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Kindle Notes & Highlights
Started reading
April 17, 2022
We want students to be aware of the times or tasks that cause anxiety or disruptive patterns of thinking—but not so they can simply leave the room and avoid having to engage in challenging tasks or difficult interactions with peers. Instead, we want students to be able to recognize patterns so they can engage in intentional self-regulation activities before and during these challenging times.
One of the key concepts in an inclusive school is building capacity in classroom teachers and paraeducators so students do not need to rely on a few specialists to help them access their education. The Zones of Regulation is a great example of this. Our learning specialists, school psychologists, occupational therapists, and SLPs have modeled lessons for teachers in Zones of Regulation, so the teacher can learn the language and then reinforce it throughout the day with their students.
Gen ed teachers taking on "special education" tasks
it is clear from generations of school experience that punitive consequences do not have a significant impact on behavior, particularly for students who demonstrate the most frequent disruptive behaviors.
According to the International Institute for Restorative Practices, most of the work of creating a truly restorative community happens before a student causes disruption or harm. The institute estimates that 80% of the work is about establishing trusting relationships among students and building a sense of allegiance to a positive classroom community (Costello et al., 2009).
When students are familiar with using a circle protocol for everyday classroom interactions, it becomes natural for them to engage in a circle for problem-solving or restoration after harm has been done to the community. The circle takes on the power of a ritual.
Similar to how the practice of Meeting for Worship at a Quaker school can then be used when there is hurt or harm to address
Tony Wagner, founder of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, wrote an influential article in 2002 about what he called “the new 3 R’s: rigor, relevance and relationships” (Wagner, 2002, 2006).
If educators don’t believe that a student (or a group of students) is capable or deserving of engaging in rigorous learning, then we will not create opportunities for that learning—resulting in the perpetuation of predictable achievement gaps. This is true for students from historically disadvantaged racial, ethnic and linguistic groups. It is also true for students with disabilities in segregated classrooms.
But creating a classroom that is genuinely culturally responsive requires a much deeper exploration of the assumptions that drive our instructional choices. This includes examining curriculum materials to ensure greater representation of different voices. It also includes thinking about classroom routines, communication structures, assessment practices, and discipline systems that may exacerbate historical biases.
OE-10 connections
As one of our principals says, “The kids who most need our love are the ones who do things that make them hardest to love.”
We also know that our beliefs about our own skills directly affect our success with students. For example, if I believe “I don’t have the expertise to work with this type of learner,” I will likely struggle in teaching that student. Whereas, if my mindset is “I may not know yet, but I’m going to figure this out, and I’m absolutely the teacher this student needs right now,” I am more likely to be successful with that student.
if my mindset is “I may not know yet, but I’m going to figure this out, and I’m absolutely the teacher this student needs right now,” I am more likely to be successful with that student.
We decided to support this teacher by giving him an opportunity to observe Ethan and begin to see him as a fifth grader, to see what he could do, to see how he did connect with peers. We provided a full-day substitute for the teacher so that he could spend time observing Ethan, with no teaching responsibilities. This became a pivotal moment.
For many people in the general public, the most familiar user of an AAC device was the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. The fact that Hawking is widely regarded as one of the most brilliant scientists of all time should remind us that lack of proficiency with oral communication does not indicate cognitive impairment. All people have valuable ideas to share with their community, and it is our moral obligation to find ways to help them communicate those ideas.
Eight years ago, we started with a single specialist who had great expertise in AAC. But when we broke apart our self-contained classrooms and allowed students with the full range of learning needs to attend their neighborhood schools, we knew that one AAC expert would not be able to serve students at all 16 schools. So we worked to decentralize the expertise. That AAC expert shifted her focus to building capacity in others. SLPs took the lead, with the support of occupational therapists. Some ICs, learning specialists, paraeducators, and classroom teachers also developed great proficiency
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students who use devices can still engage in complex academic tasks, but we may need to adjust the kind of questions we ask and the mode of representation we expect.
I call it “different inputs, different outputs.” It is crucial for Christina, even though she doesn’t use an AAC device. The skills and tools developed for AAC users likely benefit many other students as well.
