Inclusion facilitators Guide CH1 1.pdf

From Special Education Teacher to Inclusion Facilitator

Role Revelations and Revolutions

Mary C. Schuh and Cheryl M. Jorgensen

The role of the special education teacher has changed dramatically since the 1980s. The focus of educational law and practice concerning students with disabilities has shifted from gaining student access to education to improving student academic results, as measured in part by their progress within the general education curriculum and their membership in general education classrooms (Hardman & Nagle, 2004; Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 1997 [PL 105-17]). As a result of this shift, special education teachers are being required to assume different and more comprehensive responsibilities (Lipsky & Gartner, 1997). Despite this change in the role of the special educator, few teacher education programs have been on the forefront or have even kept up with this trend. Although the ability of educators to teach all students well has become a rhetorical high ground, this goal has yet to be reflected in traditional general or special teacher education programs (Brownell, Rosenberg, Sindelar, & Smith, 2004). Thus, there is a need to define roles, responsibilities, and titles that bridge the gap between changing expectations and the way that special educators are being prepared. This chapter will describe areas in which the special educator’s role has changed most dramatically, including

EVOLUTION OF A NEW ROLE

Throughout the years, efforts to include all students into the general education setting have been known by many names. Mainstreaming was the term used in the mid-1970s to describe the practice of having students with disabilities receive most of their education in separate classes, although part of their school day was spent in general education classes such as art, music, and physical education. Integration was coined in the late 1970s to describe the practice in which students with disabilities were full-time members of general education classes, even if they continued to learn from a different curriculum and had different expectations. Today, inclusion is defined as the practice of educating all students in general education classes, including those students with the most significant disabilities, with support being provided to enable both students and teachers to be successful. Many people who are trained as professional special education teachers experience a contradiction between their academic preparation and what is expected of them in the field. In the past, early definitions of best practices included community-based functional skills programs, individualized education programs (IEPs) that emphasized therapeutic interventions, pseudofriendship programs such as peer buddies, and segregated classrooms. Today, best practices for students with disabilities demand that teachers acquire a different set of skills during their initial and continuing professional education, such as strategies for teaching all students literacy skills, creating socially just school communities, facilitating authentic friendships, embedding service learning into the curriculum for all students, being accountable for every student’s achievement, and promoting inclusion in general education (Jorgensen, 2003). For many special educators, moving from special education to general education is as awkward as visiting another country without knowing the language or the cultural expectations.

Evolution of Position Responsibilities, Knowledge Needed, and Job Titles

The evolution of job titles and responsibilities related to the practice of including all students in general education settings is similar across school districts. The interviews revealed that educators who work as inclusion facilitators—no matter what their title—must develop a wide range of knowledge in addition to educational, administrative, and communication skills. Because contemporary position responsibilities have expanded across a number of skill sets and fluctuate daily, inclusion facilitators must also be able to respond to change flexibly, quickly, creatively, and competently.

Biographical Information

Inclusion facilitators are known by different titles, and the interviewees shared diverse experiences related to their current role expectations.

Elaine Dodge: On leave from her school position and currently working as Distinguished Educator for the New Hampshire Department of Education, Elaine travels around the state providing training and technical assistance to teams who are developing students’ alternate assessment portfolios. When she first entered the profession, she taught at a segregated school for students with disabilities. For the last 20 years, however, she has worked in public schools supporting the inclusion of students with significant disabilities. When Elaine worked as the inclusion facilitator at Moultonborough Academy, New Hampshire, her title was Life Skills Teacher. Working with approximately eight students, all with varying needs, Elaine’s job required her to wear many professional hats. Her students varied in age and grade level, disability label, and the priority of their educational goals. “Most of my students were working on a regular high school diploma, so I had to support them in mainstream classes, supervise their paraprofessionals, and facilitate the input of related service providers,” she recalled. Elaine also taught a remedial reading class for middle school students and a high school–level consumer math class. She needed to be skilled in teaching reading and math to a diverse group of students, and as a team leader, she had to employ highly developed communication and management skills.

Sandy Hunt: Sandy has been a special educator for 27 years, including her current position as an elementary school inclusion coordinator. She taught for many years at Mt. Lebanon School, in Lebanon, New Hampshire, which pioneered inclusion in New Hampshire in the 1980s. Sandy now supports 25 students with significant disabilities in four different schools. Sandy’s position responsibilities include providing support to general education teachers, serving as the team leader to plan and implement student supports, serving as home–school liaison, and evaluating and supervising paraprofessionals. “I am not in any one school for a whole day, so I connect the paraprofessionals to their teachers and principals. I am a support teacher to the process,” she described. In this configuration of the inclusion facilitator role, Sandy must effectively use a range of skills including evaluation and supervision, time management, and scheduling to accommodate the four school sites. She also uses her solid background in education in her role as the specialist assigned to students with severe disabilities.

Catherine Lunetta: Before getting her master’s degree in education, Catherine worked for more than 20 years as a social worker. Her current title is Special Education Liaison, and her responsibilities are wide-ranging. She is the administrator who coordinates the development of students’ IEPs and their initial and three-year evaluations and she facilitates team meetings for a variety of purposes. “That is the easy stuff,” Catherine laughed. “My more important responsibilities are making sure that students are successful in inclusive classrooms and making sure that the supports are in the classrooms to accommodate their needs and the needs of the overall class and teachers.” Catherine supports 20 students in one elementary school (in grades 3–5) who experience a variety of educational challenges, such as hearing difficulties, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, English as a second language, learning disabilities, behavioral challenges, autism spectrum disorders, and multiple disabilities. Catherine’s role changes from consultant to administrator to expert, depending on the situation. Similar to other inclusion facilitators, she must possess a high level of knowledge across a variety of educational fields to succeed in her role.

