Episode Description
What Warren City Found When They Stopped Forcing Kids Into Programs
**What happens when a school district puts humanity first—and abandons the one-size-fits-all approach to special education?** In this episode, we sit down with Patricia Dreher, Executive Director of Special Education for Warren City School District, to explore how one district is transforming outcomes by recognizing that *the label is not the student*. Discover the counterintuitive strategies that work when resources are tight but commitment runs deep.
About Our Guest
Patricia Dreher brings years of expertise in special education leadership to Warren City School District, where she navigates the complex challenge of serving increasingly diverse student needs with constrained resources. Her pragmatic yet compassionate approach to special education administration offers practical insights for leaders facing similar pressures.
What You’ll Learn
In this candid conversation, you’ll discover:
– **Why the traditional “one program fits all” model fails** students with complex needs—and what works better
– **The real staffing crisis** in special education and why it’s getting worse, not better
– **How to maintain consistency** and quality across buildings when your team is stretched thin
– **The power of seeing the student beyond the diagnosis** and how it changes everything
– **Practical strategies** special education leaders can implement immediately, regardless of budget constraints
Key Takeaways
✓ **Invest in Kids, Win in Life** — When you prioritize individual student needs over program convenience, outcomes improve across the board
✓ **The Human Behind the Label** — Every student carries the weight of diagnostic labels; exceptional leaders help them rise above them
✓ **Resource Reality** — While unlimited funding would solve many problems, the districts that thrive are those who maximize impact with what they have
✓ **The Teacher Shortage is Real** — Recruiting and retaining special education talent requires more than good intentions; it requires strategic, systemic change
✓ **Consistency Requires Culture** — When teachers share a common mission centered on student dignity, implementation gaps shrink dramatically
### Notable Quotes
> *”When you invest in the kids, you win.”*
> *”There’s a beautiful human being behind every single one of those labels.”*
> *”The label is not the human being behind it. It’s the human being that’s there and we’re trying to help them deal with the autism and the disability.”*
—
**Ready to transform how your district serves students with intensive needs?** Listen now to hear how Warren City is rewriting the special education playbook—and why Patricia Dreher’s insights matter more than ever.
**Subscribe to stay updated on episodes featuring real solutions from real education leaders.**
FULL PODCAST Transcript
Lighthouse Therapy (00:01.081)
Hello everyone and welcome to the Brighter Together podcast. My name is Janet Courtney and my special guest today is Patricia Dreher. Patricia is the executive director of special education at Warren City School District in Warren, Ohio. Patricia, thank you for being on the show today.
Patricia Dreher (00:20.642)
Well, thank you for having me, Jan, and I was very excited.
Lighthouse Therapy (00:23.453)
Awesome. So tell us a little bit about your journey to this position in education and a little about about Warren City School District.
Patricia Dreher (00:33.23)
Okay, so my journey, I started being out with being a school psychologist for Nile City Schools for 12 years. And then I went to our E Educational Service Center in Trumbull County and was a supervisor for students with emotional disturbance for several years.
Then I went to our state support team where I worked with the state of Ohio and helped districts with monitoring and things like that. And during that process got an opportunity to work with Warren City Schools and then an opening for the director came and I got that opportunity and I’ve been this is my fourth year now at Warren City Schools as the executive director of special ed. Thank you.
Lighthouse Therapy (01:13.795)
Congratulations. So you’ve been in education for what 20 plus years at least, right?
Patricia Dreher (01:18.978)
Yep, a little bit, yeah, like, almost 30, getting there,
Lighthouse Therapy (01:22.521)
Almost 30, yeah, I got 32 next month. I’m like, oh, how did that happen? I don’t know. It’s okay, we look great. You and I, look great, yeah. And we look great, yeah, absolutely. Okay, so tell us a little bit, I love that. We’ve gotta build ourselves up, we absolutely have to. It’s a hard job and we’re doing it. So tell me a little bit about, well, that was really wild off topic, wasn’t it?
Patricia Dreher (01:29.932)
It goes. Thank you.
you
Lighthouse Therapy (01:49.849)
That’s one of the things I love. I can be goofy sometimes and it’s still okay, you know? Right? You have to, you have to laugh sometimes. Warren city school district, you told me it’s over on the east side of Ohio. So tell me a little bit about Warren and your community.
