Building Inclusive School Cultures in Boulder Valley School District
By Guest Writer Anna Stewart, Parent Liaison in Boulder Valley School District
The term ‘inclusion’ is kind of like the term ‘faith.’ We define it with our emotions, our passions, our beliefs and our knowledge. Many think it is about how much time a student with a disability spends in a general education classroom. It’s really much more than that. It is a basic human right of belonging, participating and being valued. Once you have those factors, then great learning and great relationships can take place. We now know from 30 years of educational research, that inclusive practices provide the best academic and social outcomes for students with and without disabilities. When teachers are given the support and training they need to implement best practices, they report significant gains from all students.
Recently, Abigail Meyers, a first-grade student at Kohl Elementary School, was featured on 9 News and in the Daily Camera for her inclusion in her first grade class. Her classroom teacher, Rachel Edmonds, said, “All of the modifications and differentiation of instruction isn’t just helping this one child; it’s helping all the kids.” Abigail is making significant strides and so are the other students. Those gains are academic but also social and emotional. Delois, Abigail’s mom said that not only has her daughter made huge gains in academic skills such as writing, she is also very popular and gets invited to birthday parties and play dates. That is why we do inclusion.
Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) has an initiative and mandate to provide quality inclusive education and develop inclusive school cultures in every BVSD school - from preschool to high school and beyond. As a parent of two children with special needs in BVSD, I am excited to be part of this movement towards inclusive education. During the last five years, our administration started analyzing why students with disabilities scored so much lower on standardized tests, why families felt their only option to accessing general education for their students was by filing for due process, why so many Individualized Education Plan (IEP) goals were not being met and a slew of other data. It became clear that something had to change. Kids were getting by but not getting ahead.
So, with the support of our superintendent, Dr. Chris King and our Board of Education, BVSD is working from all angles to reshape our teaching practices and raise our expectations. This year and next year we have contracted with national education experts, Dr. Rich Villa and Dr. Jacqueline Thousand (pictured to the right) to help us on this new journey. Last summer they provided professional development for over 1,500 BVSD staff on the How’s and Why’s of Inclusive Education, Co-teaching and Differentiated Instruction. BVSD is offering more professional development this summer with Rich along with other experts in content area and in inclusive practices.
Teachers throughout our district are implementing what they learned and are already seeing great results! Every school is implementing inclusive practices but along a continuum. Some are further along than others but everyone is working towards the same goals. Rich and Jacque observed many great examples of inclusive practices- from children with disabilities mixed all around a lunch room with classmates, to small group reading instruction for students who needed it, whether they had an IEP or not, to discontinuing ‘special ed’ events during the school day. They taught us about the factors necessary for successful restructuring which include:
- Visionary leadership
- Collaboration
- Refocused use of assessments
- Support for staff and students
- Funding
- Effective parental involvement
- Models and classroom practices that support inclusionary schooling
Some of the ways we have addressed these is by having all principals attend leadership seminars, teaching co-teaching as one way to increase collaboration, examine the use of para-educators, provide ongoing professional development, increase parent participation in Special Education Advisory Councils (SEACs), and directly teach classroom practices.
In addition to providing ongoing teacher education and support, we have also selected four schools representing elementary, middle and high school, to develop into lab schools and then use them as training ground for other schools and staff in the years ahead.
Another major component we are addressing is how to build peer awareness and understanding of inclusive cultures. Students are one of our resources that are always available and often have great ideas for helping include all students. A group of parents, teachers, students and community members are working on how to educate, involve and motivate students to become more inclusive. This group is a sub-committee of SEAC called the Planning Committee for Inclusive Schools.
This year, the planning committee asked schools to get involved in the national campaign, Spread the Word to End the Word (www.r-word.org) which is working to eliminate the use of the r-word as a slang term. We had schools at all levels participate through assemblies, going into classrooms to encourage other students to take the pledge, signing large banners, and having students share their pledge as part of school announcements. Two schools also made videos of kids talking about why they won’t use the r-word. We plan to continue encouraging all students (and staff) to take the pledge and encourage everyone to use respectful language.
BVSD is committed to seeing this change in delivery and services and change in perspectives as teachers, parents, administrators and students work together on behalf of all our students.
For more information about the work we are doing in BVSD, please visit our website at www.bvsd.org.
PEAK Parent Center www.peakparent.org - Summer 2011 SPEAKout Newsletter
Copyright 2011 © by PEAK Parent Center, Inc. All rights reserved. Permission to reproduce may be obtained from PEAK Parent Center.
The contents of this e-Newsletter were developed under a grant from the US Department of Education, #H328M110023. However, those contents do notnecessarily represent the policy of the US Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government. Project Officer, Carmen Sanchez.