Frank Sgambati: Frank has had a long and productive career in special education. He began his career as an assistant teacher of children with significant disabilities who attended a program in a church basement before the first federal special education law (i.e., Education for All Handicapped Children Act, PL 94-142) was passed in 1975. From 1978 until 1987, he was a teacher at Laconia State School and Training Center, which was at that time New Hampshire’s state institution for people with significant disabilities. Shortly before Laconia became the first public institution in the United States to close in 1992, he left to work for the New Hampshire Department of Education as the first state consultant for students labeled as having “severe and profound” disabilities. These students were being educated in public schools for the first time, and Frank’s job was to provide training and technical assistance to local teams. Frank collaborated closely with the Institute on Disability (IOD) at the University of New Hampshire (UNH) during his work with the state department; after working together with this organization to help many schools become more inclusive, Frank decided he needed to experience firsthand what it was like to support students in general education classes. From 1991 until 1995, Frank worked as an inclusion facilitator in the Kearsarge Regional School District; from 1995 until the present, he has been a technical assistance consultant with the IOD supporting local schools’ capacities to educate all children within inclusive general education settings.

Knowledge and Skills

When students were first included in general education classrooms, most parents and educators were content if students were invited to birthday parties, received telephone calls from classmates, and were generally accepted into the classroom community (Falvey, 1995; Strully & Strully, 1989). Increasingly, however, all concerned individuals are paying greater attention to students’ learning, including the development of literacy skills such as reading, writing, and technology use, and the acquisition of core academic knowledge (Erickson, Koppenhaver, Yoder, & Nance, 1997; McSheehan, Sonnenmeier, & Jorgensen, 2002; Wehmeyer, Sands, Knowlton, & Kozleski, 2002). Thus, inclusion facilitators must have demonstrated competence in general education, special education, and a variety of facilitation skills (e.g., consulting, mediation, coaching) to be successful in their roles. Each inclusion facilitator interviewed expressed frustration about his or her preservice education. They recommended that undergraduate and graduate programs provide future special education teachers with a clearer understanding about their roles and the experience and educational background needed to work in the field.

Job Titles

Job titles may seem incidental, but creating and using an accurate title consistently and throughout differing cultures and fields helps others to identify and understand what might be expected from the person holding a particular position. The terms principal and superintendent, for example, are precise job titles that evoke an understanding of the responsibilities and skills needed for the two positions. Most interviewees expressed this need for clarity in their job titles and felt the term inclusion facilitator best represented their roles.

From Classroom Teacher to Facilitator of Supports Through Team Collaboration

Stainback and Stainback (1996), Vandercook and York (1990), Thousand and Villa (2000), Weiner (2002), and others concurred that a major key to the success of inclusion is the involvement of students, teachers, specialists, administrators, parents, and community members, all working together in collaboration. Villa, Thousand, Paolucci-Whitcomb, and Nevin (1990) proposed that “the very process of engaging in collaborative teamwork can facilitate the invention of a new paradigm of collaboration. The process of collaboration requires continuous adaptation in order to make room for multiple perspectives” (p. 279). The teaming process exists within schools through a variety of formal structures such as site-based management and decision-making teams, reflective practice groups or study circles, curriculum committees, grade-level teams combining special and general educators, and student-specific teams. Individuals with diverse knowledge, skills, and backgrounds come together to develop common district policies, norms of classroom practice, and student-specific solutions. For Frank, the change from a classroom teacher to a facilitator of supports and team collaboration was not easy, but he realized that collaboration among families, schools, general education, and special education was essential. “The concept of teaming and working together is critical to student success,” he stated emphatically.

Advocacy and Schoolwide Leadership

Inclusion facilitators are teachers who emerged within the larger context of teaching for social justice, in which teaching is viewed as a moral profession requiring skills of change agentry and leadership rather than those of a mere technician (Fullan, 1993). Elaine, Sandy, Catherine, and Frank all portray the characteristics of teacher, advocate, organizer, and leader in their roles. Dedication, experience, and self-taught skills have worked for them, but each acknowledged the need for preservice preparation and professional development that provide current and new educators with leadership and advocacy skills. Frank tackled the problem by developing his own leadership skills in order to advocate for necessary changes. “I learned this role by the seat of my pants,” Sandy concurred.

Liaison Between School, Home, and the Community

Strong relationships between schools, families, and the larger community offer opportunities for greater connectedness; an expanded understanding of resources available to support students, families, and schools; and an increased likelihood for successful transitions between school and home and ultimately to adult life. Relationships of mutual support are critical across organizations in community life and, according to Michael Peterson, Co-Founder of the Whole Schooling Consortium, “Our challenge is to create and support community—the common bond holding us together, which, in turn is supported and maintained by our relationships” (1996, p. 292). Because schools and families are essential to the fabric of community life, they must forge a partnership that consists of a shared understanding of what constitutes successful outcomes for all students and shared resources necessary to achieve those outcomes.

Creating Sustainability

The interviewees provided many recommendations about what it takes to sustain inclusive learning environments. According to Elaine, Sandy, Catherine, and Frank, maintaining an inclusive learning environment requires:

CONCLUSION

Although the job title of inclusion facilitator is meant to describe a laudable goal—supporting all students to be successful in the general education classroom and school community—the word inclusion has taken on a negative connotation for some people. Language has the power to unite or divide. It can move people forward or backward in the effort to achieve promising practices for students with disabilities.