Episode 20: Creating Inclusive & Equitable Learning Environments

On today's episode, we welcome our guest, Doctor Jennifer Spencer-Iiams. During our conversation, we discuss Leading for All: How to Create Truly Inclusive and Excellent Schools, a book she co-wrote with Josh Flosi, and why it is important for everyone at all levels in the school district, including the students, to be part of the inclusive education initiatives.

Transcript

Arthur: This is the Inclusion Think Tank podcast brought to you by New Jersey Coalition for Inclusive Education, NJCIE, where we talk about inclusive education, why it works, and how to make it happen. On today's episode, we welcome our guest, Doctor Jennifer Spencer-Iiams.

During our conversation, we discuss Leading for All: How to Create Truly Inclusive and Excellent Schools, a book she co-wrote with Josh Flosi, and why it is important for everyone at all levels in the school district, including the students, to be part of the inclusive education initiatives.

Arthur: So I would like to welcome everyone back to another episode of the Inclusion Think Tank podcast presented by the New Jersey Coalition for Inclusive Education. I'm your host, Arthur Aston, and I am joined today by my guest Jennifer Spencer-Iiams. And thank you so much for joining me today. Jennifer, it's great to see you again virtually. 

Jennifer: It's great to see you as well. Arthur, thanks so much. 

Arthur: Yes. Yeah. So you and I, we met in person over the summer when you were here in New Jersey doing a presentation during our summer conference for the New Jersey Coalition for Inclusive Education, and I had the honor of sitting in on both of your sessions for that conference and learned so much. So I'm really excited for you to be a guest on the podcast today and to share your story with everyone.

Jennifer: Well, it was so much fun for me to get to actually trek back to New Jersey. I had the opportunity to speak with folks right in the height of COVID as a plenary speaker, but it was virtual, and the summer was so much more fun to be there in person.

I got to meet some of my own heroes and the work of inclusion there and get to know some new people who were new to me, such as yourself, and just to share that common vision of all students being included and successful and having lots of belonging. So it was really a pleasure. 

Arthur: Yes. Yeah, it was. That was a fun, fun day. And, you know, it's great to meet you and so many other people and to learn all about your journey and your story.

So thank you again for joining us. And we can get started and into the first question, which is, can you tell us about yourself? Can you tell us who you are and what you do? And I like to ask people to tell us something fun that they like to do in their free time, which nobody seems to have much of. 

Jennifer: Well, that's true in education. I think free time is quite limited. But I live here in the Pacific Northwest in the Willamette Valley, which is quite famous for its local wines, Pinot Noir in particular.

So that's a fun thing I like to do. I like to visit local wineries sometimes on the weekend and get to know the people who work there and their passion for cultivation and their attention to detail. And yeah, it's just interesting, their connection with the land and I don't like to drink wine if I don't know who made it. So it's a fun way to connect and really hear the stories of folk. So that's my little fun connection there.

Arthur:  That's great. And for your profession, you are the assistant superintendent for school districts there.

Jennifer: Yeah, right now I have the pleasure of being assistant superintendent for the West Linn-Wilsonville School District, which is on the south side of the Portland metro area. So most people around the country will know where Portland is, and it's one of the medium-sized districts on the south end of that metro area.

And I've been there for 11 years and it's a terrific place to be a wonderful community. And it's been quite a journey to land in that district. But that's where I am now. And I get to support our high schools, support our student services, lots of amazing things that are happening right now in our school district. 

Arthur: That's great. again, I sat in both of your sessions during that conference and just hearing all of the great work that you all are doing there is really impressive. And I always bring it up in the podcast, growing up with a disability myself to see the way that education has changed in such a positive direction for those living with disabilities. Those young people living with disabilities is really encouraging to see, and it really does make me happy too, to know that these changes are being made. And, it's just really rewarding to be a part of, you know, just hosting a podcast and sharing people's experiences and stories.

So it's great to know that you're doing that work out there in the Portland area. And I went there once and it was great. It was amazing. I can't wait to get back out there sometime soon.

