$1,500 Grants for Families Through the Parent-Directed Special Education Services (PDSES) Program: 2025-2026 Webinar

Welcome to today's statewide webinar that's hosted by SpedTech's and Partners Resource Network. My name is Sarah Untersey, and I am part of the SpedTech's team. The topic for today's webinar is the Parent Directed Special Education Services, or PDSES program. A few reminders. This webinar is being recorded and the recording will be posted to our SpedTech site. It usually takes about a week in order for that to be posted, but we will drop our website link in the chat so that you will be able to access that once it becomes available. The chat feature is only available if you require technical assistance however, you may put questions in the Q and A section. Presenters will review your submissions, which will help us with clarifications and FAQs in the future. However, there will not be a live Q and A today. SPED TEX is the special education information center for Texas. We are a collaborative project between Region ten Education Service Center and the Texas Education Agency. We help parents understand their rights and responsibilities under IDEA, and we are there when to help facilitate collaboration when there are concerns between the parent and the school district. We also serve as a resource for educators. We offer support via phone, email, or live chat for families and professionals. We have webinars and resources. Our contact information is on the screen. I'm now going to turn it over to Stephanie McLaughlin to share some additional information about Partners Resource Network. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Stephanie McLaughlin. I am the training and evaluation specialist for Partners Resource Network. Partners Resource Network is the nonprofit agency that operates the Texas statewide network of parent training and information centers. We are funded through the Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs. And throughout Texas, we have four projects known as PACT, PATH, PEN, and TEAM. Our mission here at Partners Resource Network is to empower and support Texas families and individuals impacted by disabilities or special health care needs. We do this through a network of highly skilled, regionally located coordinators who are knowledgeable in local policies, services, and resources as well as state and national guidelines. We provide training, information, and one on one assistance at no cost to Texas families and youth. We serve parents of children and youth with disabilities from birth to age twenty six as well as youth self advocates between the ages of fourteen and twenty six. All of our services are provided in both English and Spanish. Thank you, Stephanie. We are excited to welcome our presenters, Huck Spear and Katrina Mathis. Huck is the family engagement and outreach coordinator at the Texas Education Agency in the office of special populations and student supports. And Katrina is an assistant director at the region ten education service center. They are joining us today to discuss the parent directed special education services grant. And at this time, I am going to stop sharing, and I'm going to turn it over to Hook. Thank you very much for that wonderful introduction, Sarah, and thank you all for joining me. It is wonderful to be with you and exciting and slightly nerve racking to see how many of you are here. This is wonderful. As Sarah mentioned, I am the PDSCS coordinator at the Texas Education Agency. I've been with this program basically since it began. And so we did a similar version of this presentation last year, and I'm excited to be back to to show you those of you attending this year as well. I know there's so many of you. I think that there's probably a lot of different audiences here that some of you probably already familiar with the program. Maybe if you've already applied or know somebody who's applied. Some of you, this might be, like, just really learning about it for the first time. So we tried to put together this presentation in a way that will be beneficial to to all of you. We hope that it's helpful and informative. And, again, thank you for being here and for your time and your attention. Also, wanna you'll you'll get to hear from her later, but I'm joined by Katrina Mathis, my colleague, who leads the PDSCS team at the Education Service Center at Region ten in Richardson, Texas, and they are wonderful. They are the, they're the grantee for the program, and they they provide the majority of the technical assistance. So if any moment on your, PDSCS journey, you you encounter some something you need help with and you reach out, it's probably gonna be Katrina and her team who'll help you. Let's see. Can we get this slide to work? There we go. So our agenda today, I'm gonna cover we're gonna cover five main agenda topics. I'm gonna give a overview of the program, what it is, and who's eligible. I'll I'll I'll spin through a quick history of the program since it began in twenty twenty one. I will show the application process. So those of you who are hoping to apply for this this grant, I'll show you how to do that. And then Katrina is gonna show you the shopping experience in the PDSCS marketplace and class wallet. She'll she'll walk you through that exciting thing, and then we'll cover some, frequently some of the most frequently asked questions. That said, we have you know, we've tried to embed a lot of the most frequently asked questions. The answers up to a lot of them will be set. A couple we tried to cover them in our presentation as well. So just heads up, it might get repetitive at the end with the frequently asked questions. Okay. The overview of the program, just really quickly Oops. Wrong button. Sorry. What is PDSCS? So the parent directed special education services program, it's a grant program for families of students served