When Roland joined our school as a 6th grader, he avoided eye contact with me at all costs, slumping his shoulders and dropping his head when I’d kneel next to him in class to explain a math problem or to softly greet him.  I remember the shock and anxiety I experienced as a first-year Special Education Teacher (a role known at High Tech High as “Inclusion Specialist”) when I saw a Special Day Class service listed on the front page of Roland’s IEP.  All through his sixth grade year, Roland’s teachers came to my office regularly, distraught and concerned about his remarkable skill deficits.  We modified all of his assignments, often providing alternative instruction and practice.  We scaffolded everything he did -- he used graphic organizers, sentence starters, pictures, mnemonics, videos, and assistive technology software.  His academic coach would frequently go to find him on the basketball court in the mornings and coax him into the tutoring room, sweaty and frustrated. 
 

In seventh grade Roland began to whisper answers to my questions, his head cocked away from me to the side.  He began seeking the help of the academic coach in the classroom, and frequently stayed after class to work with her. He began working tirelessly to understand, to find his own unique point of entry to his projects and assignments.  He began to smile, to ask questions instead of whispering tentative answers. 
 

Prior to moving into the world of Special Education, I taught 6th grade Humanities.  I faced my choice to change roles with excitement and trepidation.  During my first year in the role of Inclusion Specialist I sometimes wavered – my doubt frequently surfaced when I was surrounded in my office by mountains of paperwork beckoning me to come and check meaningless boxes and fill-in meaningless blanks. 
 

But during that first year, as Roland came alive, something shifted in me.  Watching Roland in the classroom, I understood on a visceral level why we work to fully include students with special needs. I felt a sense of certainty and joy about the choice I made devote my energy and my heart to students who struggled to find their way-in to learning. 
 

I am now in a leadership role in Special Education, charged with supporting programs across our schools.  I feel energized and excited as I work to define and articulate my leadership philosophy by exploring the notion of “full-inclusion,” the programs I hope to lead, and the leader I hope to be.

​

Personalization, Not “Special” Education
My vision for my new role begins with a change in language.  When it comes to education, we must forgo the notions of “special” and “general” and instead embrace the ideals of rich and meaningful, of personalized and accessible.  It’s these ideals that are central to my definition of “full inclusion” for students with learning challenges. 
 

When I first started teaching 6th grade, one of my students struggled with severe auditory processing delays.  At the time, I had little concept of what this actually meant.  He was eager to please and always appeared to be diligently following directions.  I will never forget the moment when, for the first time, I sat next to him and asked him to tell me what he was working on.  I was shocked and mildly horrified by his disjointed and confused description of the assignment.  My mentor teacher told me gravely: “assume that nothing you say out loud to him is getting in – you need to write it down.”  My perception of him, and ultimately, of every child in my classroom, changed dramatically.  I was suddenly mindful of the weight of what we are asked to do as teachers. Teaching requires outstanding awareness of the unique and nuanced needs of everyone in the room.  It takes impressive understanding and empathy to skillfully include everyone in learning.
 

Thus, full inclusion within a project-based context starts with project-design.  It starts with teachers who are committed to creating projects that are flexible and dynamic, responding to the voices and needs of all students.  I envision a community of Inclusion Specialists who artfully collaborate with teachers from the onset of project-design to support them in developing the awareness that so dramatically changed my own practice as a teacher.

​

A Rich Adult Learning Community
I dream of a community where collaboration is at the center of our culture.  The role of Inclusion Specialist carries a risk of isolation.  During my three years in this role, I often felt like a one-woman-band, lonely in my attempts to hone and advance my practice.  It is my hope that Inclusion Specialists feel connected and in harmony with each other, choosing to visit and observe each other regularly to offer feedback and insight.  I envision a community where Inclusion Specialists rely and lean on each other for support, where they pool and share resources and ideas.
 

I hope to foster a culture where everyone honors the reality that collaboration and shared decision making is hard work that requires perseverance and tenacity.  A culture where people encourage, listen with the intention of understanding, and exhibit great patience and tolerance for the hard work of being part of a participatory group.
 

With only one of me and eleven schools, leadership in our community must be a shared venture.  I envision a community where every Inclusion Specialist feels confident and skilled at leading Professional Learning at their school sites and with the other Inclusion Specialists in their regions.  This will require that we meet regularly to explore, develop, and refine our leadership and facilitation skills.  Being a skilled leader takes a great deal of self-assurance.  It took me several years in the Inclusion Specialist role before I felt confident enough to offer feedback and guidance to classroom teachers.  I hope to develop a community where Inclusion Specialists feel confident as they engage in thoughtful dialogue to collaborate with teachers and provide support.
 