Jennifer: We would love you to come. We'd love to host you.  I think I appreciate you sharing a little bit about your story, your experience. And I think, you know, when I was going to school a million years ago, similarly, I had a couple of experiences around how we include or exclude students with disabilities. We had, I can remember in kindergarten, a student with some physical disabilities and differences being part of our class right from the beginning and how important that was and how it was just not ever questioned in terms of the work there.

And yet at the same time, there was a separate building with some students with intellectual and other sorts of disabilities where they weren't even in the school. And so I remember that and I remember the difference of what it's like to grow up with what is just assumed to be who belongs and what are the barriers that we put up or the beliefs that allow us to still have some students who ‘don't belong’ in many school districts? 

So I think those early experiences that we have can impact us to want to push for change. But it's also one of the things that keeps perpetuating segregated schooling.

As people grew up with it that way, they assume that's the way it is. And so trying to interrupt that generational way that students experience school is a big part of this work. 

Arthur: Yes, that is so important. What you just said, that our experiences can take us in one direction or the other. It can lead us to continue to leave things the way they are, because that's what people are used to. It seems to work. So that's what we will stick with. Or it can also draw attention to, like you said, who belongs and who you know ‘doesn't belong.’ Or that's how they would like you to view that and make you want to make a change in that in that way.

So that was there when you said that? I was like, ‘oh, my goodness. Wow!” 

Arthur: So our next question is about a book that you recently co-wrote with Josh Flossie called “Leading for All How to Create Truly Inclusive and Excellent Schools.”

The book focuses on the why, the how and what of inclusion. And in that book, you share components of inclusive and equitable learning communities. Can you share with us just two of those components of the inclusive and equitable learning communities?

Jennifer: Absolutely. And I will take a moment and just give a shout out to my co-author, Josh. Josh is currently in Tanzania working at an international school and he is leading the work for inclusion there. International schools have not always been inclusive of students who experience disability and he is really doing the work.

He recently spoke at a conference in Dubai for Inclusive Education, so it's just exciting to see how when you really see the importance of this work and the different ways that we're all working together to create change.

So that's a little shout out to Josh there. And Josh and I worked closely together here in the West Linn-Wilsonville school district. And as we made change and started saying every student should be at their neighborhood school, we shouldn't have any self-contained classrooms at their neighborhood school.

Every student should experience belonging and acceptance in the general ed classroom, and with the IEP process, some students can have some differing levels of support or schedules or things, whatever it is they need. We can continue to individualize as students need those things, while at the same time creating general education environments that more students' needs are met in and without specialized accommodations or schedules or things like that. 

Jennifer: So it's kind of a both-and there, and we started making the shift without necessarily having a clear framework that we were living into and quickly realized as we want this to be long-term, sustainable, and as we bring new teachers into the work, how do we kind of centralize the main things to be thinking about in every classroom so that every classroom is a place where all students can belong? And that's how we came up with our seven components of inclusive and equitable learning communities.

Folks that look at that will say, maybe say, they will likely recognize a lot of the principles in there. I say there's nothing there's no new rocket science in there, but it's how do we put things together and use a framework so that we essentialize within our district and have a common vocabulary to think about what all students need. 

Jennifer: And you've asked me to highlight just two of them. I will say they all work together. You can't just do part of it and you need to work all together. But one of them I'm going to highlight one on rituals, routines, and recognition.

We just actually did some learning walks last week where we were in and out of classrooms. And one of the things we were looking at was the presence of routines, rituals, and recognition and how those can facilitate inclusion and student independence.

And it was quite powerful. We were in some third grade classrooms and seen some of the routines and rituals that were in place for literacy learning. It really allowed all students to engage because they know what to expect.

There's sort of a template of: this is the routine that we do. Everyone's doing that routine. And then within there, if you have a student who maybe experiences an intellectual developmental disability, you can build some things into that routine that allow access points.

So you're not reinventing the wheel every day, and so that the student knows what more to expect. It really helps staff approach this work of: how do I plan for all students with lots of variability around what students need each and every day?