through special education. Education. So it provides a fifteen hundred dollar spending account to the family of an eligible student, and families use that money to purchase educational goods and educational services for their student. And I I one misnomer I I frequently like to go over, some families feel that they are they have the expectation that they're going to sort of receive a fifteen hundred dollar check or a fifteen hundred dollar debit card or or even cash. That's not true. If you're expecting that, you will be disappointed. You you do, the program doesn't send families actual money. It gives families access to money in an account that is inside the PDSCS online marketplace. So, and Katrina will walk you through that marketplace later, but I'd just like to say that out front so that families, you know, know that and aren't disappointed when they don't get actual funding in their hands. That never happens. Through that account, families can purchase educational goods like books and laptops, computers, and school supplies or services, tutoring, therapy, summer camps. So they can purchase all sorts of things, but it has to be through the PDSCS marketplace. So who is eligible? Eligibility is based on the student, to but the parent is the person who has to apply. And the definition of a parent is defined by the Texas Education Code twenty nine zero forty one. It's quite broad. It's the parent, it has to be a resident of Texas who is a natural or adoptive parent, managing or possessory conservator, legal guardian, custodian, or another person or other person with legal authority to act on behalf of the child. So that's the parent. That's who can apply, and that parent can only apply if their student is eligible. So to be eligible, the student must be enrolled in a Texas public school, any grade, any grade. So early early education grades all the way up through, senior in high school and even eighteen plus programs. If the student is enrolled in a Texas public school, they are eligible. If, number two, they are receiving special education services through an individualized education program or an IEP. So keep in mind, and we'll cover this later, this is, it's not all students with a disability. It's all students with a disability who are served through special education, which is, another area that some families, have confusion. The last thing is it's a one time only grant. So if you've received the PDSCS grant in the past, you are you're not eligible to apply again. It's one one time only. Okay. And here, this is a graphic. You'll see it on all of our pretty much all of our outreach materials. The program's very popular, and so we have used to be that the application was open year round, and we've had to move to a an application window system where the application is only open for a certain amount of time each year. So this year's application window is April. April first through April thirtieth, that is when you can actually submit an application, and it opens at eight AM Central Standard Time on April first and closes at five PM Central Standard Time on April thirtieth. Okay. Let me run through very quickly the history of the program. This is mostly just because I'm proud of it. I've I've been here since the beginning, and we I can't believe it. It's already this is this will be our sixth year. This year's application window is we're going into year six. The graphic shows several things, but across the top boxes, these are the number of accounts that were awarded each year, you know, basically, January through December. Those numbers are completely dependent on just the amount of funding we had available that year. I wish I had, for many reasons, I wish I was just super wealthy and could fund every single person, but, we haven't been able to fund everybody because that that's the reason or because of the funding. Also, like I mentioned, we've moved to an application window system. So, it sort of shows on the bottom boxes below, like, our first application window from last year, was February third through March thirty first. We got over eighty three eight thousand applications. And then this year's application window, like I've said, is April first through April thirtieth. And so some of our big top line successes, so far, we've awarded two hundred and thirty six thousand three hundred twenty six accounts. Katrina's team has approved nearly seven hundred thousand orders, for almost two point eight million items, and over seven hundred thousand services have been purchased so far, with these funds. And I think I speak for all of us. This is, you know, one of my favorite slides is beautiful child here also. We love working with families. It's sort of the most rewarding part of our jobs and my job. It's you know, we're lucky to be able to work with a program where we get to see direct impact of our work directly all the way down to students, much like teachers get to do. And so, you know, we love helping families. It's a it's a program that we are very invested and interested in helping families. You will find if you need help and you reach out to us, I hope you find that we are responsive. Whether it's answering questions about just generally how the program works or let's say you need help getting your your student service provider added to the platform, we can help with that. We can help you. If you're not sure how you wanna spend the funds, we'll help you with that. We love working with families and helping families. So we collect these parent testimonials like you see on the screen, and there's many, many more that I'll share a few more with you here. So we enjoy pretty high satisfaction rate. Ninety six percent of the folks who take our survey are satisfied with the program. We know it's not perfect. There's always stuff we can make better, and we we work tirelessly to do so. But we know the program is making a positive