Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Episode Transcript

Transcript edited by Hannah “Asher” Sham

Introduction

Kylo: You’re listening to Let’s Talk! Let’s Talk! is a digital space for students at PCC experiencing disabilities to share their perspectives, ideas, and worldviews in an inclusive and accessible environment. The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of Portland Community College, PCC Foundation, or our community partners. We broadcast on our home website, pcc.edu/dca, on Spotify, on XRAY 91.1 FM and 107.1 FM, and KBOO Community Radio, 90.7 FM.

Course Tagging

Miri: Hello, everybody! My name is Miri, and today’s episode of Let’s Talk! is an extra special double feature. Starting things off, I’ll be talking to our newest associate, Elianna about the efforts at PCC to implement a course tagging system intended to increase accessibility and clarify expectations for a course before signing up for it. Then we’ll hand it over to our friend Anne Verduin, who will be discussing ABLE accounts, what they are, and how they can benefit you with her special guest, Laura Halsey. So make yourself some tea and enjoy today’s episode! Thank you so much for talking to me about this today. Would you start by introducing yourself with your name, pronouns, major, occupation, that sort of thing? 

Elianna: Hello, my name is Elianna. I’m currently a student at PSU. I’m in the Urban and Public Affairs program, and I’m in the Honors College as well. My, my undergraduate thesis is on cooperative housing. I work here as an advocate, and then I do some dog sitting and dog walking. I hope to get a real job once my Medicare timeline starts hitting something, ’cause then I need to work, like, 40 hours a week or something to keep my Medicare. And my pronouns are she/they. 

Miri: Awesome. And by here, do you mean work at PSU or PCC?

Elianna: I work at PCC. 

Miri: Awesome. So you are here to talk about your course tagging project that you and others have been working on, correct? 

Elianna: Yes. 

Miri: So what is course tagging? ‘Cause I know most people have never even heard of that. 

Elianna: So I got the idea — I actually started working for AEDR because of course tagging, so the id- it was my idea, ’cause it’s like as someone with ADHD, I found that there were, like, certain classes just by the way that they were structured and, like, how we used certain materials, I had a much easier time keeping up with classes. I came up –I have a STEM associate’s, so it’s like, a lot of biology, a lot of math, a lot of chemistry. So it’s like there were certain classes that they would have a packet, and I really like this kind of pre-printed packet. It was like the notes were already kind of there, and then you would fill in, and then you could hold on to those notes. And it was so much easier for me to do that rather than being in classes where I had to, like, come up with the notes wholesale. Where I had to, like, look up to the board, look down, like copy down whatever kind of graph or other kind of drawing was on the board and then also fill in notes. And that was just so much more work for me as someone with ADHD, and it made it so much more stressful, and I was like, missing parts of the lecture because I was trying to focus on copying down what was on the board, and that just wasn’t good for me. But then it’s like- 

Miri: It’s a lot of attention that you have to pay to something that is not just learning. 

Elianna: Yeah, so it’s like, but that isn’t really, like, something that’s available on the course description currently. You know, there’s actually a lot of issues with professors not uploading their syllabus. And there is a possibility right now for professors to fill in a course description, but it’s very, like, a blank slate for them, and they wouldn’t even know possibly what even to write in of, like, how to describe their class or how to describe their course in terms of, like, physically being in the course and what kind of students could expect from, like, their routine of being in the class. And coming up in the Gateway to College program, we had this one math teacher where you didn’t really have a choice about what math teacher you had, and she had the packets. And I really loved this teacher, but I was one of the few people who did. 

Miri: Interesting. 

Elianna: Apparently, a lot of other people didn’t really like her. They found her very strict, and they found her very this, that, or the other thing. I didn’t. Maybe it’s because I came up in the South with, you know, more strict teachers of, higher expectation teachers. So it’s like her was nothing to me, but it’s like I genuinely did not find her to be at all a hardass that other people did. And so but even outside of that, there was one girl in my Gateway to College program who really did not gel with the learning style and the teaching style of this class, and she had to take it multiple times and it was like tears multiple times a week from just how much this class stressed her out and just how incompatible it was. And it really is this belief that, you know, I have this belief that education should not be suffering. Like I know in college there really is kind of like this idea of like, “Yeah, college, you’re gonna live off a Cup Noodle and get sick off of living off of Cup Noodle, and then you’re gonna party hard ’cause you worked hard, and it’s gonna make you sick. And then you’re gonna take all these classes, and you’re gonna wanna kill yourself.” And it’s You know, it’s like this kind of like normalization, even valorization of the suffering of getting a higher education, and it’s like that shouldn’t be the thing. Like, that really is something we talk about in disability culture, which is, you know, why should this thing be suffering? Why should this thing, you know, that has barriers for people, this is something we choose to have because of how we choose to set up our societies. So, and then even like not as, as a disabled person, like even if you have like jobs going on, or if you have kids, if you have other kind of like caretaking responsibilities or if you… you know, there’s all sorts of things people could have going on in their lives that’s gonna hinder them from getting an education. So the point of this is that, you know, the tagging project is we’re gonna give, we’re gonna have a shared language list of like terms of descriptors for teachers to then select, and then they don’t have to type up something whole cloth. And then everyone can have a better idea of what to expect when they’re entering, when they’re choosing classes, and then they can hopefully pick something that they eventually learn, “Oh, I like it when a class does this more, and I’m not as happy when a class does that.” And then they can better pick their course loads. Or even if they don’t have a choice, then they can go like, “I know this class is gonna be difficult for me in X, Y, Z reasons, so I should, you know, contact with the teacher, see if I can work out accommodations with them, talk with the disability resource center to make sure I get the accommodations from there. And then I can appropriately workload because I know this is gonna be difficult for me. It’s gonna take more energy. I should not take like four classes or three classes. Maybe I should just take two or focus all my time on this one.” And then that means that people aren’t wasting their time and stressing themselves out, and then it costs money to go to school, so then they’re saving their money as well by choosing something that’s not, that they have more awareness of, and they can better either pick classes that they’re gonna like more or better regulate their time and stress levels.