The Youth Leadership Summit is organized by youth for youth, starting with the basic question “How can you make your school more inclusive?” Students from all of our middle schools and high schools attend the summit.
What if our current Students of Color Conference were expanded...?
When we asked Ben about this change from a self-contained classroom setting to an inclusive environment, he said, “When they let me out, I discovered I’m more of a different classes kind of guy. The work got harder, but I made more friends. I learned I could do more than I thought.”
I could do more than I thought 🥹
His phrase “When they let me out … ” struck many people in the audience that day. It suggested the feeling of being trapped, imprisoned, or powerless. This was an evocative reminder of the way students can feel in a segregated self-contained classroom—even when we have the best of intentions as adults.
an unintended consequence of the detailed legal compliance required of the current IEP is that it can feel like an overly scripted, bureaucratic burden for teachers and parents. We often lose the idea that the IEP should be a positive process with the student at the center.
A student leading their own IEP process, with appropriate support from their teachers and parents, is a game changer in the special education process.
YES IT IS. I’ve seen this firsthand.
We have found that students who help craft their learning plan are much more invested in achieving it. When we write goals for the student, rather than with the student, why are we surprised when the student doesn’t reach that goal?
When our IEPs have the right tone, focus, and flow, there is no reason why all students—even those as young as kindergarten—cannot be meaningful participants in their own meetings.
We began tracking student participation in the IEP process a few years ago by adding a question with a drop-down menu in our online IEP system. The case manager can quickly document the degree of student participation at each student’s annual IEP meeting.
Love this as a data point
When students feel they belong, when they have appropriate communication systems, when they are deeply engaged in their academic learning, when the staff operate with a trauma-informed lens, and when the skills of regulation and social-emotional learning are explicitly taught, most issues labeled as “behavior” are resolved within the context.
"Kids do well if they can."
If the IEP team think there is another option available (in the form of a segregated self-contained program), it may affect their ability to think creatively to establish structures and supports for the student within their own neighborhood school. Because the option of another place is not on the table in our district, we find that teams come together to create effective structures for students that result in successful outcomes—in much less restrictive settings.
True for both behavior and academics.
Also works for students exhibiting unsafe behavior who are NOT on IEPs.
All students need strong relationships with high expectations, and all teachers need to proactively create these relationships and expectations. Yet we must understand that some students also need more intentional relationship building and clearer expectations. A few students may need teachers to reach out even more explicitly and frequently.
We have to acknowledge that supporting students who are displaying unsafe or aggressive behavior is inherently emotional, and we need to provide the space and care for the people doing the work.
The entire Team Dwayne meeting lasted 10 minutes. People felt heard, the emotionality of the work was acknowledged, the humanity of the student was highlighted, and staff remembered the key areas to focus on for success and safety. This process was quick and sustainable, and it greatly increased the likelihood that Dwayne’s plan will work.
One key question to ask is “When is the student most successful?”
When talking about a child who demonstrated complex and challenging behaviors, one of our principals said, “You’re going to learn something from this child that you can learn no other way.”
This is true not only of challenging behaviors, but other impacts of disability as well. Once it's learned by the adults (and kids), other students benefit from that new knowledge.
As leaders, we need to create space and time for principals, teachers, paraeducators, school secretaries, custodians, and the rest of our school staff to discover their Why. And we need to create structures and systems to navigate the practical details of the work.
“Leaders” includes school board
One of the guiding principles throughout our district is that relationships matter. At all levels of the organization, personal connections are meaningful.
Community engagement. Fostering relationships at scale.
A big key to building relationships is simply to be present—making time to be with people and making sure people know they are valued because we choose to spend our time with them. Also necessary to these relationships are the intentional structures of communication.
We did not come to the Coffee Talks with an explicit agenda or presentation. Instead, we were there to listen. We asked folks to share about the inclusive practices in their schools—what was going well and where they had questions, concerns, or suggestions. We learned a lot from taking the time to listen.
On balance, we believe that the Coffee Talks were a helpful leadership strategy. However, they required a significant investment of time, and at some schools the Coffee Talk conversations also stirred up discord and seemed to amplify the feelings of frustration. The following year we chose not to repeat the Coffee Talk format.