Patricia Dreher (01:54.21)
That’s good. It’s a good thing to have in education.
Patricia Dreher (02:09.678)
So it is a mid-size urban. It is the largest district that we have in Trumbull County. We have about little around 4,600 students. With the special ed, we have about a thousand of the students on IEPs. Now those also include our preschool and out of district students. So we have four K-8 buildings and preschool included in those buildings and then one high school. And then we
you know, obviously also service some students that are out of district like we have, you know, a classroom at JJC. We have a classroom in our Children’s Services County Unit as well. So we service some of those students as well because those entities are located in our district. The juvenile justice. So students that are, you know, you know, of course, ready for a little bit of time, so.
Lighthouse Therapy (02:56.141)
What is JJC?
Lighthouse Therapy (03:02.369)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, unfortunately it happens. Yeah, they still need to, they still need to learn. They still need an education. Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. Those kids, those poor kids have not been handed an easy life ever, ever. It’s yeah. Yeah. And it’s never, never a happy one, unfortunately. Yeah. I’m not saying you don’t get happy endings. I’ve just,
Patricia Dreher (03:11.542)
Absolutely.
Patricia Dreher (03:18.092)
No, no, they usually all come with a story.
Patricia Dreher (03:25.531)
But sometimes we get some happy endings, so…
Lighthouse Therapy (03:30.606)
I just feel terrible for those kids because they were not handed a silver spoon when they were born and it is a hard, hard job to educate them. And, but they are, they’re human beings and they absolutely need an education. And I agree 1000%. So please don’t everybody, please don’t hear that. I don’t love kids because I love kids. I don’t care where they are. I just know that that is so hard. anyway, anyway. so what is, what is, what would you say is your
Patricia Dreher (03:30.615)
Yeah.
Lighthouse Therapy (04:00.877)
biggest challenge right now in education.
Patricia Dreher (04:04.759)
So right now I would say one of our biggest challenges is the amount of students that are starting to come in from the younger, from preschool up, that are having more intense disabilities. And every year we seem to increase in the amount of extreme needs with our students and then finding those opportunities on how to educate them when we have less and less resources.
because everybody is in that same boat and we’re all competing for those same resources. So I think that’s becoming one of our biggest challenges and I don’t think it’s just mine. It’s you know within our county we have that I’m pretty sure within our state and then I you know when I had been out of state and I had met a couple educators they had also said that they were seeing some of the same concerns that we’re seeing here in Ohio so.
Lighthouse Therapy (04:40.61)
and
Lighthouse Therapy (05:02.001)
I when 13 % utilization and utilization is how many, for those of you that don’t know, utilization is that number is how many of the total population need or have an IAP or a special need beyond the general population. And 13 % was high. And now we’re seeing numbers in the 20s and 25%.
Patricia Dreher (05:28.973)
Yeah, our total is 18.86 % right now. And certain categories like autism are increasing yearly with us. That seems to be one of our increases in disability category.
Lighthouse Therapy (05:45.998)
Yeah, yeah, and it’s heartbreaking. It’s absolutely heartbreaking that we’re seeing that. And I’m really hoping that as we go to a more holistic society that that’s gonna come down, I hope. I don’t think there’s a magic cure out there. I don’t think there’s a magic wand that’s gonna make it go away. But I do think that maybe if we get something, I don’t know, I’m hopeful, I’m prayerful. Just for those kids and for their families, it’s an awful thing to have to deal with and.
You know, there’s a beautiful human being behind every single one of those labels, isn’t there? So for sure, for sure. So and when you say resources, are you talking about money? Are you talking about people or is it just like everything?
Patricia Dreher (06:19.032)
Yes, there is.
Patricia Dreher (06:30.423)
encompassing everything. The funding has been a little more challenging and therefore sometimes having outside resources because you’re having limited funds or people from the outside that have limited funds to be able to provide some of those resources. And then staffing is also becoming more more challenging, finding teachers that want to go in that field and then work with that population. So we have some really
great ones that come out but it’s not like it was even 10 years ago, 20 years ago it was like the golden standard, know, but you know every year it’s getting harder and harder to fill those positions.