Having routines that are familiar to students helps it be sustainable for the teachers and helps it be accessible for the students. So I think that's an incredibly important part of the work. 

Jennifer: The other one I would highlight is relationships with high expectations.

So one of the challenges of the old model, and I started out as a general education teacher. I worked as a special education teacher for a while in a self-contained classroom, and I always tried to be inclusive with my students, maybe mainstreaming, quote unquote, into a classroom for part of the day.

But the students knew that wasn't really their class, that the special ed classroom was their class. And so as we shift this thinking and we have students really experience that belonging in the general ed class, they may also still work with a special education teacher, or there may be a paraeducator who's providing some supports, or an occupational therapist who's coming in to provide some some instruction or thinking or adaptations as we go.

But, we have to really invest in that relationship with the classroom teacher and the student who experiences disability because that teacher is leading that classroom, and so we have to shift some of the things that we do to allow that teacher to build relationships and to hold those high expectations that this student can learn. The student can learn at high levels. And I'm never going to put a cap on what their experiences might be.

So I'll give you an example of this. A couple of years ago, when we were early in this journey where it was now, luckily we've been in this a while, so it's very expected and our teachers are all connected to this work in really deep ways.

Jennifer: But when we were early in this journey and we had a student who had some significant educational support needs and had some significant communication challenges, and we were having him in a fifth-grade classroom because he's a fifth grader and he's part of the fifth-grade class.

The fifth-grade teacher met with us and said, ‘I'm open to this, but I don't know what to do. I have never worked with a student like this before,’ and the way this student was, especially early on, where he was still getting used to the rituals and the routines in the classroom. The way he expressed himself was pretty different from other students, and it was not in this general ed teacher's experience to have worked with a student like this before. 

So one of the things we did was we got a substitute for that teacher. Because the teacher believed the paraeducator knew the student more than he did, which was probably true.

And so he just deferred to the parent educator on everything. And he hadn't developed a relationship with that student because he didn't know him. So we got a substitute and so just spent the day shadowing and getting to know this student.

It made such a difference. After that day, he greeted and connected with that student in new ways. He was not fearful of connecting with that student. He had some different ways of engaging. He had that ownership of this student is just as much a part of my class as everyone else, and I need some help from the learning specialist to continue to find ways for him to have access points to learning and shadow his learning. And so that partnership really flourished with that teacher and the special education teacher, the learning specialist. But what really shifted was the relationship with that general education teacher and that student and how it raised expectations for him.

And it changed the status in the classroom because now other students see that teacher connecting with that student as a human being instead of kind of being afraid or deferring. He really brought him into the classroom. So that's just one example around how we have to support and encourage relationships.

Jennifer: We all need that. We learn with people that we feel safe with, that we feel care about us and that believe in us. So every student needs that, and we need to empower our teachers to invest in those relationships and hold those high expectations for all students.

Arthur: That is so true. The relationships are so important. I shared on an earlier podcast: As adults, we can all think back to like those few teachers who really, took an interest in us and got to know us and understand us.

And for me, like, math wasn't my strong subject. And I can remember those math teachers that were like, “Okay, come in before class, stay after class. Like, we'll help you figure this out.” Like, we all have those teachers that we can remember from our childhood that really invested in us and got to know us and, really took the time to help us learn. 

Arthur: So thank you for sharing those two things and especially about the relationships and relationship building, because that is such a valuable component to making things work and inclusive education and just in education in general, I think. I appreciated that.

Arthur:  So our season for the podcast or I should say, our goal for the podcast this season is to highlight leadership roles. And as a leader in your district, what can you say that you found to be the most challenging with getting your district to being more inclusive?

Jennifer: I have to say it has been a challenging journey and the most rewarding thing I've ever done. School districts are giant cruise ships. You know, they are big organizations that have many parts and many people.

And it is hard to turn a cruise ship. Right. It takes planning. It takes all the equipment in the equipment room working the right way. It takes the people who are in the pilots and their captains of the ship moving things in the right way.

It just takes a lot of effort. And so. I know I have so many colleagues around that are in that work and sometimes can get frustrated when they aren't feeling the movement going fast enough.

