C2P2 Family Leadership in Inclusive Education Webinar Inclusion: Supporting All Abilities of Students Learning
Together
Transcript
>> Kathy Miller: Hi, everybody, welcome to tonight's webinar, supporting all abilities of
students learning together. My name is Kathy Miller, and I'm the Director of Community
Supports and Services here at the Institute on Disabilities at Temple University. Our
project, Competence and Confidence, Partners in Policymaking Family Leadership for
Inclusive Education in Non-Traditional Schools is brought to you by the Institute on
Disabilities at Temple University. Funding from the project comes from the
Pennsylvania Developmental Disabilities Council.
Our project, which we fondly call C2P2 Family Leadership in Inclusive Education is
designed for families of students with disabilities who are educated in home school,
cyber charter schools, charter, excuse me, private schools, and parochial schools.
Whoops. Okay, excuse me just a minute; this doesn't seem to be changing. Okay,
thank you everyone for your patience. Let me tell you a little bit about C2P2/Family
Leadership. The goal is to create a network of family leaders who will work together
with educators and administrators to champion inclusive practices for children with
disabilities in the nontraditional school community. Our projects activities includes these
webinars, tonight being one of them, our second webinar in the series, guidance and
technical assistance from trained parent consultants, and annual opportunity for
networking with other families to help achieve true inclusion for children, and online
resources.
Tonight's webinar, Inclusion: Supporting All Abilities of Students Learning Together is
presented by Pennsylvania Education for All Coalition Family Members, which you may
know as PEAC. We're very pleased that PEAC is one of our main collaborators in this
project, and delighted that tonight you're really in for a treat, because you're going to
hear from a great panel of family members. Diane Perry is the president of PEAC;
Karen Salomon is one of the parent consultants, as is Natalie Weiters.
Future webinars, we'll be having two this coming year, well actually in 2014. On
January 22, we're collaborating with the PIAT Center, who is the Parent Information and
Technical Assistance Center in Western Pennsylvania, as well as Education Law
Center in Pennsylvania, and we're going to be presenting a session on special
education rules and regulations for charter, private, parochial and home schools, so this
is something for all of those of you would like to learn about what specifically those rules
and regulations, the laws are pertaining to your schools, and inclusive practices, and all
of those wonderful regulations that will really give the knowledge to be equipped to
understand and advocate for your child's rights, this will be a session that you wouldn't
want to miss.
As well as on March 19, we're going to do a session on Teamwork for Success: The
Parent/Professional Relationship. Again, a really important piece where you can really
learn how to partner with professionals, the educators, and administrators in your
schools.
We've already done one webinar, Creating a Vision for your Child's Future, and this will
be archived and available for you the first week of November. This was a very
successful webinar that was first done in May 2013. It was originally done in May by
Tim Gruesel. He's a wonderful speaker, so we will be notifying everybody who is on this
webinar to be able to access that. And that's what I just told them, right?
So, just a little more information about C2P2/Family Leadership. One of the important
components of this project is that anyone who has come to our webinars will be able to
have some guidance and technical assistance from training parent consultants. As I
mentioned already, the Institute on Disabilities is collaborating with Pennsylvania's
Education for All Coalition (PEAC). Parent consultants will be matched with families
participating in these trainings, anyone who needs guidance and technical assistance.
We will be giving you the name of Cathy Roccia-Meier at the end of this, which you will
be able to look for again, and you will be able to contact Cathy and tell her that you
would like some of the technical assistance from our very well-trained and well-informed
PEAC parent consultants.
In May of 2014, a face-to-face networking event will be held for eligible C2P2/Family
Leadership families. The Institute on Disabilities has a long history over two decades of
providing leadership development to families and individuals with disabilities, and we
have close to 400 graduates of our leadership development training, and aside from the
great information that people learn from attending the session about the rules and the
laws and the evidence-based practices, people tell us consistently that the most
important aspect of going to these trainings is really networking with other families who
are in similar situations. That networking is so valuable when we wrote this grant to the
Developmental Disabilities Counsel, we recognized that we really needed to add a
session where people can join together, so please look for that information that will be
coming up, as to the location of that, and we encourage people who are taking in the
webinars to really come and participate in that.
So, online resources that I mentioned, we do have a few of those. One is a Ning group.
You'll see the link right there to join. It's a closed online resource that will have some
different resources, and you'll be able to post some questions in a very private manner,
and get some good information about things pertaining to inclusive education and
nontraditional schools.
Another piece that we have put together is a Facebook group, and you see the link right
on your screen there. You would just click Join Group, and your request would be
accepted in a few days, and you can post and read comments there. So, we encourage
those of you who want to get on line and join us in that way; that that would be two of
the ways to get some more information, and really begin a dialogue with other likeminded families.
So, again, the goal is to create a network of family leaders, who will work together with
educators and administrators to champion inclusive practices for children with
disabilities in nontraditional school communities. And there is Cathy Roccia-Meier's
phone contact information. She is our Family Education Coordinator here at the
Institute on Disabilities. She is a family member of a young man who happened to
experience a disability, and is very, very well versed in the laws and evidence-based
practices, so I urge you to contact Cathy because she would be the contact for
information pertaining to getting matched with a parent consultant, or getting online and
becoming one of our members of Facebook or Ning. So, please feel free to give her a
call.
Just some housekeeping issues for tonight's session, when you have a question, please
use the hands icon on the right side of your screen to be recognized. Just click that if
you have a question. We will be having, if you have a question at any time, please feel
free to do so, but the one way that you need to do that, as I said is to click on the hand
icon that you can see on the right side of your screen, and then you can either, if you
have a speaker on your computer, you can speak through your computer, or you can
use the chat option. I want to let you know, everyone know that you will all be muted.
