Episode 29: Celebrating Each Success

On today’s episode, I welcome my guest Alison Zylinski. Alison is the Director of Special Services for Bradley Beach School District. She is one of NJCIE’s Honors recipients of 2023. Join our conversation as we explore what inclusive education means to Alison, and what advice she has for districts that think inclusion is difficult to achieve.

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. The NJCIE Honors recognizes local champions who are making a difference in inclusive education for schools. Children and families in New Jersey. On today's episode, I welcome my guest, Alison Zylinski.

Alison is the director of Special services for Bradley Beach School District. She is one of NJCIE honors recipients of 2023. Join our conversation as we explore what inclusive education means to Alison and what advice she has for districts that think inclusion is difficult to achieve.

Arthur: I would like to welcome everyone back to the Inclusion Think Tank podcast brought to you by New Jersey Coalition for Inclusive Education. I'm your host, Arthur Aston, and I am happy to welcome my guest to the podcast today, Alison Zylinski.

And thank you for joining me today for this episode and to share your story and your experience.

Alison: Well, thanks for inviting me. I'm very excited to talk about inclusion today.

Arthur: Yes. So we have you on as a guest today because you were recently awarded with the NJCIE Honors as one of the recipients for this year.

And so we are really excited about that and the work that you're doing. So I'm looking forward to having you, you know, share all the great things you're doing there in your school district.

Alison: Thank you.

Arthur: Yes. So to start off the conversation, can you just share a little bit with the audience about yourself, who you are, what you do, and some things you like to do in your free time? If you have any free time.

Alison: So I am a social worker. I started in community mental health. I started my career working with families and children involved in the Division of Youth and Family Services, which is now our division of child protection and permanency. And so I used to do what's called family preservation. I used to go into families and try to help the families maintain custody of their children.

So whatever needed to happen happened. And so that really started my career working with families and working with children. I've always been really excited about education. I've always enjoyed being a student.

And so when the opportunity came to go into school social work, it was a natural fit for me. And so I've been a school social worker for probably almost 25 years, and I've been at Bradley Beach here for 18 years.

And I never thought I'd be here that long. I started as a part-time school social worker here and just worked and just fell in love with the community and serving this community, it's really been sort of like my passion, my life's work. And so this is where I chose to stay for that long. And I don't know where my path will take me in the future, but here I am.

Alison: I have four children at home, so I don't have a lot of free time. So when I'm not working because work takes up a lot of my time, I'm trying to be a mom to them and spend time with my family. Fun fact is, I'm a snowboarder, so you might not think that, but I started snowboarding in my twenties and my husband and I still enjoy doing it. So all my kids, I taught all my kids how to snowboard, so that was fun.

Arthur: Oh, that's fun. Yeah, it is. It's a lot of fun. My friends, they always find, like, random things on Instagram or TikTok of, like, accessible extreme sports. And they're just like, You have to try it.

Alison: Yeah. I am not extreme. My board does not leave the snow,

Arthur: They are like, you have to try it. Look, it's accessible. And I'm like, Yeah, okay.

So yeah that seems like a lot of fun. I'll definitely be checking that out, one of these days for sure.

Arthur: So I always like to ask this question of our guest and that is what does inclusive education mean to you?

Alison: It means equality.

It means everyone having equal access to good instruction and to the general education curriculum. And I feel like that's the starting point. Here we have a mindset that when we do have a child that's eligible for services, we go with what do they need? Not where or what placement are we putting or what program are we putting them in?

Because here it's assumed they're staying in their current class, in their current program. Where we going to fill in those needs and help them access what they need to access to progress and to support them.

Alison: So it's equality and over the years seeing comparing because I worked in schools for a long time and I've worked in schools with self-contained classrooms and I've worked with pull-out resource classrooms and seeing that and honestly, the progression of students educational skills and abilities, it doesn't really change whether you're in a smaller class or a larger class.

But what does change is their ability to form relationships with their typical developing peers and their friends in the general education classroom.

Alison: It limits their ability to access rich conversation and really hear from a wide range of students with a wide range of abilities. And so so we're removing those limits and just giving students what they need and it's not always, it's sometimes it's a challenge sometimes.

But when you have students with learning challenges, it's filling in where they have those weaknesses and working with their strengths. When you have students with behavioral challenges, it's a lot of work in trying to support them and have them correct them, which is difficult because sometimes it can, disrupt the classroom and what's going on.

But we've had great success here because we are very like a family here. And it's all about relationships. And I truly believe I know that we've saved lives because some of my students that we've been able to maintain in general education if they were in another district, they probably would have been placed out of district.

