CalSTAT (California Services for Technical Assistance and Training) is a special project of the California Department of Education, Special Education Division, located at Napa County Office of Education. It is funded through the Special Education Division and the California State Personnel Development Grant (SPDG). The SPDG, a federal grant, supports and develops partnerships with schools and families by providing training, technical assistance and resources to both special education and general education.
December 2006
This series of profiles of CalSTAT Leadership Sites is based primarily on information gathered in interviews conducted with Leadership Site personnel in 2006. Without their generous contributions of time, development of the profiles would not have been possible.
A cross site analysis of the profiles, as well as an executive summary of the cross site findings, can be found on the CalSTAT website, www.calstat.org.
The report was prepared by Casey J. Morrigan Associates (www.cjmorrigan.com) on behalf of CalSTAT and the CA State Improvement Grant (SIG). CalSTAT is a special project of the California Department of Education, Special Education Division.
The interviews were conducted by Mary Grady, MA, CalSTAT Publications Manager, with the assistance of Donna Lee, Project Assistant.
Editorial guidance and review was provided by Cheryl "Li" Walter, PhD, SIG/CalSTAT Project Evaluator, and Director of Evaluation and Research, California Institute on Human Services; Linda Blong, CalSTAT/SIG Project Manager; Anne Davin, PhD, MFCC, CalSTAT/SIG Project Manager; Kelly Bucy, MPA, Project Coordinator; Marin Brown, MAIS, Project Coordinator; Donna Lee; and Mary Grady.
Funds for this project come in part from federal funds awarded as a State Program Improvement Grant to California (CFDA 84.323A) allowed In Part D of Public Law 108-446, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), as amended in 2004. These dollars are considered local assistance funds and will assist individuals serving children birth to 22 years of age and their families.
CalSTAT Leadership Profile Series
The California Institute on Human Services
Casey J. Morrigan Associates - November 2006
Atascadero Junior High School is located in San Luis Obispo County. With 777 students enrolled in 7th and 8th grades, it is part of the 5500-student Atascadero Unified School District. Atascadero, a residential community in North County, is a small city in a rural agricultural area inland from the coast. At Atascadero Junior High, 4.5% of the students are English Language Learners; 24% are in the Free or Reduced Price Meal Program; and 9% are in special education. The school received a Leadership Site award in 2006 through CalSTAT for collaboration.
While Atascadero has a 12-year history of collaboration, in the last two to five years its approach has scaled up from its longtime practice of occasional inclusion of special education students in general education classrooms.
The school was feeling the pressure of standards-based testing and curriculum about five years ago, and realized that it would held accountable in new ways for their students receiving special education. No longer would a "satellite curriculum" for students in Special Day Classes be acceptable. All students were being held to higher standards. The school had noticed that the State Department of Education, as part of this process, had began to cut back on waivers and to more closely track special educator credentialing, as well as curricula and materials.
"I'm not sure how it became obvious, but it became obvious that we didn't want to leave [students attending Special Day Classes] out. We wanted them to be on the team . . . so that if there were t-shirts or awards days or field trips, they were included."
-Interviewee, Atascadero Junior High School
After team teaching (teaming of special and general education teachers to teach student populations that included those in both general and special education) was initiated around five years ago, staff began to see additional opportunities for blending and supporting inclusive practices in the classroom. Teachers then sought to include not just students needing resource support, but also students from Special Day Classes, in team taught classes. Blending of student populations was having a snowball effect.
"This young man may be autistic . . . but he loves to read. So why can't he be in [a general education] literature class? He's not going to benefit from a low-level reading class; he can handle that one general ed class. We could work [out] little things like that, and then, it started: 'OK, why don't we put them all in science.'"
-Interviewee, Atascadero Junior High School
One of the first examples of blending five years ago involved scheduling all students receiving special education services (those receiving resource support as well as those in Special Day Classes) into a general education social studies class. In this case, the social studies teachers' instructional methods were recognized by another teacher as lending themselves to students with learning disabilities.
"When I approached him about bringing my special day class students . . . to be part of his class, he absolutely embraced the idea . . . He was willing to go ahead and try it, and it was a big success. Everybody could be successful in his class, because everybody could pay attention to an interesting lecture, and they got help with notes, and they were able to perform on his tests."
-Interviewee, Atascadero Junior High School
In the last two years, students in special education have begun attending all general education social studies and science classes, and some are in general education English and math.
The school's approach revolves around the support that a learning center and its coordinator provide to students, together with the collaboration of special and general education teachers around team teaching and planning. The staff operates with the philosophy that "students need extra time, focused attention and pre-teaching (frontloading) rather than remediation." The format is teacher-designed; the school principal called on the teachers during the design phase to "do whatever was necessary" to meet the learning needs of students.
"The big paradigm shift was starting with kids and building a master schedule from there."
-Interviewee, Atascadero Junior High School
"Five years ago, resource student who were in a regular ed class were on a separate roll sheet. I had my own roll sheet of three kids [in special education] and they were referred to as 'Mrs. Haus's students' within that class. It was embarrassing for me; it was embarrassing for the kids. Now . . . you walk into a language arts class today, and nobody knows who anybody is...as far as who's resource and who's general ed. [A] lot of times the teachers forget...[W]e help whoever needs help."
-Interviewee, Atascadero Junior High School
While STAR scores are not showing an improvement, attendance has improved, with Learning Center students' attendance at 95%. Behavior and truancy rates are low; suspensions have dropped from 19 in 2004 to 11 in 2005; 4% of students schoolwide have 3 or more unexcused absences.
As students are spread throughout general education classes, the behavior norms have changed. Teachers note that it is no longer "cool" to not do your work. Classroom effort has improved and so has the children's social behavior.
Teachers and administrators find the atmosphere at the school has changed as a result of collaborative efforts. Students in special education are not as isolated socially, since they are no longer physically separated from the general education population. In addition, students in general education are more accepting of children with different learning needs.
"The more success we get, the more success we see. So when kids see themselves working, and they're sitting next to a regular ed student--they're a resource student; they've been excluded before and now they're included--and they're seeing that they can actually do it . . . [then] things change dramatically"
-Interviewee, Atascadero Junior High School"They [students] want to learn; they feel like they can do it . . . they're happy to be there . . . and they're a lot of fun."
-Interviewee, Atascadero Junior High School
Teachers have assumed responsibility for all students whether they are in general or special education.
"The big difference this year over past years is just that they're all our kids."
-Interviewee, Atascadero Junior High School
School staff realize that, while all teachers are teamed with resource specialists, aides, and the Learning Center staff, not all teachers embrace the approach equally. Resistance can stem from multiple factors, including:
"There's not a teacher on this staff who wouldn't understand a student who's blind needing to submit their work in Braille and find some way to do this. There's nobody on this staff who would insist that a kid in a wheelchair run the mile with everybody else. But when we deal with learning disabilities, and you can't see them, we['ve] still got some teachers who say . . . 'If I give that kid a passing grade I'm not being fair to the other kids.'"
-Interviewee, Atascadero Junior High School
Despite some resistance, the principal credits his teaching staff for its flexibility and willingness to try new approaches to educating students. He noted that it can be difficult to teach in an environment where there is no guarantee that an intervention with an individual student will work the first time. The commitment of the staff to keep trying to meet the learning needs of individual students has been a cornerstone of successful implementation.
"I call what we did, 'Ready, Fire, Aim.'" [referring to trying different strategies before they were sure they would work].
-Interviewee, Atascadero Junior High School
The school has not yet solved the problem of where to place students that have improved and are moving out of an intensive intervention, but cannot drop mid year into an elective. It is a scheduling problem and a barrier to meeting the needs of students. At the same time, there is advantage to the schools' flexible scheduling, with some interventions scheduled during a dedicated school period, and some provided within core classes. Students who have never had an elective before, due to their placement in pullout classes or remediation, are now benefiting from the opportunity to participate in extracurricular activities such as band and chorus.
Finally, the teachers have not had formal collaboration time set aside in their school day to review data, plan placements, and coordinate team instruction. In part, this is because the Learning Center Coordinator has been able to provide some staff support for these functions. In addition, teachers find informal time in the classroom, or during prep and other times, to make decisions together. However, the school recognizes the lack of collaborative planning time as an issue and the principal plans to incorporate collaboration time into the 2006-7 school year schedule.
While there are no current plans to expand the program beyond the middle school, teachers and administration would like to be able to instill stronger esteem and self-worth in their students, and to teach more about careers in order to provide a context for the content taught in the classroom.
"There aren't all that many Special Ed kids who will tell you, 'I feel of at least average intelligence and I know it,' because the system pretty much tells them, 'No, you're not.' So that's someplace I'd like to see us be able to go.'"
-Interviewee, Atascadero Junior High School
"I have a . . . former special day class student. [B]ecause of my aide, who works really hard with him, and some flexibility that we've been able to work out with the science teacher, my aide [has] worked with him front-loading. (Actually, we worked with our whole reading class on science vocabulary. We do a direct instruction of science vocabulary and then talk about things that the kids are going to be learning in class a couple times a week.) Well, because this [frontloading] happened, this boy goes into class the day of a quiz and gets an 8 out of 10 . . . the teacher was flabbergasted. She didn't understand what was going on . . . but she knew he didn't [cheat] because he was raising his hand [when they were preparing for the test] and all the answers he was giving were correct . . . [I]t says a lot about what you can do with any child --any student-- if you provide proper instruction ahead of time . . . this kid is a glorious example of what can happen, and it has carried over, actually, into the rest of the school year, so far. He self-advocates when it has to do with something for himself or other kids, problems with other kids, and he handles himself much more maturely. He's no longer a disturbance in my classes; I have him periods one and two. He's not a disturbance anymore."
* * *
"I wanted to tell you about another student who was in the pullout classes last year for support. So, this year I put him in all the regular education classes . . . I had seen him in the hallway one day, . . . and I . . . said, 'Well, how do you like your schedule this year?' He said, 'I'm finally learning something, Mrs. Beck.'"
-Interviewees, Atascadero Junior High School
CalSTAT Leadership Profile Series
The California Institute on Human Services
Casey J. Morrigan Associates - November 2006
Big Bear Middle School (BBMS) serves 580 students in 7th and 8th grades in rural San Bernardino County, in the small town of Big Bear Lake. The school is part of the Bear Valley Unified School District, a K-12 district of three elementary schools, one middle school, a comprehensive high school and a continuation high school. Thirty-four percent of BBMS' students are in the Free and Reduced Price Meal program, and 8% of its students are English Language Learners. The school first received a Schwab Collaborative Challenge grant in the spring of 2000 for its collaborative program and received a Leadership Site award in 2006 for collaboration.
Before the collaborative program was created nine years ago, students who received special education services were taught in separate classrooms at the far end of the BBMS campus. They attended pullout classes for language and reading. Some students in special education attended some science and social studies classes in a combined classroom, but not all of them did so. Behaviors not allowed in the general education population were excused or tolerated for students receiving special education. School staff observed high levels of ongoing conflict between students from special and general education when they mixed on the playground.
Impetus for change came simultaneously from more than one source. The administration of the school changed with the hiring of a new principal, and a new specialized academic instructor joined the staff the same year. The new principal was committed to collaborative approaches to integrating special and general education, and the new instructor had previously worked in such settings. Soon thereafter, a general education teacher was hired who had also had collaborative experience.
In addition to staffing changes, the school began to exploring alternatives to its methods of discipline. As part of that process, school staff came to fully understand the extent of the conflicts between students in special education and those receiving general education. This highlighted the need for the school to change its approach to children with special needs, as well as its behavioral culture.
Big Bear has instituted its changes over a nine-year period, and its model has become institutionalized. Though three principals have succeeded the first who initiated changes, and some teaching staff has turned over, the collaborative approach continues in use. The following elements comprise the school's model.
"We don't let the issues become big issues, because we deal with them immediately."
-Interviewee, Big Bear Middle School
"Our accommodations [for students in special education] generally have to do with time, or smaller size classes, but not less work [or] different work. It's all the same curriculum."
-Interviewee, Big Bear Middle School
General education teacher resistance has been a key barrier to full adoption of the model. Teachers are given the choice to work in collaborative classrooms. Some work in that setting and decide to return to traditional general education-only classrooms. However, the school has been able to make the approach work even with differing levels of acceptance among its staff. The classrooms with a collaborative team are the first to go on the master schedule.
"After joining a team, I [as a general education teacher] took on the attitude that I'm responsible for the education of the kid [with special needs], and the RSP teacher supports me. . . . I think that was a big change for me."
-Interviewee, Big Bear Middle School
The school wishes to work toward having a committed faculty, and new hires are asked about willingness to participate in a collaborative teaching team.
Incorporating children with special needs into the instructional day is still something that school teams are learning. Teaching staff are pursuing training in differentiated instruction in order to better meet the needs of blended classrooms.
"We want to weave those kids into the general curriculum."
-Interviewee, Big Bear Middle School
Teachers currently collaborate informally through weekly lunches off site, with the children present, or simply through between-class conversations. Because it is a small school, the staff has so far been able to effectively collaborate without formal time period set aside for it. The school is aware, however, that set-aside collaborative time would be desirable.
While there is usually parent concern early in the school year about how different the collaborative delivery system is from a traditional pullout model, parents are usually reassured about the effectiveness of the approach by their children's progress over the course of the school year.
"I just want them to feel as though they're a regular student, in a regular classroom. And removing that label has been huge . . . for kids. They step up to the bar, because they don't know that there is a lower bar."
-Interviewee, Big Bear Middle School
The most recent testing showed that there was no difference in the test scores between the students taught by collaborative teams (mixed classrooms of students in special education and those in general education) and those in traditional classrooms of general education-only students. Teachers attribute this to their commitment to teaching the same curriculum to children in special education, with additional time/language instruction to help them with mastery, if needed.
"If you asked a child on the school grounds to identify special needs students, they no longer would be able to do that. They're in the same classrooms."
-Interviewee, Big Bear Middle School
Behavioral referrals have gone down every year since collaboration was introduced as well. This appears to be due not just to mixed classrooms and greater student acceptance, but also to the school's move to teacher-designed positive behavior supports. Fighting and littering have decreased as well.
"[M]ore of us are developing the whole attitude of 'these are all our kids.'"
-Interviewee, Big Bear Middle School
"[T]here's a boy who's been in the special ed program since third grade . . . and when he came [into middle school], his reading level was at third grade . . . He got up onstage for an award the other night, and one of the teachers who has contact with this kid through sports [didn't know and couldn't believe he was a student with special needs]. This kid is definitely learning disabled, definitely. You see it in his work, but he tries so hard, he works so hard. He's in Algebra I . . . math has always been his strength, but he has just met the bar all the way through. [S]o that awareness, of these kids as different, is gone--on an adult level and on the kid level.
-Interviewee, Big Bear Middle School
CalSTAT Leadership Profile Series
The California Institute on Human Services
Casey J. Morrigan Associates - November 2006
The Elk Grove Unified School District, a K-12 District with over 60,000 students in 58 schools, was first awarded a Collaborative Challenge grant in the 1999-2000 school year. Located just south of Sacramento, the district's catchment area has undergone a transformation over the last two decades from a rural area to a populous and diverse suburb. Eighteen percent of its students are English Language Learners and 39% of its students receive meal assistance. In 2005 the district received a Leadership Site award for collaboration.
