Inclusion Stories - Chapter Four: Everybody's In, No Exceptions

10:13PM Nov 9, 2023

Speakers:

Tim Villegas

Kristin Enriquez

Sevi Enriquez

Keywords:

school

ruby bridges

inclusion

inclusive education

feel

conversations

students

iep

special education

washington

inclusive

educator

zipper

classrooms

partners

support

system

wanted

ipp

people

Hey, can I say hi? Yeah, okay, so here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna, this is a microphone so it's recording. So I'm gonna go to each of you and I just want you to say your name.

Yes, we can listen. I'm trying to use zone. Yeah live in Hampton, Virginia.

All right. Anything else you want to tell about yourself?

Just enjoy myself at home and when you books with my mom, so I can I can say,

Okay, awesome. Alright.

I don't know when these may have been 19 Haven't haven't haven't.

Thank you, Mason. Alright. What's your name?

I am Julie failure. I'm 22 years old. Have an Irvine California. I am a board for cook clean one agency that caught myself. I have a great person. I'm a great communicator. And I want the whole world to know this. I have a Coughlin with Down Syndrome and aqueous are working with kids with autism with disabilities.

Very cool. Very cool. What's your name?

I'm Amnon reprise be I am 18 years old 2019 and two months. I live in Costa Mesa, California. And one distinct fact about me is this man that talked earlier is my beliefs lead. And I'm going to hold wood and know that to

be the whole world is gonna know that. Yes.

That's good. Awesome.

Awesome. What's your name?

Um, I'm understanding. I guess I'm 14 years old. My interest is, as I heard in a career fair, and my mom says no, because I'm not in the room or yet, but I want to, I wouldn't want to her hobbies are like, swimming and civilities people, people, like an artist, I will didn't have to to a higher level. So I just want them to have good teaching and how to learn how to do good things. Thanks

me. Those are some great goals. Well, it was great meeting all of you. Again, my name is Tim recording for Podcast.

I'm Tim Vegas with 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. And before we Cue the intro song, thanks to you Yazzie, Mason, Jeremy, Aubrey, and sevi for kicking us off. Here we go.

Turned out the life back on the need to buy hold on the hammer family.

Chapter Four, everybody's in no exceptions. I consider Pasadena California, my hometown. It's where I spent a lot of time in my youth. I went to high school close by in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. My wife and I had our first apartment within walking distance to Colorado Boulevard where we could watch the Rose Parade on Crispin cool New Year's Day mornings. And for this stop on the inclusion stories itinerary. We are at Lake Avenue Church for the tools for the journey conference presented by club 21 The very church I went to when I was a teenager. I tell you folks, sometimes things come full circle. Club 21 is an outstanding organization. Their mission is to provide the educational tools and resources that enable individuals with Down syndrome to be fully included in their conference is amazing. You really should go sometime. It's late January 2023. And I'm here at the tools conference on a beautiful sunny day in Southern California to spread the word about our upcoming podcast series, inclusion stories. Maybe you've heard of it. And to get some good tape. In just a second, you'll hear from Kristin and sevi, who you met at the beginning, as well as Pam, who are navigating what inclusion looks like in high school.

I'm Kristin and my guess

I'm saying because I'm 14 years old. I love how many people in my life, because I'm wearing has a connection. I'm just feel like I'm bringing onto my school and have a family and friends as I just want. Have my own supports, but they don't give me that support.

Are you talking about like right now in high school? Yeah, yeah. How is high school going?

It's going better than I thought one last semester. Because that semester was pretty rough. Yeah. Yeah.

Great.

Thank you. You said that beautifully,

what was what was rough about it?

Um, you know, anytime you start over, there's a transition. And we've had a lot of those in Sophie's life. And, and we're always willing to give grace. But this has been really a challenge in terms of mindset. savvies, right to belong, and people's willingness to think through the supports that he needs to allow that belonging to be meaningful. And so it's been discouraging, because no matter how many years of successful inclusion, education he has behind him, he still has to earn it every year. And as he gets older and older and needs to start having those conversations for himself, and doesn't, doesn't and shouldn't want me to be the one to have them for him. I I worry about what that looks for his future.

So you're in the middle of your freshman year. Is that right? Seven? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. What classes do you take?