Miri: Absolutely. And besides people with life things getting in the way, like kids or disability or things- different brains just have different ways of absorbing information. Like I, personally, am horrible at doing busy work homework. I will just not do it. I will get, you know, 98% on tests and then get 20% on homework. But if it’s project-based homework, like something where I get to use my creative side, use problem-solving, come up with my own answers and solutions, it’s great, and I do a great job. And it’s much easier for me. So having project-based classes is vastly preferable to having busywork-based classes, and that would be a very nice thing to know going into a class instead of having to figure out in the first couple weeks.

Elianna: Yeah, and then looking at this from the teacher perspective as well, it means that it’ll be more likely that they’ll get students that work well with their class. And, uh, then they don’t have to worry so much about like, oh, now there’s a student in my class who is drowning in the work or is like really lost or really stressed out. And then it’s like we’re, you know, X many weeks into the term, and there’s only so much time that the student has to turn stuff around or anything like that. So it’s, you know, it helps select for, like, teachers I’m sure find a certain satisfaction from watching a student be challenged and then overcoming that challenge.

Miri: Absolutely. 

Elianna: I don’t imagine teachers like watching students just suffer. And then- 

Miri: One would really hope not, at least. 

Elianna: Well, yeah, one would hope not. And then it also means that students have another way of seeing what a class is going to be like without having to rely on very unreliable r- websites, like Rate My Professor, which can be extremely biased. 

Miri: Yeah, ’cause the people who go on that are people who love the professor or people who really hated the professor. 

Elianna: Yeah. And then it’s, yeah, it’s, you know, then you’re still wondering, like, what is this class gonna be like? What did the bias say for this person? So then it’s, it’s a much more in-house and controlled, and then people, you know, the teacher can represent themselves without having to type up a whole cloth description.

Miri: So how would that be implemented for teachers? Like, both practically in when are they given time and opportunity to do this, and how is it presented to them in a way where they aren’t feeling like they are going to be forced to narrow their own education ability? 

Elianna: Uh, well, it’s like, you know, there’s still in kind of discussion. I’m currently stalled out because of I, I see you have a later question here about Workday. Uh, so it’s like I can’t really do much right now because the people who are doing the shift over to Workday don’t even know what Workday can do in regards to this. And they’re not even gonna meet with me to give me a green light to send out my surveys so then I can then go back and talk to the teachers to get a better idea from them. Yeah, and then it’s allegedly the new, like, course description on Workday is two years away, so. 

Miri: Yeah, the current plan is for the work- the student-facing side of Workday stuff to be, what, what is it, what would that be, 2027 school year? Something like that. 

Elianna: Yeah, 2027, something like that. 

Miri: Which is a long way off.

Elianna: It’s a long way off and not long, not a long way off at all. 

Miri: Yeah. 

Elianna: So it’s, you know, I’m really flexible with it, but the idea is, I guess, we’re gonna have, like, meetings of shared language, then everyone knows what we’re talking about, and then we would, like, let them, like, check off from the list, you know, what they think applies or what they believe would apply. And they can add little blurbs to it to add more description if they want. It’s kind of like giving them a structure that they can work off of and then add caveats or other kind of description if they want, and then another, like, big box I’m thinking that they could type in more information that they would want to put in. And I know that it’s like the professors need to meet certain criteria for getting their syllabus done. And before they can upload it, and that can be one of the barriers to them uploading their syllabus to the course description page. 

Miri: Oh, to make sure that they have actually gone through and filled out the information?

Elianna: Yeah, so it’s like the idea with this is that it’s more flexible and it’s more in their court. And I hope that by making it as easy as possible, it is less of a chore for them, and it really is like, it’s a tool that they can use for their own, you know, autonomy and representation and it becomes something positive for professors. That really is my hope with this, is that this would be mutually beneficial for students and for professors. 

Miri: I agree. And it sounds like it would be, especially given that much autonomy. ‘Cause the… Okay, so the project title involves tagging. So is it going to be a tagging system like what we are familiar with in other softwares like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, that kind of thing, where you can sort by tags or Archive of Our Own, I guess?

Elianna: Yeah. Well, it’s like that’s… Honestly, I was thinking more like Archive of Our Own when I was thinking of this idea. But it’s like, yeah, it’s… I’m not a software engineer or anything like that, so I can’t really speak to that as well, so I’m really flexible in how we get this thing worked out, just so long as we get it worked out. I know that we currently do have a lot of filters for, like, what day is it on? Is it in person? Is it on campus? Which campus? 

Miri: So you’d be hoping to add things that are, like, filter by heavy homework, more test-oriented, more lecture-oriented, more practice-oriented, that kind of thing? 

Elianna: Yeah, it’s like that would be nice, and then it would really help prevent people from, like, looking at a whole big list of classes that aren’t gonna be applicable to them. Uh, but otherwise, I am flexible on it, where it’s, you know, maybe they filter it out, maybe they don’t, ’cause I… That’s certainly been a frustration of mine looking for classes at PSU and stuff, where it’s like I need something to be in person. Like, I really just cannot do remote learning. Like, I need to be in person talking and working with people to be able to focus.

Miri: Yes. Yeah. 

Elianna: So, and- 

Miri: In-person classes are so much easier for a lot of people. 

