S10E34 Carolyn Teigland and Carol Quirk | MCIE Partners with School Districts to Promote Inclusion and Equity

5:02PM Jul 11, 2023

Speakers:

Tim Villegas

Carolyn Teigland

Carol Quirk

Keywords:

district

educators

children

carol

learner

year

maryland

school

teachers

segregated

carolyn

change

challenged

learning

inclusive education

classroom

disabilities

partners

support

school districts

From MCIE. 34 episodes, two feed drops and three bonus episodes. Time to close the book on season 10.

My name is Tim Vegas from the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education and you're listening to think inclusive, a show where with every conversation we try to build bridges between families, educators and disability justice advocates to create a shared understanding of inclusive education, and what inclusion looks like in the real world. You can learn more about who we are and what we do@mcie.org We did it nearly 40 episodes in your feed this season and we couldn't have done it without you. And we are going to officially close the book on a fantastic season with two of my favorite people. Dr. Carolyn Teague Lind, and Dr. Carol cork. Carolyn is the CEO of the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education MCIE. She previously served as the associate superintendent for Cecil County Public Schools, and has extensive experience in promoting and sustaining inclusive education. Carol is one of the founders and former CEO of MCIE. Having transitioned to director of special projects in 2023. She has worked closely with school districts in Maryland, and other states to promote systems change and school transformation. In this episode of thinking cluesive We'll discuss MCIE e's history, and its partnership with school districts since 1990. We highlight the importance of leadership and sustaining inclusive education and share success stories of students who have thrived in inclusive classrooms. We also discuss the challenges and trends in the educational landscape, including the focus on equity, and the need for universal design for learning. We wrap up the episode and our season with a discussion on how families and educators can advocate for inclusive education, and the future plans of MCIE. And now, my interview with Dr. Carolyn Sieglinde and Dr. Carol Quirk. Carolyn Eaglin and Carol quirk Welcome to think inclusive, high 10. I tell this is a treat because, you know, I get to talk with a lot of different people. And not everyone knows that I get to talk with Carolyn and Carol quite a bit you just never hear it. This is a chance to for you to for us to pull back the curtain just a little bit to to just talk about what we've been doing this year, which is a lot we've been doing a lot this year. Before we get into what we've done, I wanted to set this up. And maybe Carol, you can take this question first. Carol, you've been with this organization MCIE For a long time. How long has MCIE been partnering with school districts?

Well, we've been partnering with school districts since 1990, when we had some funds to pilot what we have since developed into our systems change process and school transformation approach. But back in 1990 to 92 we piloted having students who were considered to have I'm putting in quote severe disabilities, who now we might consider to have significant intellectual disability to be actually included in gen ed classrooms in their neighborhood school, which was something that no district in Maryland was offering that opportunity.

Yeah, and that turned into more work with districts across Maryland, correct?

Yeah, based on that pilot, we worked with elementary and one elementary, one middle and one high school in three different Maryland districts a small, medium and very large district. And based on that we then wrote a grant for the State Department of Education for a US Department of Education funded grant to promote systems change the specifically for what they then call the kids with severe disabilities. And for the next five and a half years, we expanded the process that we had pilot in and then further tweaked it based on our experiences across 10 additional districts in in Maryland, and we learned what worked and we also then took the process we had and tweaked it a little bit more and took some elements out and added I'm in and a few things we realized we needed to put right back in because they were important. Like our partnership model, which is that we partner with at the leadership level and also at the score implementation level. And without that partnership, the work we create with the school district and the school won't be sustainable, because we need to have people behind who have gone through everything with us all along the way.

Right? I want to connect the dots to for for everyone who's listening, because Carol quirk, Carol, you are former CEO in also with us is our current CEO, Carolyn Tegan. And Carolyn, you were the Associate Superintendent for Cecil County Public Schools, which was one of our partners in the early 2000s. Is that right? That's correct. Yes. Yeah. So. And, you know, when we talk about districts sustaining this work? I don't know, Carolyn, do you want to just talk a little bit about that?

