Inclusion Stories - Chapter One: It Is a Long Story
2:46PM Oct 12, 2023
Speakers:
Tim Villegas
Jaiker Cham
Carolina Valero
District Representative 1
District Representative 2
Jennifer Ayers
Keywords:
natalia
students
classroom
learner
family
disability
services
school
iep
district
special education
special education services
special education teacher
karolina
inclusive education
program
receiving
homeschool
iep meeting
child
If you ever want to feel old, hanging out with eight and nine year olds, they have limitless energy.
That's Natalia and her sister singing into the microphones, I just set up in the Shands living room slash kitchen. You'll meet them in a minute. It's mid August, in Georgia. And if you know anything about the South, it's humid, and school is starting for many kids in the area. But what you may not know about public schools in the south, and across the United States, is that there are two educational systems, general education and special education. Now, not everyone is going to explain it like this. But this is the reality. For the vast majority of students. I should know I was a special education teacher for 16 years and spent over a decade teaching in segregated disability specific classrooms. I saw firsthand how inequitable our school systems are regarding learners with disabilities. But if you don't already have personal experience with special education, you may not realize why segregating students with disabilities in separate classrooms is a problem. I'm Tim Vegas from the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education and you are listening to inclusion stories, our podcast series that tells the stories of families, educators and school systems on their journey to full and authentic inclusive education for each and every learner.
Turn out the light hold me back on a need to buy. Hold on the hammer hammer.
Chapter One, it is a long story. It's the last few days of the 2022 school year, and I'm waiting for my daughter to come home on the bus. A warm spring breeze is in the air. And the promise of summer is right around the corner for my daughter, and for nearly everyone in our neighborhood since the first day of kindergarten, there has never been a question where they will go to elementary school. It's the one closest to our house, practically across the street. But for most families who have children who receives special education services to support disabilities like autism or an intellectual disability, the question of where they will go to school is not so straightforward. Many times the location of the school and what kind of classroom a child is educated in, or even the bus the ride is based on the characteristics of their disability, which is why some families have gone to extreme lengths to have their child included in their home school with their peers that don't have any disabilities. But first, why should you or I care about inclusive education? What does inclusive education mean anyway? And how does a school or district become inclusive? I promise we're going to get to all of that in this series. But right now I want to talk about why inclusive education is important. And in my opinion, there are three main reasons. The first is that it's the law. There is an education law called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. And it says a few really interesting things. And here's some of them. That a learner with a disability should be educated in the same classroom as they would if they didn't have a disability. That special education is a service not a place and that special services should go to the learner not the other way around. And if the learner needs modifications to their lessons, like changing it so it's more accessible to them. This should not be a reason to remove them from a general education classroom. The second Is the overwhelming amount of research that shows that inclusive education benefits everyone. I mean, I could fill up a whole podcast series just talking about the research. But here is the only finding that you really need to know right now. According to a report published by the National Council on Disability, the opportunity for students to participate in their neighborhood school alongside their peers without disabilities, is influenced more by the zip code in which they live their race and disability label than by meeting the federal law defining how student placements should be made. And finally, and this one is real simple. It's the right thing to do y'all. Just hold on to that thought for a second. After a short break. I introduce you to a family that was so desperate to have their child included. They did something drastic.
My name is Karolina Valera,
and I am hyper Cham
Natalia is Karolina and hikers daughter who has Down Syndrome and lives with her parents and two other siblings and older and younger sister. Natalia has a significant developmental delay and a speech and language impairment. And she receives special education services from her school district. But for the 2021 2022 school year, Karolina and hiker removed all of Natalia has special education services.
It is a long story.
The family lives in the Atlanta metro area. We aren't going to name the school district, not because we're trying to protect anyone necessarily, but the purpose of this story isn't to get anyone in trouble. It's just to illustrate that this kind of thing happens everywhere. Natalia is zoned to attend her homeschool with her sisters, one and a half miles from their house. At the beginning of the 2019 2020 school year, Natalia was entering kindergarten for preschool the previous year she attended her homeschool in a special needs preschool program. These kinds of programs only include students with disabilities. Most four year old learners will go to a state run pre K program or a private one. But very rarely does a child with disabilities, especially one with a significant developmental delay or a speech and language impairment. Ever go to one of these programs outside of a school district. A quick note we are going to be talking a lot about something called an IEP, an Individualized Education Program. It's a legal document that lays out the specialized services a learner is entitled to when Natalia was ready to transition to kindergarten her family was very clear about the vision they had for her. They wanted her included in general education with her peers. And during the transition IEP meeting, the one that was preparing the team at her homeschool to educate her.