Elianna: Yeah. So it’s, you know, and then it’s like, oh, there’s no classes available for the class I’m looking for in person. So it, it really is kind of like, you know, how much runaround is the, are the students gonna have with filtering things out or just kind of going, like, maybe, like, ranked, like, levels of, like, I could tolerate this, or I could, you know, what is going to be in or out of the system for them, and how the, what Workday can do is something I’m, I’m flexible for. Like, I don’t wanna be married to anything and then be, like, so devastated that we can’t do it. 

Miri: Yeah, that’s fair. 

Elianna: I just wanna get, like, labels done at least. Bare minimum, get labels. It’d be nice if we can filter some stuff out, if the people really are like, “I cannot do this class, and I must have, you know, this element in a class.” 

Miri: So the main focus of the project right now is to develop that shared language for teachers to be able to use? 

Elianna: Yeah, I’d like to be able to do that, but I can’t get the green light for putting out my survey that I made before getting the go-ahead from the people at Workday that I, that they can do it or they would be able to do it, so. I have a whole survey. I’m not sure if Silver, who did the art for my posters, uh, is still with us. Uh, thank you, Silver, very much for doing these posters. They’re very pretty. It’s not, you know, I can’t do anything right now. I’m really, I’m stalled out right now until I can get the go-ahead from the people at Workday that I can send out my surveys to know what students would want to know. Because I know I have a lot of blind spots as someone who came up in STEM, and I didn’t have as much of, like, an arts background, or language background or many of the other kind of, like, especially the, like, the trade programs that we have here. Like, there’s so much I don’t know about the experience of others. So it, that’s why I made the survey as well, is that there’s some tags I knew of, but then there’s also, like, oh, other people might wanna put in their ideas into the hat, and then we can see, like, if the tags I’ve already presented have certain levels of popularity. 

Miri: So this will be a public-facing survey, like something that would be 

viewable- 

Elianna: Yeah, it’s gonna, like, post it up… oh, sorry 

Miri: Oh, uh, it’ll be fillable by students? 

Elianna: Yeah. So it’s like I have posters, I was gonna post them up around the campuses, and then it would go out in, like, our newsletter. I kept trying to remember if it’s still, like, Panther Talk or something like that. Um, and then people could go onto the survey, and they can fill out… like, I already have some tags up there. They can check to go, like, “Oh, this would be nice. Oh, this would be nice.” And then I have, like, a give me your own ideas section at the bottom, so. 

Miri: That’s super cool. I had assumed that it was going to be a survey for teachers of, like, how would you rate yourself? But it being student-faced is extra interesting that you can’t get a thumbs up, green light for it. 

Elianna: So our supervisor, Kayla, is concerned about getting students’ hopes up 

Miri: Yeah.

Elianna: By having this survey go out and then having it not come to fruition. So that’s why I can’t send out the student-facing survey.

Miri: Interesting. Yeah. It would be a shame for people to get excited about this and then have someone be like, “Oh, actually, unfortunately, this doesn’t work,” because mysterious back-end things that only four people understand. Interesting. So have you gotten teachers involved in the process so far? 

Elianna: I’ve spoken with some teachers. Um, I have went to the teachers’ union meeting to talk about it with them like, couple summers ago. Uh, and there was… It was overall okay. Uh, there were some concerns about, like, with the shared language of, like, a student signs up for a class hoping that, you know, it’s gonna look like this, but then it looks like something else. So, and that’s kind of the point of, like, trying to have as much shared language as possible and have, like, you know, even if there’s a term, we can have a description, like, pop up still of what this term means. Then, like, really making sure that, you know, we protect our teachers. And then they were also concerned about, like, time or, like, what if a teacher wants to be more experimental and they wanna try things out? Then it’s like, oh, well, then you could still, like, flip it, like, like, say yes to the tag, and then go, “I’m trying this out. I’m flexible on things changing throughout the term,” or something like that. It really is just kind of like giving people the opportunity to represent themselves as easily as possible and giving them a scaffolding to.

Miri: Represent themselves, and also increasing transparency between both teachers and students ’cause the students will be like, “Oh, well, this is exactly what I’m looking for. I will take it with this teacher, and then maybe I’ll take more class with this teacher.” 

Elianna: Yeah. 

Miri: And the teacher will be able to represent themself as, like, “This is how I like to teach classes. I like teaching students who do well with this kind of thing and not who suffer with this kind of thing.” 

Elianna: Yeah, and it’s like I’ve had that experience. It’s like I had a math teacher right after I had my initial teacher at the Gateway to College program, and he was very, like, well-liked. He was, uh, very highly recommended. But he didn’t have the packet, so I was wasting time, like, writing down notes and everything. And I didn’t feel as secure in my grasp of the content of the class as I had with my previous teacher. I still did, I still got an A in the class, and he was a very lovely person. 

Miri: Congratulations. 

Elianna: So it’s not like judging him as a teacher, as a person, it just wasn’t as compatible of, of a fit.

Miri: Yeah. That, that’s the other thing I was thinking about, is worrying that, which apparently the teachers in the union meeting were worrying about too, is worrying about making teachers feel judged. So having them be able to represent themselves instead of going just through, you know, clicking, “Yes, I do this. No, I don’t do that,” is- … uh, uh, I think is a strength to alleviate that concern. 

Elianna: Yeah. It really is just kind of like giving folks like, “Okay, here are like some things students would wanna know beforehand.” 