And that's a good thing. We should be dissatisfied with schools that are not inclusive, and we need to recognize that it takes time, it takes effort, and be kind to ourselves as leaders as we do this work.

Jennifer: I think what's so incredibly important is that one person is not shifting that cruise ship.

It is an entire crew. So I have had the joy of getting to document our journey and to have sometimes been the face of some of the work. But it's not my work as a solo person out there kind of trying Don Quixote style to change things.

It has been absolutely teaming, teaming, teaming 100% of the time. So as a leader, you have to constantly be looking for how are you bringing folks in to the learning, helping everyone connect with their own why.  

Jennifer: Because the great thing is with trying to make change around inclusive education is educators all went into this work because they care about kids. They all went into this work because they want to make the world a better place. So when you can connect them with, ‘Oh, my goodness, did you know that there's 35-40 years of research around inclusive education?’

Did you know that it actually benefits the students who experience disabilities and the students who don't experience disabilities? Did you know? So when you connect people with that way of understanding and give them permission to try something differently, to change roles to sometimes shift a unit personnel and it most people I'm finding that people get excited we get on board.

Jennifer:  Our role as leaders to continue to highlight that continue to bring the celebrations forward help people develop that sense of collective efficacy, that we can change this because we are changing it.

So you can see those efforts. You see those efforts work and you reflect it back, which gets people more excited to keep on that change. It is challenging. You got to stay focused. You have to continue to be laser-like focused on the mission.

And there are many educators that will talk about things like initiative fatigue, like, oh, our district was committed to PBIS and now they're not, or we developed this new reading program and now we did it. And so there can be this sense of, Oh, I'll just stay in my classroom and wait this initiative out.

This, too, shall pass. It is critical that we don't think about inclusive education as an initiative or this new thing we're trying out. It has to be at the core of your district's mission as important as anything else that you are committed to.

As important as making sure all students are readers. Right. It has to be right there in the core. So I think the challenge is continuing to do that, continuing to bring folks into the understanding of why thinking about all the stakeholders that are involved.

Sometimes when people start this work, they're thinking about the special education teachers, huge stakeholders in this group, but not more important than the general education teachers. And what about the parents of students who experience disability that maybe in the past the IEP team has said it's best for this child to be in a self-contained classroom and now suddenly they're saying it's not! It’s best for this child to be included. So we can't be surprised that parents might say, wait a minute, so you're really changing what you thought. Yes, we are, based on everything we know. But equally important are parents of students who don't experience disability.

Jennifer: How are they being brought into this conversation about how this is a value add for their children? And I will tell you, I've had a couple of families that have reached out to me. We've had many families that have reached out to us of children who experience disability, who have moved to our district to make sure their children are included, which makes me both happy and sad. 

I'm so happy to welcome families, but also people should not have to move for their child to be included. Should not depend on your zip code. So that's another story, but we've also had some families that have moved here whose children don't experience disability, but they've moved here because we're inclusive. And that's a powerful statement. 

It's as families recognize the value of just embracing all students to think about all of us have strengths, all of us have things we're working on and learning, and we can do that work together. 

Arthur: Wow. That is a really powerful statement that they're moving there because of, you know, that their child doesn't experience disability, but they're moving there for the inclusivity of your district. That is great.

And that's the world that we want to live in where everybody is included. And as a person with a disability, I'm right next to someone without a disability. And that's really great.

And for our last question, I think we touched on it a little bit already, but after I met you, I was really interested in the work that you do there. And I began looking up things about your district, and I read an article in which you were quoted as saying: 

“Students, no matter what their learning style or why they are receiving special education, they need to feel like they belong with their peers. They need to feel part of the work. They need to be engaged and challenged, all students.” 

Arthur: I read that and I was like, Oh my gosh. Like it's so simple what you said, but it's like, it's great. So I wanted you to touch on why you feel that it is important to have everyone at all levels within the district on board for inclusion, including the students too.