When you when you change a child's trajectory and put them in an out of district, then their their path back is very long and difficult. And whether it would even happen. So I don't know. It's one case at a time. It's one student at a time. Everybody's different. General education. Kids are different as much as special education students.

Alison: And I also supervise our English Language Learner program. And so it's the inclusion is about them, too. It's about, although they are learning English as a second language, they should also have access to general education just like everybody else and then filling in what they need.

Arthur: I love that you've said that every individual is that, they're an individual.

So, inclusion may look different for them and it may look different for the next student. And that's just so true. And it's so important to mention. So I'm glad that you brought that up.

And also the students who are learning English and the challenges they may face making things inclusive for them and helping them learn is also, you know, really important to mention.

So I'm glad you brought those those two things up.

Arthur: Also in your introduction of yourself, you mentioned that you are working with the Bradley Beach School District and you are the director of special services there. So can you share with us some of the ways that you and your colleagues there have worked to make your school more inclusive?

Alison: It's been it's been a process, but I feel like it's become part of our culture here. And it started not when I was in this position. I certainly did not ignite this, but I've really supported it and made it sort of my vision to extend it and, grow it.

One of the things is when you start in preschool and you have all kids coming into preschool and you're saying all your kids belong in a preschool class together, there shouldn't be a separate class for preschool because they're all learning how they're learning social and emotional skills and some academic readiness skills.

But just learning how to be a learner is what they're doing in preschool. And so all children come into preschool and some are ready to be learners and some don't even know where to begin. And then we're supporting them through that process. But that’s where we start. And then so when we start with preschool and we support them and we give them what they need, they're then that naturally progresses into kindergarten.

And you certainly need the support of resources. You need the support of your board. And our Board of Education here at Bradley Beach has been very supportive of making sure that we have the resources that we need. And because, I mean, in reality, if I just said a bunch of like all our resource classes, I could take my students out of Gen-Ed, and I can service them with much less staff, you know, and but that's really not in their benefit. That's not what they need.

Alison: That’s not life. When they leave, when they leave education, they're not going to have somebody make accommodations for them in different settings. And in the workplace. And so it's really it's really kind of continuing and growing. You know, some of the foundations that we had here and having an administration team that is in favor of inclusion and having a board of education, of favor and willing to support those resources and seeing what a difference it makes in our students because you can see it everywhere when you see it on the playground because students that have they have a disability, but they're socializing and interacting with their peers just like anybody else.

They're forming those relationships. It makes it all worthwhile. And I see it every day, so it makes it really special.

Arthur: What you just said is really special that, you know, you have all of the support, like you said, from the school board to the administration level down to all of the people you work with and see every day in your school building.

And the fact of starting it, like you said from the very beginning and preschool that this is what a classroom looks like. And most importantly, this is what the world looks like when you're outside of the classroom. Everybody is together and, having that, visual at such a young age that, everybody belongs here together is very strong and very powerful to to see.

The students will remember that for sure, as they grow older and the experiences they've had there.

Arthur: So you mentioned that you have been at Bradley Beach for so many years. Can you share just one of the many student success stories that you have seen during your time there at the District?

Alison: Just one?

Arthur: Well, you can share a few if you'd like.

Alison: I’m passionate about reading. I think reading is essential for all students, all individuals to be able to function in our world. And so when I do when we do have struggling readers, it's it is a big concern.

And that's really where I'm going to focus a lot of attention on is to see those students progress in that area. And we have great reading specialists here. We have some good investments, a good programs. We have great special education teachers here that are supporting those students and developing those skills. And I've seen I've seen pretty incredible cases of students.

A lot of times we get students that are that are identified as eligible for special education. They come in from different districts and they might come in at third grade or fourth grade, and they're reading on a first-grade level. And so we we put them in, we give them intervention and we monitor their progress. And I've seen I've seen a handful of students move up three or four grade levels and get right near like right near below grade level in their reading, which is which is tremendous.

So The good thing about us is we're small. I know every student's first name and so you're not going to fall through the cracks and we're going to and everyone's going to do our best to make sure that you have everything that we can provide you before you leave here, for our students.

We are a pre-K to 8 District. So then they do go on to high school. So that's really our focus.

Alison: So I've had students that have said I remember when I came here and I couldn't read and now I can read. They say I remember when I couldn't read and because I came here, you know, later on, like in their mid-primary years and they remember struggling with that and now they can and I can probably name right now, five different students that have just made incredible growth in that area and so that's really great.