We will unmute you if you have a question, and at the end of the session, what we're
going to do for folks who may want to ask an anonymous question and not be recorded,
because this session is being recorded, so it will be archived for people who weren't
able to join us this evening. But, if you want to ask a question that is confidential, we
will do that at the end of the session. And again, we assure you that those, that
question and answer period will not be recorded.
It's very important to us that you complete a very brief evaluation after this session, and
you can go to www.surveymonkey.com. That link is right there, and you will be able to
access our evaluation.
So, without further ado, your screen will be blank momentarily, but you're going to have
the great pleasure of having our three panelists talk to you about inclusion of all children
in school. So thank you very much.
[ Silence ]
>> Diane Perry: Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us tonight. As I do
to Kathy and Cathy here at the Institute of Disability for working with us, and we're very
happy and proud to be able to bring you this module tonight. Inclusion: Supporting All
Abilities of Students Learning Together.
Forgive me, this is my first webinar. We did do a practice session, but I'm going to, you
know, see how I can do on my second time around here. Let's see. We did have our
project coordinator scheduled to be with us tonight, and that would be the proud mother
of little Sophie in this girl scout troop picture, and her mother, Jen, Jennifer Schrad, who
is our project coordinator at PEAC, she unfortunately is having some medical issues
right now, and was unable to join us tonight. So, I have the pleasure to bring you
Sophie's story throughout our slides tonight, and we wanted to first start off with Sophie
and her Girl Scout troop. And, this brings a lot of significance. We thought it would be
great way to start our training tonight, because Sophie is in the first grade, and she is
fully included in her elementary school, but she also involved in her local Girl Scout
troop, and that is then right there. They just recently participated in a buddy walk, and
through that buddy walk, all her girl scout troop rallied around Sophie, and they even
featured them in the local newspaper as Sophie's Team, or I forget the whole, I think it
might have just been Sophie's Team, and they rallied around her for the buddy walk for
people with Down syndrome. And so, Sophie was very proud, as you can see her in the
front there. And, actually, that's her sister also. So, it's her friends and everyone there
with Sophie. And, I probably didn't give her story justice, but hopefully, her mother is
proud from what I remember [laughter] and, now a little bit background.
I'm just give you bit of background about who PEAC is and what we do. As Kathy first
introduced us, we're the Pennsylvania Education for All Coalition, and PEAC has been
around for over 12 years now, and what we do is, we're all about collaboration. And, we
collaborate towards inclusive experiences, so not only does inclusion happen within
schools, but it's in your community. It's in your church. It's everywhere that you go. It's
at the playground, you know, and inclusive experiences are a natural part of your day as
anybody else experiences with any ability that you bring to the table. And what we
believe. PEAC believes that all children should be successfully educated together in
their neighborhood schools within the general education curriculum. And what I always
said when I talked about this is that you need to have the right support and services
along with that. And, we all know, in this lovely state of Pennsylvania, that that looks
very different, in every school, in every district, in every building. It's very different.
Should it be different? A little bit, but we're going to get into a couple more slides a little
later about the law and what are your rights. But, those rights, those supports and
services are very critical to the success of any student who is going to be educated in
their school.
And, not only myself, but the others will be here to tell you a little bit about our own
stories, and our own journeys, and some of that will be, you know, what we were able to
work with, and how we were able to work within the schools, and not maybe sometime.
Hopefully, you'll leave here tonight knowing that not only is inclusive practice happening
within the school, but again, it's all about the community and that collaboration.
So, what exactly does PEAC do? We provided individualized support. We provide
training and technical assistance. And then, next to that, who do we provide that to?
We provide that to parents and families, educators, universities, and self-advocates.
I see we have a question, we'll get to that in a minute, I think.
Okay, PEAC also has the Parent Consultant Network. We are able to have a Parent
Consultant Network because we do have a grant through the Pennsylvania
Developmental Disabilities Counsel, and due to that grant, we are able to bring our
parent consultants, who are parents who have been there and done it, and they are the
experts. They are the experts that we have within PEAC that do the work that we do.
So, we recruit those parents, we train them. We then support them, and then we utilize
their gift, because each parent has very unique experiences that they bring to the table,
and that's what makes them the experts. And, these are all parents of children who
receive special education services. They're committed to inclusive education for all
children, and that is strengthened by the collective wisdom of all of these parents who
have been there. And, we support them, and we do compensate them for their time.
That's why we are very proud to have that grant through the Developmental Disabilities
Council. So, here's my family [laughter]. Myself, and my husband, and David. And,
that's David going to his senior prom. And, this is a very special picture to start with
because it's kind of like, you know, David is 20 now. So, now that he's, you know, he's
20, he's been through the whole school system, and he actually walked with his class,
it's kind of a pivotal picture to talk about our journey. You know, there's David, going to
his senior prom with all his friends that he went to school with. And, for us, throughout
David's journey, inclusion was not always easy. And, I will always tell every family that
it's a lot of work; it's a lot of work, and you need a lot of people around you, and you
need to know a lot of stuff [laughter], and PEAC is here to support those families with
that. And, you're going to have high notes, and you're going to have low notes all
throughout life, but this picture is very pivotal, because not only did he go to senior
prom, but he walked with his class, and every ounce that we went through over the
years; cheers, anger, you know, whatever you go through when your children go
through school was all well worth it. And, that's what that picture shows, and that's what
that means today.
So, tonight, we're going to be bringing you the Introduction to Inclusive Education.