difference, and being a parent is hard, especially being the parent of a student with a disability. And so we know that. We understand that, and we're we're here to help as much as and as best as we can. So we make parents central to our mission. So the reason I suspect a lot of you may be here is just because you want to or because you want to apply. I'm gonna walk through that process as best as I can. So there's three basic steps. I'm gonna cover sort of how what you can do today to prepare to apply, and then there's the actual applying that happens during the application window on April first, opening on April first, and then how to check your status. There's also this this this it's got a star on it. There's a certain thing that some of you may need to do where where you attach or upload documentation to your application, and I'm gonna spend the time to walk through that in case that's something that's necessary for you. So let's move on. So what can you do today to get ready to apply if you're somebody who wants to apply for your student? We highly recommend visiting the PDSES website at p d s e s dot t e a dot texas dot gov. This is the best place to get updated and accurate information. I have poked around Google a little bit, and I've seen there are, some places refer to our program, and then they might not they might not be completely accurate or updated. So we really recommend you go to the PDSCS website. And on that website, you can actually join our list or your email reminder list, and it looks kinda like you see on the screen. If you're anything like me, you know, something I wanna do doesn't mean I do it necessarily do it if it's two months away. So you can get yourself on this list, and we will send you email reminders, you know, periodically and certainly right before the window opens to help you remember. The other main thing that you have to do is create, if you haven't already, is create a MySpedText account. So there's the SpedText website, but then you where the orange arrow is showing, you create or log in to your MySpedText account. And this gets you this gets you access to the PDSCS parent portal, which is where you apply, where you return, when you wanna see the status of your application, and so on and so forth. So the only way that you can access your PDSES stuff is through the MySpedText account. So this is also something that you're gonna wanna do before you apply. So and there I won't walk through. There's a helpful video that SpedTechs has on it. It's it's quite simple and easy. It's standard standard information that you provide to create a MySpedTechs account. And then once you do, you you know, this is showing basically a screen of what it looks like when you've logged in to your MySpedText account. So it looks like this. You can do lots of things on there more than just PDSCS, but the orange arrow is pointing to the PDSCS parent portal tile. That's where you'll go to do PDSCS things. So let's pretend I clicked that, and then I'll get I'll get into my parent portal. So there's we'll spin through spin through it quickly. There's four. So you can have a drop down English or Spanish. The application's available in either. There's a navigation panel where you can jump around. There's sort of the central top area where your parent information, contact information is. And then the bottom box, the number four is your students, and this that's actually the spot where you'll end up checking the most because that's where your students will be added and where their application information will live. So real quickly, let me just walk through this. I mean, it's fairly standard. You're gonna add your parent contact information. Can't be blank, you gotta have your standard basic things, first name, last name, address. Your address has to be in Texas, and you cannot be a PO box, by the way. It's gotta be a physical address. We have to have a physical place to send to send the things that you purchase. All of these things can be updated. And so let's say you you move, you can go back into your parent portal and update your address right here. You don't have to reach out to us like you used to. The one thing that cannot be updated, however, is the my SpedTech's login email address. That is prepopulated, and that's based on the email you used to create your my SpedTech's account. That can be changed, but not as easily as simply going in here and editing. So you will have to reach out to SpedTech's to change that. So the next step would be adding your students. And, again, you can do this today. You can't apply for them, but you can add them today. And I'm gonna slow down a little bit here just because this is one of the areas that we have we know some families have experienced, some, excuse me, some pain points. It can be slightly confusing. And so what happens when you click so when you click add student down below, it takes you to a lookup page. And here is where we've learned one of the one of the trickier parts of the application process might be keep in mind, the vast majority of folks are able to add their student fairly easily, I would say, without problem. But I do wanna slow down here and just walk you through the steps of of adding your student. And it's there's a lot of kids in Texas, and we have to make sure you are adding your student, obviously. So there are certain information that only parents will have that they'll have to add here. So one of those is that you'll have to add the unique identification number of your student, and there's two options. There's something called the UID, which is the ten digit state number. If you don't know that, you can ask your your student's school, or you can use the number that you used to register when when you first registered your student with the school, and most families use Social Security number. If you didn't use that, the school will have