The IV said she needed to be in a combat setting. But there was no collab classroom.
The word collab is short for the term collaboration, sometimes called co teaching, where a special and general education teacher work together and where students with and without disabilities learn in the same classroom. When it got time to enroll her officially in her homeschool. The family received something from the district called a prior written notice. It's kind of an official written communication explaining a change in a child's Individualized Education Program. Would you hear me a favor and read that for us the whole thing? Just that first paragraph. Okay,
so a description of the action proposed or refused. The terms have requested that has higher will say the special education and related services at her neighborhood school. The district has explained that tres is not a suitable location for the implementation of Natalia IV, because certain services are provided at centralized locations within the district. Given the services set forth payment Tyler's current Individualized Education Plan IEP, prepare and propose action of hiring a special education teacher or a Tyler will result in hair being in a one on one setting or Hair Direct segment and will result in her being there only students will receive specialized instruction in a collaborative setting. The district has refused the parents requested this call assignment.
According to this, the district said that you wanted them to hire special education teacher to work from the time but that's not what you want it right What did you want?
The what we said is she needed a collab classroom. And especially at math. So she was going to be in a separate room for math only just for that. Exactly. So they said they didn't have that external group just for my they only have a program for kids with autism. And it was not a good setting for her because she will copy behaviors in that know what we what they want it, but we never talk about other offices. Now what about small group? What about they they never, you know, they never thought out of the box. They do said we can
do that. Because of the prior written notice. Natalia was sent to another school about five miles away from her house. And she stayed there through the end of the 2020 2021 school year, even though the family had wanted to Talia to be at her home school the entire time. And I probably don't have to remind you what public school was like in 2020. With COVID-19 health and safety protocols, most school districts didn't start the school year in person. In December 2020, the IEP team met to discuss services for Natalia coming back from remote learning, where it was noted that Natalia wasn't receiving modifications in general education. But then in an other IEP meeting in February, just a couple of months later, the school team met without Karolina because she had a family emergency. Natalia had been in a dual language, Spanish and English classroom during remote learning. But since she was going back in person, the family thought it would be better for her to be in a English only classroom. Keep in mind that Natalia has been included for most of her day in general education, since she was sent to the other school only receiving support for math in a separate classroom.
I'm just going over the changes. So the only changes to the IEP that have been made is that she's being formally removed from the DNI program into an English only classroom and then miss. I don't mind going over the changes made. But do you just want to go over just the little things he added in there.
Here's a clip from that IEP meeting.
So what the biggest change is really more like in the paperwork. It doesn't really it doesn't change anything about the nature of the services that anti is receiving. It's just what it says in her IEP to reflect what she's been getting. So I hadn't heard it before. It just said direct math, but we've specified that that is a modified curriculum segment of her day. It's an adapted curriculum math. So it still says in the segments that she's getting one math direct, five days a week, but I specified that due to the nature of her disability, the rate and rigor of a gen ed, Math segment is difficult. And so she's going to be receiving an adapted curriculum math segment with me. So I specified that on the student supports page, as well as in the last page with all of the segments listed. So she was already getting direct math with me. I've always been adapted curriculum she was always getting I mean, it was a direct service. But since I'm a certified it after curriculum teacher, it's like where's the line on when you know when it's changes, but really nothing is changing about her instruction. We're just specifying that her needs are such that she needs an adaptive curriculum certified teacher providing that math segment.
Did you hear the phrase adaptive curriculum? Whenever you hear that phrase in an IEP, it means that a learner is receiving modifications to their lessons. The law says that you shouldn't use this as a reason to exclude someone from a general education classroom, but in Georgia and many other states. Modifications are typically done by a teacher with an adapted curriculum credential. And where do adapted curriculum teachers usually teach in segregated disability specific classrooms? Remember before where there weren't any modifications, according to this IEP meeting, Natalia was now receiving modifications in math provided by a certified adapted curriculum special educator, heading into the 2021 2022 school year, the family wanted to Thalia to go back to her homeschool, and they thought that since she was only receiving one separate segment of math, it could be a possibility. So they asked the special education director, and what do you think they said, Natalia could not go back to her homeschool because wait for it. She received services from an adapted curriculum teacher and there is no one to provide those services at their homeschool.