I'm taking career. That's a new one. And drama. I'm also just in it. I'm in a style, and language arts and math. Stupid now. Bio bias to

biology is a tiny bit good. Yeah. And PE Yeah,

Pe is better.

So there were some things that you wanted to talk about. Yeah,

I think, you know, most people in life, they have to defend their failures. But savy has to defend his

successes. Oh, that's

interesting. And it just seems so incredibly unfair, you know, and inequitable that, that the person who has the least powerful voice has the most defending that he has to do to be given the right to have his place.

Right. It's like, it's basically the idea that if there is a success, there has to be some sort of explanation. Right,

exactly. Right. Like it's a fluke. Right. It's not expected. It's not celebrated. It's not looked at as an opportunity to build on to keep going. It's It's It's questioned. Right. Right. It's question. I think the other issue is, as I really think about his journey, there has never been one person who has experienced Sebby and his opportunities at inclusive education or inclusive opportunities in the community, who has come back to me and said, You shouldn't have done that. That was the wrong thing. He didn't learn not one in 14 years, but every single year, it's the people who haven't done it yet. Who are the ones we need to convince? And the ones who get to make the decisions about whether or not you know, our vision is something that they're going to embrace and try to support and, and collaborate on or if they're going to make a different recommendation.

What what do you kind of looking forward to for the rest of the year?

So we have the first semester behind us, that was a huge learning experience and a huge learning curve. High school is different, you know, it is different. He did not fail any of his classes, which was a huge victory, but He was very unhappy with his grades. He has never, in his experience seen grades like that. He went from being on the honor roll in middle school every semester to ending with a D minus a d plus and a C minus, I believe, and then the other grades were in the A and B range, he was very disappointed. So it was, but it was a learning opportunity where we had to say we're not changing our end goal. But we're going to change the details a little bit of what we focus on our goal shifted from focusing on the grades to focusing on not having to repeat classes. Yeah, you know, and I think that was the first time he's ever been involved in those conversations. Certainly, my husband and I have had to have those conversations. But it was the first time he went through that process with us, right. And in the end, he was able to compartmentalize it, where he was able to celebrate, that he didn't fail any classes. But he still was disappointed that he didn't get the grades that he wanted. And so we were able to set some goals, about things we were going to try to do this semester to make things better for him. We're doing the best we can with what we have. But we certainly don't have access to everything that he would need in order to really make the kind of difference I think he's capable of.

Hi, I'm Pam Grace Antonio, and I'm the first steps coordinator at Club 21. I am the mom of two girls, my oldest is 19, and a sophomore in college. And then my youngest, her name is Amanda and she's 14 years old, and she has Down syndrome. And she's a freshman in high school. When we went to our transition IEP, I had no idea what to expect. For the first three years. Everybody's like, she's so cute. She's amazing. She's doing great. She's making great progress. And it feels great. Like you have this great community. And so moving into the school district, I thought that they would have the same feelings about my daughter. That was not the case. I went into my IEP. And they said, We're recommending a special ed preschool program, that it was connected to a preschool with typical peers. There were times in the day where they were included, but no meaningful inclusion. I mean, they were just physically in the same space, I went to the kindergarten IEP. And they offered a moderate to severe replacement for her levels for her safety. They taught me every reason why this was probably the only place where she would be successful. And I went with the placement with a moderate to severe. And the first day of kindergarten, the teacher gave us a paper and they said, Oh, this is a list of words that we work on in the kindergarten year, like sight words, the first sight words, but it's very unlikely that she will even get halfway through this. And they are saying this to me before she has even spent one day in the classroom. And I know 100% in my heart that I made a mistake. And so then I'm like, What do I do? We ended up calling an IEP. And I asked for change of placement. And we ended up having to go through arbitration. And we became fully included for first grade. And we had an amazing experience with teacher was awesome. Everything was great. Being fully included. It wasn't easy, but it was it worked all through elementary. And then when we went to middle school, they were like, Oh, she can't do this anymore. Because the gap is wider. It's going to be too hard for her. So they offered the moderate to severe again, which I declined. And so then we get to high school. And once again, the district says she needs to do the moderate to severe. Her school right now has over 4000 kids. It's massive. It's overwhelming for me to go to and so they said to me, they're like, Oh, this is going to be way too much for her. There's 4000 kids here. I don't know it might not be that safe for her. how's she going to find her way around? We need to really focus on her life skills. how's she going? To go to the grocery store when she goes up, and one thing about Amanda, so her reading is grade level, but her math today as 14 years old, if you ask her to, you could hold a nickel and a quarter and ask her which one's a quarter. And she's not going to be able to tell you. But if you ask her to walk in a Starbucks with our Starbucks app, and buy you a coffee, she can do that in a second. So here we are. We did the IEP, they recommended the moderate to severe, we declined it, she's at our homeschool, she's doing amazing. I actually just got a no yesterday from her English teacher, she said, we're doing Romeo and Juliet, Amanda was the role of the nurse because I was so proud of her, she stood up in front of the room, and she read her role. And she did the whole thing without any help. And she did it with enthusiasm. And she was so proud of herself. And her art teacher started crying in the IEP and said, it's beautiful, like the way Amanda approaches art and her creativity. And then at the end of the IEP after everyone, everyone said, she's amazing. She's a joy. She's such a pleasure to have in our classroom. And then they said, but she can't stay, she needs to go to the life skills class. And so that's where this, that's where we left off just I think two weeks ago.

