easily taken. It's most of the time rejected because they don't want to hear that they're doing anything wrong. But I do that as well, but I try to, I provide the schools with an answer to a problem that they have. They don't have enough teachers right now. Especially, teachers are quitting all over the country. Especially, teachers are abusing kids. All over the country. We sit on the news every single day. So, I come in and I try to ease that frustration for the parent in school and, you know, try to give them a better way to look at special education so they can provide the resources that the teachers make as teachers upfront out because they have to do it all. [Music] Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Career Education Learners in the podcast. I'm your host, Mitchell Rivers. I am thrilled, elated, and excited to have Adrian Gay on our show today. Adrian is the founder of ABG Special Education Consulting. And she is a wonderful, wonderful person. She has a wonderful personality. Y'all can get the experience. I think I've spent two years to her just talking to her before the podcast. How are you doing today, Adrian? I'm fine. How are you? I'm doing fantastic. Adrian, tell the audience a little bit about yourself and your journey to your current career. Where you're entrepreneurial now? Yes, I am. Yes, I am. Well, it started back in 2009. I was a teacher. I've always been taught special ed. And I taught special ed from 2009 to 2021. I did special ed, pre-k, special ed, middle school, never done high school. My two is pre-k and middle school. And what brought me to special ed is growing up and where I grew up at, you see special ed kids get treated a little differently. And even as a kid, I always wanted to, you know, make it better. So I decided to come with special education Jesus. So in 2009, I became a teacher, only spent. I've only taught special education or general education or anything. So 2009, I started with pre-k, pre-k special ed. And I'm from Atlanta, Georgia. So it was always in like four to county schools and line up public schools, when it, when it school systems and Newton County school systems. So, and then from in 2021, I decided to move to DC and teach special ed in the District of Columbia and realized the school system in DC was more, you know, more worse than what it was in Georgia. They just go by what they think it should be. That really brought me to one to start a program on my own where I can teach educators and parents how to advocate for their students. The teachers need to know how to craft an IEP and what goes into an IEP and crafted the way that it should be crafted, cater to the child's needs and the parent needs to know how to advocate for the child. Meaning, they need to know the laws of special education. They need to know what the schools can and cannot do. And they need to know what's right and wrong when it comes to their child's IEP. So, I decided to start ABG special education consultant in September of 2022. Did it part time the first year in 2020, last year, two and 23, I decided to go ahead and fool for us. So now I teach, but I teach on contract base. I mean, I teach basically when I want to, I put more effort into my consulting in navigating helping parents navigate the IEP systems and educating educators on special education so they can get help the students get what they need within the classrooms as well. So did you always want to be a teacher in the beginning like when you were younger as a kid and really wasn't special? Well, in the beginning, yes. But then as I got older, graduated high school, I didn't even go to school for teaching to be surprising. I went to school for criminal justice in business administration, got in corporate world. It was like, this is not, you know how you get there and it's just not, this is not what I'm supposed to be. You just feel that this is not what I'm supposed to be. So I decided to go into, you know, special education. And I felt right at home, but within the last couple of years, education is not what it used to be. So I think I can better serve my kids and my parents and other teachers outside of the classroom, but still dealing with special education. So what college did you attend? I attended, I didn't attend the traditional colleges like everybody attended private colleges. My bachelor's was American Intercontinental and my master's was in university at University of Phoenix. I got an MBA. Now, did that train to prepare you for what you're doing now? Criminal, well criminal justice prepared me for all of because dealing with speed is not criminal justice, but you have to deal with, you know, behaviors. So dealing with the criminal justice program that I was in, it taught me how to deal with behaviors, how to have patience with behaviors. And what my MBA, it helps me a whole lot with the business part of my, cause also fun. Do we put enough society, special American, do we put enough financial resources in special education? I think no. And I think because it, no, I think because schools, they get the funding for special education. And depending on the school and the school district, they get per child. So one school might get 20 K for one child. So if you got over 30 kids in 20 K per one child, just imagine the funds, but the schools do not know how that they misuse the funds. They don't dedicate all of those funds to special education. So is it underfunded? I would say no. I just think the schools do not know how to use the utilize the funding. Part of the funding, trying to get employees or help in order to be the classroom is more conducive for those students. You have to keep the assistance and stuff like that that may help the students. Yeah, the fund that should go towards that. But as