Kept saying we want we're more focused on socialization then academics. So for her to learn how to behave in those settings, and perform academically, she needs to have a solid foundation on how to behave.
Well, we filed a complaint. We went to mediation didn't do any difference didn't make any difference. And that's what we say. She's gonna start school again, and we don't have anything, man. We're not gonna fight forever.
Originally, when I pitched this idea to Natalia his family, I want to follow how things went during her year at school without special education services. Well, it's great to see you it's going to be an audio documentary project. currently researching districts around the country. Your story is unique. Because y'all decided to revoke special education services,
this crisis and worked out for the better, yes, logically,
don't miss this. Rather than keep fighting with the district about placement, or where Natalia would receive her special education services. The family said, Fine, we are going to revoke services, Natalia can now go to her home school with her siblings, because for all intents and purposes, she is just like any other student, a general education student. how messed up is our system when a family has to resort to such extreme measures?
Think what has been successful by them this year is that they don't have anything to do with special ed and they don't have any idea what it's like to be in a position where we were before
Karolina and hiker told me that Natalia is year went way better than expected, and that it all boiled down to having a good principal.
There was a lot of
pressure. I think the principal knows well, all the intricacies of the culture of owning collusion that goes on, he knows the principal knows helping us navigate the system, just like it's rigged against us.
He said, we're gonna have in a collapse classroom from the beginning, and then we'll repair and evaluation. So if you wanted to go ahead with the IP, fine, if you don't want to show already be in a club with this with the expiry
support. Yeah. Right. Right.
So for next year, and he was the one that, you know, came up with everything because I said, why don't we start out evaluation and everything, but he knows how he already had a plan. Yeah.
And also, he told us in the end evaluation isn't the only thing that's gonna contribute to Natalia to give her the things that you need, because we have a team here of people that know her that has seen her for a whole year that have dealt with her ups and downs. And these people have a saying on what services she needs, and she doesn't, regardless of what the sped department say, because we are her school, so he's embracing a true sense of community. This principle is the bomb.
And it wasn't just the principal, Natalia his teacher was a general education teacher, not a special education teacher.
We get daily reports on what Natalia das doesn't do or how she evolved. And you can see even the word Institute says that she speaks from a place of of love and edification and legitimately trying to help Natalia and understanding her her abilities. She said she's made strides in humongous progress as a struggle, but even with that she's doing stuff at the kindergarten level that she wasn't doing when she got to us.
Maybe Natalia story feels familiar to you. When I hear her story and others like it. I think about all the school districts were going to your neighborhood school in an inclusive classroom with the right supports isn't even a fight. After a short break, we are headed to Maryland
My name is
Jennifer errors. I'm an instructional coordinator for special education.
What does that mean?
So I supervise all the special education programming in five school sites. I also supervise infants and toddlers and preschool services for our district.
That district is Cecil County Public Schools in Maryland, one of a small but growing number of school districts in the United States that are fully committed to inclusive practices for each and every learner. Cecil County started including all learners in the early 2000s. And never looked back. I'm here with Jen at Bohemia Manor, middle and high school, it combined campus that houses both, they just call it bow for short. Have you seen the culture change? You know, from when you first started to now? Oh, yes,
yes. So when I first started, because I was in one of those first openings of programs, I got to go see the students inside of a self contained setting to help support transition right into an inclusive setting. And just, you know, families and even, you know, staff and adults that worked with those students really felt that that was the best place for them, because of their disability and categorical grouping was the best way to go. Right. And we had many years of like, wings, Wings of Special Education wings, right. So I understand that that, but now we really look at what you know, what do those students need? So everyone's in, right, we all started. And then if you need something different than we can explore with that light Bay. So I really see that as a huge shift for us philosophically that, you know, you don't have to earn your way into general education, right? That's where you start. And if you need more, or something different, we can explore that. So yeah.
Why why do you think that that's not more common?
It takes a lot of work, right? It takes a lot of work, because you really have to think outside of what you've always known, right? So like, it's just it's work to change staff, philosophy, it's work for programming, because you have to, you know, increase your staffing and general education settings, you have to make options available for students who might need, you know, some adaptive materials or things like that. And that takes that's a large infrastructures like kind of shift.
