented to to children and we're trying to teach the language.

I mean behavior is a struggle everywhere, there's no question. And I just, wondered if their focuses on communication, if it's actually has lessened it at all. But I do know that there is an uptick in behaviors too, so

yes, yes.

Yes, yes,

yes. But what I would tell you is that it we have trained also our behavior specialists when they're doing their functional behavioral analyses or they're doing their behavior intervention plans, usually functions of behavior, maybe for certain kinds of reasons, whether it be a task avoidance or attention seeking, but many times there is a major language component to it.

And by teaching the children how to appropriately communicate as part of that behavior plan, behaviors improve.

I think it's a good place to end this because it's a good positive place to end this. and I think it's a concern for a lot of parents. And I would love to have you back because I really would like to talk more about the special ed process, the system and all those type of things that kind of

Yes.

Yes.

Absolutely.

Mark,

it was such a pleasure meeting with you. you are so lovely. I would love to have you and any of your guests come visit our school, but if the distance is too far they could see, you know, to the website, www. dot teagerman dot org. But I would love to come join you again because there's so much more to discuss.

Thank you.

There is, and thank you so much for taking the time today. Thanks for your patience with the technical problem

Of course, you be well.

Thank you so much.