The Principal's Handbook for Leading Inclusive Schools

Julie Causton, George Theoharis

• Publisher: Brookes Publishing
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781598572988
• eBook ISBN: 9781598576832
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Inclusive Education

Behind every successful inclusive school is a great principal with passion, vision, and a practical plan. With so much riding on their strong and proactive leadership, every principal and administrator will want this how-to book: the essential guide to bringing schoolwide inclusion from theory to practice. Covering everything from the basics of special education to the everyday nuts and bolts of making inclusion work, two renowned inclusion experts give readers clear guidance they can use right away to lead a fully inclusive school where every student learns and belongs. New and veteran administrators will discover how to make schoolwide (and districtwide) reforms that support social and academic success-and help all students reach their full potential.

LEARN HOW TO:

• Provide all students with access to the general education curriculum in the least restrictive environment
• Solicit input and expertise from everyone-teachers, paraprofessionals, and support staff
• Promote close collaboration between general and special educators
• Create inclusive service delivery
• Implement academic and social supports that meet the individual needs of each student
• Make sound decisions about content-specific accommodations and modifications
• Facilitate use of gentle and positive supports to resolve challenging behavior
• Partner effectively with school staff and families
• Create a school culture that encourages independence and high expectations for all
• Relieve job-related stress and avoid burnout

PRACTICAL MATERIAL: Concrete, real-world tips and strategies; first-person stories from school leaders; answers to commonly asked questions in every chapter; helpful checklists and forms on co-teaching, behavior support, school reform planning, and more.

1

The Principal’s Role in Inclusive Schools

“Systemic change toward inclusive education requires passionate, visionary leaders who are able to build consensus around the goal of providing quality education for all learners. . . . [Study after study found] administrative support and vision to be the most powerful predictor of success of moving toward full inclusion.”

—Villa, Thousand, Meyers, and Nevin (1996)

In their statement quoted in the chapter epigraph, Villa, Thousand, Meyers, and Nevin (1996) challenge us to realize that, more than anything else, the role of the school leader is paramount in order to create and maintain inclusive schools. Many factors contribute to the success of inclusive schools and to the benefits that students with and without disabilities, staff, teachers, parents, and communities realize. However, it is the principal who will ultimately make or break a school’s ability to be inclusive and to transcend from the rhetoric of inclusion to the reality of embracing the full range of students with and without disabilities as members of the general education learning and social community.

We realize that many educators and principals believe that their schools already “do inclusion.” However, almost half of the students with disabilities in the United States are not fully or even partially included in general education or truly connected with their peers (Data Accountability Center, 2010). Many of these students who are not meaningfully or fully included attend the same schools and districts that describe themselves as inclusive. We know that there are wonderful classrooms and schools across the United States that meaningfully and fully include students across the range of disabilities. Nevertheless, we want to be clear, at the onset of this book, that we do not see inclusion as a program to be offered to some students in some classrooms. We see inclusion as an underlying philosophy or way of seeing the world. Inclusion is a way of leading schools that embraces each and every student (those without disabilities, those with mild disabilities, those with autism, those with behavioral challenges, those with significant disabilities, and so on) as full members of the general education academic and social community. We know that it is the principal who needs to make this happen.

The Shifting Role of Principals

The position of school principal was introduced about 150 years ago in the United States and other nations. Today’s principal position comes from the job of “principal teacher,” or head teacher, a role created as state-funded schools were growing. The principal teacher’s role was to teach, oversee the other teachers, and manage the organization (Kafka, 2009; Rousmaniere, 2009). Today, most principals do not teach classes, and although the role has always been multifaceted, it has grown increasingly complex and demanding. School organizations at the district, state, and federal level have grown, shaping the demands on principals. The role that schools play in communities has expanded, forcing the position of principal to grow in order to manage these new expectations.

The effective schools research of the 1970s and 1980s proposed that strong school leadership was an essential component of effective schools (see Edmonds, 1979). With that came greater emphasis on the role principals play and a shift from being largely managers to becoming instructional leaders. Instructional leadership became a driving aspect of the principalship, and school organizations and universities worked to give principals the skills to play this growing role. The standards and accountability era has pushed the principalship to expand again by placing greater demands on curricular change and alignment as well as testing and tracking student learning.

Numerous researchers argue that principals today face greater and greater challenges. More demands are placed on them along with greater accountability, with ever-shrinking resources (Kinney, 2003; Langer & Boris-Schacter, 2003; Marshall, 2004; Shields, Larocque, & Oberg, 2002; Strachan, 1997). Almost 20 years ago, principals had numerous interactions each day, up to 400, and up to 150 separate events (Manasse, 1985). Imagine what these numbers look like today.