I have seen within my 15 years of teaching, that's just not how it works. They use special ed funds for everything, which it should not be the case. Special ed funds should go towards the training for teachers, training for the parents, you know, getting the kids what they need within the classroom, whether it's assistive technology or, you know, whatever services they need in it, they don't use the funds in that way. So I must go back to what you asked at first. I don't think it's underfunded. The funds is just misused. So is that where you come in is where you've told them how to best way to utilize those funds into where it's maximizes what they have in order to make sure that the student get the best possible education. I do that as well. It's not always easily taken. It's most of the time rejected because they don't want to hear that they're doing anything wrong. But I do that as well, but I try to, I provide the schools with an answer to a problem that they have. They don't have enough teachers right now. Special ed teachers are quitting all over the country. Special ed teachers are abusing kids all over the country. We sit on the news every single day. So I come in and I try to ease that frustration for the parent in school and, you know, and try to give them a better way to look at special education so they can provide the resources that the teachers need because teachers are burnt out because they have to do it all. So if you got 20 special ed kids in your class and you got one teacher, that's a lie. Yeah. And that's what I'm asking you about assistant teachers or other resources they may have, right? Do they have school psychologists? Do they have school, other, you know, other school people or administrations that can specialize in that that can help them, whether it is for funding or they need help more than one help. Do you get the one-on-one and scissors they have? Now I had a speech impediment growing up Adrienne. And so if there are speech pathologists there, they can help those children who have speech impediment. Of course, you have just those are called related services providers. So yes, they do have related services providers. The kids that get speech, they get speech. The kids that need help with writing, which is OT, occupational therapy, they get that. But they don't have enough of those in the school. So if you have 30 kids that need OT, that's a lie for one occupational therapist. If you have 10 kids that need speech help, but one speech teacher, speech language pathologist, that's not enough. I was going to say, is there any way we can track it? Are we losing that base as far as attracting college students who go into school and maybe on education, are we losing them going to special ed? Are we losing them to other professionals or just going into just teaching this subject that they feel comfortable in and not going to special ed? What losing teachers period, whether it's special ed or general ed? Because teachers are burnt out, and it's just too much, the administration is putting too much on the teachers. And it's take that into special education, you know, in special education, you have a lot of paperwork, you have a lot of stuff. So you have kids, students, college students, it has graduated college to go into education, but they quickly leave because they don't teach that in school. Teacher burnout, they don't teach teacher burnout, like they come out, they're all about to save the world, be the teacher of the whole century. But when they get there, it's like, oh, they didn't tell us this at Howard University. Oh, they didn't tell us this when we're going to Florida A&M, they didn't tell us this in our program. So it's just like the programs, the college programs are not preparing the teachers as well, and giving them a false sense of career, because it's not, special education is hard within itself, period. But then take on you coming out of college, new as a teacher, with no help from administration, and they just give you everything and they speak to you to do it. Well, you don't know because you just first had a college. So do they have a mentorship program or a mentorship when you go? I know they know, know they do, they become a first year teacher. And do they have a mentorship program? They do have mentorship programs, but it's not enough teachers to mentor. So you have got to have enough teachers to mentor. So if I'm at a school and you don't even have enough teachers to supply your classrooms, who will mentor your new teacher? Have you been, I'm pretty sure you've thought about this. Are there ways that we can attract more students to go into education? And then that's another layer, as you say before, is can we can get them to go to special education? Uh, the attraction, well, especially it is unattractive within itself. Okay. So it's a special person to do special education, because it's not attractive. So, um, I don't think we can do more to attract them, but I think we can do more to make it easier for them in order to make that transition. Right. Make it easier for them to make that transition, but we can make it easy for them not to get burned out so quickly. Yeah, because I mean, that definitely is needed. And if we pull the resources, and sometimes the knowledge for natural resources that you're stating is human resources, that we need human resources there. And so the administration and education in every state had to find a way to get the human resources that need help within the classroom by itself, right? What we call what, uh, boots on the ground. We need boots on the ground there to help these kids on one basis. So if we don't have enough speech by tolerance, we don't have enough occupational therapists. We don't have enough of these special