The Elk Grove District experienced enormous demographic changes in the 1990's in its transition from a small, rural district to one with a great deal of racial and ethnic diversity (for example, currently 80 languages are spoken by students in the district). In 1994, the district found itself with 16% of its student population identified as learning disabled. In addition, test scores in the district in reading, language and math were low. The large special education population and low averages in the districts' test scores prompted an intensive district-level exploration of how to meet the challenge of educating their children differently.
"We were standing on the bow of the Titanic watching the icebergs."
-Interviewee, Elk Grove Unified School District
Planners sought to break down the separate "silos" in which special and general education operated in order to improve instruction across the board, no matter the student's designation as special or general education.
"At that point it was the 'us and them' kind of mentality....it was that parallel educational system where general ed had their students and special ed had their[s]...."
-Interviewee, Elk Grove Unified School District
The district initiated a year-long process of information-gathering and decisionmaking involving almost 100 people in order to decide what approach to take. While district personnel and the superintendent led the planning effort, district and school site professionals and general and special education staff also participated in designing the new approach to intervention. As a result of the planning process, the district adopted a new approach to its students, which it termed "Neverstreaming". With this approach, schools would intervene at the first indicators of academic struggle, rather than wait to provide support services only after a child had been formally assessed and qualified for special education services. In this way, the district hoped to reduce the number of children designated as in need of special education, prevent failure before it happened, and improve instruction across the board for all students.
"Don't wait for a child to fail before you provide them with support services."
-Interviewee, Elk Grove Unified School District
At the same time, the district was seeking a new funding model (in the form of a waiver from the State Board of Education) so that it would not be financially penalized for reducing its special education enrollment. The new teaching approach and the waiver were purposefully initiated at the same time. Marty Cavanaugh, then-director of Pupil Personnel at the district, initiated the waiver process. (An ADA-based method of calculating special education reimbursement similar to that used by the district under waiver has since been codified into state law for all schools through AB 602, passed in 1997.) In addition, the district applied for Collaborative Challenge grant funding to support its early collaborative planning process. They became one of the first cohort of schools to receive grants from a partnership of CalSTAT, the Schwab Foundation for Learning, and the Association of California School Administrators. This funding designated the work as a model project and required that they present their model at professional development conferences to encourage similar innovation.
"We started at the elementary level with five schools that bought into the concept and wanted to do things differently."
-Interviewee, Elk Grove Unified School District
School sites were not mandated to participate in the district's new approach; they were given a choice of continuing with the old methods or opting into the new. The district kept detailed data demonstrating changes in classroom environment and student performance in those schools that adopted the new approach. The school sites that were "early adopters" started to see improvements right away. This proved to be a powerful motivator to other schools in the district. By the end of the first year of implementing the new approach, all elementary schools in the district had decided to come aboard.
"It was a matter of success selling itself."
-Interviewee, Elk Grove Unified School District
When "Neverstreaming" was implemented in 1999, the key elements of change were:
Now termed "CAST" for Collaborative Academic Support Teams, the approach described above has been refined over the years since its inception to include
The district is also implementing BEST (Building Effective Schools Together: a school-wide positive behavioral support program, designed by Jeffrey Sprague of the University of Oregon) on a school-by-school basis. This model is a good fit for CAST's collaborative and preventive approaches in the classroom.
In the first year, the percent of the district's students receiving special education services dropped from 16% to 8% of students district-wide. District test scores in reading, language, and math also improved. These changes have been maintained over time. While the district student population has nearly doubled over the last 10 years, the number and percent of special education referrals has dropped while academic performance has improved.
Schools found improved attendance for students at risk. Staff surmise that students who experience academic and social success do not engage in "avoidance" behavior and thus increase their attendance. They are able to experience that success because their responses to intervention are tracked closely to avoid behavioral escalation or academic failure. Those schools that have implemented positive behavioral supports see further reductions in referrals and suspensions.
"Teachers are telling us that there's a vast improvement in the behavior of kids."
-Interviewee, Elk Grove Unified School District
The district has noticed low teacher turnover, and little migration from Special to General Education after class size reduction. They attribute this to the changed educational environment as a result of using the CAST approach in the district. The culture of schools has been described as positive, collaborative, and supportive of teacher initiative.
The process of collaborating to provide education and interventions to all students across traditional boundaries has resulted in universal "ownership" of students, no matter whether they receive special education services or not. Special education and general education teaching staff work together to determine how to meet the instructional needs of all the children, rather than working separately.
Even after the many years of success of the model, obtaining and maintaining buy-in by school leadership, particularly principals, can be difficult. Because the program changes started at the district level in the SELPA office, staff and the program are often seen as part of special education and not general education. Noted one interviewee: "A common response [when we do presentations] is, 'Oh, those are Special Ed people. What do they know about curriculum and instruction? They just know about Special Ed.'"
At the same time, for schools that have embraced the model, cooperation and buy-in are strong. For example, school sites have come to rely on the district-funded program specialist who supports them at the site level.
The district "scaled up" its efforts by beginning in the elementary schools and expanding to its middle and high schools.
As evidence that CAST can work beyond the elementary level, Valley High's data have been persuasive. Its academic performance indicators, formerly the lowest of the district's high schools, have improved to place it near the median of all district high schools. Student behavior at Valley High has similarly improved.
The most recent expansion of the program has been the creation of site support teams to assist school sites in continuously improving their CAST implementation. These teams have needed to overcome the automatic assumption by schools that district personnel come on-site because something is wrong. As an example of the type of positive assistance a support team can offer, recently a school needed additional collaborative planning time for teachers on how to align interventions for students going from the middle school into the high school. A site support team, after consultation with the school regarding its needs, was able to arrange for release time and substitutes to free up teachers to plan.
Staff have found that the system they have created "recognizes where it needs to change and develop and expand." In other words, as their work progresses, the next step becomes apparent. This has sometimes made delivery of technical assistance difficult, in that "next steps" do not follow a predictable path. However, Elk Grove can usually provide help to another district or school in knowing where to start with a change process, if not the road map on later expansion or maintenance steps. The district has provided technical assistance to over 1000 schools in California and nationwide on its model for change.
The district attributes its success at systems change to its adoption of the concepts taught by Sharon Keating and Steve Zuieback through training provided by CalSTAT. The district, in accord with Keating and Zuieback's framework, has worked to create a community of practitioners, using shared information as the basis for developing relationships among collaborators - which is turn is the underpinning of all the district's collaborative programming.
"We're in there together. We're not here to tell you what to do. We're here to figure out together what to do."
-Interviewee, Elk Grove Unified School District
"This student coming into a middle school had been in a self-contained Special Education program basically all of their elementary life. When we started the process, when the child came into the middle school, the parent as she later recounted with us said, 'I kept asking David how's the Special Education going' and he kept saying, 'I'm not getting Special Education.' And then she got concerned and came up to the school and talked with us. And what she discovered was he was getting it, but it wasn't visible to him. He didn't realize that that other teacher that was in the classroom was his Special Education teacher. And the child had really low self-esteem; was not proud of being in Special Education. And the parent realized there was such a support system built around the kid . . . then she saw what happened to her child with being in the more generalized classroom with higher expectations . . . [T]he kid's self-esteem just skyrocketed . . . .[T]his is a student who was in a very traditional Special Education setting, who got into this collaborative setting . . . and academically never required that intense level of services again and just blossomed."
-Interviewee, Elk Grove Unified School District
CalSTAT Leadership Profile Series
The California Institute for Human Services
Casey J. Morrigan Associates - November 2006
The Hesperia Unified School District is located in the high desert in San Bernardino County, and is served by the Desert/Mountain SELPA. The 21,000+ K-12 students in the mainly suburban district are in 12 elementary schools, 2 middle schools, and 2 high schools. Over half of district students qualified for reduced-price meals in 2005; 18% are English Language Learners.
Hesperia has been collaborating for nine years - since the 1997-8 school year. In the spring of 2001, the district received a Schwab Collaborative Challenge award in recognition of its ongoing work to redesign instruction for special and general education students. Its award has been renewed every year since. In 2005, it received a Leadership Site award through CalSTAT for collaboration.
The Impetus for Change Before the district adopted its model, known as "ExCEL" (Excellence - a Commitment to Every Learner), district staff faced growing challenges. They knew that their special education population was large (about 12%) and growing, and that those who entered special education were not leaving - their learning problems were not being remediated. Special education expenses were "encroaching" on general education dollars.
"We were becoming dissatisfied with the cost of special education. We were becoming dissatisfied with the lack of success that we were having in special education. We were dissatisfied with the fact that the kids who were going into special education were not coming out."
-Interviewee, Hesperia Unified School District
They became aware that, in the process of using traditional criteria to qualify children for special education, students had to fall so far behind to qualify that it was difficult to help them catch up again.
Prior to adoption of ExCEL, teachers planned lessons and taught classes autonomously, using a traditional, non-collaborative approach.
"Everyone pretty much worked in their own classroom in isolation and did their own thing."
-Interviewee, Hesperia Unified School District
Parents, staff and students often had low expectations, believing that many children faced so many socioeconomic challenges that they were unlikely to improve academically.
In exploring ways to improve special education, planners at the district realized they needed to change not just special education, but the system as a whole. They wanted to intervene early with children to provide assistance before they failed or before the "achievement gap" identified them as eligible for special education. They also wanted to better serve their students in general education. The district knew that it wanted to reduce the numbers of children referred into special education, but at the same time, it did not want to reduce special education staff positions.
"If you're riding a horse and it dies, get off."
Jim Huckeba, Director of Student Services, in The Special Edge, August 2003, p. 4.
The administrator of the Desert/Mountain SELPA, in which the district is located, traveled to Elk Grove Unified School District in Northern California in to observe and bring away ideas that could be applied to Hesperia schools. Hesperia's district superintendent, Richard Bray, also became familiar with Elk Grove's approach and saw its possibilities for the district. That same year they also attended training on the Johns Hopkins reform model, "Success for All." The Hesperia District created a unique set of strategies based on their own research on effective reform, and their observations of the Elk Grove model, and called it "ExCEL."
Implementation began at the elementary school level, extended to the middle school level, and is in its early stages at high schools. Adoption of ExCEL strategies proceeded school by school and would typically start with the creation of a leadership team at a school site to brainstorm how to custom-implement ExCEL at that site. Principals would ask volunteers to serve. As the successes became clear at school after school in the district, the momentum carried further schools forward, until in 2004 all elementary schools were participating in ExCEL, and in 2006, both middle schools were added to their total.
Schools in the district also adopted a behavioral standards program called BEST, (Building Effective Schools Together) in the elementary schools in 2000 and in the middle and high schools in 2003. School staff credits the combination of ExCEL and BEST with reducing behavioral issues in the district.
Described as an approach both to early intervention/prevention and to acceleration, ExCEL has been incorporated over a nine-year period in 12 elementary schools and two middle schools in the Hesperia Unified School District.
District personnel are emphatic in calling ExCEL a flexible approach rather than a set of pre-determined strategies, noting that a shift in philosophy needs to underly any new strategies if they are to be effective. ExCEL is characterized by the following elements:
The initial site planning for ExCEL included general and special education teachers to develop site-specific models based on student needs. This approach has created buy-in by teachers and staff who implement the model at the site. While adoption of ExCEL was voluntary, schools quickly came on board as achievement and behavior results became apparent.
"The teachers built it so they hung on to it . . . they hung on to and kept polishing [it]."
-Interviewee, Hesperia Unified School District
The district uses standard reading and math assessments for all students. These and other assessments are used by teachers to understand how best to place children in ExCEL's scaffold levels, and how to move them from level to level.
"We already had data on our kids . . . We just had to decide where were we going to go from there."
-Interviewee, Hesperia Unified School District
Teachers also have designed a standards-based pacing plan that sets out benchmarks for every six weeks of instruction. They use these benchmarks for student placement throughout the year, using them as one of many tools in frequent collaborative planning meetings.
"If we're seeing that one level of students is not moving on, we use data to determine what . . . we need to do."
-Interviewee, Hesperia Unified School District
Assessment data, including STAR test results, is aggregated at the scaffold, class level, school, and district levels to compare and to pinpoint best practice. For example, if one school or one class's data appear better than another's, a team from the school with lower data scores/assessment levels may go out to observe what is different and what might be used to improve their own procedures. If children in one level are not making progress as quickly as they ought, this can be reviewed as well. Data comparisons are public and distributed to instructional staff for review. This approach is in contrast to the use of data before ExCEL: data was collected by teacher and by site, and reviewed privately with teachers at years' end.
Within each grade, students receiving special education services and those in general education classes are placed in grade-level blended classes, which are then team taught by general and special education teachers and aides. Students are also ability-grouped for a part of the school day, or "scaffolded," with each scaffold level corresponding to a level in intervention.
Movement among the scaffold levels is teacher directed and very fluid. The number of scaffold levels varies by grade depending on student needs and on the staffing available. For those students with greater needs, the ratio of adults to students is higher so that students get the attention and instruction they need. Scaffolding supports acceleration as well as remediation.
Special and general education instructional staff are teamed to assist each other in the classroom. Approaches to differentiated instruction are discussed and agreed upon in collaborative planning sessions, which generally takes place weekly, though this can vary depending on the school.
"If I have something that was just a knockout great idea, I'll share it with my team members. And the same with them as well."
-Interviewee, Hesperia Unified School District
Development of trust among staff has been a linchpin of collaborative efforts. The effort put into collaboration has encouraged instructional staff to rely on one another for solutions to problems they inevitably meet. However, developing trust was a challenge early in implementation. As teachers began to team teach, for example, they gave up control over what and how was being taught to "their" students. It was difficult to trust fellow teachers in other classrooms to help students succeed. The process of learning to trust proceeded in parallel with teachers' coming to identify themselves as jointly responsible for all the students - not just those in their "own" GATE, ELL, special education, or other service subgroup. As teachers assumed joint responsibility, and other elements of the new model unfolded, the results were apparent so quickly that staff learned their trust was well placed.
"It's a philosophy switch. They [teachers] view those children now as our children, and when there are successes, we all share it."
-Interviewee, Hesperia Unified School District
"We call them "at promise" instead of "at risk."
-Interviewee, Hesperia Unified School District
In the Hesperia District, 2.5% of the elementary population is in special education. Districtwide, that percentage is 7.8%, down from the 12% in the late 1990's.
The district has trained many schools in using the ExCEL approach, and of the 42 which have been implementing it for a year, 40 of them have seen an increase in their API (Academic Performance Index), with the average increase overall at 25 points in the first year.
Hesperia's 12 elementary schools experienced an average increase in their API of 159 points from base to current year, exceeding all AYP targets.
Over the five-year time period from 1998-2002, SAT-9 test scores improved substantially for all elementary grades tested (2 through 6) in all areas tested: reading, math, language and spelling.
Behavioral referral, suspension and expulsion rates continue to decrease; student and staff attendance rates have improved as well.
The district has served as a mentor and trainer in its methods to other schools in California and throughout the country.
"Best practices have a tendency to jump out."
-Interviewee, Hesperia Unified School District
The model is in place at all district middle and elementary schools, and as the district grows and as new personnel are hired, they are incorporated into the model. The district's growth rate, second highest in the state (adding about 1400 students per year), presents one of the biggest challenges to implementation.
As the district seeks to implement ExCEL at the high school level, it has taken a phased approach. First, it has created time for collaboration, beginning at the department level. Second, it has coached staff on effective collaboration. The district will seek specific programmatic changes at the secondary level once the relationships that support collaboration are established. Change at the high school level may come more slowly, since many secondary educators hold firm ideas about the value of traditional approaches, and there are many institutional barriers to change.
