Last week our state department of education (MN) had a Summit titled "Students with the Most Significant Cognitive Disabilities: Improving Academic Learning." The purpose of the Summit was "To provide an opportunity for stakeholders to discuss and generate ideas on how to build capacity within the educational system so that students with the most significant cognitive disabilities have opportunity and access to effective academic instruction."
I attended the Summit as director of special education from my region of MN. In my previous life, I was a teacher of students with cognitive disabilities, so I already knew that they could learn and achieve more than most people expected of them.
What was great to see at the Summit was the mix of stakeholders that attended. Both general and special ed teachers, principals and special ed directors, higher ed instructors and state department officials and parent advocates met in small discussion groups for part of the day to talk about what good things were already happening, what the future looked like and what was still needed to ensure that students with cognitive disabilities were given meaningful learning opportunities.
This Summit was a good starting point for working on building capacity towards providing better learning opportunities for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities. If we, as administrators, would realize that even our most disabled students can learn academics and should be expected to do so, imagine the potential we would realize for ALL students with disabilities and then for ALL students in general. It's powerful.
One model that I am familiar with to make this happen is the Integrated Service Delivery Model. This model means that all staff, general education and support staff (Special Ed, Title I, English as a Second Language) work together to support students using instructional strategies and curriculum aligned with the district and state standards to best meet the needs of the students. It also means that students needing additional help will get the support they need in a coherently planned and integrated form so that student achievement will increase.
As administrators, it is up to us to make sure that collaboration is happening in our school/district between all educators, both general and support teachers, to change the paradigm from "those are YOUR students" to "these are OUR students" and to create a learning environment that challenges and includes all. Both NCLB and IDEA mandate that we do this. But honestly, it is something that we should have mandated ourselves to do long before NCLB. If we had, we probably wouldn't need NCLB, and it would just be "the way we do business around here."
This model takes time and involves a lot of communication and dialogue so that everyone understands what it means for them. It doesn't mean that all students with needs will be in the general ed classroom all day. What it does mean is that all students have access to the general ed curriculum and that meaningful, planned instruction is happening between educators.
Is collaborative planning happening between all educators in your school/district? Is the paradigm shifting to think of all students as "ours" with both administration and staff?
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