services who is I needed for them, make sure that our special ed kids get the education, the help and support they need and resources. Then, you know, we're fighting the losing battle. Yeah. It's a battle that we will never win because they are making teaching more and more less attractive because of the lack of support from administration. And it's all about administration. If you had, if you weren't for somebody that made you happy every day, would you quit? But I don't think they get it, but it takes a certain type of person to be a leader as well. Everybody, just because they're leaders, they ain't meant to be leaders. You got to know how to lead. First, you got to be a good follower to lead. So if you, if you can't follow correctly, you're not going to be a good leader. And that's what you see in these education, educational settings. You got people that are not willing to follow but want to lead, which make them not so good leaders because they don't even know how to follow. Yeah. And I spoke in some past guests that was talking about education and what can we do to try more high schoolers to go into education, you know, or more people in, you know, cross careers, right? Don't for one career may be coming to education. I think they're more willing to go into college or community college than technical schools than there are to high schools and and go into that field. I know there's a lot of high school programs that I'm pretty sure teach American other organizations that try to track more teachers by to having people switch careers. Is that something that maybe they can influence on? Can we concentrate more on that as a way to show up the shortage of teachers? We could because I went through a program is where it wasn't Teach for America, but in Georgia, it's called a Georgia tap where if you have a degree in something else and you want to transition teaching, you can go through the Georgia tap program and become a teacher. That's how I actually became a certified teacher instead of Georgia. But even in that program, it's like a work study program. You get paid as a regular teacher, but you're working while you're learning it's well in gaining your certification. So I think that would be a good program to go into for transitioning into teaching because you get a hands-on experience. So just say if you a month in a program, you realize, oh teaching is not for me. I thought I want to do it, but this is not it. That way you ain't out of your pocket with no money, no any of that. And so where do you come in? I mean, why did you specifically want to be your own boss as we say? Why did you start your company? I started my company because I saw the lack of in the educational systems. I felt like I could be that person to bridge that gap for the lack of knowledge that general education teachers have and administration because administration sometimes, most of the time that I've seen, they'll know anything about special education as well. So I started my company so I could be that bridge for the parents and the educational school systems so they can help them parents and the parents have their kids. And for me it's bridging that gap, giving them knowledge, giving the school the knowledge to know how to build and craft an IEP that's catered to the child's needs, how the teacher special needs kids, and the parent needs to know what are my rights, what the school can and can't do, what can I do, what are my rights as a parent, what are the laws of special education. And that's where I come in. I bridge that gap. I give the teachers and administration to know how to build and craft an IEP with smart goals in the parent how to advocate for their child, in knowing the special education laws, and how to craft and build a good IEP for their kids, their catered to their kids, you know, special needs. Yeah, and that's funny because you combine your criminal justice learning about behavior with your MBA there and you feel that need. And so what I try to tell so this is that you're going to maybe sometimes start out with having one dog or one career that you want to go out there. Then you may change your major within while you're in college. And then after you graduate, you get into a field that you find that you're not passionate about. That's not what you're saying. It's not what you thought it was. And then you may change it again. So you get there you just feel like this is not what I this is not what I'm supposed to be. I felt like this is not what I'm supposed to be and said that you did. I mean many people that I talked to pass against inference sort of one way and one another way, you know, I talked to one lady one time and said that she thought she want to be a pediatrician, you know, and she had to take those science courses, all that stuff away. Yeah. You know, I had another person talking about, you know, they thought they want to be a nurse, you know, if you want me to help people. But soon they seen all that blood and everything else. We ain't been holed up. That's not what we right. So my shift and change all the time is just you just got to know where you feel at home and like make it a home wherever you are, make it a home. And it's got to be something you're willing to do for free. So if you I do spend, I do it for free. I've given people advice. I get I want to do processes for free because I like to help people and I like giving people the knowledge so they can't advocate for themselves and their child. So it's just if you can do it for free, that's what you're supposed to be. What was I'm an entrepreneur myself. I'm a budding story entrepreneur. What are some of the challenges you had in beginning this company? Not knowing. Not knowing the lack of my knowledge because I thought I was going to start