Jennifer: Wow. Yeah. And it's such a simple statement and such a hard-to-achieve statement at the same time. And that's why we have lots of job security and education, because the work is ongoing, aspirational in many ways, because kids, naturally, a part of their development is learning where they fit with the world, and that can sometimes be a painful process for any young person they go through moments of this is the best thing and this is challenging and do my friends really like me? And, where do I fit and who are my people?

And that part of that is that developmental road that students are on. What's really important, and as we think about being an inclusive district, is how do we have factors of identity, such as disability or race or home language, not overshadow that natural process that students are going through around trying to figure out where they fit with the world and how they connect with peers, and what are their interests and how are they developing. 

Where we have those beliefs or underlying biases around those factors of identity overshadow and kind of derail that natural process of kids trying to figure out how they fit and where they belong 

Jennifer: You talk about why is it so important to have everyone on board? It's just so critical. The more that we're in this work, the more I see the inter-relationship. So an example. Was thinking about our business office. Very early in this work you discover if people can talk about the importance of inclusive education and overall, I think money shouldn’t be a yes or a no for inclusion. Right. And depending on how you set things up, it could be more or less expensive.

That’s not the that's not the variable we're focused on, we're focusing on what's right for kids. But there can be some shifts in costs for sure. Some things go up and some things go down as you reorganize your schools.

And if your business department isn't fully invested in this work, there may be barriers to moving forward in things that you know is right. We're very, very lucky. We talk about and include questions about your beliefs around inclusion for every employee, every employee, our business director, our custodial staff, our H.R. Department, math teachers, grounds crew. Everybody is asked about their beliefs or at least their openness to inclusion and then helping folks find their connection to that work. So that connection can happen in a lot of different ways in our operations department.

Really shifting that belief and inclusive education has helped us ramp up when we need a ramp or, you know, sometimes when we need something. I think I told this story in the book. I actually saw this student, she’s not a student anymore, a graduate that comes back and is now in college. We hope we're going to hire her as special ed teacher soon. She uses a wheelchair. And she was very involved in high school. Just a student who really found a great peer group and really connected. And one of the things they do is go to football on the Friday nights.

Jennifer: That was part of her peer group’s connection is just being part of the student body and getting into those fun activities. And we had a stadium that was ADA compliant, quote unquote, but the seating that was wheelchair accessible was nowhere near the student section.

It was in a different space than the stadium. And she. She came to us and she brought forward why this was not working for her, and we were able to get our physical therapist, operations chief, and her and the building principal out there that evening.

The next day on a Thursday afternoon, looking at another possible solution that because the maintenance department was fully on board, they diverted all their resources from other projects that next day they built a new platform Friday morning. So on Friday evening, she was at the game with her friends.

And that matters. It matters that students are on board with this in that it was a big deal not only to her but to her friends, that she had accessibility. We've had students be part of our leadership team in this work, and I think we could even do a better job at continuing to think about how do we listen more to the voices of students in this.

Jennifer:  I was on a learning walk the other day. We were in an elementary school and I had a student, I believe a second grade student, maybe third. And I said to him, Do you know that we're out here today because we're bringing some people from other districts, because in other districts not all kids are included in the same classrooms, and sometimes students with disabilities in other districts have to be in a separate classroom, and they can't be in the classroom with their friends and their peers.

And that student looked at me and he said, ‘What do you mean, in Oregon, nowadays?’ He was shocked because it has become so expected that of course everyone belongs and of course everyone should be in together. So I think it's critical.

I think it's ongoing work that in some ways the more you're in this work, everyone, it’s shifts that work. What I'm excited about is we're going to have a generation of students, in another year that will have never seen anything else but inclusive education.

And what does that mean for employment? What does that mean for colleges, universities? What does that mean for just our communities? When students experience an education, an inclusive world, how will they bring that out into their next steps as well?

Arthur: Yes, I'm so glad you shared the story about the student with the accessible seating at the football game. I was going to ask you if you could share that story, but I'm so glad you did, because it really is, like you said, ADA compliant means one thing. It just means that there has to be accessible seating. It doesn't say where it has to be. And, you know, and a lot of times designs just put them in the easiest place they can, you know, fit it into the design.