Sure. Happy to. So we started on this journey in the district where I was, at the time the executive director for elementary school education. We were a district that was highly segregated. nearly 55% of our population was in segregated settings, and a lot of center programming. And MCIE came into our district and formed a partnership with lesson over many years, probably took us seven, eight years to really decentralize those programs and return children to their neighborhood schools, into the general education setting, and really found that children just flourished, when they were able to be educated in general education with their peers. And we were able to stain that work over a long period of time. We started with MCIE, in the early 2000s. And the work still continues in that district, where they are between 88 and 92%, fully inclusive with children, and it's midsize district, about 16,000 students. So the work there has been significant over many changes in terms of superintendencies Board of Education's and one of the things I will say about the work is leadership is key. Leadership is key to sustainability, and really focusing on making certain that the leaders in the district hold this as a core value and a priority. Really is the thing that helps sustain the work.

Yeah. So so we have a little bit of the history of MCIE. And then also, now with a former, you know, a school district leader now coming on board as our CEO. What about now like what districts outside of Maryland that are we working with right now? Or maybe if you want to talk about also the districts, we continue to work in Maryland, but where are the districts that we're working with right now?

Well, I want to just jump off a little bit, Tim, on what Carolyn was saying about Cecil County, because our work there really informed our next level of systems change. So as we go along with each new partnership, we're always learning and we're always tweaking and modifying but the major components have remained the same. You know, we're working in Illinois and Virginia, Oklahoma, several districts inside of Maryland, that I say Illinois, yeah. What about? Well, Arkansas, we're doing a little bit of professional learning. So our work is not always systemic change. Sometimes it's getting ready for change. Sometimes it's the work we're doing in Arkansas is around professional learning for teachers who will be including children for the first time, in elementary, a great band. But you know, what we learned in Cecil County over those years. So thinking about like, the early 2000s, up to around 2008 was the importance of general education. So we went in at that time with a process that we had felt was pretty tried and true, but it was going in the special ed door, because we were thinking at that time that we were going to support the district to include children with IEPs children with disabilities. They didn't ask us to come in and evaluate their reading curriculum or to think about what was Gen Ed doing, you know, that was like in that side of the house. And as we were wrapping up our work there and looking at we were highly successful at placing kids and we were very successful for many kids in giving them a high quality, you know, based on parent input based on teacher input, a high quality education and a significant impact on their lives. But there were some kids who were included in classrooms where the gen ed teachers didn't really know what to do. And special ed teachers didn't really know what to do in a gen ed classroom. And that made me realize that we cannot, we can no longer go about this to special ed, we have to consider this a schoolwide Gen Ed initiative, because that's where inclusion happens in general education. And special educators are important service providers within General Education. And I think as we are working in other districts, and Carolyn Ken has done most of that work this year, what we have to think about is the extent to which they are ready and able to do the heavy lift of changing policies, changing their practices, building the capacity of educators, who may be scared, know, scared that they will fail or scared that their children won't be successful.

Well, let's think about what you know what has happened this year. And I'm wondering if there's a story that sticks out, looking back, any any sort of moments or big aha moments that that kind of stick out for you, as we think about the partners that we've been working with? Well, there

were lots of great moments. So I would say that I have not had one bad day. So that's this work is very important. And it feels like it's making an impact. And the districts that were in regardless of where they are starting, they're having the conversation, which is really important, because there are many districts out there, unfortunately, who are not having this conversation. So to any of our partners that are listening, I really give the partner districts a lot of credit for taking the leap with us being willing to have the hard conversations because the work is complex, and it and it can be challenging. But it is so worth it. So in terms of the so worth it, we are in a district where we started the work in that district this year, there was a young man who was having significant behavioral challenges. And really, we were challenged with how to best support him and make him a member of his class who was a participant and a learner. And there were so many episodes of real, pretty intense behaviors, that the educators were very challenged and quite honestly, as Carol said earlier, scared but not just scared at sailing, scared to themselves and the other children in the classroom. So one of those situations where we really needed to have a plan to have a plan fast because we couldn't sustain what was happening in the classroom. And he was headed towards a non public placement given the intensity and frequency of his behaviors. He has through much intentional learner planning with that district professional learning with the educators and also a true commitment by the educators to build a relationship with this child which is which is big A put aside their feelings of fear, they put aside their feelings of personalization of those behaviors and not like it's hard not to personalize behaviors when a child is impacting your classroom and causing harm. So they really put aside all of those those emotional feelings and really focused on the plan for this young learner. And since late January, he has had almost zero episodes of behavior, he is being very successfully included, actually, as a child who we don't get to really see much anymore because he's being so successful that they have us on to working with other learners in the in the schools that we're in, and we're not focusing so much on him anymore. So really, the probably the greatest success story in terms of a child who was really at risk for having his life outcomes significantly impacted because if he had gone into that non public behavioral centered program, his his life trajectory would have been fundamentally altered, most likely because most children do not return from those kinds of placements. And he was named student of the month in May, so just by his teacher, so just Just what I cannot understate the complexity of this child. So really, when I say a significant story, it's not just about us and our role. It's about the educators being willing to set aside their emotions, their mindset, and really to invest in the child and really trying to genuinely figure out a plan of action. And this school, the leaders in the school, the educators in the school and leaders at the district level, really just committed to figuring it out. And really what changed his Olympics perience was probably the most powerful anecdote of the year, although there have been many others, but that that's the most. I think educators right now, Tim, are very focused on behavior, post pandemic, there's a lot of behaviors happening. And sometimes we feel at a loss. And we want to label the behavior, put the behavior a somewhere else, because we're just challenged with how to, to deal with that, especially when people are physically getting hurt. So really having that success story around the behavior I think is important to to highlight.