Today, of the approximately 94,000 principals in this country, 80% are white and 55% male, with the number and percentage of women in school leadership growing (Battle, 2009). The role of these leaders is shifting again. Although principals are expected to manage their schools effectively and be instructional leaders, there is a growing call and need for them to be transformative leaders, to be turn-around leaders, and to be focused on issues of equity. This new push further stretches a very demanding role, but does so in a hopeful direction, as there is great potential power a principal can have to positively affect schools and children.

The Power of the Principal

There is certainly a compelling body of research and wisdom about the important role principals play in creating excellent schools and ensuring equitable learning opportunities for all students (see Cosier, Causton-Theoharis, & Theoharis, 2013; Peterson & Hittie, 2009). The principal has an indirect impact on student learning but plays a direct role in setting and improving the conditions that maximize that learning.

The principal has a direct impact on the scheduling of students, the placement of students into classrooms, the way those classes are set up, and the logistics of running the school. Equally important, the principal has direct impact on the human resources of the school—the quality of the teaching, the way in which the adults work or do not work together, and the expectations for the teachers and staff. In addition, the principal sets the tone and the climate of the school, affecting the school culture; how students, staff, and families are treated; and the general feel of the school. So although the principal does not directly control the math a student learns, he or she has tremendous power to improve the school and thus holds significant promise in creating inclusive learning environments.

Principals and Inclusive Schools

We know the role principals play in creating and maintaining inclusive schools is paramount. A number of researchers have studied principals in action and have learned key ideas and strategies that are common among examples of success in leading inclusive schools. The following section operationalizes the research examining the role principals play in creating inclusive schools for students with disabilities (see Capper & Frattura, 2008; Capper, Frattura, & Keyes, 2000; McLesky & Waldron, 2002; Pazey & Cole, 2013; Riehl, 2000; Theoharis, 2009). Consistently, principals who are successful at leading fully inclusive schools do the following:

• Set a bold, clear vision of full inclusion

• Engage in collaborative planning and implementation with their staff

• Develop and support teams of professionals

• Reduce fragmentation of initiatives

Setting a Bold, Clear Vision of Full Inclusion

Perhaps the most difficult and most important of these key strategies is laying out a clear vision of full inclusion. Our experience with K–12 schools and the research on this topic is clear that principals need to be out in front of their staffs championing this vision. Principals successful at this do not articulate the current status of inclusion as the goal, nor do they talk in platitudes such as “all children can learn.” They are specific in their vision and lofty in setting a high goal. They return to this vision to drive planning and to make decisions for the school in years to come.

Principal Meg describes the bold direction for her school:

We know that inclusive services are best for students with both significant and mild disabilities. We know that teams of professionals working in inclusive classrooms are better positioned to meet the needs of each learner in the classroom—the high flyer and the struggling student. I believe that each student in this school deserves full and unfettered access to general education, peers, and the general education teachers. This is not up for discussion, as we can and will successfully include all students who come to us. We will figure out how to do this together, but we will do this.

Principal Janice provides a powerful example of maintaining a focus on the vision during the transition to a fully inclusive model. After months of planning how to eliminate self-contained and pullout programs and fully include students with the proper supports in general education across her K–8 school, the service delivery plan was being unveiled by the school’s leadership team at a spring staff meeting. After the plan was discussed, Principal Janice stood up and said,

This is where we are going. We are not going back to the segregated ways of our past. It is no longer an option to exclude some students at this school. This team has worked very hard to come up with the best plan for next year. I recognize we all need support to do this. We will support each other in every way we can.

She continued,

I also recognize that some of you have serious reservations about this direction. I ask that you come with us as we work to make this school a model of inclusion, but if you feel this is not a direction you can head, I will help you find a position where you can be successful. No one here will be allowed to sabotage our efforts. I want each of you to make this work, but I can help you transfer to another school or another profession if you cannot be a part of this. We will become a model of inclusion; if you can’t be part of that I have a stack of transfer forms right here.

In the years that followed, when decisions were made or when staff were discussing how to meet the needs of students, Principal Janice was often heard asking, “How does that [particular initiative or structure] fit with our commitment to inclusive education?” Her insistence that total inclusion must not get sidelined by other matters and instead drive decision making was evident in all matters. She continues to keep a bold vision at the forefront of her school.

Engaging in Collaborative Planning and Implementation

In all of the schools we have studied and worked with that are focused on creating fully inclusive services, the decision to become more inclusive might not have been collaboratively set by the staff, but figuring out the best way to create inclusive services was accomplished through collaborative implementation. The principal needed to provide a direction, but she or he brought staff together—special education teachers, general education teachers, support staff such as occupational therapists (OTs) and speech-language pathologists (SLPs), and paraprofessionals—to figure out how the people in their school could make that happen. The planning and implementation was democratic.