PEAC has many modules, and all of our parent consultants are able to bring various
modules to; that's part of the training that we do, to schools, colleges, and universities.
We do their structuring, and so these modules, some of them are used there, and some
are used just in various locations. We are going to have, we're hosting a conference
November 15 and 16, and that will be, you can go to our website for more information.
And, our information will be on here a little bit later, but that is going to be a great
conference about relationships, and where do those relationships, or what does that
mean, in school, out in the community, so it's going to be a packed event for two days,
November 15 and 16. So, check us out.
Tonight though, Introduction to Inclusive Education, we kind of went over a little bit of
the welcoming, and you'll be meeting the other parent consultants in just a few minutes
as we go through this power point. You're going to learn, what is inclusive education?
Why do we have inclusive education, and with those whys, what are the values, the
laws, and what does the educational practice and outcome show us, and we're going to
talk about that. And, I hope you enjoyed this cartoon here. One of our board members,
Colleen Tomko, draws a lot of cartoons for the parents' site, and she shares her
experience. And, if you ever have time to visit and look at her work, it's all about her
experiences with her son. So, it was a way of how she expressed herself, so enjoy them
as well.
We're also going to be going through slides about how do you do inclusive education.
What are the practices, and what did I mean about when I said you need the right
accommodation and adaptations, you know, what works for your child. What does that
mean? And, in the end, we're going to show you what inclusion looks like as well. And,
here's just some of our goals that we've been going through tonight to help you
understand what inclusion means, what are the opportunities, what's it show, and we're
going to be going through many of these points tonight. And, as Kathy mentioned
earlier, if you have a question, raise your hand, and then we'll also be able to answer
some of the questions here.
The power point will be available to the participants by tomorrow, so that is going to be
available to answer one of the questions here. So, now I'm going to now hand the next
section over to one of our parent consultants, Natalie Wieters, and she's going to share
a little bit with you about the next couple slides. There it is, okay.
[ Pause ]
>> Natalie Wieters: Hello, everyone, Diane introduced. I'm Natalie Wieters, and this is
my family. I am Mom to Jessie, who is 13 years old, and is in the 7th grade a
Philadelphia Public School called Hill Friedman World Academy. And, I've wife to Larry,
besides chief advocate and case manager for our son. I'm also a member of PEAC, as
Diane mentioned, and everyone's mentioned who we are here tonight, giving this
presentation. A parent consultant, and sometimes after all these jobs are done, I get to
earn a little bit of income as an artist. I had written a script to tell my story, and I will be
reviewing some concepts about inclusions that include my own family's personal story,
experiences. So, please excuse the unpolished presentation, and I'll be glad to share
even more at the end if we have time.
[pause]
I also, I wanted to tell me that my husband and I feel that we live in a great community
in the City of Philadelphia that has grown to being very blighted to a destination place.
The neighborhood is Northern Liberties, and has become the way it is now mostly by a
combined system of its residence and a strong neighborhood association; that started
over 30 years ago, and is still going strong. It was a very inclusive, accepting and
diverse community then, and still strives to be. I was going to read this before this slide,
but I feel like it goes with this slide.
So, inclusion, what it looks and feels like. To me, this is a powerful slide, showing what
it means to a variety of people. There are arrows leading from the word inclusion to
words like friendship, wholeness, quality schools, social justice, cooperative, harmony.
If you took the word inclusion away from this slide, you'd see that these universal
describing a quality life experience anyone would want to have. Personally, I value
these concepts. I had to develop my own ideas about inclusion unknowingly from the
time my son, Jessie, was born. We belong to a community play group where the moms
shared experiences with each other while the kids played, and then when the weather
was nice, we took the group outside altogether to places around the city where all kids
could go. There were discussions about the qualities of different preschools while the
kids were still crawling. Some of us got together for play dates. There was a
babysitting co-op. We knew that we belonged, and we thrived in this great social
community now that we had Jessie.
[pause] Exclusion, okay, so what it looks and feels like. When you're not included, what
could you be? Excluded. As my son's milestones were further behind the other kids, as
I learned about his disability, I became aware that we were losing pace with everyone
else. He needed some special services, so we couldn't participate as much, and when
we did, he didn't have the play or social skills to keep up. We became more isolated.
When preschool time came, we had only one choice, the Center Based Program
provided by early intervention that was specially designed only for kids like mine. And,
at that time, I did feel a lot of despair and loneliness. So, not only was Jessie beginning
to be excluded, I felt excluded too.
Now, I feel like we could just belong with other kids doing what they like to do without
the stigma of him participating with too many supports beside him. There's Jessie on
the left with his cousin at a horseback riding came this summer, and it wasn't a
therapeutic horseback riding camp with spotters on each side of him. It was a camp
about horses, their care, and riding lessons, and it was with a group of kids who were
passionate about being at this camp.
[pause]
I think inclusion touches all parts of life. I'm starting to learn more about inclusion,
generally speaking, by participating in a PEAC group leadership program similar to what
you're learning here when my son was still in preschool, and inclusion just made sense
to me. Why shouldn't we continue to be a part of our community, and Jessie have a
choice to go to one of the preschools his peers were attending? Socially, I felt we were
already on the right track. Everyone already knew us, and accepted us even more than
I had realized. Jessie, my son, is an only child, and we took him everywhere. It was
easy to not change our lifestyle too much, and because of that, we continued to do
things in the community as we had before he was born. I learned to get my son some
services and support in the neighborhood preschool. I also learned that it can be much
harder to take things away than to add them. So, when we signed him up for
kindergarten, and met for our first IEP with the school district, we had a posse, as my
husband would like to call this, of parents, and teachers, and aids that convinced the
school that was where he belonged; our neighborhood school included with all the other
kids in kindergarten. And, with the supports and services that had helped him to
succeed in preschool.