What a stark difference in philosophy from your average school district. And in case you're wondering, the percentage of students with IEPs that are included in general education for 80%, or more of their day, is right around 90%. That's high, the national average is around 66%.
That's the hardest part. And people in my opinion, I've seen, I've interacted with a lot of people, they really believe that that's the best thing for students like they really passionately believe. Some places that categorical grouping is the best for students. And it's really giving them the opportunity to see the success that students have, which I think we did here. So people, you gain momentum, right, as you see success and the way you change a child's life or trajectory, you know, to really put them on a different path for success. So I feel like, that's so helpful to people. Like once you start seeing those stories and those, you know, it's really changing children's lives by giving them those opportunities. That's when people start to buy into a shift philosophically.
So thinking back to families who often start their road into special education through preschool special education programs. What does that look like in Cecil County? From both Middle and High, Jen takes me to another school, and it just happens to be very close
to the Secretary's.
Hey, how you doing? Good, how are you? Good.
We're gonna be touring around some classrooms. We're gonna go back to the conference room, though. Okay. Do you know what Beth is? Is she in the cafeteria?
So let's talk about pre K. Because we are going to see pre K here. Yes, correct. Right. And so where is here,
this Chesapeake city elementary school. So we have a three year old program here and a four year old program. And so we call them PK three, and PK for our PK. Three programs are funded through the special education department and their inclusive settings that we manage. And then the PK four program is a general education program. And that's funded through regular funding sources. We maintain at least a 5050 ratio of students so that they can learn and support each other.
And the early childhood inclusion so theoretically, a child with an IEP or disability could go to a three year old program that goes to a regular four year old program and then go to kindergarten. Yes, yeah. Wherever there Community School. Exactly. Yep. With the educators that that work in the programs. Is there any particular training that they get to be to like have an inclusive classroom, like how do you prepare a new early childhood educator? How do you prepare them to serve all students?
That's a great question. So our three year old program is a special education teacher, they do hold dual certification, but it's a special ed teacher. So they have all that experience in trading. But our four year old programs is our general education teachers. And so we do a lot of work, obviously, professional development through the beginning of the school year, but typically, what it looks like is more student specific planning. Because typically children who, because we have our three year old programs, you know, we know the students are ready. And we've already had the opportunity to think about what that might look like for them in their four year old programming. So we're able to create like that transition planning and that bridge and prepare that teacher for that specific student. Not that they're not sometimes we get children who we didn't know, that enroll, right, that we didn't know, were coming. And so, but I think through that very specific planning, then they can apply those strategies, you know, to other students, or child, and sometimes some of these strategies are good for all students, right. And so, you know, they're able to use it,
Jen, explain the differences in the number of learners in each program. In the three year old classrooms, there could be up to 12 or 14 children. In the four year old program, there are typically 20 learners, it's more like a kinder
it Yeah, it's like a full day general education program. So 20, sometimes it you know, a little bit between 2025 Students would be your typical four year old program. Okay. And so in that classroom, there would be a para educator, and then a teacher, a classroom teacher, and then the special educator would come in for some portions of the day.
Gotcha, gotcha. What about related services and all that?
Yes. So in this, you know, school building, and in all buildings, really, we try, especially in early childhood, to have our services happening inside of the classroom, to really promote that generalization. And that access to the general environment, that's a really good practice for early childhood, especially for looking at the skills that kids are developing and, and their peers and their role models, you know, those pieces can't happen in isolation. And you know, at times there are kids who receive services outside, but we really try to as much as possible to promote inside services.
And that's across the board, not just for pre K. Yes,
yeah. So you should really look at you know, what's our because related services are designed to help us access right, our special education services in our general education classroom. And so in order to do that, you really have to be present and part of that programming. And it takes a lot of collaborative planning between teachers and related service providers to see like, what the lesson might be, why they're there, and then talk about how their discipline might support that or, you know, support that student in that area related to their goals. Mrs. White just went into the preschool and she asked if we wanted to join her just for a minute, she's upstairs at best. And she said, No coming in here said no, but I'm going into preschool. Do you want to see embedded service and then we'll come back over
as good. Okay. And I think you bring this up this way with me? Oh, yeah. He just keeps coming.