provided something called an s number. That one of those two options, just wanna sort of mention, if you use the if you're worried about using the Social Security number, we do not store that anywhere. Once you found your student, it it goes away. It's not ever stored or if you're worried about that security. Then after that, you have to enter your student's name, first name, and last name and date of birth, and it has to match exactly, the way your student is listed in state records by the school. And so we've had issues with if a student has, for instance, an apostrophe in their name or a dash in their name or some kind of strange or unusual character, and it gets left out. If it doesn't match, it will say there is not a match. So it has to match exactly, in order to find your student. Or, like, if your student is named Jonathan, but everybody calls him Johnny. If you type in Johnny and it it and it doesn't match, it won't work. So this kinda walks you through what you'll see. If you do get a match, you've entered everything correctly, the box is kinda light up green, and you'll click search. And then the middle set of boxes shows, hey. It found the student. You're gonna check that. It populates it below. It checks their UID, their student name, their date of birth, make sure it's your student, and then you simply click add student. It gives you a little confirmation green like it's been successfully added to your profile, and this is what you'll see. After you've done that. The top box will show on your student in your student box on your home page, it'll show your student's been added. Now you can't do anything yet with it today because the application's not opened, it'll look like this box before the window opens. It'll look like that top box. It'll just show your UID, student name, date of birth, and then all the other columns are blank. And then I put the bottom the below another rectangle because after the window opens, you'll notice that there's there's that row except at the very end, there's a now an apply button. So at eight AM Central Standard Time on April first, the apply button becomes available, and that's where you'll go to apply for your student. By the way, if you have more than one student, you'll simply, like, repeat the process that I went through, and you'll add and you'll see, like, several rows with each of your students. So after you've clicked applied, it's, you know, you have to make three promises. You'll read through all these instructions. You have to agree that there are there's a thirty day account activation requirement. This is not from the day you're signing right here. This is, like, once you get your account, we wanna let you know prewarning, you'll you'll have to activate that account within thirty days once you once you get it. Otherwise, funds will be reclaimed and repurposed. You have to certify that you have the the authority to you are essentially, like, that legal definition of a parent. You have the authority to make decisions on behalf of the student, and then you have to test certify that you everything is accurate and correct. And then you'll click let's see. How how can I get then you'll click the blue submit button, and that's it? Your application will be submitted. And you'll see at the very bottom that rectangle now shows all kinds of things, the UID, the student name, the date of birth. But then now now also it'll have filled in the application ID, the submission date, the time stamp, the the status, so on and so forth. And all the way on the side, there's a now there's a blue button that says cancel. So if you if you want to cancel your application, you you can. It's up to you. We do not recommend. It's heartbreaking sometimes. A parent we've had that happen where they accidentally cancel an application, and that means they have to then reapply. So please don't cancel unless you absolutely want to. K. Here's where I wanna slow down. I mentioned that that star. There are a handful of families who may need to upload documentation as part of the process in order to help us determine your student is eligible. So I wanted to spend a minute on that just in case. Now the vast majority of people who apply do not need to upload documentation. We take your student's record. We we check it against state records to make sure your student meets the basic eligibility criteria that they are enrolled and that they are served through special education. If state data shows that, you know, we don't need uploaded documentation. We we have what we need. What happens, however, is that there is a lag in that data so that there's something called the fall snapshot data for PIMS data, and we don't get that information. Schools have to send it to TEA. And so if your student became eligible after in this October first of twenty twenty five of this school year like, let's say your student was getting evaluated, but didn't you did not have your first initial admission review and dismissal meeting ARD meeting to join to to start begin receiving special education services until, say, January until, like, now, the snapshot data that the school sends us will not reflect that. And so our data will it'll look like the student is not eligible. All this to say, if your student only became eligible in the last four months for enrollment or served through special education eligibility, those families we recommend upload their students' IEP, individualized education program, as part of the application process. That way, instead of us just sending you a flat, like, rejection, you're you're denied. That way, we can review that documentation. We can see, oh, yep. They are eligible, and that way, you won't you won't receive a denial. Last thing is checking your status. You know, at the bottom, the box says please be patient. There will be some I just forewarning. There there might be some waiting in this process. If