Yeah, that's wonderful. In for, you know, like you said, for learners who are exhibiting these challenging behaviors, having a process like individual learner planning, I think is powerful, right, and it gives you something to do the team gives you something to do. And it's not just a well, we gotta call behavior specialists, right? Does anyone want to just share a little bit about our planning process?

Well, we have a planning process at the district level for district, thinking about policy, professional learning, capacity building messaging. And so around those kinds of topics, along with representation from both general and special ed students support services. We also have a school wide, what we call our transformation process, which is pretty specific about the kinds of activities that schools engage in, even to the point of the first year, having agendas planned out for the first six months of of meetings. So we have a district level planning meeting, we have a school level leadership team that meets monthly. And then we have individual learner planning processes for kids who need more. And so everybody and everybody who needs more doesn't get like go package, there are a variety of tools. So our staff learn how to select the tools based on the learner needs. And then our partners get access. So any of our partners get access to all of the resources that we've developed, they often adapt them, which is very exciting to me, because they will adapt them and customize them and sometimes make them better. And then we asked for AES for the better copy back, because we want to take advantage of all of their smartness. So, you know, those are things that we don't have all of them publicly available, but you know, several of the more but this is we usually make some kind of way for our partners to access the variety of

resources. And what I will say about that is educators, teachers, really see the value in the planning process. I mean, as the feedback we get consistently is where it has this clerk has this process been my whole life? You know, I wish I had the time to do this on every single learner over and over and over again, because it's it's a it is not a short process. I mean, it's not hugely lengthy, but educators walk out of their sessions really feeling like the time was well spent.

Yeah. Yeah. And I like how I think it was you Carol, who said, it's customizable, right? Yes, yeah, you don't you don't do everything for everyone. And all the steps, you can really pull out what you need, and plan accordingly.

Right? Here's a little boy that Carolyn ended up doing some support for the team, this past school year, and I had supported the team in the previous year. And he was already included. And actually, he was included pretty well. But he presented both academic and behavioral challenges. And they given those they weren't sure whether he should say they kept thinking, well, if I pull him out in their terms, and kind of intensely, one on one teach him, he'll learn to read faster, and what they weren't really thinking about because they were so focused on that academic proficiency game of what would he miss by not being there. And it wasn't just missing part of a reading lesson. It was really, we knew that that would be a path to more and more time out. And so we created a new way to plan just for him around what they saw as their challenges. And we had three meetings, and then, you know, building each one building upon the next one, and then they're like, we'd got it, we get it, we get how to do this. We've got it. We can. Thank you. Bye bye. You know, we can keep going. It was great, Carol, that's

such a great example of this mindset in education that segregation somehow is better something magical is going to happen in a segregated place. And the reality the lived experience for that child is they are not with their peers, they're not having the conversations, they're not participating in the activities, you can't replicate what happens in general education in a segregated setting is impossible. So this idea that somehow I'm going to catch them up, while at the same time taking away the experience of being a fourth grader, or a fifth grader, or a first grader, or whatever it is. And for this child, it ended up in him being participating in basketball after school and really having reciprocal friendships, which happened when you're in a segregated setting. And just the whole approach to him, and I had a conversation with his special educator last spring. And she said, I do not feel like I'm valued in this process, because my value is what I can do over here, because it's special. And you know, we had the conversation about what you provide that special can be provided in general education, that that is the place for you to be to help that general educator, understand how to generalize the special supports that you need to provide in order for him to access the curriculum. And she said to us, actually, at the TASH conferences, team came to the touch conference, and the educator said to me, this was life changing, I will never be the educator that I was, and I will never want to exclude children again. And again, a child with really complex support needs. Yeah, I

think it just takes the mindset change. In a lot of times, it's seeing it for yourself, you know, you can you can talk about it. All you want. It is that the experience that you have, like when you when educators have those aha moments, aren't they typically, because they've actually experienced a change, like in the classroom, always