" . . . he came to us in third grade . . . .He didn't know his letters, didn't know his sounds, numbers, nothing. In three years, though, he is now reading at a beginning third grade level, and his comprehension is excellent and it is due to ExCEL. In addition, there's no stigma of being in special education. He is part of the fifth grade team."
* * *
"We have a very high transient population, and by the time we get a child in and get the paperwork filled out to assess them for special education, they've already up and moved. And then three months later they're back . . . From the minute they come into our school we evaluate them and we're meeting their needs . . . And as they leave and they come back, this is where they're enjoying [school] . . . we're finding that the families are staying longer and trying to make more accommodations to keep their kids in our school because they know their kid's needs are being met and the kids want to be there."
* * *
"It was a little guy who was not doing well in school; could not read. We tried numerous attempts to get his parents to come to a student study team to allow for the assessment, but they continued to refuse to do that. We moved him to ExCEL. Within two years that child went up to the principal and said, 'Look, Mrs. Whitton - I can read now.' And this was a kid that we would never have been able to get any help without actually taking the parents to due process."
-Interviewees, Hesperia Unified School District
CalSTAT Leadership Profile Series
The California Institute on Human Services
Casey J. Morrigan Associates - November 2006
Iron Horse Middle School, located in suburban Contra Costa County, is in the San Ramon Valley Unified School District. The school enrolls over 1000 students in grades 6 through 8. Five percent of its students are English Language Learners; 9% are in special education. The school received a Leadership Site award in 2005 for its work in the area of collaboration.
Iron Horse opened its doors ten years ago as a new school. Many of its special educators, recruited from various schools and service delivery models, believed that a pull-out model at the middle school level was not particularly effective. However, during the school's initial start-up period, an alternative was not pursued. By default rather than by plan, the school implemented a traditional approach to special education.
"The pullout model was not working . . . .and they knew it."
-Interviewee, Iron Horse Middle School
A year and a half after the school opened, the principal pulled the teaching staff together to discuss the delivery of special education services. The meeting was called as an initial step in responding to the local SELPA's new grant program to encourage schools to create a new service delivery model for special education. The SELPA provided a facilitator, and the school staff attended the series of meetings on a volunteer basis.
"[The principal] came up with bringing all the staff together for what was a bloodletting."
-Interviewee, Iron Horse Middle School
As a result of in-depth discussions at those meetings, a new way of dealing with special education emerged. The new model was created to benefit not just special educators, but also general education teachers who needed alternative approaches to supporting students who did not qualify for special education services, yet who would benefit from academic support or remediation.
"They [general educators] had kids in their 6th grade core that were . . . reading at about the 3rd grade level. And no matter what they did, they could not close that gap."
-Interviewee, Iron Horse Middle School
Although the model used by Iron Horse has evolved since those first meetings, the initial concept, termed "multilayering," entailed using the same curriculum for students in both general and special education. Its current implementation holds true to that original vision, and its key elements are as follows.
The school provides supports and intervention in the core curriculum by grouping children who have special needs in a class for core curriculum coverage taught by a resource teacher. This class is designed to meet the needs of those with learning disabilities. The class, and other curriculum supports (testing modification, extended time for assignments) take place in the school's Learning Center.
Joint staff meetings are held, with special educators attending department meetings with general education teachers. In addition, special education teachers meet with the district school psychologist and the assistant principal weekly to discuss individual children's needs and other issues. Teachers and paraeducators also meet weekly to review student needs and placement. Common prep times for all general and special educators are used to review student data and placement decisions.
General and special education teachers have strong collaborative relationships, which they consider to be the lynchpin of the entire program.
"There isn't anybody here that's counting case loads . . . .If something needs to be done, somebody does it."
-Interviewee, Iron Horse Middle School
The school's master schedule is built to accommodate the needs of students who need core support.
The school provides summaries of IEP's to general education teachers that summarize the student's challenges (academically or behaviorally), test scores, and any accommodations needed.
Recently, Iron Horse teachers received an inservice on local high school math programs to assist them in planning for placement in at the high school level for graduating middle school students. Meetings are also held with feeder elementary school teachers to describe the middle school's collaborative approach.
Part of any new-hire interview is an inquiry about attitudes toward and experience with inclusion of students receiving special education services in the general education classroom.
Iron Horse uses the Language! literacy program, not just for students receiving special education services, but also to provide support for any student in general education classes, or for students who are English Language Learners.
The school maintains a policy of returning parent calls within 24-hours.
Every year a tea is held for parents of special education children during which parents can discuss the program and address issues with teachers and administrators. Parents are active participants in the classroom.
The school has instituted a schoolwide, comprehensive anti-bullying program, which began with a core class two years ago called "Don't Laugh at Me" and was followed with "Let's Get Real."
Parents have come to rely on teachers and trust their approach.
" . . . [T]he parents feel very, very much a part of the process. And as their kids become more successful . . . .the parents start seeing that this is working . . . [W]e don't have to have a special committee or a special thing. It's ongoing all the time."
-Interviewee, Iron Horse Middle School
Teachers note that student behavior has improved.
" . . . [T]he administration wins also. We don't see as many behaviors from the kids because they don't have the frustration in learning."
-Interviewee, Iron Horse Middle School
Special and general education teachers feel ownership and accountability for all the children, regardless of special education status.
"The culture of the school is . . . they're all our kids."
-Interviewee, Iron Horse Middle School
Early on, parents of children in special education were concerned that their children were not getting learning support, but now that the model has been in place for eight years, these issues have resolved themselves.
"We had several parents who came here . . . with advocates, loaded for bear, because their experiences in the past have not been good . . . but they come here [and] see what we do with kids . . . [W]e do get a lot of intra-district transfer requests [and] we've got a wait list of 85 kids that want to come here, because they've heard of the Iron Horse program."
-Interviewee, Iron Horse Middle School
Administrators at the district level are in the process of deciding what kind of service model relative to RTI they might like to implement. This may or may not be a good fit with what is happening at the middle school.
Because a key teaching staff member will be retiring next year, there is concern over what will happen to the program without her unique contributions. The sustainability of the model will be tested when she leaves.
Eight years ago Iron Horse was one of the first secondary schools to receive a Schwab Award, and now several middle schools have taken up a collaborative model. The staff provides on-site tours and technical assistance for schools both in and outside the district who are interested in starting up a similar model.
Staff note that the model cannot be replicated without administrative leadership at the school site, and without strong collaborative relationships among teachers who implement the model.
CalSTAT Leadership Profile Series
The California Institute on Human Services
Casey J. Morrigan Associates - November 2006
Marine View Middle School (MVMS) enrolls 937 students in grades 6 through 8. Located in Huntington Beach, Orange County, it received a Leadership Award through CalSTAT for the core message area of literacy in 2005. Almost 20% of MVMS' students are English Language Learners; 8% are in special education; and 20% are in the Free and Reduced Price Meal program.
About eight years ago, the administration and teachers at the school became concerned about their students' low reading scores. They knew that some of their 8th grade students were leaving school reading more than two years below grade level, and they were concerned that students were not prepared for high school. They embarked on a concerted effort to increase literacy levels at their school.
Their approach was twofold. First, they began researching literacy programs so that they could identify those that would best serve their school. Second, they decided that they needed to shift how teachers were delivering literacy instruction so that more of their students could receive intensive intervention. Because they had no special funding, the school leveraged its resources by including students receiving special education services in general education classrooms, and grouping all students by ability levels for literacy instruction. Resource and general education teachers for one classroom began collaborating outside the classroom in assessment, placement, modifications, and curriculum standards tracking.
At the same time that the school was selecting and implementing new literacy interventions, the English Language (EL) and Special Day Class (SDC) teachers turned over and new staff that were familiar with collaboration joined the school. The general and special education staff had collaborated on a very small scale before then to blend students and provide support to students regardless of special education labels; but the scale of collaboration expanded greatly with the new staff. Teachers were encouraged and supported in this expansion by school and district administration. The principal particularly encouraged general education teachers toward ownership of outcomes for all the children in the school.
" . . . [I]t is a shift in thinking . . . so when they're having a problem with a child and they say, 'Well, send him to Special Ed.' [then we say] 'They're your child. What are you going to do in your classroom?'"
-Interviewee, Marine View Middle School
The school's approach was further refined after staff participated in ERIA (Effective Reading Intervention Academy, hosted by Kevin Feldman, Ed.D.) in January 2005. Through this training, provided through CalSTAT, staff realized that they needed to better match children's needs to specific elements of literacy intervention. This is the foundation of Marine View's approach.
Planning begins in the August before the school year. The school starts by reviewing CST (California Standards Test) scores in the aggregate and for individual children. Those students who appear to need support are further assessed using the Johns Basic Reading Inventory (BRI) for more specific information; the cum file is also reviewed; and the school consults with parents to round out the picture. Students are invited into the discussion as well. Parents and incoming students are made aware of MVMS' programs the previous school year, since the principal meets with all 5th grade classes in the previous spring, and provides orientation to parents as well.
"Our elementary school parents hear how much success the middle school kids are making in their middle school career."
-Interviewee, Marine View Middle School
Once the children who need intervention are identified, and the intervention type matched to the child, those blocks are scheduled and the rest of the school schedule is built around them. The school uses research-based interventions for the particular element of literacy that any student or group needs to strengthen.
The reading interventions usually used at Marine View include Language!, for students reading more than 2 years below grade level; High Point for those who need to focus on English language acquisition; and, to further supplement English learning, Step Up to Writing is also used. A reading support class for students who are no more than 2 years below grade level is provided during school hours. English Language Learners may work after school for additional work in fluency and vocabulary using Read Naturally or REWARDS (these interventions are also available to students who speak English only). Students receive literacy interventions by ability groupings, regardless of special education designation.
Collaboration time has in the past been mainly informal; teachers do get one release day per trimester and four late start days per year for planning and tracking progress of their children.
In order to increase parent buy-in and also to support instructional staff, the school has trained parents to help with literacy interventions, assessments and data collection. Parents, together with students, are convened annually by the principal and school site council to evaluate the school's programs and governance. Data on schoolwide achievement is shared then and the school has implemented many of the suggestions that parents and students have made at that venue.
The school generally uses a "train the trainer" approach to staff development. Teachers receive training in literacy programs, and then return to train others . The district provides support by ensuring that teachers have all curriculum and support materials and supplies.
"I think it's a fairly pervasive belief that we really can do it ourselves. Just give us the opportunity and get one training and we can help everybody else do it here."
-Interviewee, Marine View Middle School
Marine View's reputation as a high quality school has spread and parents move into the attendance area in order for their children to go. The level of parent support is high.
Teacher morale is high, and is demonstrated in their enthusiasm for supporting and encouraging all students toward high expectations and standards.
" . . . [T]he parents notice the growth [in student reading skills] . . . It's been so drastic that they've noticed it and even have made a point to say, 'Thank you so much for helping them.' And the students themselves see that they are growing."
-Interviewee, Marine View Middle School
Relationships between parents and the school in IEP meetings have improved.
"We do have some 6th graders with some parents who move into the area . . . and they have advocates [for IEP meetings], and [the advocates] are usually fired within the first year. We do such a great job of customizing . . . that parents don't have to scream and yell at us . . . .Advocates have melted away . . . the parents are very happy because their children are succeeding."
-Interviewee, Marine View Middle School
As teachers built trust they were able to move to ownership of all children, beyond boundaries of special and general education. However, this took time to develop.
"[I]t's just a constant pushing . . . against conventional wisdom in education that . . . 'I'm in my own little box and I'm going to stay there.'"
-Interviewee, Marine View Middle School
Teachers needed training and support on the additional workload of collecting and using data from some of the literacy programs which rely on periodic and/or frequent testing. Much of this was solved by involving parents, but the workload issues have engendered some resistance.
School staff would like to create effective interventions for those children who enter the school at 7th or 8th grade and who only have one year at the school to bring their skills up.
While Marine View does not have plans to expand its programming to other schools, the school is ready to focus on mathematics, and staff would like to expand their expertise in academic language, active participation, and vocabulary development in all content areas. Inservices with Dr. Anita Archer and Dr. Jan Hasbrouk are planned.
"I don't think it's so much about . . . one individual child, although definitely I've had kids who made great growth. But I think when I first came here my big concern was the number of long time English learners--the kids who were born in this country who were still in ESL at 12 and 13 years of age . . . .I thought, something is not right. Something is not right here. And so when I first came here I was looking at the data . . . we had 67 ESL kids and I was servicing about 60 of them in my classes. This year we have 101 ESL kids and I'm only working with 39 . . . [I]t's not so much necessarily about my being . . . this fantastic amazing teacher, [but rather] other teachers' having strategies . . . skills . . . training . . . and being able to see that ESL is not necessarily the place for a child who is now 13."
-Interviewee, Marine View Middle School
CalSTAT Leadership Profile Series
The California Institute on Human Services
Casey J. Morrigan Associates - November 2006
McKinleyville Middle School serves over 400 students in grades 6-8 in the town of McKinleyville in northwest Humboldt County. The middle school is part of the three-school McKinleyville Union District and received a Leadership Award in 2005 for collaboration. Thirty-eight percent of the school's students receive free or reduced price meals, and 12% are in special education. Fewer than 1% of the students are English Language Learners.
Prior to adoption of a collaborative model, McKinleyville's special education was delivered in a traditional model, with resource support provided through pullout classes, and Special Day classes taught in separate classrooms for almost all of the school day.
In 1999, the latest special education teacher in a position that had seen high turnover gave her notice to the principal, concerned about the behavioral and academic issues she was facing with the children she taught. Rather than accept her resignation, the principal initiated a discussion with the teacher about what the school should do to address the persistent issues related to special education at the school. The teacher, Mindy Fattig, sought information about alternative models for educating their middle school students, particularly those in special education. After collecting information through attending a conference and doing online research, the resource teacher was able to suggest some new approaches.
McKinleyville's "integrated model," as it is known, was initially implemented on a small scale. In its first year, Ms. Fattig identified a general education teacher who was willing to pilot some of the new ideas she had identified through her research. They began in 2000 by team teaching one 8th grade classroom with a blended population of students in both special and general education, covering core subjects (language arts, reading, and social studies).
After the first year, the two teachers sought other general education teachers who were willing to try the new approach. Their colleagues, some initially skeptical, were persuaded by the academic and behavioral successes that they witnessed in the classroom. Students, polled for their opinion, expressed strong support for the approach as well. Teachers who participated were provided training opportunities on topics related to inclusion, provided through conferences, including CalSTAT conferences, and consultation with other CalSTAT Leadership Sites.
In the second year, the school expanded the new approach to sixth and seventh grade core classes; and in the third year, to math and science. In 2002 academic support components were added. Now blending and teaming are used universally at the school so that students receiving resource support, and those receiving services in the Special Day classes, are included in general education classrooms. The integrated model enjoys across-the-board buy-in from the teaching staff.
The school administration has supported the integrated model by providing release time for attendance at conferences, purchasing materials needed for instruction and academic support, and supporting the continued development and change of the model since its inception.
At McKinleyville:
McKinleyville has noted that its model has affected student behavior, standardized testing scores, and staff turnover.