Okay. Here's Jessie in the community with some friends that he'd known from
preschool, and now they're in the second grade. Inclusion is interwoven in all parts of
life; like the pieces of a quilt and the pieces help to make a whole. Inclusion becomes of
way of being a support of quality of life.
[pause] If we consider how it feels to belong, the benefits of inclusion can be immense.
There is so much information and resources on how to make inclusion work. We also
have federal and state laws that support inclusion. So, I have described how inclusion
felt like the right thing to do from my experience and my values.
So, what are our values? So all the common values you see here support inclusion.
The more I learned about inclusion through trainings like these, I understood why it felt
right. We already belonged, like I said, in our community for years before Jessie, and
we felt it was a great place to live and raise kids, because of the diversity and the civic
commitment by a large part of the population. Every day, Jessie was learning and
practicing new skills, and we figured, why not expect from him what other kids could do?
And why now expect that he participates with the other kids?
Philosophy guides action, what we believe. So, what do we believe? This slide says to
me that the ideas on the left and the ideas on the right are philosophical opposites.
Philosophy guides actions. Is it right that only some belong? Or assume that some can
learn and some can't? When people want to be charitable, we can find ways to support
others where and how they need to be supported without stigmatizing them. We don't
look for ways of how to exclude them. I chose this photo of my son, his first day of
school this year, because he was so confident. He knows that he belongs at this school
with all the other kids. He was extremely happy to go back to school after summer
break, and I just, this says it all. Now, Karen is going to come over and replace me, and
do.
[ Pause ]
>> Karen Salomon: Good evening everyone. This next section is on laws and rights,
and one of the first cases that dealt with inclusion or kids in school is Brown versus the
Board of Education. And, in this case, Chief Justice Earl Warren said, "Separateness in
education can generate a feeling of inferiority as to children's status in the community
that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone. This sense
of inferiority affects the motivation of the child to learn, and have a tendency to retard
educational and mental development".
This is me and my family. My husband and I live near Ambler. We have two boys. Our
oldest son is Steve, and he is a junior here at Temple University, and our youngest son
is Adam. He is now a senior at our local high school, and he is the reason why I know a
little bit about this next section.
Here is the slide that shows the evolution of special education laws just below inclusion.
In addition to the ground work of the Board of Education, there were other federal laws
that mandate inclusive practices. This slide lists several of these laws. We are going to
highlight those that are more specific to our state, because parents have been trail
blazers, and it is important for us to understand and appreciate what the parent voice
and involvement has been able to achieve. So, the first one we're going to highlight is
the PARC decree.
>> Diane: So, we did a little shift, because each of us wanted to take a certain piece of
the law that maybe we feel more passionate about. I feel passionate about the PARC
Consent Degree in 1971; the Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children versus
Pennsylvania. And yes, back in 1971, they used the word retarded. We now use
intellectual disabilities, but this is very pivotal for us, because this was a group of
parents in Pennsylvania, and actually in the county that I live in, is where the majority of
the parents were, so I feel like I'm connected to some of these parents as well. And,
they got together and sued the State of Pennsylvania, because their children with
mental retardation were not going to school. So, they needed to fight for access for
them to be able to be even educated. Years ago, some of you might know some of the
history, and any of you who do know me, I love the history piece of people with
disabilities, but a lot of that is because we never want to go backwards. So, the PARC
Consent decree actually is a great win for families, students who had mental
retardation, which was the term they used, were then able to attend school, and then
from there, it started to happen as far as students not just being down in the basement,
being in the classroom and so forth. So, we're going to go through some of those other
laws that highlight and gave students with disabilities more rights. And, we're going to
do like another little shift here for you.
[ Pause ]
>> Karen: Okay, now we're going to jump ahead on this slide to 1993, and the Oberti
Settlement. Now, the Oberti versus Clemington Case is a third circuit court of appeals
case, and we are in the third circuit. The third circuit encompasses Pennsylvania, New
Jersey, and Delaware. And in this case, the court said that schools must consider the
whole range of supplementary aids and services, and they must make efforts to
accommodate the regular education program to accommodate special education
students. The judge in this case said inclusion is a right, not a special privilege for a
select few. And, then we're going to jump ahead a little bit now to the Gaskin
Settlement, which was in 2005.
[ Pause ]
>> Natalie: So, as Diane said, we're talking about something that we feel more
comfortable about, and I believe the Gaskin Settlement really gave me strength and
power to keep my son included in his school, fully included in school all the way up until
the fifth grade. The Gaskin Settlement took the Oberti Settlement a little further. The
Gaskin Settlement agreement is a formal resolution between the Pennsylvania
Department of Education, otherwise known as PDE, and a group of families and
advocacy organizations who filed a class action lawsuit against the PDE in 1994. After
11 years, the parties in the lawsuit reached a settlement. Gaskin refers to a lead
plaintiff, Lydia Gaskin, a former Carlisle school district student with Down syndrome.
The goal of the settlement is to insure that IEPs change consider a regular classroom
with supplementary aids and services that students with disabilities need in order to
receive a meaningful benefit from education before considering a more restricted
placement, and that supplementary agent services should be provided to all students
who need them and provided in a way that avoids stigmatizing the students. Okay.
[ Pause ]
>> Karen: So, there's a lot of information on this slide, and I wanted you to recall earlier
that as part of Webinar Wednesdays on January 22, there is a training that will cover
this area in more depth. It's called Special Education Rules and Regulations, and
again, that's going to be on January's webcast.