10 minutes why I'm here. I read I this was not a journey that I plan to go down. Like I literally this was happening in my district, my boss said to me, we are returning children to their neighborhood schools, we're starting with elementary schools, and you're in charge of that. And I was like, Okay, boss. And that that's where my journey started. I didn't start with his passion for inclusion. And I started with my boss telling me, we're gonna do this, we're partnering with MCIE, you're in charge. And I expect this to happen. And so being the good little, you know, type eight, educator that I was, I was doing what I was told me to do. And it was my lived experience of watching children's lives fundamentally change, like, fundamentally altered the course of their future in my district. That's why I'm here. And I think that that's, that's, that's, that's when people start to believe in it. It's because they're seeing the power of it in real life situations.

Yeah, you know, people are always identifying mindset as a barrier. And because, you know, you can say, well, the law says this research tells us 40 years of research, all these reasons, and some will say, Well, I still don't believe. And then people will talk about how do you change the mindset, and I have seen multiple times mindset changes, but only after they have witnessed the change. Now, sometimes I know, Carolyn, you took a group to your old district to see what it looks like when a district and a school is is working to say on the journey of inclusion, and it is a constant. And there was an administrator who had their eyes open now, is she a believer, you know, I think may be on the path. But that experience of success and seeing kids change that's going to turn that's going to turn that around?

Because then you start to question well, if I if we figured it out for this learner, and this learner we thought was like an insurmountable challenge, then who we should be able to figure it out for everyone. And if we know that the alternative is changing the child's educational journey fundamentally, as educators, if we're truly in the business, for the right reasons, we should really have a gut reality check when we're making those decisions. We have a lot of power. Yeah. And parents, by and large trust educators to do the right thing. And it's not that I'm saying educators are trying to do the wrong thing. I think it's it's, it's nothing to do with that. It's mindset. It's the way that education has historically responded to children that present challenges.

I think, you know, what, the lesson you just said really struck me because in every district and you know, we're working in different states and different states have different regulations, even though there may be compliant with the federal regulation Ida. What we see is that people believe understandably that whatever their district is telling them to do is the right thing that that is the thing, man, they if they've never been out of their district never been out of their state, they don't know that there are in fact, other ways of doing things that, like in two districts that I've been in recently, literally are two states districts in two different states. Their regulations define programs like in Maryland, we don't have that there's no IDE A does not have anything in it about a program. It only has the IEP, the individualized education program, for a single child. It doesn't say anything about Ruby piece. So

it's the best. Your VPS girl der you say that before?

Oh, well, it's in my mind that I dislike you. I do not say it a lot.

It's what we discovered in in my district, where we started to rip children from the segregated programs into is I was looking at IEP s and all the IEP s were the same in the segregated programs. And it's, you know, in an an ed classroom, where the selected leader has the same IEP as the child that's around the furniture. Yep. You know, it's,

so the thing about, you know, in the actual regulations, when they have things like this is the autism support class, and it is a self contained class, blah, blah, blah. And then this is the functional life skills class. And in this class, these are the things we do. And then this is a resource room, where children may go to receive sometimes services. But the thing is, it's a room, everybody's got a room, you know, so what, why, what's what's in a room that makes one physical space more special and different in terms of accessing the general ed curriculum and making progress toward grade level standards, which is what the law requires. And if you put a bunch of kids together, who don't talk, how are they going to learn how to communicate? Well, and

I know what my experience has been, Carol, you've had much more extensive experience. And I have had, I have not been in one segregated setting where I have walked out and said, Yes, magical things are happening in that setting. And I really think that that's part of the message is that what is the mindset of what's happening in our spaces and the reality of what's happening in our spaces? It's, they're two completely different things.