Detention referrals for children in special education have dropped by 60% since the program began in 2000, attributed mainly to their participation in a general education environment with higher expectations of positive behavior. More students in special education are participating in extra-curricular activities, including sports, than did before the program was instituted.
McKinleyville's API similar-schools ranking rose from 7 to 10 in two years (from 2003-2005), and resource students' English and math scores have risen steadily since program inception.
Teachers credit staff stability for the climate of trust that has been developed through classroom teaming and joint planning and problem solving.
While there was initial resistance by some instructional staff, the evidence of positive impacts on students and on the teaching environment have led to what is now described by teachers as universal buy-in.
CalSTAT Leadership Profile Series
The California Institute on Human Services
Casey J. Morrigan Associates - November 2006
Mesa Verde Middle School (MVMS) serves about 1500 children in grades 6 through 8 in the Poway Unified School District in northern San Diego County. The district's schools serve approximately 33,000 students in 22 elementary schools, six middle schools, and 4 high schools. Fewer than 3% of Mesa Verde's students receive special education services; 28% are English Language Learners; and 7.6% participate in the Free and Reduced Price Meal program.
MVMS received a CalSTAT leadership grant in December of 2004 for work on behavioral support that had begun in the spring and summer of 2003.
MVMS had always had a reputation for high academic performance, but like many other schools, its administrative staff spent many hours on behavior referrals. In 2004, the school lost an assistant principal and a counselor through staff cuts, and no longer had the personnel to deal with office referrals for behavior issues.
The school psychologist saw the crisis as a potential opportunity to shift the school's approach from that of "behavior management" to "behavior support." Having participated in training and mentoring in the application of positive behavioral support, he was familiar with the body of research showing its effectiveness. Basing his proposal on research by Diana Browning Wright, George Sugai, Roy Mayer, and others, he suggested to the prinicipal a new schoolwide Positive Behavior Support system.
As part of his proposal, he presented data on behavioral issues at the school. He found that there was a group of students subject to repeated office referrals, with some receiving 15 to 30 referrals a year. Many of these referrals were for the same behaviors, taking place at the same time of day, and sometimes occurring in the same classrooms. One of the consequences for misbehavior was Saturday School, and the same children were attending every week. The psychologist was seeing repeated behavior patterns and believed the school could benefit from a new approach that addressed these patterns' "antecedents and functions" in the school setting.
Planning took place between principal and psychologist and was implemented in the fall of 2003. Teachers were not participants in the planning process. Because all school staff were aware that budget cuts would preclude conducting business the same ways, the new approach was not dismissed out of hand. However, most teachers were not initially open to a change so profound.
"[I]t was not received well. It was . . . 'We're doing away with referrals?... Are you out of your mind?'"
-Interviewee, Mesa Verde Middle School
Teachers thought without office referrals, the school would be in chaos. However, the principal and school psychologist remained committed and the school proceeded with implementation.
The key element of Mesa Verde's implementation was the "support call." In return for ending the system of referring students to the office, the administration promised a ten-minute response time if a teacher had a problem with a student's behavior and called for support. Five staff were placed on call to respond to teachers. At the time of response, the administrator would speak with the teacher to get a summary of problem. The administrator would then immediately address the issue in the hallway with the student. He or she would also immediately call the parent(s) on cell phones that they carried for that purpose and enlist parents' support. The administrator would deal with the student behavior right then and usually return the student to the classroom.
Parents are treated as allies in supporting positive behavior. Because they are notified within minutes of a behavior issue, they can participate in a timely way in the resolution of the problem. Under the old system, they would receive notification, often in the form of a phone message at the end of a work day, that their child had gotten in trouble at school. There was usually little opportunity to discuss it with an administrator in a timely way. After the implementation of the new approach, parents often expressed relief and gratitude at the opportunity to work as allies with school staff in addressing behavior issues.
"[As a parent] you participate in solving a real problem now, rather than hear about something you can do nothing about."
-Interviewee, Mesa Verde Middle School
The school asked parents of children who had behavior issues for help in revising the school's written policies and procedures, to conform with new practice. The parents appreciated being asked and took up the task with enthusiasm.
Because parents in the district are known for their vocal advocacy regarding school issues, administrators believe that the lack of parental complaints they have received regarding the new approach signals parental approval.
The school administration is using assessments aligned with the California Standards Test to generate data to determine individual children's proficiency levels in content covered in the test. The school gives the information to teachers to guide their teaching of individual students, and to assist administrators when they are doing behavioral and academic interventions. It is a tool that assists them in their behavioral work, in that any behavioral issues can be addressed in the context of academic needs as well.
The school provided initial training of all staff on positive behavior support, then has provided training of new staff as they come on board. In addition, they offer ongoing training and skill building for staff. They are trying other ideas as well, and have just begun training teachers in Quantum Learning, a behavior support approach for adolescents.
The school psychologist assembled behavior data after a year of implementation to assess the program's effectiveness. Through that process, he was able to identify children who were having repeat behavior calls, and decided to implement additional interventions with those students. The children were placed in an intervention during the school day called "Success Club."
Administrators teach this class, in which students are pulled out of their elective and helped with building their academic skills. Teachers were aware, and appreciated, that the administrators were supporting them by helping their students with academic issues. While the Club mainly consists of children formally identified for ongoing participation, the administrative team will also bring in additional children if they are failing, and keep them in the Club for two to three days. When given the opportunity to work at a slower pace in a smaller group, they usually respond well. They appreciate it as an opportunity.
"Most young people don't need that kind of specific adult intervention to be able to be successful in the classroom. But those kids . . . without that kind of specific adult intervention and involvement, they won't be motivated. That's the key . . . to their motivation: some adult cares."
-Interviewee, Mesa Verde Middle School
The program focuses on requiring natural consequences of students, rather than punishment. They usually ask the student to participate in creating the consequence, using the phrase, "make it right" and requiring the students to be creative in addressing the issue.
"..saying that we support and we don't punish doesn't mean that we don't have consequences. But we try to make the consequences natural . . . a consequence where you would have the student show some accountability and ownership for the situation they've created."
-Interviewee, Mesa Verde Middle School
Though vandalism is now rare, the school will require a student who engages in it to clean with the custodian for a period of time. If a student has disrupted the classroom, they may be asked to stay after school gets out, and help the teacher with his or her classroom. During that time, an opportunity is created to build a relationship as well.
There remains a small subset of teachers at the school who do not support the new approach. However, they are few enough in number so that the school can implement the new program even without their full buy-in. The culture at the school has shifted so greatly that it is now unusual for teachers to revert to old patterns of negative discipline.
The school found that yard duty supervisors, even after repeated training and coaching, were unable to shift to using the new model. This presented a challenge to schoolwide implementation of the model, since the supervisors spent time with students during a key time of day for behavioral issues to arise. When the administration realized that the change in approach they wished to see was not occurring, they consulted with student leadership to gather facts on the impact of the supervisors' discipline methods from the students' perspectives. They found that students' perceptions matched their own: the old ways of "managing" behavior were not working well and were having a negative impact on school culture. When summer came, the administration met the challenge by making the decision to let all the yard supervisors go, and to hire a new crew.
Mesa Verde's previous principal, who was initially responsible for the positive behavioral support program's implementation at the school, is now creating a similar program at a newly opened middle school where he is now the principal. With implementation at that school, two of four middle schools in the district will have a positive behavioral support program in place. A school counselor is also starting up a similar program in another new school. But although the ideas are slowly catching on, other schools in the district for the most part discount the need for changing their behavioral approaches.
Mesa Verde staff know the effectiveness of their program and yet understand that it is risky to make such "radical" changes in a school's discipline system. Not all schools have faced the crisis that prompted Mesa Verde's changes; without that, the support for change would have to come from elsewhere - perhaps a committed administrator that had the time to create a groundswell at the staff or community level for change.
"This takes a real intense bravery and a commitment to the behavioral change for your school."
-Interviewee, Mesa Verde Middle School
School staff have found that CalSTAT training institutes have served as effective venues both for training others in their approach, as well as learning from others how to deal with barriers at their site. For example, they were able to share strategies at the most recent Institute for working constructively with teachers who do not support changes in behavioral approaches.
Test scores have gone up for the entire school population. For the children in Success Clubs, those failing both academically and behaviorally, their grade point averages have increased substantially on average in just one trimester (the average increase for the whole group in the 2005 trimester: from 1.01 to 1.79). Success Club Students are receiving fewer F's and D's; and some students have been able to return to regular classes.
Assistant principal time has been freed up to staff Success Club, support teachers and students, and assist with accelerated programs. They have time to collect data and use it to plan interventions for students at risk of failure. They know each of the children and are familiar with what interventions have been done.
Administrators committed after the first trimester of Success Club to work with any children at risk, to make personal contact, and to develop relationships with them. They do personal followup with those at-risk children, and they have found that children complete the work and assignments. As a result, their grades improve.
Teachers generally seek assistance regarding behavior problems differently than before the program was initiated. They ask for help proactively if they see a student unable to complete assignments, rather than venting about the behavior and the student.
"We have given power back to teachers to deal with the problems themselves in their classrooms. . . . .Our number of support calls dramatically decreased over the 3-year period of time, and what we believe has happened is that teachers are now more empowered to handle discipline within the classroom."
-Interviewee, Mesa Verde Middle School
In an unexpected development, behavior on school buses improved: the referrals written by the drivers have dropped substantially since the new program was started.
" . . . our kids [are] are taking what's going on in school and then going home with it, and they're living out what we want them to be."
-Interviewee, Mesa Verde Middle School
The restrooms, formerly vandalized constantly (twice a week), have not been vandalized at all in the current school year.
Mesa Verde is now in the fourth year of its schoolwide Positive Behavior Support Program, and the results continue to exceed all expectations: in school climate, test results, and in classroom management, as well as in the continued decline of behavior support calls.
"[A student] had scanned some free cookie coupons and he had come up with a perfect facsimile . . . finally the cafeteria supervisor caught on . . . He was very clever; he had wadded them up to make them look like they weren't as perfect, thinking that she wouldn't notice.
We brought him in and he said 'yeah.' and I said, 'How many of them do you think you've used?' and he said, 'Well, probably about 20.' . . . I said, 'OK, 20 at $20, that's pretty significant. How are you going to make this right? . . . he said, 'Well, I guess I could bring the money in.' . . . I said 'Well, that would be one way; but more creative than that?' . . . he said, 'Well, I can bake some cookies,' and so he did. He baked the cookies to replace the ones he took in the cafeteria."
-Interviewee, Mesa Verde Middle School
CalSTAT Leadership Site Profile Series
The California Institute on Human Services
Casey J. Morrigan Associates - November 2006
Paradise Unified School District's 5300 students are served by 4 elementary schools, 2 middle schools, 1 comprehensive high school and 1 continuation high school. Located in Butte County, the district schools are in small communities in rural settings. Fewer than 1% of its students are English Language Learners; 41% of students receive free or reduced price meals
The district has been collaborating for about 10 years; it began its planning for change in 1997-98. It received a Schwab Challenge Award in 2002 and received a Leadership Site award through CalSTAT in 2004-5, and again in 2005-6, for collaboration.
Prior to the changeover to a blended service model, special and general education at Paradise district schools followed a traditional model: elementary schools maintained resource rooms for special education, and also provided Special Day Classes. There was an effort at mainstreaming and occasional inclusion of students receiving special education in general education classes, but these occurred without the integration and collaboration of the current model.
"Even if [students] were mainstreamed, I was not held accountable for their academic growth. And that has changed."
-Interviewee, Paradise Unified School District
The district and SELPA staff became concerned about the increases in the special education population. At the same time, low API scores showed the district that literacy was an issue: many students were not proficient. Those students who struggled academically, yet who were not classified as special education students, received minimal support or intervention through Title I. The district started to look for ways to improve student achievement.
"Twenty years ago, we were trained to identify your students as early as you can so they can be pulled out and get intervention . . . .And now we know that doesn't make a difference."
-Interviewee, Paradise Unified School District
The district superintendent, with support from the SELPA director, initiated a district-wide planning process, in which each elementary school was asked to create a plan for improving student achievement. AB 602 had recently been passed, restructuring special education financing and holding districts harmless financially for reducing their special education populations.
" . . . [E]very school came together and began brainstorming, collaborating, working together, and asking, 'What can we do to improve our programs?'"
-Interviewee, Paradise Unified School District
Each school took a slightly different approach but was required to adhere to the model outlines provided by the district: (1) well planned, comprehensive, and with systematic alternatives to traditional methods; (2) intensive; (3) include frequent assessments of student progress and use results to modify student programs; (4) use interventions that are research-based and facilitate accelerated learning; and (5) initiate student intervention on a needs-driven basis, quickly and flexibly. District planners were familiar with Elk Grove's "Neverstreaming" model and drew heavily upon it to create their own model. The initial planning process was prompted by the district, but was decentralized and teacher driven.
At Cedarwood Elementary, for example, some teachers in lower grades were so committed to trying the new approach that they committed a great deal of personal time to plan their new program. Their school benefitted, according to teachers and the district, from the creation of their strong collaborative team. At Ponderosa Elementary, the initial planning resulted in the teaming of Resource and Title I teachers for students (whether in special or general education) needing reading support. Subsequently the school turned its attention to grade-level and combined grade-level academic support.
The district calls its approach a "blended service delivery" model, since it blends special and general education resources to reach at-risk students. Each school in the district has implemented the model slightly differently, but all schools share most of the following characteristics:
The district has initiated cross-school grade-level collaborative meetings in which teachers from the same grade at different schools share strategies and materials, and engage in problem solving around their schools' approaches to blended services. For example, teachers worked together to develop content vocabulary for their various reader levels.
"[It] was no longer 'my' students, 'their' students; it was 'our' students."
-Interviewee, Paradise Unified School District
Some schools have created learning communities as a venue for professional development regarding collaboration and leadership. As an example, administration and teaching staff at one elementary school have formed a book group in which they study school reform literature, such as Building Academic Vocabulary, (Marzano), and Results (Schmoker), and apply the ideas to their own collaborative.
Cedarwood Elementary's API scores increased from 609 in 2001 to 827 in 2006, and subgroup scores increased as well as overall scores. District API scores increased in 2004-5 to 734 from 725 in the two previous years. However, while most criteria were met in making adequate yearly progress (AYP), students with disabilities did not make adequate yearly progress in 2005 in math and English language arts.
The percent of students in special education decreased to remain at 10% of the total student population in 2004 and 2005.
"Something the data won't show you is the interpersonal relationships that we now have at our staff sites . . . So besides what it's doing for kids, it's also doing something for teachers."
-Interviewee, Paradise Unified School District
Teacher concerns at elementary schools, especially resource-poor schools, were a barrier to early implementation of changes. General education teachers felt unprepared and thus unwilling to teach special education students. Many in both special and general education believed some schools were short-staffed even without taking on new programs or approaches, especially compared to other schools in the district with more resources and better academic performance.
This barrier was overcome as students from lower grades using the new model moved into upper grades at increasingly higher achievement levels. Teachers noticed the differences in their entering students, and this evidence convinced them of the utility of the model.
Teachers needed to learn collaboration skills.
"I know that one of the obstacles was that we had to train our staff how to collaborate. You have to really have a great facilitator . . . If you don't have something to collaborate around, then you've got all these complaints and it turns into a 'co-blab-oration.'"
-Interviewee, Paradise Unified School District
Staff find it challenging to create school schedules that allow for the period of blended instruction. At the middle school level, schools have needed to shorten other classes, and teachers trade off the lost content instruction time with the intervention time.