Principal Olivia created a specialized leadership team to examine her school’s special education service delivery. She made this team open to all who wanted to attend. The team created a variety of options for using the school’s existing human resources to become fully inclusive and eliminate self-contained and pullout services. Once they had several ideas, the team worked together to make a coherent service delivery plan for the following year. The team, not the principal, then presented it to the staff to gain broader support.

As is the case with all new initiatives, there were some concerns and bumps in the road on the way to rolling out the plan. Initially, concerns were voiced at the beginning of implementation, and a number of staff got nervous and wanted to go back to the way things used to be, but Principal Olivia made sure the school stayed the course. She brought teachers together to problem-solve and address concerns, but she was clear that the school was not going back.

Every January, this service delivery team begins its work planning for the following year. The members look at the needs and grade levels of projected students for the following year and start making a plan. This is done collaboratively each winter to prepare for the following year. Principal Olivia makes sure this process happens each year but does not control it.

Although many specific attributes are unique to Principal Olivia’s school, it provides some key salient ideas for all schools. First, the staff worked together to make an implementation plan over several months. Second, the plan was not abandoned at the first or second or third implementation bump. Finally, given lessons learned and changes in students and staff, each year a team of staff begin thoughtfully planning how to implement a fully inclusive philosophy for the following year.

Developing and Supporting Teams

A key strategy that principals must engage in is to develop teams of specialists and generalists to carry out the fully inclusive plan. Developing teams takes on different forms, but their core goal is to bring together professionals who will share responsibility to work together to meet the needs of the wide range of learners in an inclusive setting under their joint care. This requires revising the roles many professionals have played in their schools for years and building trust and understanding between those members. It is essential that, in addition to developing teams, the principal supports those teams and provides them common planning time.

In an effort to develop teams at her high school, Principal Natalie assigned special education teachers to be content area special education teachers. This change meant her school no longer ran classes of specific content areas that were only for students in special education and no longer maintained self-contained special education programs. Now, all special education staff members were used to support students (i.e., co-plan and co-deliver instruction) in general education. Principal Natalie ensured special education teachers had common planning time with the content teachers they were directly working with and she treated those special education teachers as part of the content team. She provided time for each special education teacher over the summer to meet with, get to know, and become familiar with the content teachers and the school curriculum. Natalie found funds to pay her staff for this time. As time passed, the special education teachers became integral parts of many content area teams, bringing their expertise in differentiation, modification, individualization, and lesson planning.

In creating teams at the elementary level, Principal Tracy paired special education teachers with two or three classroom teachers at his school. Each year Tracy took teacher volunteers who were interested in working together, and this provided the majority of special education and general education teams, but each year he had to make a couple of teams based on who he saw as the best partners for that year. Those teaching teams were given time to meet each week and were expected to use it. In addition, Principal Tracy used professional development monies to provide team-building time before each school year began and provided as much paid time after school as needed (or used half-day substitute teachers) so the teams could work together co-planning and co-creating their instructional program.

Middle school Principal Tim provides support and common planning time as well. Tim works and reworks the master schedule each spring. During this process, he makes sure staffing is such that all students with disabilities are in general education classrooms; the school no longer uses sections of pullout classes or self-contained special education programs. Principal Tim uses all of his general and special education staff to make up teams that will co-plan and co-deliver instruction. He does not have the human resources to have one special education teacher in each room or to allow his special education teachers to collaborate with one or two general education teachers, but he does not allow this to be a barrier to a fully inclusive service model—he spreads his special education support across enough rooms that students with disabilities are not overloaded into one section. He balances that with a reasonable number of general education teachers for his special education staff to plan with. He gathers feedback from his staff to drive this process. He carefully works the schedule and staffing plan, creating common planning time for grade-level teams and, perhaps more important, for smaller instructional teams of special and general educators.

In addition, we have seen a number of principals, including some of those mentioned...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• About the Forms
• About the Authors
• Foreword: Richard A. Villa
• Acknowledgments
• 1: The Principal’s Role in Inclusive Schools
• 2: Special Education
• 3: Inclusive Education
• 4: Leading Inclusive School Reform
• 5: The Backbone of Inclusion: Leading Effective Collaboration
• 6: Rethinking Students: Presuming Competence
• 7: Providing Academic Supports
• Appendix: Useful Web Sites and Resources for Assistive Technology
• 8: Providing Behavioral Supports
• 9: Supporting You, Supporting Them: Caring for Yourself
• Appendix: Self-Care Books
• References
• Index