How are you feeling right now about that. So

here's what I have to say. I, um, when when I was in that kindergarten, IEP, and they sprung it on me about how Amanda needs to be in special ed, and not just special ed but moderate to severe. And I started crying in the IEP meeting. And that's the only IEP meeting I've ever cried in. Because now I feel like one of one of the one of the reasons that I have that I do this job, and I have so much passion for helping these families, is because I know for sure that I went into the room. Alone. I mean, with my husband, but with only then the knowledge that I had, and that I didn't have, I felt like it was me against the school district. And now here I am, I'm like, I have all of us against all of you. And you know what, I'm gonna win. Like, I'm I know what the law is. I know what my rights are. I know that she's fully succeeding. I know that the teachers at her high school love her and want her there. And so I I'm actually not, I'm not afraid anymore. I'm actually not even mad. Like, I'm just like, it seems like a waste of time for you guys. But this is what we want to spend our time and money on. I'm up for that. Because I I am 100% sure that she needs to have a high school experience like her peers, and that there's going to be a lot of time for life skills. My dream is that she's able to finish her high school at her home school with her friends and continue reading Romeo and Juliet and roaming the hallways and like doing what kids do in high school. And, you know, there's a part of me that it's like, exhausted, like, really, again, again, like what we just, we keep doing this, and you guys know that I'm not going to ever take this offer. And so I keep thinking about that kindergarten mom me and thinking about how I just didn't like how's this gonna work? How's this possible? It was scary sending my kid into high school of 4000 kids. It was scary. Like, what if? What if they're right? What if it's too hard for her? What if she's not going to be okay, what if she's not going to be safe? So she's crazy. Like, she's a daredevil. She's outgoing, you know, we're in a carnival and in her sister. She saw this ride called the zipper right? And it's like as it zips you up and zips you down and zips you up. And and she Amanda was their their friend from school, her typical friend because she had a lot of friends that wanted to hang out weather and she went to the carnival with her friend and they both were like, Let's go on the zipper. And my older daughter's like, you cannot put her on the zipper Mom, do not put her on the zipper. And then Amanda's like, I'm going on the zipper. And then my older daughters like she can't do it. She's, it's just too little. It's too scary. It's gonna be too hard. And so she does. She's not even tell him to go on the zipper. And Amanda like went to the sign. And she's like, I'm telling her I'm doing the zipper. So I'm like, okay, and I put her on the zipper. And when I did door close to the zipper, I was then like, this can be a big mistake. And then I looked at my daughter, her older sister, and she's crying. She's literally crying tears that I put her sister on the zipper. And so the zipper goes, and we're both I'm holding my breath. Her sister's cry, she gets off the zipper. And she is laughing. I've never seen her so happy heard her friend were like, that was awesome. Let's do it again. And I literally think that's life. Right? That's my life, the zipper. Like

okay,

hope you're and she is right.

I spoke with so many wonderful young advocates, families and educators at the tools conference. And I wish I had time to publish them all. If you are an advocate for authentic inclusive education, you know, inclusion beyond simply placement. Know that you are not alone. And if you are still on the fence about whether inclusive education is possible. We are not done with our tour yet. It's time for our last stop. We're headed back to Washington to visit Ruby Bridges Elementary. Let's go.