" . . . [T]he biggest challenge is making sure that all schools in a district are aligned with this common vision...and . . . getting on board those who are not yet involved and don't yet quite share the vision in a productive way, convincing them, and getting them going. I think that's going to be our next big step."
-Interviewee, Paradise Unified School District
In Paradise, the model was implemented first at the elementary level, and about five years later, at the middle schools and high school. Scheduling students' intervention time is more difficult at the middle and high school levels, but the schools are beginning to plan collaboratively and intervene earlier.
"Our middle and high school[s] are really just starting to come on board."
-Interviewee, Paradise Unified School District
In some cases, schools are not so much expanding their services as refining them to better meet the needs of children. For example, one elementary school has reviewed its schoolwide data and found that students would benefit from an increased focus on reading comprehension. The school will focus on this goal in the future.
"Dufour said that schools should not be a place for teachers to teach. And when I first heard that, I thought, 'What is he talking about?' And then he said schools should be a place where kids can learn, and if they're not learning, then you've got to make the changes so they can learn . . . [T]hat was huge for me. It's not about my teaching; it's about their learning."
-Interviewee, Paradise Unified School District
"[A] student that we had at our school . . . was having fits in the classroom and [was] under the table and growling at other students. We were told he was schizophrenic and emotionally disturbed, and he seemed like he could be very dangerous. He was being pernicious and just self-destructive, so we ended up having him go to [our] Special Day Classroom. He had been at our school for not even two months before we had made that choice because the teachers were really concerned about the safety of the other students . . . But he went to [another school in the district] and they don't have a Special Day Classroom and I went to go visit that teacher a few months later . . . I went to see what was going on and how things were going, and the teacher didn't understand what my concerns were with him. I said, 'How is that going and how are you adjusting to that?' . . . and that [the] teacher didn't know what my concerns were, or why, was revealing . . . I was thrilled that he was able to do that and be successful; and he was just a student [among other students]."
-Interviewee, Paradise Unified School District
* * *
"[Another student's] family has a history of learning disabilities . . . and, honestly, when the parents came to the door, it was a difficult situation. I just went, 'Oh, no.' But he came into this school, and when he first started kindergarten, he was very unresponsive. He was oppositionally defiant. He would not do anything the kindergarten teacher asked. He would just sit in a chair. If you tried to get him to do anything, you would just get this disruptive behavior, so we were very worried about him. By the time he got into first grade, we said, 'Well, we're not going to test any child that's that young. We're going to work with him.' So my reading teacher, academic support teacher (we train reading with every teacher), she said, 'Let me have [that student]' She said, 'I know that he can learn.' So she started working with him in Reading Recovery. In 16 weeks, he started learning to read and began to read. And we were all looking at this child who showed us that we cannot judge a child that young or that early and suspect that they would have a learning disability because you just don't know what the cause is for the effect that you're getting. And so we went on and we continued to support him from Reading Recovery to a small SIPPS group, which is using decodable text in first grade. From there, we . . . supported him in second grade and he's received interventions and support with all our different interventions. And now . . . it's not to say that he doesn't have some issues, but basically, if you walked in the classroom, he's working along with all the other kids. He can read. He can do math. There's no behaviors. I mean you aren't getting any oppositional defiance. I teach [my class] on Fridays, that's the class that he's in, and he blends right in with the other students."
-Interviewee, Paradise Unified School District
CalSTAT Leadership Profile Series
The California Institute on Human Services
Casey J. Morrigan Associates - November 2006
Pine Hollow Middle School is located in Concord and is part of the Mount Diablo Unified School District. It is one of two middle schools from the district that have received Leadership Awards through CalSTAT (the other is Valley View Middle School); Pine Hollow's 2005 award was for the core message of collaboration. Pine Hollow's enrollment is 832 students in grades 6 through 8. Over 12% of students are receiving special education; 7% are English Language Learners, and 19% are in the Free and Reduced Price Meal program.
Prior to moving to a collaborative model in 1998, the school maintained separate classrooms for students in the Special Day and resource programs, with students pulled out for English or math resource support, and with students in Special Day Classes taught separately from the general education population.
With the advent of state testing, staff realized that students in special education were going to be held to the same standards, but that the curriculum to which they were being exposed was not the same.
"I was noticing the disparity in the content with the RS [resource] children and the general ed children."
-Interviewee, Pine Hollow Middle School" . . . We all knew that all the children would be tested using the same instruments...I felt [it] was necessary for us to start looking at the same content for all children, the resource children [as well as students in general education]. And I felt they could do it."
-Interviewee, Pine Hollow Middle School
Pine Hollow had long had a reputation for collaboration, and encouraged a culture of cooperation among all teachers. The tone was set, in part, through administrative leadership: Their principal was innovative and proactive, teachers believed. When faced with the issue of how best to educate children in the special education population, both staff and administration were willing to try new methods. Special education teachers were eager to participate more fully in general education.
Pine Hollow began its collaboration about 10 years ago, in 1996. The Learning Center was created first, providing tutoring and small group instruction. Two years later, the school began including students receiving resource support in general education classrooms.
The school initiated inclusion with the incoming 6th grade class in 1998, and each subsequent incoming class was transitioned to the new model. In three years all grades were operating under the blended system.
In the beginning, not all general education classrooms included students receiving resource support. With one resource teacher per grade, there was not sufficient resource staff to team teach in all general education classrooms. Some general education classrooms needed to be selected to "go first." The school, rather than requiring that general education teachers participate in the new model, asked for volunteers for the newly blended, team taught classrooms.
" . . . [I]t had to be mutual consent . . . and there needed to be a comfort level with each other . . . I don't think that there was any other criteria."
-Interviewee, Pine Hollow Middle School
The school's focus for collaboration is on the large group of children identified at the "basic" and "far below basic" STAR testing levels; the school's goal is to move them to proficiency. As it is currently implemented, the key elements of Pine Hollow's model are:
"[There are] children that aren't singled out, especially, as special ed, but who need as much help as the special education population . . . .so it gives them the opportunity . . . to ask questions . . . and get more help."
-Interviewee, Pine Hollow Middle School
Since the initiation of collaboration, referrals into special education have dropped by a factor of 10. For those who are referred, the percentage of those that qualify has increased.
"I've been here 20 years . . . Before collaboration, we were running about 90 to 100 referrals a year. And out of that group, approximately one-fourth of them qualified for special ed . . . But now it's approximately . . . 8 to 10 referrals . . . and out of that group, about one-half of them actually qualify."
-Interviewee, Pine Hollow Middle School
Staff attribute the changes to the preventive element of collaboration, and the adoption of a new mindset that services are given regardless of special education classification.
"We've been looking at things like 504's, and some of the teachers will say, well, I don't know if a 504's going to be effective for this child, because we're already doing all the accommodations that a 504 would afford us."
-Interviewee, Pine Hollow Middle School
The staff and administration have created a culture of inclusion at the school, so that parents and children don't question inclusion of students receiving special education in classes.
"Because we've always been an inclusive school. We've had SH [severely handicapped] children at this school and everybody understood . . . about inclusion. Everyone needs to be involved. That's the way the world is."
-Interviewee, Pine Hollow Middle School"I think for the general ed kids, it's put a new face on what special ed is . . . Now [the general ed children realize] "they're doing the same work I'm doing, they just maybe need to hear it in a different way or come to a smaller class."
-Interviewee, Pine Hollow Middle School
Teachers and the school principal believe that the principal's own longevity in the job and her commitment to collaboration have allowed the program to grow and improve rather than be abandoned with administrative turnover.
"You really do need to have a commitment to whatever you're doing, to make sure that it is successful; and that means you have to make sacrifices and give of your time and energy over the long haul, to make sure that it happens. Because change takes time. You can't rush into it and make it happen overnight."
-Interviewee, Pine Hollow Middle School
In the first year of implementation of blended classrooms, it appeared to the children that they were not receiving special education services because they were no longer getting pulled out. This was relayed to their parents, who began to contact the school to question why their children were not receiving special education. Though parents had been apprised of the new approach through the school's newsletter the previous year, and given information at back-to-school night the first year of implementation, they were still concerned. Some parents questioned whether their children with special needs would be supported sufficiently in their education. The school proceeded with implementation, and parents and teachers found universally that the new approach worked.
"But we found the children could do it . . . "
-Interviewee, Pine Hollow Middle School
Parents now become aware of the school's inclusion through articulation with feeder elementary schools at transition IEP meetings, and through "Parent Preview Night" offered during the prior school year.
Full staffing is a challenge.
"We don't have enough aides and teachers to be in every classroom that special ed kids are in."
-Interviewee, Pine Hollow Middle School
Not all teachers are equally willing, though the staff on the whole has been enthusiastic.
" . . . The general ed teacher needs to be somebody who is willing to modify their lesson plans . . . we've been lucky here because just about everybody . . . has been really very creative and willing to modify, but it's something that wouldn't always work with everyone."
-Interviewee, Pine Hollow Middle School" . . . [S]ome of the teachers [ask], 'How do I get more help in my classroom with the children?' And, well, you have to collaborate . . . We have to do things to protect and support the teachers who have stepped up to the plate to collaborate."
-Interviewee, Pine Hollow Middle School
While the school attempts to hire teachers with experience and a preference for a collaborative approach, the pool of people going into education is getting smaller and those skills are not always present in potential hires.
High schools in the district are changing service delivery to special education students. Pine Hollow's feeder high school began a collaborative inclusion program in 2003, prompted in part by parents from Pine Hollow who did not want to see their children educated under the old model.
"One of the things that's driving this is the criteria for teachers today, from..No Child Left Behind. It now says that if you are in a self-contained, special education class, and you're teaching all four subjects, you have to be credentialed in all four subjects. That has piqued a lot of interest in this model."
-Interviewee, Pine Hollow Middle School
The school's results have been presented at district-level leadership institutes, providing an opportunity for schools districtwide to learn about collaboration and inclusion.
" . . . As the parent of a special ed child, I also had concerns. [I wondered,] 'What is my kid going to learn, because I think it's way too challenging' . . . The caring and the involvement of the teachers, that they really wanted to see my son succeed . . . it really made such a difference . . . I think it has been a tremendous boost to his self-confidence . . . He was very sheltered last year . . . [but] when I see this young man now, he has a confidence when he carries himself about campus. I see an appropriateness when he greets people . . . You should see him at dances, he's great! The kids, they love him. He has grown...socially, leaps and bounds."
-Interviewee, Pine Hollow Middle School
CalSTAT Leadership Profile Series
The California Institute on Human Services
Casey J. Morrigan Associates - November 2006
Point Arena is a two-school district on the rural Mendocino County coast. Its K-8 and high school enroll just under 400 students. Seventeen percent of the district's students are classified as special education; 31% are English Language Learners; and 69% are in the Free and Reduced Price Meal program. The district is served by the Mendocino County SELPA. Point Arena School District received a "promising practices" award through CalSTAT in 2004-5 and then received a Leadership Site award in the fall of 2005 for collaboration.
Point Arena District began to review its special education program when its county special education steering committee began in 2003 to explore how Response to Intervention (RTI) might affect county schools. While the district had been using benchmarks and standards to track student progress, its schools had very little, outside the traditional models, to support students who were not reaching the standards. The high school had just opened a Learning Center as a first step toward supporting all students academically, regardless of special education status. The county planning effort and the district's own concerns about serving its students in special education led Point Arena toward a blended services model.
At around the same time, the district made a decision to focus on reading improvement for all students at the elementary level, and had received a Reading First grant (a Federal grant for reading improvement). The elementary school wanted to address both special and general education reading needs through the grant and sought ways to integrate those programs. Through that grant, they were able to hire two teachers for reading support and to acquire an online program for assessment input and review.
As the district considered how to incorporate reading intervention with an overall model change, they sought information about other working models. School and district staff had learned about Paradise Unified School District's collaboration through the Mendocino County SELPA as the district and the SELPA staff discussed internally how blending of services might be accomplished locally. Point Arena paid a site visit to Paradise, attending an institute sponsored by CalSTAT on replicating their model.
Borrowing from Paradise USD's approach, the district proceeded with universal assessment and targeted reading interventions at the elementary level. The resources of the Reading First grant allowed them to use their two teachers to conduct schoolwide screening and diagnose reading issues in K-8. Then the school decided what intervention was needed for individual students based on that assessment. The high school focused on mathematics rather than language arts for assessment and intervention.
Prior to the implementation of these changes, the district had had a history of difficult relationships with parents.
"People would ship their kids an hour north to Mendocino because they thought that was such a better school . . . .There was an adversarial relationship between parents and teachers in general in the school district."
-Interviewee, Point Arena School District
With turnover of personnel, the changes began.
Point Arena adopted its model in 2003. The core of the district's approach is universal language arts assessment, diagnosis, and intervention, paired with teamed teaching, blended classrooms, and a Learning Center on both campuses. School schedules are planned around the instructional needs of students as determined by previous year-end assessment.
At the high school, a Learning Center is available both on a scheduled and drop-in basis, not only for students needing help with improving reading skills, including those with IEP's, but also for students needing help with A/P classes, study time, or assistance with class notes. It is also where the school's career and transition programs take place. The elementary school's Learning Center is a place for in-school and after-school intervention classes, test and assignment accommodation, and collaborative meetings by teachers. Both are staffed by special and general education teachers.
Early release for both schools on Wednesday is used for vertical (K-12) teaming or school site collaboration.
" . . . [T]hat's the one thing that helps regular classroom instruction the most . . . because it takes a lot of that pressure away . . . being able to collaborate with as many teachers . . . and get their feedback and come up with group plans for these kids, rather than just saying, 'How am I going to get this kid to pass the next test?'"
-Interviewee, Point Arena School District
At the high school, the collaborative team of general and special education teachers and paraeducators is called the Academic Success Team. It meets on Thursday after school to address individual support needs of students. Collaborative meetings are data driven.
" . . . [I]nstead of saying, 'Oh, Johnny's a bad kid,' or, 'I can't get him to sit in his seat,' . . . .they're talking about these diagnostic assessments . . . their fluency level . . . comprehension."
-Interviewee, Point Arena School District
Placement in reading interventions at the elementary school is based on a battery of assessments, but is fluid and changes whenever a student is ready to move to a different level.
The high school has begun including students in special education in general education math classes, beginning with a universal requirement for one-year class of Algebra I, team taught by special and general education teachers. An array of supports, including tutorials during and after school and traditional pullout work, is available to support the children for whom the one-year class is expected to be challenging. The school has installed software that allows children to see their in-class test scores right away.
The district is in the early stages of its program, and has made changes every year of its implementation. The two schools in the district rely on one another for technical assistance, implementing one program element at one campus and then modifying it for use in the other school. For example, the elementary school will be building on the high school's math assessment and intervention efforts by implementing its own inclusive program for math next year.
Overall, the academic culture of the school has shifted in a positive direction.
"The academic bar has just simply been raised. There's much more seriousness."
-Interviewee, Point Arena School District
Students seem to be approaching their classwork with new attitudes.
"It's so amazing . . . the boys joke about . . . being 'school boys,' and it used to be a term of derision, and now . . . they even label themselves that way and it's with pride . . . There's a complete change in their own perception, their own expectations for themselves."
-Interviewee, Point Arena School District
The more sophisticated diagnostics and the opening up of collaborative relationships have changed how the district helps students who are developing their English language skills.