you're applying, it takes some time for us to process all the applications to to read all those IEPs that are uploaded. And so if you're anxious about that or you want we we what the purpose of this slide is is to let you know that you can always check your status. We don't need to, we won't send it out to you, for example. You can just log back into your parent portal and check your status. In so doing, we ask that you remain as patient as possible, please. We know that it can take several months, and, you might be logging in and checking your status, and it's still the same status as it was. I think I saw a gentleman came through the chat earlier that they had applied late late March last year, and they're still waiting, and that that can happen. And I'm sorry that's happened, but that that happens. And so please be patient. We do process applications in the order they were submitted. And so if you submit late in the window, it it might be later later on for us to to arrive to your application. Eventually, however, if your student's eligible, you will receive an account. And here's where that thirty day comes into play. So you we send you an email saying, hey. Your your student is eligible, but it's waiting to be funded. Eventually, you'll get an email from Class Wallet from the actual, like, place that has the money, where you spend the money, and that's when the thirty days begins. Obviously, you don't have to log in and spend money on on if you don't have an account yet. Once you get that, though, a clock starts ticking on your thirty days. So if you're eligible and you get your email from ClassWallet, you have to then log in. You have to sign something called, the PDSCS parental agreement following all our rules. And there is that that then, gives you access to the funds, and you'll you'll see them. And then you'll have a purse deadline to spend those funds. And so I won't go into those terribly into all those tiny details, but just know that you'll you'll you do need to you are required to activate and log in to your account, and then you are required to spend those funds within a certain amount of time. Katrina will walk through there are a few like, there there is an an option to get an extension if you needed more time and so on and so forth. So I will happily turn it over to her to to walk you through the PDSCS marketplace. Katrina? Thanks, Huck. So once a PDSCS account has been awarded, then you're going to receive that access to the PDSCS marketplace, CLASS Wallet. So we wanna take a look at how parents can spend their funds once they get that account. So we've talked a little bit about Class Wallet. So that's the online marketplace for the PDSCS program, and that is where the funds live. So kind of like Huck said, that's the where the funds are being held. And then you are able to access your account with that fifteen hundred dollars in there, and then you'll get a that class wallet email that will give you step by step how to log in, how to accept that parent agreement that he had talked about, and then how to start spending your funds from the approved vendors and providers that are there in the platform. So we have over seventy vendors on the Classwallet platform. So it's kinda like an online mall where you go in and you are able to see all these different stores, and you can choose, educational items, a variety of educational and therapeutic items for your student. We have a lot of technology. A lot of parents will purchase technology items like computers, tablets, printers. They can check out some stores like Best Buy is on there, Apple for families, Office Depot. So we have a lot of good options in there. Some families choose to purchase sensory items for their students, and we have some good vendors like Fun and Function and School Outfitters, the sensory site that have a variety of those sensory items. The other thing that parents like to purchase are any kind of educational, like manipulative for math or science and STEM area supplies, reading programs. We have quite a few reading programs in there. So some really great options for parents. Sometimes it gets overwhelming with the number of options that are in there, and we understand that. And that's why we have consultants on hand to help you find whatever it is that will educationally benefit your student. We that's one of our favorite things to do is to help families find the things that they need, and that might be through this, through the items, or it may be through some of our other direct pay vendors or our service providers. So that is something that if you get overwhelmed, please reach out to us because we can help you find a specific item. Or if you need ideas on items. All of our consultants are very well versed in special education and have been teachers before, and they can help you with that. Alright. So these are some of the, like, the top five items by category that have been purchased. So most commonly purchased items. So you can kind of see that broken down. Some families wanna create a learning space in their home, so they might purchase a desk, the desk chair, a computer, the printer. They might get the whole setup so that their student has a dedicated area to do their their homework. We've we've already talked about some of the sensory needs, so you can buy weighted items, fidgets, adaptive seating. So some parents are setting up kind of a sensory area in their home with per, things that they have purchased from the grant. Families have shared with us how beneficial it's been to be able to replicate if there are good things going on in school that they are able to replicate in that home in their home so they can set up the same kind of area, and that reinforces that that learning for them. So we do have some specific purchasing guidelines to make sure that those items are providing a direct educational benefit. We do have