I have five students on the spectrum that we have in our Gen-Ed classroom who are with very social peers. And so they become part of their classroom. And they develop social relationships. And we know that that's one of the areas where students on the spectrum with autism they struggle with that social piece, that communication piece.

And so I always think to myself, like if you're in an autism program, and you're you struggle with that socialization, communication and you're in a classroom with other students that are likely struggle with socialization and communication, and how is that going to help support your socialization of communication? If everyone else is struggling and maybe the teacher doesn't struggle, maybe the teacher can do that for you, but that's not natural.

And so I don't know. I feel like looking at those those students with deficits in their communication and their socialization and their language is they need to be in language-rich environments. And that's Gen-Ed, and that's not self-contained. So just those are a couple of examples of what we do as far as academics.

Alison: And then we've had really significant behavioral challenges. We've had students that came here and we worked really hard to get their behavior under control and then they would leave. They left and in their new district, they were put in a classroom and then they came back to us. We put them right back into Gen-Ed, and it and it and it worked.

And we were able to give them what they needed emotionally, and socially. And so for them to function and, at times it's a lot of work and you question it and you wonder how long to go on, but those are just some examples of what we're able to do here.

Alison: And I know one of your questions was, are we able to do it because we're small?

Yes or no.

I don't think it's impossible at other places. But I just feel like you have to be dedicated to the cause. You have to be dedicated. You have to be you have to have the resources to be able to do that. And you have to know that it’s worth it. It's all that effort and energy is certainly benefits these students.

Arthur: Yes. Yes. To everything that you've said. It's great. It's really great. It has to be rewarding for you all to hear, like you said, those stories of students who have gone on to high school and beyond to come back and say, I remember like you said, when I couldn't read, but, I worked with you all and you all worked with those students and, taught them how to read and things like that.

And that's just it's really, really heartwarming for me to hear like those types of success stories because that's what they really are. It's a true success and I think a testament to, as you mentioned before, the dedication that you have from everybody in the district at all levels who are so committed to helping to make these changes happen and then to make the inclusion, part of the culture of the district and of what the students see and experience every day.

Alison: And we definitely set up a structure like that. We have tried to develop, and one of my focuses is, providing time within the school day to give students what they need. So when they do need more they're not missing something to get something.

And it doesn't always work that some of our students need a lot. And there's not only great time within the schedule to a certain amount right? Because there's a lot that we have to fill within a student's schedule. But even given a little bit of that time so that when we do include kids, we are able to give them supplemental instruction.

In the middle school, there are a lot of times they're not working on those basic skills anymore. But if that's what they need, then we kind of deliver that through a supplemental instruction type of program in that is what I need period to support their learning.

And our teachers are great with that because we have a strong M.T.S.S. program, too. So even before they get to special education, we're doing intervention with them.

We're doing tier one, two, three, or we're getting them, when they're not making progress, we move on, and then sometimes they do come to me. But when they come to special ed, when we do test them and we evaluate them, it might change the sum of the services that we give them. But it doesn't change their placement or their program.

Alison: We just provide them with additional programming. So that kind of strategic planning in your master schedule in seeing how that you can accommodate has to be a priority of everybody’s. Your district has to allow you to do that, and be okay with that.

I feel like it's good for all students because even students who might not need reading intervention at that time. Some students are high fliers and they can get enrichment. They can be pushed a little further. Or sometimes students need a lot of remediation. They might not need consistent intervention, but maybe they are having trouble comprehending a certain lesson or unit, and the teacher had the opportunity to come back to them and work with them on areas where they're struggling.

So it's really it's really beneficial for all learners, as far as I'm concerned. And so it allows that time.

My teachers are fantastic. My, instructional days are fantastic. They, make sure the students have what they need. They're always coming to me. I want to pull Johnny out and I want to I want to I want to work with him during during the period because I feel like he needs help in this area.

I’m not having to go look for them. They're coming to me. And this is what I want to do. And I'm like, Yeah, go. Yeah. So it's good stuff.

Arthur: Yeah, That's so great to hear. Everybody is so together with making it happen. And, what advice can you give to schools and districts that may believe that inclusion is difficult to achieve?

Alison: Oh, I would probably agree that it is. It's not easy. It's easy to stay status quo. It's easy to continue on with your current levels of programming. And but I would say that it's worth the efforts and it's worth the commitment and it's worth it for the students and their experience.

Alison: I feel like if the district is trying to take that on, I feel that the first place to start is preschool, and eliminating self-contained classrooms from preschool, and starting to allow all students to be together in the classroom and and and strategic and develop that. I mean, certainly they the state rightfully so, talk about having, a ratio. You don't want to have a preschool classroom with 15 kids and have 7 of them be in high need of service.