"I'm the ELD person, and it's become very apparent . . . over the years that many of [the English Language Learners] also are diagnosed with IEP's. Some rightfully so, and some I've always questioned . . . [The resource specialist and I] talk together because we share almost all the same kids practically. That's been really fruitful to see . . . what kid has special ed been helping, and what kids has special ed not been helping . . . to look at these kids one on one and use the diagnostics to find out what's really going on here . . . "
-Interviewee, Point Arena School District
The number of special education referrals districtwide has dropped by almost 90%, while the number of children with IEP's is almost half what it was in years previously (from 43 children to 22). Parents and teachers no longer are concerned about students' exiting from special education because students universally receive the same services and supports regardless of special education status.
The principal and district superintendent are credited with leadership by empowering teachers to implement proposed programs, and by maintaining staffing levels even as the numbers of special education students have dropped.
"My case load has been cut in half in the last four years . . . .but instead of spending that time with those 40-something kids doing Woodcock-Johnsons and filling out IEP's . . . all this time is taken working with kids directly, being proactive . . . teaching."
-Special education teacher, Point Arena School District
The percentage of high school students who are UC/CSU eligible has increased to 63%, the highest percentage in their region (Region 1, including Humboldt, Lake, Sonoma, and Mendocino counties).
The district would like to see additional parent involvement, but staff realize that there are cultural and economic barriers to that. Nonetheless, teachers do see strong parent participation on a number of fronts. Both schools have 100% parental participation rates IEP's, which are frequently held off site to accommodate families. A very high percentage of parents participated in a recent survey and meeting to review special education services districtwide.
"You have families where both people are working, and often two jobs, because it is expensive to live here . . . There are so many demands on parents' time . . . I don't know how much better we're going to be able to do unless there are some higher paying jobs coming to our community."
-Interviewee, Point Arena School District
Teacher buy-in has not been automatic, but it is increasing. As students show success, teachers are becoming convinced of the utility of the model.
Finding time to collaborate and plan is always an issue, but the school administration and the district have helped teachers meet that challenge by providing release time and training.
Point Arena District teachers and administrators have participated in providing technical assistance to other schools and districts through CalSTAT. Another high school located in the county recently paid a site visit to both the high school and the elementary school to review its model.
CalSTAT Leadership Profile Series
The California Institute on Human Services
Casey J. Morrigan Associates - November 2006
Ranchero Middle School is located in the town of Hesperia, a community in the high desert of San Bernardino County. Of its 1365 students in 7th and 8th grades, 48% are in the Free and Reduced Price Meal program, 10% are English Language Learners, and 9% are in special education.
Because the school is in the Hesperia Unified School District, it has implemented ExCEL (Excellence: A Commitment to Every Learner), a districtwide collaborative approach to special and accelerated education described in detail in Hesperia USD's profile. Ranchero has brought a strong parent involvement component into its collaborative, in addition to positive behavioral supports. Staff have been collaborating since 2000, and Ranchero Middle School received a Leadership award in 2005 through CalSTAT for its parent partnership.
The school's initial move toward collaboration was prompted by its awareness that students' writing scores were not as high as they needed to be, in spite of the effort that teachers were making in their classrooms.
The principal of the middle school became determined to help students achieve proficiency in language arts, particularly in writing.
He convened the teachers and asked them to select a research-based program to improve students' writing, and to work out the details of implementation. Teachers volunteered their time after school for the selection and planning process.
"[The principal's] goal was, 'I'm sending people to the high school that know how to write.'"
-Interviewee, Ranchero Middle School
As a backdrop to the planning effort, the school leadership had adopted Margaret Wheatley's organization change principles as taught by Sharon Keating and Steve Zuieback through CalSTAT training institutes. In this model, true change and increased student achievement emerge not from simply changing organizational structures, but by working "below the green line" on changing relationships, encouraging group ownership of a change process, and ensuring access to information about change and goals.
"I think the team effort, again, was central to creaing that culture of everybody working together."
-Interviewee, Ranchero Middle School
The school's planning for writing improvement was also taking place in the context of the districtwide adoption of ExCEL, a set of strategies for collaboration between general and special education staff. In this model, schools implemented leveled and differentiated ("scaffolded" in ExCEL terminology) instruction, team teaching to blended student populations (those receiving general or special education services, or those in accelerated programs), and data-driven student placement and reassessment.
The teachers at Ranchero Middle School identified Step Up to Writing (SUW) as a research-based program likely to be a good fit for their school. Under this program, all classes and subjects (not just language arts) use SUW's framework and techniques and writing is practiced in all subject areas.
" . . . If it's across the board, it's more effective, because the kids are getting the same thing over and over . . . It's reinforced everywhere they go."
-Interviewee, Ranchero Middle School
Teachers schoolwide are also trained in a variety of other approaches. These include Marzano's strategies for teaching and learning, Bloom's Taxonomy for developing students' critical thinking skills and the use of "Thinking Maps" as tools to generate, organize and communicate ideas. The school also uses Cornell notes, including AVID strategies, and has provided teachers training in Ruby Payne's framework, "Understanding Poverty."
The schoolwide writing program changes were being implemented at the same time the district was implementing ExCEL.
After a few years of implementing Step Up to Writing and the other research-based programs noted above, and providing leveled instruction as part of the district's ExCEL strategies, teachers and administrators began to consider how else they could improve student achievement and test scores. As they reviewed the steady improvements in API scores, and discussed how the school could move up to the next level, the idea arose of involving parents more deeply with the school's activities. The principal had had a strong history of encouraging parent participation, having created an elementary-level program to coach parents in teaching literacy at home in partnership with the schools. In his work at the middle school he looked for innovative ways to involve parents in the school. As a result of his joint planning with the teaching staff, the school created a family resource specialist (FRS) position on campus as a means to increase parent and community-level involvement with Ranchero Middle School.
Parent participation at Ranchero is an extension of the school's many planned efforts to improve school achievement. Those efforts are the context for parent involvement, and include ExCEL as the teaching framework, schoolwide reading and writing as noted above, and a behavioral support program. The school uses Standards Plus and district pacing plans to ensure coverage of standards in a timely way throughout the year.
"The kids don't slip through the cracks anymore and ExCEL is really the foundation that all of this collaboration came from."
-Interviewee, Ranchero Middle School
Under the ExCEL framework, all incoming students from the 6th grade are assessed prior to arrival on campus. Teachers also consult with the 6th grade teacher regarding individual student needs. Through careful assessment and individual attention, students are placed within the appropriate "scaffold" in their grade level, which determines the level and type of teaching and remediation or acceleration offered. Classes are a mix of special and general education, and students are moved among scaffold levels as needed, depending on their progress and ongoing teacher determination of need.
"It sounds crazy to have kids moving all year long with the schedules when they need to, but that's what we do and it works."
-Interviewee, Ranchero Middle School
Students and their progress and placement in scaffold levels are discussed during common prep time, as needed. Teachers need less frequent discussion of the schoolwide writing program now that the program is in full implementation campus-wide; those meetings are now held approximately quarterly.
A leadership team meets twice a month, focusing on improvement in teachers' professional practice; school families meet every three weeks to be brought up to date on school activities and goals, to observe classrooms, and to plan their support of school events.
Parents are invited on campus to support Associated Student Body activities, including academic celebrations and other school events. For example, Ranchero held a Math Night and Language Arts Night for the first time in 2006; they were both very well attended. It was a parent who had initially suggested a Math Night to the family resource specialist.
The FRS has also been able to reach out to connect the school to the broader community, particularly with local service clubs, and through the campus Career Day.
The FRS is funded through school improvement funds, with three part time positions funded in the district--one part time position at the other middle school, and two positions (one each) at the districts' two high schools.
School staff have not collected data specific to parent participation impacts, although they have discussed comparing achievement information of students whose parents participate at the school, and students whose parents have not participated. Since implementation of the school's collaborative model, reading and writing interventions, and behavior supports, schoolwide scores have improved substantially. For example, in 2004-5, API scores increased by 37 points. Writing scores have also increased, with higher percentages of scores falling in the 4 to 8 range.
"I think one of the outcomes . . . is that the school has high expectations. You can see it in every class you walk into."
-Interviewee, Ranchero Middle School
It has taken teachers a while to understand how a family resource specialist can help them. These barriers have been overcome as the teachers have seen through their own participation in FRS-organized events, such as Math and Language Arts nights, how the FRS can bring parent interest and volunteerism to the school.
Language barriers do exist between monolingual English and Spanish speakers in the school community, but the school has attempted to bridge that gap with interpreters at events and Spanish speaking assistants for the FRS.
Students, too, have come slowly to the idea that parents have a role on campus and at school activities.
"I think definitely, it's the students themselves [who]can be a barrier, because they want to break away from mom or dad and then, they don't necessarily want mom and dad to be there outside the classroom."
-Interviewee, Ranchero Middle School
Currently, the district funds part-time family resource specialists at four schools. There are no current plans to expand the numbers of specialists, but the specialist at Ranchero Middle School foresees an expanded role for parents in the classroom.
"Last Tuesday . . . one of my students, and she's lower ExCel student, had a five-paragraph essay printed in . . . our local newspaper on her favorite teacher . . . So that was a big one . . . It was written very well. It was very well organized . . . It was written in 'Step Up to Writing' format and you could tell. I mean it went boom, boom, boom, boom . . . I read it to the staff and as I'm reading it, [I'm thinking] 'A five-paragraph essay. Perfect.'"
-Interviewee, Ranchero Middle School
CalSTAT Leadership Profile Series
The California Institute on Human Services
Casey J. Morrigan Associates - November 2006
Richmond Elementary is a K-5 elementary school with an enrollment of 453 located in the city of Ridgecrest in northeast Kern County. Six percent of the students are English Language Learners, and over half are in the Free and Reduced Price Meal program. All district Special Day Classes are taught at the Richmond campus; 21% of students are in Special Day Classes and 4% of the student population is in the resource program. Richmond received an award through CalSTAT for the core message of collaboration.
Richmond was (and still is) the campus where all elementary age students from the district enrolled in Special Day Classes attend school. When the district superintendent hired the current principal for Richmond Elementary about 22 years ago, he told her her job was to "make this one school." The general education and special day classrooms up until that time were on separate parts of the campus and the teaching staffs did not team or collaborate.
" . . . [T]eachers were fairly isolated; they really felt a responsibility on their own for their own kids."
-Interviewee, Richmond Elementary
The principal believed that teaming and collaborating was the path to inclusion and making Richmond "one school." She began by encouraging teachers to focus on whether the school was doing all it could for the children. She consulted with teachers and implemented small changes at first. General education teachers volunteered to include students receiving special education on a small scale, and as their successes became apparent, more teachers came on board.
A key incentive for teachers was the schedule. The principal gave priority in the schedule to those teachers who were co-teaching and blending their students from special and general education in the classroom.
"The 5th grade teachers were willing to bring in the [special education] fifth grade . . . so I said, 'Why don't we give you your library and computer time, back to back? Your kids can go without you and you teachers can meet and do your planning. And you get first dibs at the schedule. And so then the 3rd grade teachers said, 'We never really had such a chance at the schedule, because 5th grade already had their library and computer time.' I said, 'Yes, they're teaming so they really needed first dibs at that.' The third grade teachers were really smart because they then went away and came back the next day and said, 'We'd like to team.'"
-Principal, Richmond Elementary School
Some teachers provided leadership as well. Early in the principal's tenure, the special day kindergarten teacher began informal collaboration to place her students in general education classrooms, and to provide extra support to students in general education that needed help with math or other subjects. She had grouped children across grade levels to provide support, up to grade 2. In 1999 both kindergarten teachers approached the principal to create a full-day kindergarten, and to implement full inclusion of students formerly in separate Special Day Classes in the general education kindergarten class.
"We got it all worked out . . . we combined our classes . . . Where we do full inclusion, the kids have two teachers; we don't tell them there's any difference . . . .they're all interspersed and now we have parents just dying to have their kids in that class."
-Interviewee, Richmond Elementary
The superintendent continued to provide support for innovative inclusion practices at the school for many years, providing a long term base of support.
It took between four and five years after principal came on board to begin implementation of teaming and collaboration, and another several years after that for full participation to take place. In 1999 the staff at Richmond began holding formal collaboration meetings within the school day. Currently, the elements of Richmond Elementary's collaboration include:
During certain periods of the day (usually the morning), the children are grouped according to ability, mostly for literacy and for some math instruction. These ability groupings sometimes result in classes that consist only of children receiving special education services. In the afternoons, students are grouped by grade level for classes and activities. The ability groupings are a strategy for providing acceleration when needed.
"The more advanced students can move faster during our grouping part of the day because they're involved in accelerated programs during our grouping time."
-Interviewee, Richmond Elementary
The school arranges for collaboration time every other week for an hour by bringing in substitute teachers who teach a fine arts program. During this time, general and special education teachers, the principal, and all support staff meet to review student progress and plan placements. Teachers meet by grade level and collaborate in determining which groupings make sense for students. The ability groupings are fluid and children are moved in or out of them depending on progress made or support required.
This year the school has been more selective about the data they review in collaboration. If staff found they were not using an assessment, it was not reviewed collaboratively. All teachers have copies of their grade's standards, and the previous and following year standards; these are used in determining student progress and goals. Resource teachers and those who provide support and remediation are able to coordinate in order to pre-teach and re-teach material based on what general education teachers cover.
"So when students come into the lesson -- kids who previously have always been behind--- [they] have a whole different experience. 'Hey, wait a minute - I know now what the teacher's teaching - I've already had some of this vocabulary . . . .'"
-Interviewee, Richmond Elementary
Special education teachers suggest modifications so that students that need them can succeed in the regular classrooms. Teachers use a common assignment calendar. The librarian is able to track the skills she needs to develop during library time in coordination with teachers' assignments and topics.
In addition to bi-weekly grade-level collaboration, there is a school-wide staff meeting where any issues that cut across grades can be addressed. This can include behavioral expectations and approaches or other issues that arise.
Students participate in setting their own learning goals, including improvement on standardized test scores and other educational goals.
"We start that in kindergarten, where we start setting goals, helping the students think in terms of what they want to work on . . . and we push that all the way along to the 5th grade so that every year they have a stake in what it is they're learning."
-Interviewee, Richmond Elementary
All staff have participated in training to support students in learning social skills in the classroom; and Special Day Class teachers have participated in the Boys Town classroom management training.
The school solved some lunchtime behavior problems while encouraging parent participation by setting up the "Lunch Club" and inviting parents to volunteer to lead activities during that period.
"We tried to think of things they could do during lunch to make them happy and involved. Lunch Club just grew and grew and grew, and now we have kids who are going to Lunch Club every day because there are just so many cool things to do."
-Interviewee, Richmond Elementary
Students with disabilities (students receiving resource support) met the statewide standards in English and Language Arts.
The first year of collaboration, API scores rose by 111 points. Continued increases in the API have occurred, which the school attributes to its collaborative approach.
This year's fifth grade class was the first class that had begun full inclusion at Richmond Elementary as kindergartners. Teachers have noticed that they show high acceptance of children with special needs.
"They're a very compassionate group . . . they have a . . . better . . . and different attitude towards kids who have special needs . . . .They're very accepting . . . ."
-Interviewee, Richmond Elementary
Playground behavior has changed and discipline is easier.