And I think I'm gonna capitalize on what you said about, you know, really honoring the intentions of Teacher Yes. And let's assume that presume competence of teachers presume competence of students, but it is physically not possible to offer the quality, the breadth and depth of grade level instruction with all children who are sometimes of different grade levels themselves, certainly have different abilities and capacities. You can you can offer. Yeah,

I mean, you know, I mean, that's my story. You know, I spent, I spent years in self contained classrooms. And at one point, I was teaching sixth grade levels, you know, kindergarten through fifth, and like, how, how am I supposed to write cover curriculum between kindergarten and fifth grade in one class?

Even if we're Superman, right? Yeah.

Even if I had the most well behaved children, which I did not.

The educators are trying to do the wrong thing. Yeah, that is, I mean, aside from a very small percentage of people in any profession that might not be doing the right thing, educators go into education, because they want to do the right thing. They want to impact the life of kids, nobody's going into trying to cause harm, right?

Educators or educators are amazing. You know, I love educators.

We all love interiors,

we all have educators. Well, what are some, what are some trends that you see on the horizon, as you look at across the educational landscape that leave you feeling hopeful?

I think the focus on equity right now, I think there's a push on really paying attention to marginalized groups. Now, the good to doesn't tend to be children with disabilities. So I'm hopeful that as we have these conversations about children who are historically marginalized, that we bring into the fold children with disabilities, but I do think that there is a bigger focus than it has ever been in my career, at least on really paying attention and being intentional about how we address children who have been historically marginalized. And that leads us into the opportunity to have the conversation about children with disabilities,

you know, parallel and the thing is, that's true, everything you just said, but not everywhere. No. We're we're very lucky to be called upon by many of the states or districts who truly want to improve the equity among marginalized groups or you know, where there are gaps in access, opportunity and outcomes. But, you know, we know that there are states where they're not allowed to use the word equity, and they've taken out of all their education literature. So I think there's, I do agree with you. And I'm also a little worried that there are these locations where somehow they can talk about placing students with disabilities with peers, but they can't really out loud address equity. So that that is a concern.

I agree with you 100%. It's this balance of it's almost like it's two ends of the spectrum right now, it either folks are talking about it or near working hard to not talk about it. The hopeful part of me is that because there is this tension, that the fact that there should, that there is a tension might help. But I agree with you that it in some places is having the opposite impact. And the nether the next layer to this is educators are very challenged right now. And the fact that we're seeing educators leave and leave the profession and not enter the profession, in almost every single district that we're in, with the exception of one more I can think of they are certifying people provisionally to be special educators, which is very concerning. So basically, if you have your bachelor's degree, you can get a provisional certification, and then you can be providing services to a child the next day. So that is something that is additionally concerning. And I think that what you're talking about Carol leads right into that is educators who are disheartened and their viewing lights. They don't want to be in the middle of the tension.

Right. You know, one thing that I am hopeful about is in a variety of districts seeing really good general education instruction, I know that we still have schools where the teachers in the front of the class asking a question, and kids will raise their hand. And so they'll call upon the kids who raise their hand and the kid whose head is on the desk never gets called on it. So we have an inequitable situation in there. But I'm seeing more and more really engaged flexible groups, station teaching kids being in charge of their learning or taking on risk, even in elementary school. When teachers are really strongly teaching and reinforcing rituals and routines, for engagement, communication transitions, the flow in a classroom can happen with a teacher ringing a bell, or a teacher doing some simple movement. And then the whole class sort of transforms into the next activity and to organizing their materials, putting their things away, finding someone else to talk with. So I see kids being more in charge of their own management of their learning, which even in little, you know, little kids, it's very exciting.

Well and parallel, we do have one school that we're working it with one to two schools or working with in urban centers, where the work that they're accomplishing is really is something people should go to see because the challenge of making that work happen in very high poverty. very ethnically diverse communities. It and it's really about attentional leadership, and really in those schools about tier one instruction, exactly what you're saying is that is the quality of what we're providing to everyone really high quality and if it's not, how are we addressing that? And if when you can accomplish it in the most challenging settings, it becomes a beacon for everyone else.

Do you see an emphasis on Universal Design for Learning in the districts that that we're working with or just in general? The reason I ask is, you know, carefully, you're brought up learners owning their own learning or making choices and everything that we you know, we've had Katie Novak on and we've had Mirko Chardon on both, you know, excellent. People who you know, write and talk about UDL. I'm just wondering about that connection.