So, now today's law is IDEA, which does support diverse learners. IDEA stands for the
Individual with Disabilities Education Act. Now, the words inclusive education are not
included in IDEA, but it does emphasize the least restrictive environment and a free and
appropriate public education. When it comes to placement, here's what IDEA has to
say about that. It says, to the maximum extent appropriate, children with disabilities are
educated with children who are nondisabled, and separate schooling or removal from
the general education classroom occurs only if education in regular classes with the use
of supplementary aids and services cannot be achieved satisfactorily. And that phrase,
supplemental aids and services is really key in successful inclusion, and there's a whole
wide range of services that can be brought to students in general education classrooms.
They can be environmental or physical accommodations. It can be instructional, does
the curriculum need to be modified or adapted to an individual's learning style. It could
be a paraprofessional or a teaching assistant in the classroom. Students might need
testing accommodations. Perhaps the test needs to be modified. Perhaps the child
would be better if they were pulled to a smaller classroom in order to take the test.
There's many kinds of instructional accommodations that can be put in place for
students, and there could also be social or behavioral supports brought into the
classroom to assist children to be successful. And IDEA also talks about the concept of
the individual education plan, or the IEP.
IDEA says that disability is a natural part of the human experiences and in no way
diminishes the right of individuals to participate in or contribute to society. Improving
educational results for children with disabilities is an essential element of our national
policy of ensuring equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and
economic self-sufficiency for individuals with disabilities.
This is my son, Adam, he has become quite a good skateboarder. This is passion. He
likes to do it all the time. We work to include him in his school. He's been included
since he was in third grade. And, we've also worked to include him in the community,
and skateboarding has really helped him do that. It seems we know where every skate
park is within 15 miles of our house, and when we go to those skate parks, it seems like
most of the time Adam does know somebody who's there. I know we went out to eat at
a local restaurant, and the waiter recognizes Adam. Adam didn't recognize the waiter,
but the waiter recognized who Adam was. We knew Adam was really a pretty big piece
of the skateboarding community when we were in Germany this past summer. We did
not realize it at the time, but the X-Games were in Munich this summer. And, as it
turned out, as Adam's luck would have it, most of the pro-skateboarders who were
competing were staying in the same hotel we were at. And, as we checked out and we
were leaving the hotel, Adam walked by the lobby and went up and said, Hi, Chris, Hi,
Tom. It turned out he knew two of the kids who were participating in the competition
from our local skate parks. And, it was a highlight of Adam's vacation. It turns out that
one of those kids did win a gold medal at the X-Games. So, we could not have planned
that more perfectly for him. It worked out very well.
So, now we're going to move into educational practices and outcomes. There's a lot of
research on the benefits of inclusive practices. I know I've been to several conferences
on this. Dr. Richard Villa is a very popular speaker. He has spoken all over the country,
and in fact, all over the world on inclusive education. And, he has shared that there is
no research that supports segregated education. The research in this area is very
clear, that inclusion benefits all children. For students with disabilities, the research
shows that they do better academically when they are included. They have better
standardized test scores, and they have been reading skills. And, they also have
improved post school outcomes. Those students who are included are more likely to be
employed once they leave high school. They're more likely when they are employed to
earn a higher salary, and they're also more likely to live independently.
Students with disabilities are also benefited socially by being included. And, also, the
research shows the opposite as well. It shows that students who are primarily
segregated demonstrate regression socially. So, there's a lot of research on the benefit
of students with disabilities. But, the research has also shown that students without
disabilities benefit from being in inclusive classrooms. They too have a better academic
performance. Students at risk in general education classrooms benefit from curricular
adaptations and other supports provided in the classroom. I know as we pay attention
to the kind of supports and adaptations that we have for Adam; Adam's not the only
student in his classroom who benefits from those. When the teacher repeats directions,
when they use visuals, Adam's not the only student who benefits in that. All the other
students are aided by seeing visuals in the classroom as well. I know when we go to
presentations such as this webinar, we're so used to seeing power points, that they're
such a nice aid for us to follow along and to learn along with the speaker.
I was at training for PEAC with Jerry Petroff. He teaches at the College of New Jersey,
and he did an experiment. He said in classroom when he told his students that his
power point equipment was not working, and he straight lectured, so the students had
no visual support. He said that only lasted two classroom periods, when his students
begged him to please get that power point equipment fixed, because we do learn better
when we can combine the auditory and the visual components in with everything. And
students without disabilities are also benefited socially as well. There's a reduced fear,
increased comfort and understanding of the worth of human differences, and enhanced
self-esteem, a genuine capacity for friendship, and the acquisition of new schools when
students are [inaudible]. Now, we're going to move onto the benefits of inclusion on
teachers.
[ Pause ]
>> Diane: So, you see we keep shifting to keep your attention. Hopefully, you're still
with us tonight. I know it's getting a little bit later, and we have at least 25 minutes left
here. So, hopefully, we will continue to keep your attention here. And, I'm going to be
talking about what the research shows for the impact on teachers. And, I have seen
this over and over through my son, David's experiences in school, and also now working
with PEAC, because we partner with many school districts and colleges and
universities, and we hear over and over again that supports this research about
teachers having increased skills and improved confidence in their own teaching abilities.
The teachers know that the different, when they go for different staff development
training and they utilize the, if they go for specific training for maybe a particular student
that they know they need to adapt like Karen was just talking about. They then know
that this isn't going to just benefit just one child. They even know the teachers have that
confidence that it's going to benefit all of the children in their classrooms. And, they also
have a different sense of the other teachers they work with, their colleagues, and they
start to get intrigued by, oh, wow, what are you doing and what are you doing?