That's not going to be good for anybody. So being are changing and allowing having integrated classrooms in every classroom so you can spread the needs out and make it more like a universal ratio that you see in society.

So just starting there, starting in your early childhood education, I think is a good place to start with inclusion.

Arthur: That was a really good answer that you said, you will agree, that it's not it's not easy. It’s not easy, but it is worth it. And to stick with it and to stay moving in that direction toward being fully inclusive, I think is a good thing to say.

Like anything can be challenging, but you just have to stick with it and know that it will be worth it in the end. And what you will see and achieve in the end is worth all of the trouble and challenges you may face along the way of the journey.

So you touched on this a little bit earlier in one of your answers, and I know in the NJCIE Honors video, you mentioned it as well, that you know, all of the students’ names, and I think that is so impressive.

I try to do okay with learning people's names, with some of the things that I but I do but it's like if I'm in the context of seeing them in a certain place, I can tell if I see them outside of it, it's like, Oh, no, I know where I might know you from, but I have no idea what their name is.

So, again, you touched on it a little bit, but I wanted to see if you had anything else to say about it. Do you believe it is easier to make change in a smaller district versus a larger district?

Alison: Since it's been a really long time since I've been in a big district, I can only go for my experience in a small district and imagine that it's difficult, but not impossible.

When you have a small school and I'm not the only that knows most of the students by name you create an environment where teachers are all about the students and creating these really close relationships because in primary grades you're with your teacher all day and everything else.

But then our kids don't go to a large middle school, they stay there in a pre-K to eight sort of school setting. They stay a little bit younger.

Within our middle school, they have teachers maybe for two years so they might have the same math teacher for two years or the same English teacher for two years, and so in that looping they really get to know the students and it enables that report to be there, and those relationships which are essential to then having students engage in learning and being ready to learn.

You can't do it without that relationship. So we excel at that. That's something that occurs just naturally because we have awesome staff here and because of the size of our school. So that foundation and that kind of culture then sets us up for success when we do have initiatives such as inclusion.

Alison: Once you start, there are things that happen that confirm your belief that this is the right thing to do. I see it all the time.

Because you do question And,, there are some students that need something different because it's certainly not a one size fits all. I have all my students in my school currently are included, but it doesn't mean that I won't have a student involved that might need something different, but for now, that's where we are.

And I see it even when we move students. Last year I moved a couple of my students out of a resource and I got rid of that class and I moved them into the general education classroom. And then at the middle school level and in sitting down the teacher or the teacher being surprised at what that student was able to do when they had that access to that general education curriculum.

And for the teacher to get excited about that. And so those are the little signs that you're like, yeah, this is this is why this is good stuff. This is what we should be doing. Because sometimes we create expectations, and it’s not with any malintent.

Alison: We have all the information and evaluations and data and we kind of have an expectation of where the student can perform. But when you went and you raise that ceiling and you give them opportunities to exceed what your expectations are, which is what students get in general education is they say they have those ceilings raised.

It's amazing sometimes what can happen because of that. So those are the opportunities that occur when you when you are able to do inclusion.

Arthur: Yes. That's like you said, to keep raising that ceiling and being impressed and surprised at what they can achieve because that new bar has been set for them.

And it's it's all great. And I really enjoyed this conversation with you, Alison.

So I thank you again for joining us for this episode of the podcast and sharing your own journey, your own story of working in the education world and working there in Bradley Beach to make the district and your school inclusive and keep up the great work you and all of your colleagues and coworkers there, it’s really great.

And again, it's a heartwarming thing to hear that, you know, districts are committed to making these changes to make inclusive classrooms a real thing, a true thing, and part of the culture. I love that you mentioned that. And just from the very beginning of preschool and making it something that the students see every day from the very beginning, is really helpful, Really important.

So thank you for joining us for this episode. And you take care.

Alison: Well, thanks for having me. And I just want to say that, the work that the NJCIE does, it provides the resources to our districts is incredible. I've taken advantage of the resources in my own district to make sure that my teachers are supported.

And I really would encourage other districts to do so as well. They are fabulous organization and New Jersey is at an advantage having that resource within our state. And again, if anyone ever needs any support or has any questions, they're free to reach out to me. And I appreciate the work that you're doing in promoting inclusion and providing information to people.

It’s a great thing. So thank you. Thank you for having me.

Arthur: Yes, you're welcome. And we will be in touch.

Alison: Okay, great. Thank you.

Arthur: You’re welcome. Thank you, too.

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.