Elianna: And you can click on this, and you can add whatever you want to that. So then they’re not doing like, you know, running around in the dark whole cloth descriptions. Yeah. And currently there’s like no, uh, most teachers don’t write a description. And there were also some concerns at, at the union meeting that, are they going to be paid for their time that they put into writing their descriptions and selecting things, so… 

Miri: Yeah. I hope so. Teachers deserve to get paid for– 

Elianna: They do, yeah

Miri: –all the work they do. My wife is a teacher, and while her, you know, hourly rate is pretty good, it’s all for classroom work and not all the extra work that you have to do outside the classroom. So when you average it out, the pay ends up being pretty low. She works for the district, not for PCC, but that is still a, a, a very valid concern for the union. Okay. So, so currently course descriptions are in the class catalog. Would this be in the same place? 

Elianna: I’m kinda hoping so. So it’s, you know, it would probably be easier to, I don’t know what the software is gonna look like. I’m guessing it might be easier to kinda keep the course catalog, and then it would just be like in there. You know, it is just one of those things of where it’s like I wanna be as flexible as possible with this. I don’t know about software engineering. I really just want whatever, like there are certain hopes that I have, the things I’d like to have, but I’m not like depending on it. I just need to get like the l- the ingredient label. The class ingredient label needs to be in there–

Miri: Yeah, exactly. 

Elianna: –Just somehow, some way. 

Miri: Maximum dose of sodium. 

Elianna: Yes. 

Miri: Uh, so you mentioned that you went to this meeting a few summers ago. How long have you been working on this project? 

Elianna: Uh, it’s been a while. It really is like with a lot of the projects that I work on, it’s waiting for other people to get back to me. So it’s… Like, and then I also, I wanna try to do this for PSU as well, so I have done some work on creating, like, a PSU thing, but it’s a lot more difficult for me to do stuff on the PSU side because I’m not an official employee. I’m just, like, some person wandering around who’s also a student. Um, but then it would be nice to have, you know, if this tagging project and this system works really well for PCC, then whatever, like, university that they go to, whether it’s PSU, OSU, or U of O, then this system can follow them into these different universities and make life easier continuously as people seek their education.

Miri: Yeah, that’d be fantastic. 

Elianna: So it’s, you know, it really is just, like, a lot of waiting on people. So it’s like my main contact for that at PSU was the Associated Students Union. So, like, in the meantime while waiting for Workday to get back to me it’s been, like, “Oh, let me make sure I’m in contact,” or like, “I have the green light and support from the student union. Let me make sure that I have support from these other people,” and that was, like, part of, like, filling out my proposal sheet for Workday, people who work on Workday, and getting that filled out. So that’s all filled out. It really is just kind of like waiting now. 

Miri: Hurry up and wait. 

Elianna: It’s a lot of waiting. And so I have a lot of other projects I’m working on at AEDR to kind of fill that time while I wait for the two years it’s going to take for Workday to finally– 

Miri: It is a very long transition. 

Elianna: Yeah. So I, I imagine my workload’s gonna uptick once Workday figures out, once they get to that point of working on the course catalog page and the sign up and everything like that, so.

Miri: Yeah, when whatever changes to the back end are more concretely in place. That would be very nice. Yeah, I hope so. Is there any more on this that you have to, to share with our wonderful listeners? 

Elianna: Not per se, I don’t think right now. It really is just kind of like, you know, hopefully this thing gets implemented and hopefully we can make education so much less stressful for students. And then teachers will have a greater feeling of agency and a greater feeling of transparency with their classes, and then they can almost like pre-select for students who will thrive in their classes. It’ll make things easier. Like that was one of the things that was brought up, it’s like what if a teacher ends up being judged for being like the mean teacher? And it’s like the teacher I loved was the mean teacher. You will find your students. 

Miri: That’s a good point, yeah. 

Elianna: So yeah, it really is, you know, it really isn’t that difficult I don’t think, but I’m not a software engineer and I’m not the people working on Workday. I don’t know what horrors I have yet to come across moving forward. 

Miri: I, I am a software engineer. That’s what I graduated from PCC in. And man, let me tell you, working, building something from scratch yourself is often so much easier than trying to implement something made by somebody else. Like y- you know, you’re talking about this right now and I’m like, “Oh, this would be s- incredibly easy to do. You would just add a text box here and then you’d have it push to this.” And then I’m like, “Well, in Workday, who knows? You might have to like get out some chalk and some candles, draw a little pentagram on the ground, summon some ancient demon of Workday knowledge.” So I hope the transition does allow for this. Was it something that was impossible in the previous system or was it just- 

Elianna: I don’t know if it was impossible in the previous system. I think part of what did give my tagging system more of a boost was that why don’t we j- ’cause there was complaints about the previous system from some of the people who work in our tech, uh, department. So it’s like, “Oh, why don’t we just wait for the overhaul to do this thing? Then it can be part of the new overhaul instead of spending this time trying to get it to work in our current system which is just gonna go away.” 

Miri: Yeah, that makes sense. Still a shame that it has to take that time to be implemented though. And I hope that this being now shared in a slightly more public forum will spur some people to make sure that this is going to be an option going into the overhaul and all the changes that are gonna be made to our systems. 

Elianna: Yeah, so it’s very- 

Miri: ‘Cause now people can hear about it and people can be like, “Oh, that’s a really cool idea.” Or if someone- Yeah … you know, if someone working on it hasn’t heard about it th- before, they’re like, “Oh yeah, I could probably figure out how to do that in, y’know, a half a work week,” that kind of thing. So- 

Elianna: Well, it’s like I’ve talked with folks who run the YES to College, the Gateway to College Future Connect folks, and they’re really excited about this ’cause they know that they have students in their programs who really have struggled before and who have a lot on their plate already when it comes to getting an education. So, this tagging project would really make it so much easier for their students to get an education. Some of them have had bad experience with education in the past, so this would really significantly reduce their students’ anxiety levels and other issues around getting an education. It is an equity issue. It is an accessibility issue. So, it really is something that I hope can happen for this school and for schools in Oregon and possibly even outside of Oregon. It really is just, “why don’t we do things that make it easier?”. For podcast listeners, I’m not sure if you also know this term, but it’s the “curb cut effect”, where we do something to help disabled people and then it ends up helping so many more people. I had this really excellent teacher for statistics and what he did is that he would record his lecture every day. There was a woman in my class who was also a mom, who worked, and sometimes she would have to be called out of the class to go take care of her kid. But, then this way she could look at the recorded lecture once she was out of the class and keep up with everyone just fine. So, someone in her position where she might have to leave the class sometimes; knowing that there’s a recorded lecture that went over what the information that she needs to keep up with and what the homework’s gonna be about, having that capacity for her to do that makes it so much easier for her to get an education and be a parent.