some limits on how many items can be purchased or a maximum price allowed. For example, each eligible student can purchase one computer and one tablet. We can purchase a desk. We had talked about setting up that learning area. So you can purchase a desk for your student, but it can't be over three hundred dollars. So you get those purchasing guidelines, and we are able to help you with those as well. The p d s c s team is going to review every order that comes in. So they're gonna have eyes on everything that everything that comes through the platform. If something doesn't meet the requirements, so if we tried if someone tried to order a desk that was five hundred dollars, that's gonna be rejected, and the parent is going to receive a, a just a email of the reason why it was rejected. So we have to make sure that we are following these, guidelines. We also are able to help you. So if there's something that maybe maybe it's not considered educational through the guidelines, maybe there's an alternate item that we can suggest. So our team is really good about doing that. Okay. So we really like it. We love that parents are able to access these funds to pay for services. So we have a wide range of service providers across the state that can meet the educational and therapeutic needs of our families. They provide tutoring, counseling, equine therapy, camps. A lot of parents are using their funds on summer camps. Dyslexia therapy is a really good one or a really big one. Also, ABA is up there. So there are a lot of services that are available to be spent to have funds utilized on. We have to remember that those services are direct to the student, so they can't be used for assessments, evaluations, legal services, day care, late or cancellation fees, or advocacy. Here, you're gonna see our provider map. So this kind of shows you where our providers are. You can use the search feature on the side to see, is my is my provider here? Your student might already be receiving speech therapy, and they might have, their therapist might already be an approved provider with us. So you can kind of check that here. If you don't know, you know, yes, my kid needs some tutoring. I want to find a tutor close to my house. You can also use this map here because you can put your ZIP code in and sort it by provider. If you look here and you don't see your speech or your tutor that you're currently using, you can reach out to us, and we can provide them the information on applying and becoming an approved provider with us. Let me see what other points do we need. Each account has a spending deadline. So if we're gonna use our funds on services, we really encourage you to start that as soon as, the account is awarded. If you need an extension later on to continue those services, then you can work with our team, and we can get you an extension for that. Alright. Now we wanna move into some of those frequently asked questions, and I've seen some of these questions in the chat. So I'm glad that we're doing this, Huck. So let's go ahead and start that. So the first one, do I need a MySpedTechs account to apply? I'll take this one. Thank you, Katrina. Yes. The answer to this is yes. I hope you already knew the answer to this. The only way you can access the p d s e s application is through your MySpedTechs account. So if you do not already have one, you will need to create one before you can access the PDSCS parent portal and apply. I will mention the system is compatible with mobile devices and phones, but it is a little bit easier and better and recommended if possible. If you can use a computer or a tablet, the the screen is a little bit easier to manage. Yeah. For sure. Alright. This is one that I saw come through Huck earlier. So do students who attend private school qualify? And then what about students who are being served through five zero four? Great questions. The answer to both of these is no. Students for this program, students must be enrolled in a Texas public school. That includes open enrollment charter schools, but not private schools. So students enrolled in a private school do not qualify for the PDSCS grant program. That includes a small sliver of students who attend a private school, but they do receive drop in itinerant special education services at a public school, and it's through something called proportionate share. Those students are also not eligible for the PDSCS program. As for the five zero four, the section five zero four students, although they do have a disability, as I mentioned, but the rules of this program are that to be eligible, you have to be served through special education. And so students served under section five zero four are not eligible for the PDSCS program because they are not served through special education. Okay. Alright. So what if my student is in the process of being evaluated for special education when that application opens on April first? Great question. Thank you. I I wanna start by just shouting out there. We have so much we get so much help from schools and from school professionals, from teachers, from administrators, from the people who do the evaluations and who participate in our committee meetings and, for instance, diagnosticians or or LSSPs. As you probably know, if you have a student with a disability who's gone through process, it takes a a bit of time to complete the whole evaluation process and then sit down on an org committee and find that the student, you know, develop an IEP and all those things. If you are in the middle of that evaluation process, but your student has not yet actually formally entered you know, begun receiving special education services, you should not apply until you've actually had the initial ARD meeting and determined eligibility, that is when you should apply. If you, if you apply before you actually your student actually begins receiving special education