"Now that we have our teaming together, all 5th grade kids go to all teachers so they are all mixed up together in groups . . . and you don't see that separation mentality that you saw before."
-Interviewee, Richmond Elementary
Due to collaboration, teachers have worked out common behavior expectations and have shared techniques for dealing in a positive way with children with behavioral issues. The children have responded to the consistency and positive approaches.
"Previously, teachers . . . hated doing this afternoon recess duty . . . Now all of our teachers know our kids and they know what to expect of them. They know how to handle the kids best, and they know what to do. So behavior is totally different. I have fewer behavior issues to deal with than any elementary school in our area. And I have a hundred special ed kids here."
-Principal, Richmond Elementary School
Children in special education started to improve in the general knowledge section of the Woodcock-Johnson (a multi-part assessment). Teachers realized that a learning problem in reading or math did not have to be a barrier to providing exposure to the curriculum.
"When we started grouping for every subject, we of course realized that just because the student has . . . some kind of a learning disability and has trouble reading or doing math, doesn't mean that they can't grasp scientific concepts; doesn't mean they're not interested in social studies."
-Interviewee, Richmond Elementary
The stigma of receiving support or remediation services has been removed.
" . . . [E]ventually, with the trust of the teachers, and the fact that I work with a wide range of kids -- kids from regular ed, special ed, just anybody who needs that help, the newspaper staff (which is made up of our gifted students) -- I noticed that kids are now asking, 'When do I get to be in your group?'"
-Interviewee, Richmond Elementary
Teachers take ownership now for all children in their grade level.
General education teachers have learned new teaching techniques and skills.
"Our teachers are becoming better teachers because they're presenting material in a way that all kids can understand it. Consequently, our general ed as well as our special ed kids are benefiting from this."
-Interviewee, Richmond Elementary
The numbers of children referred into special education has decreased by a third to a half.
Whether cause or effect, school staff are proactive in planning for program improvements. They are active on district committees and were instrumental in the selection of a districtwide language arts program.
"We look ahead . . . this CalSTAT thing has been a godsend to us because we get hooked up with people like Kevin [Feldman]. And if you want to know anything about literacy, you sit in on Kevin's listserv . . . When we talk about the Wheatley circles, and when we talk about the relationships, the identity, the information -- that's as true for children as for adults. And so we're building relationships, connections with those kids. We are sharing information. And our identity."
-Interviewee, Richmond Elementary
At first, the benefits of the new approach were not clear to teachers.
"They [general education teachers] weren't sure that sending their students to me, or having me come in their classroom and work with their students, was going to be productive or helpful for the students."
-Interviewee, Richmond Elementary
Parents too were skeptical at first of the new approach, with many parents of students with special needs concerned that their children would not get sufficient specialized attention.
However, as teachers and parents experienced success with the collaborative approach, their concerns were met and support for the approach grew.
There are currently no plans to expand collaboration beyond Richmond Elementary; but because it is a district site for Special Day Classes, the impacts of its collaboration are felt districtwide.
"The LH [learning handicapped] kids write their state reports, too, just like everybody else. They write it with more assistance, they may do a group state report, they may do a framed state report, but they've got their state report. Because when the kids are on the playground, complaining about 'Oh man, my state report's due,' LH kids need to be a part of that. Their state report needs to be due too. And so they have those same complaints, and they are learning how to gather the same kind of information (although it gets gathered in a different way or with a little bit of extra assistance). And all of the staff work together on this: the librarian, the computer person, all of the teachers."
* * *
"Every month I do Super Stars; every month I provide opportunities for kids to get rewarded for their behavior or their achievements. I have principals say, 'Well, I wish I had time to do those fun things, play with the kids, but I'm too busy disciplining.' And I think, 'You're going to spend time with kids, one way or another. It can be your choice, to do the Birthday Book Club, to do the . . . Super Stars, the goal setting. It can be all those fun things. Or you can, in reaction, deal with discipline."
-Principal, Richmond Elementary
* * *
"Here's my favorite conversation. I was in Pizza Hut, getting my pizza; doing my part to support my school . . . and these two dads . . . are standing there, and [one] guy says, 'Saw[my daughter's] name on the accelerated reader top 10, good job. Yeah, she's brought it up to a 3.5' . . . 'Oh, wow' [replied the other] ... [I]t was these two dads, comparing their children's reading levels. Isn't that wonderful?"
* * *
" . . . [I]t was time for Junior Olympics and she wanted to run the 880, and she couldn't; she was very halting when she walked. But she wanted to run the 880 and the teacher was trying to think how to deal with this, because [the student] wore braces on her shoes, on her legs.
And so the teacher was wondering how she could talk [her] out of it . . . Nobody [else] signed up for it. So the teacher said she just had to let her run; there was nothing else to do. And so [she] started the race and she fell down . . . [T]he star athlete . . . was in the same grade level that she was, and he saw her fall. He went over and he helped her up, and joined the race, and she kept racing. And he ran with her, and she fell down three times and he helped her up three times. And when the race was over, he just waved goodbye and went off; he didn't wait to be congratulated or to be thanked . . . he just saw that she needed help."
-Interviewee, Richmond Elementary
CalSTAT Leadership Profile Series
The California Institute on Human Services
Casey J. Morrigan Associates - November 2006
Rincon Middle School is located in the suburban community of Escondido in northern San Diego County. It is one of five middle schools in the K-8 Escondido Union School District, and enrolls over 1500 students. The school first received a Leadership award through CalSTAT in 1999, and was recognized again in 2005 for its work in collaboration. Ten percent of its students receive special education services; 23% are considered English Language Learners, and 44% are in the Free and Reduced Price Meal program.
Rincon had always included students receiving resource support in its general education classes, and in 1997 began including students from Special Day Classes. Its path toward full inclusion, however, was not necessarily a direct or easy one.
The school's turning point came at its annual awards assembly in 1996, when students from the Special Day program were jeered by students from the general education population when being presented with awards. The school had invited guests to the assembly who were knowledgeable about progressive inclusion practices and who were also parents considering placing their children in the school. Teachers and administrators were shocked by the students' behavior and began from that day to search for ways to create new practices and a new culture at the school.
"'It was awful' . . . the principal said . . . 'I will never go through another assembly like that.'"
-Interviewee, Rincon Middle School
The district director of special education became involved and initiated discussions on inclusion approaches with the school principal, a special education teacher, and a local expert from California State University at San Marcos. They believed that the way to create a new culture was to move the school toward full inclusion of students in Special Day Classes. To that end, the school assembled a team to observe schools in Vermont, which operated under an inclusion model. They returned with some specific ideas and began a year-long planning process to create a model that would work at their school. The planning process was voluntary, with general and special education teachers and school and district administrators meeting weekly in the early mornings before school started. In the 1997 school year, implementation began.
The heart of Rincon's model is teaming its general and special education teachers to teach in classes with blended student populations that include students in general and special education. The approach emerged as a hybrid of observations from the Vermont inclusion model and ideas from "Caught in the Middle."
Rincon's teaming occurs both in the classroom, where resource and special day teachers and assistants co-teach with general education teachers, and in weekly collaborative planning for student progress and placement.
All students, including those receiving special education, receive ability-grouped instruction in math and language arts. Students in special education re included in grade-level social studies and science general education classes.
Special education teachers or aides are in all general education classrooms in which student populations are blended, assisting in teaching, providing small group instruction, and also working outside of class to provide and plan for adaptations, modifications, and instructional strategies.
The school has maintained Special Day Classes for some students who need a more contained environment and also will pull out children from general education classes who need intensive remediation. The pullout classes are provided to universally to students in need of them, whether the students are in general or special education.
Teams of general and special education teachers and site administration (the assistant principal) meet weekly during a common prep time to plan for the 130 children for whom they are responsible. The "interdisciplinary team," as it is called, uses this time to discuss any student concerns, including academic progress, grades, and any needed interventions for individual students. This is also a time that special and general education teachers can coordinate any adaptations or modifications needed for students in the general education classrooms. The team follows a protocol for increasingly intensive interventions if those are needed for any individual student, and will refer a student for formal special education assessment only after all solutions under that protocol are pursued. Leaders of those teams also meet with the principal monthly to review curriculum and standards. The interdisciplinary team members all attend IEP meetings for students in their classes.
Planning for the school year begins in the spring when the staff looks ahead to predict the numbers and specific needs of their special and general education population. That information is used to arrange the master schedule. Orientation is also held in the spring and fall with incoming students and parents.
The school makes full use of research-based reading interventions, including High Point and Read Naturally. Math support is also provided as an elective during the school day for students who are a year or more below grade level; study skills are also offered as an in-school elective. All academic teachers volunteer for at least 2 days of homework support weekly to any student who needs it.
Staff development is ongoing and takes place during teacher release days. New hires are asked in the interview process about their experience with and openness to inclusion strategies. In the 2005-6 school year, staff received training in differentiation, student assets, and vocabulary development.
The school has recently adopted Positive Action, a schoolwide behavior support model.
Test scores for students in Special Day Classes have gone up as well as for the student population as a whole.
Negative behavior for students in Special Day Classes has also decreased. For the school as a whole, data from the last three years show that suspensions have decreased. Teachers attribute this mainly to the higher academic and behavioral expectations placed on all students in the classroom.
Teachers now feel responsible for all the students on their roster regardless of label; there is universal ownership and accountability for all the children in a grade level.
"They're our kids."
-Interviewee, Rincon Middle School
Overcrowding in the school makes it difficult to flex the schedule as much as teachers might wish, in order to customize instruction even further. The school was originally built for 1200 children and there are over 1500 enrolled currently at Rincon.
Rincon does not have plans to expand its model to schools elsewhere in the district.
"The original bad boy--we have him. He has to go get the boy from the medically fragile class (who's in a wheelchair and who talks with a switch), wheel him over to his math class, sit with him and takes care of him and helps him with his work. His behaviors have gone down. We found out when you take your behavior kids and you put them in an area of responsibility their behaviors go down."
-Interviewee, Rincon Middle School
* * *
"Your high achieving kids and your Day kids, that are just brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, set a special ed kid beside them and say, 'Here--you're partnered.' [The student may say] 'I'm not going to do all the work.' [and we say] 'Nobody asked you to do all the work, but you've got to make sure they get the work done.' It teaches them kindness and compassion."
-Interviewee, Rincon Middle School
CalSTAT Leadership Profile Series
The California Institute on Human Services
Casey J. Morrigan Associates - November 2006
Sanger High School's move to "full inclusion," as its program is called, was part of an overhaul of the school's academic approach prompted by several factors. The overall goal of their changes was to increase academic rigor and expectations for all students.
Sanger High School was classified by the State Department of Education as an underperforming school in need of immediate intervention in 2002. That same year, their accreditation body, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), suggested that the school address the issue of tracking students into college preparatory and non-college preparatory classes. The school was required to immediately address their performance and accreditation issues.
At the district level, a new Director of Pupil Services had recently been hired who was an advocate for full inclusion and who believed that the solution to Sanger High's issues lay partially in revamping how special education was being implemented. She had, during her brief tenure to date, overseen the creation of the middle school's full inclusion program. The students receiving special education services who were moving from middle to high school were experiencing difficulties with the transition from full inclusion back to a traditional model. This, too, was creating pressure on the high school to move toward inclusion.
"It became difficult to fit them back into that old mold. They had pretty much been accepted by all the other kids too...and then to go back and do just a special education setting [in high school] was not what they wanted."
-Interviewee, Sanger High School
Aware of state standards, the special education teachers knew they could no longer go on teaching a "parallel" but different curriculum to their students in Special Day classes, particularly with the school's goal of providing full access to the core curriculum for all students.
The high school was directed by the district to create a full inclusion program as one change of several the high school would undertake to meet its many challenges. Its administration believed that such an approach would benefit all students, not only those in special education.
Planning with the district and school special education personnel proceeded and the first pilot was put into place. It was introduced at a faculty meeting in the spring of 2002 and was piloted with some teachers that had a history of being open to inclusion practice. The district pitched the idea as simply a method of providing more support to general education teachers who already had students receiving special education services in their classes.
In 2002, the first year of Sanger's "full inclusion program," as it was termed, all students receiving special education services were placed in general education classrooms. The high school assigned each of 4 resource teachers to an academic department. Each resource teacher served as a consultant to the general education teachers and aides in one department regarding the students in their classes who were receiving special education services. For example, for the 22 teachers in the English Department, one consultant was available to assist them with all inclusion issues pertaining to their classes and the students in those classes who were receiving special education. In addition to being responsible to all teachers in a department, each resource teacher also carried a caseload of students with IEP's.
The Special Education staff found in that first year that they could not in fact serve effectively as consultants to so many general education teachers. The school administration realized its approach was not sustainable and began to revisit its methods.
"The first year we implemented inclusive classrooms and collaboration, two or three out of the four [special education teachers] who had started it went on high blood pressure medication and said, 'This isn't going to work.'"
-Interviewee, Sanger High School
In consultation with the resource staff, the school came up with a revised approach. Resource teachers would still serve as consultants to general education teachers, but they would limit their consultations to the English and math departments rather than support all departments. They would continue to carry a caseload of students with IEP's, but those students' accommodations and goals related to English and math would be handled by another Resource teacher. This revamped model was put into place in 2003 and continues to the present.
Under full inclusion at Sanger High:
"Their [aides'] role has dramatically changed . . . [They are] in a general ed class at a level they're not used to . . . having to learn the curriculum . . . having to take the English books home to read so they can support the students in the classroom...becoming a tutor."
-Interviewee, Sanger High School
The school will be flexible, for example in meeting the needs of a student for a certificate. The school and teaching staff The school will be flexible, for example in meeting the needs of a student for a certificate. The school and teaching staff has made it easy to be in touch with parents via email and telephone. Parents, in turn, support teachers in their work with the students. For example, if extra time with a student is needed in order to provide accommodation or remediation, parents ensure that the student is present when teachers request it.
Students who are receiving special education are seeing their test scores improving more quickly than any other school subgroup. They are passing the CAHSEE (California High School Exit Exam) at the same rates as students in general education.
"Special education students have more confidence in themselves. They are giving speeches in our classes and debates. They're getting up in front of the class and doing presentations. They are involved in activities outside the classroom . . . .They're in sports . . . I don't think they would have been as inclined to do so had they all been stuck in their little rooms in the special education department. So I think it's been very important for them socially also."
-Interviewee, Sanger High School
There are fewer discipline and behavior issues with students who receive special education services than previously. This is partially due to peer expectations.
"Now that they're in there [in the general education classrooms], they don't want anyone to know that they're special ed. They want to fit in, so now they're going to do what they have to, to show they belong."
-Interviewee, Sanger High School
Students in general education benefit from having more instructional personnel in classrooms available to help them. They also benefit from the modified or differentiated instruction provided for students in special education, since their learning needs are being addressed as well. Finally, students in general education are also learning tolerance and patience toward their fellow students who are receiving special education services.
"Some of the C students have a chance to be a leader in a group, because they might be the best reader in the entire group of kids in an English lab."
-Interviewee, Sanger High School
Instruction schoolwide has improved as general education teachers learn strategies for teaching to reach students with disabilities.
Staff expend a great deal of effort in customizing the schedules of students in special education in order to meet their needs.
" . . . [F]rom a parent standpoint I think that they welcome the opportunity for their kids to fit in . . . being able to blend in with the rest of the students while they're receiving the same type of help [as they got before the new model]."