Miri: Absolutely. We talked about something similar in an episode I made a few months ago with some other teachers including Jesse Mejia, who is a teacher at PCC. He said that one of his dream things, to have in all classrooms, is the ability to record good audio and good video for every class so it can be uploaded and hosted and reviewed by people who can’t make it. Because, like you were saying, that is incredibly helpful for people who are a mom and have to go take care of their kid, or have a job, or have a chronic illness and can’t be there very often. Or, if you miss the bus one day and can’t make it to class, then you can just go home and instead of it being a defeat where you are a day behind and calculably an amount of money behind for the hours that you’ve missed, you can just go home and catch up. 

Elianna: Yeah. Then there’s also certain rules about how many classes you can miss, and it’s not even something that’s always in the teacher’s control. I had a former classmate in the Gateway to College program where she was previously in the Gateway to College program, but then she got like appendicitis or had to get some kind of like surgery done. 

Miri: Yeah, yeah. 

Elianna: She had to stay multiple days home in bed rest, but the rule with Gateway to College, at least at that time, was if you miss X number of days you have to leave the program. So, it wasn’t even like she purposefully missed those days, she was just sick and needed bed rest from her surgery for some kind of operation that she had. This way if there were recorded lectures, then someone could still keep up while on bed rest at home. 

Miri: Yeah, I have a friend who had the same kind of thing happen. They had a major surgery, had to be in bed rest for four or five weeks, and some of their professors and their online classes could obviously accommodate to some extent, but they had a teacher at the time who just absolutely refused and was like, “No, I will not send you the extra material. If you are going to miss time. Sucks to be you.”. So, all those resources being available to people remotely is hugely valuable. That is one thing that is tagged on the terrible website of “Rate My Professor”, of like “attendance mandatory”, that kind of thing. ‘Cause there are some classes where there’s just not a lot you can do from home. When I was working in my “microcontrollers class”, you can do a lot of stuff from home, but especially once you’re in the capstone part and everyone’s working together on building the physical things, it just is more difficult. So, if you didn’t know that going into the class and you had a lot of time commitments otherwise, then you would struggle undeservedly. Apparently PCC also has a guitar building class at Sylvania, which I was gonna take and then the pandemic happened, then they shut that down, ’cause obviously that has to be an in-person class. So, having things very clearly tagged as mandatory or– not mandatory, but– attendance strongly recommended to required is just helpful for everybody. 

Elianna: Yeah. And it’s like- 

Miri: And not hard to do… 

Elianna: I wonder like how much this has changed like post-pandemic when everyone was kind of remote and how comfortable professors are doing a recording or helping people be from home considering we had like a massive period of time where that was the only option. So, interesting point of view from that perspective, I guess. It’s like how much have teachers changed from the pandemic in their expectations of behavior and how they run their classes, but I guess that’s beside the point of the tagging project. 

Miri: Yeah. I mean, everything’s intersectional, right? All equity is related to itself in some way or another. Yeah, this is an excellent project, and I hope that it can get some wheels turning and get moving along a little faster, and I hope that there’s things that I, or others, can do to make sure that it happens. 

Elianna: I don’t know if- Should I give my old stats professor, who I loved, a shout-out? His name is Ian Nicolas. I think he usually teaches at Sylvania. So, yeah, if you need to take a stats class, I highly recommend Ian’s stats class. He’s a really cool guy. 

Miri: Yeah. You go, Ian! 

Elianna: And, I loved his class! 

Miri: Nice! That’s awesome! So, yeah, thank you very much for talking to me about this. 

Elianna: And thank you for asking about it.

Miri: Oh, yeah! Of course! Yeah, this was a super interesting conversation to have and a really interesting project to be working on, and I will definitely connect with you sometime in the future to see an update on how it’s going. 

Elianna: Okay! Hope we’ll have an update. We’ll see what happens.

ABLE Accounts

Anne: Hello, and thank you for tuning in to this episode of Let’s Talk!. I’m your host, Anne Verduin. Let’s talk “ABLE Accounts”. What are they? Why would you want one? Why are they important? An “ABLE Account” is a savings account that has a checking account aspect to it that can be obtained through possibly your state or possibly a national bank such as Fifth Third, where you can save money and not have to worry about losing your benefits. Did you know that if you count on government benefits, such as food stamps or Medicaid, if you start saving money and have two thousand dollars or more in assets, the government can, and will, discontinue your benefits, because you have more money than you’re allowed to have and still be on those benefits? Until I needed benefits like that, I didn’t think it mattered. When I started counting on those benefits, I didn’t wanna lose them in the event of some good fortune or finding the right job and having the ability to save money. So, I made the choice to open an ABLE Account. In today’s episode, I sit down with a woman who helped me decide to open my ABLE Account, and we talk about why they’re important for people with disabilities to at least know about and possibly even consider opening one. I hope you’ll find this conversation informative. With me is Laura Halsey, who helped me decide to open my ABLE Account. Hi, Laura! Thank you for being with us today! 

