What is inclusion and why is it important?

Transcript: What Is Inclusion?

Principal Lawrence: After the meeting with my superintendent, I set up an appointment with Mr. Sherman, the principal of Monet High School. I learned so much during my visit! For starters, a few years ago, Monet High’s students with disabilities regularly scored poorly on their tests. Similar to what we did at Central Middle, Mr. Sherman instituted additional supports for both the teachers and the students—more professional development on instructional and behavioral supports, and more intensive interventions. But he still wasn’t seeing the kinds of improvement he wanted.

Mr. Sherman: It seemed like the different initiatives we were implementing were fragmenting our program. For example, we were so focused on our students’ poor reading and math skills that we unconsciously began to isolate them when it wasn’t necessary. We pulled our special ed students into separate classes with smaller teacher/ student ratios in order to give them more help. We instituted interventions and tutoring for other struggling learners, but that often took time away from academic courses.

I’d been hearing this phrase—”access to general ed curriculum”—that seemed rather obvious and self-explanatory. But it was more complicated than I realized. We were, in practice, moving many of our students away from the general ed curriculum. What we needed to be doing—and what we’re doing now—was to provide appropriate interventions in areas where they were struggling, but also to use things such as differentiated instruction, technology, and accommodations to support them so that they could stay in the regular ed classes with the same learning and behavioral expectations as everyone else. As I investigated that further, I started to learn about inclusion.

Principal Lawrence: For kids with disabilities?

Mr. Sherman: Actually, inclusion is for all students, making sure that everyone has the opportunity to participate in all aspects of the school experience. Let’s take a walk around the school; it’s easier to understand if I show you what we’ve done.

Mr. Sherman (VO): Two students in this class have learning disabilities. Reading instructional materials is a challenge for them, as is writing required to complete worksheets, reports, and tests. So the social studies teacher provides them with multiple options for learning and for being tested on the information. These students are held to the same high expectations as everyone else, and they get support through various technologies and accommodations that they need to be successful.

But inclusion is more than that. We realized that kids were being excluded in other ways. Students with disabilities often sat at separate tables in the cafeteria, as did our English learners. They didn’t mix with the general student population, which limited their potential for making friends—and that’s a crucial element in the high school experience.

Involvement in extracurricular clubs and activities was lacking. A large percentage of our school population comes from a single low-income neighborhood. Yet those kids weren’t involved in after-school activities because they were dependent on the school bus system; they had no way to get home if they stayed after school. If they wanted to do football or track, they couldn’t do it. But, I was able to work with the city to have their bus repeat its afternoon route to that neighborhood. You wouldn’t believe how the participation rates in the after-school activities have improved! It’s great.

In the end, we realized that all of our students needed to be fully included in all school activities. We needed to provide them with access to the general ed curriculum, maintain high expectations, and give them the necessary supports to ensure success. Our teachers needed to collaborate and accept responsibility for every student, regardless of whose class role or caseload they were on. Inclusion applies to more than just the classroom. It applies to all aspects of the school—the hallways, the cafeteria, and extracurricular activities.

Transcript: Cynthia Alexander

Most of the time, when people think about inclusion, they only think about students who are disabled versus their nondisabled peers. In inclusion, everyone that’s in the building has to be included in the plan. It should encompass every aspect of your building. I think inclusion is a system that effectively incorporates all students within your school, despite race, gender, or ethnic background.

Transcript: Brenda Williams, EdD

Inclusion is a way of thinking. It’s a belief and a value that all children are valued members of the school and classroom community. Now, that in and of itself is a very pat way of thinking about it. But when you look at it that way, inclusion is not a modern-day extension of mainstreaming. Inclusion actually does involve students, where every student is a integral member of the classrooms, every student feels connected to their peers, every student has access to meaningful and rigorous general education curriculum, and every student receives the necessary collaborative support to succeed.

So inclusive practice means that educators value everyone’s diversity, including students from traditionally privileged categories. Often, when we talk about inclusion, we do that to the exclusion of those who are white, who are male, who are middle class. But when we really have an inclusive environment, everyone’s diversity is recognized and valued. And so I think that’s important. But it doesn’t just include students with disabilities; it includes all the various ways students are different. And it also recognizes that, at some point in time, students may be a part of a subgroup. There are times when some students are at-risk, and there are times when they’re not. The practice that we have of labeling students as “disabled,” “non-disabled,” “at-risk” or not, “high ability,” doesn’t serve us well.