Lighthouse Therapy (07:15.287)
Yeah, you have an app, you have a open position and you don’t even get one applicant. It’s really disheartening when before you’d have 20 applicants, right? Yeah, it was competitive. Yeah. And now it’s like, can we find somebody? Can we find, I know there’s a lot of schools are doing some amazing programs to educate people into parapro positions and educate parapro paraprofessionals into teachers and sped teachers and helping them.
Patricia Dreher (07:24.462)
Right, it needs to be competitive.
Lighthouse Therapy (07:44.398)
to go along. know there’s a lot of that going up in going on in Michigan. I’ve talked to a couple of schools up there that they have a really nice program to help the people, the staff that they have. Do you want to become a teacher? Let’s get you there. Let’s help get you there. Let’s help pay to get you there. And it’s yeah, grow it. They’re trying to grow their own, right?
Patricia Dreher (08:03.32)
Yeah, we have that program here. So we have some staff that are educational assistants and so going to school wanting to be an educator, so working with them to try to get them so that they can get that degree and then become a teacher. And then they have that experience because they’ve been working as an educational assistant along the way.
Lighthouse Therapy (08:24.073)
Awesome. Yeah, I’m glad to hear that’s there as well. It’s not going to fix the problem, but it is a way to make it a little bit better,
Patricia Dreher (08:33.594)
at least gives us a few and then it’s nice because like we’ve worked with them and so they understand our population and they understand kind of our systems and things like that so it’s an easy transition for them you know from that position into a teaching position.
Lighthouse Therapy (08:47.361)
Yeah, yeah. So what are some of your biggest wins?
Patricia Dreher (08:51.02)
So just different students, I think what’s nice is I have an excellent staff that really care about students in every one of my buildings. So what we really do is we try to look at the students that we have that are coming that have these unique situations and like, what can we do? How can we do this? Let’s get out of the box. So we really try to, I think it’s nice because we really look at the students, see what we have and try to
make a program that’s going to work with them individually. So for example, we have a little girl that just came to us. She’s in a wheelchair, she’s blind, she’s kind of multiple disability, that kind of thing. great mom, but was hesitant to bring her in school because wants to protect her. So we get her, so we started her just because she’s not ready for braille, so we had to start her with textile to get her to get with that. So we start that, so hopefully.
Lighthouse Therapy (09:42.009)
Mm-hmm.
Patricia Dreher (09:50.817)
I we work on some PT, all those skills for her. And then just started her actually three days a week, coming in and starting with certain skills building. at a point where we’re looking to to five days a week and then we’ll grow her to longer periods of the day. So just doing those kind of things. We have another student we have that has brittle bones, very
difficult, so, but very bright, want to keep him, but he’s so sensitive that, you know, working on now, can we do like an online where he can zoom into our teacher’s classroom so he can be part of the classroom, do that, but not get bumped and get injured. So, you know, it’s all the way to that to, you know, just all the continuum of services as well that we have in our district. So, but drilling down to those most intense situations that we can and how can
we address those concerns and work with them and give them supports that will meet their needs. So I like that my our district is very open to doing different things and meeting students needs so I think that’s a definite win here at Warren City.
Lighthouse Therapy (11:07.033)
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. When you invest in the kids, you win, right? Absolutely. I was talking to a gentleman from Wisconsin the other day and their school is shrinking and he was talking about closing two elementaries and how it’s not the building where you learned, it was the people in those buildings. It was a great point because it’s it’s hard. It’s hard when you have to change and close something that the community cares about.
All my kids went there and now it’s not gonna be there. And it’s like, yeah, but that wasn’t what made it special. What made it special was the human beings that were there and the experiences you had. exactly, exactly. Yeah, so for sure.