Lara: Thank you for having me! I’m excited! 

Anne: So, can you tell us about yourself and how you’re familiar with ABLE Accounts? 

Lara: Sure, yeah! Currently, I work as an Episcopal Priest for a church here in Portland. And, I know about ABLE accounts because about 10-ish years ago, before I went to seminary, I worked as a caregiver for a place called L’Arche, that is a international federation of homes, that provide care of some kind and intentional community for adults with intellectual disabilities. I lived and worked there for five years, and so I knew about them from that.

Anne: So, you’re pretty familiar from a job previous to you going into the ministry what people with disabilities need and deserve and are getting. 

Lara: Certainly. I know I’m not entirely an expert, but I’m very familiar with the complex reality of navigating the systems when you are on disability of some kind.

Anne: So, what are ABLE accounts, even, for those listeners who are not familiar with it; have never heard of them? Let’s just talk about the definition of the term and what they are. 

Lara: Sure, yeah. The way that I learned about them, as part of my role in L’Arche, I managed the finances of some of what we call core members. For them, what would happen almost every month for a few core members, ’cause so often many people on disability, not exactly high earners in terms of how much income they have.

Anne: They’re low income, you would consider them. 

Lara: Yeah, yeah. But, we did have a few core members who worked as artists and they would make these big art sales, and they’d have a large amount of money, and we would be under pressure to “spend down”, is what we called it, the money that they have.

Anne: Yeah. Because, the way it works is that for people on SSI, SSDI, food stamps, Medicaid; they could lose their benefits if they have over X number of dollars to their name, correct? 

Lara: Yes. They can lose their benefits, which they relied on if, in our case at the time, they had over $2,000 in their account, which is really not that much money.

Anne: You can’t save that- 

Lara: Right… 

Anne: You can’t save… $2,000 is nothing compared to, what you might want to say, graduate from college and make in your job. 

Lara: Sure. 

Anne: You wanna save a nest egg, except if you’ve got $2,500 in assets, it’s within the government’s power to look at that and say, “Uh, you do not qualify for benefits anymore. You have too much money.”. 

Lara: Which quite frankly is ridiculous on a lot of levels. But, not the least of which is what if you… So, you have a windfall one month, but not the next. $2,000 is beneficial money, but it’s not life-changing money. So, if you wanted to save up to go on this lifelong trip you’d hoped to go on, or if you wanted to, um- 

Anne: Have money saved up for the long-term future?

Lara: Yeah. Or, maybe, next month nobody’s buying art and you need a little bit more grocery money. Like- 

Anne: And, then what? You have to start all over again? So, you can try to apply for benefits, which would take longer than you wanna wait to get your money?

Lara: Yes. Yeah.

Anne: Or, more than you can wait to get your money. Because, that process of being… “processed” and “restarted”, I’m sure, is not a quick process.

Lara: Oh, yeah, I can’t… I mean, I haven’t had to go through the process myself. I’ve tried to look into it, and even just trying to figure it out on your own on the internet is so complicated. And, it kinda feels like… 

Anne: So, it’s overwhelming to even say, “They cut my benefits and now I need them again. How do I reapply?”.

Lara: Yes. Yeah, yeah. For sure. So, right when I was working at L’Arche, the people I was working with, who had this money and were spending down. There was a Supreme Court case that essentially said that was unconstitutional. However, the way these things work in reality is not that, like, “Oh, the Supreme Court said this. Suddenly we have the infrastructure. We have the… the way to make it happen.”. 

Anne: It’s like, “we’ll eventually enforce this law when we figure out how.”. 

Lara: Yeah. And, so, from what I understand it; a group of parents, who had children with disabilities, met with their congress people. Came together and came up with this act of, “here’s how you can have a savings account that’s precluded from affecting your benefits.”. And it is less complicated than a trust, for instance. You also generally have to have a lot more money for a trust. Just a disclaimer, I am not a financial person at all. These are just things I learned through experience. So, talk to a financial planner if you’re gonna get that actually set up. 

Anne: Yeah, we definitely… I personally, I won’t speak for Laura, but I personally think that an ABLE Account is a great thing to consider. But, before you make a decision, a conversation with a certified financial planner, which neither of us are, might be a good idea. 

Lara: Well, that’s what you ended up doing. Right? When I brought it up, you talked to a few different- were you able to get it at your bank? 

Anne: Not my bank. What I chose to do was; as I looked at Oregon’s ABLE account documents or resources, I believe what they call the plan booklet. I discovered that if you are not a resident of Oregon, you are not allowed to have an “Oregon-based” ABLE Account. 

Elianna: Oh…

Anne: Well, I know in my- I say “long-term”, but it may be closer to “short-term”. It may be two, three, five years from now… 

Elianna: Mm… 

Anne: I’ll be leaving Oregon and going to a different state. I’ll be moving to a better support system than I expect to have in two, three, four, five years. My support system here is getting older and they’re eventually gonna die on me, or become so ill that they just can’t help me anymore. So, I will not be… staying in Oregon forever. So, I decided let me open it in Illinois to begin with. 

Lara: Oh, yeah… 

Anne: So, it’s definitely not within my bank. 

Lara: Yeah. Okay.

Anne: I probably should have checked to see if… my credit union could have opened an ABLE Account for me, but I don’t know that they can. 

Lara: I didn’t know about the state delineation of it. Um- 

Anne: Well, not all states have that, but we live in a state that does. 

Lara: Interesting. Well, I do know that Oregon, more than other states– not more than all other states– but more than some other states, is more invested in, um- 

Anne: Its own resources? 

Lara: Public health in general. But, yeah. In state-led resources. So…

Anne: Yeah. Well, Illinois is one of those states that says there are some tax incentives and some benefits to having an ABLE Account in Illinois and living in Illinois. But, if you don’t live in Illinois, we’re not gonna say, “You can’t have an ABLE Account here.”. 