I hear people talk about it. I think the way Universal Design for Learning is conceptualized, it does have a lot of jargon. And it's almost an academic effort to comprehend what's the what and what do I really do? I think that, you know, we could all agree that designing lessons thinking that I may have a blind child, I may have a hearing impaired child, I may have a child with autism. I may have a child who hasn't had breakfast and is coming from a traumatic background and may need some really serious relationship development. I think we can think about the physical environment. You know, we have a child coming in with a wheelchair can they navigate everywhere? My You know, putting things in my room so that everybody can access. So if we're designing for universal access, of course, we're creating the foundation for anybody who might walk in the door. making that happen with our instructional planning, I think is, is pretty complex. So I hear people talk about it, and they end up talking about little courts of it. I actually don't know of any district, and I'm sure they're out there that has done such comprehensive professional development, and follow up support for implementation that you would be able to showcase what you would see in a school. What do you think, Carolyn? I think the word complex.

School districts are so challenged to school districts are very challenged to get high quality tier one instruction at its basic level, Multi Tiered Systems of Supports, there are just not resources in districts to provide the level of professional learning that has to happen to truly have educators across the board. I'm not saying that there are not, you know, demonstration classrooms in almost any district where you have a teacher who understands these things, but to really train your teachers as a group, and I come from a district that was by all accounts, if you look across the nation mid sized to be able to provide the level of professional learning and job embedded coaching that has to happen in order for teachers to truly understand how to implement things like universal Universal Design for Learning. That is just a very complex challenge. And there are so many other challenges that are more paramount to districts that are more immediate. Differentiation, I do think districts do a large largely do a pretty good job of getting teachers to understand or educators to understand the tenets of differentiation, but you're really talking about Yael, that is a much more complex set of professional learning and really the job embedded coaching, which most districts don't have the funding to really do in a way that you would have to to have robust implementation of those sorts of models. So you might be able to get it in pockets, you might have some places that are demonstration classrooms. But in order to truly have that happening in your district across all educators,

that's a challenge 10 to 15 year commitment. Yes. Now, you did mention MTSS, or Multi Tiered System of Supports or systems if you have separate systems, one system if it's integrated. In a district, we were in yesterday, when we first started working with them six years ago, we introduced Multi Tiered System of Supports as a foundation for being able to be fully inclusive. And we believe that with a solid, multi tiered system of interventions and supports in place, you you are creating school structures, that should be thinking about all learners. So as students are either less successful, or they have a disability, and they need more, they need specially designed instruction, that the teams are planning collaboratively for increasing the intensity of an intervention and or how to embed the specially designed instruction within core or within an intervention. Now, this district took this on as a book study in our first year of engagement. And now about six years later, they ended up then creating their own MTSS committee just specifically focused on that. They are at a point where they will be able to start rolling out, but it's you know, been six years in development.

Yeah. Yeah. So it takes it takes time. Right.

It takes time. And then any kind of turnover that happens. You know, that's the whole cycle of professional learning is you have new educators, new leaders, every single school year. And so now I've led that work. It's challenging. And it's particularly challenging right now, because workload issues are a major thing on in school systems right now, for teachers.

So for educators who are listening, who maybe they they are in a district that is not as inclusive as they want it to be, or we have a lot of families that listen as well. And maybe they're not in a district that as inclusive as they want it to be. They want to make an impact. But you know, where do they start?

Well, families you know, the, when MCIE first started our first couple years before our systems work. We had community organizing, and we had people who work with families specifically to help them organize within school districts to message They had newsletters, they had messaging meeting with board members meeting with district leaders to try to promote what they wanted for their children in an organized fashion letters to the newspaper, etc. And I'll never forget, it was in our second year and this, we had what we call parent educators, they were the community organizers, they worked with parents. And she said, You know, I'm working with these families and named three districts, and their districts are beginning to listen to them. But you know, what, my child is still in a segregated school. And so that was, for me, it was like all of this work, we were putting in the support families, and we were seeing some change, and I believe in community organizing. But that is a very long road, and it may not impact the people doing the actual organizing the actual work of it. I think, you know, families, if they have a child with a disability, they may also also have other, you know, service needs, medical needs, other kinds of things. And it's hard to place that burden on families, you know, we want families to advocate for their child, but they shouldn't have to be responsible for changing a system. But, you know, speaking before board, no, there are all kinds of things that families can try to do to promote that. But I think it's hard for families to have to take that on. Yeah, we do. The school districts that Carolyn is working with now, his real, are really where the district leaders said we need change now, doesn't mean the principal said yes, or that all the teachers said yes. But the leadership at the district level is influencing because our approach in this case is not going to be a hammer, you know, you have to do what we say because we're right, you're wrong. But it's really a partnership. And it's really understanding where people are coming from and then giving them information and tools to begin to make the change at the rate that they're capable of given, you know, their competing priorities.