Patricia Dreher (11:45.249)
And experiences, yes, exactly. yeah. And that’s another thing I think we do very well in Warren is we give a lot of our students, there’s a high poverty, we’re one of the poorest.
communities within the state of Ohio. So we built an incredible wellness center and we have our students with special disabilities and our more intense needs go there and they get to use a golf simulator. We have a sensory room, we have activities, know, we are having our eighth graders eat lunch at the cafeteria at the high school because the wellness center is connected to the high school so they can start transitioning and getting to know them. You know, we try to make sure that we do field trips, you know, everything’s
Thanksgiving we have, you know, we make a Thanksgiving dinner for the students so that they have and we all serve it and you know we just really try to do parent friendly things and community based like a game night where the parents come in and have you know into the school and we have games and we try to you know incorporate game nights and things like that. So just really trying to incorporate activities for our students so they have various opportunities and experiences that they might not normally have that opportunity to have within you know their
that they’re home and things like that.
Lighthouse Therapy (13:02.307)
Yeah, and they’ll thrive when you do something like that, won’t they? know, it is definitely good.
Patricia Dreher (13:07.438)
Yes, and the parents are just, you know, it’s nice because they have to see them interact and then enjoy that. It’s just a nice interaction and a nice, you know, added bonus to what we do.
Lighthouse Therapy (13:20.895)
Absolutely, absolutely. What would you say is something that makes your team like, what do you do with your team or how do you manage your team that you have such great people? mean, it obviously it’s the people, but there’s leadership that happens there too. What kinds of things do you do as the executive director of special education to support those people?
Patricia Dreher (13:45.858)
Well, that’s a very good question and it’s not even just me. It’s kind of we have an executive team within our district that’s pretty and we meet weekly to kind of make sure that we are all working together as a district with the district goals and working really hard to make sure we’re all inclusive. Like we’re really working with the curriculum department. You know, Ohio has science of reading, so making sure we have that. But then like this year we started going and
doing instructional walks into the CrossCat classrooms to kind of observe where do we need and then we got some ideas and we’re like we are seeing a lot of good things but some things that are not consistent so what are our consistencies that we want to do so we actually just the last two nights we had a PD with our cross categorical classroom teachers and kind of talked about that and then talked about the curriculum and how can we adapt that a curriculum into the classroom.
with a modified and how what parts work you know that we utilize with General Ed so that when we
mainstream or to place the students out to have access to the general curriculum, they’ll have some familiarity. And then those who can’t make it, then they still have that same curriculum, but it’s modified to them. So working with supporting that way. And then we have regular district meetings, regular supervisor meetings. The school psychologists come together and work and have conversations and meet. Speech and language pathologists do that as well. So really trying the nice
thing that’s here in Warren is that we have you know 10 speech and language pathologists, 8 school psychs, know 6 supervisors so having them be able to meet and collaborate I think is very important and so we try to make sure that that happens at least monthly if not more and if we can’t meet together then at least jump on to like a virtual meeting and then within the buildings we have team meetings, teacher
Patricia Dreher (15:54.561)
meetings to look at students’ data and goals and again share the district goals down to the building and the building to you know and then kind of reinforcing those so that we’re all kind of on the same trajectory of where we want to go and how we’re going to do it and we’re all consistent which I think is makes things easier when the expectations are clear and all on the same page because when everybody’s doing something different then that’s when you don’t see the progress but I think being you know that there’s some strong
leadership here in our district, just not in my office, but the goals are very clear. I think that makes it a lot easier and makes it stronger. And then just finding people and trying to find people to hire people that have a heart for those students, that really want to work with students that come from some strong disadvantage and have things. we have a lot of people that just really care about kids.
Lighthouse Therapy (16:28.535)
Right.
Lighthouse Therapy (16:51.447)
Right, right, yeah. And those people stay. Those people, when you get them, they stay. They do. You take care of them as long as they feel. You know, it’s funny because I was reading an article the other day and money is not the primary focus for special educators and keeping them engaged is not about the money. The is not their number one concern, you know. And it’s…
Patricia Dreher (16:54.572)
Yes, they do.
Lighthouse Therapy (17:17.601)
It’s interesting because it’s like the same thing with speech therapists. You one of the things as the company that I have that I run, I’m a speech language pathologist and, and, knowing that work life balance and, you know, feeling like they’re valued come before, even before salary most of the time. Now, not everybody’s that way, but you know, that balance that you have to have. And when you take care of them and they know that they’re valued, they stay, they stay.