I know when my son, David, was included for different subjects, the one teacher taught
social studies, and he was a very active social studies teacher. And, he would have
these students perform and do different activities, and this was in high school when they
were teaching, they were learning about Greece. And, they were learning, you know,
the mummies, and they actually did like whole mummy ceremonies down the hall and
so forth, and they knew all this. But, it was just, the teachers, he was then in a coteaching situation for the regular teacher, a special ed teacher, and that wealth of
knowledge working together was just more powerful to all the other teachers, and then
they took that out, in my opinion, out to the school, so that they could see what their
class was really doing. It was one of those classes that all the students wanted to be in.
And that's the other thing, the teachers, there are those teachers that just know, and just
do it naturally as well.
[ Pause ]
And, here is a picture of some of the teachers when PEAC first got started, we worked
with some of the schools in Philadelphia, and we got together some of the teachers in
one of the school buildings, and they actually sat down and talked about what does that
look like for teachers? Like, how can we make our school more inclusive, and Karen
referenced Dr. Jerry Petroff who did this staff process. And, I believe it was through
here at Temple that they did this class process where they said okay, what's the vision
of this school? Where do want all the kids to be learning. What does that look like for
us, and as you can see, they're building partnerships and diversity, and that's all that
we're going to be talking about. You have to build those partnerships and relationship.
And, that's key to success for inclusion, whether it be in school, in your community, or
anywhere they you dealt.
And again, here's Sophie. And, Jen, if she were here, would be taking over at this point
of the slide, but here's her daughter, Sophie. It's just a beautiful picture of her, and she
just photographs very well. It's amazing. And, I think this might have been at the Easter
party in the community. I think they have like a parade in her little town, and she was all
dolled up for the community parade. And, what Jen would be talking about is the
inclusion that benefits all families. Jen's daughter is still very young, so she is
experiencing and looking at the family connections. And while, even when our children
get older, we have those family connections, but a lot of times when your children are
younger, you know, you kind of look at what's the other connections in the community
that we need to make so that the families are enriched by those experiences.
And, as all of us after talking tonight, you know, we have our children out in the
community. We are doing all of those community connections that you need to do. You
need to go out, and you know, you might be fearful. What if my son does this or what if
my daughter does this? You know what? Sometimes you just have to, you know, give
it a shot, and whatever happens happens, and you might be pleasantly surprised. I
always like to tell the story about, I think it was David, was in middle school, and of
course, he's making his friends and stuff, and the girls come knocking at the door, and
they said, yeah, we're going to the park. We thought David would like to go to the park.
I'm like, oh, okay, cool, and so, of course they all went to the park, and at his age, you
know, he should go to the park with them, which he did. But, as his mom, I'm thinking,
you know, I probably need to go, what if something happens? What if he needs this,
what if he needs that? What will be happen? You know, it was the first time he was just
like going with his friends, and so, you know, the good mom that I was follows him, and I
stood behind the bushes. Just to make sure [laughter], that everything was going fine.
But they did, they had cell phones. The one girl had my cell phone, so she would call
me if there was anything. But, everything was fine, but it's like that, oh my God, okay,
this is what's happening. Okay yeah. So, yeah, it's how it benefits all families.
We used to like to always say that everybody needs to experience David, you know,
that all the families need to know who he is, what he's about, and how does he affect
your family, and hopefully a positive way [laughter]. But, I still think there's partnerships,
you know, when you're in your community, you're building that school and that family
partnership, which is that protection there, that you have effective communication as
well, that you're building these partnerships. And, learning about each child in your
community, which is very important, with or without the civilities. So, shift here.
[ Pause ]
>> Karen: So, really this slide is a summary slide of what we've been talking about
these past few slides. Inclusive education is best practices in education for all learners.
Remember that special education is not a place. It is services and supports brought to
students through their individual education plan. Now, it's often treated as a place. I
know, my son has autism, so I can't tell you how many times when we've discussed one
of his needs, and we've been told, well, we work on that in the autistic support
classroom. And, one of the things that doesn't seem to make sense is that most
individuals with autism have deficits in social skills, and almost always when we'd
wanted the team to address this, we were told, oh, well, he has to go to the autistic
support classroom where he can sit in an autistic support social skills group only with
students with autism and social skills deficits. And, really, my son learned so much from
his typical peers. They are his best teachers, behaviorally and socially. So, it is really
important to remember, special education is a service, not a place, and to think how can
we bring those supports and services to the child, not have to bring the child to a
specific place.
[ Pause ]
>> Diane: Hello, again! So, anyone can be successful in any environment, and that's
the message we wanted to bring to you. So, you know, to start it off, what is inclusion in
education, why inclusion, you know, and this is why we are trying to hit on some of
those important points here tonight. Anyone can successful in any environment if he or
she has the right support, and that is the key. I talked about that earlier. Without those
right supports, we, you know, our children with or without a disability and no matter what
setting that you're in, you need those right supports.
So, when we talk about inclusion, and a lot of times, it sometimes gets a bad rap as far
you know, okay, we'll include them, so we'll just throw them in the classroom, and that
means they're going to sink. You know, it's not a sink or swim possibility of being
included. When you swim, you want to be able to have the supports that you need. Is it
a specific technology that the student might need? Is it personal assistance that they
may need? Is it instructional or curricular modifications, and teachers need to go for
extra staff training. Or, maybe the families can be a part of that as well. And these are
just some, very specific of some of the accommodations and supports that can happen
within the classroom. And, here are a few more.