services, you will be denied and then strongly encouraged to reapply the following year when that student is eligible. Alright. So now they've gotten, an email from your program. So the award decision email says waiting to be funded. So now what's next? Sure. I wanna take a little bit of time on hopefully, I'll find some magic words. This is the the most commonly asked question I get is, hey. What is taking so long? When will I get my account? So, what happens is is, you know, we review and we determine your student is eligible, but we cannot fund your account until we actually have the funds to do so, and funds come, irregularly for different reasons. So it's not possible to always predict exactly when that will be. So we we we say, please be patient, and we your status is is something called waiting to be funded. You're eligible, but you're waiting to be funded. So how does that happen, and how do we do that fairly? So I wanted to sort of try to explain that. So it's done according to the order in which you applied. So every when you submit your application, you click that blue submit button. It records a time stamp of when that was, so that puts you in a line. However, it also the program, according to program rules, prioritizes students who receive free or reduced lunch who are, called economically disadvantaged according to their PIMS code. A a certain number of those are prioritized by the program. And so they they're still in line. They're still going it's almost like there are two lines, really. There's a prioritized line, and they have we're still going in according to the order the application was submitted. But students who are eligible to receive free or reduced lunch according to their PIMS documentation will likely receive accounts before students who are not coded that way. And so if you're waiting a long time or longer or let's say your neighbor applied and you applied on the same day, but your neighbor's student, they get their funds before we, you do, it's likely because of the prioritization structure. Thank you. Alright. So now what if we get an award decision email that says your student is not eligible for the PDSCS program? And I think, yes. My student is being served in special education and is eligible. What should I do? Correct. Great question. So there's an appeal main answer I want you to take away, there's an appeal process. It's very simple. That same part of the application I showed you where you you click apply for your student or you could have clicked cancel for application. What will happen when you get if you're denied, if we state data shows your student is not eligible, and we did not get the correct documentation uploaded to show you're eligible, you will get a denial. That's not the end of the road, though. So at that moment, an appeal button becomes an option. If your student is in fact eligible, you will be required to upload your student's individualized education program, a digital copy of the full most recent IEP We will be happy to look through it, confirm eligibility, reverse the decision, and award your account. So we we process lots of appeals for that situation. I just want folks to know if your student is eligible, we are on your side. We are trying you you know, we'll we'll we'll work with you over and over to make sure we get what we need to confirm that eligibility, and then, you know, we will go ahead and and change your status back to eligible. Thank you. Okay. Katrina. Yes. Now a family has gotten through the process of of being determined eligible, and, they finally get their class wallet, their email that awards their account. Tell me about what about is is there a time limit for the family to log in and activate or an activation requirement? Yes. Thanks for asking that because that is a that is a common question. And, really, they're they're gonna get the family is going to get a series of emails, but the one that they're looking for for that activation is going to be that ClassWallet welcome email. So after they get the email from ClassWallet, then that's kind of where you said earlier their clock starts ticking. So this is where they need to log in. They need to follow the directions that are very well laid out in that email, to follow the directions to accept their parent parental acknowledgment and agreement. So they are going to log in to that class wall. It calls that an affidavit. So they're gonna look for that affidavit, and they are going to read through it and accept that affidavit. We will send out so many so many reminders about that. You'll get text reminders. You'll get email reminders. You'll get phone calls. So we do not want anyone to miss that activation requirement. Thanks. And could you walk us through again what can parents purchase? This is one of the most commonly question commonly asked questions I get. Like, what is allowable? What is not allowable? What can parents purchase with their PDSCS funds? Right. Yes. So parents can the PDSCS funds are for the student's educational educational use, so direct educational use. So we review their orders to make sure that we're following those guidelines. So anything that is that supports your students' education, we had talked about some of the reading programs earlier, a lot of STEM materials, adaptive and communication devices. So sometimes, insurance might not cover a certain communication device. So a parent might purchase one of those. Anything that's gonna give them support and access to their instruction, that's something that those are things that we're gonna be able to to approve. Some of the things that we can't approve, and you saw on those on that purchasing guidelines, we can't approve home goods or appliances or anything that's going to be leaning more toward home or medical type things, as far as items go. So we wanna make sure that those are the things that we are looking at, support