Patricia Dreher (17:33.933)
Yep.
Patricia Dreher (17:46.254)
Yep, they have to feel that there’s a purpose and they’re making a difference. I think that’s it. Yes, it does. Yes, it does.
Lighthouse Therapy (17:47.321)
Yeah.
Lighthouse Therapy (17:50.69)
Yeah, and the making a difference makes a difference too. It really, that sounds cliche, but it’s so true. If you don’t, if I feel like I’m spinning my wheels and not getting anywhere, cause I’ve got 10 kids in a group for 20 minutes. my gosh, that’s two minutes a kid. You’re never gonna make progress, right? So you have to feel like you’re making some progress with the kids.
Patricia Dreher (18:08.652)
Yeah,
Right, and throughout the year in all my buildings at different times, different staff, you know, they’re engaging with the student and either the student has made some kind of progress or completed a skill and did a task that they’ve never been able to do or, you know, smiled and we’re like, that’s what we do it for. That’s what this is all about. you know.
Lighthouse Therapy (18:30.891)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Seeing that light bulb moment is there’s, you cannot put a dollar amount on that ever. Yeah. And as, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And know that they’re valued and know that somebody cares about them and doesn’t just see them as an autistic child or as a disabled child. That’s not, the label is not the human being behind it. It’s the human being that’s there and we’re trying to help them deal.
Patricia Dreher (18:40.568)
some of the styles.
Lighthouse Therapy (18:58.713)
with the autism and the disability. So it’s a totally different mindset than I think what people out in the public, not everybody, but there are definitely people in the general population that just don’t understand it. They don’t understand it. And when they get it, when you get what we do and why we do what we do, there’s nothing like it. For sure, for sure. if you could, Patricia, if you could miraculously solve one problem.
Patricia Dreher (19:19.222)
Yep, I agree. I agree.
Lighthouse Therapy (19:28.491)
in your world that in your sphere of education can’t be money. We all know we all need more money. You hear that government? There’s not enough money in education. But if you could solve one thing and never have to deal with it again, what would that one thing be?
Patricia Dreher (19:46.083)
would say if I could have anything I wanted, would be having…
an array of resources that I could be able to service every child with no problem and have like the best for them. You know, we do attempt that, but you know, you know, with some staffing shortages, room shortages, know, outside facility shortages, you know, or just limits on things, I would just say no limits on the resources available for our students so that they could have the
Lighthouse Therapy (20:00.634)
Mm.
Patricia Dreher (20:21.058)
Cadillac of everything. That would be great.
Lighthouse Therapy (20:22.723)
Right, yeah, good answer, very good answer. So where do people go if they wanna learn more about what’s going on at Warren City School District?
Patricia Dreher (20:33.378)
Well, they all we have our Warren City School website, which has all our information of us just in general and then like our contacts. So if you wanted to talk to, know, like, you know, reach out to me to ask anything specific about how we, you know, some of the things that we do just reach out, you know, it would be on our website, Warren City Schools, and the contact information would be that. And then there’s some other people also that’s listed on there. That’s our director, you know, our curriculum, our superintendent, our associate superintendent, which each person has.
Lighthouse Therapy (20:58.979)
Right? Yeah.
Patricia Dreher (21:03.362)
like a charge of doing things and moving things, but doing it together, all kids. everybody has their niche of what they’re doing, but we’re working together to do it for all our kids.
Lighthouse Therapy (21:17.335)
Yeah, coming together, circling the wagons and getting it done and getting it done well. Good for you. Good for you. Well, Patricia, it has been such a pleasure to have you on brighter together. You’re making the world a brighter place by the work that you’re doing. And I know that the passion is there and you’re not just your kids, but your staff are all going to win because you are working towards making the world a better place. So keep it up.
Patricia Dreher (21:20.29)
Yeah. Yeah.
Patricia Dreher (21:44.936)
awesome. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
Lighthouse Therapy (21:48.851)
Anytime. Yeah, it was great. Great conversation. Take care.
Patricia Dreher (21:51.865)
Alright, thank you.