Above all, I dream of a program where every individual feels deeply passionate, excited and energized by our work.  Special Education is rife with challenges: challenging parents, challenging mindsets, challenging legal requirements.  I hope that we continue to pursue an approach to our work that fosters balance and joy.  I hope that together, we develop a positive, lighthearted culture.

​

Confident, Resilient Students
I recently had a conversation with a student who is now a Junior in high school.  She talked about how in Elementary School, discussion of her IEP was riddled with shame and embarrassment, but when she came to High Tech High as a 6th grader she slowly began to feel empowered by discussions about her learning style.  I was moved by how eloquently and confidently she talked about the supports she needs to compensate for her dyslexia – she described this so casually, with such nonchalance, and I reflected about the enormous advantage she will have over her fellow peers with learning challenges when she enters college. 
 

I dream that all students graduate from our programs armed with her graceful confidence and matter-of-fact take on learning.  I envision a community of students who can speak readily and easily about their strengths and their challenges, who can casually articulate the supports and strategies they rely upon to feel successful as learners and community members. These students perceive their intelligence as malleable, and they possess impressive tenacity.  They know what they need, and they know how to ask for it.  They know and utilize healthy and effective strategies to self-soothe in the face of stress.  They know how to resolve conflicts with others and they have remarkable communication skills.  They have well developed interests and hobbies that they pursue with gusto.  They are resilient. 

​

Confident, Resilient Leader
When I first moved into a leadership role in Special Education this year, I moaned to a colleague and friend, “but I will NEVER be Bob Parker!”  (Bob is the current Director of Special Education).  My friend replied calmly, “No, you won’t.  But you will be Katie Wright.”  Untethering myself from comparisons to others has been extremely empowering.  It has allowed me to better hone-in on the goals, ideals, and values that I aspire to achieve.  These goals and ideals are uniquely my own, and are not an attempt to mold myself in the image of another. 
 

I want to be known as someone who will happily and willingly “drop everything” to give my full and undivided attention to people when they seek it.  My hope is that my colleagues feel a sense of safety and trust, knowing that I will always make myself available, even if it’s just to listen for a while.  I hope to be a leader who can draw on past experience and context to give excellent guidance and assurance during times of crisis and stress.  A mentor I greatly admire told me recently that the role of an administrator in education is similar to the role of the liver in the body – we are often responsible for processing and flushing toxins to ensure the health of the system.  I laughed (cathartically) at this metaphor, but I was struck by a feeling of pride in my assumption of this role.  I aspire to process toxins effectively, shielding Inclusion Specialists and classroom teachers from people or structures that might detract from the rich teaching and learning taking place in classrooms.
 

Red-tape and complex bureaucracy runs rampant in the world of Special Education.  I hope to be a leader who takes measured and calculated steps to mitigate the burden of paperwork.  I believe that there is a balance to be struck that involves supporting people to remain in compliance with paperwork without sacrificing their peoplework.
 

It’s for students like Roland that I choose to devote myself to full-inclusion for students with learning differences.  When he was in 8th grade, Roland visited me regularly in my office.  He would cheerfully swing the door open, look me in the eye, and confidently ask me where tutoring would be held the next day. Or, did I know he has an exhibition coming up on Thursday night?  I vividly remember a school assembly toward the end of his 8th grade year on the topic of bullying.  Roland raised his hand to answer a question posed by the moderator.  He stood up in front of 320 students, grabbed the microphone, and offered a solution to the bullying that takes place on the basketball court: “I’m gonna start including the sixth graders more in our games, because I always wished someone would do that for me when I was a sixth grader.”  I stood ten feet away, my mouth agape, my heart in my throat.
 

Roland is still not performing at grade level in reading and writing.  But he exceeds many of his peers in the areas of self-awareness, self-advocacy, and self-confidence.  He knows and understands his strengths, and equally important, he knows when he needs to ask for the audiobook version of a class novel, or to find a video that explains a concept he’s struggling with. 
 

Roland has transformed, not because we hunted him down to attend tutoring before school, but because he was afforded the opportunity to attend a school where every adult in the building encouraged, acknowledged and celebrated him.  Where he worked in groups to build, to create, to explore, and to inquire.  Where he was taught to re-write his inner narrative, replacing a story about defeat with one about capacity and self-worth.  I aspire to lead the advancement of a culture that affords all students a transformative experience like Roland’s.