Ruby Bridges Elementary is located about 15 miles north east of Seattle in Woodinville, kind of a small town vibe, just outside of a bustling downtown. It's my last day in Washington. And after fantastic visits to mcmicken and see home. I wonder what more there is to experience. As I walk into the school. I met by Philly, part golden part lab, 14 month old service dog in training. And what I come to find out is Philly is just one of many supports that are routine here at really bridges. Well, I settle into the conference room with the rest of the tour. It's

been an exciting week. My name is Rena Marie Leon Guerrero and I am the lead for the demonstration sites I want to I'll turn it over to unprincipled Kathy and her Ruby Bridges team to share a bit about Ruby Bridges journey and then, most importantly, to we're excited to get you all into classrooms and seeing instructional practices in an action game

learning. I'm Kathy Davis, I'm the principal here at Ruby Bridges. It's nice to see all of you, we are really excited to share not only our school with you, but our journey, we have the pleasure of having a number of our staff in the room. And that's because they're a part of our inclusionary practices teams. They are the most important voices that you should hear before we head out into classrooms. We are a flexible service delivery school. So you're going to see and wonder as you go around, how did that person get here? How are they stopped, and then co planning collaboration and co teaching and our building really is a part of that robust plan for flexible service delivery. Hopefully you'll see some efficiency. That's something that's really important to us. We don't want people to be places not doing things important for kids and that's something we've been working on. As I think about our journey for our particular school. We want schools where kids belong we want communities that are thriving, we want relationships

AnnaLynne a kindergarten teacher starts off by sharing her journey from her initial desire to teach at Ruby Bridges purely to shorten her commute to eventually being sold on its inclusive model, reflecting on her own struggles as a tongue tied, struggling reader with speech difficulties, and it began to think differently about supporting learners.

So what do you do with a struggling reader, you put them in a small group, you pull them out, thinking the small groups better? Well, there's four of us struggling to read, and we're reading out loud. We're not understanding anything, we're missing our grade level peers reading and having conversations about this text. And then we would never finish it. And then we'd start a new book, and it drove me nuts. And so this model where we're pushing in and giving students as much as we can with in the classroom, was something I wanted to give students because it's what I would have wanted.

Kim, another kindergarten teacher talks about growing up in an affluent area, grappling with personal trauma, and the assumptions that were made about her and her family's future in realizing that educational equity includes learners with disabilities. And

I realized, oh, my gosh, my mind has been shot off to this whole other group of humans that have been around me, though, my whole life. People who are neurodiverse, who are physically diverse, I have been thinking that I'm focusing on educational justice, when I've been omitting a huge part of our population. And

then Kathy drilled down on what I feel like has been the heartbeat of inclusive practices in Washington. In every conversation I've had with an inclusive school leader,

everybody's in with no exceptions, when you remove an option for opting out or removal from the menu, the entire game and dynamic changes. As long as that's an option, it's going to remain an option and that injustice will be pervasive, it will exist. And when we are on our growth edge, and we are in our hard spots, we will divert to the thing that either feels easier, or it feels comfortable. So we don't have that as an option. That is not an option. It's never going to be an optional at our school. That doesn't mean that we don't support and all kinds of different ways. We get classrooms ready for kids and not force kids to get ready for classrooms. There's no prerequisites for school.

Everybody's in no exceptions. And that's not all, aside from the visual, social, emotional, and instructional supports that are embedded in the school. Communication supports are evident as well. Here's Carolyn, one of the speech therapists at Ruby Bridges,

we have put in a lot of tier one supports communication support, you'll see symbols all over the classroom, you'll see communication boards, you'll see core boards, you'll see lots of staff, utilizing their own devices, you'll see many students that use communication devices. And

then of course, there is the master scheduling piece. Here's Robin, an English language development teacher.

I have the opportunity here with our master schedule and our Wednesday collaborative meetings to team up with our general ed teachers, and our all of our specialists and our special ed teachers, everybody, we come together, and we create this like amazing energy and problem solving. I feel like I am making such an impact that I wasn't able to do before and I'm learning and growing as an educator, and can be an advocate for every student in this building.