Yeah, I agree completely on leadership is key. Families can advocate and create a groundswell. But if leadership doesn't understand invite in and have a mindset change, or a willingness to have the conversation, it is very challenging to get any kind of real systemic change happening. I do think that some of what we're seeing in terms of our projects beyond the state of Maryland, is that post pandemic, we have more children presenting with greater needs, and the solution cannot be segregated settings, because that just doesn't, there comes a tipping point where that it's very obvious to leadership that this is optically not okay. You know, and so I think that some of what we're seeing in terms of our increased presence and other states is this increase in children with need, who may or may not have a disability. And so just really highlighting the idea that segregating those children is not going to solve the issue of the fact that we have children with greater needs. Having partners who can help you with children with more complex or, or more support needs is really the answer to the question or the problem.

And so we're looking to our next school year, what are some hopes and dreams that you have, like hopes and dreams? Who doesn't? Who doesn't?

Um, well, I'm so excited about all the partnerships that we've established this year, and where they're going for next year, because in every case, every case, I can't think of one where this is not true, there is a plan for us to be continuing in those places. So that's really exciting, because the work that we started this year is going to continue in some way, shape or form. Like Carol said, some folks are in readiness, some folks are ready for, for system, you know, a system in school transformation. But in every system that we were in this year, there's a commitment by the leadership at the district level, to really further this work. So that's exciting. I'm really excited about that. You know, Carol keep saying, we've got to figure out, you know, a transition a little bit if you're going to be CEO, maybe not have to travel so much. But I don't know which district I would say I'm ready to like give up to somebody else. So, you know,

it's very exciting. What I think is on the horizon for these districts where we where we've been partnering over the past year. Yes, agreed.

And if you're listening in and you're thinking, Well, I'd really love to work with MCIE. These seem like fantastic people. How would they do that?

Well, they should contact us and let us know. You know, what their interests are and what your experiences we have. It's MCIE has always been an interesting organization. In that every year, our work shifts based on, you know, different funding from different sources. And as we've grown, we, you know, become more known in other areas outside of Maryland. There's probably folks in Maryland who have never heard of us, while there are folks in, you know, a dozen other states who are in regular contact with us. So, you know, it's always exciting to think about what's happening and Cham, just like you're in Georgia, we're in Maryland, we've had staff in Virginia, we've had we have a staff member in North Carolina. You know, as we are expanding in our geography, we will also want to look at staff or contractual folks in other states that may be interested in doing some of the work with us alongside us that in other locations.

And I would say, Tim, as a former district leader, if you want to see academic outcomes improve for your learner's, this is the way to do it. It's hard work. But it makes an immediate impact in terms of gradually increasing graduation rates, decrease in dropout rates, increase in all those assessment markers that are important to accountability. And this is hard work to accomplish. But this is the work that will make that impact on those accountability measures, then everybody's so worried about, in my mind, that's the reason to do the work, except that it means that kids are achieving more, which is great. But I do know that that speaks to district leaders, they are really concerned about those markers. And because it's tied to their you know, their report cards.

Yep. Right. Right. So I mean, really, you know, inclusive education is really it benefits everyone that has Carolyn Eaglin and Carol cork thank you so much for spending time with me. I don't think inclusive

is a pleasure, Tim. Yes, Tam as always a pleasure.

Thinking cluesive is written, edited and Sound Design by Tim Vegas is a production of MCIE Original Music by miles credit, attention school leaders. Did you know that you can team up with the Maryland Coalition for inclusive education, and promote inclusive practices in your school or district regardless of your location. MCIE has partners in Maryland, Illinois, Virginia, Arkansas, Oklahoma and more. Joining us in this work. Our goal is to expand partnerships in every state in the US and beyond. The first step is to start a conversation with us, visit our contact page at mcie.org/contact. And let us know that you want to transform your educational services to be inclusive of all learners. Also, please mention thinking inclusive and your message to let us know how you found out about MCIE We can't wait to hear from you. A special thanks to our patrons. Kathleen T. Gabby M. Melissa H. Mark C. Kathy B joiner II, Jarrett T. Aaron P. And Carol Q for their support of thinking cluesive Thanks for your time and intention. And remember, inclusion always works