and I was just going to be the hero of the century. No, it's a lot of stuff that goes behind it. So my is the lack of knowledge, the lack of because they don't teach this stuff in school. They don't teach business in school, which I think they should. But hey, they don't. So the lack of knowledge in the beginning, the lack of me having a circle of people that I could ask questions to because my circle that I had in the beginning, they ain't nothing about no business. They never had none. All they want to do is work for the government and as long as I get this government job and this government paycheck, I'm good. I want the government paycheck. I want to work for DCPS number. I want I want to do that number. I just I want to work for myself and I want to help people at the same time. So once I start surrounding myself with people with like minded many, they don't have they don't do the same thing that I do with their business money. And I had them then I did within this last year. I had them to go ask questions and now it's getting easier. But it's it's still kind of hard. It's still kind of hard, but it's getting easier. So the lack of knowledge and the lack of not having nobody to even go ask questions to. And so that's what I hear from my mentors the same way. I don't pretty sure you heard when you're talking about opening the business up that, you know, get around like man and people get around other business people who knows so that way they know what you're going through. And I know for myself that if you talk to a person that's not entrepreneur, your conversation is totally different. And then when you're coming from, they don't like get what you're coming from, you know, and you know it's like you're speaking another language to them and they're looking at you speaking another language and you can really get that one another. And so it helps ladies and gentlemen, especially students, is that when you start a professional career, getting into associations, you know, I'm part of the not so such a seven four people. I hang around different mentors, entrepreneurs, that helps me a lot because they know what I want through, you know, the challenges and joys. And talking about joys, and even what joy do you get out of this? What is there some joy there? Is this why you do this? Yes, I enjoy helping people. I just love, I like helping people. So if I can help somebody feel like they can better advocate for their kids, then that's that's enough for me. That's enough for me. So that's why I started it as a non-profit, by the way. It's a non-profit. So if I can just make somebody like, thank you, you really did help me. I like that because I like to feel like I'm needed. And you know, and me helping people, I don't mind helping people. So that's my joy. Say somebody smile and say thank you, you really helped me. Yeah, well, just talking to you today, you've helped a lot of people. And in the area, there's people really need help. You know, in the area that people really don't want to go into, they want to talk, it's like being a caregiver, right? That takes a special person, I admit it. It takes a special person to be in special education, take a special person to be a caregiver. It takes a special person to do certain jobs that need to be done. Because you got to have patience. And that word, that word, nobody likes patience, right? And we in the microwave society these days, so people don't like to hear that word, patience, you know, and sometimes we can get them patience, right? Having regular patience, right? Because we're so used to things coming up, you can put it to come on fast, your phone come on fast, get information fast, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, you know. And so in a profession where patience is much needed, you always have to kind of trick your mind into, okay, I'm hearing that, patience is needed, you know. I'm not going to get the same response in a microsecond, right? Wow. You're going to be the same joy in a microsecond. That joy is going to come in a long lasting time. Is your joy seeing from one of your students doing one thing and growing to another one? You say to go, right? You say to go, Adrian, and let me take that goal. It may be two months, it may be four months, it may be six months, but seeing them reach that goal, is that is the joy that you get, right? That is the joy. Well, Adrian, thank you so much for following our podcast. Are there any parting words you want to say to my audience at this time? I have what, can I, I want to part and say, ABG is a, is an ABG special, so it's a nonprofit, and I'm always looking for volunteers, and I'm always looking for, you know, donors or sponsors, whatever you. So if you can, you know, just follow me on Instagram, ABG's Fair Consulting, and if you want to help the calls, it's bitt.ly, and ABG special, especially. Tell you what, ladies and gentlemen, please help me something what you're doing. It's very viable and very racist what you're doing. I'm proud of what I thought was so happy when I seen your profile. Like, I got to get this young lady on my podcast because she is a special young lady. I mean, impressive profile, and you can see that I see as I told you earlier, what a wonderful personality, what a joy to be around. I met your friends just love being around you. And so please support her. And like, we're going to have our information also on our website. So look at our website, we can get to us, we'll share our own there. And even thank you so much for coming on our Sunday. I really appreciate it. Well, thank you for having me. And I thank our viewers and listeners for joining me on another episode of the Career Educational Learners in the podcast. We will make new career dreams a reality. God bless.