Educator after educator was doubling down on reimagining how they were serving all learners. Clearly, for Ruby Bridges. This wasn't only a special education initiative. It was school wide. It was their culture. As I walk around the school, I see children with a wide variety of support needs, families, and educators. Altogether, there were no special spaces. Everyone belonged wherever they were. I was reminded of a dream that I had when I was a special educator in my previous school districts a dream of an empty self contained classroom. Why was an empty? Because all of the learners that would typically occupy that space were included into the life of the school community. But it really bridges it's a reality. In fact, Kathy was telling me that when architects design the school, there were still classrooms that would have typically been designated as segregated, self contained classrooms. But what did the team at Ruby Bridges do? They refused to use them as disability specific spaces and turn them into flexspaces that anyone could use my dream, realized. Still, the question is on my mind Don't just like make making and see home. Really bridges is one school, one of 16 demonstration sites across Washington. And I'm wondering how is Ruby Bridges or any other demonstration site influencing the practices of the district? That is part of your recording? So I'm the director of communications for MCIE, the Maryland Coalition for inclusive education, and I'm doing a podcast series about inclusive schools. So it's my third site, I visited mcmicken.

cm. Yes.

Si home. So my question is how he is influencing the rest of the district, as far as

Venetia, Washington, Assistant Principal of Bear Creek campus, I think, for me, in particular, because I'm in a building is like, we have what's called the FSA program, which is usually students with significantly high needs. And at this school, it was self contained. And coming here to they were doing helped me think that, like, for middle school, I could actually create a schedule that wasn't self contained. So here, I feel like you can't tell me to, that's what I want it for our FSA students. And so it's been helping think through that stuff. And so in the last year, we've been able to get students out of self contained and at least into one elective in a PE class. So we're slowly doing the work. I would agree

with every Nisha, it's just a slow kind of peel off rollout. So I supervise five elementaries in eastern region. And you'll see things like master schedule being done, there are the intervention times that we observed here at Ruby Bridges, you'll see intervention blocks built into some of those elementary schedules, so that it will take some of that learning and like the concrete pieces and go apply them at their schools. But it is a slower process. Because I think the benefit of regurgitates you've got the whole school, ready to go doing no work. And so we're finding pockets of people who are wanting to do it that are moving.

But not everybody wants to do.

I would say that's accurate. But I think there's there's like, work to be done, because they have a perception. Yeah. And when you have a perception of what happens with special education, then you're not willing to do the work once you can show them something different. Like if every teacher had released time to come spend time here, it would change their entire worlds. And I think that that's what we should be doing as a district is offering. Like, we have this site and Company, which are great sites to watch Special Education integration, in which you don't know what's happening. Who's the teacher who's the payer, who's the specialist, we need to have that every school in our district.

It's hard to envision until you see it. Even seeing PE today was really great for me, because I've been helping at another school, where they're trying to be more pushed into PE. And it's been really challenging. And I'm like, I'm here. And I'm like, well, these are all the foundational pieces were missing. Right? So I think you need you need opportunity to learn from each other.

As I wrap up my visit to Ruby Bridges, I want to chat with the education leaders at OSP AI about how they got here, and where they see the project going in the future.

My name is Tanya Mae, and I serve as the Assistant Superintendent of special education for the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.

My name is Cassie Martin. I'm the Executive Director of Special Education at the Washington State Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

How many times have you had to practice that?

We put a lot of people.

Okay, so my big question is, from my perspective, looking at the state of Washington, it feels like there was a lot of things that happened at once, for IPP to happen. Is that a correct impression?

I think you're right, and that there were multiple system pressures that aren't unrolled or arrived here at the same time. If we if we wanted to pick maybe the first one, we had some pretty significant change in leadership in our special education division, after the previous Assistant Superintendent had been there for over 20 years. And so that was already a pretty big change and in It brought a strong leader from another state who had came in with other perspectives. And the way that these conversations first started at the state level, Cassie can talk with you about the grassroots movement more on on in our schools. But at the state, we started to look at our data. And what we saw is about 72% of our students are eligible for special education under either a specific learning disability communication disorder, or other health impairment, which includes attention deficit disorder, and hyperactivity disorder. So what we know of that population from the research is that with supports, those students should be able to be successful on grade level content in general ed, when we compare that 72%, what we saw was our amount of total students with disabilities accessing gen ed to 80 to 100% of the day was only 56%. We had a 20% discrepancy, even if we didn't like dig into anything else. And then there was a report from the National Center for Learning Disabilities, showing that Washington ranked 44th out of 50 states for the amount of access our students with disabilities had to Gen Ed, those those conversations converging, were galvanizing. And that was at least at the state level, across all leadership partners, the legislature, our own agency, leadership, our different organizations, things really felt like they started to move right when we think about that duty human quote, right, that we don't ever see progress at the rate we would want, we push and push and push and push. And then at some point, you just you have a moment, where it tips that is how it felt like it tipped for Washington. So you were starting this work, you were helping to push that rock up the hill. Yeah, and