And, this is also, as you're going through your meetings that you have for your child who
receives special education services, there are certain questions you can be thinking
about with your IEP team that you can consider within your planning. You know, where
will my child receive their education. Where will they receive their supports? So, to start
you off, some of the questions that you may want to bring to the table are what we have
listed here. Can the student do the same activities as peers?
You will also find each question on the PATTAN website, www.pattan.net, and the it the
Pennsylvania Training and Technical Assistance Network, and they have what's called
annotated IEPs. And in each section, they will give you some of these guided questions
as well. So, that's another resource that you can go to. And, you can get that resource
from Cathy Roccia-Meier, which you were given her contact information, or us, you can
get that information anywhere. But, these are the questions that you ask. Can the
student do the same activities as the peers? Yes or no. And then you start thinking,
talking about that as a team. Can the student do the same activity as peers with
support or reinforcement? And you just keep building that up. Where does your child,
where will they need the support or won't they? Can the student do the same activities
as peers with modifications or change? And, then you keep going up the ladder there.
Can the student benefit from some part of the lesson? And a lot of times, that's what
happened for my son, David. He might not have been getting that full lesson. And,
what we did is we had an inclusion specialist that looked at the full lesson, knew what
David's strengths were, and developed what some of those important, usually three
goals. What are those important three goals that we want David to learn from this
particular lesson? So, he may not have been getting the whole lesson that a lot of the
students could benefit from, but David knew what his goals were that he had to achieve.
His assistant knew and the teacher knew, and he wasn't getting anything different. He
was still getting the same classroom curriculum, but he just had different goals.
Some more questions that your IEP Team may consider. Is it time efficient for the
teacher, and if not, what supports does the teacher need, which is very important. A lot
of times, we kind of, you know, individualize education plans using our best student, but
sometimes you need to think about, what do the teachers need for support?
Sometimes it is some type of staff development. Maybe it's planning time, so the
principal needs to figure out in that teacher's day, when is the best planning time for
them to get together. Because if you have a regular teacher and special ed teacher
working today, they need time to think about that, or is the child receiving therapy?
When is the therapist talking with the other teachers as well and in figuring out when do
I need to, you know, come pull out, or can I come into your classroom. When is the best
time? Are you having a cool lesson this week. When can I do that?
These are the things that need to be talked about within your IEP meeting. Does the
student like the idea? If not, why not. We all think about the IEP, and is your student
attending the IEP, which is very important, because they need to know. They need to
take ownership of those goals as well. And, they need to know what the expectations
are. So, maybe they might even have a better idea of how they could learn that lesson,
and we need to listen to the students as well. And, you want to be able to promote
independence with the accommodations. It's not something that you want to depend
on, but possibly some time that child could be going to college, and when you go to
college, it's a whole other, you know, ball of wax there. You're not going to be able to
get the same type of supports as you do in the high school setting when you go into
college. So, it's very different, and you want to be able to have that goal and prepare
that student for that type of setting if they go that way.
So, we're going to be wrapping up just a little bit here, but we wanted to be able to show
you some snippets of what inclusion looks like, as we've looked at it through PEACs
eyes over the years. Here's David, and that is him graduating, and standing out front
with his graduation. And, then like I said earlier today when I started off with David's
picture, and when we talk about inclusion, and now that I'm older and David's older, I
can reflect back on several years of, you know, we had lots of ups and lots of downs.
But, all the downs and all the trouble, any types of roadblocks that were given to us to
include David or not were all so well worth it when he walked across that stage with all
his peers that he went to school with.
Same with going to the prom. Going to that prom with all of his peers, you know.
These were all the kids that he grew up with. And, I can tell you that now that David has
been out of school, I see a lot of his peers, and I see their parents. And, I hear now that
a lot of those students who are now going to college themselves that went to school
with David, a lot of them are choosing a lot of careers within education. You know,
there's somebody who's studying speech therapy. Another one wants to be a special
education teacher. One actually said they want to be a history teacher, but they want to
be able to do what's called the co-teacher model. They want to actually teach with
another teacher together, and it's just very cool to hear these stories over and over
again. And, you know, I'm very proud to know that these students, you know, if they did
not have that experience with David, I feel that they may not have chosen that avenue
as far as their career. So, we'll see. Someday hopefully, they will achieve those. And,
I'm going to switch, because this is not my child.
[laughter]
>> Karen: This is Adam when he was in fourth grade. Adam is the one with his hands
raised out to the side. This was his fourth grade birthday party at a bowling alley. We
would invite his whole class, and his whole class would come, and we just thought that
was a really nice picture to demonstrate inclusion. He would get invited to birthday
parties, and what was really interesting is he got invited to a birthday party probably
around the same time as this photo was taken, probably when he was about in like
fourth or fifth grade. And, the parents of that class invited all the kids back to take a
then and now photo, and to restage that from when the kids were in fifth grade, and now
when they're seniors in high school. So, they can put that in the year book. So, I'm
really looking forward to seeing what that picture looks like. And, we're going to move
on.
[ Pause ]
>> Natalie: Okay, this is a picture of my son, Jessie, at field day the last day of school
last year, and he is on the yellow team, even though he has the orange shirt on, and he
is with a group of sixth graders that he was included with likely throughout the year, and
they made sure that he was on the team; on their team. And, I feel that what I've
learned from his experiences, when kids with disabilities have been included, they are
able to feel that they do belong. They know that they do belong with the other kids, and
they have so many more opportunities to learn from all those other kids.
