Michael Pobanz, Ph.D., was raised in Los Angeles, California, a rich multicultural and multilingual environment. Dr. Pobanz studied psychology for one year at the University of Madrid, Complutense. He has taught English in both Spain and in Japan, and traveled to nearly 50 countries around the world.  Dr. Pobanz earned his doctorate in Educational Psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he had earned a 4-year U.C. Regents Special Fellowship for research (the highest fellowship award in the UC system).  Dr. Pobanz currently works for the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest in the USA (more than 640,000 students), as a trilingual school psychologist.  He conducts psycho-educational evaluations in 3 languages, counsels students, parents and staff, and supports school- and district-level reforms.  Dr. Pobanz also works privately as a Licensed Educational Psychologist.  Last year he won the LAASP Outstanding School Psychologist of the Year Award.

With roughly 50,000 students with some form of disability being served in Los Angeles Unified School District through special education, there are many challenges in managing the referral and service delivery processes.  There are thousands of other students with disabilities, diagnosed and undiagnosed, with whom many forms of intervention are being used.  Michael Pobanz, Ph.D., will explain how these special needs students are being found and supported in the schools.  Currently there is a 3 level approach being used for interventions for all students, with the 3rd level containing special education services.   Many of the students speak different languages and come from different cultures, adding to the complexity of the interventions.