‘A Desire To Do Things Differently’

Self-contained programs weren’t benefiting students with disabilities, so this large district is changing mindsets to create inclusive schools

At a recent after-school event at one of our elementary schools, I watched with amazement as a group of students from the Eagle Club provided professional learning on inclusionary practices to their teachers and principals.

I was visiting Franklin Elementary, one of the first cohort schools in our district to implement inclusionary practices. Admittedly, I sat in tears watching children with complex disabilities and their peers engage as friends and work collaboratively to teach the adults in their school how to be inclusive. The students participated equally and with support and compassion among them.

During this unique training, teachers learned how to use augmentative communication devices, provide calming spaces and design instruction for complex learners — directly from the children themselves. I experienced genuine inclusion, evidenced through friendship, advocacy and an understanding of inclusionary practices. Three years ago, I could not have imagined this.

Stark Realization

Lake Washington School District, located near Seattle, serves over 30,000 students across 34 elementary schools, 15 middle schools and 10 high schools and choice programs. In 2020, only 10 of our elementary schools were supporting children with complex disabilities, providing services in a regional model. Students with autism, intellectual disabilities and multiple disabilities spent nearly their entire school days within these self-contained programs. Students were not assigned to general education classrooms. They had self-contained physical education, music and library classes and often sat apart from their peers at lunch.

Special education was a silo, with only 2.5 percent of our children with complex disabilities served in the general education setting for the majority (80-100 percent in the least restrictive environment) of their school day.

Even more troubling, our students were not demonstrating significant growth or progress within their self-contained programs. As these students moved up in grade levels, their time in general education decreased, maladaptive behaviors increased and learning gaps grew wider. We knew from student outcome data, special education staff turnover and ever-increasing requests for additional staffing and out-of-district placements that what we were doing was not working.

We found ourselves at a crossroads: We could either continue with the traditional model of self-contained programs and hope that with hard work and effort we could improve them or we could explore how to do things differently.

Drivers of Implementation

Our ambitious move to inclusionary practices began with a desire to do things differently. Improving outcomes for our students with disabilities fueled our early planning.

We began with our parent partners, those who had been advocating for these changes for many years and who helped us open the doors. This was not a comfortable or easy road to take.

In our large, traditional district, some staff resisted change. I frequently heard comments such as, “I believe in inclusion, but …” or “Staff are already overwhelmed with initiatives and the impact of COVID, we just don’t have the capacity.” We learned, however, that you will never be totally ready for inclusion, yet systemic change can happen regardless.

Our timing was good. In 2020, Washington ranked 44th in the nation for inclusive practices, according to the Washington State Office of Public Instruction, and the state set aside funds to improve inclusive practices. We applied for a state grant that enabled us to work with the TIES Center at the University of Minnesota along with the Haring Center at the University of Washington. Remarkable experts from both programs walked beside us and helped us to plan and operationalize inclusion across our schools.

With access to substantive resources, we explored the implementation drivers to change practice and improve outcomes for students. We sought champions for inclusion — getting the right people at the table to inform our work. This included our partners from TIES and the Haring Center, along with key central-office leaders, parent advocates, special education leaders and staff, and three principals who were willing to be part of our initial implementation. With this team, we began planning.

Four Non-Negotiables

Ableism is a powerful barrier to inclusive practices, so we articulated our non-negotiables:

Inclusion is a fundamental human right. Consider this: Would you ever think to self-contain students of color? Those in poverty? If not, why would you do so with students with disabilities?

The research is both abundant and clear: Inclusion improves outcomes for every student regardless of disability status.

Federal law, through IDEA, fundamentally outlines and demands inclusive practices.

Keeping students in self-contained programs results in poor outcomes for students and staff.

Ambitious Goals

Shelley Moore, a British Columbia-based education consultant on inclusion, offers a swimming analogy to explain our next step. She says you cannot learn to swim in a parking lot. So, we knew from the beginning, we would not be successful with inclusion unless every elementary student was at her or his home school.

As I shared previously, you cannot be ready for inclusion. You must jump into the deep end and start swimming. You learn inclusion with your students, not without them.

Next, we set ambitious goals. Within five years, we expected all students at the elementary level would attend their neighborhood school, all secondary schools would offer co-teaching in core content areas, all students with disabilities would receive instruction 80-100 percent of the time in general education and special education services would no longer be defined by programs.

These goals, once shared with the school board and community, spread rapidly across our district. By stating our non-negotiables and putting ambitious goals in writing, we set the tone. This was not just another initiative but a fundamental change in our system.

From implementation science, we realized that effective practices, multiplied by both effective implementation and enabling contexts, improved outcomes. An effective practice we implemented was to help schools develop a sense of belonging for all students through social emotional learning and positive behavior support.

Improving instruction was critical to our goal. To help teachers adopt more effective instructional practices, such as Universal Design for Learning, we collaborated with CAST (formerly known as the Center for Applied Special Technology) to co-develop four comprehensive UDL modules. (These no-cost modules are available on the TIES website.) Our professional learning for those with instructional leverage — principals, coaches, teacher specialists and central-office leaders — supported teachers.

Mindset Barriers

As we considered effective implementation of inclusive practices, we conducted a district least-restrictive-environment assessment to gather baseline data and areas of focus. We then drafted an implementation plan that included:

connecting our inclusion work to our district strategic plan and board policies;

bringing in parents and community to build momentum;

using supports from TIES and the Haring Center;

working in partnership with our school board; and

initiating professional learning in multiple contexts.

Unfortunately, despite our planning and focus, what proved to be our greatest barrier was adult mindsets. Changing them requires four things: understanding of the why and how of inclusion, ongoing support, development of talent and skills, and role modeling. With this in mind, we adjusted our implementation plans.

Last year, we created a cohort of 10 schools. These schools volunteered for a pilot project as they already were invested in the “why” of inclusion. To provide instructional support, we added full-time inclusion coaches within each school and purchased scheduling software to build intervention block schedules.

The inclusion coaches, along with additional professional learning and training resources, enabled us to develop the talent and skills of these principals and their respective staffs.

By the end of the first year, we had a group of principals who could open their doors to other administrators and staff across the district and model inclusive schoolwide practices. More learning occurred during these site visits with their colleagues than we accomplished in two years of professional learning.

Redefined Instruction

With the start of the 2023-24 school year, all self-contained programs at the elementary level will close and all complex learners, approximately 80 students, will return to their neighborhood schools. Special education teachers and students no longer are defined by the names of their program, and staff caseloads have been adjusted to allow them to support a smaller group of students with diverse needs.

Our hard work has resulted in significant changes for some of the most marginalized students. Within just the first year of our transition for 10 inclusionary elementary schools, students with complex needs (cognitive impairment, autism, multiple disabilities) dropped from 30 percent in the 0-39 percent LRE category to 14 percent.

As we shift toward all elementary schools implementing inclusion this school year, our plan is to have all students in general education for at least 39 percent or more of their school day.

Shannon Hitch is executive director of special services for Lake Washington School District in Redmond, Wash. Twitter: @DrShannonHitch