We’ve seen this happen, too.
The subtitle of the Learning Together newsletter is “General Education and Special Education Teachers Working Together to Support All Students.” The articles focus on specific examples of inclusive practices in schools across the district.
The most obvious shifts in structure, eliminating segregated self-contained classrooms, will affect the Special Education department more than the other departments in the district. However, making a school community truly inclusive requires collaborative leadership from executive staff and administrators who are not specifically assigned to supporting special education.
She pushes them to articulate why a student who would previously have been relegated to a self-contained classroom should be taught alongside their peers in general education settings. If the superintendent is not convinced that the new teacher is committed to truly serving all students, we do not hire them. This is true not only for special education teachers. She also asks these questions of kindergarten teachers, middle school Spanish teachers, high school physics teachers, librarians, and music teachers.
Every teacher is expected to take ownership of all students, creating a classroom community where all students truly belong. This expectation comes directly from the superintendent and is supported by the other district leaders and building principals.
Should start with the school board…
whenever we bring together classroom teachers for professional learning, we make sure learning specialists are always part of the learning. When our middle school mathematics teachers are learning about engagement strategies to promote high-level conversations in mathematics, the learning specialists are sitting right beside them, helping them think about how to create access points for students with significant communication challenges.
The role of the central office was crucial here. Not only were special education staff invited to the Curriculum Camps, they were given the opportunity to take a leadership role in planning the camps.
What the teachers experienced was a day learning about best practices for teaching writing for all students, with concepts of how to extend the learning and scaffold the learning built in. The old ways of having professional development for classroom teachers on writing instruction in one workshop and for special education teachers on access tools or explicit instruction strategies in another workshop are gone for us. Inclusive schools start with inclusive professional development.
Note that this encompasses both scaffolding AND extending the learning -- important for rethinking both special education and gifted education
When teachers, paraeducators, and union leaders ask about opportunities for professional learning to help them support students in inclusive settings, it is important for the HR staff to understand our processes. And on the rare occasion when someone asks the HR director if there is another place where the student could be safer, it is critical for the HR director to have deeply reflected on The Why of inclusion.
When we move to supporting all students in their neighborhood schools and in general education classes as much as possible, the professional dynamics change. General education teachers take on a larger part of the responsibility for teaching students with complex needs. If salary structures still reward specialists more than general education teachers, there may be some legitimate questions about compensation.
There is no inherent reason why a teachers’ association or classified school employees’ association would be opposed to inclusive practices. Most of their members are very much in support of inclusion. However, unions tend to take a conservative approach when it comes to changing contract language related to working conditions. So it is essential for district leaders to engage union leaders to explore The Why of inclusive practices.
Another video we have watched at the Kickoff is Intelligent Lives, a documentary about three young adults with intellectual disabilities (Habib, 2018). There is so much promise and possibility in their lives, and it raises all kinds of questions about the assumptions we make about intelligence and individual capabilities. We also showed Intelligent Lives to our school board and all the principals and department leaders throughout the district.
School board movie night at every March study session!
Principals need to deeply understand and embrace The Why of this work, as well as the changes in staff roles and instructional expectations. Building principals are the instructional leaders, the climate and culture leaders, and the procedural leaders of their schools. They are critical to this work and can be the strongest advocates of inclusive practices.
We have had active parents who are deeply committed to their child experiencing their education in an inclusive setting. And we have had parents who are longing for their child to spend their day in a nurturing self-contained classroom. We have had parents who form strong, trusting partnerships with their teachers and principals. And we have had parents who operate from a position of fear and distrust of educational institutions.
We also specifically invite some parents who we know to be vocal advocates in their schools. During contentious IEP meetings it is not unusual for us to extend an invitation to the parent collaboration group.
It is easy to build a “coalition of the willing” with parents who are actively vocal about their desire for inclusive classrooms for their children. We certainly need these parents to help keep us on course and provide inspirational stories. But we also need parents who are not yet convinced that an inclusive setting will serve their child’s needs. These parents ask questions and raise issues that push us to seek out new learning and refine our practices.