Lara: Yeah. 

Anne: So, knowing that, that was my state of residence to come- 

Lara: Yeah.

Anne: And since they don’t have those rules, I said, “Let me open an ABLE Account in Illinois to begin with, so that when it comes time to move, that’s one less thing I have to worry about. How am I gonna close out my Oregon ABLE Account and open an Illinois ABLE Account? No, let’s just open it in the state I know I-” 

Lara: Yeah

Anne: “am going to in the first place.” 

Lara: That makes a lot of sense. 

Anne: So, an ABLE Account is a savings account that you can have several thousand dollars, and is not something that the government can cut your benefits because of. 

Lara: Sure. 

Anne: The initial question was what are ABLE Accounts for people who have never heard of them.

Lara: Yeah. So, it’s an option for other uses. A common use is one of the main impetus behind it; was saving for the ability to retire. That’s not often… Like, h- 401Ks, I think, and IRAs will count against your benefits, but an ABLE Account won’t, so it’s more beneficial in terms of saving for retirement, as everyone should be entitled to do.

Anne: Right. And again, neither Lauren, nor I, have any certification or extensive knowledge on finances, so- 

Lara: Yeah… 

Anne: Check with your financial planner. 

Lara: Most banks have somebody who will… They want you to put your money at their bank, so they will usually work with you to try and figure out how to do that in my experience. I’m personally a bigger fan of credit unions than banks. But, uh- 

Anne: That’s wh- that’s where I bank, at a credit union, and I didn’t ask them if they could, if they have ABLE accounts. Anyway, I think we kinda already answered this. Were ABLE Accounts always available? If not, what did people do? 

Lara: Oh, yeah. In 2014 is when ABLE Accounts were signed into law, which is right about when I started working at L’Arche, actually. But, we still had to… Be mindful of not having a certain amount in the checking account. Most of the core members didn’t have an ABLE account at the time, because it was still fairly new. So, it’s been about, I guess, 12 years, and there’s a lot more infrastructure around it now. Also, probably, a lot more bureaucracy. But, it sounds like you were able to set one up in Illinois without too much difficulty. 

Anne: I personally was. I hope other people can go through it that quickly. There’s a question later on about challenges; but, obviously, they weren’t always available. And, when they didn’t have ABLE accounts, they just had to go through that mess of, “Oh, man, I’ve got too much money. The government pulled my benefits. Well, now I need them again.”. So, now I gotta go through that overwhelming and time-consuming, challenging thing of, “Uh, hello, government. I know I had $3,000 last month, but now I’m down to $300. Can you, like, acknowledge that and help me out?”. 

Lara: Yeah. 

Anne: What a mess. 

Lara: Yeah, for sure. Some of the workarounds before ABLE Accounts included things like trusts or, in the case of one person I knew, a Medical Trust that exclusively paid for them to have premium insurance on top of Medicaid. But, those are a lot more complex to operate and to get- 

Anne: You definitely need a financial planner when you try to do those things. 

Lara: Yes, I think you have to have an executor and then you’re going to a financial planner and a lawyer. 

Anne: And a lawyer, yes! You helped me make the decision to open my ABLE Account. Have you advised other people besides me about ABLE Accounts? I don’t want you to betray anyone’s confidence, but can you tell me anything about how they realized their plan, which did not include an ABLE Account, wasn’t going to work? I think you’ve kind of answered that already. 

Lara: The short answer is “no”. I haven’t really advised anybody about it before. I was just aware of it, because it was coming into being while I was working with people with disabilities. Talking to you was the first time that was, like, relevant information for me to share with someone. 

Anne: But, you, in your job at L’Arche, you opened accounts for people and- 

Lara: Mm, I did not, no.

Anne: Oh, you didn’t? Okay.

Lara: Uh, no. Someone else was responsible for that. Um- 

Anne: You just sort of watched it happen. You watched, uh- 

Lara: Well, I watched the law pass, and I watched the conversation around the rights and needs of people who are receiving some kind of income from disability. 

Anne: Okay. So, you kinda- it was happening while you were there, and you kinda kept your finger on the pulse of it. Because, you were like, “Hey, I work with people who really need this.”.

Lara: Yeah. 

Anne: But, by the time they got theirs, if they got theirs, you weren’t a part of it. 

Lara: No, not the details. Um, that wasn’t really my… We had the benefit of being in a place like L’Arche; is they have their own financial planner and the institution has someone who does the finance stuff. And, I really more managed finances on the individual level of, like, “Hey, this is how much we have to spend this month.”. 

Anne: Or, we have to spend more. They’ve got $2,300. We really need to spend- 

Lara: Or like, what, what, what big purchase do you want? 

Anne: Yeah. Right. 

Lara: Um- 

Anne: What have you always wanted, and it’s always been too expensive for you? Let’s get it for you. ‘Cause, we gotta spend $1,300 here before the government realizes you have $2,300. 

Lara: Right. Right. Exactly. It didn’t happen often, but it did happen often enough for me to be aware that, that was… Uh, a problem… an important metric. 

Anne: Yeah. Have you heard that people have run into challenges trying to open an ABLE Account? And, if so, what might they have been? I think you kinda alluded to this earlier. 

Lara: Yeah. My understanding is that not every state has an ABLE program. But, you are able to, like in your case, there are some international or just some nationally based ABLE programs, or you can open one in another state nearby.

Anne: Yeah, I believe the state that I will be moving to is run by the National ABLE Alliance. So, I don’t think they have their own state ABLE Account Service. Well, I think they do, but it’s not based in Illinois. It’s based in… Wherever the National ABLE Alliance is. 