the educational needs. When we're looking at services, that's we're excited when parents wanna use their funds on services, and you can use your funds for tutoring, ABA, speech, all of those services we talked about earlier. We wanna make sure that those services are also going to directly, support your students' learning. So and that's why that direct educational, impact has it has to be directly to the student. So that's why we can't do, the legal or advocacy fees, evaluation fees when it comes to services. So if you have an item that's questionable, we we that you think we might question, you you have the opportunity to add a justification for that, and we can take that into consideration. So that kind of helps us know this is why I'm choosing this, and then we can see whether that still is following, the guidelines. So we do try to, like I said, we try to help parents find what's beneficial to their students. We may offer alternate items or talk to you about something, you know, that might be a better fit for for the program. I feel like I rambled on with that, Huck. Sorry. No. I think it's yeah. It's such an important for it's a pain point for some families, so thank you for walking us through that. What about reimbursements? This is another common one. If a if a parent buys something, like, before they apply, can they pay themselves back and reimburse themselves later using PDSCS funds? No. So the the program doesn't allow for reimbursement. So they cannot reimburse. So we say, please, don't make any purchases until you get access to your CLASSWallet account, and then purchases for items need to be through that marketplace. So you need to shop in that mall, for your for your educational items because we're not gonna be be able to reimburse you later on. We have had some parents before that have said, oh, but you told me that Staples was an approved approved vendor. And they are, but you can't walk into a Staples and shop. You have to shop through the Classwallet Marketplace. As far as services go, so we have also had parents ask try to submit invoices for services that have already been paid for, and we can't pay anything that's already been paid. Now if you have an invoice for if today, I had an invoice for tutoring that happened in December and I'm awarded my account today, I can, I can upload that invoice to be paid with the for the approved provider, at this time. So if you have older invoices that are unpaid and you get awarded, you are able to, submit those for payment as long as your provider is approved. Thanks. And just last thing, if there's any you know, at any moment, through their journey, any of the folks out there who are applying, who are seeing this recording, need help at any time, can you just tell us how can folks get help? Yes. So, again, this is what our team loves to do, loves to help parents, and we can help you from from the beginning to the end. So if you have, if you are having difficulty with that application, we are going to have consultants on hand to help you. You can always email us at p d s e s help at region ten dot org, and we will, get back with you. We'll get back with you via email. If you ask to speak with one of us, we will have a consultant reach out to you. We do have consultants that are available. If you work during the day and you need someone to call you after hours, we can make arrangements for that. So we are going to help you in any way we can. So email us for any of those questions. You can also reach out to SpedTechs at that one eight hundred number. They're gonna be able to help you with some of those, application. They're gonna help you walk through that application. They're gonna be able to answer some general questions for you, so they are also a great resource. Later on down the road, when you get your account, if there is, an issue with an order, like you've submitted an order and you had several items on it and you received a couple of the items, but you're missing something, that's when you're gonna reach out to Classwallet. So there are a couple of instances where Classwallet is gonna be your go to. And throughout the program, we are sending you communication. You're getting communication from Huck at TEA. You're getting communication from us, and that is going to help you. We're gonna be reaching out and saying, if you need help, if you have questions. And then if you have other things that might be more class wallet, we're gonna give you that contact information. I, again, rambled, Huck. Thanks. But, so, again, SpedTechs, is your your special your source for special education information. So if you have any general outside of PDSCS. If you have general special education information questions, please reach out to them. Their information is here on the screen, and they are so happy to help you. And thanks, y'all. I've I also wanna finish here just with a call to action. These are four things you can do right now to prepare in case you're somebody who wants to apply. So go ahead and visit the PDSCS website, learn about the program, join that email list so that you get our emails to remind you about when the application opens. Go ahead and create your MySpedTechs account, if you don't already have one, and then go ahead and get into your PDSCS parent portal, add your you know, put your contact information, add your students, and so that you're ready to simply click the apply button on eight eight AM Central Standard Time on April first when the window opens. So those are four things that you can do, to prepare to apply to apply. And then with that, I just wanna thank you all very, very much for your time, and we really look forward to, hopefully, you having a really positive PDSCS experience. And we we hope this program in some way, hopefully, a great way helps helps your student, helps your child. So thank you for your time, and I'll turn it back to Sarah.