-Interviewee, Sanger High School
They have not experienced encroachment on general education funds for 5 years.
"If people want to go [toward] inclusion, a lot of times you'll hear, 'Well, there's not enough money . . . .' But ultimately it ends up being cheaper . . . because the kids typically don't stay in special ed[ucation] as long when you do inclusion. They're unidentified quicker. And, you're not identifying as many new kids because they're getting support before they're failing. The general ed[ucation] kids that would maybe would be referred [into special education] are getting services prior to referral . . . and [can] get back on track and be successful before that."
-Interviewee, Sanger High School
A new appreciation for the skills of the special education staff has emerged.
"[B]efore, [general ed teachers thought], 'Oh, special ed. They've got five kids in their room, how hard is that? And then they started getting the special ed kids in their classroom, and [realized], 'Wow! You do a lot. You know a lot.' So it's given them [special ed teachers] that...status as the experts that they are."
-Interviewee, Sanger High School
Students who receive special education services participate to a much greater extent than they did previously in extracurricular and cocurricular activities.
Many of the challenges the program has faced can be classified as resistance on the part of teaching staff, both general and special education.
"Special ed staff's just as afraid of this as regular [education staff], if not more, because it's a whole change in a role . . . it's different work, and it's hard work."
-Interviewee, Sanger High School
The administration started the program with two of the special education teachers, then added a third and then ended at the full complement of 6 special education teachers providing support. When there were new special education staff hires, the district explained their model and how high a priority it was for new staff to work within it. The new approach was presented as part of the school's overall commitment to academic excellence, and as such became an accepted part of how the school did business.
"It's successful for all of our students because it's just best practice of teaching and instruction."
-Interviewee, Sanger High School
Success helped sell the model to other special education teaching staff.
" . . . [T]hey also saw our kids [students who received special education services] succeeding in the general ed classroom, and it was like, 'Okay, it works now, so we're coming on board.'"
-Interviewee, Sanger High School
General education instructional staff were resistant, too. When the administration started up the new model, they purposefully selected general education teachers with a history of successful informal collaboration with special education staff. Once early successes were apparent, the model was expanded.
"One reason why we've been successful is the turnover in staff . . . We have the newer ones coming on board as people retire out, and that helps because they're more receptive to fresher ideas and teaching techniques and more up to date on things."
-Interviewee, Sanger High School
Parents also occasionally express concerns about the school's approach, though this usually happens before they have directly experienced it. Once parents understand that inclusion usually benefits their children, that resistance is overcome. The success of the children in the program, and the personalized and flexible approach that special education staff take to meeting the needs of students, often removes initial parent resistance or concerns. The local advocacy community is very inclusion-oriented and is supportive of what the high school is doing, and once parents become aware that the school is aligned with advocates, it can help alleviate their concerns.
"The parents trust them because they know they are going to look out for their child."
-Interviewee, Sanger High School
While there are no current plans to expand inclusion beyond its current implementation at the middle and high schools, the high school is seeking to add some improvements to its current programming.
Given the success of their reading remediation program (available to all students, including those in general education), they are considering adding universally available math remediation as well.
The administration believes strongly that they need an integrated vocational education program for all students, including those in special education, who may not wish to be college or diploma-bound. They have implemented an new vocational education program for non-diploma students this year.
The school has also created a schoolwide peer mentorship program, in which students in general education tutor and mentor those receiving special education.
"I remember when he was in elementary school. He was sixth grade coming to seventh grade, and I looked at his scores and I couldn't understand [why] he had never been even mainstreamed and I told him that he needed to be fully included. And they [school] said there was no way that was ever going to happen, it wasn't possible . . . We . . . pushed the issue; he had never been outside a Special Day Class. He's a kid that is very severely autistic. [He is now fully included] and he's done even better at the high school . . . [H]is English teacher became very involved . . . and found out she had two girls in this particular boy's class who have...siblings that are autistic, and they asked, 'Can we work with him? We want to buddy up with him and support him in class.'"
* * *
" . . . A teacher I was working with in English two years ago . . . had the senior students write a final essay, and she brought me a copy. And one boy wrote about how when he was in elementary, RSP meant Really Stupid People. And he lived with that all the way through [his school career]. And then in his senior essay, he wrote that he realized now, through inclusion and us pushing, and everybody believing in him, that RSP meant Really Smart People. And he graduated. He has a job. He's working and he's doing great."
-Interviewee, Sanger High School
CalSTAT Leadership Profile Series
The California Institute on Human Services
Casey J. Morrigan Associates - November 2006
Valley View Middle School, located in Pleasant Hill in suburban Contra Costa County, has an enrollment of approximately 800 students in grades 6-8. Valley View is part of the Mount Diablo Unified School District, and is one of 10 middle schools in the district. Twelve percent of the school's population is designated as special education; 15% are in the Free and Reduced Price Meal program, and 5% are English Language Learners. Valley View received a Leadership award in 2004 for collaboration. Pine Hollow School, another middle school in the district, has also received a Leadership award from CalSTAT.
Prior to instituting collaboration, Valley View provided special education in a traditional model in which students were pulled out for resource support services and Special Day classes were taught separately from the those provided to students in general education. There was occasional informal collaboration, when general education teachers asked for assistance with students in their social studies and science classes who were also receiving resource support; generally, the assistance was for study skills, reteaching of content, or test preparation.
The resource teacher had long wanted more comprehensive and frequent communication with general education staff throughout the school year to better track the progress her students with IEP's were making throughout the year. Her past requests for closer collaboration and teaming with teachers in general education had not been approved. In the absence of a more formal process, she provided informal consultation on request to general education teachers for their students that needed support, whether or not they had an IEP.
The middle school found over time that their special education referrals were increasing, yet, when children referred were assessed, they were being found ineligible for special education services. Although many of the children were not meeting the criteria for special education, their parents and teachers knew that the children needed support to further their learning.
With the arrival of a new principal at the school, the resource teacher's proposal for increased collaboration was implemented. An eighth grade English teacher agreed to collaborate with the resource teacher to see if by working together students would be better served.
Staff from the school attended a CalSTAT Institute and began to hear how other sites were collaborating. They also visited other school sites. After considering many possible configurations and holding many conversations among staff and administration, they realized they wanted a place on campus for children - regardless of their IEP, 504, or English Learner status - to get academic and behavioral support. A learning center model seemed a good fit and was adopted. Other changes were introduced as well.
"After that first CalSTAT [Institute], we came back . . . and a group of us had dinner at my house... [W]e really had to start having hard, 'below the green line' conversations . . . we had to look where could we maybe make an inroad."
-Interviewee, Valley View Middle School
At "Our Learning Center," students referred by their teachers can get small group instruction, take a make-up test, or access assignments modified to meet their needs. At first the center was staffed by special education teachers rotating through, giving up time with individual students to make sure the center was open. Then, the district was approached to provide funding. With that support, the center was staffed with a coordinator, who is a teaching assistant under the direction of the special education staff.
Other key elements of the changes at Valley View fall generally under the category of blended classes and team teaching. Not all classes or grades were changed over to this model at once, although now all classes are blended and team taught.
Not all teachers have equally embraced the model, but the school has proceeded with those staff that are willing. Science teachers, for example, came to the idea slowly, but were convinced of the utility of the new approach through seeing its positive effects. Retirement and turnover of teaching staff have also brought in staff familiar with and open to the collaborative model. The school has obtained an explicit agreement from staff that are less supportive of collaboration not to sabotage the work of those who are working within the model.
"We've always said administratively we need to go slow to make this happen."
-Interviewee, Valley View Middle School
"It wasn't that the children were naughty. . . The adults in their lives were inconsistent, and the kids knew who [they] could be late for, where [they] better be in their seat. . . We were exhausted that year."
-Interviewee, Valley View Middle School
A schoolwide behavioral support program, BEST (Building Effective Schools Together) was selected, and was implemented the following year. BEST is still in the process of being adopted; a school committee meets monthly to ensure its full implementation. Staff have become more consistent with behavior approaches due to the use of the program.
Students with disabilities' test scores started to rise in math as soon as they instituted collaborative math classes; their levels of proficiency rose substantially in both math and English Language Arts in 2004-5. Valley View met its API and AYP goals in 2005, and staff attribute these successes to exposure to grade level curriculum, and differentiated instruction support provided to general education teachers by resource teachers.
"Anything that works for the resource students is going to work for every single student in the class."
-Interviewee, Valley View Middle School
They have also found that students referred into the intervention classes for reading or math have increased their subject grades by two levels (from C's to B's, for example).
Behavior issues have resolved for many students, particularly those in special education, because they know they are expected to be on task, and because they see that the assistance they need to be successful is there for them. This seems to be proceeding separately but in tandem with the effects of implementing BEST behavioral supports.
Staff have noticed a change in attitudes towards students in special education.
"Now that the kids are blended in, the kids [in general education] have compassion. And that's what it's all about."
-Interviewee, Valley View Middle School
Valley View is working toward meeting No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requirements for Highly Qualified Teachers under its collaborative model. They are pursuing credentialing in order to meet NCLB goals in this area.
Students newly in general education classes out of Special Day Classes are used to more immediate attention to any issues, due to the lower ratios usually found in Special Day Classes. They have had to learn patience in a classroom setting with less personalized attention, but teachers observe that they have made some important gains: they are learning autonomy and initiative. For example, many are learning how to proceed to the next step or stage in a lesson without checking in with an adult.
Valley View does not have plans to extend its model, but it is constantly expanding its collaborative offerings within the school.
CalSTAT Leadership Profile Series
The California Institute on Human Services
Casey J. Morrigan Associates - November 2006
Vista View Middle School, located in the city of Fountain Valley, is in the Ocean View School District, a K-8 district of over 10,000 students in Orange County served by the West Orange County SELPA. Vista View's enrollment in 2005 was over 880 students in grades 6 through 8. Twelve percent of its student body is in special education; 19% are English Language Learners, and almost half are in the Free and Reduced Price Meal program. Vista View Middle School received a CalSTAT Leadership award in the area of literacy in 2005.
Prior to implementing its literacy interventions, Vista View operated under a traditional special education model, in which speech and language was a pullout program. Occasionally, a student receiving resource support or enrolled in Special Day Classes might be included in a general education class, but inclusion was not systematic.
Collaboration began informally among the school's special education teachers, both special day and resource teachers, as they saw and considered the overlap in IEP goals and objectives between their many students, and made a decision to work together to help students reach those goals by coordinating services and sharing strategies.
From there, some teachers in general education became increasingly willing, again on an informal basis, to include additional special needs children in their classes. In an environment where teaching in the least restrictive environment, and providing access to the full curriculum for students with special needs were of prime importance, the school began to consider different models for inclusion. School staff received encouragement from a proactive district.
" . . . [T]he most important thing that came out of that was that we were meeting the needs of the classroom teacher who really didn't understand our special ed students at that time. So we were there to support them . . . "
-Interviewee, Vista View Middle School
The school developed its literacy program over a 7-year period beginning in 1999, though informal collaboration dates back 10 years prior to that.
The overall goal of the literacy program at Vista View is to eliminate the literacy gap between students and to bring students to proficiency.
With this in mind, the model is characterized by the following:
Children are placed in classes and interventions depending on assessed need rather than placement in special or general education. Special education instructional staff teach literacy, core classes, language arts, and math to both students in both general and special education. General education teachers may also teach literacy interventions to blended classes.
Children are provided levels of literacy interventions based on assessed need, with a continuum of services available. Depending on their level, and type of skill development needed in reading, they receive different kinds of instruction.
Tier 1 is for students performing at benchmark and at more advanced levels in reading. This group uses the Holt program, with supplemental materials for advanced students.
Tier II is for students performing within two years of grade level in reading, called "strategic learners." These students are placed in an individualized program designed to meet their specific reading needs consisting of one or more research-based reading interventions. They might have a mix of any of the following:
Rewards (for decoding) might be their elective for a trimester; Read Naturally (for fluency and comprehension), an after-school program with a 5:1 student to teacher ratio, which is not mandatory; Soar To Success (comprehension through active reading and reciprocal teaching), a small-group pull out program scheduled during classroom silent reading time so children do not miss any curriculum, and Skills for Success, another elective, which helps students with study skills.
Tier III is for those students needing intensive intervention; again, students are grouped by need and matched to the appropriate intervention. High Point is provided for English language acquisition; Language! and Read 180 for vocabulary, comprehension, and writing skills. Children in Tier III do not attend science or social studies classes until they are able to move into Tier II. The school made a decision that those children needed the extra hours of language instruction before they would be asked to master the curriculum.
Students are universally participating in the Six Minute Solution, which is a daily reading program during the class advisement/enrichment period, in which children of similar reading levels are paired up to read to one another and track their progress. This program, which requires labor-intensive kit assembly and recordkeeping, is supported by parents and instructional volunteers who collate the materials and update records.
Vista View benefited from the ERIA training provided by CalSTAT to select its reading interventions to match the skill development needs of students.
Children are assessed each trimester to determine their progress in reading, writing, and math. A Monitor and Assessment Plan (MAP) is formulated for each student that outlines any support they may need, and progress attained. Title I and School Improvement Funds are used to provide substitutes to conduct the assessments so that teachers need not use classroom time to assess. Student's assessments are reviewed together with their cumulative record folder to ensure that each student is receiving the intervention that matches his or her needs.
"[T]he beauty for me especially is [that] a lot of my children with IEP's are in Read 180 and Language!. So I can cover my IEP's...within that classroom . . . because these programs cover many of the unique needs that are on the IEP: semantics, syntax morphology, listening comprehension, phonology."
-Interviewee, Vista View Middle School
The school, the district and SELPA provide administrative support to the literacy program. The master schedule is created to meet students' needs based on previous year-end assessment data, and is refined after STAR results become available. In the first ten days of school, after any additional screening and diagnostic tests are completed, the schedule is finalized.
Release time is provided by the district for planning and professional development; the SELPA has provided teacher training districtwide on the Language! reading program.
The school has provided for late buses so that children who attend after-school interventions have access to transportation.
The school has made an effort to include parents in the school community by conducting family literacy events and providing parenting classes on site. The school recently conducted an 8-week institute for parents, in three languages, on how to support the middle school student in moving toward academic success. Translators are always available at parent-teacher conferences to help overcome language barriers.
In 2004-5, the school exceeded the state target and increased its API by 32 points, and exceeded all the requirements for Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP).
"[W]hen we became willing as teachers to take off our hats as special educators, we saw the labels start to fall off the kids."
-Interviewee, Vista View Middle School
Students are moving out of special education.
"I've just noticed something lately . . . we're dismissing a lot of students from [special education] . . . at our IEP meetings . . . [T]hey come to us from the K-5 [schools] and we've got them in our intervention programs and our team approach, and we're dismissing students right and left . . . [T]hey are ready to be . . . integrated into the regular classroom."
-Interviewee, Vista View Middle School
Finding time to meet collaboratively is an ongoing challenge for teachers.
The information technology that is supposed to support assessments and interventions has sometimes been a barrier to easy implementation. The school has found that bugs in an instruction program or incompatibility with the school's server, for example, have made some programs difficult or inconvenient to use in the classroom.
The school's science teacher has been using the literacy assessment data to level groups in his class and provide support to them.
The school does not currently have plans to expand or scale up its literacy programs.
"These students belong to all of us . . . [E]very teacher . . . has made that commitment."
-Interviewee, Vista View Middle School