But if that's away from where everybody else is sitting, it's not fun to sit by myself, you know, at a game or something like that. So to have the student speak up and be comfortable enough to say something about it, that's really great.

That's fantastic. So that's I was going to ask you to share that story. I was like, oh, my gosh, I'm so glad she's talking about it. 

Jennifer: Well, she is. She's just as I said, she's worked on our leadership team for inclusive schools. She's now interested. She wants to become an educator. She's in school now and is getting her degree and is coming back and is doing student teaching right now in one of our schools. And so I'm just waiting for the day when I can hire her.

She's truly amazing. 

Arthur: That's great. And the other story you shared about the student you met the other day, and it's so interesting how children, like you said, they don't know anything else but inclusion. So when they see it, when they see that it's not happening, other places, they're just like, wait, what?

Like, I don't I don't understand. I've had experiences with that with my friend’s children who go to our local playgrounds that are inclusive playgrounds. And when I share with them, when I was your age, they didn't have these and I wasn't able to use my wheelchair on the playground.

They are just like, ‘Huh? Like you didn't?’ I said, Well, I was able to walk with my crutches, but it wasn't, you know, it wasn't easy for me. Like, but they didn't have this nice surfacing here, so I can really get around on my wheelchair. And you're just like, Well, why not? 

Jennifer: And they're just indignant. Right. That's not fair. Kids have a strong sense of fairness. Yes. So when we can nurture and hope and include that disability in that same conversation, then they won't accept that unfairness, the challenges.

And in the olden times or sadly, in many districts nowadays, students are being brought into schools that are segregated, and so they think that's normal or typical. And again, I think there are for the adults who are still…

Back to a previous question. We talked about what's challenging in this work. What's challenging is the underlying beliefs because people go into education for the right reasons. I truly believe that they want to help, and help students. And when things are hard, it's easy to think there's someone out there that could probably do this better than I could.

Jennifer: So for example, back to the teacher I talked about earlier in the fifth grade class who ended up developing that strong relationship with that student. In the old model, that student would have been taken to a different classroom with someone with great expertise in supporting students who don't use oral language, who have developmental disabilities, things like that, and that was the model that we in this country engaged in for so long. Of you, General Ed teacher, you don't have the expertise. Someone else has the expertise. So there's still when things get hard because sometimes they're hard, right?

Jennifer: Sometimes we don't understand our students trying to express with the behaviors that they are expressing or we haven't found a good entry point for our students or they're not feeling very connected. So it's very easy when things get hard to go back to that model.

Surely there's someone else out there, some magical place out there where the student would be better served. And I think that is what continues to perpetuate segregated classrooms. I don't think it's nefarious. I think people that are in education, want to do what's best for kids.

But we need to take stock and stop thinking magically about this and really look at the data. And the data is, when we do it well, they're much better served in their neighborhood school, in the general classroom, with supports, variations, adaptations, schedule changes as an individual child needs.

But that magical thinking about when it's hard, there's someone else out there that could do this better really needs to shift, because it's not true. We look at the outcomes of segregated classrooms. They're not good. And so we just need to be honest about that.

Not shame people for having had those beliefs, but call them in with some honesty about what is true, what we are seeing. By and large, for poor students as we move forward.

Arthur:  Well, Jennifer, I think you have said it all. I enjoyed our conversation today and thank you for taking the time to meet with me. And with the time difference, you being on the West Coast and me on the East Coast and making it work. Thank you so much for that. And I look forward to working with you again and talking with you and seeing you sometime soon, hopefully.

Jennifer: Sounds great. Thank you so much, Arthur. It's been a pleasure.

Arthur:  Oh, you're welcome. And you have a good day and a good weekend. 

Jennifer: All right, thanks. 

Arthur: We thank you for listening to this episode of the Inclusion Think Tank Podcast.

This podcast is brought to you by New Jersey Coalition for Inclusive Education NJCIE. Be sure to subscribe on YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and don't forget to follow us on social media @NJCIE,  Until next time.