What I saw in that classroom made my teacher heart very happy. kids weren't being pulled out of the classroom for services. They were embedded in the routine of the classroom. And yeah, this is pre K. And it's normally a lot of fun, but it just hit different here and Cecil, where the culture is already inclusive. I talked with dozens and dozens of educators here, and I asked them, Do you know how unique you are that you don't have segregated disability specific programs across the board? And you know what they said this is just who we are.
After a short break, it's time to go back to Georgia to check up on Natalia.
It's the first day of the 2022 2023 school year and I'm with hiker and Karolina to pick up Natalia from her homeschool Natalia is in a second grade collab classroom with one general and one special education teacher. She currently has no special education services, but the school made the decision to place her in the collab classroom because soon she is going to have an evaluation to determine special education services
Can I sit here please? I'm excuse me right here, okay
the first thing that stuck out to me about Natalia was just how happy she was. And not just her but her family. They have had a tough year but because of their advocacy, Natalia is at her homeschool in the family believes that she has a team that has her best interest in mind
lunch wasn't
what do you have for lunch? Chicken, Chicken Nugget and break. Was it school lunch like yeah, you got through the went to the line? Yeah, yeah. You get do you get chocolate milk? Yeah, yeah. My kids like So what's next for Natalia? I called Karolina to check up on how things were going during the school year.
Hello, Karolina. It's Tim.
Hey, Tim, how are you?
I'm good.
I was so glad you texted me yesterday, because we are in the process of getting back into the IB. So she's in the collab class right now. So she has a gen ed and special ed teacher. And we have met twice, one time for the 504 plan for second grade. And, you know, I notice the teachers were just talking about, you know, she can do this is so hard for her. She made so much one on one. It was I could tell you know, it was overwhelming for them. And, you know, I try to say more things like, well, that she can do this. And she's this is where she's sad. And she can do so much more. But we have to meet her wishes. Like we what, what are the things are that for her? We just had the legibility meeting. So she doesn't
show so she sits still doesn't have special education services yet. Correct. I mean, you accepted the eligibility, though. Right. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. So I mean, she's gonna get services,
I could tell the difference between them. Yeah. Last year in, but the principal, you know, he said, talk to them, and they are on board they wanted to, they want to help them Tyla and we'll figure it out. There so good. So I think they're trying, but it's, it seems like it's hard for them to, to figure it out, like this.
So the next step is really, with the IEP goal, figuring out like, yeah, figuring out goals and services. And then how, how you can keep her in the regular class as much as possible. Correct, because how are you feeling with with the district? Like, let's, let's just let's just hypothetically say, you know, you go to the IEP meeting, and they're like, Well, you know, she really should be in a small group classroom for students with intellectual disabilities. And then you're right back where you were, right,
exactly. Well, that that was that has been our conversate conversation with the principal and he had said that we'll do anything we can but of course, it's not only my decision, but as long as You know, isn't our possibilities to offer services and everything she needs here? We'll do it. But overall
I've got to be honest, I'd like to share Karolina is positivity about this time around with special education services. But something tells me that it's going to be the same old story. And sure, even if it works out with Natalia, what about all the other learners with extensive support needs? Kids who use augmentative and alternative communication systems or learners who need behavior support? Is it possible to include them in general education? And how do you know if your school is really inclusive? Great questions. That's next time on inclusion stories.
Inclusion stories is written, edited, sound designed, mixed and mastered by me, Tim Vegas, and is a production of the Maryland Coalition for inclusive education. For more information about inclusive education or how MCIE can partner with you and your school or district, visit MCIE.org a huge shout out to our sponsors. We couldn't have done this project without you. Communication first roots of inclusion, the Council of parent attorneys and advocates, the Thompson Policy Institute on Disability, I secure privacy, the white family, the Teague family and to our supporters at the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, as well as our friends at Club 21 in Pasadena, California. We are grateful for your partnership. Special thanks to the sham family and everyone over at Cecil County Public Schools. Thanks to Greg Drew's in the truth for giving us permission to use their song the light from their album, yellow rose as our theme. Check it out wherever you stream music. Also, thank you very much to Marcus Caracas for letting us use Stella's Roomba for the end credits of chapter one. We have four more chapters of inclusion stories coming your way. So watch your podcast feeds closely. Thanks for listening.