I've you know, not fondly called a lot of the work that we were doing at that time, when it's more grassroots kind of leading to a vapor trail. So it happens, you do this great work with specific students in schools. And you'd see this these tremendous outcomes, the students are graduating on to the next school, some more students will come into that school, and the schools are still relying on those same practices they were before, instead of evolving their systems to become more inclusive, I was having these experiences where I've seen great success, students only to have to go back to the same organizations, the same school buildings to do the work over and over again, we're really what I should be doing is feeding myself out why they while they build up their systems and their resources, their capacity. So you know, there was this conversation shifting in Washington state around equity, and think about what equity really meant and thinking about the inclusion of students with disabilities, that have intersecting identities. And those conversations started to happen. And so what started to happen is when people were having more kind of what they will call an equity symposium. So this is more conversational, not actually moving the work forward, people started talking about students with disabilities, people started becoming curious about how that fit into that equity lens. And so what we started seeing was more professional development in our schools around inclusive education, but not really moving past that first stage of having those conversations, and engaging in that kind of preliminary professional development. But with IPP would happen there as we started getting all the levels of the system involved. So, you know, I felt a tremendous amount of, of support. As someone who had been feeling like I've been trying to do this for years and years and years, and just, I wasn't making the kind of progress that I knew was possible. And then with IPP, a whole other world of resources also opened up to me. So I wasn't in my position where I was at that time, aware of all the different professional organizations that I could tap into, that I could use as resources that I could collaborate with. And so it's inclusionary practices professional development project did was widen all of our knowledge around with the resources that were available, led to those of us who are doing the work kind of individually to have a team to work with, and provided the resources and funds and the conversation, again, at the state level, at the local level, at the school level at the community level that needed to happen to actually make the work move forward. And it felt like there was some accountability there, because a lot of times attached to funds, is accountability. So we knew that we had these funds to do this work. So what we're going to do to get the most out of it. And, again, I mentioned this, we're mcmicken the other day, but what could have turned into a bunch of organizations really competing for you know, the work turned into this really extensive collaborative network that just keeps growing and growing and building and building. And we're learning more about the ways that we in Washington state want to work with one another and how we can team with each other and how we can leverage our resources through the course of our journey through this inclusionary practices project.

Yeah, yeah. And we try to really bring deliberate systems change framework right to the conversation. So, so I opened by talking about those opportunities that helped to create a sense of urgency for change. And then what as Cassie shared, so then what we wanted to do was build a coalition in a way that we were careful about saying, Who, which partners might have concerns about this work, right, that might might, in some way, resist some of the changes, let's include them right from the beginning, so that they are co designing it with us, and can feel like they they have a part in it in supporting it. And then, you know, so that that vision started to form our theory of action. And then we started with the wheeling when there was a pretty significant amount of funding tied to this. And for some of our school systems, the first question we received was, Do I have to do this? And what we said was, well, no, right? It is voluntary. And we would urge you to make sure that you are talking with your communities, if you're going to pass on this, make sure that everyone in your system understands that decision and had a voice in it. And so we there was a pretty significant amount of folks who wanted to be part of it about 100 pilot school districts out of our, you know, over 300. And then over time, by the second year that grew, and then again, over time, this has really grown, we wanted to see those quick wins. And then we're always looking at how do we build in that sustainability, because we don't want this to be a project. We want this to be a movement that results in lasting change for all of our education partners. Right.

So where's IPP? Now? As far as where are y'all going? And what are the barriers to realizing the vision?