[ Pause ]
>> Diane: Okay, so just a few more photos. What inclusion is. It's students working on
goals that are meaningful to their life. Here's a young man, it looks like they're in the
library or a classroom working on some goals there. It looks like with another student
and possibly another teacher helping him. It's all about embracing our differences, no
matter what the student brings to the classroom. It's embracing all of the differences
that our children have, and we do too. There's religious differences, cultural differences,
physically challenged; anything that is out there, and that is what inclusion is.
Inclusion is having friends. I hear over and over again, some families who have kids
with disabilities, and this is key to a lot of what inclusion is. You know, my child doesn't
have any friends, and you know, as they get older, and how do they do that. And, you
know, part of, for me, having David included, he was in class with these students, and
he does have friends. And, his friends may look a little bit different than his brother's
friends. But, everybody's different. And, actually, his older brother doesn't have as
many friends as David does, and David is the one with the disability. So, you know,
every child is different in that aspect, and when you think about it as we get older, I
really have probably two good friends that I grew up with. You really only end up with
sometimes two or three really good friends.
So, if your child does have one good friend. That's really cool, and you just build on that
throughout your life, because you'll have many life experiences. But having friends is
very important to have that success. A parent gave a quote, "no skill could make his life
as rewarding, or fill the void as much as having friendships. Without friendships or
relationships, there would be little happiness or motivation for my son to learn or
achieve his potential." And, any child who is not motivated in the classroom is not going
to learn, and they're not going to achieve to their best ability for that.
My son, David, right now is in what's called a vo. tech program, and he's learning
culinary arts and hospitality, and he is loving it. And, he is so independent there, and
the growth that we've seen in him just within the last two or three months is amazing,
because he knows he's taking ownership and he has that independence, and he's got
that motivation. And, when you have that motivation of the teacher and that support, it
just happens, and it is very cool to see how happy he is. And what can I say about this.
This is just an amazing, awesome picture of our young friend, Will, playing on the T-ball
team, and it's a great picture, but I have to tell you that the parent really advocates a lot
in order to even have him play T-ball in her community, but this shows how awesome it
really ended up being. So, sometimes that pain that we go through to make sure that
our students are included is all well worth it.
And, I think that is the end of our slides, so we will look to our attendees for any type of
questions, if you use want to raise your hand, and we will unmute you, and you can ask
your questions. Or you can type it down in the box in the chat portion.
Okay. Rachel, I'm going to unmute you. Can you hear us?
>> Rachel: Yes, can you hear me?
>> Yes, we can, Rachel.
>> Rachel: Oh, okay. My son just started a charter school this year, and he has a
special education teacher who's only been teaching for about, this is her fourth year of
teaching. She and my son are not having a very good experience. He's in the fifth
grade doing block classes. All his teachers are great with him, except for this one, who
is supposed to be his advisor, math, and reading teacher, and she is just really nit
picking and picking on him. And, despite me having several conversations with her and
the special education supervisor, it just seems like the situation is getting worse. And,
I've requested that he be changed out of the class into another class, and was told that
he needs too much support, and the other teachers would not know how to support him.
So, I'm just not really sure what to do.
>> Diane: Okay. Is this too much to take in? Did you want to take that?
[Laughter.]
Okay, so they want me to take that one. Well, you started off having IEP meetings and
trying to address the issue. You addressed it at the school level. You went up to the
special education supervisor, and can you refresh my memory again, this particular
classroom is?
>> Rachel: It's a special ed class.
>> Diane: It is a special ed. class, and he's there full-time?
>> Rachel: Yes, he's there full-time.
>> Diane: Okay, okay. So, have you, you may look back at some of the slides where
we talked about the accommodations, and those questions.
>> Rachel: I'm sorry. I also asked her about having a BSC to come in to observe the
class, and she said, absolutely not, because he does not have a corrective behavior.
>> Diane: Okay. How many children are in the classroom?
>> Rachel: 22.
>> Diane: Okay, so we have what looks like, we're getting, okay. Okay, so I was just
reminded that, remember I talked about PATTAN earlier? Pattan.net.
>> Rachel: Um hum, yes.
>> Diane: And, they have what's called a supplementary aids and services tool kit, and
what happens with this tool kit is that you have the PATTAN people, or they made have
they have intermediate people come in to your school building, and they look at the
whole education of that child. So, they go into the classroom. They talk to all the
teachers that teach him, all the therapists that teach him, and then they develop a plan
of action, as far as how to best support your son, and what does that look like?
>> Rachel: Okay.
>> Diane: You may also give PEAC a call. We have our parent consultants that do help
the parents one on one, and we would be able to match you up with a parent who might
have some of that knowledge, but you want to be able to contact Cathy Roccia-Meier,
and she'll be able to, you know, guide you through that process to get in contact with us,
and we would be able to have that consultant maybe talk with you over the phone,
through E-mail, and/or possibly go to your meeting if that's what you're looking for. So,
we can also follow up in writing as well . Oh, okay, what's that.
[laughter] The other tidbit that I'm given here is that you want to make sure that you're
putting everything in writing. That is key to any child's success. So, when you're asking
the teacher to get together, when you're asking for any type of evaluation, all of these
things that you do, all should be in writing. You want to be able to have that paper trail
for you and your son in order to make sure if down the road, that you need to utilize it
for something else, that you do have it. Always keep a record.
>> Rachel: Okay.
>> Diane: Okay?
>> Rachel: Okay, thank you.
>> Diane: You're welcome.
[ Pause ]
Do we have any other questions? Okay, we can. What we'll do now is that we're going
to stop the recording part, in case there's anybody who has any questions that they
would like to ask that is not being recorded. One second.