Lara: So, some banks, from what I understand; I think PNC, Fifth Third, have national ABLE accounts. Like I said, banks want you to give them your money, so they don’t usually make that part very hard. Especially, now, that there has been this… Uh, the- legally the ways have been cleared, so that you’re not being penalized for saving if you do that. So, it sounds like your process went easier. I think being able to; like, for instance, people who don’t have the ability or easy access to computers, that would be a big barrier for a lot of people.

Anne: Or, even if they did have access to a computer, they could get on the internet and If they don’t have a well enough developed mind, due to an intellectual disability; a person with a developmental disability who might have the mind of a 10-year-old when they’re 20… Can that brain comprehend any of this?

Lara: You know, there’s… It’s so difficult to… I mean, there are metrics that professionals use to understand what someone’s perception level is. But, in my experience, you are, kind of, guessing most of the time. 

Anne: Yeah. 

Lara: The people that I worked with; there’s a wide array of different kinds of understanding. So, like, there’s emotional intelligence, there’s… Like, I’m not good at math. Not to diminish the difficulties, but a lot of people can’t get through any of these processes without help. What that help looks like varies and, whether or not, there is comprehension would be pretty difficult to say.

Anne: Even if they understood it, they probably need help and support that they’re doing the right thing, or to make it happen, and- 

Lara: Yeah… 

Anne: if someone doesn’t have a good support system then that could- 

Lara: That certainly that could be a barrier-

Anne: be a problem. 

Lara: Yeah. 

Anne: So, do you have any advice for anyone else considering opening an ABLE Account?

Lara: I just think it’s really important that people know they’re out there, ’cause when I talked to you, you weren’t aware and they’ve been out there for 12 years, and it’s an important resource to have. Personally, took me a while to get around to actually saving for retirement. It’s not something that I think a lot of people, my age and younger… think about very often. And, everybody could benefit from it. Just because, maybe, when you’re 70 or 80, or whatever, you could still work doesn’t mean you should have to.

Anne: Right. There comes a time when you’re getting older, getting a little bit… Your health is getting a little bit more delicate. What are you gonna do? Drop dead at work? Because- 

Lara: Yeah, yeah… Or, do you want your life to be work all the time, you know? Some people have things they wanna do. So, having the ability to save– I think– is an essential resource to have. Even if it’s just a little bit. 

Anne: Personally, my advice to people, who are on benefits and have a disability, is certainly consider opening an ABLE Account. Talk to a financial planner. Talk to someone. 

Lara: Yeah, yeah.

Anne: Consider opening it. I can’t tell you to do it, or not. That’s your decision. But- 

Lara: Yeah… 

Anne: my understanding is, a lot of our listeners are college students. I don’t wanna see you go through all the work of graduating college and then setting out to make your dreams come true, getting that great job that’s in your field, and then all of a sudden you start saving up, you start making money, and the government says, “You know what? You’ve got way too much money for us to continue funding you.” . You count on that health insurance; is that really where you wanna have to spend your money? I mean, you have the right to make that decision. If you’re okay with private pay health insurance, go for it. But, if you would really rather have a place to save money without having to worry about, am I gonna lose my caregiver? Am I gonna lose my Medicaid? Am I gonna lose my food stamps? Am I gonna lose my SSI or SSDI?… Opening an ABLE Account, in my opinion is the best. 

Lara: You have that right and you deserve that right, for sure. The world out there, in particular, in our culture, there is a big gap between when you can get resources and when you have enough money to acquire those resources on your own. And, this is one of the things and there should be many more. But, this is one of the things that can help bridge that gap. We should all have opportunities to save, even if it’s just for something fun. 

Anne: You have a right to decide what you wanna do with your money. 

Lara: Yeah.

Anne: Finally, is there anything that I haven’t asked that you want to make sure that people hear about ABLE Accounts? 

Lara: I mean, look into it. Just do what you can to look into it. Like I said, most banks wanna take your money, so go to a bank and say, “Hey, how can I do this?”. “Fifth Third” and “Fidelity” also will do it. “PNC” are some national banks that have these these savings programs. But, it is worth it. 

Anne: Yeah. 

Lara: And you deserve it! 

Anne: Well, thank you for your time, Lara, and we- 

Lara: Thank you.

Anne: we look forward to it helping a lot of people, as they look at their futures, and realize that they may well end up with more money than the government wants them to have. Well, it’s not the government’s decision, it’s yours. So, yeah… 

Lara: Well, the government has-

Anne: The government has the right to make that decision if you have a lot of assets, but this is why, I believe, you should consider putting those assets in a place where you can’t end up in that situation. Like an ABLE account, or a trust or- 

Lara: For sure.

Anne: The way for us to protect our autonomy around what we do with our money is; consider an ABLE account, consider some kind of trust. Because, even if they are based at a national bank versus a state level; all states have an ABLE Account program of some kind. So- 

Lara: Not all of them do. There’s at least 10 that don’t have their own ABLE Program. So, if you’re in one of those states, you can access the national options. But, most states do have their own program as well. So, you can do a local version if you want. I know I like to bank local, so…

Anne: All right. Well, thanks again, and it’s been great talking to you about this. 

Lara: Thank you.

Outro

Kylo: Thank you for listening to Let’s Talk!, Portland Community College’s broadcast about disability culture. Find more information and resources concerning this episode and others at pcc.edu/dca. This episode was produced by the Let’s Talk! Podcast collective as a collaborative effort between students, the Accessible Education and Disability Resources Department, and the PCC Multimedia Department. We air new episodes on our home website, our Spotify channel, XRAY 91.1 FM and 107.1 FM, and KBOO Radio, 90.7 FM.