Where it is now, I think we still acknowledge that it is seen as a Special Ed initiative. And, you know, that's fair, that special ed funding, it was generated out of, you know, conversations around students with disabilities. So what what we're trying to bring to the conversation now is, it can't live there. Right, it just, that's not how education works. And so we've had our partners in across Gen Ed have been very supportive. And what we want to make sure now is that that shared responsibility, right, that we're co designing it really deliberately, across those partnerships. So that's what that's one piece. You know, the other thing, you know, you talk about barriers, there always are going to be some are some are consistent, and might kind of wave up and down, and others are new and unexpected. And so some of the conversations that we've been having are around that that preparation piece, right? Are we are we making sure that our pre service educators and leaders are coming out of their programs equipped to do what we saw today. We're also really digging into some collaboration with our education association to really talk about bargaining, right? We want every educator to feel supported to do this work, it's not about taking away or asking to do more with less. It is, however, asking them to maybe consider doing it differently. And so is there a way that we can capture that level of support that different kinds of support in our bargaining language, and then, you know, just working as closely as we can, with our partners in a multi tiered system of support framework, because that way, what we can hope for is that every student, right doesn't matter what their label or designation is, every student gets what they need when they need it.

And I think you've probably heard the term use over the last three days over and again, which is transformation. So people are talking about being transformative. So we're not talking about fixing a system that's not working for kids. We're talking about changing the entire system. So you know, my fear is always that similar to kind of what Tonya was saying, around how do we turn this into a movement where it's sustainable over time. I don't want to keep trying to fix the problem. We don't want to keep trying to fix the problem. So we end up going back to the 1990s. All over again. We're talking about mainstreaming or talking about fitting kids into a system that doesn't work. What we need to do is transform the larger system so it doesn't work for everyone. And if these demonstration sites you've seen through the course the last three days they weren't focused on, oh, here's how we provide special education services solely. They were focused on how we to transform our entire community. So it works for everyone. And so really taking that transformative lens. And similarly, what are in alignment with what Tonya was saying, by engaging all of our partners across the entire system to think about what that transformational change needs to look like. I feel like that's, that's where we're going in this work.

Yeah. Yeah. And acknowledging, you know, some some fair questions and pushback that we've been getting from our family partners, has been around. Sure. We're seeing some really impressive changes in our least restrictive environment data. Right, we are showing the students are spending more time in general ed, is that enough? Right, like, is it enough that their desk is in the room? And so the conversations now are moving into? Well, how it as a state? Do we define meaningful inclusion? What does that look like and feel like? And one of our partners said to me, well, because I asked, how will we know when we've been successful at building inclusive learning environments? And this colleague said, our students and families will tell us and we said, great, what will they say? And so that's where our conversations are going. Now. We're actually talking with all of our community partners. And we're taking the themes from that to build out indicators for us, of how is it that we know

I can't believe it, folks. We've only got one more chapter left. And if you're like me, there are still some unanswered questions. When I first came into this podcast series, I thought I knew what an inclusive school was. But I'm beginning to realize some of my preconceived notions were incorrect. So what really is an inclusive school? And is there really only one way to get there? And where is there anyway? And what about the friends we've made along the way? How are Natalia Harper and sevi doing? And you know, the one question that has haunted me for years at not just as I've been producing this series, why does it have to be so hard to get authentic, inclusive education That's next time on inclusion stories. On it was so happy and was so happy. Keep saying God

carefully. Inclusion stories is written, edited, sound designed, mixed and mastered by me. Tim Vegas, 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 parents, 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 our friends at Ruby Bridges Elementary School in the fine people with the Hearing Center at the University of Washington. Thanks to Greg Drew's in the truth for giving us permission to use their song the light for the album yellow rose as our theme. Check it out, wherever you stream your music. Also, thank you very much to our friend, Nikki because steadily for letting us use All I Ever Wanted for the end credits of chapter four. one more chapter of inclusion stories coming your way. So watch your podcast feeds closely. And if you love this series, we would appreciate a rating on Spotify and or a review on Apple podcasts. Or better yet, share it with a school administrator. Thanks for listening

Not happy. Hi, my name is Heather brown homme. I am a parent of a 12 year old with Down syndrome. And I'm also an educator, both general education and special education. And I'm an inclusion specialist. I think in California, it's this hesitancy towards change, this fear of change. There's this fear of commitment to join this movement for how many years at least in my district, we have a really high turnover rate for Directors of Special Ed. I've been in our district for my son. He is in sixth grade. This is our fifth director of special education. And when I tell people that they're like, Yeah, that sounds about right here in California. And that's, that's really disillusioning. So I think that's why I've been more focused on that bottom up, you know, these teachers aren't going to stay. I've got to build those relationships with them offer help where I can, I think I got to look at other ways to go top down

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